November 17, 2014
Transferred!
Hello! So we have transfers tomorrow, and I am staying here
in La Mesa! Elder Perez will be transferred to Bogotá, and one of the
missionaries from Elder Perez's group will be coming here with me. Another
Peruvian, which means that half of my companions will have been from Perú haha.
We have had a couple of good weeks! And it has been raining
and thundering a ton!!! The difficult part of La Mesa is using time wisely and
intelligently; we always have more lessons here than I have had in any other
area, but that doesn't mean much more success haha. One of the problems that I
have previously described is how much the people work here; we teach a few of
our investigators in their workplace (stores, haircut places, etc), and even
though we need to teach the people that receive us, these people have a huge
difficulty with going to Church on Sunday. We have been learning a lot about
how we need to teach the importance of every meeting on Sunday and about the
Sabbath Day, but it is still a very hard commitment for the people here. We
just need to find people that don't work on Sunday haha.
Last Saturday, we helped the branch to clean the chapel in
an activity they called "A Cleaning Journey." I wasn't too surprised
when not a ton of people showed up haha. But as we were cleaning with the
branch president, a few families showed up, and we had a good time sweeping and
mopping and then eating hamburgers with buns that Agustín cooked!
We are starting to see the perks of having a baker in the
branch; he also brings the bread for the sacrament on Sunday. Agustín has been
growing well in the church; slow, but he has come to church on time and stayed
the whole time every Sunday since his baptism. And, he is going to give a talk
on Sunday! He is pretty shy, so we will be helping him during the week.
The Suárez family didn't show up this Sunday; that was
pretty sad, because they won't be able to reach their baptism this month. They
always have to work on holiday weekends. However, they have been growing and
growing in their testimonies, I am excited to see them continue to progress!
They are fantastic people, just a little slow to change.
We have also had more service opportunities these past few
weeks. We have helped President Rubio (ex bishop, mission president, and temple
president) clean up his yard a few times; he has a few exotic fruit trees
(plátano, guanabana, guayara) that needed some shaping up. We have also helped
Agustín clean his bakery, and helped him eat some bread too haha. We are also
helping the branch to shape up and clean the chapel better, and to prepare and
clean up the sacrament in a timely manner. And we are still looking for more ways
to be able to take off the tie to be able to work and help out haha.
I know that this is the true church and gospel of Jesus
Christ. I can see it in the way people improve their lives as they live it, in
the way the people come to understand it, and in the way that I feel as I teach
and share it. It is such a wonderful feeling to know that we don't need to
wonder if something we teach is really true, or feel confused with what the
purpose of this life is. We know it. I hope you all have an amazing week!
Love,
Elder Toombs
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