Well it all started Wednesday when went to the jungle. First we took a jeep for a long while into the jungle up until a point called the Devils Curve. Then we all got out of the jeep and started our trek into the jungle. At this point we are now full on hiking, the trail is not exactly marked. We are crossing rivers on sticks, which are super slippery and I saw a coral snake.
Yeah it’s official, I’m in Buenaventura and it’s super awesome.
I’m super excited because as of this Wednesday Buenaventura will have it’s first sister missionaries in the history of the city.
So I made frappuccino’s, yeah that’s right but don’t worry they’re coffee free.
We also did a karaoke night with Brandon.
I love my area, I love Buenaventura. It’s one of my favorite areas that I’ve served in. I’m so excited that I made it through transfers! I get to stay here. I hope I can pull the next 6 months out in this area. I love it here.
This week we taught a bunch of people. Our area is the most successful right now in all of Buenaventura. The assistants told us that Buenaventura is the best zone in the mission right now! It’s such an amazing zone, the missionaries are so obedient and the Lord helps us so much with our investigators with our goal to help the members and investigators to have spiritual experiences. I just love it here.
This week was the first week in this transfer that the zone didn’t have any baptisms, but don’t worry we start right back up this Saturday with more baptisms. Have I mentioned that I love it here; the people are so ready to hear the gospel.
Your challenge this week:
Invite the missionaries over to eat, and invite one person that is not a member or has never heard of the church. I know it will be an awesome experience.
Well, I don’t have much to say this week, nothing super crazy happened to us.
We went to Cali again with the whole zone. On the trip there they all threw up, oh my… hahahaha. We had a zone conference with President PrÃcoli. It was super awesome.
Elder Campos & Elder Lyle
The most exciting things of my week were:
Joseph Riascos got baptized, the kid who didn’t get baptized last week. It was my first baptism in a river and I had the most amazing experience when I was baptizing him. I honestly loved it.
Elder Lyle baptizing Joseph
Buenaventura is super awesome.
Joseph is super awesome, I see him as a missionary in 1 year, I know it!
The other awesome thing is....
WE ARE TEACHING BRANDON’S FAMILY!
So if you don’t remember who Brandon is, he is the 16 year old who had problems in Venezuela and in order to save his life he walked all the way to Buenaventura. Well let me just tell you that’s not a walk in the park. Where he lived in Venezuela to Buenaventura is from like Portland to Redding California. When he got here he found his family that lives here, he asked them if he could live with them and they accepted. He was a member of the church in Venezuela, his family got baptized when he was 2 and he was baptized when he turned 8. However, after he turned 12 he started some bad friendships that ended badly. We were walking around when he found us; he said, "Hi, I’m Brandon and I’m a member of the church and I want to change my life". Ever since then we have been inseparable. We have spent so much time with him that his aunts and his cousins who he lives with have asked us to teach them. Natalia and Josselyn are his cousins and every single day this week they woke up and dragged Brandon to Seminary at 4:30 in the morning. It’s super awesome.
The famous Brandon
Honestly I’m starting to love Buenaventura.
It rains every single day here. Buenaventura is known as one of the rainiest cities in the world. Yeah... in the world. I can testify of that as well, hahaha. My shoes are growing mold, my ties are growing mold, my suit isn’t here because if it was here it would be growing mold. It so awesome, yet, with all the mold that grows here the people here don’t know how to make cheese....
We walk around everyday absolutely drenched, and I love it. Buenaventura is the best.
Not for the light of stomach.
The rain wreaks havoc on the feet
mile after mile
So this week we have been watching a lot of the church videos with people to help teach them. There are some very deep yet easy to understand videos that are great ways to understand how much our Heavenly Father loves us.
So that brings me to the challenge this week:
Watch one of these two movies this week with your family.
The Testaments or
Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration
I love you all, if you want other short videos check out: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/categories/mormon-messages?lang=eng
Tuesday we went to Cali. The funny thing is when Elder Campos and I got to Cali we were freezing hahaha. All the elders that had come in from Pasto and Ipiales were all dying of heat and we thought it was so cold we had to sleep with fleece blankets. It didn’t help that we still had some major motion sickness from the bus ride to Cali from Buenaventura. It started with a small fender bender we were in right as we left, which put us behind, so the bus driver drove like a maniac and got to Cali in 2 hours. Normally it is a drive of 3 hours to 3 ½ hours. It’s a super nasty road through the Andes with ups and downs, tunnels and cliffs. We stepped off the bus and I thought that I had been in a boat for like 2 months. Everyone was puking in the bus except for me, having the un-ability to vomit after my surgery has served me well in the mission, ha-ha. On the way back everyone puked again, its just part of the experience of traveling in and out of Buenaventura.
The leadership council was super awesome super inspiring, things about how we can be better missionaries. When everything finished up we brought 2 pizzas back with us from Dominos for us and Elder Donoso and Elder Sacco.
So right now we are teaching an 18-year-old boy called Joseph, he’s super awesome, although he didn’t want to get baptized this week. However the rest of the zone had an awesome week and we baptized 6 people this last Saturday. We did the baptisms in a river 30 minutes from the chapel. As zone leader I’m in charge of calling the busses to get us from to the chapel to the river. We were a little late in getting to the chapel Saturday cause we were helping finishing up a contract job on a house for the sister missionaries who will be coming here to Buenaventura. When we got to the chapel we noticed that the 2 busses we had asked for were not going to be enough for all the people that showed up for the baptisms. We called for another bus and those who could leave we sent them off to the river to wait us.
My life is nothing stress, I love it... hahaha.
