This week was the biggest blur ever. Time is flying by so fast, it's unbelievable. It was a week full of a lot of hard work, both in the office and out in the street. This week we had everything from me accidentally telling a Venezuelan I'd take her back to the states with me (gringo hearing, whoops) to helping members move to taking two of our recent converts to the temple this morning. We've been having a bit of trouble finding new people to teach recently, but are working towards taking the steps necessary in finding God's elect. We dropped to zero's in our investigators, but upon further evaluation, we discovered that Monica, one of our investigators, is doing better than we thought, so we're going to give her another chance at preparing herself for baptism. That was a miracle. I gave a training in consejo de distrito about being a consecrated missionary and removing any roadblocks that would keep us from finding the people that God wants us to find. They say that you learn best when you use a relatable example, so I tied in space shuttles. I had a lot of fun preparing it and I think that I might have learned more in the preparation process than I ever could have if I were the only the one receiving the training. It was super cool. There were some new missionaries from the Chiclayo mission that come and stayed with us for visa stuff. They were all really cool guys and it was great to get to know them and hear more about other parts of Peru. Long story short, the church is true and Jesus loves you guys. Have a good week!
-Elder White
Saturday
I know that they key to following Christ and always feeling his love is to have a firm mind. The scripture Jacob 3:1-2 comes to mind. When you look at the footnotes for "firm", there's some good ones (Alma 57:5-27, Alma 58:40). They talk about the 2000 stripling warriors and how the reason they were saved was because they were firm mentally. They had an unshakeable faith, remembered what their mothers taught them and obeyed commandments with exactness. They are diligent in remembering the Lord their God. They believe strongly in everything that the prophets had prophesied. I know that if we can be like them, we will always be able to feel God's love for us and will never fall from the faith. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. This morning we got up early and went to go play soccer in Central. Shoot man, we played horribly. Also, I'm tired of just getting shoved int he goal every game and them not have anyone want to trade with me. We weren't allowed to leave our house/office due to the game. It's a little dangerous to have 80Kish people walking right by to go to a game (3 PM start time). Those guys were loud. I think you could hear them all the way from the stadium, which is a good 2 miles away. We ordered pizza and got sucked into a 3 hour game of Risk, which my team won by the way. There were helicopters passing overhead every few minutes. The Brazilian Club won the championship. There were tons of people in the street when P-day ended, so we still couldn't leave to contact. At 7:30 we went out to brave it, but there were just a bunch of drunk foreigners everywhere, so we just ate dinner. After that, we came back to the office and started throwing up Christmas decorations. We're in full Christmas mode there.
Sunday
About 2 years ago, we had a mutual where the leaders had Taylor and I teach all the other priests and laurels basic car maintenance such as checking oil and changing a tire. I remember posing the question, "Who knows the difference between oil and gasoline?" One girl said, "Cars need oil? Why?" That was a laughing facepalm moment for me. Well, the next day, she was alone on the freeway when, all of the sudden, her tire blew out. Fortunately for her though, she had been paying attention when we taught them how to change a tire. She was able to do it by herself. Is it a coincidence that that happened literally the day after? Nope. God will bless us with inspiration to help one another as he deems necessary. Well, our Sunday church experience wasn't the greatest. Israel and Mayra were no shows, so we're going to drop them. Monica didn't come either. Looks like we're dropping to straight zeros on the investigator list. I haven't had that happen in a long time. Mario came to church with his oldest daughter, Veronica, who was visiting from North Carolina. She seemed to enjoy church. We'd like to have a lesson with her before she returns. Lunch could've gone better today. Tonight we went and found 4 priests to come and contact with us. I took Takeshi with me. It was fun to show him how to contact. We also visited la familia Velasquez. Our goal is to take all the CRs (recent converts) to the temple on Saturday.
