Peru Chiclayo Mission - March 2013-2015


Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Changing lives through reactivation, not just baptisms.

Hello my good ole family (:
I am so happy to hear that you guys had an amazing 4th of July! I missed the fireworks and all the food. That is crazy what happened to Jordan and that he got injured! He always gets hurt when we play stuff. But next year it's going down! Even though I am way out of shape! A week ago for PDay I played basketball with some of the Elders here and we all about died because we are so out of shape and we were breathing so hard! 

Congrats to Cannon for being baptized. I really wish I could have been there, that would have been awesome. That is crazy that he is already 8 years old and that Ryder is already 5 years old. Where did the time go! I'm gonna be shocked to see everyone when I get back because everyone is growing up!

Well, I'm back from Lima! I got back at 9:30 at night yesterday. It was a lot of fun though. I left with 5 other missionaries from the mission. One of them was Elder Allgaier who is from Lehi.  The first night we shared a room in the Hotel and talked all about Lehi, haha it was cool. Elder Winward also came with us and it was cool to see how he was doing. But yeah anyway I got almost everything done in Lima for my visa. We had to wait in lines for hours and fill out some paperwork but we got just about everything finished. We just need to go back in a few weeks to pick up something and that will be my last time going. Do you know what is crazy though? That was my 10th flight on the mission! Haha it's crazy. I didn't get sick though (: I loved the trip though, we ate papa john's twice and McDonalds once haha. The highlight of the trip though was we went to the temple and did the session!!!!!!!! My first time entering the temple here in Lima. It really was sooo amazing. The temple was pretty small, actually, really small but really pretty! After about a year since going to the temple, it was such a great experience and a wonderful blessing. The only bummer was that I couldn't take pictures because I left my camera in the hotel that day. But some other missionaries will forward the pics they took to my email and I'll forward  them to you guys.

This past week was freaking amazing. Tuesday we had the meeting with the new president and all the zone leaders. Pres. Williams is really funny and also so spiritual. He is gonna change something huge I think for us as a mission. Right now, only the assistants, the people from the office, and the zone leaders have cell phones, but we are gonna all have cell phones I think pretty soon! It was such a great meeting besides that too. 

Sorry I have so much to write and so I'll try to be brief with some stories that happened this past week.

This area is soo amazing and Elder Chavez and I have already seen lives changed without baptizing! I say this because we are teaching a family who is really less active. The dad hasn't gone for about 2 years for work, the mom went to another church for about a year, and the daughter just doesn't go because her parents don't, she is 19 yrs old. The son of the parents died about 2 years ago when he was 21 so it was really hard on them. Elder Chavez and I have been working hard with them. A week and a half ago, the daughter came with us to church and she talked with the bishop and was so happy.  Then last week, we visited them as a family about every day, and every time we did that, we kneeled and prayed with them. This past Sunday, they all came to church! And the mom and daughter gave their testimonies and now the daughter is going to activities and everything! They really are so happy!

Also!!!!! We are going to have a baptism today!!!!!!!!! Jenny is gonna get baptized!!!! She is 24 years old with 2 little girls of the ages of 3 and 6. She has been listening to the missionaries for about 3 months now.  She has been catholic all of her life and we had to help her to understand a lot of things. She had a cool answer to her prayer though.  A while ago we invited her to pray to see if the Book of Mormon is true and she did. The next day as she was walking to work, she found a key chain on the ground and looked at it, and it was a key chain of the Book of Mormon and she has always had that key chain in her hand in every lesson that we have had. She is really excited to get baptized because she told me that she wants to be a new person and have the Holy Ghost to help her get baptized!

Today we are going to talk with the dad of Alexis to get permission so that he can get baptized this Saturday. I am really praying hard for help so that he can do it. He is so strong in the gospel already.

Cool Story: Chiclayo is starting to get pretty cold at night. When we were walking we saw a 19 year old homeless boy. He came up to us and asked us if he could come to our house and spend the night. Unfortunately we can't do that as missionaries, but after talking to him about the gospel and giving him counsel, we told him to stay there and wait for us so that we could run home and get clothes for him. We had some extra clothes such as a sweater, sweats, a beanie, and also a blanket. Then we came back to him and give it all to him. We felt really happy to help someone like that in need. We haven't seen him since, but we pray that he is okay.

This past week was amazing and I've seen the Lord help us a lot. I love you. He loves you.
Elder Smith

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