Well it's Christmas time here and I
haven't seen a single Christmas tree. Kind of a bummer. Sounds like
there's not a ton of snow back home either. Hope you had a
happy birthday! To celebrate I went out and worked all day. Fun stuff.
So
this week was actually really good. Elder Johanson left Tuesday morning
but Elder Niaupari didn't end up getting here until Thursday so I spent
a couple days with the other two Elders that I live with. It was good
but I'm glad to finally have my new companion. Elder Niaupari is
actually from Ecuador, NOT Peru, and he's the bomb. He's a good worker
and he's also a lot of fun. We laugh a lot which I enjoy quite a lot.
It's been helping a lot to have a Latino companion. I'm the only Gringo
in my house so I don't have the option to speak English anymore. It's
hard but it's helping. I'm teaching Elder Niaupari English as well. This
was our conversation the other night,
EN "I need to the crapper man."
Me: "Okay."
EN: "But I have a problem."
Me: "What?"
EN: "Your face."
I
didn't teach him any of that but at least he's learned something haha.
He's hilarious.
I don't really know what
happened but something seemed to click this week and I feel a lot more
comfortable with the language. I think it's just because I have to speak
it, which maybe is what I need. I don't mind. It's kinda fun. I
realized this week that all God was trying to do was bless me. The
sharpest swords go through the hottest flames. I had a thought yesterday
of what God would say to me about the language if I could talk to Him
right now. I think it would go a little something like, "I promised you
that I would help and you would speak, so why didn't you believe me?"
Not a very fun conversation to have. I only wish that I would have been a
little more patient from the beginning. But I can't go back, so now I
will go forward with more trust than I had before.
So
as far as our investigators go we have a lot but a few in particular
are progressing. Edwardo started working on Sundays so we don't really
want to baptize him until that's resolved. We did, however, put a new
date for Jasmin which is the 20 of December. We are very excited for
that. We also have another investigator, Nelly, who hasn't received a
single lesson yet but has attended church twice and wants to be baptized
so we're going to teach her.
So
I'm pretty much living the Best Two Years right now (like the movie).
We contacted an American! His name is Mike and he's been living in Peru
for almost 25 years now! He runs a home for kids with bad home
situations. I actually met him in a taxio awhile back with Elder
Johanson and he told us we could come by his home any time, so I stopped
by with the other two elders and with Elder Niaupari as well. He told
me the first time I talked to him that I'm never going to convert him
but I was free to come by and chat anytime. I just took that as a
challenge. The first time I was at his house he told me that he used to
be a Catholic priest and had come to Peru on a mission but one thing
kind of led to another as far as the children's home went and the church
wasn't super nice about it and then he got married to a Peruvian and
never left and now he's not a catholic. Wow. So the second time I was
there he told me that he had done all kinds of religious research blah
blah and had come to the conclusion that he couldn't be part of a
religion that says that he has to go through the pope or the prophet to
get to God, and that says if you don't do it my way you're going to
Hell. So I asked him if in all of his research if he'd ever read the
Book of Mormon. He told me he'd read little pieces. I told him that if
he really wanted to know all he had to do was read and pray, and that he
could receive an answer for himself through personal revelation.Then I
told him that I don't believe that he's going to Hell at all, but that
there is a way that he can live with his family and God forever. Then he
turned to E. Niaupari and said, "El esta me convertiendo!" or, "He's
converting me!" We'll see where it goes. We're going to go by again this
week.
We also taught a crazy dude that
couldn't remember what we said about five seconds after we said it. We
had to explain how to pray like five times and then ultimately had to
write one down for him. It was hilarious.
Well
that's all for now I suppose. Love you all! Peace and
Blessings!
Love,
Elder Tate
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