Well, this week I’m going to make up for all the time I haven’t written by doing the informes last, meaning that I don’t have any other option but to stay in the Internet hub until I finish. That’ll probably mean I’m here until Tuesday because they changed the informes again, but ¡caballero no más! (There´s some Peruvian slang for you!)
Anyway, to tell you about all that’s happened these past four weeks (I’ll include many pictures to make up for it)…
So last time I finished by talking about the Noche de Frutas, so from there we’ve had a couple of miracles. First, the following Saturday we were guided by God to visit a member of the ward that lives in the section of our area that we were planning to visit that day. We weren’t really sure why we felt that we should do it, but we did, and we discovered that she’d recently had a fight with her in-laws and it had left her feeling down. When we entered her house and started talking to her, she admitted that she had been praying that we would come, but didn’t want to bother us by calling and asking… But her Heavenly Father knew, so He sent us! We were able to share some thoughts that helped her, and we gave her a blessing to help her.
(We almost had the same experience with another woman in the ward, but that time we didn’t follow the prompting and ended up passing by a few days too late. I didn’t like learning that I’d failed in my calling as a servant of Jesus Christ, but I learned that even if we fail to follow the guidance that He gives us, He’ll find another way to get it done! She received help in another way, but still… I really don’t like to let people down.)
I wrote about another one of the miracles and sent it to my mission president so he could share it with the rest of the mission (it’s something cool that we do here in MPLN). It’s in Spanish, so if you try to translate it with Google and it doesn’t sound right, try translating sentence by sentence. If you know Spanish and it doesn’t sound right, it’s probably because I messed up the grammar a little or something. (Fun fact: Spanish is considered the second most difficult worldwide language to master!) Anyway, it’s a really cool experience I had, so it’s worth translating it:
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Un día sábado mi compañero y yo estábamos caminando (había caído una cita) y sentí contactar a un hombre sentado en las escaleras frente a una casa. Al hablar con él, era muy obvio que estaba borracho y nos dijo que no tenía ganas de hacer nada. Nos contó que no comía, no trabajaba, sólo tomaba y dormía en la calle — ni tenía ganas de ir a la casa de sus hijas o sus padres. Ni tenía ganas de vivir. (Y, porque estaba borracho, ¡nos dijo estas cosas unas 4 veces y no nos dejó hablar mucho!)
El tiempo se alargó y pensé, “Estamos gastando nuestro tiempo acá,” pero algo (me di cuenta más adelante que era el Espíritu) me dijo, “No le dejes así – él es un hijo de Dios y necesita ayuda.” Entonces esperaba por un tiempo para hablar y, cuando el hombre terminó, di mi testimonio del Plan de salvación y sentí prometerle, en el nombre de Jesucristo, que si él leyera el folleto de lección 2 que le dejamos y buscaba a Dios en oración, él recuperaría las ganas de vivir. Terminamos y fuimos.
No pensé mucho de éso, pero el siguiente lunes le encontramos en la calle, todavía borracho, pero esta vez caminando y sonriente. Me dijo, mientras me abrasaba, que él había leído el folleto (¡e incluso había contestado las preguntas en la parte atrás!) y sentido una paz. Tenía las ganas de vivir y trabajar, estaba viviendo con sus padres, y hasta quería dejar de tomar. Dijo que mis palabras y el mensaje del folleto había cambiado su corazón y nos agradeció entre abrazos que olían a alcohol.
Hasta ahora no sé nada de qué pasó con este hombre, pero estoy agradecido que le pude ayudar un poco en su vida. Aprendí que nunca es un gasto de tiempo el intentar compartir el Evangelio, aún cuando toma un rato para hacerlo, y que los folletos realmente son inspirados por Dios.
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[Jeff’s translation, courtesy of Google Translate]
One Saturday my companion and I were walking (an appointment had fallen through) and I felt the impression to contact a man sitting on the stairs in front of a house. Speaking to him, it was very obvious that he was drunk, and he told us that he did not feel like doing anything. He told us that he didn’t eat or work, and slept in the street. He didn’t feel like going to his daughter’s or parents’ house. He just didn’t feel like living. (And, because he was drunk, he told us these things about four times and didn’t let us talk too much!)
