"Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven." -Hymn Praise to the Man. The more time that goes on and the more I do them, the more I learn that sacrifices bring us blessings. I really enjoyed the fast that we had mission wide this weekend. Saturday was an amazing day of finding people to teach. We found a lot of really cool people that night, including an old investigator and a 15 year old named Andres that actually came and contacted us. He came to church with us the next day and everything. Church was super awesome in of itself. We had both of our investigators there (one was the granddaughter of our CR that we found this week), as well as another family we found the day before where the husband hadn't been to church in 10 years and the wife wasn't a member. We also had the highest attendance there since May. Pretty solid day if you ask me. We were also blessed in the way that we were able to find the mom of the CR's granddaughter and get permission from her without anything complicated happening. The work is moving along here in Manchay and I'm happy to be a part of it. I know that as we are obedient to the commandments of the Lord and make sacrifices to him, he will bless us immensely. Have a good week!
-Elder White
Monday
Ali pactashka wata--happy birthday. Today was Elder Cordova's birthday. He wanted to play soccer to celebrate. I'm tired of getting everyone up in the morning every time we play, so I just sat there, awake, to see if someone would take the initiative necessary to get out of bed by themselves. After 10 minutes I helped them out by waking them up again. They still didn't do anything though. Then another 10 minutes later Elder Peterson called to see where we were at, because he was already there. Long story short a I had the alarm set for 6:15, but we didn't get out of the house until 6:50. Soccer was 3 v 3, so it got real boring real fast. Internet was normal. It's not special or fun like it used to be. My family's always got something trunky for me these days. In Elder Dodd's weekly email he was talking about how while they were out proselyting, they returned to their room at night only to find that somebody had broken in and trashed their room. They stole a DVD player, Elder Dodd's quad set of scriptures, his wallet, the money out of his companion's wallet, and an emergency backpack. They didn't take anything more valuable like the cameras. Also, they had eaten all of Elder Dodd's peanut butter out of the jar. And despite there being a spoon right next to it, the thief had used his hands to eat it. Kind of unfortunate, but not as bad as it could've been. The zone leaders sent out an invite to the whole zone inviting them to go eat at Domino's with us to celebrate. Everyone except for Cieneguilla went. I treated my companion and I to some good pizza. I don't know if I'd ever had stuffed crust before--I don't remember. They only real problem with Elder Cordova is that he doesn't like to make decisions. He's ok at following people, but not at making decisions. For example, I asked if he wanted ice cream and he didn't know. It's kinda weird because he's a big talker and thrives off of attention. In the end we went to Tottus and I bought us some Ben and Jerry's and then accidentally sprayed some cologne in his eye. But hey, at least his eye smelt good the rest of the day. We went as the 4 of us to Tres Marias and shopped around a bit. We went to go drop off the laundry and Hermana Paula gave me another pair of black shoes, and gave us both bananas and some nice ties. That woman is a saint. We went to Hermana Ana's to celebrate Elder Cordova's birthday. We got permission to stay out until 11 PM. When we got back I called everyone in the district to see how they were doing with the charity goals.
Tuesday
Blaze it. About 3 weeks ago, we were going to church and on the corner by the church, we saw Nicoli and his family putting a sign in that said dumping garbage there was against the law and that they'd get the authorities involved if they saw it happen. That corner was a popular garbage dumping spot before. But then they went on 24/7 watch to make sure it wouldn't happen. I hadn't seen them for a few days though, but the trash is gone. The best part it that those dudes aren't even members, they're Catholics. But all the Elders know Nicoli. He's a cool dude. His favoite song is Nearer My God to Thee by BYU Vocal Point. We had a consejo de distrito this morning. Even though Elder Cordova and I were assigned to give a training for the zone, Elder Cordova called Elder Rushforth and asked if he could give the training for the district. He just loves being in the spotlight like that. Our training topic was super heroes and missionary work. My assigned topics were Iron Man, Wonder Woman and Captain America's Shield. It was just an average training. Intellectual beans. I have no idea where this whole "cool beans" thing came from. I never said it bacak home, not is there anyone here that says it. It just sorta happened. We had a full schedule going into the day today, so I was excited. Unfortunately however, all but 2 of the citas fell today. We had a cita with Consuelo today. Yes, that same Consuelo. We always passed by the restaurant were Gloria, her mom, works. I kinda thought that she had a crush on my companion. She's gone to church almost every week with Anabel, which kinda surprised me because she's kind of a more crazy and mischievous girl. The other night she told Elder Cordova she wanted to get baptized. So he gave her a folleto, which she read. The restaurant was a little chaotic with Gloria working, and Santiago and Estefano throwing cake at each other and yelling. But Consuelo accepted fecha for September 21. That might've been the surprise of the transfer. Gabriel kinda disappeared on us, so that was kinda super disappointing. We found Claudia in the street last night and she told us how her sister had separated from her pareja (mate) and wanted us to help so we passed by, but they were in a family meeting with the pareja and her. After a bit the sister and pareja stepped out. We shared a spiritual thought with who was there because it was late and asked if there was questions. Right as the sister walked back in, they asked if Heavenly Mother existed. Facepalm. Why then? Ask me that later.