Monday
I know that emergency preparedness is a vital thing that we must do. The Lord's prophets have told us so. I know that if we heed their counsels, then we will be prepared and better off when disaster strikes. The same principles apply for spiritual emergency preparedness. If we constantly nourish ourselves in spirit and take the preparedness steps necessary, we will also be ready for any spiritual storm threats as well. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. These workouts we're doing are weird man. We're working out muscles I didn't even know I have. Today it was some weird muscle in my back, and in so doing, it included pull ups. They were all like, "Man, I stink at these," and then did 2-8 depending on who it was. Then I got up there and barely managed to break my arm's 180° angle. ¡Que palta! Hopefully I'll be yolked someday. We were walking down the staircase yesterday and smelled some marijuana. I guess the crazy lawyers kid really is a pothead. I had to make a run to jockey plaza this morning so that a missionary could get some $ from home. I don't really like going there anymore. It's just lejos (far) and boring because we can't buy anything we'd want. It was a pretty busy day today in the office. There were a bunch of payments that I had to make. We spent our entire night contacting. It was crazy because it was raining lightly off and on the entire night. We sure do appreciate some good rain. While we were out, Elder Wilcox said to me, "Elder White, want to know something? You don't blink very much when you're talking to people." That blew my mind. I think he's right though. What is with my comps and noticing things about my eyes? He and Elder Mayta both. Sometimes in the past when I've been bored in the street, I've had staring contests with cats and dogs. I always win. President told Elder Armstrong and Elder Wilcox that the earliest they could receive their replacements is February, which is funny because Elder Armstrong has been talking about getting his replacement ever since I got here. The other night Elder Wilcox and I contacted a Venezuelan working out front a restaurant. Not gonna lie, she was pretty cute. She said she couldn't come to church because she was always working. Then, "Blah, blah super thick accent, EEVV," with finger guns and a smile. Elder Wilcox didn't say anything, so I assumed she asked if we were gringos, so I said yes. She took a step froward and got super flirty, so I said we had to go. Afterwards, Elder Wilcox turned to me and said, "Dude. She asked if we'd take her back to the states with us." Haha that would make sense.
Tuesday
Two steps forward, one step back, and then two steps forward again is still progress. Sometimes that's how God works. I started reading in Jacob 5 about the whole allegory of the vineyard thing when I realized that principle. There were trees, and they got to be good with time, but then they got old and weren't as good anymore. After a lot of labor to try and help the tree recover, they had to take off the good branches and put in wild ones in an effort to save it. To the tree, it could have seemed as if the master of the vineyard were trying to hurt it. But like God, he knew what was best for the tree (for us). Sometimes it's necessary for us to go through a trial to be able to grow in the future. Last night Elder Wilcox asked me if I'd give the training for consejo de distrito tomorrow, so today I was frantically trying to pull some stuff together for it. I'm doing the most McKay thing possible and no, it's not Star Wars. What I'm going to do is tie consecration into the armor of God and then use the example of the space shuttle Columbia disaster as an example and reference point. I found a pretty cool video, but it's in French...Oh well. I stayed pretty busy today starting to prepare the end of month expense report. I swear I did that just last week. November passed by so fast. I don't know what happened. We were on our way out for the day when President asked us to stay for interviews. In my interview, I talked to him a lot about concerns I have with people back home and what I can do to help them. He said something interesting to me: "Doubts are like a virus, don't let them in. If they get in, they erase everything else." Good analogy. I had to ask for permission to start looking at housing for college. I can't believe it's that time already. We had correlation tonight, but Elder Wilcox and I played hooky with Mario right next door in the family history enter so that he could get that done for the temple Saturday.
Wednesday
17 months. I've gotten to the point where when I tell people how much time I have, they say, "Wow. le queda poco (he has little left)." Fetch man, I remember back when I was saying 1, 2, 3...days. I know that Jesus Christ is my advocate with the Father. I know that through Him I can repent and upon Him I can rely on the last day to present me to the Father. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. This morning I had to go with Elder Armstrong to the clinic with Elder Shockley and Elder Nye to get Elder Shockley's hard cast removed. Their ex dueña is loca and is refusing to work with no one short of myself for the guarantee we need back. So today I brought my extra plaque with me and gave it to them because we're gonna have Elder Koch, another missionary from their zone, impersonate me. Santa Clara is super far away and it's ridiculous that she wants me there personally. I gave my training in consejo this morning.; it seemed to have gone really well. It was the last district cousel for Hermana Memmott and Hermana Lindquist. It's so weird that they're going home. I was in the MTC with them.
