The work here in our area is moving forward! Right now we are working closely with a handful of people who are genuinely interested in the gospel and are attending church. A few weeks ago we started teaching a 15-year old stud named Arni, who we found outside his house one day fighting his beloved pet chicken against his friend’s chicken. We stopped to watch the fight and then after we were able to sit them down and teach them. Arni liked the message, and so we’ve been teaching him for a few weeks now. We are also teaching a young couple named Carlos and Mercy. They have been receiving the missionaries for quite some time now, and the only thing that is keeping them from being baptized is that they aren’t married and are living together. That’s definitely the big challenge with everyone here. When you knock a door and teach a family, you can just automatically assume that they are not married. It’s a little frustrating sometimes. I’ve yet to find a couple here (that aren’t members of the church) that have been married. So, right now they have plans to get married on the 28th of July, and to be baptized on August 4th. Hopefully everything will go as planned! We are definitely being showered with blessings from the Lord right now. We are finding lots of new families to teach, and things are looking good. The work is great here.
As good as the investigators are coming along, we are still struggling a little bit in the strength of the ward. This Sunday we took a huge hit in our overall church attendance as a ward, maybe due to the fact that the World Cup final was right during our sacrament meeting. Each week the bishop tries to hold ward council, but all the leaders of the ward bounce out of there after the 3-hour block. It’s a little frustrating and a test of patience, especially when we want to ask for support from the members for our investigators. We are going to start visiting the members a little more during this week to help strengthen them. In thinking about trying to strengthen our tiny ward here, I think of how hard it must have been for the prophet Joseph Smith and his colleagues to newly establish Christ’s church in the year 1830 with only 6 members. It’s nothing short of a miracle and evidence of the truthfulness of the gospel that it was able to grow and expand from 6 members in 1830 to millions of members in hundreds of countries today, in such a short amount of time. It truly is a marvelous work that is unfolding and I’m so grateful to be a part of it.
For P-day today, we headed up to Tumbes to play a zone vs. zone soccer match on a full-sized field. It was super fun to get out and play on a huge field, rather then the little concrete courts that we’re all accustomed to here in the mission. Let’s just say that me and Elder Randall are quite the dynamic duo for zone Tumbes, and that you can save us a spot on the US national team when we get home. ;)
Well that’s the quick update for this week. Like I always say, I’m grateful for the chance I have to be out here serving the Lord at this time. Although it’s hard work, and things don’t always go as planned, it’s always so rewarding. I absolutely love representing the two best names in the world on my chest: the name of my savior Jesus Christ and my family name of Bailey. What a blessing!
Avanza Su Verdad!
Elder Bailey
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