Our area is super interesting because we really dont have a lot of people to teach. The last few months have been super busy for the APs, so there really hasnt been a lot of time to work in the area. What we are doing right now is working with the members to get referals. So far, we have gotten a few. We are working with on of the recent converts here in our area, and he gave us the referal of his 13 year old sister, named Alessandra. We taught her for the first time last week and it was a really cool experience. She is different from every single other investigator that I have ever had in my mission- she doesnt believe in God. It took me literally 18 months to have an investigator who is Athiest. She is pretty firm in her beliefs, and said she just wanted to meet with us to see what our viewpoints are on religion and God. After talking to her for a while and teaching her (the spirit was super strong) she finally agreed to pray to see if God exists. We used Alma 32 to help her realize that she isnt going to get an answer if she doesnt do her part to get one. She even agreed to come to all 3 hours of church on Sunday as well. Super cool lesson, one of the best I´ve had in my mission, because she went from firmly believing that God doesnt exist to having a sincere to desire to know if he really does exist. We feel that she could progress pretty quickly.
Our other investigator that we have right now is named Nicolas. He is the 12-year old son of a convert from last month. He has gone to church for a while now, but there has always been something holding him back from accpeting a baptismal date. We have been having him pray a bunch to know, and this week we saw quite the miracle with him. First, he finally confessed that he is afraid of what his dad will say if he gets baptized (his dad is a devout Catholic, and lives in Canada). Luck would have it that his dad called this week, and Nicolas told him that he has been thinking of getting baptized and his dad surprisingly told him that he would support him in whatever he decides to do. We then invited him to be baptized again and he said that he still wasnt sure. Then, these last 2 days, he went on a YM campout (yes, they have those here in Peru too) and I guess the YM planned a special testimony meeting for Nicolas, and it went well because he came back with a baptismal date for the 12th of March. Awesome! I love this ward!
Divisions were weird in Chen Chen. It was really dejavu, teaching all of my old investigators, like Eduardo and Joanna. It actually kind of gave me a chance to say good bye to a lot of people that i didnt get to say goodbye to. The elders there are now teaching Eduardo´s parents and brother, and in the lesson we taught them while i was there, we committed Eduardo´s mom and brother to be baptized. It was actually really cool. Then the next day we had zone conference and i think it went ok. I didnt feel super prepared, but people said they liked it. I´m going to go back and see if there are some things I can do different for the next one becuase I didnt feel really good about my part. The nice thing about doing 7 conferences is that there are a lot of chances to get better! haha
Well, this week we are going to be in Tacna for like 4 days doing conferences. President told us he knows a good steak place in tacna that has USDA certified beef, so we will be going there. We head out in the bus Monday (we were going to go in a plane but the tickets were all booked), go on splits Tuesday, Zone Confernce Wednesday, District Leader Conference Thursday, and then back to Arequipa for a zone conference Friday, and then Saturday is PDay again. Another busy week!
Thanks for your support!
Elder Matheson
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