Well here we are again. Another week has passed in the service of the Lord. It´s been an interesting week. We have seen some of the tender mercies of the Lord.
We had decided before that we would go to a part of the area that is far away on Tuesday. We almost didn´t go since it is so inconvienent but we felt that we decided to go for a reason so we went. When we got there we were headed to the people we had planned to talk to when Elder Merrill just randomly turned and clapped a house (we don´t knock doors, we clap). A member used to live there (that´s why he clapped the house) but he moved. But the person who came out is from Peru and has talked with missionaries before, he also told us his brother is a member that lives in another city but was currently at his aunt´s house a few blocks away. So we went to visit him. He was really nice but didn´t have time to talk so he told us to go visit his cousins who are members who lived a few blocks away. So we went over there. At this house we found his cousins, one of which is a member (the member is 13, the others were too young to be baptized, but one of the kids is 8 now). We also talked to their mom who loves the church but hasn´t been able to be baptized because she isn´t married and has paperwork problems (paperwork has stopped a lot of people from being baptized here). They recently moved from Peru so they weren´t on the member list and the ward had no idea there were members that lived there. So God led us to this family that wants to come back to church; the only problem is they live really far away so we can´t go over as much as we need to. But we are trying to get some members that live close by to bring them to church.
On Thursday we did exchanges, so I went over to work with Elder Gomez (an Argentine who is going to serve in Arizona but is waiting for his visa so is here for now). We had a pretty good time together teaching a blind lady, a 15 year old boy that wants to be baptized, and an inactive family. I found I had no problem communicating with him even though he speaks very little english. My spanish skills have gotten a lot better, but he still made fun of my accent. During this time Elder Merrill was in our area and he found another family of members that isn´t on the ward member list, with a 12 year old son who isn´t a member but wants to come to church. That was pretty awesome.
Then on Saturday we had an activity that the ¨obra misional¨ planned (us and the ward mission leader planned it). We invited all the members to bring friends and we invited lots of inactives and lots of investigators. The plan was to get everyone together, play some games, drink some mate, get to know eachother, and have them bring nonmembers we could talk to. But only ten members showed up, the ward mission leader, his family, and the bishop. It was a little disappointing but the ward mission leader brought his nonmember girlfriend who also came to church yesterday. Apparently he has taught her a lot and she is really interested. That´s our main problem right now, getting the members to be excited and come to activities and bring friends. But we are working and have seen some fruit from our labors.
Ojalá que todos tengan una semana maravillosa. Recuerden que Dios les ama. Y que yo les amo tambien.
Nos vemos,
Elder Gardner
¨Bound, bound, bound, and rebound. Sometimes you´re up and sometimes you´re down. But when you´re up you´re up and when you´re down you´re down. Just bound, bound, bound, and rebound.¨
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