We were finally able to find quite a few new people to teach that look like they’ve got some good potential. It really felt like we were guided right to some of them. For example, on Tuesday we had quite a few appointments that fell through, so we just started wandering to a place that we had never before been to, contacting and knocking doors. To be honest, it felt weird to me to be in an unknown place like where we were, but we felt like we needed to keep going. Well, we kept going, and we just happened to stumble upon the house of the guy that we go to for our haircuts. His name is Ifrain and he is from Venezuela, and has been living here in Peru for a few months now. We had mentioned some of our beliefs with him before during some of our haircuts, but we were never able to get an appointment with him at his house. Well, it seemed as if we were guided by the spirit right to his house, and we were able to teach he and his wife a powerful lesson on the Restoration. They liked the message and are excited for us to come back. I’m grateful for the gift of the spirit and for how it’s always willing to guide us in our lives.
On Friday morning, we were hit with quite the big surprise. Around 10:00 a.m. during our studies, we got a call from President
Vega telling us that he was outside our room, and wanted us to come down and open the door for him. We hustled down to open the door, and found President and Sister Vega there, wanting to come in to do a "surprise room inspection”. It definitely caught us a little off guard, but we let them in for the inspection. Our room was pretty clean at that moment, but definitely we could have touched a few things up if we knew Mr. President was coming. President Vega, being the military guy that he is, burned us pretty hard for some of the things in the room like the dusty floor, unorganized supplies closet, and our less-than perfect bathroom. He hit us pretty hard for some of those things, but it’s not like he wasn’t telling the truth. We really could have had the room in better shape. It wasn’t the most fun thing in the world to receive that kind of criticism, but all we could do was just nod our heads, accept it, and be better. :) After our room check, President had us come with them to do surprise visits the other rooms in the zone. The rest of the zone didn’t do so hot either, and it looks like at least 3 areas are going to be changing rooms. So, you could say that the room inspections in Tumbes went well, lol. Having these out of the blue room inspections really made me think of the parable of the 10 virgins. Always gotta be preparing ourselves to be 100% ready when the time comes so that we will be comfortable in His presence!
On Saturday we went to one of the coolest baptisms I’ve ever been to. The Elders in Zorritos had a baptism of an 18-year-old Venezuelan kid named Victor, and had it in the ocean! When I was in La Cruz, that was always something I had wanted to do, but never got the chance. The elders had been teaching Victor for quite a while, and finally got him in the water. A few weeks ago I got to meet Victor and have gotten to know him pretty well. He’s living here in Peru by himself, trying to get some money for his family back in Venezuela. He’s a really cool kid. The baptism was super awesome, even though right after the ordinance both Elder Pincock and Victor both got a “second baptism” when a huge wave both took them under the water. It was pretty funny. Overall, such a cool baptismal experience.
On Sunday we saw lots of miracles at church! After lots of tough weeks of attendance, we finally saw lots of improvement in our ward, as well as in investigators that came. As we walked into the building, we saw several investigators there waiting for us, as well as the chapel looked a lot more full. It was a huge miracle for us considering the past few transfers of challenges at church. (Maybe it was the fact that we now start at 10:00 as compared to 8:00). We also were able to talk with a younger girl that we are teaching named Maricielo, who told us that her parents gave her permission to be baptized on the 19th! We were super pumped about that. Just a great Sunday for us.
As a mission, we are reading the Book of Mormon in 90 days to start the new year. Every time I read over the Book of Mormon, I always get something new out of it. (Fun fact: I’ve now read the Book of Mormon more times through in Spanish than I have in English!)
Los Amo!
Avanza Su Verdad!
Elder Bailey
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