Transfers

Hello everyone! 

Transfer week! Elder Ramirez and I are staying put here! That means 6 more weeks here in Chachani, and I have some mixed feeling about it. I'm happy to be able to spend 6 more weeks here in this ward where I have lots of friends and converts, but I've been here for long enough that a change wouldnt be unwelcome either haha. Obviously the Lord still has things for me to do here in this area, so I'm going to work my hardest to do what He wants me to do here. 

This week was.. kind of depressing haha. We had a sure baptism that fell through and we havent been able to get in contact with her at all. Really depressing but that happens sometimes. At the start of the week, we had like 10 investigators progressing, and now we have 3. We only have 1 with a baptism date, and it was someone we contacted and placed a baptism date in the street, so we'll see how that goes. We're contacting everyone we see, but I guess we're preaching to a bunch of Amalakites because they dont want anything to do with us haha. One guy told us that the only way he would ever believe in God is if He personally came to him to tell him. Then he slammed the door in our face. The only bright spot was that we found one new family to teach. And they are awesome. We'll let you guys know how it goes this week with them, but they seem golden right now. 

So I thought my Spanish was coming along quite nicely until my pension asked me how to play baseball. I found out pretty quickly that my gospel Spanish doesnt cover how to explain baseball. I think I might have just confused them more. 

Haha so that was my week, keep praying for me cuz I'm praying for you!

Love always,

Elder Matheson

Last week of transfers

Hey everyone! This was kind of a roller coaster week. I got randomly sick again- terrible head ache and a really bad fever. but, that wasnt going to stop me, so we went and worked. and we didnt really have a whole lot of success this week. we have one investigator named Alexandra who was a sure baptism for this coming week, but we went to talk to her yesterday and now she isnt so sure if she wants to get baptized. Stupid Satan, get out of here! We're just gonna work with her and get her baptized whether she likes it or not! Haha JK. 

Ok, so that was the kind of crappy part of the week, the awesome part was that we had a baptism! A surprise baptism! We were sitting in our room at the end of the day and we got a call from the Bishop and he was like, Abel is going to get baptized this week. Abel is this kid who has gone to church forever but has never wanted to get baptized or really take the missionary discussions either, so I dont really know him that well. But his best friend Celso just got back from a mission and he finally prayed and decided that he needed to get baptized. So that was awsesome, to really have a baptism without putting in much work haha. The other awesome thing was watching Rodolfo give the priesthood to Abel, and then Guido. It was a "proud parent" moment haha. I think I kind of understand how that feels now. So all in all, not a terrible week, just one filled with highs and lows. But that's pretty normal.

Last week of the transfer! I've been here for 3 transfers now so this could be my time to leave Chachani. I honestly have no idea, but it is a possibility. I dont want to leave right now though.. 

Love you guys! Keep on writing!

Love,

Elder Matheson

Pday with Elder Larsen

Almost transfers

So, two more weeks until transfers! I have this feeling that I'm going to be leaving Chachani this transfer. I dont want to leave, because I've really grown to love the area, the people, the ward, my pension, everything. Our pension told her kids the other day that the Elders are their brothers and that we are a big family. And its kind of true, we eat 3 meals a day together and Sunday the entire family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, the whole shabang, gets together to eat Sunday lunch, and I feel part of the family and they treat us like family too. It's interesting, our pensions parents, who we rent a room from, are not members of the church (they are VERY devout Adventists) yet they always tell us that we deserve the best they have to offer because we are sevants of the Lord. And then we have Jorge and Vanessa in the ward, we go there when we're hungry because they always feed us haha, and they are also awesome and love the missionaries and we love them. We went there this week and Jorge was super excited because his dream finally came true and he was able to buy a machine that makes plastic bags. I guess that's his job, and he says he can finally work from home and spend more time with his family and have more time to devote to his calling. Golden converts!

So this was a pretty normal week, nothing super exciting. Our investigators are progressing, but progressing pretty slowly. We are teaching this girl named Alexandra, who we contacted a few weeks ago, and she's been to church the last 2 weeks and is loving it. She's 14 and the other young women in the ward have taken her in as their own and she is loving it. As of yesterday she was going to wake up at 530 this morning to go play soccer at the chapel. She has a baptism date for the next saturday so be praying for us! 

So something super funny happened this week. This drunk guy stopped us on the street (not that unusual, the drunks love the gringos) and told us that we wanted to buy us a soda (not that unusual either), so we were like yeah, sure, no problem. So we went to the corner tienda to get our soda and lo and behold, our drunk friend had no money. He was trying to pay with his credit card, and that doesnt work here haha. The lady in the store kept telling him, look, you need money to pay. But he just kept saying, no its ok, I'm paying! Then he looked up to the sky and said, Help me God! Then looked the lady in the tienda in face and said, I'm paying now. He still had no money haha. So he told us to stay there, ran (as well as plastered Peruvian can) to his house and came back with the money and paid. He asked me if he could pay with Soles where I come from, so I told him I was from Antarctica and that we pay with snow. Should give him something to think about this week. I cant really do the story justice, but you get the point haha.

Hope everyone has a great week! Love you!

Elder Matheson

Happy 2015

Happy New Years everyone!!! Hearing from everyone, sounds like you all had a great New Years and that it was the usual crazy stuff. I spent my New Years sleeping. That's right, for the world, it was New Year's Eve. For the missionaries, it was a Wednesday, so we went to bed at 1030, woke up briefly at midnight for the sky to explode, and then went back to bed. New Years day, President wanted us to meet together as a zone to read 90 scriptures from the Book of Mormon that he selected. That took all of the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon too, and then afterwards we enjoyed a lunch together as a zone at Papa John's. Not a bad day! Elder Larsen and I planned out the entire month between when we get home and when we go back to school. Should be a pretty busy month if everything we want to do gets done haha. 

As far as the work here goes, we have so many investigators that are SO CLOSE to baptism, but just havent quite made the leap yet. We're working with a family of 4 that is unbelievably prepared. Senovia and Roberto, and their two kids Roberto and Camila. We taught them lesson 1, and had just got done explaining the first vision and how through the example of Joseph Smith, we learn how to receive answers to our prayers. Then Senovia told us that she too had the question of which church was correct. She told us that all the different people who knock on doors (there's a TON of Jehovia's Witnesses here) all tell her different things, but that one of them has to be right. So she decideded pray about it. She said that night she had a dream in which a man dressed in white told her that the next day she would get here answer. So the next day she was on a bus, and Elder Dayley and Figueroa, the other elders in our ward, got on the bus. Elder Dayley told me that as soon as he saw her, he felt like he needed to talk to her, and Senovia told us that as soon as she saw Elder Dayley she knew that he was the answer to her prayers. So they're solid--but not married. But they are willing to do it so we're working with them!

We're also working with this elderly couple, Eladio and Lucia. They've been living together for 28 years, and arent married either. Eladio is also technically married to someone else but havent seen each other for 40 years. Once again, they're willing to get married to get baptized, so we're working super hard with the ward to get things set for them.

Pray for our investigators!! They need help haha. Hope everyone has a great week, love you all!

Elder Matheson

llama!!!

with Elder Ramierz

on a bus...

Mount Misti