Week 16

What’s up everyone?  

Another quick week has passed here.  Time is starting to pick up!  Only 2 weeks left of my training.  Crazy.  I don’t really have a ton to report on this week, just a pretty normal week.  However, on Thursday we had our multi-zone conference.  Every time we have these multi-zones, I learn so much.  This time we talked all about miracles.  I especially liked what President Rasmussen talked about.  He explained that we have miracles every day in our lives, we just have to open our eyes and have the faith to see them.  Sometimes we go about our busy lives with work, school or whatever, and forget to recognize the hand of the Lord and to see his miracles that happen all around us.  Yesterday we were able to see a miracle.

Yesterday we had stake conference for all of Sullana.  To better our church attendance of investigators, Elder Bayona and I headed out early in the morning to invite all our investigators to the conference.  One of which was our investigator named Segundo.  Segundo told us that he would be able to make it, and we were super excited.  However, about 15 minutes later, he called us and said that the probably wouldn’t be able to come anymore, as something with his work had come up last minute.  He did say though that he would try his best to be there.  We were extremely disappointed, because Segundo is one of the best investigators we have, and we knew that attending church for the first time at stake conference would be a great opportunity to receive a good impression from hearing the leaders of the stake and from President Rasmussen.  Twenty minutes before the meeting started, we stood outside the stake center hoping that Segundo would show.  Unfortunately, he never came.  We went in to the meeting a little disappointed, but were able to hear some awesome inspired messages from the leaders of the church here in Sullana.  We then went about the rest of our day as normal.  In the afternoon, we were walking through the area trying to contact new people when we ran into Segundo outside his house.  After a little small talk, he started to explain to us how much he liked the conference.  We were super shocked and confused.  We thought maybe we had missed him walking into the church earlier, or something like that.  Rather, he started to tell us that he came a little late, but was able to come with his little son.  He explained that when he got to the church, he was really confused and didn’t know where to go or what to do.  Now this next part is the miracle.  In one of our first lessons with Segundo, he told us that he knew only one member of the Mormon church, and it was Hermano Hector Lucas from our ward here in Obrero.  Now, Segundo told us that he was really confused with all the rooms and all the people.  But out of all the hundreds of people that were there at the stake center, when he walked through the door he ran into Hector Lucas, who was maybe the only person in the building (besides us) that he knew.  Hermano Lucas was able to show Segundo where to go, and was able to sit by him and his young son, and make him feel welcome.  Segundo said that he loved the conference, and felt really good about it.

Now, a lot of people would say that this was just a coincidence that Hermano Lucas just happened to be there to greet him, but I am choosing to view it as a miracle.  I’m choosing to have faith that it was the hand of God that guided Hermano Lucas to run into Segundo.  I’m so grateful for this miracle I was able to see.  I know that if we choose to look for miracle in our lives, they will be manifest to us.  Miracles happen all the time, we just need to have the faith to see them.  I challenge you all to look for the hand of God and his miracles in your lives.  I know that if you look, you will find.

Well, I am sorry I don’t have more to report on!  Not a whole lot of things happened apart from the everyday things that happen here in Peru, like using a stick to help the little kids get mangos from the trees lol (highlight of my week).  All is great here!  I hope you are all doing good back home!  I’ll talk to you next week!

Nos Vemos,

Elder Bailey