One More Week

P-day fun, earthquakes and baptisms. The work continues! Looks like more marriages may be in Jacob's future!

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Glynis here: Mondays have swiftly become my favorite day of the week! Reading Jacob's letters gives me such a thrill! I'm amazed at how spiritual he has become, and I'm awed by his testimony. I want to send a heartfelt "thank you" to all those who had a hand in shaping him into the wonderful man he is becoming!

One special note for Todd Barney, Scott VanWaggoner, and Caleb Mumford: Jacob wants you all to know that he is excited to hear about your new calling! He supports you and sustains you.

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Hola mis queridos hermanos y hermanas! Overall, this week was pretty full! Ready? Here we go!

On P-day last week, we went to the mission office and played ping pong with all the elders. It was so much fun! It reminded me of playing ping pong with Timmy in the basement at home. So much fun! Also, my companion got a package from his family in Chile. They sent me a t-shirt of the Chilean futbol team. So, now I have shirts from the classic rivalry of South America: Peru and Chile! They also sent a whole bunch of goodies in the package, so that was great!

In our weekly district meeting, we talked about the role that the Book of Mormon has in conversion. Something I've noticed as a missionary is that it's hard to talk about the Book of Mormon on the first visit. Usually, we wait until the second or third visit to talk about it. However, we realized we need to help people to understand that this book helps them, and that the questions they have about life and God's plan are found within the pages of the book. If they really read it, they will know that it's true. With that in mind, we shouldn't be scared to explain it on the first lesson, and that is something my companion and I have been implementing in our area, and we've seen it work! Have faith in what God says, and it all works out.

In other news, we have found many new families this week. 7 to be exact! We also had 3 of them come to church this week! That was pretty darn great! The only problem... once again... nobody is married! Not a single one of them! So, before we can get them ready for baptism, we have to get them married. Sigh! On the upside, most of them are willing to change based on what we have taught them. We'll see if they end up progressing through the lessons, but I have hope because they are families, and can see the benefits.

Guess what? It turns out that a few nights ago there was an earthquake in Iquitos, which is super weird! Me? I slept through it! The next morning, my companion asked me, "Did you feel the earthquake? The house was shaking!" I answered, "Dude, why didn't you wake me up if the house was shaking!?!" It turns out that it wasn't a huge earthquake, but a lot of the ward members were freaked out because Peruvians, as a whole, are pretty superstitious. So, that was interesting!

We also had a baptism this week! Hermano Alexandre, the 9 year old we have been teaching, asked me to baptize him! The baptismal service was great. The only weird thing was that his grandma was there, and she's a super hardcore evangelical. She stood up during the service to say that the Bible says you can't get baptized until you are 30. She tried to persuade Alexandre to change his mind. We explained baptism to her (and Alexandre, again), and got it all sorted out. Alexandre's testimony wasn't shaken. He definitely felt the Spirit after coming out of the water. He had a huge smile on his face.

That's about it for this week. Write me back and let me know how you are all doing!

-Elder Neves