Week 93

Hey guys!

Sounds like everyone is doing great. I can`t believe that the school year is coming to a close, it feels like it just started. We had a great week! We have 3 families that we are currently helping to get married. Gerardo and Maria have two sons that are returned missionaries and they have known the church for a very long time, but they aren`t married. We were hoping for some news about their papers coming in this week but they still haven`t been able to get them. Gerardo is trying to stop smoking to be able to get baptized, and he`s gone 8 days without smoking so far. We`re trying to stop by every day to see how he`s doing with that. Nely and Jorge are trying to get married as well but outside of Lima because of the storms there were mudslides that destroyed a kilometer of the road, so they can`t go to their pueblo to get their birth certificates. Also Victor Damian and Lidia. Their daughter, Noemi, who is 15, is a recent convert from last month. The Damian family is awesome. They have 4 daughters ages 15, 13, 9, and 5. They`ve known the missionaries since December and they`ve constantly been coming to church, but their 13 year old daughter Harumi, has always been afraid of baptism. Every time we go we try to talk about baptism and she tries to avoid it. This week we`ve been trying to address her biggest questions and we finally got her to give us a strong yes. She wants to get baptized on April 2nd. Her parents are awesome. They want to get married and be good examples for their daughters. They love the church and they`re just really good people. So we`re going to help them get married without doing everything for them so they can exercise their faith in doing something to receive blessings for it.

Elder Alfaro is doing great. We`ve had some tender moments this week. It hasn`t been easy for him to adapt to missionary life, but he`s doing great. I`ve learned that teaching him through example doesn`t mean taking the steering wheel and doing everything by myself, but rather  giving him many opportunities to lead the teaching. We get along really well and I`m learning a lot from him. 

I hope you guys have  a great week!

Elder Jones