Bold and Valiant Fish - Elder Jacob Avery

Written by Elder Jacob Avery, serving in the Peru Lima West Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking Spanish.

It was really funny. The other elders had a baptism with a 78 year old lady, and she was super nervous for her baptism. Both of the elders went down in the water to help her get baptized, and as she came up she was super excited and said, ''Que rico!'' That's like a way of saying that she really enjoyed getting baptized. I'd enjoy getting rid of seventy something years of sins all at once too. She got confirmed and received the Holy Ghost in that very moment. I think it's so funny when she talks about how she thinks our church is so much better than other churches. I'm just left to wonder, ''Why do you think we're all members?''  :)

Je** went to church with her 3 year old tornado kid and her 11 year old. They liked church a lot, but her husband couldn't go. He went to Lima because his mom got really sick this week :/  Hopefully everything works out okay. I think God is really nice sending missionaries to their house to teach them the plan of salvation right before something bad like that happened. It just helps important things become relevant, and keeps irrelevant things out.

I'm doing super good. I'm working hard and sometimes I feel like a fish swimming upstream, but that's the way it needs to be. That's why I liked the fish thing that they put in Thomas S. Monson's message this month. I just want to be a more bold and valiant fish.

I don't have a ton to say. I'm learning quechua and trying to win people over by speaking quechua to them. It works pretty well. They always laugh when they hear a gringo speaking quechua to them. I try to think about how Enoch did his mission. God said that his area was the most wicked of all of His creations in all the eternities, but then they became Zion and went up to heaven. Why couldn't we replicate that in Vegueta? I think we could.

I just hope that you all know that the gospel is so splendidly and undoubtedly true. Families can be together forever. This is God's plan of happiness for His children. I don't see what would be so much fun in heaven without our family. Sometimes I ask people from other faiths what they think happens when we go to heaven...what's so great about it? We just kick back and do nothing until the end of eternity? THAT sounds like hell to me. God has a much better and bigger perspective. It has to do with our eternal progression. We can eternally progress and we can have eternal families.

I want to find a few others to baptize before I go home. My goal was 25 in the last 6 months and right now I'm in big doodoo. We'll get it though, eventually.

Well, family, be good and don't get trunky yet! There's still a lot more work to get done out here! I love you all and hope that you have a great week!


Elder Jake Avery


General Conference (April 6, 2015)

El Arte de Aprender Callarse  (April 20, 2015)