Come Join With Us

Dear Familia,                             

I hope you didn´t worry! Sorry things got a little carried away yesterday and then today we finally finished our part of it at 3, at least for a couple of days. The most I could share is just that it´s just best to be obedient always.

This week we continued with the interviews and room revisions. On Wednesday we went to Comas and we did a work visit to where my old district was. I didn´t end up in Año Nuevo because Elder Barriento´s son was there and so I let him go instead. I went to Retablo with Elder Ruiz who has about 20 months in the mission. We knew quite a few of the same people and we actually did end up visiting one of the recent converts that I had interviewed for baptism there, so that was cool. 

We taught one man that came out as an interesting lesson. His name is Roberto and he´s a less active member. He is probably 70 or 80 years old and was baptized at maybe 40. We started the lesson off talking a little bit about faith, and he had already been more or less combative, or at least I felt like he was questioning my desire to be on a mission and blaming it on that my family are all members. I explained it wasn´t the case, that I was there for my own free will and choice, but he still seemed unsatisfied. We kept talking a little about the church and we invited him to come back, which I´m sure a lot of elders had done before, as he seemed to know quite a few. Well, this time the lesson took a different turn and he said "look, I haven’t told the regular elders this but I go to church every once in a while in Año Nuevo and in Tahuantinsuyo". I didn’t really believe it, but he also claimed that the bishop in his ward had problems and that he couldn´t go back to a ward where the bishop is disorganized and doesn´t do house calls. 

We tried to explain a little about church organization and how the bishop is the shepherd and if the shepherd goes to feed every sheep when it bleats for food, he wouldn´t be able to help all of them. That´s why the bishop has an executive secretary and is in the chapel for interviews. It´s like showing the fold of sheep where the best grass is instead of carrying the grass to them when they are off the path. We also tried to relay a bit about the talk President Uchtdorf gave last October called “Come, Join with Us”. The best quote to me from that talk is about how if you choose not to go to a church because someone from that church is a hypocrite, then you won´t ever end up attending church because we are all hypocrites. It´s like in Romans where Paul says "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". What the King James Version adds though is interesting. It says that while that’s true, it can be rectified by a true repentance and that´s only possible through the grace of Christ. He didn´t take any of it (a little bit set in his ways) but he promised to come to church. That’s the only thing about work visits: I get to teach like there is no tomorrow with investigators but that’s only because there is no tomorrow, I don´t get to see the follow-up.

On Saturday for P-day we went to Centro de Lima, which is now approved after president explained to the presidency of the area that there aren’t any landmarks or museums to visit inside of our own mission. We ended up going to the Plaza de las Armas again, but this time there was a giant parade of typical dress and dances from the different regions of Perú. We think it was a first exhibition of the Patriotic Parties (fiestas patrias) leading up to the Peruvian Independence day on the 28th. It was pretty cool to see and I took a few photos so I’ll be sending those.

As for the questions you asked: we don´t get to proselyte very much outside of work visits and maybe a couple of times a week at night just due to the regular workings of the mission. For example, if we aren’t in a work visit we can always go visit to verify that the missionaries are finishing the day on time, and in order to do that for the far reaches of the mission we have to start out at 8. At 7 we have dinner with members, and until 6 we are in the offices working. It can be a little tough to fit a regular investigator on that one to two hour slot, so we are trying to help the ward get stronger because right now, there’s a regular attendance of maybe 80, when a ward is something like 120 minimum in the South America Northwest area. We should finish with the interviews this coming week and then it´s on to just work visits and visits to the district meetings. President also wants us to start visiting during studying hours to make sure that the missionaries are studying from 8 to 10 or 11 as the schedule goes.

I love you all. I hope it was a good week for all of you and that everything goes well this coming week!

Love

Elder Nelson

Ps There’s virus problems here in the office, so I’m not plugging the camera in until I have it fixed. Maybe photos later on :/