A Great Week

—-Thursday, June 29, 2017. Weekly planning day. This morning we ended our exchange with the elders of Las Flores. Elder Buirley, a native of Logan and graduate of Logan High—and a convert to the Church, if you can believe it—accompanied Elder Quispe and I in Nueva Era while Elder Huntington went with Elder Muñoz (from Chile) to the sector of Las Flores (not to be confused with the zone itself). Wednesday was a fairly slow day. The highlight of the day was our appointment with Julissa, Henry´s mom. She´d listened to the missionaries before and hadn´t progressed because because, according to her, she had questions they couldn´t answer. We had a great lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we answered some of her questions about the Restoration. I think she finally understood the importance of baptism, and she seems truly committed to learn more and get an answer. She accepted our invitation to attend church, and she accepted the 22 of July as a goal for her baptismal date.

Anyway, today was slow as well. We ended the night with a service project in the bishop´s house. I guess he works in stamping and logos small-scale stuff like cans and bags. Tonight we helped him wrap up and box the product. As a reward, he gave us chaufa, and we ended up running to make it to the room at 10:30 on the dot. Turns out we lost our only plastic spoon, and my companions grabbed the only two forks we have before I could. Elder Quispe was kind enough to cut me a spoon out of the styrofoam. It worked just fine. Picture attached below.

—-Friday, June 30, 2017. We spent the morning cleaning the parking lot of the church in preparation for our ward mission night. Normally we do it in the bishop´s house, but this time we thought we´d try something different and have a sports night. We pumped up a volleyball and a soccer ball and put up a volleyball net. During the afternoon, we found a lady we thought could be a good investigator; she understood really well, and her only fear was how her family would react. (We found out Saturday she moved to Arequipa with a cousin until January So I guess she´s out of the picture.)

When the ward mission night started,there was a grand total of 4 people present: the missionaries and their ward mission leader. Much later into the night, a member family brought some investigators (kids who always came to the ward mission nights), and so we ended the night with like 12 people. It was fun, but we´ve got some work to do before it becomes something effective.

—-Saturday, July 1, 2017. We started the day doing more service or the bishop. Elder Huntington went to the office for more leadership training, and so when he returned we received the ¨buenas nuevas¨ from the offices. ¡Cuentitas, pe!

In the afternoon we started our fast. Turned out that, since it was the first day of the month, the Relief Society hadn´t filled out the lunch list; in other words, we didn´t have anyone to give us lunch. The bishop´s wife took sympathy on our plight and bought us pollo a la brasa. Not a bad way to start a fast, eh?

Anyway, we used up most of the day reminding people about church. We also visited an inactive convert named Jessica. That visit was a headache. She´s super inactive and currently taking classes from the Jehovah´s Witnesses. It´s honestly surprising that she got baptized, because she doesn´t know anything about the basic points of doctrine, and she seems to hate the Book of Mormon. And on top of that, she claimed to know everything about the missionary lessons and wanted to know about more ¨profound¨ things. She said the missionaries didn´t answer relevant questions like, ¨What is the purpose of life?¨ (literally a subtitle of the Plan of Salvation) and ¨Why does God let bad things happen to good people?¨ (again, Plan of Salvation). We ended the lesson inviting her to church and promising to answer all her questions, and our cherry on top was that it would be with the Bible. Long story short, she didn´t come. Her pride will likely lead her to hell. But hey, we can´t keep wasting our time with the unprepared and hard of heart.

—-Sunday, July 2, 2017. We had 8 investigators attend church today! That´s a miracle, and only God can take the glory and honor for such an accomplishment. Julissa, Henry, Juvenal, a family of four, and a member referral all attended church. It looks like they all had a good experience and learned a lot. After church, we ate lunch with a member of the Young Men´s Presidency, Orlando Piccoy. He knows the mission very well, and he´s always willing to accompany us and give us food. A missionary couldn´t ask for anything more from a ward member! We ended the day talking with Julissa about Henry´s baptism. She said she´s still not sure, but we had a super spiritual lesson, and she committed to read and pray tonight and to keep preparing to get baptized herself.

—-Monday, July 3, 2017. We went to San Cristobal again. It was fun. Yeah, that´s about it. Until next time, HEROES NEVER DIE!

Elder Kacy Hart Woodward

p.s. I also attached a photo from last Monday, when we bought Pizza Raul and Dunkin´ Donuts.