Happy Birthday Elder Lund
¡Buenas!
What a week. Well, first things first, I hit the "9 months to go" mark so I took a pic to commemorate.
At
the beginning of the week, I wasn´t in our area too much. I did two
divisions this past week - Miercoles with Elder W in Los Almendros 2
and Thursday with Elder O in La Jutosa. See pics.
Wednesday
was a really good day. We worked really hard and because everything is
close, we were able to enter "into houses" (really just sitting down on
the front porches) and taught lessons. We ended the day with 1 lesson
with member and 8 other lessons with a handful of Libros de Mormón
entregados and desafíos bautismales. Elder W is from Atascadero,
California and he played football and basketball so we talked a lot that
night about the mission, sports, etc. Carmel had played Atascadero in 7
on 7 in Arroyo Grande and they played some preseason games versus
schools like Seaside and Salinas. It was cool to talk about stuff before
the mission and actually being able to relate. He is an awesome
missionary with a ton of enthusiasm. He´s planning on perhaps going to
BYU after the mission.
On Thursday,
I went back with my companion for weekly planning and then went on
divisions with Elder O in La Jutosa after lunch. He was born in
Colombia, but grew up in Canada (so he knows both english and spanish
perfectly), and his family is actually now living in Weston, Florida,
just northwest of Miami. We had some citas that fell, but overall a
really good day. He is a really good teacher and I was able to learn a
lot from him.
On Saturday,
we had a multi-mission conference. Misión Oeste and Este combined to
receive capacitaion from 4 General Authorities - Elder Ochoa from the
Area Presidency, Elder Davies from the Presiding Bishopric, Elder Maynes
from the Presidency of the 70, and Elder Neil L. Andersen from the
Quorum of the Twelve. SUPER MACISO! We learned a lot about conversion
and the Atonement from Elder Andersen and about the mission in general
from the other Autoridades Generales.
We had a great Sunday
as well. 9 investigators came to church and the 10th was outside
because he had some pena because he came in shorts and sandals.
Unfortunately,
we didn´t have any baptisms. We were going to have a baptism for A,
an 11 year old who lives with her grandma who is a member. We were
going to try to have it, but too many things happened and it would have
been pushing it. She was with her dad and couldn´t come to church the
week before, she was having trouble with baptismal interview questions,
and we never really received a 100% sure signature from her parents for
permission. We told the grandma if she could get the signature from one
of the parents. You know in school when the teacher asks the struggling
student to show his parents his poor grades. He has to get a signature
from his parents so the teacher knows they saw the grades but the young
student tries to forge it out of fear, and the forged signature is
totally noticeable. Well, that´s what our signature of the registro
bautismal looked like. It was in block letters and they put "4:00"
as the fecha. My companion and I looked at it in the house, laughed a
bit, and asked them to get a new one. But, she came to church and is
preparing for the interview so she should be getting baptized this Saturday.
We also have another baptism this saturday
for I. He didn´t go to church last week because he had gotten drunk
the night before (for his birthday) and was smoking a cigarrete when we
came to pick him up. De hecho, he when he saw us, he was super
embarrased, We met with him that afternoon and taught Word of
Wisdom again and the importance of reading the LDM every day. Since that
day, the Lord has worked miracles and a mighty change in his heart. He
threw away his cigarretes, he´s reading, and he´s a lot more pilas. He
told us he wanted to be baptized this Saturday and we didn´t have to "empujarle" towards the fecha. His older brother is a recent convert and is giving a lot of support.
We
are seeing a lot of miracles, large and small, right now in this area. I
recognize them as miracles because the Lord is doing the heavy lifting.
Realmente, He is the one that touches and changes hearts. He prepares
the people, we just need to be instruments, work hard, have the spirit,
and do His will.
Good P-day today. We went as a zone to
Puerto Cortez. We actually went a little bit further down the coast to
Omoa. It was really cool seeing the beach again. We went to el Castillo
de Omoa and took a lot of pics. We ran out of time to eat lunch there,
so we came back. Oh ya, it´s my birthday. 21. Wow, time flies. I
got the package from Grandma and Grandpa Jones, but still haven´t gotten
your packages yet. Probably tomorrow. Enjoyable birthday, great P-day. "Just another day in Paradise."
Well,
I have a lot more stories, people progressing (14 with fechas
bautismales) and a lot of funny moments. There are still some tough
moments, but as the scriptures always say, "and it came to pass"...
CHEQUE LEQUE
-Elder Lund
Los Almendros, Zona Choloma 3/9/14 - 3/16/15
No comments:
Post a Comment