Week 69

¿Otra semana ya pasó?

This week definitely had its ups and downs. Lately we have been trying so hard to get  good handful of investigators progressing, but just about every new investigator that we teach, we aren’t able to find them on the return visit. It’s a little frustrating when you set a specific time and day to visit someone really cool, and you make the trek out to their house only to have one of their neighbors yell at you, shake their head and say, “No están!” (They aren’t home!) Sometimes I really feel like we are really just fighting the culture here in Tumbes, as they definitely aren’t the most commitment-making people I've seen.  They love to say, “If you find me in my house, I’ll listen to you guys!” That makes difficult life for two missionaries with specific-planned daily schedules, but we’re trying to have patience and not to worry about the things that are out of our control. However, despite the numerous appointments that fell through, we did happen to find two gems this week. 

On Friday, I had my first “bible-bash” session that actually turned out for our good. For the past few weeks, Elder Westergard and I have been teaching a 20 year-old kid named Jean Carlos, who is absolutely a nut with his Bible. This guy knows just about every single book, chapter, verse. and word of the Bible, and loves to share what he knows with everyone. However, when we knocked on his door the first time, he was actually pretty intrigued by our message and accepted to keep listening to us. We taught him for a few times, an he was actually looking like a solid investigator. However, on Friday when we showed up to visit him, he was sitting outside his house and he didn’t look too happy to see us. He started to give us the classic excuses that he’s "too busy to keep listening to us” and that he “never has time” and so on. We knew he obviously had some kind of doubt about what we taught, so we tried to dig it out of him. after a little searching, he finally came out and said that the problem was the book that we gave him. He said that the whole idea of “another Bible” just confused him, and that he just didn’t like the idea. The funny thing is, when I asked him if he had even read the book and as with most doubters he said that he hadn’t. I asked him how he could say the accusing things he was saying when he hadn’t even read a word of the book and then he started to throw at us a bunch of random Bible passages that didn’t have any relevance. After a little Bible-bashing I opened up to 2 Nephi 29 and handed him my book to read verses 7-10: 

7 Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth?

8 Wherefore murmur ye, because that ye shall receive more of my word? Know ye not that the testimony of two nations is a witness unto you that I am God, that I remember one nation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two nations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also.

9 And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that I speak forth my words according to mine own pleasure. And because that I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever.

10 Wherefore, because that ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written.

After reading those verses out loud, my comp and I both gave powerful testimonies of the Book of Mormon and that God still speaks to his children today. After hearing our testimonies, you could see Jean Carlos change a little, and that he was feeling something. From the look on his face, it looked like he was asking himself the question that we constantly want everyone to ask themselves: what if this is all actually true? He then softened his heart and accepted for us to come one more time, with our given commitment that he would actually read  and pray to know if it was true. After about 30 minutes of intense Bible-bashing with Jean Carlos, we finally came to a productive end. I’m so grateful for the Book of Mormon and for not only its power to bring us to Christ, but also to confound false doctrine and ideas that we see in today’s word. It really is evident that it was written for our day.

On Saturday we totally had a miracle. In the morning we were chilling at the church waiting for the zone to show up for our choir practice for our zone conference, when Elder Westergard looks at me out of the blue and tells me he wants to go buy snacks. So, we headed out next door to buy a few small things, and then started heading back to the church. Right before we headed back in, a man on the street randomly stopped us and started to ask us some questions about the church and what time our meetings were. We told him the day and time, and then asked him if he would like it if we visited him in his home, and he said he would love that. As we started to take his name and address, he told us his name was Daniel Antón, and that he lives in an area of Tumbes called Las Malvinas, and then gave us his street and house number. It was at that moment that I totally remembered a reference from a member about a month earlier for someone named Antón, that we had looked for a bunch of times but could never find where he lived. I flipped through my agenda to our references and sure enough, found that the reference that we had received weeks earlier was this exact guy with the exact same address. Coincidence? Nah, miracle. He gave us a few references by his house so that this time we would’t get lost, and we told him that we’d pass by later that day. When we showed up to his house, he was sitting patiently at the door waiting for us. We taught him, about baptism by immersion to follow Christ’s example ad he gladly accepted a baptismal date. He so easily accepted to be baptized that we also invited him to go with us that same afternoon to a baptism that we were having in the zone, and he also accepted. We went with him and he loved it. Daniel is super excited to keep learning and to work towards his baptism. What a miracle. Sometimes, like in this case with my companion, being hungry can be a spiritual prompting, ha ha. 

