Derek the Potato Farmer

This was a pretty solid week. We continue to see challenges in the area, but i am working harder than I ever have before in the mission. The frustrating thing is, we just arent seeing the results of our labors. During GC, Elder Oaks was talking about the parable of the sower, and in this moment of frustration, i realized that the soil is not the seed's fault. We can work hard, be perfectly obedient, and not convert anyone. Just like Mormon and Moroni, prophets of God, could not save a nation that did not want to be saved. Yet, they were blessed for their faithfulness to the Lord, as will we as we continue to toil in the Lords vineyard. In the end, how we serve is the most important. 

General conference was amazing this year, and i really felt the focus was on the family. Even though I cant apply what they taught right now to my real family, my family now is my companion and the other missionaries here. It really was a good conference, and we were able to find a laptop to watch it in English. Unfortunately, Peruvian internet is terrible and so i was unable to see the last half of Elder Holland's talk, though i imagine it was quite good. Oh, and the Wi-Fi password in Peru is still Pioneer47 haha. 

So as the title says, i briefly became a potato farmer. the sister missionaries here in Pedregal have an investigator that is a potato farmer and needed help with the potato harvest, so we threw on our work pants and cowboy hats and started pulling potatos out of the ground. Not a bad service project, and we were rewarded with a sack of potatos and some Coke. 

Funny Spanish mess-up of the week: during a lesson i was teaching about repentance and tried to tell the investigator that we need to "pedir perdon" or ask for forgiveness. what i said on accident is "pedir pedon" which means to ask for a big fart. FART FOR FREEDOM.

Love,

Elder Matheson

Potato Farming

Peruvian birthday tradition of egging the birthday boy

Part of my area called Ciudad Perdida, or The Lost City

The rain is following me, 3/30/15

So, like the title says, the rain has followed me from Arequipa and drenched us. The locals have been saying that they have never seen it rain this hard in Pedregal. It rained so hard on Tuesday that we werent allowed to leave our appartment. And the rain actually caused a lot of really serious damage, so most of this week was spent literally putting peoples houses back together, so not much teaching of the Gospel was done this week. The very little time we had to work in our area this week was spent trying to get our baptisms to happen this week. The 3 kids that got baptized are the  children of a less active family that we have been working with. The mom is an RM, but was inactive. Her husband got baptized without a testimony to marry her and is now very very Catholic and doesnt listen to us. But the mom is coming back to church and wanted her kids to be baptized, so we were happy to oblidge. We just had to work really hard with the parents this week to get permission from their dad for them to get baptize. All of the leaders of the branch here, as well as all of the other missionaries in Pedregal prayed super hard for the dad, and Friday night we finally got his permission and we had 3 baptisms! It was actually Elder Nelson´s first baptisms, and he was so happy because that family was one he had been working with for the last 4 months.

So Arturo and Feliza are truly golden.. Arturo is platinum or something though. We went this week to visit them and Arturo told us, "ever since you gave me that Book of Mormon i have been reading it, and i just love it. so i went and talked to all of my neighbors and knocked on all of the doors on my block to tell them about it." ummmmm, what?! And he just enrolled in institute classes. And when we went yesterday to visit him again, we found him in the street and started walking with him back to his house and stopped this lady and started talking to her about the Book of Mormon. We started teaching in his house, and got up and left in the middle of the lesson and came back with a friend. This kid is amazing haha. 

So I got a package from the Candy Mountain Teachers Quorum this week-- awesome. The video included really made my week, especially the full length feature film from Tyler Parker. Classic. It was also nice to see Christian and see that he really hasnt changed at all. He was asked to give some important inspiring words, and he told me to remember Martin Luther King. So there we go.

Hope everyone had a great week, mine was certainly interesting!

Love,

Elder Matheson