23 months down!

Wow, it’s crazy to think that I hit 23 months in the mission last week! After September 26th, I’ll officially be the oldest missionary in the ENTIRE MISSION! I’LL HAVE MORE TIME IN THE PERU LIMA NORTH MISSION THAN EVEN THE MISSION PRESIDENT! So that’s kind of crazy to think about…

… And that also means that exactly 1 day before I complete 25 months, I’m home!

Well, I’m not really sure what to write about this week because it’s been pretty routine; that’s why I didn’t write last week. I guess I’ll just write some of the quick little miracles that I’ve seen lately, but I’m going to do it in Spanish just because I can! (And because my autocorrect is set for Spanish and sometimes it’s just easier without all the little red lines under the English I write… Haha!)

Hace tres semanas atrás hablamos con una joven que se llama Melanie, la hija de un miembro que ya no va a la Iglesia. Ella ha estado yendo por un buen tiempo ya pero no ha tenido el deseo de bautizarse o hacer mucho más (de lo que nosotros sabíamos, por lo menos). Pero este domingo pasado hablamos con ella un ratito acerca del bautismo y cómo se sintió en la Iglesia. Le dejamos un folleto del plan de salvación para leer y un capítulo del Libro de Mormón y planificamos pasar el martes. Cuando fuimos, descubrimos que había leído el folleto y parte del capítulo (era muy largo) y nos dijo que quiere bautizarse, pero primero quiere estar segura que es lo que debe hacer. ¡Normalmente no pasa algo así de un momento al otro!

Tenemos a otra investigadora que se llama Liz que ha estado progresando poco a poco pero que siempre nos ha dicho que no quiere que le presionemos para que se bautice. Ella quiere que los deseos de bautizarse vengan de ella misma, entonces le hemos enseñado con su esposo que ya es miembro y su hijo, Aramís, que ha querido bautizarse por un tiempo. El viernes fuimos a su casa para enseñarles nuevamente esta vez Liz nos dijo que quiere bautizarse y, con lágrimas en los ojos, dijo, que sabía que esto era lo correcto para ella y para su familia. Ella tenía el temor que solamente se bautizaría por emoción y por sus hijos, pero no por ella misma; ahora ella realmente sabe. Nos dijo que sabe que el Libro de Mormón es verdadero y que quiere ser parte de la Iglesia.
Durante todo este tiempo que les hemos estado enseñando, nos enfocábamos más en contestar las preguntas de Liz y no habíamos hablado tanto con Aramís. Cuando Liz dijo que quería bautizarse, Aramís estaba feliz pero dijo que ahora él no está seguro que debe bautizarse. Entonces Liz decidió que esperaría para bautizarse con su hijo.

Empezamos a enfocarnos en Aramís, contestando sus preguntas y dudas para ayudarle. Yo sabía que él quería bautizarse y que sabía que la Iglesia y el Libro de Mormón eran verdaderos, pero por sus dudas él quería esperar. Fuimos el viernes para hablar solamente con él y, con la ayuda de los asistentes, hablamos con él y le ayudó a decidir que debe bautizarse. Él todavía siente conflicto entre sí porque siente nervioso, pero ¡ha decidido que se bautizará el 23 de noviembre con su madre! Él está poniendo su fe a prueba pero sé que él tiene la fe suficiente para hacerlo y que va a sentir muy agradecido que tomó esta decisión.

[Courtesy of Google Translate] ———-

Three weeks ago we talked to a young woman named Melanie, the daughter of a member who is no longer going to church. She has been going for a long time now but has not had the desire to be baptized or do much more (than we knew, at least). But last Sunday we talked to her about baptism and how she felt in the Church. We left a pamphlet of the plan of salvation to read, and a chapter of the Book of Mormon, and planned to see her again on Tuesday. When we went, we discovered that she had read the booklet and part of the chapter (it was very long) and told us that she wants to be baptized, but first she wants to be sure what to do. Normally something like that never happens!

We have another investigator named Liz who has been progressing little by little, but who has always told us that she does not want us to pressure her to be baptized. She wants the desires to be baptized to come from herself. We have taught her with her husband (who is already a member) and her son, Aramis, who has wanted to be baptized for a while. On Friday we went to her house to teach them again. This time Liz told us that she wants to be baptized and, with tears in her eyes, said that she knew this was the right thing for her and her family. She had the fear that she would only be baptized by emotion and by her children, but not by herself; now she really knows. She told us that she knows the Book of Mormon is true and that she wants to be a part of the Church.