Mormon 9:15:

15 And now, O all ye that have imagined up unto yourselves a god who can do no miracles, I would ask of you, have all these things passed,  of which I have spoken? Has the end come yet? Behold I say unto you, Nay; and God has not ceased to be a God of miracles.

This week I had round 3 with getting the in-grown toenails removed! I’m definitely not liking how often I’m having to do this, haha, Your big toe isn’t really the funnest place to get numbing shots. I’m highly considering just getting all my toenails completely taken off. The good news is I’m starting to become pretty good buds with the doctor here in Tumbes!

Have a good Thanksgiving! Love you all.

Avanza Su Verdad!

Elder Bailey

Week 68: You Can't Buy Happiness

Redemption!  Remember what happened last week with the blown opportunity with the rabbit feet?  Well, sometimes life throws you second chances.  So after we completely messed up the first set of feet, we told the failure story to our recent convert, Olivia, and joked with her saying that if her white rabbit that she was currently raising ever died, that she should know who to call.  Surely enough, about a day or two later, we got the call from Olivia saying that her beloved rabbit had died, and that if we wanted to come take the feet we could.  So, without delay we hustled over with our knives to Olivia’s house.  The funny thing is, Olivia told us over the phone that her rabbit had “died”, as if it had peacefully passed away in its sleep or something.  When we got to her house, the scene looked a little different.  Some other animal (we assume) had brutally murdered this poor guy, and left his head hanging by a piece of flesh. The good news is we were still able to harvest the four feet, and with a little better advice, preserve them with alcohol and borax.  So, I don’t know what we did to deserve a second chance on making some genuine rabbit foot souvenirs, but we were able to capitalize on the opportunity!

Apart from the rabbit redemption, I also received some AWESOME news this week.  I got word that one of my most special converts from the beginning of my mission, Mercedes, has received her mission call to serve in the Guatemala Coban mission!  She is honestly so special to me and will be a great missionary without doubt.  I am so lucky to have knocked on her door and to have helped play a small part in her conversion to the Lord.  It is crazy for me to think that just about a year ago she had never really even heard of the church, and now she is preparing to carry the Lord’s gospel into Guatemala to change the lives of the people there.  I knew from the second that I met her that she was someone highly prepared and ready to receive the gospel.  She had her door knocked on, was taught the gospel, was converted and baptized, and received a mission call to serve all in a span of a year’s time.  What a conversion story.  ¡¡Felicitaciones Mercedes!!

On Thursday we headed out to my old stomping grounds in La Cruz to visit the other district’s meeting.  We taught a class on how we can better follow the impressions of the spirit when we teach, and to stay away from robot-like teaching.  We always have to remember that we teach people, not lessons.  After the meeting, we went to visit my old pensionista, Jenny, and her family.  It was really good to see them again.  I promised her husband, Jim, awhile back that we would meet up and go to the 2026 World Cup in Mexico, so he was sure to remind me of my promise.  They are awesome people.

On Friday I had a nice little work visit with one of my good pals, Elder Thiel.  We visited a few of his investigators and also some member families.  One of the families we visited was a young couple that had 3 young kids, who had some of the most humble circumstances ever seen.  They basically all live in a small wooden barn with a hard dirt floor, that has no running water and only one small bulb to give them light.  The walls and ceiling inside were all rusting out, and they didn’t seem like they had much to eat.  Despite their living conditions, this small member family of five was completely happy. They had their family together and they had the gospel, and they knew they didn’t need much more.  What a lesson it was to me to see what truly brings happiness:  Our families and the gospel.  The amazing thing to me is that the parents have been saving up for some time now to make the trip down to Trujillo to be sealed there in the temple as a family.  They have plans to leave next week.  It was also really a humbling experience for me at the end of the visit when they asked if we could offer a prayer to dedicate their home, and they asked if I would offer it.  I agreed, and we all knelt down in the cold dirt to bless their home to be a place where the spirit could reside, and a place where they could raise their eternal family.  The spirit was so strong, and you could feel the sense of gratitude to the Lord that this humble family had for their home.  I will never forget that experience.

