Week 21

What up everyone? 

Another quick but super productive week for us here in Sullana. Things are definitely starting to heat up around here. At some points I feel like I am literally cooking out in the Peruvian sun. I hope you are all enjoying the cold and the snow back home! I would love to have a taste of that right now! Besides the heat, our area is doing great right now. We are still finding lots of ew people to teach and prepare for baptism. I feel like we are hitting our stride now. Hopefully these baptisms start to come through. 

Sunday was great! Elder Huarcaya and I were super excited to go to church because we had invited just about everyone we saw to come to our church meeting at 10am. Our efforts paid off, as we had 6 investigators show up! It was so cool to see every one of them file in and to see their willingness to learn more about the gospel. The coolest part, though, was finding two of our investigators there, Angel and Aron. They are both 12 years old and are cousins. We have been teaching the older brother of Angel, Leo, and have been trying really hard to help him progress towards baptism. The last lesson we had with Leo, Angel and his cousin Aron were there with us, but were in the back quietly listening as we taught his older brother. At the end of the lesson, we invited Leo to continue to read his Book of Mormon, pray, and to attend church, like we do for everyone we teach. He accepted the first two commitments, but told us he wouldn’t be able to make it to church. We were pretty bummed, but left not thinking much of it. The next day when we got to the chapel about 20 minutes early to greet people, we found Angel and Aron sitting on the front row in their nice polo shirts and slacks ready to listen. Elder Huarcaya and I couldn’t believe it. The day before we had completely neglected them while teaching Leo, but they sat quietly and listened closely to everything we taught. They must have felt something during the lesson, because there they were, sitting on the front row of the chapel 20 minutes early. My testimony was definitely strengthened by this act of faith by these two kids, and I definitely learned my lesson to make sure to focus on EVERYONE present in every lesson. 

On Monday we had the Copa Piura Vida! The Copa is basically a huge soccer tournament for the entire mission put on by President and Sister Rasmussen. 7 of the 9 zones of the mission met in Piura (the other two zones played each other in Tumbes), and we each played two games against the other zones. We won both of our games against Piura Central and Paita. However, these games were just for seeding in the tournament, as this Monday we compete for the Copa. You already know Sullana is going to take it all ;) This tourney was seriously the coolest thing ever to have almost the whole mission in one place at a time. It was like a giant party for the mission. I’m super pumped to win it all on Monday.

On Wednesday we had a Christmas party in the mission home! This was seriously the funnest day ever. Our zone headed to Piura around noon to have lunch with President and Sister Rasmussenin a super nice restaurant, and then we went to the mission home. We played games, had a devotional, and then watched “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I had never seen that movie before, and it was super good! I would encourage you to go watch it if you can. You can learn a lot from that movie, even though it’s an older movie. So yeah, we pretty much spent the entire day at the mission home. We are so lucky to have the coolest mission president in the church. Even though we are experiencing Christmas thousands of miles away from friends and family, the Rasmussens made us feel right at home. It was awesome. 

On Thursday, we had a pretty cool experience. We were walking to an appointment with one of our investigators, but as we were walking I had the impression to go see if Mercedes was home. We found Mercedes about 2 weeks ago, taught her a lesson or two, and she was really awesome. Then one day, we went to her house to teach her and she told us somewhat irritated that she was busy and didn’t know when she would be able to meet with us again. We said “OK” and told her we would come back another day. Anyways, we ended up finding her on Thursday and had a great lesson with her. We started by reading a chapter in the Book of Mormon with her, and then moved on talking about the Plan of Salvation. The spirit was so strong during each point of doctrine that we talked about. Mercedes explained that she could feel something special whenever we come to visit her, and we helped her identify that as the spirit. It was amazing to see the spirit work in her, and we could visibly see her change of heart. She committed to coming to church with us, and she did. I have come to learn so far on my mission that the spirit is the most powerful tool a missionary can have. It is the spirit that does the converting, not us. I know that without it, I would be lost. Just a tall Gringo wandering the streets of Peru. We always need to live worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost, and always follow his promptings. 

Well, that’s pretty much it! I hope you all have a good Christmas! I challenge you all to remember the real meaning of Christmas, which is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is because of Him that we have this great gospel and Plan of Redemption. I would challenge you to look for ways that you can give to Him this Christmas. I know if you’ll do that you will be blessed and will have a better Christmas season. Merry Christmas! 

¡Avanza Su Verdad!

Elder Bailey