President Nelson and Gary E Stevenson came to Lima this week! It
was honestly super awesome. Pdte Nelson talked about 3 Nephi and gave a
bunch of super cool insights there. Gary E Stevenson talked a lot about
obedience and Preach my gospel. My favorite talk was actually given by
sister Nelson though. She talked a lot about opposition. It was an
amazing talk. She talked about all the opposition they had in preparing
for the youth fireside back in june. They suffered everything from
computer crashes, almost dieing in a couple of car accidents, getting
laringitus and being too week to move. The last two were the day of and
until the day before too. Satan wouldn't have given them so much trouble
if that talk wouldn't have mattered. So go back and watch it again when
you get a minute. That's all for this week though. Take care y'all!
-Elder White
Monday
This is a really weird age I'm at. Some people are in college. Others doing drugs. Some have kids too. Special people are in the Olympics and stuff or super smart scientists already. Some of them are dead from gang violence and what not. I've met a few that have their own business. But then there's me: A devoted missionary who is almost as valiant with collecting soles and just bought a kilo of animal crackers. What a difference. After internet today, we went to a chifa and I got choufa con una tortilla, which I guess is just a fancy word for omelet here. That was a lot of food. It was zone p-day, but the zone leaders had a meeting in La Molina, so the district leaders were in charge instead. We played a football, soccer and basketball hybrid game. It was kind of weird, but it was fun. We played soccer after that, which wasn't nearly as fun. So I took Elder Droubay and we went to buy drinks. We came back and ran a couple of errands, then showered. We tried visiting Yurubi with Vanesa, but when we got there, they told us that she left to go out 2 days ago and no one's heard from her since then. That's mildly concerning. Afterwards we went all the way up to visit Michael and Wendy. We had something planned, but then Wendy told us about her brother. Basically about 2 years ago, her brother, Maximo, saw a policeman beating a kid, so he broke it up. The policeman got mad though and told him he'd better watch his back. Long story short, Maximo later got arrested on the beach for illegal possession of a firearm. Except he didn't have one. There's nothing anyone can do about it. He's served 2 years and has to serve 6 more. He's 24 and his son is 6. It's just so sad. What are you supposed to tell them after that? I felt prompted to share the story of how Alma and Amulek met Zeezrom and talk about forgiveness. I think it helped. I almost teared up when doing so.
Tuesday
I finished my day last night with a huge headache and was starting to feel sick too. I felt a lot better today though, so that was good. We contacted hard this morning. We found someone that seemed pretty cool named Elizabeth that we'll visit later. I was looking at the schedule this morning and I was just like dang, this is going to be a long day. But it actually flew by really fast. We contacted almost all day. We ran into some cool people. There was this one Christian lady that was basically like, "I believe very strongly that I've found Jesus, but I love that you guys are out here sharing his word." She paid us a lot of high complements, so that was awesome. Then we found a testigo de Jehova while knocking a door or two that we have an appointment with. We ran into the familia Ricse while we were out and about. I'll definitely try and set something up with them to visit and help them out. We also had a noche de hogar with the Carlos'. The USA vs. Peru soccer game was on when we arrived. The game wound up in a 1-1 draw I guess. Why in the world do they allow games to end in a tie? The noche de hogar went well. I tried passing by Cristina's and calling beforehand too, but heard nothing. She came at 8:30 even though I told her it was at 7:00. We were wrapping up by then, but her faith and desire to go even though it was late really showed me how much she wants to have the gospel in her life. We would have been gone by then, but she showed up hoping for a chance to hear it for just a few minutes. Wow. We went to go and visit Mario after. He actually read the folleto and knew it really well. I was really impressed. The spirit was super strong. It always is whenever we talk about Joseph Smith. We had meat loaf for dinner with fries and rice. Maria bought fry sauce too so it was a 5 star dinner.
Wednesday
I actually love having grilled cheese for breakfast. We had conseju de distito this morning. We finally got a microwave! I also got a package from my mom, which was a surprise, as well as like 5 letters from Grandma and Grandpa Haacke. Turns out that inside the package was a bunch of Peruvian candy. I don't know how they did that, but I'm cool with it. It's for Halloween I guess. Trick and treat. We tried visiting some contacts/references, but non of them worked out. We felt impressed to visit Davis, so we did that. He's an interesting kid. He doesn't always talk a lot. Sometimes he has seemed disinterested. But he broke down a bit when he was talking to us. Elder Gonzalez handled it well though. He truly wants to be baptized. From there we hustled down so that we could do a baptismal interview. While Elder Gonzalez did that, I took Elder Aguilar and made a copy of the key so that we could get into la capilla. We had correlations after the interview. As I was going through the day, I was reminded of a story I heard once. I don't remember where I heard it, but I'll try and recount it as accurately as I remember it. I'm pretty sure I was a kid when I heard it. A policeman was on patrol and got a call that a baby/toddler was choking on a button. He happened to be right there so he flipped on his sirens and went full speed. When he was on his way though, he had to stop because the road was under construction in such a way he couldn't get through. He got out of the car and slammed the door in frustration. A construction worker went over to see what was up, so the policeman explained the situation. Without a second thought, the worker hopped in the bulldozer and plowed through all his progress to make a path for the officer. The officer made it just in time to give the kid CPR/the Heimlich maneuver. The holes in the button were just enough to sustain the kid until he got there. The mom, who had been frantically waiting in the front yard, was eternally grateful. A couple of more seconds and he might have died. The next day, the officer was in the station. The construction worker came in to thank him. It was his son whom he had saved. I love this story. There are also a lot of spiritual takeaways.
