Monday, August 29, 2011
8/29/11 - Shook hands with Elder Neil L. Anderson!!
OK so this week has been awesome, not sure where to start but i think it is appropriate to start with i shook hands with Elder Neil L Anderson. He came to Peru too and three missions of the nine planned a conference where he would be able to speak to the missionaries, and just before it started he said that he would like to shake the hands of every missionary, and i was in the third row and our row was about to go up when we got skipped for some reason and so we waited and waited and waited, and i was the last missionary to be able to shake his hand, so that makes four of the twelve in my short life so far, which means I've got 11 to go! any ways he talked about the 4 things that we need to have to have had success in the mission and they are 1 a testimony of Jesus Christ, 2 a testimony of the restoration 3 a love of the Book of Mormon and New testament, and 4 a love of the spiritual life, which means I've pretty much got what is expected and now i can go above and beyond, but it was really cool.
this week we also had the opportunity to meet a friend/cousin(?) of Rene, have i told your about Rene? anyways we were able to talk with Hector and we started teaching him about Jesus Christ and what he means to us and how we can show our love by keeping his commandments(teachings) and we right there on the spot outside of his house asked him to be baptised and he said yes, because he wants to follow Jesus, it is really amazing how easy the work really is, am i allowed to say that?, we trust in the lord to provided people who are ready and he does, we trust him to give us the words to say and he does, we trust in him in just about everything and everything is provided for us, i think of how in the US alot of times we worry way too much about what to say or what people will think or about maybe putting people off, and maybe that is the most difficult part, but we are promised blessings if we do what is right we are a light on the hill and people see us, they are curious about this light that we have and sometimes we try and make it a smaller than it really is sand say oh well in my church we believe that.... or try and share the gospel in very roundabout ways, and really the best way to help these people is to say I Testify, because i know its true, that .... or to just ask them, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ to be baptized by someone holding the priesthood of god? and if its no, you can ask why and they tell you their doubt their reservation, why they don't want to and we can start helping them in ways that actually make differences. sure maybe we don't open up with that line when we make contacts in the street, but we normally invite people to be baptized in the 1st lesson, so we don't waist our time in going in roundabouts. anyways i think I'm rambling now, elder rodas is awesome, thank you for getting me this info, and the email of Leslie!
Anyways love you all!
Moms Questions
How is your 19 year old neighbor doing now? He is doing awesome, he has been all but completely fellowshiped into the ward and people are asking why we put his baptismal date so far away (Sept 17), because he was really just a huge piece of gold and was really prepared to receive.
Does he live with his father? yes he does, he lives with his mom and dad, and a few little brothers, his family isn't as open as he is but there is still a lot of hope and room for us to talk, the thing is he really doesn't have very much time and when he does his family isn't there, but we are working to bring the whole family into the fold.
Has he received any discussions? yes he has we have taught him just about everything and i think the only one that we haven't discussed fully is the plan of salvation, but that's more just because its a lengthy lesson and he doesn't have a ton of time, and he already knows just about everything about it from studying the pamphlet. (like i said he is golden)
Do I need to contact the scholarship office to see that status of your scholarship? you will probably have to at least call them, I'm not sure if there is another way to find out, but like you said its nothing to worry about because its not like i can do anything about it.
How are you doing? I'm doing amazing!, starting to get into the rhythm of realizing most weeks are hard and we really just need to remember and look for the happy moments.
Dads Questions
What’s new this week? new this week, we where to begin, i shook hands with an apostle?, we met a few new people, mucked out stalls, lots of problems, lots of blessings.
Great story last So how is he doing this week? he is doing amazing, he is all but ready to run to the baptismal font and it is amazing to see the love that he has for the gospel in the little time that he has known it.
Did he make it to church this past week? not only did he make it to church but he is helping us to bring people to church!
