03/21/16 Blessings & Powerful Experiences

The week was pretty good. We had a man named L____ and his family who were going to be baptized this last week. L___ was a little unsure of it before but on Tuesday we helped them to move and then had a lesson where he got really teary eyed and committed to be baptized this last Saturday. However, after his interview there were some complications that pushed it to this week and we will have to speak to him very directly this week and see what will happen. Happily, the other elders had a baptism and the ward continues with something like 15 weeks running with baptisms every week! (other than stake conference when there couldn't be confirmations)

We had a great meeting on Sunday, we met with all the ward councils in this part of Lima with Elder Montoya of the 70 (the area's second councilor) and Elder Moscoso (an area 70) and President Archibald. They were talking a lot about the need to get new converts to the temple within days not weeks or months which is always one of the struggles in ward council. They were also talking about the Sabbath a lot of course. Elder Montoya was also talking about having shorter meetings and talked about when he was a stake president and he assigned one of his councilors to kneel when it was time to finish their meetings to say that it was time. He said there were a couple of times we had to extend the meeting a little, but he would continued to kneel as he would finish talking about the matters they had to finish. He also told us that as soon as he received the call to be over the area, South America Northwest they found out that his daughter who was pregnant at the time had a tumor and was taken to the hospital. When President Eyring set him apart he said "I bless your children through you, that they will be protected during this calling and they will be better protected than they could be with you or your wife there." Later the doctors scheduled a cesarean for the 20th of November so his wife asked permission to leave their area of service to be there with their daughter.  President Monson granted her 10 days. She scheduled it from the 18th to the 28th and while she was back in Mexico with their daughter, the doctors rescheduled the procedure for the 30th, so at his wife's request Elder Montoya prayed that the baby be born while she was still there. The child was born naturally on the 22nd. He gave some other experiences that were equally powerful and it was a great meeting.

Tell Austin to tell me what Thailand is like.

Anyway thanks for everything chao les amo.

To his dad:

Thanks for the bit about praying to confirm revelation, sometimes I forget about that little lesson to Oliver Cowdery. Some things are exciting but not everything haha. It's a great time and I can tell that even the frustrations are making me grow and learn lots. I'll have some stories to tell when I get home that I don't have time to tell now.

Hey in the meeting with Elder Montoya that I told mom about I ran into my last companion who said that M_____'s daughter finally got baptized and M_____ confirmed her. I was surprised and said he has the Melchizedek Priesthood? and Elder Periñan said oh yeah we got him that a few weeks ago haha. that's awesome!