Time stretched and I thought, “We are spending our time here,” but something (I realized later that it was the Spirit) said, “Do not leave him like this – he is a child of God and needs help.” I waited for a while to speak, and when the man finished I shared my testimony of the Plan of Salvation and promised him in the name of Jesus Christ that if he read the lesson booklet that we left him, and sought God in prayer, he would regain the will to live. We finished and left.
I didn’t think much of that, but the next Monday we found him in the street, still drunk, but this time walking and smiling. He told me that he had read the pamphlet (and even answered the questions in the back!). And he felt a peace. He wanted to live and work, was now living with his parents, and even wanted to stop drinking. He said that my words and the message of the brochure had changed his heart. He thanked us between hugs that smelled of alcohol.
I don’t know what happened to this man, but I am grateful that I could help him a bit in his life. I learned that it is never a waste of time to try to share the gospel, even when it takes a while to do so, and that the brochures are really inspired by God.
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Another miracle that happened recently: I FOUND SOMEONE I BAPTIZED IN ANOTHER AREA! Her name’s Flor, and I lost contact with her a while back because the last time I was over there in Collique was almost a year ago, but one day we ran into her on the street!… And she lives here in my area! Since then she’s kind of distanced herself from the church, so I have the opportunity to see where I went wrong the first time!
Another miracle from these past weeks (Man, I’m just getting little miracles left and right! Really, the secret is just the mindset — looking for the little miracles in everything and giving thanks to God for them.) happened when I actually wasn’t there. I was in a work visit in another area and my companion, along with Elder Gallardo, visited one of our investigators who is progressing toward baptism and has told us several times that he wants to be baptized. Unfortunately they didn’t manage to find him, but they found his wife, who was very happy to see them. She told them she had been praying that someone would find her husband and talk to him to change him… and then, a few weeks ago, we had shown up and taught him! (This, in itself, was another miracle; I’ll put it down below*). She then explained that since then her husband had been changing — and we’ve only visited him a handful of times! If someone is willing to make changes in their life, even small ones, to become closer to God, they automatically change and become better as a result!
*Anyway, to explain the miracle that happened with this man, Juan: We were walking down the street late at night on a Saturday and, honestly, I was a little down. We hadn’t been able to find the people we were looking for, so we were just looking for a few others that we knew lived nearby. As we were walking, we saw him sitting on the curb outside their home with his wife. I didn’t want to contact him because I always feel uncomfortable when I contact (and because we hadn’t had much success with contacting lately), but something told me to. So I said hey and asked them, “Do you like to read?” His response caught me off guard: “Yes, I love to read!” Kind of in shock, I asked, “And if I give you a book that talks about the visit of Jesus Christ to the Americas, would you read it?” Excitedly, he said, “Yes! I didn’t know that he came here! How interesting!” We continued talking and ended up explaining about how this book, the Book of Mormon, came to be. And in between that cita and the next that we set, he read everything that we recommended and was really excited! Now, he calls us his amigos and wants to be baptized, but “later on” he says. It’s awesome!
And then, of course, we had Mother’s Day! I got to talk to the family, and for everyone who reads my emails and stuff, I wish you a happy Mother’s Day next year. (Sadly, I kind of didn’t write it for Mother’s Day this year, so I decided to get a jump start on Mother’s Day for next year so that I don’t have any problems forgetting it or not having time to write or something like that!) And, of course, I hope all of you mothers out there feel every day that your families appreciate you, even if we only truly celebrate it once a year!
Now, for the photos of all the other fun stuff we’ve done:
First, we did some service moving a bunch of rock so it could be hauled out:
The family gave us bandanas to protect our faces from the sun (I really needed that! As you all know, if I don’t do something for my face, I end up with a really red face for the next few days!)
Here’s us eating dinner. The best part of the mission is that we choose what we eat!
(Just so you know, we don’t normally eat like this. Today we were celebrating!)
Something else cool: Lately we’ve started teaching English classes to generate some interest and also as a little service. We had a pretty good turnout for the first class:
… And we’re expecting a lot more this week!
Lastly, we had an activity to explain what the mission’s like, with all the potential missionaries and all the returned missionaries (Sadly, the majority of the people that showed up were those who have already gone through the mission and already know what it’s like…):
Now it’s 3:00 PM and I only have until 6:00 PM for P-Day… Hope you all enjoy the massive email to make up for everything I haven’t said, and next week I’ll let you know what other changes are going on around here (We have cambios tomorrow!) See ya!
— Elder Schroeder