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.
Monday, August 29, 2011
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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