This was a crazy week. It was super busy due to the multi-zone, but we got a lot of stuff done and got some good spiritual learning in as well. I was mostly in the back updating the med kits and emergency backpacks of the missionaries in the mission. From the multi-zone I learned that we really need to follow our priesthood leaders and follow the prophet no matter what, because he is God's chosen servant here upon the Earth. There wasn't a lot of drama in the financial world at all this past week. We weren't really able to find any new people to teach while we were out working, and our 3 investigators we have right now are kinda struggling. We're on the verge of dropping them if they don't make a change soon. On the bright side though, we had our investigator Mario baptized this past week. He's the coolest old man ever. He always calls us his kids and it honestly really feels like he could be my grandpa. He's an awesome man. His baptism was a little difficult for him because the font wasn't full, he has metal plates in his back, and he has a huge fear of water (he hasn't gone swimming since he was 14). Despite all of that though, we were able to perform the ordinance. He's already a great member and is even asking for a calling. Long story short, this week was full of ups and downs, but also sweet and tender mercies of the Lord. It's the small things that count. Have a good week!
-Elder White
Saturday
I like the scripture Ether 12:27 because I see it come to pass many times here in the mission. God truly will help us turn our weaknesses into strengths if we put out whole trust in him. Examples: Mario and coffee, missionaries and language barriers, Elder White and everything, and most recently Mario and water (details to come). I know that if we truly put our 100% faith in Christ, then he will bless us with heavenly aid in our weakness. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. This morning I got myself ready early and then went to the office. I called Josh and Kayden to wish them a happy birthday. While I was at it, I decided to talk to Jaxon too. I may have hosted a roast session for him. Elder Wilcox somehow hit his knee and was limping around the rest of the day. We had Mario's baptism tonight. We had a pretty good turnout there. It was a little complicated because he has metal plates in his back. He also has fear of water and hadn't touched it since he was 14. One #5 we got a primary choir in there and that got it done. It was an extremely special baptism. He was a good sport about it. He was saying he should've messed up a few more times to try and break the record. Elder Wilcox and I took him out to get crepes after. It was a great day.
Sunday
Keep the commandments. What a simple, yet hard thing to do. It's a very common theme in the scriptures. When President Nelson came to Peru a year ago, some of us were thinking he was going to drop some crazy new commandments. All he did really was exhort the people here to keep the commandments. I know that as we do, we will live in a state of happiness with many blessings supplied by God. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Elder Armstrong and Elder Wilcox went to ward council this morning, so Elder Pardo and I went to go pick up Israel and Mayra. They were just finishing up breakfast when we got there, and the smell of coffee was in the air. We'll have to teach that one later. Mario got confirmed today. These last 2 Sundays he's come in a suit. He's the coolest old man. In Sunday school, there's a few dudes that for some reason like to bring up deep or controversial doctrine. They're smart, but they're just trying to flex their spiritual knowledge. I always glance nervously at my investigators when they do, but hasta ahora (until now) it hasn't seemed to cause any real problems. We came back to do some weekly planning after lunch. Our plans to go out and contact with jovenes (young boys) got canceled, so instead we walked around with the member list for 1 1/2 hours looking for MA and to clean out the list too. We got Erick and his mom, Hermana Cardenas (the Relief Society President) to come with us to visit Monica and Marleni. When we got there, Monica had left. That's pretty worrisome because that's the 3rd time in a row she's failed on us, and she didn't come to church either. We kinda got a problem with our investigators giving us excuses and not giving us the priority: Her, Israel and Mayra. We're trying hard to brainstorm ideas to help that issue, because we'd rather not stop teaching them of course. What was cool though, was that Carmen, their maid/servant (she honestly seems kinda like a slave to us), was there and willing to listen to us. She'd not quite an escogido yet, but still. Someday she'll be ready. Tonight during dinner, Bishop came down and talked to us. I'm not sure why really, but he explained to us all about drug cartels, Pablo Escobar, and El Chapo. They're literally modern day Gadianton Robbers. I'm sure he's the only bishop in the mission that would have their convo with the Elders.
