I'll start with a few details from our area, and then get into the good stuff. This is Elder Orbegozo's last week in the mission. He goes home next Friday, and it just so happens that Maria Fernanda is going to be baptized next Friday morning. What a way to go home from your mission! Baptism, plane. Not too shabby. We'll see if everything goes well this week so that she can be baptized. We are still teaching Fabian, the Brazilian guy. He invited us to eat lunch with him and his family Sunday, and promised us some good Brazilian food.
We also had, as I mentioned last week, the visit of Elder Montoya. We flew down to Tacna on Tuesday night (shortest flight of my life, about 25 minutes), and then went to work on Wednesday doing divisions with an Elder that President is thinking of making zone leader next transfer. It went super well, and I think he is ready to go. The day ended with a meeting with Elder Montoya and the three stake presidents in Tacna. It was a very personal, intimate meeting, and the spirit was super strong.
Thursday was the Multi-Zone conference in Tacna, and Moquegua and Ilo came down too. It was nice to see Elder Evans again and catch up on goings on of life. Really, I love Elder Evans, I'm super grateful we had the time we had together. The conference went super well though. Elder Montoya talked about what it means to be a representative of Jesus Christ, that we should do what Christ would do in every moment, and never do anything that Christ wouldnt do either. After the conference, we got word that our flight was cancelled, so we piled into President Zobrist's minivan and headed back to Arequipa. I have to say, its the first time that I have ever been in a minivan for 6 hours with a general authority. But, it was super cool. We got 5 minutes down the road and he turned and asked us, "so, what questions have you always wanted to ask a General Authority?" That turned into a 6 hour question and answer session. AWESOME. I asked him what he does to study the scriptures well, and he told me to read Moroni 10:3-5. The spirit teaches us all things, so if we are obedient to the commandments and read the scriptures, the spirit will open our understanding and we will always have edifying studies. I asked about how to deal with disobedient missionaries and he basically said that going on splits and showing them how to do missionary work and have a positive experience, teaching by example, is really the only way to help them. They have their agency. We really didnt ask a lot of deep questions. There's no point. We just kind of talked and he shared life experiences and it was a cool experience.
Friday, we had the conference here in Arequipa. The day before, in the car, Elder Montoya asked Elder Orbegozo and I to teach in the conference about being representatives of Christ. We focused our message (he gave us 15 minutes) on the fact that one day we are going to be face to face with Christ. He will surely ask us, those of us who have been set apart as His representatives, "what did you do with My Name? Where did you go? What did you say?" It went really well, and Elder Montoya thanked us after the meeting.
Really, just a good week! This next week is the end of the change, which means a busy week for us as the assistants, and especially for me because I might have to do all of this stuff by myself haha. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for you support and prayers! Love you!
Elder Matheson
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