Elder Jones week 41

Hey Guys! So I had a great week.  My companion had to go home this week, but now I´m in a trio with Elder Kidd and Elder Pascual (the other companionship in my ward) It´s SO different with 3 missionaries, and I feel like I´m going to need to do splits everyday for these next 2 weeks that we´re together in a trio because there´s so much work to do in the two areas. Yesterday we didn´t do splits and we both had so many important appointments that day and we weren´t able to visit everyone we needed to visit, so I think it´ll be a lot easier and a lot more effective to do splits most days.

We had the baptism of Sofía yesterday!  You need to hear her give her testimony-- it´s impressive. We had a lot of support from the ward and a lot of people came.  It was a really great baptismal service, but the best part of it (also the part where I learned the most) was in the closing prayer.  Sofías dad, who isn´t a member yet because he has to get married to his wife, gave the closing prayer.  He said, in his prayer, "Thank you for baptizing my daughter by way of Elder Jones, and I ask that the next two people to get baptized be my wife and I".  When I heard that, first of all I was impressed by how much he wanted to get baptized.  But also I learned that he really understands the priesthood.  I didn´t baptize his daughter, God did.  I´m just an instrument.  It´s true that I physically preformed the ordinance and put her under the water, but I was just an instrument in God´s hands in that.  A hammer is needed to pull out a nail, but the hammer doesn´t pull out the nail, the person uses the hammer to pull out the nail.  Eugenio understands the priesthood and baptism in a way that I didn't, and that´s just another testimony to me that the spirit is the real teacher in the lessons, not me.

So this week we had a lesson with Isabella. She was going to get baptized a few years ago but she´s from a part of Perú where the church really hasn´t reached yet and she realized that it would be really hard to be a member of the church where her family lives. But she goes to church every week with a family in our ward that she´s living with, because she´s here in Lima for a few years to study.  And we taught her yesterday about the Book of Mormon and we invited her to do all the things necessary to find out that the Book of Mormon is true, and she committed to baptism!  It is something she hasn't done in years, preparing to learn that the Book of Mormon is true. So I pray that this is the time God has prepared her for.

We lost This Is My Work And My Glory To Bring To Pass The Immortality And Eternal Life Of Man dog this week because we had to take a taxi somewhere.  The dog followed our taxi for about two miles, but he couldn´t keep up with us and we lost him. But he did follow us around for almost an entire week.

I hope you guys are all doing great.  I´ll continue to pray for you all!
Elder Jones