WEEK 10: BAGUA GRANDE

December 10, 2018

Today was a crazy good day. We went down to Bagua Chica, where Elder Merritt is, which is about 25 mins away from Bagua Grande. We hiked this 'mountain' which was actually a really big dirt hill. It was really awesome to walk on our p-day especially because we walk all day, every other day. It was good to email today, and thank you for your emails, family. Proselyting went really well today. Mama, I tried what you said, just going by the Spirit, and it worked great. I think my problem this past week is that I was too caught up in the learning of Spanish and the acts of proselyting rather than listening to the Spirit. I looked at this one street, and whenever I see somewhere I'm supposed to go, or I see someone I'm supposed to talk to, I get this distinct feeling. It's not a huge feeling, but it's like I know and decide in my head that I'm going to go there without even thinking about it. I got that feeling on this one street, which was probably a 15 percent grade, it was a steep hill and Elder Moran doesn't like hills, but I said yo we should go up there, and just like magic I found this 17 year old kid named Young. I don't know what's going happen with Young, maybe nothing, but I know I followed the Spirit. Love you all.

December 11, 2018

Today it rained all day long. It was soaking wet in the morning and we tried to listen to a meeting by President Balderrama through Skype in a remote internet cafe, but we couldn't hear or see anything so we listened to it on the tiniest flip phone I've ever seen. So Elder Moran and I had to huddle our ears around this little phone ahahahahaha. It was a good day though, I love the rain, it's so refreshing. All the streets turn into rivers, and its impossible to keep anything from getting wayyy muddy. We had a couple good visits today, and a noche hogar, which is kind of like family night. There were about 100 kids there, so I don't know if anyone listened to our spiritual message, ahahahah, but todo bien, todo fino. Love this work, and we're gonna baptize about 8 people this month, just watch. With the Lord, we can do anything. Love you all.

December 13, 2018

Yesterday we had intercambios, so I was in Bagua Chica for the day. Intercambios is when the district leader or zone leader switches companions so we can see the things that they need to do better in their area. I swapped with Elder Merritt, and I went with Elder Espinoza de Colombia. Elder Espinoza is soooo crazy, he has 22 months in the mission and is way tight. He was in the Colombian Policia, which is basically the army there. He had a bunch of pictures of him in his uniform with a Galil, a legit black ops zombs galil. He was really cool. He's the only one in his family that is a member, and he has basically nobody supporting him on his mission. He is a hard worker even though his family doesn't care. I got back to our area today, and it was so nice to be back with those we teach. We taught 5 really, really solid lessons today and we challenged 5 people to baptism with dates. We didn't contact a lot of people, but our investigators have mostly been reading and keeping commitments, so that is so good. The Lord is blessing us with success, and he is constantly blessing those we teach. Love yall. 

December 16, 2018

The last couple of days have been crazzyyyyyyy. Yesterday I killed and ate my first guinea pig. A family that we teach invited us over and we had guinea pigs for dinner. The Familia Rubio is their name, and they are so funny and are the best investigators. They have been learning about the church for a loooonngg time. They have been taught all of the lessons, but they need only to get married, because the ma and pa aren't legally married. They're so nice, and they're gonna get baptized this month probably. The dads name is Alex and his wife is Karina and they have two sons aged 17 and 9 who will be really good priesthood holders in the future when they are baptized. They're so nice and funny and they thought it was so funny that in the US we have guinea pigs as pets. They had two that we were going to eat for dinner, and we de-furred them, gutted them and then we cooked them over a fire, then deepfried it in oil. It was soooo good. Although because we only cooked 2 pigs for 6 people, I got like one foot and it had no meat on it, but I ate the head too, and that had a little bit of meat. It definitely wasn't worth all of the work, but yeah it was pretty good. It was kind of sad because I thought of Daisy and Peach as I ended it's life. We have crazy wack experiences every day here, and I love how nothing is ever the same. 

Today in church we were blessed so much. We had 14 of our families that we teach show up to church, which is legit crazy. We had the Rubio family show up, and about 10 other investigators. This was amazing, because there are only about 25 or 30 people in the capilla every sunday, and we brought 14 more people. The Lord gives us a little bit of success when we work hard, and we have been busting our butts this week, and a little bit of the fruits of our labor showed. I love this work and I love working for the Lord. 

This recent convert family that we visit often is having a lot of problems in the church. The dad was a member for most of his life, and the mom and the 2 of the three kids were baptized. The mom of the family was kind of ticked at the church because the people only bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and not the Bible (which we do believe is true and also bear testimony of). Well, we found out that she never had a testimony of the Book of Mormon before her baptism. This is pretty bad, I guess the missionaries before didn't make sure she had a testimony of the Book of Mormon, as well as the Bible, before her baptism. This is weird because the foundation of our entire church is built on the restoration of the Book of Mormon, so it's strange that she got baptized without knowing that. She was really hell bent on only studying the Bible, and it was a real life version of that scripture, 'A bible, a bible, we already have a bible, and we need no more bible.' It's really sad to see, because the son is a really good Deacon in the Church, and her husband is a really good, strong member in the Church. It's kind of breaking their family apart, so Elder Moran helped them by bearing his testimony. He shared the best testimony I've ever heard and she still wasn't getting it, she was legit hardening her heart, and all of this was so crazy. People still have their agency after all we can do. 

I know the Book of Mormon is true, and that this gospel is true, and it makes me frustrated when others won't accept things like the Book of Mormon, but we need to have love for everyone. This was all pretty interesting, but we literally had 13 or 14 investigators at church today, so that was so good. I love this work, and my Spanish is improving pretty rapidly. Love you all. Gn