Thursday, August 7, 2014

One more week and I am in the field (sent August 6, 2014)

Well its almost time for me to fly to Chiclayo. I'm going to try to call while I'm at the airport but I don't have my flight plans til Monday, I will beg someone to send an email of what time I will be at the airport so that I don't call when no one is home or something. I fly out Tuesday and I have heard that its usually pretty early, like 3 am or something crazy. Sorry I don't have a lot of info, they're probably not going to let me email again before I leave, but I will try.

Anyways this week was awesome, sorry for the early P-day last week I felt bad that I wasn't able to warn anyone. This week there was a group of member from Ariquepa (I don't know how to spell that) there's been groups of members come in before, and we have talked to them before, in Spanish of course (not very well, but still communicating), but with this group our teacher had us teach the law of tithing and the word of wisdom. It was our first time teaching those lessons, we have mostly only worked on the restoration, plan of salvation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was quite the learning experience, but me and my companion felt we did pretty well. We were really excited too since we could understand them (for the most part). But we also told them we were going to Chiclayo, and the smiled and said that they talk a lot faster up there, haha, great cant wait! I am really amazed at what the gift of tongues can do, its such a blessing, but I still have a long way to go. Nathan Whitlock came in this week, I shared my testimony with him in Spanish, haha since that really all I can do in Spanish, and he was so jealous.

The temple was closed, since its being cleaned, so I wasn't able to go today. But I did get a nice case for my Spanish scriptures, they are leather and have a hand made picture of either Nephi or Mormon (or any of the other prophets, but I am pretty sure its one of those two, probably Mormon) with the gold plates. Its really cool.

Yesterday we had a devotional by one of the general authorities! It was so cool, and for once the Latinos need head phones for the talk to be translated, and not me! His name was Elder (Christopher) Wadell. He talked a lot about missionary work and it was really awesome. He talked about a change that was recently made to missionary work and that is after baptism the missionary needs to follow up with the convert up to a year. This will help people have true conversion. It was really cool, I laughed a little since I had read a little about this from Zaks letter since he was in the Provo MTC and had already heard about that. One of the things that Elder Wadell said though that stuck out to me was that if a missionaries focus is on baptizing the investigator, they have completely missed the point. Baptism is only the first step for the investigator. We, as missionaries are trying to get people to the temple so they can receive the blessings of eternity. I had never really thought about that and I thought that was really awesome. Another thing he said was when he was talking about Ammon in Alma chapter 17(?, I cant remember the chapter or verse) when he says he rejoiced when the the servants were frightened because the flocks were scattered so that he could show his power OR the power that is in him. He pointed out that Ammon had to say that it was the power that was in him because Ammon would not have been able to do that with out the power of the spirit. He then said that us, as missionaries, would not be able to do this work with our power alone, we will need the power of the spirit. There's a quote in Preach my Gospel ( and I don't have the exact quote) that says something like, we would not have success in our mission if we did not really on the spirit.

I am so grateful to be called here to serve the Lord, and I know this Church is true.

I am out of time, I don't know all the details of my flight times but I will try my hardest to find out.

Elder Goff

I forgot to say, I don't know when I will be able to email you again so I don't know when my P-day will be next week so don't freak out if I'm not able to email next Wednesday.

Pictures:

Caral last week




the bus on P-days, they get really crowded


Heres one of the houses on the mountain, I dont know how they build them but its incredible. I took it from the bus so its not very good but you can see the houses in the back round



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