I
gave my first blessing of comfort IN SPANISH this week. It wasn't very
long and was incredibly grammatically incorrect but I did it. I wasn't
expecting to have to do it, but Elder Johanson and I showed up and a
lady's house and Elder Lundell and Elder Haro were already there
visiting with another lady. Elder J and I were invited to sit down and
then out of nowhere Elder Haro says," Elder Pearce can practice giving a
blessing of comfort right now," and I was like, What? Apparently there
was a little kid there (I'm assuming it was someone's child) that had
been having bad dreams and wanted a blessing. So I did it. It was great
fun. Elder Lundell said I did a good job and that he gave a blessing
when he had the same amount of time I do and completely slaughtered it.
It's weird to think that I'm coming up on three months next week!
We
also are starting to see some more progress in a few of our
investigators. We have one with a date (soon to be three), and yesterday
we got two new investigators.
So
this week has kind of an interesting story. Our pension, Hermana Justa,
is currently married and has five kids. However, she is separated from
her husband. They've been separated
for years, and she wants a divorce,
but just to mess things up for her he refuses to sign divorce papers.
The big problem is she has a boyfriend right now, and two of her kids
are his. He is an awesome guy, and helps support her family because her
husband also refuses to pay child support. The problem is she can't take
the sacrament or anything like that because she's committing adultery,
and Alcidus (her boyfriend) wants to be a member of the church but can't
be baptized because he's not married. Kind of a problem. So this week
after teaching a lesson in their house Alcidus came to us and said he
had a question. We listened as he poured his heart out to us. He said he
wants to be a member of the church with all his heart. He doesn't know
why he has these trials in his life, and from what I understood, he said
that he has all kinds of blessings in his life, but the one he wants
the most (marriage, baptism, etc.) isn't coming. Or coming too late, or
something like that. It was so sad to listen to him, with tears in his
eyes, ask over and over, "Porque elderes? Yo no se por que." Which means
"why elders? I don't know why." We didn't have an answer other than
that sometimes we're given trials so that we can become closer to God.
We promised him that one day he'll be blessed to be married and
baptized. After we talked to him he told us that our presence was a
strength to him, and that since we didn't have family in Andahuaylas,
that his family would be our family. Then he said, "Por favor elderes,
ayuda mi familia." or, please elders. Help my family. We told him we
would do what we can. That experience will forever stay with me. There
are so many people in this world that have problems bigger than mine. It
also made me that much more grateful for my own family that I have for
forever. If there's one thing the mission does, it makes you appreciate
your family so much more. The thing that drives me to keep going is that
I have a family that I love with all my heart, and I can be with them
forever. I want other people to have the same thing.
Aside
from the spiritual stuff I'm also gaining weight, and fast. Everywhere
we go people feed us. We pretty much eat like five meals a day, and you
can't reject food here or people get SUPER offended. Our pension cried
one day cause Elder Haro said he wasn't hungry and didn't eat. Also,
aside from eating with the people we teach, our pension makes sure we
eat ourselves sick every meal. And I'm not joking when I say eat
ourselves SICK. If she doesn't think I've eaten enough she'll give me
more (basically enough to feed me and my companion if I wanted) and then
I have to eat the whole thing. She loves me though because I eat
everything and then tell her that I'm getting fat because her food is
too good. I'll have to take some pictures. Basically, there's going to
be a whole lot more of me to love when I come home.
I still suck at Spanish. Nothing new there. I'm starting to teach more though so that's nice.
That's all for now. I love you all super tons and stuff. The Church is true I promise.
Love,
Elder Tate
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