Did mom tell you Danny Anderson received his mission call? no she didn't, but that is amazing that he is going to the second best mission the world! to bad he didn't hit the bulls eye of Peru! but that sounds awesome
this week we also had the opportunity to meet a friend/cousin(?) of Rene, have i told your about Rene? anyways we were able to talk with Hector and we started teaching him about Jesus Christ and what he means to us and how we can show our love by keeping his commandments(teachings) and we right there on the spot outside of his house asked him to be baptised and he said yes, because he wants to follow Jesus, it is really amazing how easy the work really is, am i allowed to say that?, we trust in the lord to provided people who are ready and he does, we trust him to give us the words to say and he does, we trust in him in just about everything and everything is provided for us, i think of how in the US alot of times we worry way too much about what to say or what people will think or about maybe putting people off, and maybe that is the most difficult part, but we are promised blessings if we do what is right we are a light on the hill and people see us, they are curious about this light that we have and sometimes we try and make it a smaller than it really is sand say oh well in my church we believe that.... or try and share the gospel in very roundabout ways, and really the best way to help these people is to say I Testify, because i know its true, that .... or to just ask them, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ to be baptized by someone holding the priesthood of god? and if its no, you can ask why and they tell you their doubt their reservation, why they don't want to and we can start helping them in ways that actually make differences. sure maybe we don't open up with that line when we make contacts in the street, but we normally invite people to be baptized in the 1st lesson, so we don't waist our time in going in roundabouts. anyways i think I'm rambling now, elder rodas is awesome, thank you for getting me this info, and the email of Leslie!
Anyways love you all!
Moms Questions
How is your 19 year old neighbor doing now? He is doing awesome, he has been all but completely fellowshiped into the ward and people are asking why we put his baptismal date so far away (Sept 17), because he was really just a huge piece of gold and was really prepared to receive.
Does he live with his father? yes he does, he lives with his mom and dad, and a few little brothers, his family isn't as open as he is but there is still a lot of hope and room for us to talk, the thing is he really doesn't have very much time and when he does his family isn't there, but we are working to bring the whole family into the fold.
Has he received any discussions? yes he has we have taught him just about everything and i think the only one that we haven't discussed fully is the plan of salvation, but that's more just because its a lengthy lesson and he doesn't have a ton of time, and he already knows just about everything about it from studying the pamphlet. (like i said he is golden)
Do I need to contact the scholarship office to see that status of your scholarship? you will probably have to at least call them, I'm not sure if there is another way to find out, but like you said its nothing to worry about because its not like i can do anything about it.
How are you doing? I'm doing amazing!, starting to get into the rhythm of realizing most weeks are hard and we really just need to remember and look for the happy moments.
Dads Questions
What’s new this week? new this week, we where to begin, i shook hands with an apostle?, we met a few new people, mucked out stalls, lots of problems, lots of blessings.
Great story last So how is he doing this week? he is doing amazing, he is all but ready to run to the baptismal font and it is amazing to see the love that he has for the gospel in the little time that he has known it.
Did he make it to church this past week? not only did he make it to church but he is helping us to bring people to church!
Did mom tell you Danny Anderson received his mission call? no she didn't, but that is amazing that he is going to the second best mission the world! to bad he didn't hit the bulls eye of Peru! but that sounds awesome
8/22/2011 Who's your neighbor?
Lots of questions this week and i will try and get to them later and answer as many as i can, but first i just want to tell you about an experience that we had this week. We were just leaving our apartment when like the good missionaries we are contacted our neighbor and he accepted to let us visit him, but unlike good missionaries as the week went by we completely forgot who he was and where he lived and so as we did our planning we just kind of skipped over him, because we had other important things to do, but as we were leaving our apartment on the day we had the appointment we both instantly remembered who he was and felt that it was important to go visit him, even though we had planned to do something else, so we quickly adjusted our plans and knocked on his door, I'm sorry to say in this moment the thought passed through my mind he probably isn't there and we should hurry along and help these other people, but he answered and said Elders Ive been waiting for you! i was a little surprised by his response and we went into his house and got to know him, he is 19 years old and has had a rough life recently his father has gotten really sick and he had become really worried and he started to comment to us that he has seen us several times and had always thought, why don't they talk to me? when will it be my chance? and then when we were contacting him he was just started studying and work and when we asked if we could drop by he said no at first, but when we asked again, he said he heard a voice in his head say for god there is always time, so he accepted and had been waiting for us ever since, so we started teaching him and bore our testimonies about the church and he said i know its true! i can feel it, i feel something that I've never felt before, we then encouraged him to read and pray about the book of Mormon and we invited him to be baptized 17 of September and he accepted. i just want to bear my testimony that i know god is preparing people for us and if we are patient and willing to listen to the guidance of the spirit we will be blessed by god to have the chance to help his children.
8/22/2011 Everything has a reason.....