Thursday
We had a pancake party for breakfast at Las Lomas, so that was fun. We made a really cool contact this morning. Turns out it was Mariela from August 7! I got so excited. I still think about that contact a lot. Turns out she went to church, but left early because she felt out of place. We're definitely going to visit her. We were contacting a lot today. While we were in the R, we had a guy try to anti us. It was evident that he didn't know much about the church because he was like, "Why don't you love and accept Jesus? Why don't you baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost?" *Facepalm* He brought the ugliest felling with him. Anyways, we found an inactive woman while contacting. We went with her back to her house and taught her family a bit. Hopefully we can reactivated them and baptize their kids. We went with Yolanda to visit a reference, but she wasn't home. She told us that her friend is 28 and her son is 18. Only in Peru. We went to Moron to team teach with the Hermanas. That was an interesting experience. The girl is 14 and her baptism is this week, but her testimony was starting to falter because she went to go talk to some pastors and stuff. They wanted some extra help, so that's why we went. We were talking to her and we were like, "Did you pray?" She said yes so we asked her how she felt. She said, "Well, I felt really confused at first. But then at the end of my prayer I got an answer. I'm supposed to be baptized on the 21st." So many milagros today. When the sisters asked who she wanted to baptize her, so pointed at us. That was pretty cool. We'll see if it works out though.
Friday
This week has flown by. This whole transfer so far actually. We did intercambios today after weekly planning. Elder Caro came with me to my area. I feel like very Latino has his own accent. His is kind of like Jason Gray from Studio C when he does a serious Spanish impression. He and I have polar opposite personalities. It's kinda hard for me sometimes. He complained throughout the day (granted we did walk a lot) and I did more than 90% of the talking. We walked all over the place. The R, X and V. We took a moto to deliver a letter to an inactive guy that got baptized a year or more ago. He wasn't even home. The moto driver thought I had a false coin, except I didn't have anymore. We got it worked out eventually. All of our citas fell through or canceled on us. It was kinda weird to being the X, kinda deep too. I was really uneasy. Not because it was dangerous, but because it wasn't. It's like going to visit the world's scariest haunted house, but when you get inside it's actually a Chuck E Cheese's. It was weird. Everyone always tells me that's the danger zone, but when I got there, there were still little kids in the streets. The contact we tried to visit there wasn't even home either. We tried visiting Cezar, but he wasn't home. We ran into him on the way down though. People will light random fires in the streets. Usually they burn garbage for some reason. It's pretty normal to run into one here and there. I'm pretty sure PGSD (Post Gringo Stress Disorder) is a real thing for dogs. After I scare them, they usually don't bark anymore. But regardless of that, they always keep their distance. Elder Caro is the only member in his family and he's still out here, so props to him for that.
Saturday
Today was a good day. It went by really fast. At 10 we met as a zone and went to the chapel in Limatambo (in another mission). We arrived early, so we tried to contact a bit. The area is kinda wealthier though so it didn't work too well. We had ham sandwiches with white bread and cheese for lunch. I don't like all 3 of those, but I've gotten used to eating things I don't like in the mission. I made sure to use the bathroom a couple of time beforehand. Then we sat down to wait for President Nelson and Elder Stevenson to arrive. Almost 1,000 missionaries were there from the 5 Lima missions. It got pretty hot in there. I really loved the talks that were given. Gary E Stevenson focused on obedience and invitations. He pronounced upon us a blessing at the end so that was cool. President Nelson taught to us out of 3 Nephi. He gave a lot of really cool insights. My favorite talk was actually given by his wife Wendy though. She talked about opposition as missionaries because we're changing the balance of good and evil in the world. But we've got all the investigators' ancestors cheering us on. Then she shared all the opposition they had in preparing their worldwide fireside for the youth. Satan is real. That's something I've learned just recently. Then we spent 2 hours in traffic before arriving back in Nana to watch the general devotional. President Nelson talked about keeping the 10 commandments and the importance of marriage. His wife talked about him receiving revelation. She also said that he has put more emphasis on 1 word since being prophet and she said it was especially evident in the missionary meeting. Except I don't know what the word is. The spirit was super strong all day. It was awesome! I know Russell M Nelson is the prophet of God and Gary E Stevenson is His apostle as well.
Sunday
While I was out contacting tonight, a girl asked me where I was from. That's nothing new. When I told her the US, she was like, "Oh cool. Do you know English?" At first I was like you're kidding, right? But then it occurred to me: My Spanish is is good enough that it's not obvious that it's my second language. Fist pump. On a much more somber note, we didn't have anyone come to church. Not the converts I have not Mariela either, who I was hardcore really hoping out for. Today was just really frustrating. I've worked harder in these last two weeks that I probably ever have before. And both Sundays have been like this. I could have stayed and slept in my room all week and have the same results on Sunday. Do you know how frustrating and depressing that is? In my interview with President Amato a couple of weeks ago, he told me Huaycan is the highest baptizing area in the zone and one of the highest in the mission. There's been 47 this year. I've been here for 3 months and have 2 in this area. I feel like the biggest failure of a missionary. I know God will help me through it though if I can manage to keep working hard and stay true. We ate lunch with la familia Davila. They're one of the more humble families in the ward. It was probably a big sacrifice they made to do it. We had a couple of citas throughout the day. We had a cita with a woman that was being taught by other missionaries. I'm thoroughly convinced that some religions are organized without the founder reading the Bible first. We also went and visited the Bravo-Valle family, who are inactive. I really hope we can reactivate them. We also went to go and visit Davis. He's not progressing, so that's concerning.
Us after President Nelson
Friends from the CCM
Me up high
La Aurora
No comments:
Post a Comment