During all the time we have been teaching them, we focused more on answering Liz’s questions and we had not talked so much with Aramis. When Liz said she wanted to be baptized, Aramis was happy but said that now he is not sure that he should be baptized. Then Liz decided she would wait to be baptized with her son.

We started to focus on Aramis, answering his questions and doubts to help him. I knew that he wanted to be baptized and that he knew that the Church and the Book of Mormon were true, but because of his doubts he wanted to wait. We went on Friday to talk only with him and, with the help of the others, we talked with him and helped him to decide that he should be baptized. He still feels conflicted because he feels nervous, but he has decided that he will be baptized on November 23 with his mother! He is putting his faith to the test, and I know he has enough faith to do it and that he will feel very grateful that he made this decision.

———-

Now, for the stuff that’s a little less spiritual – but still very relevant: I accidentally wasted 100 soles on paperwork that I messed up on! It’s the first time I’ve ever made a mistake that’s actually costed a decent amount of money and it’s not a great thing, but I guess it’s a miracle that the only thing I messed up were these papers! I almost didn’t even notice until Elder Hewitson pointed it out to me! So that just made more stress for the 13th, which was both great and awful (for a time), because we had a conference with Elder Oaks, one of the twelve living apostles!

It’s cool to know that God continues to guide us today through living representatives like a prophet and twelve apostles; Elder Oaks and several other leaders in the Church taught us some very important things that we’ll use in our work to share the Gospel of Christ here in Peru. Some of the things they shared that I liked:

* The Gospel isn’t just about going from “unworthy” to “worthy”; the goal of our Heavenly Father is that we become “perfect” and gave His Son so that we can do it

* What we share isn’t just “a good idea” – it is quite literally the only way to return to live with our families forever

* Becoming saved is a personal matter, but becoming like Jesus Christ is a family matter

* Repenting for our sins and mistakes and becoming better isn’t God’s backup plan for us – repentance and change IS the plan!

* If we really want to receive answers from our Heavenly Father, we can’t just pray and ask – we have to pray and ask with a desire to act or change based on what we receive

So that part was a highlight of the week, but the three days preceding it and the several hours afterward were some of the most stressful moments here in the offices! I mean, if you don’t show up to hear a living apostle speak, you’re not just missing a Sunday school class, and since I’m secretario personal it was my job to coordinate everything that has to do with transportation! I made a plan, remade the plan, had to change the plan according to what Presidente Godfrey wanted (and also because the location and time changed), and contracted the buses. I made about 300 changes by the time I was finished, and on the actual day of the conference ONE OF THE BUSES BROKE DOWN! (And of course it has to be the only bus that we can’t possibly replace because it was the furthest away!)

Honestly, I probably would have laughed at how perfectly unfortunate that was, but I was too busy trying to find a solution! Luckily they got it working again and everything went well, but we had to make sure that everything went well… And then the 100 sol error that I made took about an hour of hunting people down after the conference to fix, so almost immediately after the conference I hit the ground running, so to speak, to find the people I was looking for… As a normal missionary you never have to worry about things like that after a spiritual conference, but there’s always more to do if you work in the offices! I love my job, except for the sporadic moments when problems arise! On the plus side, they keep life here interesting!

(In case you didn’t notice, the stress might be getting to me… Good thing it’s P-day!)

Anyway, to top this off, here’s some pictures from these last few weeks:

Papa John’s has a special that lets us get a second large pizza for just one sol more, so we took advantage of it:

… Unfortunately Elder Sánchez and Elder Castrejón are trying to lose weight and are on diets, so they fought their inner demons (And each other!) while they decided if they should eat the pizza or not:

“Look, we’ll just split it! It’s tiny!”
“No! We can’t eat that!… Well, maybe just a little, but you eat the first part!”
“No, you eat it! It’ll be so tasty but there’s so many calories…”
“Fine, then let’s not eat it!”
“No, how can we resist this?!… Here, eat it!”
“Yeah, OK, but I’ll eat it after you. You eat first!”

(I was over in the corner, dying!)

And here we are in the bus on the way to the conference:

(Man, I am not photogenic at all!)

