What up everybody,
Wow, what a week it has been. I
would say that every morning and night I would just pray that He would help me
out this week with everything that was going to happen. He has helped me out so
much during this past week and I really feel blessed and it has strengthened my
testimony even more to know that he truly is with me guiding me.
Last Monday was so much fun for
PDay. There are these investigators named Gustavo and Samantha. They are siblings
and they are both in their 20s. They are so nice to us and we are such good
friends. They came with us shopping last Monday and we went out to eat lunch
and then at night we had a lesson with them. Today as well
when Pday ends we are going to go over because they said that they are going to
buy KFC for us!! Booo ya!!! American Food!!! We are pretty close to a
big mall here in Chiclayo where that is available. So I am so stoked. We are going to eat KFC and then
we are going to watch the Joseph Smith movie in their house. Chiclayo is really different than Jaen, really sandy and dusty, but some parts are really
nice...well...for being in Peru, it is pretty nice haha. But the thing with
Samantha is that when I met her last week, she told me that she would never get
baptized in this Church because she hates the rules. Well, she didn't even
really know about the church. But I was kind of bummed to hear that. I
prayed that the Lord would touch her heart. That also kind of got me all pumped up
and I thought to myself, ¨Well Elder Smith, you teach and testify the truth,
just say what the spirit says, and all will work out. Also, you have taught
people like this and you know what to do.¨ So following that I have really
tried to listen to the spirit so that I could help her. Just this past Saturday,
as we were in the lesson, we were teaching the Plan of Salvation. And suddenly
Samantha stopped me and said, "Elder Smith!!" I said, "What?" She said, "I am
going to get baptized in this church!" Right away a huge smile came on my
face and I asked her? "A ver, por que se quiere bautizar en esta iglesia?" (So tell me why do you want to be baptized in this church?) And
she said, "Because there are things that I have never heard before. I feel that
what you are saying is the truth and this church just makes sense and same with
the Book of Mormon. It just makes sense"! Man I was so happy to hear that, to
really know that the spirit works through me. Yesterday her and her
mom attended church (: This week I am looking forward to putting a
baptismal date with her. She is so right, this church and everything just
makes sense. That is one of the reasons that it is true, it just makes sense
and helps us know about a lot of things because we are guided by the Holy Ghost
and the priesthood and other leaders.
My new companion/mini missionary is William(Willy). He is 21 actually and he will get his
mission call soon. But he is really cool and testifies great! Right now I am
just trying to teach him all that he needs to know about the mission.
This ward that I am in, the members
are so wonderful. However it was kind of overwhelming at times. Because I am the only missionary right now in the ward, I kind of felt like I was
being attacked yesterday after church with all these problems and all at once all of these things were
just coming at me. Right after sacrament meeting so many members came up
to me and were like, "Elder I need a blessing", or "Elder come over tomorrow", or
"Elder help me with this" or "help me with that." Haha after I just laughed and
said to Willy, "Man! Am I the only one that can fix things in this ward?"
Hahaha no, but it was funny. I love these members and a lot of the youth helps
us and come to appointments with us. And even today we got like 10 phone calls
from so many people and I had to answer each one of them because they were
probably all for me. But all is well, I am learning a lot.
Right now I am a lot closer to the
office. Only like 15 minutes away. So if there is mail for me, I should get it
every week in District Meeting. I saw the picture of our new upcoming mission
president and right now he is living in Wyoming or something like that. I am
kind of sad that President Risso is leaving. He has helped me in sooo many
aspects and he is sooo wise and sooo faithful it is insane. But yet again I am
excited to have my 4th Mission President in my mission, haha crazy right?
As of right now, I am doing pretty
well. The area is pretty big, we walk a lot, and I don't know the streets that
well. But Willy is a genius and is helping me out with that. I just hope things
continue to go well and that I will be able to find new investigators because
there aren't that many. But for what there is, it is time to convert them to
the true church.
Sorry this email is so long, but I
will just end with a spiritual lesson that I had yesterday. There is this man
named Jesus Diez. His whole family are members and his daughter just came back
from her mission in Ecuador like a month ago. Well we invited him to pray about
what we have been teaching and yesterday we went back to teach him and to see
if he had prayed and he told us yes but that he hasn't received any answer and
he explained to us that he wants a vision or a dream and said if Joseph Smith
received a vision why couldn't he? We explained to him that God works in his
own ways and we have to do His will, not our will if we want to receive an
answer. I then asked him, why he wanted to receive an answer and why was he
praying to know. What he told me was that he prayed because we invited him to.
I explained to him that that was wrong and that he has to pray because he
should be worried about his salvation and that because he should want to live
with his family forever and that he wants to be a part of this true church. We
invited him to pray, but to do it for his wants, not only because we told him
to. So we are going to pray that he gets his answer. He has a lot of different
beliefs that are sometimes hard to even believing. But luckily his family are
members, so they will help us. It will take time for this man. But I have no doubt
that God will answer him. He just needs to be humbled because he is hard to
receive information and most of the time doesn't accept it. If we want to
receive an answer, we need to do it with a humbled heart and ready to listen to
the spirit. If we do things just because people tell us to, Heavenly Father
probably won't respond to us.
Bueno, por alguna razon, me gustaria
escribir un poco en español. Yo oro por ustedes cada dia. Ustedes son bien
importantes para mi. Estoy muy agradecido que todos de nosotros somos miembros
de La Iglesia por que vi ayer a una familia que falta alguien en su familia que
no es miembro de La Iglesia. Pero nosotros somos miembros y realmente se que
Dios nos ha bendecido bastante por eso, solo miren y piensen en todas las cosas
que tenemos y el amor que tenemos por nuestros mismos y todas las bendiciones
que recibimos diariamente. No puedo pensar en mi vida sin ustedes. A pensar que
me falta un año en mi mision es totalmente loco, pero prometi a Dios que iba a
trabajar hasta el fin si o si, y eso es mi intencion. Aunque el trabajo ahora
sea dificil, estoy listo y dispuesto a poner todos de mis esfuerzos en este
trabajo. Se que esta Iglesia cambia vidas y lo he visto en mi mision y eso me
ha ayudado bastante. Gracias por todo lo que han hecho ustedes por mi y gracias
por orar por mi. Yo siento sus oraciones y me da fortaleza. Nunca duden que no
estamos en la verdad. Como Elder Uchtdorf dijo, Duden sus dudas, antes que
duden su fe.
I love you. He loves you
Elder Smith
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