Paramonga - Week 6

Cumpleaños

Well this week was interesting. We went back to Lima on Tuesday as a zone for zone conference. How my president does zone conferences is we have a meeting once a transfer but it's a combined zone conference with 6 zones in total. So half the mission basically. The meeting was really short, only 8 hours. But it was really good, the main topic was Faith to Work Miracles. I know that the church leaders really want us to be successful and they want us to have a fullness of joy as we help others to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. We got back to Barranca at 10:30 so we had to sleep with our District Leader and we got back to Paramonga the next morning.

I had an experience on Sunday that really impacted me. I don't know why but my experiences always happen on Sunday night, right when the week ends and the next day is P day. But anyways, we were searching for some new people to teach and my comp told me there was a part member family 2 blocks away. So we went to see if we could make anything interesting happen and a guy came out and said sorry can you guys come another day? We are having a birthday party. I was feeling a little confident so I made a joke and asked if we were invited to the party. He said he would go consult with the rest of them and when he returned he said we could come in. We came in and the house was full of people, visitors and other family members from Barranca. And we realized that they were waiting for us to share our message with them. It was kind of nerve wracking sitting there with about 15 people listening to us. But we shared the message of the restoration and invited them to be baptized, and about four of them accepted the invitation to be baptized if they receive an answer to their prayers. Wow. And after all that they didn't even give us cake! 

Elder Arenas from Colombia and Elder Bates from Spanish Fork and my companion coming home from Lima

Paramonga - Week 5

In our area there is this old fortress built by the Incas that is called the Fortaleza de Paramonga. They think it was a military base. But it's basically just a hill with old retaining walls built in. And it's interesting there isn't an entrance desk or anything. Anyone one can go there and climb the fortress. 

Paramonga - Week 4

El Poder del Espiritu Santo

It's been a kind of slow week, we only found one new investigator.

But the one person that we were able to teach actually turned out to be a really cool experience. So two weeks ago, a sister in the ward gave us a referral, Maria, from La Gran Oportunidad Misional and she made an appointment with Maria and we went to the appointment with her, but she warned us that Maria's husband was a bad man that wouldn't want to even look at us. We entered the house and sat down with the member and Maria. We asked Maria if she could invite her husband to accompany us, she looked a little nervous but went to do it. We heard the husband in the other room say no and went deeper into the house. Maria came back and started to cry and we did what we could to comfort her and help her feel hope. They obviously were having a lot of problems in their marriage.

So during that whole week we would stop by their house to see if we could find a chance to talk to the husband and see if he would receive us or if not that he would give us permission to teach his wife. We finally found him and we asked if we could enter to share a message with him and he said no. But we kept talking and finally he said okay you guys can come in, but with the condition that you don't pray and you don't invite me to attend your church. We accepted and we started teaching him the restoration. When we got to the Book of Mormon, Elder Camacho and I both testified of how we felt when we asked God if it was true. Then I said Brother Juan if you read the Book of Mormon and ask God with a sincere heart if it's true, I promise you that you will receive an answer from him that it's true. He got this surprised look on his face and said you promise me? I responded, I don't only promise you, I promise you in the name of Jesus Christ that God will respond. He felt the spirit I'm sure. He said that he wanted to feel that manifestation of the Holy Ghost and wanted to feel a calling from God and said he would do it.

That experience impacted me a lot. In that lesson I felt a strong unity with my companion and I felt the power as we taught together.

Also this week Brianna was baptized. She is 10 years old.

Have a great week,

Elder Harrison Ford

Paramonga - Week 3

Martes Dia de Preparación

Well I ran out of time but I'm writing on Tuesday today because yesterday we traveled to Huacho to have interviews with President Stauffer. We have had a lot of good experiences this week.

One weird thing that happened this week was we were walking down the street heading to eat lunch when we ran into six guys from Pakistan that I guess were being tourists in Paramonga. They were Muslims with their long beards and white robes. They spoke Spanish and English so we were able to communicate. They told us that we need to convert to Islam, it was kind of funny, and then they gave me a little bottle of perfume as a gift. Crazy things that happen.

I love you all, thanks for writing me, congratulations Zach for getting married, that's a man that understands the Plan of Salvation!