– Elder Schroeder

OK, I’m REALLY far behind now because I haven’t had much time to write, even on P-Day, so I’ve got about 4 weeks to make up (I started with the last email I sent). But today I hope to be able to write everything, and to be able to add pictures I’m going to divide it up by weeks:

Week 2:

First, we went to a sealing! Elder Klein’s converts, Carlos and Karina, were sealed to each other and to their daughters for time and all eternity, meaning that even death won’t separate them. If you were wondering, here’s what an eternal family looks like:

(I wonder if “rabbit ears” exists in heaven, but if we inherited a sense of humor from God, it could be!)

This is the second sealing that I’ve ever been too, and again I was surprised by how quickly these covenants with our Heavenly Father take place. If you think about it, a baptism takes all of 30 seconds but is literally the only way to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven (even Jesus Christ needed to be baptized), and the sealing, the requirement for an eternal family, takes a half-hour (and most of that time is just waiting for all of the people who wanted to be present to show up!). Tiny things really do have a huge significance.

Oh, and who were all the people that showed up? From what I counted, about seven members and nine missionaries!

Why so many missionaries? Well, for one thing, Carlos, Karina, and their family are the best, and then they’re also famous in the mission because Carlos makes metal placas and Karina makes customized ties and skirts!

The temple was also a really cool experience for me because I gained an actual testimony that you can receive guidance when you’re there. I’ve been trying to be better about being more sincere when I teach people about Christ and how much his Gospel has helped me, but I’ve always had trouble. But I went to the temple that day and prayed to be able to be sincere… and it worked!… For about a week. Not really sure what happened there, but I’m glad I could be sincere for at least a few days because I saw several miracles. Here’s one that I shared (Sorry, it’s in Spanish):

“Uno de los milagros fue encontrar a Haydé, a quien encontramos después de casi dos horas sin que una persona nos dejara entrar para enseñarles – honestamente, ¡ni ella nos dejó entrar! Tocamos porque el miembro que me acompañaba conocía a sus hijas, pero no ellas estuvieron y parecía que Haydé no quería nada. Entonces pregunté, ‘¿Le gusta leer?’… ¡y ella dijo que no! En este momento algo me hizo cambiar mi manera de contactar y dije, ‘Tengo un libro que ha cambiado mi vida, y solamente pregunto porque quiero compartirlo con usted.’… El otro milagro allí fue que por quizás primera vez realmente SENTÍ lo que que dije – que el Libro de Mormón había cambiado mi vida y realmente quería compartirlo. Ella también sintió el Espíritu y cambió su actitud, y cuando ofrecí compartir un pequeño mensaje con ella aceptó (¡aunque todavía no nos dejó entrar!). Compartí un poco acerca de cómo el Evangelio ha cambiado mi vida y que Jesucristo le puede dar paz a ella, y al terminar me dijo, ‘¡Mire ésto! Yo estaba muy baja ¡y justo llegaron ustedes para traerme paz!'”

[Google Translate says: One of the miracles was to find Haydé, who we met after almost two hours without a person letting us in to teach them – honestly, she did not let us in either! The member who was with me knew his daughters, but they were not there and it seemed Haydé did not want anything. Then I asked, ‘Do you like to read?’ … and she said no! At this point something made me change my way of contacting and I said, ‘I have a book that has changed my life, and I only ask because I want to share it with you.’ … The other miracle there was that for maybe the first time I really MEANT what I said – that the Book of Mormon had changed my life and I really wanted to share it. She also felt the Spirit and it changed her attitude, and when I offered to share a small message with her she accepted (although she still would not let us in!). I shared a little about how the gospel has changed my life and that Jesus Christ can give her peace, and when I finished he said, ‘Look at this! I was very low and you just came to bring me peace!’]

Soooo… I need to work on getting that ability back!

Anyway, the next interesting thing has to do with my becoming the ugliest, most unfashionable vulture ever:

Elder Klein finished his mission on the 15th of August, so he left behind a whole bunch of stuff in order to pack his bags (looking at the things he left, it’s probably really easy to guess why!). So, like the vultures that we are, the other four of us in the offices starting taking all the leftovers.

Then I got to take everyone who was “dying” to the airport, and I also organized the busses for cambios!

… Talk about some of the 39 most stressful hours of my life! I say, “39 stressful hours” because THAT WAS HOW LONG I HAD TO STAY AWAKE IN ORDER TO DO IT!!!