If you need another reminder that material possessions don’t directly make you happy, just take a look at the group of kids we found this week who, while taking a white plastic box from a trash pile and sledding down the dirt hill together, had absolutely the time of their lives. Some kids these days complain because they don’t have the newest iPhone or Xbox, but these cute kids were completely content and happy with their makeshift trash sled, and I imagine they were there for hours just having a good time.  Sometimes I think we are way too caught up in the unimportant things in life, and don’t focus on what really makes us happy.

On Saturday Genesis had her baptism!  It was a really great experience to be able to baptize her a member of the church and to see the cute smile on her face after she came up out of the water.  She has been a great example for me and especially for her family, who are now becoming active again in the church thanks to her.  Baptisms are always the best.

The past few weeks I have started another read through in the Book of Mormon, I’ve been reading it with a “filter” in mind that comes from 1 Nefi 6:5-6:

“Wherefore, the things which are pleasing unto the world I do not write, but the things which are pleasing unto God and unto those who are not of the world.  Wherefore, I shall give commandment unto my seed, that they shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men.”

Every single thing that we read in the Book of Mormon has its purpose.  We should be constantly asking ourselves as we read “Now why is this here?” or “Why would they want me to know this?”  We know that the plates that the Book of Mormon prophets wrote on weren’t very big, and they took a long time to write.  So, we know every part of the book has its purpose.  We need to be constantly reading and looking for those purposes and applying them to our lives!

Hasta la próxima!

Avanza Su Verdad!

Elder Bailey

Week 67

This week was a good one!  I’m settling in here with my new companion Elder Westergard.  He’s the man and a really good missionary even though I think he brought a little bit of bad luck with him, lol.  Like I said, this week was a good one in general but not so great in our proselyting area.  It just seemed like EVERY appointment or contact we had fell through, we couldn’t find anybody in their houses, and nobody wanted to answer their phone.  It was definitely frustrating and a test of patience this week for me.  If you can’t find your investigators to teach them, they’re never going to progress.  That simple.  But as any missionary knows, you’re gonna have good weeks and not-so-great weeks.  So, we just need to get back on the horse and keep riding.  We’re excited for what’s coming in this transfer together in our area, but also for the zone.   We’re working to see those miracles happen! 

Well to start off with a funny story, Tuesday night we were heading back to the room after a good days work when in one of the normal trash piles that you see everywhere we saw something a little out of the ordinary.  We saw a big white rabbit that looked like it had just barely died from getting hit by a motor taxi or something laying the trash.  After checking the poor guy out for a little, the best idea that I’d received in a long time came into my head:  what would be a cooler souvenir from Peru than a REAL rabbit’s foot??  Ever since I’ve been here, I’ve always been on the lookout for some genuine and unique things to take home with me to remember my mission by, so yeah, you already know that I had to run to the room to grab my knife to do a little amputation on our little friend.  After cutting off each limb one by one, Elder Westergard and I headed back to the room to clean the harvested feet.  To our best judgement (we are not hunting or taxidermy experts), we thought it would be good idea to soak the feet overnight in bleach to preserve them.  So that is what we did.  When we got up Wednesday morning to check them out, we found ourselves quite the surprise:  due to sitting in 100% bleach the entire night,  all the white rabbit fur on the feet had COMPLETELY  burned off, leaving us 4 nasty alien-looking rabbit feet, ha ha ha.  We were pretty bummed for messing up our lucky rabbit feet, but we got a pretty good laugh out of it.  The fun thing is that our souvenirs now actually are more Peruvian, as they match all the dogs, cats, and other hairless animals that live here.  So I am sure we’re going to have a quite a few baptisms coming our way due to all the luck we have with our 4 hairless rabbit’s feet.

