I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only thing in the world that bring true, lasting happiness unto the children of men. The gospel changes us. I didn't really understand that before the mission, but now I know that that's why I'm here--to invite others to come unto Christ by teaching His restored gospel. I've seen the changes wrought in the lives of others, and the reason why missionaries are such happy people is because we get to watch these changes. I know that God loves us that that's why we have this gospel. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
So I was feeling bad about not being the one to teach Shirely. Not because I don't trust the Hermanas or because I want glory for myself, but because I was bummed that I wouldn't be there along the way to take part in that joy. But then Elder Wilcox said to me, "You'll see her again in heaven and her and her posterity/ancestors will thank you for introducing her to the church." That was comforting to me. This morning we all got up at 5 AM and drove up to Musa to play soccer against La Molina. Everyone in the office has matching jerseys, everyone except me...hopefully we can get that fixed soon. We had a good soccer match, but we lost unfortunately. Leider. Ich esse ein Apfel. Guten morgen Schwien. Bis spater. (Unfortunately. I eat an apple. Good morning pig. See you later.) Other than that stuff, Pday was pretty boring. We just stayed in the office all day long. We emailed our families, watched several movies like WiFi Ralph and Emperor's New Groove, ordered Domino's for lunch, and yeah. My parents asked me to Skype them so I did. Their connection was kinda bad though, so I really just talked with Jaxon for a while. We played Risk, but I didn't last until my 2nd turn unfortunately because I was super spread out. It was my turn to stay behind with Elder Sanches. We basically just stayed in the office and watched President Nelson's birthday celebration. We kinda freaked out when some people came and were pushing the doorbell at 8:45. But it turned out that it was just some missionaries dropping off Elder Burley so that President could come pick him up. I never really got the chance to know him, but he was a jokester and a good missionary.
Sunday
Transfer Sunday! Judgement day came early and sneak attacked me so my judgement got postponed for a while. The day wasn't overly exciting though. Today I want to testify that it is by faith that miracles are worked. Exercising faith wasn't something that I understood super well before the mission. But then I got here and learned how to better use and apply my faith. Now I know that if we act with faith, truly believing and putting our whole trust in God, we will see blessings and miracles. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
We had a good day at church this morning. Things were going swimmingly until the ex area 70/mission president (a different one from the one we visited) started openly taking shots at the missionaries in front of the members and investigators during Sunday school. The teacher asked us (the missionaries) "What's an example of something good vs something excellent as a missionary?" So I responded, "Well, it's good to read the Book of Mormon, but it's better to go out and proselyte to find people to teach." Then the dude, seated in another part of the room spoke up. "It's good to proselyte, but it's better to talk to everyone when you're in the street. For example, a few months ago, I had the reference for the Elders in Santa Felicia (which were the assistants that that time, mind you) about a young couple. I happened across them in the street and said hi to test them and see what they'd do. They said hi back and kept walking. Since they didn't stop to talk I determined they were bad missionaries and didn't give them the reference. Because of them, the couple never joined the church and are now in other things. A good missionary talks to everybody." Needless to say, we were all pretty triggered after that. It's ok though because we got to go to the family Suarez's for lunch and ate away our worries with some super rico pabellon with arepa. Venezuelan food is the best. They even have a Venezuelan Cafe Rio green sauce. Tasty beans. And there were beans that tasted good too hehe. It was Elder Pardo's birthday, so the family bought him a cake to celebrate. As for us in the office, in order to celebrate we introduced him to the spanking machine. We had a decent day of contacting. We went to the family history center with Juan Pablo y Carmen. Then we went to the office to get some stuff ready to go for cambios.