Anyway…

Elder Klein had warned me that the day of cambios was by far the worst, and I believed him: My first day in the offices, he had stayed up for two days straight without sleeping and you could tell. Since we almost always send the U.S. missionaries home around midnight I actually planned my day using my Agenda with reversed times; instead of planning for “12pm” I scheduled for “12am”:

Each of the names on there are the missionaries and when their flights left, which should have all gone according to plan…

Here’s one of the pictures I took while we were checking in. You tell me if it was going according to plan or not:

Luckily no one missed their flight, but it was close! I’m not sure how, but they made it!

After that I took the next missionary to the airport, Elder Seminario, and picked up all the new missionaries that were coming in from Mexico (Apparently the CCM here in Peru isn’t big enough, so the 13 Elders that came from the U.S. went there instead.) This was by far the easiest part, but it’s going to mean a lot of work for me; normally the missionaries go through the Interpol process when they go through the CCM, but now I’ll have to do it at 6:00am… I’ve already realized that being sercretario personal means working 24-hour days (Or maybe even more!)… Luckily I’m not having too much trouble! There are some days when I’ve almost fallen asleep in lessons or during the car ride, but other than that I handle it just fine. I suppose it’s good practice for college!

For some reazon, I was confident that no one would miss their flight, despite the odds. The most stressful part was when I was organizing everything for the busses. Here we’ve been trying busses to take missionaries around the mission for their cambios, so we hire two busses that go around the mission (which is in a U-shape), each starting at one end and ending at the other, and the missionaries that need to get on climb on the bus, stick their luggage below, and get off when they get to their new zone. Here’s a map so you have an idea of what I’m talking about:

I should have known that we would have problems, simply because I had to work with more than 150 other people to do this. In a perfect world everyone would get on the right bus and get off at the right stop, but I know our mission isn’t in that world! Luckily it all worked out in the end!

The last part was taking Hermana Garibay to the airport at 6pm, and when I got back a little after 11pm I was finally able to sleep after 39 hours of work!… I I slept so hard that I didn’t wake up until 10am and even then it was hard. Elder Primo, one of the assistants, even shook me and yelled my name and I didn’t do anything, so I guess I was really tired!

So, because Elder Klein left, Elder Castrejón and I got a new companion: Elder Hewitson. The poor guy showed up only to:

* Watch Elder Castrejón and me work on a million things at once during cambios

* Watch me go to the airport

* Stay in the house until 11am because I slept in until 10

* Carry a microwave down from one of the biggest cerros I have climbed:

We met a new family that recently moved into our area, but the husband fell down while he was moving some things and hurt his back so much that he can’t move. So we helped out a little bit! (But seriously, that hill was ridiculous! They literally lived in the top of the hill and moved all the way to the bottom!) But we’re obviously very happy to help out a little bit – they’re going through some really hard times right now. It always feels good to help people.

Anyway, to finish things up, I had more days staying up really late (New record: 3 days of work with only 5 hours of sleep somewhere in there!), some crazy coordinating to do, and a baptism!

The baptism, obviously, was the best part! About six weeks ago we met a less-active member named Hanssel who hadn’t gone to church for several years, ever since his grandmother, who was a member, had died. Elder Primo had talked to him when he took them in his taxi and he lived in our area, Payet, so we visited him. We taught him about repentance and how Christ’s sacrifice lets us return to God and he immediately began to change his life, bringing his parents with him! His father, David, was a member, but his mother, Ana, had never decided to be baptized. When we started teaching them, she decided that she did and was baptized on the 19th. Here are the three of them:

It was really cool to see that because they had lost their way a little bit with all the things that happened to them over the years, but when we brought the Gospel back into their lives they immediately accepted it! They’re the best!

Now for the craziness: Apparently, the other missionaries in Peru have to come here to Lima to do some of the paperwork for their visas (I’ve never really thought about that before because I live and work in Lima, so it’s all somewhat close for me). Two missionaries from Piura had come in from their mission to do their work but one accidentally left his passport on the plane. By the time he realized it, the plane had already gone to Colombia, so he missed his return flight to Piura and had to stay here in the offices with us until they left at 5am the next day! Since I’m the secretary, I had to be in charge of that, so I stayed up until 2am to see them off. It’s just part of the job, but I never imagined something like that would happen! The phone call that I got to set it all up was the most confusing thing: the person calling just told me that two missionaries had gotten stuck here in Lima and needed a place to stay for the night, so they asked if they could stay in our offices! I had no clue what was going on!

Anyway, that’s all. Finally caught up! I’ll let you know how next week goes!

– Elder Schroeder