Monday
Eternas puedan ser las familias (families can be eternal). That sounds cooler in Spanish. I know that as we live the gospel daily and then get our families to do the same, we will be able to live forever together in a state of eternal happiness in the Celestial Kingdom with God. One thing that you learn as you gain conversion is that God is good. He truly is. That's why he made this perfect plan with the sole purpose of helping us become happy as he is. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. On Friday Elder Napier received a package from home. In it, there was one of his old shirts he used to wear. Well, it barely even fit because every morning he and Elder Leite do work outs and his chest and arms have gotten substantially bigger. Let's just say that I was inspired to grow out of my shirts as well. So this morning I lifted with them for an hour doing our pecks exercises. Shoot man, I'm not very strong. I wouldn't even do a girl pushup at the end, possibly because it's my second time ever lifting. Supposedly it should be my pecks that's sore, but it's more my arms. It was hard to shampoo my hair after haha. The hermanas from Tilda finally moved today. Wahoo! They were there finishing up when their dueño wanted to talk to the dude in charge who signed the contract. That man is straight up racist. He refuses to work with gringos. We had to send Elders Vasquez (from Cajamarca) there to pretend to be in charge so that the owner would cooperate. But like I said, he wanted the guy that went to sign the contract. So they called me. I said I was that dude's legal representative, but he said that there were things they discussed that he needed to talk to him about. I told him that dude was visiting family in Bolivia and wasn't available. (Only a partial lie. The official guy that signs contracts did change though.) The dueño said, "Well, if he's not here, it's a big sign of disrespect to me." What is with this guy and disrespect? "Well, he's in Bolivia so..." "I need him." "He can't come back due to civil unrest. There's nothing legally binding you two said. It's all in the contract. You can talk to me." "Ok, one sec," and he gave Hermana Black back the phone. He couldn't hang up on me because it wasn't his phone. They seem to have gotten it all worked out though. I hope that I never have to talk to that guy again. From what I understand, at least the rest of his family is nice. We took Fabricio to visit Monica tonight. We had to get after her for faltering us recently. We taught the Plan of Salvation. Fabrico's mom passed away due to cancer 3 years ago, so he was a good guy to have there to testify.
Tuesday
"May you ever choose the harder right than the easier wrong." --Thomas S Monson (I think). I've always had this quote stand out to me. It's very applicable in the world. We live in a place and time where doing the right can be viewed as the wrong thing to do. Satan's influences truly have clouded human perception of that in these latter days. Being righteous never was easy, but there are many blessings that come from choosing the right. We are free to be agents so that we can do many good works according to our own free will. We must be anxiously engaged in a good cause. As we do so, we will see God's hand in our life more openly, learn from our decisions, and complete with our purpose of life here on Earth. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Third time in my life exercising, well lifting weights that is, was a success. It was biceps day. My arms aren't quite as sore as I think they should be, but my pecks are pretty sore. We had district counsel this morning, nothing overly new there. We found out that Glovo does free delivery for Taco Bell on Tuesdays, so Elder Wilcox and I definitely took advantage of that one. While we were out and about, we were finally able to find Renzo and have a cita with him. He commented that he's been busy and hasn't seen a lot of the promised blessings of his baptism. Elder Wilcox pointed out to him that it's because he's not completing his OLA. That was a good job recognizing that on his part.
Wednesday
I know that all of Gods servants are called by Him: President Nelson, the apostles, President Amato, me, etc. This isn't man's church, this is God's church. I know that the church (and myself included) has the priesthood authority and power to act in His name to perform miracles and bless the lives of many of God's children. I know that they priesthood only functions if we are clean, worthy and virtuous. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. My left arm is impossible to straighten. It can't go past 120° because it hurts a lot to bend it any further. My right arm hurts and aches, but still works like normal. I've been walking around with a normal arm and a handicapped T-rex arm all day haha. We had scheduled a cita with Israel and Mayra for 8 AM today since Israel leaves for work at 9 AM. They didn't answer any of our many calls today, yesterday and since Sunday. We decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume their phone was broken. The multi-zone started at 8 as well, but we decided to give them the priority and try there first since it was kind of an urgent situation. Naranjas. Nobody answered the door. It's super sad that they're failing on us like this. Any who, the multi-zone was kinda super crazy for us because we had to replenish and replace the expired stuff in all the med kits in every house, as well as replace all the food in the emergency backpacks. That was a long and tedious task.
