So this was
one of the most productive & unproductive weeks of my mission! First of
all, Monica was baptized and confirmed, and the strength of here testimony is
really impressive. She shared her conversion story and it was super awesome!
She goes to church by herself (she is 15 by the way) almost every single week,
and said one Sunday she was there in church and was looking at all the families
and thought to herself, wow, I want this for my family too. Her parents have
been separated for over 11 years, and she hasn’t seen her dad in that time. She
said that she began to pray harder than she ever has in her life that her dad
would come to visit her. Then, one day, about a week later, her dad actually
showed up at their house for the first time in 11 years. It was then that her
mom finally broke down and decided that Monica could be baptized. She even came
to the baptism, and now we are working with her and with her 11 year old sister
that has also been coming to church. Her sister is named Sarai and has a baptism
date for the 19th of this month, and we should have another one that day of the
9 year old daughter of a less active family we are working with. I usually don’t
like baptizing children because it is so hard for them to be active, but if we
are working with the parents and have their support, i think its ok. The 9 year
old is named Celeste.
This week
was characterized by a lot of traveling. Like a lot. We got on a bus early
Wednesday morning to take the 5 hour trip to Arequipa. The long distance busses
here are SUPER nice. We spent an extra 5 soles to be able to ride on the first
floor where all of the chairs are pretty much lazy boy recliners. They show
movies and what not, and it is super comfortable. We got to Arequipa, headed
over to Chili`s (the mission pays for our lunches when we have meetings with
President) and enjoyed some delicious hamburgers and walked around the mall for
a little bit. I bought a much needed new backpack, my comp bought a terrabyte
hard-drive, and then we went to the Plaza de Armas to enjoy the Christmas stuff
they have set up there. We had our meeting with President Zobrist for the rest
of that day and the next (they put us up in a hotel for the night) and then we
headed back the next day to get back to Moquegua. Friday we had to spend most
of the day doing administrative stuff (my comp is the mission scribe so he has
to do type up the ACTA from the meeting with president) and then we had to set
up Monica`s baptism that night. Saturday we went to Ilo to go on splits with
the district leaders and then meet with the stake presidency in Ilo. We got
back late that night then woke up early Sunday to go and get our investigators
to take them to church. Then the whole afternoon was missionary correlation
meeting with our ward mission leader, ward council, meeting with the stake
presidency in Moquegua, then the Christmas devotional. Funny thing about that,
there was one ward that announced that it started at 5 pm (Peru time) and so
there were people waiting in the stake center for THREE HOURS until it actually
started at 8 haha. But the devotional was fantastic and I really felt the good
ole Christmas spirit. I am grateful to have an awesome family who has awesome
traditions, and am super grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who saw fit to
send us His Son so that we could return to His presence again. If you haven’t
seen the new videos the church has put out for Xmas this year, check them out,
they are awesome!
Well, have
a fantastic week, talk to you soon (really, the skype call is coming up)
Elder Matheson
No comments:
Post a Comment