Anyways this week has been really hard but has really help us to learn and grow, we had planned to have the baptism of Rene this Saturday, but he didn't pass his baptismal interview, because just before last Christmas he had smoked marijuana, and as a mission rule we have to wait 1 year from the last time anyone did drugs to be baptized to make sure all the chemicals and urges are under significant control. it was really hard for me to accept this because Rene is just about as repentant and knowledgeable about the gospel as a lot of the members here and he took it a little hard, but we were able to talk with him and he told us that everything has a reason and if he has to wait, at least he will be baptized in the summer when the water will be a little warmer!
other than that our week has been a series of taking members out of their homes and having them introduce us to their neighbors, we got 8 good new investigators and are working hard to help them get ready to be baptized in the coming weeks...
... just got a dear elder letter from... Alma! how cool, cant wait to read it later!... tell him thank you for me!
anyways I'm going to try to send some pictures again so bear with me if this letter is short...
ok we have two pictures of Elder Rodas and a picture of yard work here in PERU!
Moms questions
How has this week been? ooh i really am starting to understand why people don't every say that these are the easiest two years, but we have really been blessed to find a lot of new people to teach.
Do you have the opportunity to go to the temple on your pdays or does your mission set times or days for the elders to go? the mission sets up times and days for the elders to go to the temple, we are given the opportunity to go 1 time every 3 months, which isn't much, but it is awesome, we have the opportunity to go to the temple this Thursday which is amazing!
Tates questions
How are you doing? I'm doing wonderful Tate! i love being a missionary, being in the service of god is awesome! did you know that you can be a missionary too, every time we serve someone we are really serving god, or in other words if we want to serve god, serve others!
other than that our week has been a series of taking members out of their homes and having them introduce us to their neighbors, we got 8 good new investigators and are working hard to help them get ready to be baptized in the coming weeks...
... just got a dear elder letter from... Alma! how cool, cant wait to read it later!... tell him thank you for me!
anyways I'm going to try to send some pictures again so bear with me if this letter is short...
ok we have two pictures of Elder Rodas and a picture of yard work here in PERU!
Moms questions
How has this week been? ooh i really am starting to understand why people don't every say that these are the easiest two years, but we have really been blessed to find a lot of new people to teach.
Do you have the opportunity to go to the temple on your pdays or does your mission set times or days for the elders to go? the mission sets up times and days for the elders to go to the temple, we are given the opportunity to go 1 time every 3 months, which isn't much, but it is awesome, we have the opportunity to go to the temple this Thursday which is amazing!
Tates questions
How are you doing? I'm doing wonderful Tate! i love being a missionary, being in the service of god is awesome! did you know that you can be a missionary too, every time we serve someone we are really serving god, or in other words if we want to serve god, serve others!
8/1/11 Miracle Baptism
oooooook this week has been fun and a little challenging, i promised myself not to write anything negative, but I'm pretty sure i have food poisoning today so if my letter is a little short, just know that I'm passing most of my time in the bathroom today. other than that I'm getting comments that every time people see me I'm a little bit thinner, huh oh well i guess living in a foreign country does that to you.
OK i want to write about the miracle baptism that we had and maybe one other thing if there is time. OK so we had been working with this family and the 9 year old girl was ready to be baptized with her 17 year old sister and so we put a baptismal date for July 30th, after putting this date a whole bunk of stuff started happening and the 17 year old changed her date to the 27th of August and the nine year olds attitude changed 100% she went from super happy to not smiling for like two weeks and she didn't want to be baptized at all. well we decided to just keep moving along and teach other people. well we were teaching outside of an investigators home and along comes Allison (9 year old girl) and she is beaming and asks us if we will come by her house later that day (Thursday) well we were more curious to see what had changed her mind and attitude than anything else so we decided to stop by for maybe five minutes, well when we got there she threw her arms around us and said i want to be baptized tomorrow! and we talked with her mom and her grandma and they said it was all good and so the first thing we said is can you wait till Saturday when we planned to have your baptism? and she said that that was OK. so in that moment we thought oh crap she needs to have her interview, like now to have enough time to resolve any issues that could come up, so we ran to a payphone and started calling the district leaders pension (where they were eating) and there was no answer, and it was getting kind of late and if we didn't get hold of them she would likely have to wait for the next week, so we started running to the bus stop to take a bus to where our leaders were and take them to her to have the interview, well as smart, or lucky, or miraculous as it was we got a bus in less than 30 seconds and were on our way, but we got off at the wrong stop, 1 too far and so we started running down the street to the corner where we would turn an run two blocks to meet the elders, well we weren't running more than 30 seconds when around the corner come the district leaders! yes awesome! (this was the miracle because if we had gotten off at the right stop, we would have missed them completely!) well she had her interview and passed with flying colors and we were able to have another baptism on Saturday! well the lord has really blessed us with a lot of success in this area, we have scheduled baptisms every Saturday for the next month and we will be baptizing abut 11 people! its amazing to be able to work in such a fruitful part of the lords vineyard.