Wednesday
Turns out that Gabriel had to leave because he had a family member or something that got super sick all the sudden. He won't be back until Monday. He was super apologetic about it though. Hopefully we can get it all worked out. I'm pleased to report that I'm still working out in the early mornings. We had set up a cita with Wendy, but she canceled it on us. It was kinda frustrating since she didn't have a real excuse for us. Well, Elder Pedrozo and Elder Vasquez went on another field trip to the dentist this morning. Elder Vasquez was supposed to get his wisdom teeth taken out. Long story short, 3 wisdom teeth and 7+ anesthesia shots later, the dentist determined that the 4th wasn't coming out. So now tomorrow he's going to another doctor to have an operation so that they can get the rest of the tooth out. We had a cita with Consuelo. I was thinking that it was gonna go really well because we weren't with the same environment as last time. Well, the environment was better, but Consuelo stayed kinda quiet during the lesson. She wouldn't really look at us either. It was extremely difficult to read her. I almost ended the cita probably 3 times because I didn't know if she was actually interested or paying attention to anything we were saying. Due to that, it was a long cita. We couldn't get her to laugh or anything either. In the end, we finished teaching the Restoration and gave her a LDM to read. The rest of the day was basically dedicated to contacting. There were 2 citas with contacts that crashed and burned. That was really demoralizing for us, especially since we knew where one of them lived and there was a light on in the house. To end the night, we went to a meeting with Alfredo because Elder Cordova has this script thing for a ward activity about family history work. It's an interesting idea. There's a bakery in my area that has some really good cheese rolls that I always buy. They're almost as good as my mom's.
Thursday
I was reading in 1 Nephi 6 this morning and was inspired to share my testimony or write a spiritual thought every day. I like reading 1 Nephi 7:16-18. Nephi was receptive and obedient to the spirit and due to that, his brothers got mad like usual and tied him up. Nephi prayed with faith for strength to break the bands, but the Lord responded by simply loosening them. It's a small, but important detail that can easily be overlooked. Even though the Lord didn't answer Nephi's prayer in the exact way he wanted or was expecting, he still answered it in a way that blessed Nephi equally as much. Even though we might pray with faith expecting one thing, sometimes God, according to his infinite goodness and knowledge, will answer our prayers. We had a service marathon this morning. The 4 of us went to a members house where we were told that we were going to be moving a lot of sand. Then hermana gave us breakfast and then we got to work. On the 2nd floor where was a huge pile of sand. All she had us do was fill up some big 'ole bags with sand and put them next to the pile. With 10 bags we did probably 1/4-1/3 of it. After that, we met up with the zone and went to go do some more service for the same family that we went to serve last week. There was a lot of sanding and painting again. We got almost all of it painted, but it kinda took longer than we planned. The member sister for whom we performed the service requested a testimony meeting. It was powerful, but I'm not sure how much it helped, especially since when Elder Clark said September 21st the member sister said, "August 30th is their anniversary. I think it'd be cooler that day!" We had a lot of citas fall today. We ended the night with a NDH with Elena and her family with Jeroge Garcia. We told them to invite all their friends, but none of them came unfortunately. But we resolved some dudas (doubts) and had a good lesson. Angela's teacher always attacks her beliefs during class. I just miss some good 'ole American religious freedom right now. But it all ended ok because there were tequeños there. There's this one dude in our area that asks a million questions about everything. 95% of what he says is a question really fast without organization. He mentioned once that his sister received the Elders once, so we passed by. 10 minutes in he asked if I know a famous dude. I told him if I answered he had to go call his sister for us. It worked, but she didn't come.