I even had to make an emergency trip to Jakey Plaza half way through. Needless to say, I didn't get many spiritual take aways. When it came time to celebrate birthdays, Elder Leite went running past me in the hall. I asked Elder Napier what was going on and he casually said, "Oh he's gonna throw up." Sure enough, I heard it a few seconds later. As he came out of the baño, I heard them call his name and cheers, which faded into confusion since he wasn't there. So I was like, "Hurry, they called your name!" He jogged back in there and held his hand up like a champ as they re-cheered. That was pretty funny. The weirdest thing about the conference was that Hermana Houghton gave her farewell testimony. It's hard to believe that that much time has already passed. Is was on errand duty with Elder Pardo tonight. We made our Tottus run and then went to La Molina to set up. I had un montón de sueño (not a lot of sleep), so I bought a Root Beer to keep me awake.
Thursday
President Amato had a good talk in the multi-zone today about abiding in the vine, based off of John 15. The main idea of it was obeying our priesthood leaders. He explained how Jesus is the vine, and us, as branches, have to be attached to him in order for him to be with us and bless us. Then he explained how if we leave from that vine, we basically die (spiritually). That means obey his commandments in summary. Since Jesus can't be here right now, we have a prophet, Russell M Nelson, who represents the vine here on Earth. If we receive revelation that carries us out of the vine, then that revelation is not from God. The same goes for each of our priesthood leaders that have been called to look over us. Well, I woke up this morning and now I've got 2 handicapped T-rex arms; I couldn't straighten my right arm either, though it didn't hurt as bad as my left. Let me just say though: trying to clean myself after going to the bathroom was a huge struggle. I found that if I massaged my biceps a little, then I could straighten my arms more. We had part 2 of the multi-zone today, which meant more backpacks and med kits. It was my turn to go with Elder Armstrong to buy all the medicine. I'm kinda concerned that it took them an hour to track down all the stuff we needed. We were slightly less busy compared to yesterday, so I was able to get more out of the multi-zone. While we were in the back sorting out all the drugs, I said, "Man, I hate drugs. But you know what I hate more than drugs? Expired drugs. But ya wanna know what I hate more than expired drugs? Illegal drugs. But you wanna know what I hate more than illegal drugs? Expired illegal drugs. Nothing gets me triggered like seeing some chump smoking expired marijuana in the street." That's my quota of 1 funny things to say per day. Monica failed on us tonight...again. We visited Mario though to check up on him.
Missionaries I was in the MTC with from one of the zone conferences. The sisters are set to go home this next week.
Friday
I like the song A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief. It really reminds us that we need to treat everyone with kindness and respect because in reality, every thing we do to someone else is something we do to Jesus. We did triceps this morning. It's interesting: my arms aren't quite as sore when I work out. I'm seriously considering buying protein powder, but we'll see what happens. When I'm going to cross the street, I use the code "Operation Criss Cross Applesauce." If you don't say that, you can't cross the street. I had to run to the bank this morning to get my caja chica. The one I used to go to got remodeled over night, except it was a downsize remodel, which stinks because I can't do all the stuff there that I used to be ale to do anymore. Tonight I went out on an intercambio to contact with Elder Armstrong. We were about to head in when the 4 of us had to go give an emergency blessing to a sick and elderly lady. Then we went to Sangus. Elder Wilcox has been hyping it up for a long time. It's basically an over priced sandwich place. Not gonna lie though, those are some pretty dang good sandwiches. Tomorrow there's the championship of Libertadores between teams from Argentina and Brazil. There's supposed to be 30k Argentines, 30k Brazilians, 10k Peruvians and 10k police and thousands more hanging out outside the stadium.
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