Paramonga - Week 19

Sé que es verdadero

There were transfers this week but I'm staying where I'm at with Elder Quispe.

Remember last week that I said a lady in the street told me I looked like Leonardo Decaprio??? Well we ended up teaching her with her 16 year old son and they came to church this week. The son also prayed about the Book of Mormon and received an answer to his prayer, he says he knows it's true.

"Christ is the Holy One of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before him, and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul." 2 Nephi 25:29        

This Phrase of the Soul helped me to improve my personal prayers this week. A prayer is different when we pray bowed down and with our might, mind, strength, and soul.

This week we got a new zone leader, he is from Guatemala and he is 27 years old.

So we eat lunch everyday with a family of members that live across the street from our apartment. They live there, but it's also the only pizza place in Paramonga. I asked Jorge (the member that makes the pizzas) for the recipe to make pizza dough. The next day we made the dough and cooked it in our microwave and we made pizzas. The only downer was they don't sell pepperoni here so we put hot dogs on it :D

Today we played soccer for P-day like SIEMPRE. Have a great week everyone.

Que Dios les bendiga,

Elder Harris

Waiting in the street in Barranca to play fútbol

Moto cuyi (the best form of transporation in Peru, it will take you to any part of the city for only 2 new suns (70 cents)

Paramonga - Week 18

No hay mucho tiempo mis amigos

This week we contacted a guy and after talking for a bit we realized he was a soccer coach. He didn't have any desire to listen to the message of the Restoration but he must have been lacking players because he did ask us if we wanted to come join his team. We kindly told him we couldn't...

In another contact this week a lady told me I looked like Leonardo DeCaprio!

We had a good week full of great experiences. We found a new investigator this week working with a recent convert, although it wasn't exactly what we were expecting. We called Stefany, our convert to coordinate an appointment to visit her and ask her for referrals, she told us that she was at her grandfathers house, that her grandfather was named Rufino, she explained where he lived, and said we could pass by there the next day. When we got there, Stefany, the convert, wasn't there but we were able to teach her grandpa Rufino who ended up accepting a baptismal date. The thing that I like about these maneras that have to do with working with members is there is always an opportunity to find, even if its not how we had planned out.

“I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” - Joseph Smith Jr.

Elder Harris

Paramonga - Week 17

Las llaves del sacerdocio

One thing I've learned on the mission is the importance of priesthood keys. Every one of us has priesthood leaders who hold priesthood keys. Those keys are real rights to revelation and authority. A priesthood leader with keys has the right to receive revelation for those who are in his mayordomía (you'll have to google translate it, I don't remember the word in English guys). Anyways, as a missionary the person that has keys is the mission president. I can do this work how I want to do it or I can do it following ALL of the suggestions and revelations of my mission president. That is the way to have success. I feel that if we could all maybe understand more of that concept we would be more united as families, quorums, wards, stakes, and missions.

One phrase of the soul this week was 1 Nefi 22:17 ''los justos no tienen por qué temer.'' That phrase hit me because it made me realize that as long as I am striving to be obedient, repenting often, and striving to fulfill my purpose I won't need to have fear. I will never need to be scared of what my leaders tell me, I won't need to be scared that my investigators might not progress. Instead of having fear for those things, the righteous look at everything with faith centered in Christ. So that's what I'm going to do this week. I'm not going to have fear that we will end February without baptizing, I'm just going to trust in Christ and work hard to make it happen. Our plan is we have a list of 7 investigators with 3 insacs, and 4 potential casos especiales, we are going to pass for all of them today and tomorrow and, with a lot of faith, teach them the doctrine of Christ, resolve their doubts and invite them to be baptized the 24th of February.

One experience we had yesterday was we found and taught Ruben, when we sat down we noticed he was working on his laptop and the inspiration came right then about how we should share the first vision. We watched the 6 minute video Ask of God. We also read the page in the Restoration pamphlet about the Book of Mormon and Ruben understood perfectly what he needed to do to find out if our message was true. He committed to go to church and talk to his pair about marriage.

Sorry no pictures,

Elder Harris

Paramonga - Week 16

Frase del Alma

One of the Book of Mormon's great ''Phrases of the Soul''

1 Nefi 7:17...Give me strength that I may burst these bands with which I am bound!

I really feel like in this part, Nephi is praying with ALL OF HIS HEART. Something that I am trying to do. I got thinking that if I was in Nephi's situation if I would have enough faith to be able to ask for strength to break the bands. I'm not sure, but I would like to have that kind of faith. I'm working hard to make my prayers that powerful but instead of physical bands, I'm asking to be able to break my weaknesses and also the challenges of Cristian, Steven, Juliano, and Norma. (los investigadores)

This week we saw a guy moving stuff out of his second floor house so we asked if we could help him and he accepted. We took out a few little things, then he asked us if the three of us could move a huge dresser down the stairs. We started going down and I noticed the joints were starting to give out. Then suddenly in fell apart into pieces almost crushing me as I ran down the stairs to avoid injury. Luckily everyone was okay, but the poor dresser was now just a pile of boards. And the man kindly excused us telling us that he wouldn't need help with the rest of his stuff. ''When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God'' Mosiah 2:17

Today the zone leaders called us and said TODAY WE ARE GOING TO GO PAINTBALLING. We were so pumped and we went to the place, put on all the gear, and right when we were about to start, the assistants called and said they felt we shouldn't do it and that we didn't have permission to proceed. So we actually didn't go paintballing haha. But at least we have pictures :P

Missionary Coordination Meeting with Miguel!