La Conferencia General

Marriage prep, baptism prep, sleep talking, and General Conference, oh my!

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Glynis here: I've been wondering about his drinking water situation, so today I asked him. He was online and was able to email back and forth for a few minutes. He told me that each Thursday he and his companion are given a large jug of water that they have to ration for the entire week. He says they have to keep it covered so it stays bug-free, which is interesting for him! He also says that he's having a hard time getting used to drinking warm water. He surely misses our cold Alpine water. Oh, the things we take for granted!

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Hey everyone!

Everything is going great in Iquitos! The work moves forward and we have a lot of investigators that are progressing. It's been exciting to really see the conversion process at work. To see someone realize that they are a child of God and then change from someone who has a miserable life and is so depressed, to someone who loves their family and knows the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's just so cool!

This week we spent a lot of time preparing for the marriage of familia Cuelo. Boy, are they ready! We committed them all to be baptized on the 20th of this month, so that will be the Saturday following their marriage on the 12th of October. They are such a great family and they have progressed so much! Their walls are covered in the pictures from our pamphlets and with scriptures they have written on their walls from the Book of Mormon. We got their marriage announcement published in the newspaper, and Elder Sindayen and I paid for their marriage in the State Department of Monicipio. It was about 90 soles which equated to about 30 dollars, but to them it was about 2 months of salary. We paid, and they are going to pay us back. The downside to that is that we don't have a lot of money for transportation, right now, so when we have to go to the Stake Center or to the center of town, we walk if we have the time. But, all is well, and it's a sacrifice that was needed for them.

An update on my Spanish. Get ready, because it's pretty great! According to my companion, I SLEEP TALK in Spanish!! Yeah!!! Apparently I was shouting at my companion to bless something in my sleep. I have no clue, and I don't remember my dream, at all, but it's pretty funny, I suppose. Also, later in the week I was giving a blessing of healing to one of the Hermana missionaries, and she wanted me to do it in English, because she is new in the mission. I did, but I forgot so many words in English. When I'm typing here I can remember English really well, because I type slower than I speak, but when I was giving the blessing I kept saying things in Spanish, and then had to go back and correct it. Funny, huh?

Another random thing from this week is that for a couple of days we had 4 missionaries in our house, because there was a leadership meeting for the whole mission. The zone leaders from Moyobama were in our house for a few days. It was such a party! They were pretty funny. I can't remember their names, but we took some pictures so I'll include those in this email. They've been out in the mission for a long time, and they are about to leave so they gave us some good advice. To really do good work in the mission, you have to get to know the people. We teach the people, not lessons. It was good advice and we are going to try to be more helpful and more in tune with the needs of the investigators rather than to the needs of us.

We have one investigator that we need some help with. So, I'm coming to all of you. His name is Eric Cordoba, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned him here, but I can't remember. He is very learned in the Bible. He is a living witness of the scripture in the Book of Mormon that says that people will say there can be no more scripture. What he needs to realize is that if there are 2 witnesses of the same God, they unite together and the testimony grows and develops even further. The reality is, there are so many scriptures in the Bible that prophesy of the Book of Mormon, and we could give him all the evidence, but then there is no need for faith. If we just prove to him that this church is the Church of God, then there isn't a conversion. We invited him to pray to know if what we were saying is true, and he told us, "no." He didn't want to pray until he feels that God wants him to. Hopefully he'll get a witness soon. Elder Sindayen and I have prayed for him every night to understand that he needs to put in his part if he wants to get an answer. As we all know, faith without works is dead in the sight of the Lord.

General Conference was pretty great! It was awesome. We only saw the Saturday sessions, because the whole country of Peru was basically shut down on Sunday for the nationwide election. So, next week I will get to watch the Sunday sessions. The focus on family and the change is something that I think is so cool! My favorite talk was Elder Uchtdorf's in the Saturday afternoon session. His theme of Believe, Love, and Do was just so powerful to me. I loved it. I don't know why, but it just hit me really hard for some reason, that I need to be doing just that. Believe that I can and will help these people, to Love them with all my strength, and to Do my part in this work, to bring them unto the Savior, Jesus Christ.

I know that we have a living prophet. There is no doubt in my heart that Christ himself directs this Church and that through his prophet, Russell M. Nelson, we receive his word. If any of you are doubting whether he is really a prophet, or if he really speaks for God, I invite you to pray to know. Ask God Himself, and I promise that you will get an answer saying that He is.

That's about it for this week. I hope you are all doing so well up there. We truly live in a blessed time, especially up in Utah. To be honest, I miss it so much and especially the mountains, but it's all good. I love the work that I am doing and I know that God is with me here. Until next week!

Elder Neves

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Glynis again: he only sent us 4 pictures this week. All variations on the same theme. Sigh. Oh well, enjoy!