Mission Week 89, Tacna Peru "Prudent and Simple"

We had a baptismal date for this Saturday but the investigator, Raquel, did not feel to good about choosing between god and her family. It was a really hard moment it was the first time that Elder Velasquez and I had ever gotten back to the room and just thrown ourselves in bed without changing brushing our teeth. It was a pretty hard moment but we bounced back even stronger. With the determination that God is preparing people for us and we need to find them.

 This week was good. I feel like there are many things to do in Tacna and with the determination that Elder Velasquez and I have we will keep on doing it. I feel like some of the Elders feel comfortable being outside of Arequipa, we have taken the initiative to see how there studies are going and take time to talk with them one on one. It has been a great opportunity to solve problems have companionship inventories and show the Elders that we are more than just a digital audio recording device. This week I read a scripture that I love and until this day I have not been able to stop thinking about it.

Mateo 10:
16 He aquí, yo os envío como a ovejas en medio de lobos; sed, pues, prudentes como serpientes y sencillos como palomas.

The lord sends us like sheep between wolves. I have seen the importance of Permanecen Juntos SIEMPRE. What is one sheep all by itself going to do between a lot of wolves. I cannot imagine it getting very far. The lord promises us protection and success when we are obedient. We must be prudent and simple. Many times, as missionaries, we try to complicate the gospel and we are blinded by confidence. We believe that we can trust in ourselves more than the spirit but the gospel is simple.

Mission Week 88, Tacna Peru; "trying to bathe a cat"

Today we had an excelent companionship study where we talked about how we could improve our teaching methods and use of time. We concluded with us needing to be more focused on those who were prepared by god to recieve us. Many Missionaries in Tacna believe that we must prepare and teach our investigators and help them to find their testimony, however, Preach my Gospel teaches us to FIND, TEACH, INVITE. That is all we can do. Preach my gospel does NOT say that we must force the spirit into someones life by teaching them OVER and OVER and OVER AGAIN. We must be effecient Missionaries and the lord will to the preparing we just need to do the Finding the Teaching and the Inviting. This last week we found Three people ready to baptize. THEY WERE PREPARED BY THE LORD and all we had to do was find them. I know that The Gospel Changes lives but if we continue to  teach people who are not prepared it would be like trying to bathe a cat. You might be able to do it, but the likelyhood of that happening is a lot better when we work with the will of God. The gospel is like a river. We need to help every that wants to go with it. Some people might be already trying to go with the flow of the gospel but they are tangeled in reeds of doubt. Others are actively marching upstring. We must help those who let us help. 

Elder Tanner

Mission Week 87, Tacna Peru {Chased by an addict; font overfloweth; needle in a hay stack.}

This week has been much smoother than the last. The last week had me at the end of my patience but I now know that god listens and answers prayers not in our own time but in his time. He knows our weaknesses and our strengths and he is going to push us to our breaking point and then give us all that we need. This week we had a few notable things happen.

1. I was shouted at and chased by a drug addict from Brazil. He was yelling a lot of different words and the best part was that it was in Portuguese and I did not understand anything.

2. We had lessons set up with a family that we really want to help but they rejected us three times.

3. We had meetings with two of the stakes and because of the holiday no stake is having it at the same time.

5. after the church meeting on Sunday we had a crazy guy who is also famous come to the church. He started yelling and saying that these are my brothers from the one and only true church. People say that he is crazy but that he is also extremely intelligent!

4. We prepped the baptismal font for a baptism. Usually the fonts take around three hours to fill and when they do they have a run off pipe that keeps them from overflowing. Little did we know that the font in the arias araguez building fills faster than the run off pipe lets water out. We started filling and thought that it would at least take a few hours to fill and we left to go make a payment. When we cam back to the church we found water in the entire floor of the church. It somehow had managed to make it into the entire sacrament room and cultural hall but avoided the classrooms. We were extremely lucky to have caught it before it made it into the basement. We spent the fallowing two hours cleaning up all the water. During which we did not have any idea how to turn on the fans which would speed up the clean up. I said a quick prayer asking God to send me the knowledge to figure out how to turn on the fans or to send me someone who knew how to turn them on. About a half an hour into the clean up our relief society president rung the bell in the front door and asked about a certain activity that was going to take place in the church. We had no idea of the activity but we asked her how to turn on the fans in the sacrament building and she explained us the way to turn them on.

5. NEW INVESTIGATORS: this week has been an amazing week to find new investigators and we have received MANY references. I am not saying that all of them are golden investigators that are ready to be baptized in fact until Sunday night I was super happy to have the new investigators but I told my companion that all of them are going to be a lot of work. I was telling him that we have lots of new investigators and lots of work to do but I did not see much desire to learn more, However, Shortly after saying that we had a little kid run up to us and say ELDERES!!! we contacted the family. They are not members they have been going to church and they want to hear more. That was a tiny mercy of God. He was letting me know that he is going to make us look for the needle in the haystack. We are going to find a LOT of hay but that is what it is going to take to find the needle!

I am just grateful for the opportunity to be in the mission for this opportunity to serve my heavenly father and my siblings.