January 26, 2015

Holy crap this was an awesome week for us here in Talara. We worked hard and had a lot of stuff to do and the people we are teaching are progressing like crazy. So I guess I will tell you a few of the really cool experiences we had this week. 

 

First with I and S. They had always told us that they like the church and would like to someday be members. But for now they just want to keep learning and seeing how things went. We had pretty much tried everything with them and had no idea what to teach them. So one night when we were planning and we had no idea my companion just said, "Baptism and confirmation" and I was a little nervous about it because I felt like if we talked about it one more time it wasn’t really going to be an invitation but more like begging them to get baptized haha. But I looked up at the calendar we have on the wall and March 7th just came right to my mind. So I said we should challenge them for March 7th and see what happens. So the next day we went and taught them and challenged them and they were a little surprised and were smiling and stuff so I asked what was going on and they said that march 7th is like their "anniversary" and that it is always a special day for them. They gladly accepted the date wanting to make that day even more special. It strengthened my testimony that god knows every one of his children. 

 

We also had a work visit this week and I was with Elder Hanvey from American Fork. He is somewhat new but it was cool to get to know him. But a couple days before the work visit we set up a prank on him with one of the families we are teaching (C and L) hahahaha. So when we were going to the last lesson (which was with them) I said, "hey there’s still some time, let’s go knock one door before the lesson." Little did he know that the door we were going to knock was the family that we were going to teach. So we got up there and knocked the door and the dad came out and opened the door and I started talking to him and he just started freaking out saying he doesn’t want anything to do with Mormons in his house and was just yelling at us. Meanwhile I am trying not to laugh because I see his wife and all of his kids inside laughing their heads off but I just tried to act like I was calming him down. But he went to shut the door on us and I put my foot in the door and swung it open and said, "hey! we just want to share a message with your family!" and at this point Hanvey is pretty much peeing his pants because he doesn’t know what to do and is just looking at me like what are you doing man. So then we all kind of just look at each other and just bust up laughing hahaha. It was one of the best pranks yet. 

 

We had a sweet ward activity this week and it was a treasure hunt. We made three teams and made clues and everything for each team. Each clue was a scripture and they had to read the scripture and try to think of where the next clue would be. We had a great turn out and it was awesome because everyone had fun and got to learn something about the scriptures.

 

This week when we went to teach C and L they told us that they weren’t going to have enough money to be able to get all the paperwork to be able to get married because C doesn’t really have a stable job right now. We already offered to help with C papers and get all of that taken care of but the problem was with L papers. When they were telling us all of this the only thing I could think of was fasting. So I asked them how they felt about fasting together Saturday and Sunday so that the lord will make it happen. They are awesome so of course they were willing to. on Sunday they showed up a little bit late to church and after sacrament we were talking to them and L told us that in the morning a guy showed up to their house and offered C a job to work Sunday morning and make 50 soles. He was going to take it because they didn’t even have money to eat lunch or get to church because they have to take the bus but then L said, "no, we are walking to church. The Lord will provide another way." I seriously wanted to start crying when she told us that. That family has so much faith. They finished their fast and some members invited them and us to eat lunch at their house so we all went there after church. I love them. Even being investigators, I learn so much from them and their example. 

 

This Saturday is R and L baptism! It has been almost a year since there has been a baptism in this area so we are pretty pumped and they are way pumped too. 

 

La misión es lo máximo.