I hope everything is going great back home. I can’t believe that it’s already P-Day again. Time is flyin. All is well here in el CCM. All of the new elders have arrived and there are a TON of them. Apparently this is one of the biggest groups that they have ever had. I believe that there are over 50 new gringos and 40 or so Latinos. So, needless to say, things have been pretty crazy. We have to wait quite a while now for meals which isn’t the best, but there are some pretty cool guys in this new group. We got two Latinos in the room across from us: Elder DeLeon from Mexico and Elder Nabarrete from Equador. They are super awesome. Elder DeLeon is the best soccer player I have ever seen. He is going to play professionally in Mexico after his mission. You could say we make quite the dynamic duo on the soccer pitch. ;) One of the best parts of my mission so far has been all of the people I have been able to meet. Everyone is from somewhere different and all bring unique cultures and stories. It’s awesome. The cool part is we all are united with one purpose: to invite others to come unto Christ.
Spanish is really coming along. It’s getting easier each week to speak and to understand. We now teach two mock investigators every day. At first, we started with one lesson a day for about 5-10 minutes but now we are having a hard time fitting in all that we want to say in 20 minutes. Our grammar is still a little shaky, but we can say anything we want. At least when talking about the gospel. So it’s been nice to see improvement in that aspect. We have our proselyting activity on Saturday where we go on splits with the missionaries from the Lima East Mission and go talk to the people on the street and teach lessons. I’m pretty excited yet nervous to get my first taste of the mission field. It’ll be a good experience.
Well, I don’t have a ton to write about this week so I’ll close with a few quick thoughts from a talk by Elder Bednar. He said that having a testimony of the Gospel is only the first step, and that we need to obtain “true conversion”. And when we obtain true conversion, we will never fall away. He said that we cannot base our conversion on the exterior like people or things, but that it must be a very personal conversion to the Lord. Are we continually exercising our faith every day? Are we trying to know more today than we did yesterday? I promise as we continually show effort to the Lord, we can come closer to true conversion, and we will never fall away.
In this talk, Elder Bednar also issued a challenge. He challenged everyone listening to buy a cheap paperback copy of the Book of Mormon, and to write one question in one of the front blank pages, and to read through the entire book with your question in mind. He also said to mark and highlight the answers you find. I’m going to accept this challenge from Elder Bednar and I invite you to do the same. I know this can be a great way to receive an answer to a question.
I will talk to you all next week! Life is good. The gospel is true.
Elder Bailey
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