Week 11 Elder Jones

Hey guys! So this week was still so great, still being productive, still insanely happy, still love the people to death, still doing a ton of service, but somehow I`m still way happier than I was last week and last week I was so much happier than I was the week before.  I`m just not eloquent enough to express how happy I am now.  Especially since English doesn`t exist for me any more. I'm really glad that I'm in a foreign language speaking mission because sometimes I have these moments where we`re having a conversation with a person or a family and I'm on the same page as everyone and it`s an awesome conversation and it just hits me that the language I`m speaking isn`t the language I`ve been speaking for the past 18 years of my life. 

So yeah, the mission is great.  Sometimes I feel like I`m doing something wrong because before my mission all I heard about missions was how hard they are and how there are going to be times when you`re really discouraged or that it`s just really difficult all the time.  In all the training we have they tell us to just get past the first few months and then it starts to get easier, but I can honestly say that so far I haven`t ever felt discouraged or frustrated or felt like I wasn't able to do this. I look forward to every day and honestly I'm just so happy. 

So with our investigators and less actives that we`ve been working on, they`ve all been really receptive and have a desire to progress, but very few of them have been progressing because they haven`t been attending church. But yesterday out of nowhere almost all of our investigators showed up to church and all of our inactives, and also a bunch of members just decided to bring friends that we had never met before. It was amazing.  There weren`t enough seats in the chapel for all the people that showed up. And we hadn`t really done anything different-- it kind of just happened. Oh so I got a letter from sister Dawson this week and it sounds like our ward is really getting serious about missionary work and that`s awesome because it`s so much easier to find people that have been prepared to receive the gospel through friends of members than by knocking on doors. 

Okay so the lady that I told you about last week that recently became inactive because she was listening to one of her antimormon friends, we didn`t give up on her. We visited almost every day this week and each day she wouldn`t let us into her house and would try to fight with us about something new her friend had told her like how interviews with the bishop to enter the temple are evil because only God knows your heart and she was under the impression that you had to pay a ton of money to receive endowments, and I`m pretty sure you only have to pay for the clothing which is dirt cheap in Peru. But anyways, on Friday our goal was just to enter into her house and we were persistent and eventually she let us in.  The difference was immense. She didn`t try to fight with us or anything. We shared a message about the Book of Mormon and testimonies, and it turns out that she didn`t even know what the Book of Mormon was. She didn`t know what a testimony was. Her whole life she had been attending our church because the members where nice and they have fun activities.

And she had been reactivated several times in her life by the missionaries. We shared the parable of the man that built his house upon the sand and the man that built his house upon the rock. And we explained what a testimony is and how it`s like a house. If we build our testimony upon things that can change, like the members and the activities in the church, when the rains and floods (anti-mormon friends) come your house will fall. But if your testimony is upon things like the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ, things that can not change, when anti-mormon friends come you will be able to testify of what you know to be true. And usually when I`m teaching I usually try to be sensitive and tender towards people but I had the impression that I needed to be direct with her and I told her that the only way this can be the last time she is reactivated is if she receives a testimony of the Book of Mormon. And we explained Moroni`s promise and how she can receive a testimony of the Book of Mormon and if she does that also means she will have a testimony that Joseph Smith was called as a prophet of God and that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and that the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, because it`s impossible for the Book of Mormon to be true without those things also being true. And she`s going to find out for herself and she`s going to pray about it. And she came to church yesterday. 

So we`ve given four priesthood blessings this week and I`ve always been the one that does the anointing with oil because I`m not experienced enough to give the blessing in Spanish, but I feel like I`m ready now. Even though I`ve only ever given one priesthood blessing in the CCM and it was super short and I was scared to death the whole time I feel like I'm ready to do it. I`m ready to magnify my calling and use my priesthood to bless others and I`m not afraid to do it anymore. 

Okay so I'll tell you something crazy that happened this week.   There is a 3-story tall house that is on one of the staircases on the side of the mountain, and they have this huge dog, probably 150 pounds,  that is always standing on top of the building and is barking at us whenever we walk past.  One day this week we were walking up the stairs and the dog got really excited and started barking and lost his footing and fell 3 stories onto the staircase and then started rolling down the staircase. And we were freaking out because we seriously thought this dog was dead but no...it just got up and pretended like nothing happened. The next day it was on top of the house barking again. 

I`m feeling a lot better than I was last week. I think I`ve gotten used to the bacteria or whatever it was that was making me so sick, so yeah-- that`s good. I had cow stomach and cow heart this week! I never find out what I`m eating until after I`ve finished eating it.  It was pretty good. I also had blood, I don't know from what animal or anything just straight up blood with some plants baked into it with some sweet potatoes on the side.  I liked it, and apparently it`s good for you. 

Okay, so the earthquake I don`t know anything about, but a couple weeks ago there were some weird noises coming from the mountain that we`re on and it turns out that it`s actually a volcano. Supposedly it`s dormant and everyone`s freaking out that it`s going to erupt but I think we`ll be fine.  

Oh, one other thing-- the way the transfers work out, my group is going to finish our missions 3 weeks earlier than 2 years, so I'm going to be a 19 year old returned missionary! 

Glad you guys had such a great week that`s really exciting that Tyler Allison and Dan are starting school I hope they have a great year.

Love you guys, bye!