Week 81: Milagros en Intercambios

 Hola todos! I hope you all had a great week! Here's what I did.


Monday night we found a few people. We found a guy named Linder who's missing both of his legs. On Tuesday we found a few new people, Gissela and Ruly. Gissela is pentecostal, bit they seem interested. We spent a while explaining authority and baptism. Later in the week we taught them the restoration. I hope they can progress but we'll see what we can do.

On Wednesday after district council we went over to Chocope to start our exchange with Chiclín. We crashed the end of their district council and then I went over to Chiclín with Elder Larkin! Together again. The last time I went to Chiclín we spent the day in Chiclín, but this time we spent it all in Chicama (The area is 2 small towns) I don't know who planned out Chicama before they built it because it's not that wide but loooooong. It's very weird. During lunch we took a photo of us and sent it to Bryan, hermana Angela's grandson in Huanchaco to see how he would react. He immediately tried to videocall us, which we had to reject. He misses us a lot. We then headed out and taught some members about faith. I tried knocking some doors but everyone there is Catholic and don't want a darn thing to do with us. That afternoon we went to a house of a less active member and his partner. Hermano Vicente is less active but his "wife" Maria Elena is an investigator who's come to church twice. She started to explain all the negative feelings she's been having and she thought that a demon was inside her. So we offered a blessing of health and that's the second demon I've cast out here. But after that we started to talk about the gospel of Christ and baptism. She felt that being baptized and getting married will help her repent, so she accepted baptism! And with that we talked about marriage and both agreed to be married in September! Hermano Vicente works in mining so he isn't there very much, but they're both going to work to get married in September so Maria can be baptized at the end of that month! Pure joy and it was my first time in the mission talking about marriage with a couple and they accepted! Elder Larkin is a beast and he totally killed it during that lesson. That night we read the Book of Mormon with some members and stayed up a little too late talking.

On Thursday we finished the exchange and after lunch we visited hermana Francisca and hermano Damian, two elderly members. We shared a quick message and they insisted on giving us some Inca Kola. We then taught our friend Santos about the restoration. He appears to have potential so I'm excited to see what will happen with him. After that we found hermana Jessica. She owns a chifa restaurant and we started by trying to ask her questions to get to know her. We talked about why there are different churches and what makes her happy. When talking about the different churches, I had the thought that what we want in the world is a church not where men speak for God, but a church where God speaks through men. In that moment my thought were organized and I understood more the importance of having a living prophet. That night we also met with hermano José, the 2nd counselor in the bishopric, to help him with his talk on Sunday.

On Friday we went on exchanges with Paijan. I went to Paijan with Elder Sanchez! Man, I've left the area every single exchange this transfer and it seems like all the miracles happen when I'm not there so maybe I'm the problem. But we played a game of Risk and had lunch. We had cabrito because it was Peru's Independence Day. We had a lesson with an hermano about faith and then met with a recent convert. After that we tried finding some PFs but with not much luck, but it was fun talking and with Elder Sanchez. We've both changed so much since we were companions for 3 weeks in November. That night we went to the ward activity in the chapel. We talked with the members and some investigators that came. We then asked to have a little lesson with one hermana, Angela. Her brother was baptized very recently and she had accepted to be baptized too but then later said no. We talked to her about the gospel of Jesus Christ and read the scriptures. The spirit was incredibly strong, probably one of the moments I've felt it the strongest in my mission. She started to cry and opened up a little bit about her worries and doubts. We knew that she knew baptism was right. She told us she was going to think about it and tell usnon Sunday. There's more to this story that I won't share, but I will say that after that powerful lesson and an extreme about of courage on her part, yesterday Elder Sanchez and his companion Elder Arano helped put her on date for baptism in August. These are the moments I will never forget. We had some parrilla (barbeque) for dinner. We played another game of Risk and absolutely destroyed him.

On Saturday we finished the exchange and played yet another game of Risk. After lunch we found a woman named Nicol who I hope will progress. Then we went to our lesson with hermano Anthony and Lourdes. Lourdes is the daughter of hermana Pepa, the woman we helped get to the hospital a few weeks ago. During exchanges Elder Cordova and Elder Matos visited them and they said that Anthony had doubts about the miracles Jesús Christ did, even though he does believe in Christ. We taught them about Joseph Smith and the restoration and it was very powerful. Hermano Anthony said he was starting to believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I can already see him in white, we'll just have to help them with their difficulties to come to church. They want to, but have other things as well on Sundays. We'll see what we can do. After that we had a lesson with hermana Gissela and hermano Ruly. This time we explained the Book of Mormon. Hermana Gissela was having a lot of trouble accepting it and honestly said she didn't want to accepted it. I was ready to end the lesson, but Elder Cordova has a lot of faith with them so we'll see what can happen.

On Sunday Elder Cordova and I went to church and surprisingly hermano Ruly showed up! I went without my suit because I lended it to a recent convert but he still hasn't returned it. It was Presidente Rivas' birthday so for lunch we had pollo broaster, which is just fried chicken with french fries. We had so much soda and fries chicken I thought I was going to die. It's too hard for me to say no so I accepted that second wing when I shouldn't have. I had to tell hermana Diane I'll have her chocolate cake laterbwhen there's room in my stomach. We went to Sausal after hat and visited some members there. We tried to visit hermana Victoria but she wasn't around. We'll have to be a bit more diligent with her. We visited hermano Cesar and hermana Beatriz. A few of their grandaughters were there too. One of them is Fernanda, the daughter of hermano Cesar in Casagrande. We shared a quick message with them and she expressed the desire to be baptized! We'll see what the Lord can do. Then they shared some empanadas with us and some more soda which only added to the amount of food I already had in my stomach. That night we visited hermano Cesar and had a good talk with him. We're going to keep going and see what we can do to help him. We had our nightly zoom call with the mission but the Internet was so bad we couldn't understand much of it.

We're still struggling with a lot of our friends, especially Miguel. He wants to be baptized but is kind of struggling right now. Your prayers would really help!

That's my week! I'm excited to see what the Lord has in store for us in August and I hope all of you have an absolutely fantastic week!

Elder Jensen

1. Zoom call con los asistentes y Presidente
2. Transformers oreos
3. Together again!
4. Hermano Vicente y Hermana Maria
5. Bryan in the mall!?!?!
6/7. Exchange with Elder Sanchez









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