Monday
I know that repentance brings blessings. But it's not a true repentance unless you change your ways. I love that, in Spanish, the verbs "to repents" and "to regret" are translated to the same verb--arrepentirese. When we truly repent of past transgressions, we'll never want to go back to those old ways. To repent is to change--change your mind, heart actions, etc. I love what President Nelson taught in General Conference: he said that repentance isn't a punishment. It's a gift given to us by the grace and mercy of God. It's something so important that Jesus Christ himself was sent to Earth to atone for the sins of all mankind so that we would have this ability to change and progress to be perfect just as he and his father are perfect. For that reason, each time we repent, we should do so with a heart full of gratitude. Paul wrote that to sin is to die. Sin is what separates us from God. One way that I like to look at it is that we die emotionally in a way. When we sin, it doesn't feel good. We feel weighed down, guilty, depressed, unsatisfied, etc. But when we repent, those feelings are replaced with feelings of freedom, happiness, love, peace, etc. And most importantly, we'll be worthy to receive the blessings of heaven. God loves us and want us to repent. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
I spent a good chuck of my time this morning dedicated to making the bus schedule for cambios tomorrow. There were 4 missionaries that arrived throughout the day. (1 will be from the Lima MTC.) We took one of the new guys, Elder Horton (he's cool because his name is McKay too), to McDonald's for lunch. Oh how I miss American fast food. Good stuff. Elder Napier walked into my office today just to chat and saw that I was listening to a talk about enduring through and learning from challenges, and also that I had the new church suicide prevention video pulled up on a tab too. So he joked around with me all day about it. That was kinda funny since it was a total coincidence that I had those 2 together. I spent the night with Elder Pardo, which mainly meant going on a shopping trip. We were in Tottus and this 70 year old woman started talking to me about basketball. Long story short, she was low key trying to recruit me for her trampoline basketball team that she does social media for while also trying to set me up with her basketball playing <30 year old daughter (neither of us were interested). She ended by trying to kiss me goodbye.
Tuesday
Baptism is the gateway to heaven. Baptism is a covenant that we must make with God if we want a place in the celestial kingdom. A covenant is a two sided promise that we make with God. I know that as we do our part--to always remember Him, obey His commandments, and to take His name upon ourselves--we can remain pure and worthy, and also receive a remission of our sins each time we take the sacrament. I know that the gospel, especially this critical stop of baptism, will be the solution to any problem anyone has in the world. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Well, Elder Rushforth went home yesterday. He was a good friend of mine. His flight got canceled though so he had to spend the day in a hotel hehe. Today was the first day training for the new missionaries. I mean, Elder Horton isn't really a new missionary since he was serving here before (Elder Madruga's group) and went home and served for a few months in Tennessee. The best part of being a secretary is being able to go to all of these meeting and getting free breakfast/lunch all of the time. When I was in Manchay, I had just started losing some weight that I had picked up in the mission. Not that I was fat or anything, but now I'm probably in danger of it. It's nearly impossible to serve in the office without gaining some weight, considerable weight at that. I just asked Elder Tenney how much weight he's gained and he said that he hadn't put on a whole lot really. So I said, "Yeah, me neither." He was just like, "Dude. You've been here for 2 weeks." At the same time, from the other room Elder Armstrong shouted, "You've been here for 2 weeks! You're gonna look like me!" That man has put on some good weight since getting to know him in Vitarte. Funny beans. But really they're ironic beans since he's the health secretary hehe. I remember when Elder Rushforth was the financial secretary for my first training. Elder Yañez was helping him out. Nothing overly exciting happened the rest of the day. Elder Sanchez got transferred to Huertos 2. I just went to the office and paid some bills and stuff. Then we left in our trio (Elders Wilcox and Tenney) to go out and proselyte. We went go go visit a CR named Gustavo and help him set up some stuff for family history.
Wednesday
I know that the gift of the Holy Ghost exists. It is a gift from God that we all receive after our baptism. Just as necessary as it is to be baptized by water, it is equally as important to be baptized by fire (the Holy Ghost) because otherwise it is incomplete. I know that as we are worthy, the spirit will inspire, guide and warn us. It is a gift that God has given me, for the which I am eternally grateful. Constantly having the spirit with you is why missionary work is so enjoyable--because that is true happiness. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
We had a district counsel this morning. Other than that we got to eat some tasty cake, there's nothing to report there. It was a typical day of working in the office. There were some crazy people while we were out contacting. There were these 2 old ladies I tried to contact that didn't have interest. I walked past only to hear them start talking about "the Mormons". I turned around and said, "Actually we're from the Church of Jesus Christ." "Some Catholics." "Um ok. Well we're from the church of Jesus Christ. Have a good day." We crossed the street and were another 10 yards in front when we heard them loudly start gossiping about "the Mormons" again. It reminded me of how yesterday there was this dude the size of two Elder Whites, about a little over 50 years old, that had headphones on. He was shouting about how he likes the bible and church and stuff and believes in Jesus, but, oh man does he enjoy fornicating. He was telling me about all the women he sleeps with as dozens of people walked by on the busiest street in our area. There was another dude tonight that tried to contend, but stunk at it. After explaining the Book of Mormon he said that those prophets were "desconocides (unknown)". So we asked if he had read the book, "No." After talking a bit more, he said, "My favorite book in the Bible is Songs of Solomon. It's well written with good insights." After saying that, I knew he was crazy. We had a cita tonight with a girl named Milena. She's 19 and has got a 5 year old daughter that lives in Trujillo with her mom. Milena lives here along with her sister. She just ended her relationship with Valenina's (her daughter's) father. It was a really toxic situation that left her emotionally damaged with little self love. She's super escogida and accepted a fecha for October 12th. I'm excited to see how the gospel and the church will help her.
