Week 33

Buenas Tardes!

Espero que todo esta bien con ustedes. This week was pretty solid. On Saturday we had the two baptisms of Kevin and Guadalupe! I believe I talked about them last week, but they are just two studs. They had attended church when they were really young but were never baptized. One day they showed up at church with their Uncle Jimmy, and Elder Randall and his last companion Elder Mariño, started teaching them. Like I said last week, they are some of the most prepared people to receive the gospel that I have ever seen. It was amazing to see the progression of their testimonies. They are just two of the happiest people I know, too. They always are just smiling and have a good attitude about everything. Man, I love those two. :) It is always such a great experience to witness individuals come unto Christ and be baptized. That is definitely one of the blessings of missionary work.

As great as the baptism was, just like every baptism I’ve had, we had a few obstacles to tackle leading up to it. First, when we showed up on Saturday morning to clean the font. We opened the door to the baptistry and it looked like no one had been in there for like 20 years. There was a layer of dirt and dust probably half an inch thick over everything. It was pretty bad, lol. However, as bad as it was, we only had about 30 minutes to clean and start filling the font before our district meeting. We just shrugged our shoulders, threw on some masks, grabbed the brooms and went to town cleaning that bad boy. After we got it looking somewhat decent, we turned on the water to start filling up the font and ran into another problem. We went outside to use the shutoff valve to hold the water in the font but when we got out there, there wasn’t any kind of shutoff valve. We talked to some of the construction guys who had been working there on our church, and apparently they had trashed the old valve and had plans to replace it. So the water that was going into the font was just draining out the bottom. At this point, we started to panic a little and didn’t know what to do. When it seemed all hope was lost, I went down into the font one last time to see if I could somehow plug the font to keep the water in. I pulled off the little grate at the bottom of the font to find a little drain with some pipe threads. All those hours I worked at Durk’s Plumbing Supply paid off, as I knew exactly what we needed. ;) We jogged over to the local hardware store and bought us a nice 1 1/2 “ threaded plug to fix up that font. So yeah, it was kind of a miracle that we were even able to have the baptism, but everything worked out fine. :)

On Friday our ward had a “teatrin de escrituras” or “scripture theater.” It was actually a super awesome activity where every organization in our ward acted out a story from the scriptures. It was really fun to see all the different groups and organizations put on a show. My favorite act was definitely the recreation of David and Goliath by the High Priests. Some of those guys have a future in acting for sure. Also, me and Elder Randall played our part and sang “Come Thou Fount” and were accompanied by a guy in our ward who plays the violin named Carlos. It turned out pretty good. We’re harvesting some hidden singing talents out here.

So on Thursday we had a little bit of a rough/funny experience with our investigator named Claudia. Things are always kind of difficult when we teach her, but this day was extra tough. First, we usually teach her outside her house and we were there at about 3-4 in the afternoon, so the sun was just beating on our necks. Also, a few minutes into the lesson her dad comes out and starts welding some project and beating a hammer super loud so we could not hear anything, so we were getting a little frustrated. But to top it all off, as we started to teach her about the importance of the Book of Mormon (she didn’t read like she said she would), one of those stray dogs with the super wrinkly faces casually walks up to the side of my chair where my backpack was sitting, lifts his leg, and starts peeing directly on my bag, haha. I hurried and pulled my bag away and had to refrain from drop kicking that dog, lol. Elder Randall could not stop laughing. So yeah, that was a pretty rough lesson. It’s definitely a story we’ve been laughing at this whole week and will remember for a long time. Also, if you were wondering how a typical lesson goes here in Peru, there ya go. :) Good times. Like I say often, I’m developing my patience out here in the mission. In all types of ways, haha.

To finish, I want to talk a little about what I talked about in my lesson in our district meeting. I shared this quote that I really like by Pres. Ezra Taft Benson, “We are commanded by God to take this gospel to all the world. That is the cause that must unite us today. Only the gospel will save the world from the calamity of its own self-destruction. Only the gospel will unite men of all races and nationalities in peace. Only the gospel will bring joy, happiness, and salvation to the human family.” When I read the quote I think of super heroes. Everyone loves to watch these super hero movies like Spiderman, Captain America, or Batman, and see these great action stories of how they each save the world in a big dramatic way. However, as missionaries we are out here saving the world in a much quieter and personal way. We carry this true message of Christ to truly save the world. We have such a great responsibility as missionaries to carry this message forward to a world that desperately needs it. We are really saving the world out here. 

Well, that is about it for this week! It is definitely an adventure being out here with Elder Randall. Even though every single moto-taxi tries to rip us off for being two gringos, we still love being together out here. It’s really one of the coolest experiences of my life. I’m really grateful for this mission and the changes it is making in my life. It’s definitely hard at times, but it is always worth it. Talk to you all next week!

Avanza Su Verdad!

Elder Bailey

#HeAZuck

#PuttinInWork

#TakeNote