Friday
I know that obedience is a gift from God and a critical one to develop if we desire blessings from God. I know that as we're obedient to God, or other divinely appointed leaders, God is obliged to bless us. So be obedient, even if it's hard. I'm gonna go out of order real quick in today's events. Near the end of the day, we were contacting and there was a 22 year old or so girl that was walking by. So I said, "¡Buenas Noches! ¿Podemos darle una invitacion de Jesucristo? (Good evening! Can we give you an invitation from Jesus Christ?)" As she walked past, she tilted her head and only had 2 words for me, "Eres feo. (You're ugly)." And she kept walking. I was just surprised and confused. I just asked, "Elder, did she really just say what I think she said?" "Yep." Impossible. There must have been someone behind me. Or maybe she just forgot her contacts. Or maybe he was talking to herself. If she had said that to me before my mission, I would've been hurt. But I have more confidence now. This is a muchacho bien guapo if you know what I mean. Elder Pedrozo worked in a barbershop before the mission, so I got him to wake up early to give me a haircut. It took him an hour, but it's probably the best cut I've ever had. He told me that I had to tell President that he cut my hair. We had interviews with him today. It kinda took a while like normal. He saw me between interviews and said, "Elder Pedrozo told me that he cut your hair. Looks good." All I could say was, "Haha thanks." Turns out that Elder Rushforth likes Star Wars too. But when I texted him, "Hello there," he responded with "Hello." Much to learn he still has. In my interview I told him I was mildly disheartened and unhappy because I feel like I'm an excellent missionary but wasn't seeing a lot of success in my area. So he shared 2 Nephi 31:20 with me and I got excited because I realized the Lord wanted to try my faith. Then out of the blue he asked if I was good with Excel on the computer. Then President surprised me by asking about my study plans for after the mission. It was a good interview. We had another cita with Consuelo. It was more of the same, but she opened up to us a tiny bit more. Then we had a cita with Lourdes and Naydelin and all her little grandkids. We taught them the gospel. Hadde, 8 years old, was previously scared of water and didn't want to get baptized. Then we were talking about Lourdes' baptism and she was like, "Wait. When did you get baptized?" That was funny. Anywho, she accepted a date for September 21.
Us visiting our CR Lourdes and putting a baptismal date on her granddaughter. I'm the white dude.
Saturday
"Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven." -Hymn no. 27 Praise to the Man. Today President Amato instituted a mission wide fast so that we can all use our collective faith to find people to teach. The Lord blessed us with an amazing day of finding. I know that as we fast and make other sacrifices to the Lord, the Lord will bless us immensely because there is power in making sacrifices to God. I am always reminded of the day I fasted for Jaxon's chickenpox. When we went to church, they were all still there, itching like normal. Then when we got home from church, we discovered that they had all miraculously scabbed over. From a young age it's served as a strong testimony for me. We did weekly planning this morning. We took a half time break to go and teach the girl across the street that I contacted, but she wasn't there. That and the 2 other citas that we had set up with contacts fell through the cracks of our broken concrete floor. We had a productive day of contacting though. Elder Cordova is a very sarcastic person. Normally, I would have no problem with that; I'm a sarcastic dude sometimes too and appreciate the humor. But you see, he's not super good at it. He doesn't hardly ever make or give any vocal or visual cues. Then he'll get mad at me if I take him seriously. But he's not exactly 100% responsible sometimes and is also a little crazy. So I never know what to think. I made one contact that stood out to me today with a 17 year old named Daisy. It started out as a fairly normal conversation. She said that she had to go to the Catholic church in the morning, but that she would come directly for our church. We had a quick cita with Juana today to see how she was doing. We got RKOed by several amazing contacts to end the night, including a 15 year old named Andres that contacted us. We also ran into Rebeca while buying burgers. It turns out that her parents just don't want her to come.
Sunday
Here's some doctrine that's rather interesting that I learned while studying the scriptures this morning. In 2 Nephi 32:3-4, we learn that angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost. Then if we go look up Angels in the bible dictionary, we can learn that unembodied or disembodied spirits can be angels. Then if we take it a step further, we can remember that those spirits/angels could possibly include family that has passed away, or possibly even future offspring. Now I'm not gonna say that every time we feel an impression from the Holy Ghost that it's them or that every angel that is in that category that communicates with us like that is them, but what I will suggest is that we might receive a prompting from them every once in a while. That may answer the question, "Can my deceased family member communicate with me?" My response would be that I think it's possible, but unless it's a dream where you can see them, you'll have little to no way of knowing it was them. Anyways, it turns out that this Andres dude was a miracle and a half. We called him in the morning to see about picking him up and he was like, "Yeah, just give me a 20 minutes heads up so I can bajar the mountain to meet up with you guys." We came out of consejo (Bishop is super awesome FYI--dedicated to his calling and to missionary work. "I don't want any activities planned for Saturday nights because there's always baptisms and that's priority no.1--no interference.") and called Andres. He was already there waiting for us. So we had him at church with us. We also had Hade, Consuelo and a less active dude that brought his nonmember wife to church. And the attendance there today was the highest it's been since May. That all made me one happy little gringo. We ate lunch with the bishop's parents today. Then we had a practice thing for the family history theater thing-a-mabobber that Elder Cordova put together. It was mildly chaotic, but I could feel the special spirit that he said came with it. After that we went and found Hade's and talked to her for a while and got her to sign the baptism permission. I was very thankful for that. Hade is the awesome kind of girl that makes me excited to have kids. We ended the night eating with Elena and her family, which took a little longer than anticipated. A poem from Elder Clark to Elder Rushforth over the phone: "If I could choose to be any part of you, I'd be your tears. They came from your heart and are born in your eyes. They live on your cheeks and die on your lips." That's some solid freestyle bromance poetry.
My companion and I with my MTC teacher Hermana Parraga. I actually didn't even recognize her when we took this picture. Hahaha
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