Week 98

Hey guys!
Congrats on moving in to the new house! It`s going to be a great missionary opportunity. Make a conscious effort to make friends with those that aren`t members of the church in the neighborhood. Especially Mom and Dad. Two questions that I have been pondering a lot this week, and that all of you can think about this week, are: Why is it important to have good member friends? and Why is it important to have good nonmember friends? How can you have a good balance?

So the Church has announced where the new temple will be. Los Olivos! I can see Los Olivos from my apartment on the hill. 

We had a great week! Like always we did a lot of service. Harumi was finally confirmed almost a month after her baptism. We learned a lot this week about the importance of working with the head of the family. The uncle of Harumi, Juan Carlos, went to her baptism a few weeks ago and he really liked it. We haven`t been able to teach him and his family until this week because he works a lot. But now we have been able to find him at 8 o`clock in the morning before he goes to work, and he`s so excited about the gospel. He attended church with his family in Cusco when he was little until he was 7, when his family went inactive. He is now 27 and lives with his future wife, Karen, and they have an eight year old son named Lenning. The first lesson we were only able to find him, and he told us that he was willing to do everything it takes for him and his family to get baptized. Later in the week we explained to the entire family the blessings of the temple, and now Juan Carlos is willing to do everything it takes to be sealed to his family in the temple. They all came to church yesterday, and they really enjoyed it. They are working on getting married as soon as possible because they both feel that it is time to get married. It reminds me of Johan and his family when I was in Magdalena. When the father is the first one to get excited about church, everyone follows. We have also been teaching Teodoro who is 57 years old, goes to catholic church every week, and is actually married to his wife Jacky. He wasn`t religious in his life until december. When he was really sick in the hospital someone gave him a new testament, and he has been reading that ever since. It has always been hard to teach him because he always wants to teach us what he has learned from the bible and doesn`t really listen to us when we respond. Finally last week we gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to read it. For the past two weeks he has been reading it and comparing it with his new testament which is exactly what we want him to do, and it is answering his questions about if it is necessary to be baptized again, or if he should pray to the virgin. The other day we saw his wife Jacky and she told us "That book is changing my husband. He wants to get baptized. I think I want to get baptized too." They are going to accompany us to church on Sunday. Last night there was an activity about family history and the temple for the recent converts, investigators, or less actives in the mission in one of the institute buildings. We brought the Damian family and there were hundreds of people there. At the end they gave out My Family booklets and temple coloring books for the kids. On the bus ride back I was sitting next to the driver, his name was José. His wife was the one that collected the money from the people, and their 8 year old son was in the bus with them. Guadalupe, who is 9 years old, gave her coloring book to the boy and his mom was looking through it with him. I started talking with José about the temple and they want to go to church. They live in... Los Olivos. hahah. I hope they end up going to church. 

We had a great week and I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Jones