I got the money from Tilda's guarantee back today. He took money out of it to pay his power bill, which is totally against the rules. But to get that back is impossible with him being the way he is, so I'm going to try to forgive and forget. I was looking at Google Maps today and then saw something important, so I yelled, "Elder Wilcox! They updated your house on Google Maps!" That might've been the most exciting thing we've had happen all day. We were out and about seeking the salvation of souls today, when Elder Wilcox started talking to this crazy lady that tried to tell him that it's "Jesus Cristo" not "Jesucristo". I've never heard that crazy idea before. Another first today: Someone asked me personally and directly how many wives I was going to have. I wasn't sure what to say, so I just said, "Nah, I don't want a lot of suegras (mothers-in-law). Do you?" She didn't think I was funny. We had a cita with Monica today. We reestablish baptism and her spiritual need. She's a lawyer, so I explained the whole Jesus is the advocate with the Father thing. She liked that and seems more committed. We had a lot of new missionaries from Chiclayo come stay with us today, one of which was Devin Fay, who dropped outta my Spanish class on the middle of the year. Karma.
Thursday
I believe in the gift of revelation. It can be for ourselves, families, or the church as a whole. God loves us and will bless us with the knowledge we need so that we have spiritual peace and joy. The Heavens aren't sealed. To a certain extent, I think revelation on smaller scales was always where to receive. (The whole church not so much because it had to be restored.) I know that as we earnestly seek it with faith, it will be received. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. The water pressure in our house has been a little inconsistent this past week. Twice I've had to shower with a drip system, which only lasted 2 minutes or so each. It's not very fun, but it's ok because after I go and borrow some of Elder Wilcox's Febreeze (scented as freshly-pressed apples) just to make sure that I don't smell too bad. We were going to do a service to help a family of a mom and her two young adult daughters move in this morning, but it got postponed until the afternoon. It was a nice little service, but boy oh boy was it hot today. Also, they've got a lot of stuff. And they're on the 3rd floor. She gave us pizza after though, so that was cool. To celebrate Thanksgiving, our zone went Christmas caroling. The missionaries from Chiclayo stayed with us again tonight, so we brought them along too. It was cool for them because they got to see Elder Kleinman, who was in the MTC with them. The assistants found us and joined us as well. We had a good little choir going on there. When it ended, Elder Wilcox and I had to take them back because their van comes at 2 AM. On our way back, we took a route that lead us by the temple. It was really exciting for them to see it. Elder Wilcox went off to buy pizza with one of them while the rest of us wet back to the room, where I talked to them for a while. It sounds like they have a very strict mission. Some of them are having it rough with their trainers, so they vented to me about it a bit. I talked about our mission. I really liked Elder Leavitt and Elder McClellan. I left to proselyte. When I got back, they were still awake and they thanked me. They said I really inspired and motivated them. That was cool to hear.
Friday
I know that the church is true. There's only 4 questions about a testimony that truly matter: Do I believe that God is my Heavenly Father? Do I believe in Jesus Christ and His atonement? Was Joseph Smith a prophet? Is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints the kingdom of God on Earth? (Stand Forever, by Lawrence E Carbridge) The answer to all of these questions is yes. Every other question you may have is secondary question that can be answered through the first 4. For me, I have a solid testimony of the great apostasy and the Restoration, which means that if I were to decide this church weren't true, then no church would be true and that God doesn't exist. But I know without a doubt that God does exist and loves me too, which to me automatically means that this church is true. Hopefully that makes sense. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. I'm not sure why, but we went to go play soccer with Mayorazgo this morning. My team won an incredible 3 on 4 match. Today I had to call and burn some Elders in Chosica because they used mission cleaning funds to buy food and then lied about it. That was exciting. I went with Elder Wilcox to migrations (parking garage office) to cancel visas for missionaries going home. I sat next to a Russian lady. I'm not quite sure what she was doing here in Peru, maybe she got lost or something. We got Renzo the priesthood tonight (and maybe his recommend too, not quite sure because we couldn't stay). We also got Mario his temple recommend printed as well. After that, the Bishop pulled us into mutual with him for like an hour and a half. It was cool though because A: we talked about how to share the gospel/be a missionary. B: we got to conocer the jovenes (meet the youth), which we've been wanting to do for a while. We brought candy to give to them as we got got know each other more. Mission success. I talked Elder Napier into giving me a haircut tonight.
At the temple this morning (11/30) with one of our recent converts.
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