awesome to hear from you guys, tell shan and kris that living in a mobile home for a while isn't half bad, i was talking with a member and during the first 2 years of their marriage they lived in a tent with a blow up mattress that they had to blow up every night and the mom was pregnant which made everything so much easier.... well kind of.... just remember to count your blessings because you could always have less.
Moms questions
How has your week been? Great! it has been a pretty normal week, still receiving lots of support from the members! had a miracle baptism, and learned alot.
Can you believe he will be 11 years old?? yes mother i can believe that Tate will be 11, he was born 11 years ago. ps HAPPY BIRTHDAY TATE I LOVE YOU TOO!
Today is transfer day right? yes
Are you staying or going? staying in my area! with my companion!, i think that that is a first in all of my mission! Elder Rodas, in Jose galvez, in villa El Salvador!
Grandmas Question
So do they celebrate Pioneer Day in Peru? no, no they don't, I'm pretty sure that's just a Utah, st David thing. :)
OK i want to write about the miracle baptism that we had and maybe one other thing if there is time. OK so we had been working with this family and the 9 year old girl was ready to be baptized with her 17 year old sister and so we put a baptismal date for July 30th, after putting this date a whole bunk of stuff started happening and the 17 year old changed her date to the 27th of August and the nine year olds attitude changed 100% she went from super happy to not smiling for like two weeks and she didn't want to be baptized at all. well we decided to just keep moving along and teach other people. well we were teaching outside of an investigators home and along comes Allison (9 year old girl) and she is beaming and asks us if we will come by her house later that day (Thursday) well we were more curious to see what had changed her mind and attitude than anything else so we decided to stop by for maybe five minutes, well when we got there she threw her arms around us and said i want to be baptized tomorrow! and we talked with her mom and her grandma and they said it was all good and so the first thing we said is can you wait till Saturday when we planned to have your baptism? and she said that that was OK. so in that moment we thought oh crap she needs to have her interview, like now to have enough time to resolve any issues that could come up, so we ran to a payphone and started calling the district leaders pension (where they were eating) and there was no answer, and it was getting kind of late and if we didn't get hold of them she would likely have to wait for the next week, so we started running to the bus stop to take a bus to where our leaders were and take them to her to have the interview, well as smart, or lucky, or miraculous as it was we got a bus in less than 30 seconds and were on our way, but we got off at the wrong stop, 1 too far and so we started running down the street to the corner where we would turn an run two blocks to meet the elders, well we weren't running more than 30 seconds when around the corner come the district leaders! yes awesome! (this was the miracle because if we had gotten off at the right stop, we would have missed them completely!) well she had her interview and passed with flying colors and we were able to have another baptism on Saturday! well the lord has really blessed us with a lot of success in this area, we have scheduled baptisms every Saturday for the next month and we will be baptizing abut 11 people! its amazing to be able to work in such a fruitful part of the lords vineyard.
awesome to hear from you guys, tell shan and kris that living in a mobile home for a while isn't half bad, i was talking with a member and during the first 2 years of their marriage they lived in a tent with a blow up mattress that they had to blow up every night and the mom was pregnant which made everything so much easier.... well kind of.... just remember to count your blessings because you could always have less.
Moms questions
How has your week been? Great! it has been a pretty normal week, still receiving lots of support from the members! had a miracle baptism, and learned alot.
Can you believe he will be 11 years old?? yes mother i can believe that Tate will be 11, he was born 11 years ago. ps HAPPY BIRTHDAY TATE I LOVE YOU TOO!
Today is transfer day right? yes
Are you staying or going? staying in my area! with my companion!, i think that that is a first in all of my mission! Elder Rodas, in Jose galvez, in villa El Salvador!
Grandmas Question
So do they celebrate Pioneer Day in Peru? no, no they don't, I'm pretty sure that's just a Utah, st David thing. :)
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