7/20/15 A Commitment with God

Weston is 4 already? Wow.

Well one of the references, A_____, could work out!  We were able to teach him but I think some of the pastors around here traumatize people because he was unwilling to let us start the lesson with a prayer because he felt it would be like making a commitment with God, (I'm just talking about us saying a prayer with him not even him saying it) and "you can't joke around with God" because if he then fails to do what God says later he'll be damned.  It was a little difficult to get him to understand that prayer is a communication with his Father who loves him and won't do anything like that.

E____'s sister doesn't have a lot of time because of her work, but we have an appointment with her this Tuesday.

We also met a super cool guy named S_____ S_______ (we just call him S_______) He does super cool origami sculptures!  He showed us a phoenix he had made (but was broken) at the beginning of the first lesson so we used it as an object lesson for the apostasy.  We put a baptismal date for the 15th of August and he is super animated about it, he even shook my companion's hand when he put the baptismal date as if it were an official agreement!  He even said the opening and closing prayer in our second lesson with him.

When we went to his house Sunday morning to take him to church he had a bandage wrapped around his foot and said he had stepped on a nail that morning.  He said it hurt to walk but if we got a mototaxi he'd go with us to church, so we did. We had a lesson with him that afternoon and he commented that his foot was feeling a little bit better at the end of church. (he also said he got an injection, presumably for tetanus, so don't worry we're not exacerbating medical problems here).

(We have to mail him new baptismal pants and I asked him what else he would like) In the packet, I guess candies and stuff maybe chips ahoy because they have those here but they are completely different haha I don't know I can't think of anything in particular I need.

Oh and that picture is from an activity we did with the primary where they got little missionary badges and went with us to visit some less actives. There were 6 kids there but afterwards we were trying to get to an appointment quick and my companion was realized he wanted a picture with them so we got back to the church like 10 min later and some of them had already gone so there's only 3 in the picture. 

To his dad:

(Referring to the how many grandkids Brad's dad has) 

Just the grand children is more then my branch's sacrament meeting attendance here hahaha

Mosiah 18 is a good one! I like the way that Alma is kind of like "so if you believe this stuff there's some water here why don't cha get baptized?" haha but with more words than maybe I'd say it. It's a good thing that we have the scriptures, prophets are a little better at wording things than I am haha

claro gracias por el apoyo y amor chao

7/13/15 Noah's Ark

(I was telling Chad about our family reunion this year.)

That's pretty weird having only 4 from our family at the reunion this year! There are some new faces in the picture, I am assuming they belong to Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Greg, I haven't met them, in fact, I haven't even seen any pictures of them! Why is Cayla moving to Hawaii?

Dad did the polar bear? Originally, it was just them taking a bath there at night, right?  

If Brittany is still thinking about names refer her to 2 Nephi 18:1 or Isaiah 8:1

I thought Krew was scared of the word bear!  Like when dad would say there are bears outside and he would start to cry...

So, this week with my convert E____, we did this Noah's ark thing we do where you mention that in the scriptures it says that the Lord himself had to close up the ark and make them imagine themselves as Noah standing there in the doorway as the rain starts to fall and you see all of your family, friends and neighbors outside the ark who are going to die and we tell her the time is short until the Lord comes and closes the door for the last time.  We ask her who are are the 8 family or friends who she would invite into the ark with her. It only took her about 45 seconds to tell us, she barely had to think about it because she really has felt the difference the gospel has made in her life!

On a side note, the mother of one of the references was looking for something to Bible bash about and she asked us how we feel about Deuteronomy 22, I said, I haven't gotten around to memorizing the Law of Moses since Christ fulfilled it.  Apparently, it says, among other things that women can't wear men's clothes so for that reason they are not allowed to wear pants.  I guess that is one more thing to be thankful for in the true church, haha

(I asked him to take more pictures and he said the following)  It is against the rules, in fact in a recent zone meeting the ZLs said we shouldn't have our cameras with us in general unless it is pday... and if i ask for other times to be able to take pictures MP would probably say if you baptize every week you'd have pictures every week so yeah... haha

Family home evening with with a bunch of the branch in a converts home...

To his dad:

You shot a 77? Wow

There's a girl's team at canyon now? How many are on the golf teams? 

Don't expect a long report from me either haha but yeah I've really realized how important families are on the mission one certainly sees the effect of not having a family of the sort that the prophets teach about.

64 great grandchildren? Is that just those who were there or in general?

6/30/15 That reminds me...

You sent me a video of Whitney and Abby and when I watched it I was like, "Wow Whitney is super old now haha and who is that next to her?" and sat there for like a minute and a half thinking "Who the heck is that?" and then just went "wait what..." How old are those kids? 

But I think part of the reason is that a less active family with a 6 or 7 year old daughter named K____ (or I would spell it that way maybe it's actually spelled Q____ or something haha I'd have to ask haha) has a daughter who looks, acts, and talks exactly like Abby did when she was little!

About the spelling... that reminded me of the daughter of one of our investigators is named Paige but I could not figure out how you could spell that name in Spanish since the "j" sound doesn't independently exist in Spanish it's just one of a bunch of different ways to pronounce "y" which around here is normally pronounced like the English "y" until I saw a notebook with her name on it written "Peich" and thought "why does that have the English word for durazno?" and realized "oh that's her name" haha

Wow Holland is walking pretty well in that video which reminds me of the daughter of L_____ named C______ although we usually call her Gorda (which is like fatty) who just learned to walk I'll have to get you a video of her!

So we've gotten to know more of E____'s family which includes a mother who is JW, a brother who is Seventh Day adventist, a sister who is a Pentecostal pastor, and her sister who is halted between two opinions as Elijah puts it, that is to say a soon-to-be Mormon!

For pday we went grocery shopping and cleaned the apartment... 

Also I assume you saw Austin's email, I need either a tie or socks like that hahaha (Both are American flags!)

To his dad:

You can tell them I can't believe it either haha how is Abby in high school?

Even though I always stunk I really miss golf at the moment haha That sounds like a good time, I don't think I've met anyone here in Pativilca who has stepped foot on a golf course before so yeah sometimes they imagine that everyone in the US is a billionaire like, since a lot of people's first question is where the money comes from! I often have to explain that before the mission I worked at a factory packing dried food in packages and they're always like so you owned a factory? and I say what? No! I woke up at 3 in the morning to work at the lowest level why would you think an 18 year old could own a factory?

So our branch president is gone a lot of the time because he works in Lima and he has one councilor, his dad!