Lima Love -- 2 Weeks of Posts

Monday Feb 18

How´s it going? That´s crazy about the calls, I can call you guys but by skype or through myldsmail - the internet where we are I can see you guys but you won´t be able to see me. Let me know if you can chat!

But I´ll write about my week anyways - the crazy part this week is that I got transferred - again. I left my Chilean son in my old area and now I am back on the other side of the mission! My new area is called Manzanos and my new companion is called Elder Chavez. He is from Truijillo, Peru and has about six months in the mission. He´s a good guy his family are members and he is 18 years old. I was a little sad to leave my old area but there´s a good chance to start over again here.

One funny thing I´ve seen here in Peru is there are a ton of superstitions. There are people who are active members of the church who believe that if your dog is sick then you need to tie a lime around his neck like a collar and he´ll get better. But this week a member invited us to teach her neighbour who is a 80 year old catholic lady. She started telling us about her life and as she´s talking she says ´´the neighbours told me I shouldn´t plant lucuma (a fruit) in my yard because who plants lucuma dies - but that was 25 years ago and look how old I am!´´ She was a very sweet old lady.

Also this week we saw a small miracle - on saturday the zone leaders came to our area to contact and help´us find a few new investigators - while we were contacting with them we ran into a 20 year old named Alexis - he has to be the most peaceful dude I have met. We asked him about his life and he said that he doesn´t really have any problems apart from that his grandma´s a little sick. We invited him to church and he said he would come. Sunday morning we went and looked for him and he said he was getting changed and would be right out, so we decided to head to the chapel and wait for him. We waited and he never showed up. After church we went to look for him and it turns out that he got lost and didn´t find the chapel. But that he had gone out and looked and everything! That was something very sincere that I thought was really nice.

The gospel is true - it really is. The more we grow closer to our Heavenly Father the more blessings we can experience. For example in the mission blessings come through obedience to the mission rules. The more obedient you are the more blessings come. It´s always thee same it´s an eternal principle. I love you guys a lot we´ll see if we can chat a bit.

Monday Feb 25

Hey familia!

How´s it going? No worries about the call, there´s not really a way to let you know I´ll be calling.

I love the thought about preparing our hearts mama, seeing things through a new light - that is what I´ve been seeing this week. Just finding ways to focus in on the most basic part of the mission and the part that brings the most joy - which is serving the people. Seeing a light in people´s eyes when they hear gospel truths and being able to serve them even when there is no recompense is the best part of the mission. One example is last monday, I aws walking with Elder Chavez to an appointment and we stopped to contact someone in the street, after a brief discussion it seemed like he was only there to contend with our beliefs as he questioned a ton of things. But finally he expressed a doubt and asked us what does your church believe about what happens after this life. My companion took the opportunity to ask him - can we explain more about this in your house? He accepted and we taught him. I saw that even though it seemed like he was a little hard-hearted as we taught him the things wwe said resonated with him. He later told us when we invited him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon - I don´t know if this is true, but if it´s true you´re going to have a hard time getting me out of your church!

Also this week we had interviews with President Godfrey - it was a great time he taught me a lot more about faith and finding joy in being a missionary. I found a bit of that joy talking with one of ourr investigators here named Juan Carlos. He is 22 years old and his Mom is a member. They recently live in Lima and Juan Carlos is now working full time. He is an open guy but he really doesn´t like to read - so we´re making a plan with him to listen to the Book of Mormon in his cellphone. Just something small like that helped make a little difference in his day.

I was thinking this week about ministering and the work we do as missionaries - there is a great talk from Sister Bonnie H. Cordon last conference that talks about becoming a shepherd - that when the resurrected Saviour told Peter to feed his sheep. He told him that he literally needed to do what the Saviour would to for these people if he were there. As a missionary we are representatives of Jesus Christ and have the same responsability to feed his sheep. We all can become shepherd through reliance on Jesus Christ and through revelation we receive. I know that when people sincerely feel the love of Jesus Christ they are motivated to change.

Anyways, that´s all for this week, love you guys!

Elder Thompson