Mi Primer Bautismo!

Interviews, investigators, teaching and a baptism! Elder Neves is taking Iquitos by storm!

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Hola!! I hope you are all doing well. A lot happened this week, so hold on to your hats... here we go!

On P-day last week we went to a little touristy place where there was a whole bunch of cool stuff from the jungle, like wooden animals (I bought a sloth), and a whole bunch of musical instruments. I got to play a HORN! It felt weird to buzz my lips again, but it was so cool! It was like one of those animal horns where you buzz into one end to make war calls. It was awesome, not going to lie! I wanted to buy it but it was 100 soles, so no gracias! But, I did make a goal that I am going to buy a cana (a hollowed out sugar cane). It's a musical instrument native to the jungle. I'll definitely be going back for that later!

This week we also had interviews with Presidente Li. This was really cool because it was my first one with him. It seems like he's going to be a really big help to me. After the interviews we decided to have exchanges, so I went with an Elder named Elder Walker to his area, Bellavista. This is right on the north edge of the city in the jungle. It was so pretty! There were so many fireflies! The people weren't very receptive though. Apparently, in Bellavista there are hardly any baptisms because the people don't want to come to church. While I was contacting with Elder Walker, we ran into a parade of people who were rallying for the upcoming election this Sunday. It was for a man named Hermano Jairo, and he wanted to interview us in front of everybody. Because we are missionaries, we aren't supposed to attract attention to ourselves, so we told him no. He was so pushy! Eventually he gave us some t-shirts and hats, so that was neat. That night we went back to my area to switch companions back. We also had some service scheduled that day so the 4 of us went to do that. We trimmed one man's lawn, but the cool thing is, we did it with MACHETES! It was so hard, but it was sort of hilarious, too. We were mowing this guys "lawn" with freaking machetes!!!

Also this week we were teaching Eric Cordoba some more. This is the guy who we played music and sang songs with. He kept asking us for evidence of the Book of Mormon, and why should he believe us. Something really cool I learned is that there is really so much evidence for the Book of Mormon, like a lot, but true conversion is impossible through evidence. We told Eric that if he really wanted to know, the only person that can tell him, is God, because if we have the evidence of something there's no need for faith. That's what we told him, and he seemed skeptical. But really, that's all we can do; share our testimony, and testify of the truth. If he puts in his part he will get an answer telling him that it is true.

THIS WEEK WAS ALSO MY FIRST BAPTISM!!!! It was so good! Elder Sindayen and I went to the chapel early on Saturday to clean the font and to decorate and draw on the chalkboards. We decided to invite as many investigators as we could so they could see the baptism, and we had a great turnout! Lots of the ward came, and we also had 7 investigators there, so YAY! The baptism was of Hermana Wine, and she was so happy! When she came out of the water she had such a big smile on her face. Now we are going to work with her mother to get permission to baptize her sister, too.

In other baptism news, we also set a date for the baptism of familia Cuelo, so now we have 5 baptismal dates! Their marriage will be on the 12th and the baptism on the 20th, so get ready for lots of pictures.

Our only sad news this week is there is an election this weekend, so General Conference is postponed for us until the following week. But, I'm so excited for it! I always love to hear from the prophet. It is even more cool for me now.

Also this week, I finished reading Jesus the Christ, and WOW! It was such a powerful book. I loved every part of it, and I have now doubt now that his is truly His church. I invite all of you to read it. It was so cool, really, just seeing all aspects of the life of Christ, and how He word was such a blessing to me.

Anyway, I love you guys. Until next week!!

Elder Neves