"When the Savior stretches out His hands, those He touches are uplifted and become greater, stronger, and better people as a result. If we are His hands, should we not do the same?" ~Dieter F. Uchtdorf
This week was, well, crazy. But what's new? Most of it was crazy good, so that makes it alright. This week we still had a hard time finding our investigators. But we met some new families (with single moms) that we think will progress. They had real interest in how the gospel can bless their lives, and we're hoping that we can help them out.
On Tuesday I ate some chicken lungs. I decided not to ask what I was eating until we were done, but I'm pretty sure I labeled some of those arteries that I ate in my Anatomy class. Bleck. Not my fave, that's for sure.
Do any of you know a member of the church that's a heart surgeon? Or like, a leader of the church? Like... and apostle? Well yeah. He was in Peru last week. That's right, Elder Russell M. Nelson. And he had a fireside with the youth, and we were all super jealous. We all thought he left, but we found out that he was supposed to go to Venezuela and his trip got cancelled. They were stuck here in Peru. So they asked Elder Uceda, our Area 70, who should we go visit this week? Well he obviously told them to come visit the Peru Lima North mission! It was AMAZING. We, 200 missionaries, were in a conference with 3 general authorities: Elder Uceda, an Area 70, Elder Brasman (sp?),the President of the Quorum of the 70, and Elder Russell M. Nelson. Everyone laughed. Everyone cried. Everyone received some fantastic life changing revelation. All of the sisters got to sit in the front row, so I was like 6 feet in front of them. During one of the hymns I was awkwardly smiling at Elder Nelson, and he winked at me. What?! An apostle winked at me! I thought it was cool.
We learned about how to work with the members. We learned about why people make baptismal covenants. We learned about how to apply the Atonement in our lives. We learned about how to fall in love with the scriptures. We learned about our eternal nature. We learned about SO MANY THINGS. I wish I could transmit the power of their words to you all. The Lord knows exactly what we need sometimes. So sometimes he'll cancel apostles' flights to help out some missionaries.
So apparently Thanksgiving is really this week. Who knew? I hope you all eat lots of turkey for me. And shop those Black Friday sales real good for me!
This week was especially long and stressful and happy all at the same time... Know why? Because we had 4 baptisms on Saturday! What what?! :)
So yeah. You know how I told you all that we were working a lot with the Elders from another ward? Well we baptized almost all of their references. It was really exciting. We baptized two single moms, Janeth and Rosa, and two little girls, Nexi and Nikole. We chased people down all week trying to get them to their interviews, ran around making sure people actually showed up to the baptism, I gave my first improv baptism talk, and we had four people baptized. It was exciting. The paperwork part is a lot less exciting, and even more stressful. But no matter, because it's all taken care of now.
We're feeling bad for our ward, San Carlos, because we have almost no progressing investigators. It's really sad! This week we're rolling out a new program, "La Obra de Salvación" where we will be working a lot more with inactives and with references that are from the members. Hypothetically it's going to be fantastic. It's just going to take a ton of work from us and the members.
Did you know that here in Perú, elections are pretty weird? Next Sunday we don't have church because by law, we can't hold any meetings on election day. And it's illegal to vend alcohol all of election day weekend, because they want everyone to be sober for elections! I guess a bunch of military personel will be at the schools next week helping with voting. We still don't know what we will be doing yet. But it should be interesting.
Pray that we can find us some Familias de Oro that will progress really soon! We really need to support this ward.
Hermana Santos and me with our lovely grilled cheese sandwiches!
What a long week! I didn't think that Monday would ever come.
This week was kind of crazy. We had some awesome days, and we had some downright horrible days. I really don't like horrible days. They're exhausting.
We had our first day with zero lessons. That was a sad day. We went to plan A, plan B, plan C, knocked on some doors. The works. Nobody let us in. Nadie!
We've been working with two investigators in particular that we have been so excited to get baptized this month. Seriously, they're awesome. We are teaching them with members, we are going over a lot, they have real desires to change and be baptized. They all seem super awesome until Sunday, when they don't go to church! I don't understand why people have to lie about commiting to things. It's really heartbreaking. We are getting to be so worried about them all the time, studying really hard to meet their needs, praying and fasting for them. And then they decide to go play soccer on Sunday instead of going to church. At first it's sad, and then it's frustrating. We had to change some baptismal dates.
Halloween was relatively uneventful. Not a lot of people celebrate it here. The old people think that we Americans are devil worshipers of sorts. It's pretty funny.
The work is pressing on here in barrio San Carlos. Everyone is getting training on the Work of Salvation, where the ward members are the missionaries, filling our agendas, and we just show up to teach. The concept is ingenius, we're just hoping our dear Peruvian friends can commit to helping us out! We are definitely losing faith in people.
On a more light hearted note, the sun is coming out here! It's kind of horrible how strong it is, but I'm getting some fantastic tan lines. Everyone thinks it's funny how the gringas change colors. :)
Anywho. Til next week, my dear friends! Pray that these people can keep their commitments this week.
Con mucho amor, Hermanita Schroader
Hermana Schroader y los niños de barrio San Carlos!
My name's Cassie. You can call me Hermana Schroader for now. I'm currently serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Lima Peru!