Sending love and Scooby Snacks....

August 18, 2014

This week has been a great one. We started of this week with a cumpleñons de un miembro menos activo and we had an interesting lesson. Then we tried calling the Familia Pauca but they couldn’t have us stop by. We went to the beach to visit the statue of Jesus Christ and we met some pelicans, they were eating some fish. I grabbed a fish and tried to contact the pelican... and he bit me ;) hahah! Never been bit by a pelican before :) Then we were walking by and some snot nose kids challenged us to a football game, we smoked them :) (football as in soccer ;)

Tuesday was an interesting reunion de districto, and we met a Viuda (widow) mother of 2 who wants to listen to us... but doesn’t want to pray :) We spent the rest of the day contacting. We also taught the 10 commandments.... the teenager we were teaching said that it was more interesting in the movie ;) We also visited the Familia Pauca that night, and they aren’t too sure about what they are feeling so they declined the fecha (date) and said they would come to church... fast forwarding they didn’t come. That night we got a call not to plan anything for the next day.

We spent all day in a capacitacion from the president.. the man is the lucky charms of Kellogg’s cereal company! I love him! He’s my favorite! So we got to this training and he taught us a lot of stuff it was like 4 hours of pure revelation and just what I needed. In the end he opened up the discussion to us for our questions no one raised their hand... so I gently put mine up and told him I had one question but that it’s not that important and kind of stupid but maybe he could answer, who would Mary be married too Joseph or God? Some of the latinos I guess didn’t know that the church had even practiced polygamy at one point... so it opened to quite the interesting capacitacion but he tied it in really well. He told me afterwards that my question was inspired… I just felt like a ding a ling ;) Anyway that took up the entire day.

The next day was my one year mark! ... and we spent it working. We had 0´s for two day straight! We couldn’t get anything done it seemed like. We went to a baptism of the liders of districto but it was miscommunicated and we showed up for their wedding party! Anyway, we met their family and they had slammed the door in my face 3 days earlier ;) It made for an interesting conversation. They are a little more willing to listen to us now :) We had a consejo de rama and the ward is ... progressing as fast as a pelican runs away from a gringo trying to hit him with a rock after he’s been bit.

Anyway, we spent the next day capcacitaging some people in our ward about family history and visiting members. We had a family let us in. In the tarde a man called us, we picked it up and there was nothing on the other end so we called him back and he must have butt dialed us but he asked us if we could visit him, so we stopped by. His mom had left him, he’s living alone and he wants to find God. We taught him and he accepted a baptismal date. “Butt dialed” miracle.

Sunday no one new came to church but we had 60 people attend which is more than in the past. Monday we had received a reference from Alfredo Haro, the son of the family we baptized. He is serving his mission in Puno. Anyway, he had sent us some references, some kids he went to elementary school with! …. like a long time ago :) So Sunday we stopped by one of them named Wilmer. He opened the door, let us in, and listened to every word. He accepted a fecha and said an amazing prayer. He is also a miracle and its interesting how God works with us and through us. It’s been a great week. We haven’t found any families but we are progressing. This week instead of classes of English, I’ll be teaching computer classes! I’m going to teach the older people in our ward how to use a computer so they can do family searching... One man told me he refuses to touch one ever since it bit him... this should be fun!! ;)

We are still looking for those families. Our area seems to be progressing. Elder Jimenez has said some funny stuff this week like…. “Oh my gosh Elder Grow, you’re like a puppy! Everything you do! You sit there and you are like, did ya see that did? Did ya see that? Did ya see that? …Wagging your tail asking for a Scooby snack :) (translated) I laughed so hard! Another time we got back and he didn’t want to plan. He claimed he was too tired. I told him I’d done just as much work as he had! He snapped back, “no! You haven’t had to listen to yourself talk all day!!” :)

This week I learned the 10 commandments include almost all the other commandments. Thou shalt not kill, includes yourself, even if it’s little by little one glass of beer or cigarette at a time. Thou shalt not steal, includes not robbing God in tithing. Interesting :)

Sending love and Scooby Snacks,

Elder Grow