Week 96

Hey guys! Sounds like you all had a great spring break! We had an awesome week. We found lots of people to teach and Elder Alfaro is doing great. This week the main excuse that people used to tell us that they didn´t have time to listen to us was that their children had lots of homework, so we´ve helped a lot of children with their homework this week to be able to find families. The parents almost always accept because they themselves can´t help their children with their homework. Usually one of us is helping with homework and the other is talking with the family. I think I forgot to tell you guys this, but Elder Alfaro was studying Chemical Engineering in Bolivia. So we get along well. It´s a really easy way to gain people´s trust because they see that we aren´t robots and that we´re here to serve them. We´ve been teaching a young man named Rodrigo and his family. He really likes to learn about God and his grandma and extended family are all members. He went with them to the temple in December and his grandma bought him a triple combination, hymnbook, and The Testaments movie. He`s been reading the book of Mormon since December, and also listening to the Jehovah`s witnesses. The first time we met him he was in Alma, and we were shocked. We taught him and his mom about the restoration and we started explaining what baptism was he said "Mom, I want to get baptized!" before we could even invite him. His mom said that they would have to talk to his father. Later in the week they said that Rodrigo`s father was opposed to his baptism because he didn`t want him to lose 2 years of study, but that we could talk to him on Sunday. we came by on Sunday morning and the dad, Hugo, is actually really awesome. We had a great lesson and at the end when his father asked us if it was obligatory for his son to go on a mission after getting baptized, I was tempted to go the easy way out and say that it`s technically not obligatory, which is true, but withholding the part about how it is the duty of each baptized young man in the church, and is what God expects of us, just so Hugo would let his son get baptized. But then I realized that if I would have  said that then it wouldn`t be working with the end in mind. So we explained the part about how it is our duty and we bore our testimonies about how our missions have changed us. Then Hugo surprisingly said, "I want my son to serve a mission". He also wants to participate with his family in the church. So now Rodrigo is preparing for a baptismal date May 6th, and we are working with his parents to be able to get married.

Also yesterday we visited the father of Nicole, who is Harumi`s cousin. Nicole comes to church every week but doesn`t have permission to be baptized. But yesterday we visited her father, and we explained to him what baptism is, he felt the spirit, and now Nicole has a baptismal date for this Saturday. Not only that but her father, Andres, wants to go to church because he`s "curious". I know that he felt the spirit. 

We had a lot of other really great experiences that I don`t have time to tell right now, but we have seen the hand of the Lord work with us this week. I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Jones