Yesterday we had an awesome experience, we taught some new investigators:
Anthony who is 19 and his girlfriend.
We watched the testaments which is about when Jesus Christ came down to the Americas after his resurrection.
It was an awesome experience, everyone cried, we asked them if they would prepare to get baptized on the 6th of September and they all said yes, immediately.
It’s a powerful thing, the knowledge AND testimony that Jesus Christ visited the America’s after his resurrection.
In the New Testament in the book of John it says.
John 10:16
16. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
Who are these other sheep?
To understand this, one must first understand God’s role as our one and only Eternal Father.
He loves all his children the same.
If you have 2 children far from your home and Christmas time roles around which of the two are you going to call to say MERRY CHRISTMAS to?
Would you choose only one?
OR would you call both?
You would call both obviously, you love both the same they are your children.
Our Heavenly Father had two children, one in Jerusalem and the other here in the Americas long ago.
When God sent prophets to teach what he expected of his children in Jerusalem you can bet he did that same thing here in the Americas.
All the prophets in the Old Testament had one thing to teach:
That the Messiah would come, both here in the Americas and in Jerusalem.
The prophets taught of the coming of the Messiah.
The disciples waited for him when he told them he had other sheep to visit, they did not fully comprehend.
Many people try to interpret this scripture in their own way and manner today, however we know he spoke of the other children of God here on the American Continent.
After his resurrection, Jesus Christ came and presented himself to those who lived here in the American Continent and thus fulfilled what Jesus Christ had said so far away in what is considered the Holy Land.
I testify that this is the church of Jesus Christ in these latter days and those who have chosen his church are called the saints.
This is the church of Christ
The Redeemer of the World.
Share this knowledge with someone this week:
That Christ came to the American Continent long ago to fulfill John 10:16
It all started on Monday when 7 missionaries and myself were in a Family Home Evening. It was like 8 at night and while we were singing a hymn everything went pitch black. That’s when the week got fun, hahahaha.
We had no idea for how long we would be without energy however everyone was saying it would be down for 8 days... awesome.
Immediately my companion and I changed the schedule for all the missionaries for safety. They would need to be in their houses at 6:30 everyday. The mission president called us and said that we could no longer eat with the members because of the problem for them of storing food for the next 8 days. It was getting kind of epic. We also had no water in the houses cause there was no electricity to send up the water to our 3rd story apartment, so all the missionaries are growing beards, ha-ha.
So we told the whole zone to meet us in the grocery store. It’s called the 14; it’s where they have canned food and frozen food and a generator so that everyone could buy their own un-perishable foods to live off of. Everyone went in and got their groceries and we met up again. I did a quick sweep to see what they had all bought, hahaha dry cereal and canned beans were the most popular items I noticed they had.
With the awful heat of Buenaventura, no water in the city because electricity was going to be out for 8 days we were thinking that the missionaries were going to be seriously lacking in energy with a diet of canned beans and dry cereal everyday. I told them they would need to cook something else and I only got back blank stares from every single one of them. Those stares in that moment told me that they would burn everything down if they had to cook the pasta I had bought. So, I realized I was sent here for a reason during this time, I told my entire zone that I would now be in charge of all the lunches for the zone while the power outage lasted. May I just say I surprise myself. I was in charge of giving the only meal of the day to 8, 20-year-old young adults that walk all day; do you know the amount of food we eat as missionaries? Hahaha
So this week I made Chinese fried rice with orange BBQ chicken, Mac n Cheese, chicken nuggets, and one day I even made mango chicken and coconut rice. My cooking skills are improving.
I just want you all to appreciate that I made all that food without any power, all I had was a portable gas stove we have. Yeah, you want to take this kid with you if are going camping. The day I made orange BBQ chicken, maybe you might be saying BBQ? How in the world did he do BBQ? Easy, I put a bunch of charcoal in a cooking pot set the thing on the balcony and lit that sucker up, boom do-it-yourself BBQ. Hahaha
Although we were working only 4 hours every day the truth is, these were hard days. Every 4 hours of the day that we had was exactly when the tropical storms coming off the coast dump gallons upon gallons of water on the port city of Buenaventura. So we were practically sprinting from appointment to appointment so wet that I had bubbles coming out of my shoes and there is rust on all the staples in my missionary manual.
We know that the message we share everyday has incredible importance to all who listen to it, and nothing can stop us as we hasten the work here in Buenaventura.
That brings me to my lesson this week:
It’s the 5th step in the 5 steps of the Gospel of Jesus Christ… Endure to the End.
Let’s see what we can find in Doctrine and Covenants about the topic.
D&C 122:4-9
5. If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; if thou art in perils among robbers; if thou art in perils by land or by sea;
6. If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee…
9. Therefore, hold on they way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee; for their bounds are set, they cannot pass… therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.
When we see a mountain in front of us let us remember we are children of our divine Father so run at the mountain and conquer it.
We can do hard things, we were born to show that we can do these things; we are children of the great and only God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob.
The God who parted The Great Red Sea.
He who created everything you see, He who sent his only begotten here to drink the bitter cup, our great and Eternal Father, show that you are a child of God…
Endure, you can do hard things.
We may have children or we may not, we may be fathers, aunts, and uncles, but we must always remember that we are children of God.
Carry that title with pride and dignity.
I challenge you all to share this knowledge this week.
Tell someone that they are a child of God, and that God loves them and He will never abandon them and that He will always love them.
In the name of Jesus Christ
Amen
Everyone watch my favorite video on the subject and possibly my favorite video of all time.
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