Written by Elder Jacob Avery, currently serving in the Peru Lima West Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking Spanish.
Good morning everyone! It is cloudy today, so everything is ordinary.
My ward is really awesome. We have a beautiful church building here in Los Rosales that we can see from our house. We have about 120 active members and 300-ish less active members. We definitely have our work cut out for us. The ward has redoubled their efforts in missionary work over the past two weeks, and boy am I grateful for that.
We baptized an elderly lady named Hermana Teadura. She has seven kids and one who passed away when she was only 18 months old. I can't express how happy I was to tell her that the Atonement of Jesus Christ and mercy of God enables her baby to live in the presence of her Heavenly Father for all eternity without the ordinance of baptism. Elder China and I are going to work with the rest of her children who are all grown up and are scattered in our area.
My living conditions are...different, to say the least. We live on the third floor of the Stake President's house. It's basically on the roof, so it's pretty cool. Our room is nice and tidy (I tend to that). I sweep nearly everyday, and the other day I gave our concrete shower a good scrubbing. A very good scrubbing! When Elder China saw it he exclaimed, ''Osumachu!'' I have no idea how to spell it or what it means, but he uses that word a lot. All of our walls and floors are concrete, so you can't really tell that it's dirty. Our beds are nice and warm because night time is freezing here. It's quite a shock getting out of bed. I have my burglar beanie hat from dad and warm socks that I wear during exercise. Fortunately, we have 20 litros (liters) of warm water. Showers are short but if you do it right, they're always warm.
My area is relatively small. We live off pretty much the only paved road in town. We only need to use a moto taxi (Nache Libre style tricycle) in emergencies. We walk quite a bit and I'm starting to find my way around town.
The perros (dogs) are very nice...most of the time. The rest of them are very angry and I'm not too sure why. I had one come at me the other night and I yelled at it and it seemed to scare him off. Needless to say, I kept a big old rock in my pocket the rest of the night. The two dogs at my house are ''bipolares'' (bipolar). Sometimes they're cute and happy and sometimes they freak out, and there is no rhyme or reason to it.
We had an Obra Missional (missionary workshop) last Friday. We set up an awesome display and gave members a Book of Mormon to give their friends. Afterwards, we played all sorts of games. It's hilarious to see the Peruvians play games. We play ninja and dancing games, and all sorts of other party games after every Family Home Evening or fireside (casual, inspirational meeting). My companion, Elder China, is Bolivian, but his family lives in Japan now. He's a very serious Ninja player...very serious.
On Saturday we got to hear a member of the Seventy speak to our mission and the Lima North Mission. He gave us very good counsel on how to teach about the apostasy to our investigators. A few of the examples he gave were:
'When did the Apostasy start?' Well, nobody knows the answer to that. It's like when a man's hair begins to grey. You can't pin an exact day on when his hair changed, but little by little it eventually became undeniably grey. Like the Gospel of Jesus Christ after the Apostles were killed, corruption seeped in little by little, and eventually Christianity became undeniably changed from the pure gospel Christ taught.
'Why did God wait almost 2000 years to restore the gospel to the earth?' When a pilot loses an engine on the plane, he doesn't take the quickest route to the ground. A nose dive is the quickest way to the ground but definitely not the safest. When the gospel of Christ became polluted it wasn't immediately grounded. God waited until a time when it could never be taken again from the earth. The Church has been restored in an age where the Apostles can travel around the world in a matter of hours, doctrine can be obtained online in a matter of seconds, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints will never be taken from the Earth until He comes again.The time of restoration couldn't have been sooner. Even in the free country of America, the restored Church of Jesus Christ was attacked and it's first prophet was martyred in cold blood. Imagine if the Church had been restored during the Hundred Years War or the Crusades; it wouldn't have been received.
Afterwards, we went to McDonalds! It was pretty much the same as in the States. Some things never change.
On P-day (preparation day) we went to the beach as a district. It was so beautiful! I'm attaching pictures (note: no pictures of the beach were received).
The Spirit is awesome in the field. You literally see miracles happen before your eyes. We're teaching the husband of a young mom who has been inactive for several years. They've been coming to church and have been receiving everything we tell them. They actually read their Book of Mormon! Their family has also given us references to their friends and cousins. He's scheduled to be baptized on Saturday, and I'm so happy for him.
Well, I love everyone back home. I'm sorry if I don't answer your emails right away. Be persistent and I'll write back! Have a wonderful week.
Love,
Elder Avery
Building Houses in Peru (August 19, 2013)
Some Brotherly Advice (August 20, 2013)
Bread Nuggets, English Literature, and Popcorn (September 2, 2013)
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| Elder China and Elder Avery - Peru Lima West Mission You can see their church building behind them. |
John 10:16: "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd."