Wednesday afternoon we took yet again the long and dreaded 6 hour bus ride down to Piura for leaders council.  The ride down actually wasn’t too bad, as we got on the “luxary prime” bus that had air conditioning!  They were also playing a bizarre action movie starting Nicolas Cage and John Travolta that we saw glimpses of that was absolutely hilarious.  The leaders council went pretty well, even though it was really painful to report that our zone had only baptized 2 people all of last transfer.  We have lots of room to improve, and I know we can only go up from here.  We also set some new goals for the mission and talked about how we are going to reach those goals.  As 2019 rolls in, we are going to really start working a lot more with members, and trying to strengthen the branches, wards and stakes.  We are excited to see what the future holds for the mission.

Friday night we did an AWESOME zone activity in the cemetery for el Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).  We rounded up as many pass along cards, folletos, and Book of Mormons as we could find and made our way over to the local cemetery locked and loaded to just contact the people during their massive celebration  I wasn’t really able to get any great pictures, but if any of you have seen the Disney movie “coco”, the scene looked exactly the same.  The cemetery was absolutely filled with people all over the place taking flowers and gifts to their loved ones that have died.  It’s cool because the people there all described what they were doing as “visiting” their loved ones, and they would just sit their at their graves for hours as if they were there with them in person.   The coolest part though is how the whole cemetery is completely lit with candle light.  There’s not really any big street lights or flashlights or anything.  It was just a super cool atmosphere.  It makes me a little sad that we don’t have such a cool celebration for our ancestors and loved ones back in the states like they have here.  Overall the activity was really successful, as we found a ton of really great references.  It was really fun to talk with all the random people and learn about all their families and to give them hope of a life after death.

On Saturday we had a training meeting with our district leaders in our zone.  We talked with them about how we can better the zone from last transfer, and also our goal and plans for this transfer.  We talked about how we all want to see miracles, but it will take doing all the small, mundane, little things to see those miracles.  We are trying to focus on holding yourselves to a higher standard this transfer and always do things the right way, not the easy way.  Also we are really focusing on receiving personal revelation for each of our individual area.  Hopefully we can turn those plans into action.

On Sunday we had quite the church experience. While on our way to church in the morning, we made our normal pass by to our crazy friend, old man Sergio.  Sergio lives just outside our apartment, and has definitely had one too many drinks in his life, or maybe has been a drug addict in the past because it is safe to say that he’s not all the way there in his head.  However, he’s a super nice guy and always smiles and says “Hello gringos!” when we pass by.  We’ve talked to him before about visiting him, but he never really wanted to.  However, this Sunday when we passed by, instead of this regular morning greeting he jumped up and said, “I’m coming to church today!”  Elder Westergard and I just looked at each other, shrugged the shoulders, smiled, and told him to come along with us.  When we got to church, he sat quietly for the sacrament and also as people go up to give their testimonies.  Then out of no where, he grabs my shoulder and says, “I’m going to give my testimony!”  Before I could stop him to explain what type of things to say, Sergio bounded up to the pulpit and started preaching just about the most bizarre doctrine I’ve ever heard, ha ha.  He started off by yelling into the microphone that the “kingdom of heaven is at hand" and that the end of the world is going to happen this week, and then started to explain how the earth has grown 7 times bigger in size in the past few years and that it’s all because of resurrected robots that are taking over.  It was absolutely hilarious but at the same time uncomfortable, ha ha. All the members were at the same time super uncomfortable, ha ha.  All the members were looking at us like, “this is your investigator??”  After about a good 5 minutes of preaching, a member of the stake presidency who was in attendance finally asked him to wrap it up and go sit down.  When he came back down from the pulpit he asked me how he did.  I just smiled at him with a thumbs up and said, “You killed it!”  I’m never going to forget that sacrament meeting experience.  You really do see something new every single day here.

Well that’s all she wrote folks.  I truly love this work and who it’s making me in to. There is nothing more satisfying than having your head hit the pillow at night completely exhausted after diligently giving your all to the Lord that day.  This is the best and probably most important work that I’ll ever do.  I just want to give Him my all with no regrets.  Talk to y’all next week.

“El respeto vale mas que la fama”

Avanza su Verdad!

Elder Bailey