Week 99

So we had a great week! We found out that there is going to be a communal marriage in the municipality of San Martin de Porres. (exactly the same place as last year with the Rosales Flores family in Rimac, almost exactly the same day.) On May 21st. Juan Carlos and Karen are excited about it, and they´re already getting their papers ready. We also invited Lidia and Victor to get married on may 21st and they also accepted! Lidia is Juan Carlos´ sister. She has been looking for work since before we arrived here, and precisely the same week that she and her husband decided to get married on a specific day, a job opened up at the work of one of the members in the ward, and she won´t have to work on sundays. Mosiah 2:24 "And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you;". 

This week we had left Juan Carlos and Karen Alma 32 to read and they had only read half of it. So we were reading the rest of it with them, and I can´t tell you how many times I´ve read Alma 32 on my mission, but this time I realized something I hadn´t seen before. We read verse 42 that reads, "And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst." I was thinking about the fruits of the gospel, blessings, and spiritual experiences that we recieve from God. They are intended to enjoyed personally, only for us. But whenever we partake of the fruit we are left with the seeds. We don´t eat the seeds, they are intended to be shared with others. The only way to obtain the seeds is by partaking of the fruit. No other part of the tree has seeds. In order for missionaries to constantly plant seeds (even though technically the spirit plants them) in the heart of others, they must constantly be partaking of the fruit, or they run out of seeds. I´m reminded of the conference talk by Bishop Waddell in april when he said that in Lehi´s dream the people that partook of the fruit only once were later ashamed and fell away, but the people that were continually partaking of the fruit did not pay attention. The gospel has to be continually working for us, and we need "many revelations (or spiritual experiences) daily". With every fruit that god gives us, he also gives us the seeds, or the responsibility to share it.

One thing that we recently noticed about our sector that is unique is that basically everyone that lives on the hill is related. They all know eachother. Now that we are teaching several families, we realize that they´re all related. When we ask for references from our investigators none of them say "I don´t know anyone here". They all tell us to go visit their friends or family members. This ward has so much potential because once things start moving, and a couple more families get baptized, the growth of the church here is going to be exponential.

Yesterday we had lunch with the Capuñay family. Brother capuñay served in Santiago Chile from 2005 to 2007, and his mission president was.. Brad Wilcox. hahah. Elder Holland was the Area president of Chile during his time there and he said that twice a month he had family home evening with Elder and Sister Holland and their investigators.  

We´re both really happy and we´re having lots of really great experiences, and I hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Jones