Thursday
Enduring to the end is just as important as the first 4 steps of the gospel. If you spend years saving up money to buy a car and total it a few days later, all those years of work and saving would have amounted to nothing. Similarly, if we choose to live the gospel and obey the commandments for only a given amount of time, our past selves can't really save us. The Lord's gospel is a gospel of action. It isn't something where we sit on the sidelines. We need to read the Book of Mormon, pray, go to the church/temple, serve others, etc. If we don't do these things regularly, than our faith is dead. I know that if we endure to the end, we will have eternal life. We will have happier, more successful, and more peaceful lives if we can do these things. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Last night we had a few missionaries stay the night with us so that their companions could go to migrations at "before I want to get up" AM. Elder Pierce was one of them. He's training Elder Jeffries and white washed Alameda. He's pretty funny in the way that he uses a lot of slang when talking. Also, he has a thing with his friends where they slap each other in the face all the time. So just watch out. He's a super good and obedient dude though. Well, I got to the office this morning only to discover that all of my "office" apps like Outlook, Excel, Word, etc were broken and wouldn't open. That kinda extremely limited my ability to work. I was able to file a couple of receipts, but that was it. From 11-4, almost all my efforts were focused on fixing it. I tried repairing them, downloading stuff and looking up tutorials. I even did this one thing where I started typing in codes to my computer like a hacker. But none of it worked. At 4, I made some phone calls and got directed to church tech support in Salt Lake City. We got a professional hacker to help me out. You know what they say: If you can't hack your computer yourself, call a dude in an office on the other side of the world to do it for you. He took complete control of it and fixed it. Where ever you are Zach, thank you. This week was semana de in farto (heart attacke week) in Dominos. 3 large pizzas for s/39.90. We definitely aprovechared (took advantage) that deal to the max. We had an amazing night of contacting with lots of animos, citas taken and contacts made.
Friday
God is our loving Heavenly Father. I know that we are literally His children and that He loves us with a pure, perfect love. If you have any doubt of this, all you need to do is pray on your knees vocally with a lot of faith. This is how I came to know of His love for me. I know that anyone who does the same will be able to feel at least a portion of this amazing love for each and every one of us. I testify that there aren't exceptions for this love and that He wants more than anything to bless us and for us to return to live with Him again. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Today was Friday the 13th. Nothing too overly sketch happened though. I drew the short straw and had to go with Elder Pardo to set up stuff for trunky training. It was pretty boring really. The weirdest part though was that all the hermanas from my group and from the group after me were there. What I did though was just hang out with all the missionaries that had to be there waiting for the companions. There's a semi-new Hermana from Canada named Hermana Stephan, so I definitely had to aprovechar (take advantage of) that opportunity to ask about Canadian stereotypes since I had never met a Canadian before. I don't know if you can even call her a Canadian though because she doesn't like maple syrup nor does she have a pet polar bear. She does play hockey though. Elder Pardo and I had to go to Tottus to pick up chicken for lunch. You get a lot of weird looks if you have 12 whole chickens and 16 boxes of french fries in your cart, just FYI. To everyone that asked, I just said, "What can I say? We love chicken." It was kind of a lie though because even though I ate my medio pollo (half chicken) with half a box of french fries, (which I was really proud of), I don't know if I ever want to eat chicken again. Hermana Black was there and casually mentioned that their landlord is kicking them out, so now I've got that problem to deal with. Contacting today wasn't quite like yesterday. I kinda realized that I'm the 3rd wheel in this tri-companionship. It's not that I'm mistreated so much as that I'm left out. For example, if one of them is talking or telling a story and the other goes to make a contact, they'll wait till the contact is over to continue talking. They don't wait for me when I contact though. I know that I'm an introvert and I'm not amazing at carrying a conversation, but I don't feel like they try to talk to me a whole lot.
Me
next to the giant stack of paperwork I need President to sign.
A
fancy restaurant we went to. I wasn't too overly excited about eating a rich person salad...
...but the crepes were good at least.
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