Oh man, it was a rollercoaster week, I don´t really know where to start!
First off, there was a rain storm Wednesday night -- when I say rain storm I mean the equivalent of your usual heavy rain in Oregon, but here that means the power goes out, the streets flood, and the poorer areas flood badly. So Thursday morning our district mtg got cancelled and we left to do service in San Pedro! We first helped Hna Liliana and her fam take the water out of the house in buckets and try to repair the dirt flooring by shoveling in dry earth... then we went to an even poorer area and helped random people get their houses in order! They were super grateful, and it felt good to help!
Last week I was praying about what Christ-like attribute I should study for the month of March and I was impressed to choose patience. -- and WOW was that inspired because my patience was tried this week...
Event numero uno: We got locked out of our apartment. Long story short, the owner was in LIMA with the only copy of the keys, members didn´t know what to do, we called the firefighters, THEY DIDN¨T ANSWER, (can you imagine 911 not answering in the states?), so we went to the station casually hinting that they could help us with their ladder since our window was open and we live on the 3rd floor, they said no but referred us to a serenasco (SWAT guy), but we didn´t have time to find him, so a couple members helped us try to break in for an hour -- we finally were able to break the glass above the door, slide a broom stick through and mess with it until we were able to open the latch....so we finally got in our room at about 11:30pm! Woo hoo! I was frustrated because of the loss of time...In general I was feeling like we didn´t have enough proselyting time last week and this week with the various activities and meetings that were going on, but I learned a ton about patience, doing our best, and believing in good things to come.
One of the hardest things for me on the mission is just not seeing the fruits of our labors when I want to see them. We did planificacion semanal and realized we don´t have any more progressing investigators than we did at the beginning of the transfer. And that was really hard to come to terms with...but as I was praying about it this week, I received an answer through the story of Abinadi...
If I think my area is hard, let´s talk about ABINADI´S mission. He was given hands down one of the hardest areas in the history of the BoM -- to the point where he was cast out and then commanded to go back. He was tied up, persecuted, reviled, and yet as they rejected him, he continued preaching -- diligently and patiently. He bore one of the most powerful testimonies of Christ that I have ever read (Mosiah 14-16) and they STILL didn´t believe him and ended up burning him to the stake. Abinadi NEVER saw the fruits of his labors -- no more than one of the priests getting kicked out for standing up for him... yet the fruits of his labors were endless. The young priest Alma converted hundreds, and later thousands of individuals to the truth. Would we say Abinadi was a bad missionary because he had nothing to show for his work at the moment of his death? Of course not. He was one of the best missionaries of the scriptures -- he magnified his calling -- inviting all to come unto Christ. And his fruits were many.
That scriptural passage strengthened me so much. And it turns out that we have a few awesome miracles on the horizon with part-member families we have found!! I´ll tell about it next week once we visit them.
And I got to see Cynthia be baptized in Piura!!!! Remember me telling about her? She is one of Jefferson´s aunts -- who we found my last week in Piura Central as she expressed the need to change her life... I was able to be there as JEFFERSON baptized her!!! That young man has progressed so much since I left! It´s incredible to see how far he has come -- I have so much love for him! He´s preparing to leave on a mission next year!!
Missionary work is the best. It was such a good week, rollercoaster and all.
Love,
Hermana Parks
MY NEW COMP! Hna Ruiz from Buenos Aires!
Typical lunch example
Playing ¨monopoly¨ with our money...we got bored while figuring out our rent and pension, haha
sweet dialine who accompanied us! and our street after it rained!
service in san pedro after the storm!
some of the kids of san pedro and getting my hair and nails done while waiting for lunch, haha!
Sweet Cynthia´s baptism!!
more street pics and richardson helping us clean up the glass shards after we broke into our room
sunset and a view of the upper part of our area -- statue of Jesus in the background!
there was definitely not a lake there back when I was in ignacio....this is the remnants of teh storm in piura! And running into one of my favorite members from Ignacio...Hna Huaman!
a marriage in the ward (elders' investigators -- marriage, baptism, confirmation, and baby due!) and trip to piura with maryorit so that hna shumway could say goodbye to 2 of her areas and so that i could go to the baptism!
saying goodbye to elder rojas, hna mamani, and hna shum! and spending p-day morning with hna glunt after hna shum left .... and our muddy muddy street...
No comments:
Post a Comment