Week 87: The Hand and Timing of the Lord
Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great week! Here's what I did:
Wednesday we ended our exchange a little later than we should have and for that we were "a little" late for district council. It still went well. That night we had a big noche de hogar for the young single adults in the house of the 2nd counselour of the bishopric. Lots of YSA came and we helped our recent convert, Andrea, to come. We shared a message about living up to our potencial, and showed the video, "Your Potencial, Your Privileges," based on the Elder Uchtdorf talk. After that the hermanas with whom we share a ward planned the games. We played a game where you have to dress up and eat chocolate, a game where you have to destroy a cake made of flour, a game with marker on the bottom of plates, and a role play of a custody case. (Sorry I can't explain those much better). But literally the point of them all was to pick on and embarass Elder Agostinelli. He played along because he knew what was going on.
On Thursday we started planning our training for the multizone conferences next week. We also had interviews with President. It went really well like always. And man I can really feel the love President Hiatt has for me and every other missionary in this mission. I got to talk to the secretaries for a bit and sign the journal of Elder Gomez, who's finishing his mission soon. I also got to talk to Elder Sanchez who came for his interview. We got another whiteboard to bring back to the apartment and then had to go to Sanna, the clinic because my companion had an appointment. We visited a family that has 2 young recent converts and taught them about prophets so they can get ready for General Conference. That night we also visited the Malca family, which funny enough I rememer their house from when I went on an hour long exchange with the ZLs when I was in Central over a year ago. That night we had a giant slice of pizza for dinner. Something that I ate got stuck in my mouth, like lodged into the side of my throat, so I spent i while shoving my finger into the back of my mouth trying to scrape it out. It took a while and it left a big wound, but I got it out. I have photos but I won't include them here.
On Friday we had a lesson with a young man named Sebastian outside of his house. He had some questions for us about the bible and other things like that that we were able to answer. We also had a great planning session for the zone and then started an exchange with the Elders of Los Cedros, Elder Gallegos and Elder Jones! I went with Elder Jones in Los Cedros. We had lunch and then left to work. During the day I stopped someone to talk and we started talking about the restoration. He seemed pretty interested, but when we tried to pull out the second lesson he said he didn't have a phone and normally leaves during the day. He gave us his direction and started to walk away. But a few seconds later he turned around again and apologized saying that he had lied and that he actually lives in a different house. He gave us his real direction. The spirit works with people to choose the right! That night we had a lesson with an hermana named Yvon. We listened to her for a while and then we started to talk about baptism. She was baptized as a child, but had no say in it. We talked about authority and the church and she said she wants to be baptized! She's had a Book of Mormon for a while, and she appears that she's going to start reading it. We didn't put her on date because she wanted to come to church first. It was a pretty successful lesson. For dinner we had parrilla and animal chicken nuggets! Casi Dino nuggies. On the way to the apartment I ran into hermano Tufinio from Pueblo Libre in the street! We talked for a second about the ward and about hermana Maylin who I had taught who recently got baptized. It's so awesome to see members and converts from other wards. Elder Jones and I had a great conversation in the house and we both slept well.
On Saturday we all met together at the chapel in California to practice our special musical number we're going to sing for the multizone conference next week. We decided to sing A Child's Prayer and I'll be playing the piano. I didn't get to practice much because we mainly focused on the singers. After lunch we went to the chapel because the hermanas in our ward had 2 baptisms. Hermano Jose Quiroz was baptized at 3, and Presidente and hermana Hiatt also came! Elder Agistinelli and I gave an improv message about the Holy Ghost. An investigator of ours, Anita, also came because she saw our Whatsapp announcement, even though she lives in a different area. At 5 we had the other baptism for hermano Gean Manrique. Both of them gave powerful testimonies. After the baptisms we spoke with hermano Mejia, an hermano that just got back from the Limatambo mission a month ago. We helped set up for the stake activity and watched for a little bit. In the crowd for some reason I saw hermano Isaac and hermana Yobana Lazaro from Pueblo Libre. I walked up to them and we spoke for a moment! They were happy to see me and I was happy to see them! That night we had a noche de hogar with hermana Patricia and her children in the house of our pensionista. Unfortunately hermana Kiara didn't come, but Jhonathan and Estefano did. And again they gave fantastic answers that impressed everyone. We talked about the truth and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
On Sunday we went to church and in the taxi I realized that I had left my notes fotr my talk in the apartment. I quickly pulled up the scriptures I was going to use. I remembered most of the pokts that I was going to touch, so I wasn't too nervous. I spoke about the wisdom of God in the missionary program of the church. I mentioned how God uses the mission to mold the missionaries themselves into disciples while at the same time inviting all to come unto him. The mission converts both the investigator and the missionary. I even got timed out again! There's opposition in all things but even the devil couldn't stop me from giving that talk. Both Jose and Gean were confirmed and we got to participate on the circle. We saw at church hermana Patricia, Jhonathan, and Estefano, (no Kiara), Veronica, Isabel, and Valentino. We also saw our recent converts Carmen, Samir, and Mathias there. We had another lesson with Sebastian in the afternoon and started to explain the restoration. We had a lesson with herma a Veronica and explained part of the Plan of Salvation. We then had a lesson with Valentino! He's the 9 year old son of a member who just recently received permission to be baptized! We taught him a little more about baptism and put him on date for the 22nd! His mom also gave us pancakes with sweetened and condensed milk. Delicious for me but delicious and pain for Elder Agostinelli. We then had a noche de hogar with Bishop and his family. We saw the hermanas passing in a car and they called out to mock us.
Today for pday we played some volleyball in the stake center.
That's my week! We saw quite a few big miracles this week, and it's all thanks to the Lord. He's at the head of everything and is leading this great work. I would like to leave a spiritual message but I don't have much time. I'll make sure to write one next week. I'll just say that the Lord has His timing for everything. Sometimes it's not in line with our desires and sometimes it is. I've experienced lots of disappointments in my mission and lots of miracles. No matter what happens I know it's within the Lord's timing. There's also a great BYU devotional from Elder Dallin H Oaks called "Timing" that I would recommend. We saw the hand and timing of the Lord this week with the baptismal dates were able to set. I know we'll probably face challenges in these next few weeks with them, but I know it'll all work out in His due time. I also learned a lot about grace, faith, and works, but maybe I'll write about that next week. Have a great week!
Elder Jensen
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