Elder Hale: two missions, one God

I am so trunky. I have literally never before been so trunky. In my whole mission I almost never thought about the stuff at home, but now that I'm in the mission unable to work, I have lost all reason to want to be here. I was talking to Elder Oswald about the things that he will miss. More than anything it was just nice to have a change of scenery and culture. Really has helped me to value how good Utah is. Literally, it is so good. Elder Oswald said that he is going to miss Eco (really popular coffee substitute here), and two other things I can't remember. I am going to miss the watermelon, The people that I have been able to meet, and also the moto taxies.  I taught everyone a new rule for Uno, and it went over very terrible. Certain people didn't understand it and it was almost as though they were playing a completely different game. I was laughing so hard.  We took photos and I learned how to play blackjack and hearts. I'm thinking about making up my own card game,...

 Sabado

 Miercoles

 Martes

Domingo Day 7 of Quarantine Today was the day of rest, or the Sabbath. Even though I would be in the same place with the same people, eating the same food, I wanted this to be different. To get ready for the sacrament, I decided to bring my suit, even though we would be just going to the pension. (but I forgot to put it on during the sacrament hahahaha) I also took some time to repent of anything I could think of, and commit to living the commandments. During the sacrament, there was a peace that settled over my soul. It was all worth it. President Rebaza sent a message the night before asking us to write down, "if today were your last day in the mission, what would you improve on in all aspects?" I believe that the most thorough and organized way to do this, is to go through all the Christlike Attributes, and figure out what I lack in each one of them…. (awhile later) I lack so much. I have grown so so much since the last time that I took this test, but I still have so much ...

Sabado Day 6 of Quarantine We read the church article for ourselves this morning. It turns out that the announcement is not to send everyone home, but more or less that the missionaries that continue in their missions should be serving in missions close to their home or in their own country. We still have heard nothing from our mission president regarding this. However, he had the American missionaries make an account in some kind of government website that is for those people that want to be notified if there is some kind of evacuation taking place. Interesting. Elder Oswald and I watched the One Fold and One Shepard movie by the church. I've already seen it before, but it had never before touched my heart more than now. I cried several times hahahah. I was talking with Elder Oswald about how the missionaries that come home right now are reassigned to another mission only after 14 days of quarantine. Our idea is to go camping for 14 days. B9 Hopefully it'll work out and we can...

Viernes Day 5 of Quarantine Changed some stuff up today. We watched some missionary training videos! Then I studied the BoM and Preach My Gospel a ton. It actually feels so good. These are things that I am going to use my whole life. The time is being used SO much better. The other missionaries were watching the news today. The president of Peru did a question answer thing. I stayed out of sight of the television and read Preach My Gospel (hashtag)obedient. They seemed really worried. Elder Oswald told me that it is very likely that they will be extending the quarantine. Elder Saavedra while in some of the calls in the night heard from some members that the church publicly announced that all the missionaries are going home… Idk if this is true or not. We haven't heard anything like that from president. 

Jueves Day 4 of Quarantine We have been given permission to call our families again today for up to an hour B9 The day felt really long. I want to find more ways to fill our time productively.  I called president to ask if I could buy a smart phone. He told me that the missionaries here need training before that (among other things). I asked him for suggestions on how we would be able to magnify our calling with what we have at the moment.  President Rebaza explained that 90% of missionaries at one time or another have explained to him that they want more time to study. This is the time. We should be devouring Preach My Gospel and The Book of Mormon so that when this quarantine ends we can go out and teach with great power and authority and bring many souls unto repentance. I want this. And so, I will change. I will use this time much more fully. I've already talked to the other Elders and we are all excited to continue taking advantage of being together and start studying tog...

Miercoles Day 3 of quarantine The exact same thing happened at the beginning of the Monopoly game today. I landed in jail twice before I could buy anything. Yesterday, shortly thereafter, I had quietly quit the game, certain that I would lose. I felt bad, like I didn't have faith or something. When it happened again today, I felt like God wanted to give me a second chance to have faith in his power. I know that I can overcome anything with the power of God. I quietly said a prayer for God to help me, and thereafter I knew that regardless of what would happen, it would be for my good, because I was in God's hands. And so, I won. I absolutely destroyed them despite that all the other players had been ahead. It was so epic. I love God.

Martes Day 2 of quarantine "Solicit your time for the use of all men" - (someone in my dream right before I woke up) The day was not as long. We played board games. Again. Mostly Monopoly. I was unable to buy more than one land before the other players bought everything due to my insane luck in falling in jail on numerous occasions.  We got some messages from president that WE ARE . . . [Entry ends here. Jonathan, can you fill this in?]

Lunes Day 1 of quarantine My companion and I hope to buy smart phones from a member whom we are close with. Let's hope that the President approves it XD. Since we can only leave the room to eat, and buy, I have been thinking about doing our visits by phone. Idk how many people would be interested in that, but I hope to be able to magnify my calling from within the confines of this room. Oh, by the way, our apartment has one room and a bathroom. We played a lot of board and card games. With this whole quarantine hanging over us, it felt like the longest P-Day that we have ever had. We were able to do 30 minutes of our usual 2 hr internet time by borrowing the laptop of a member and going to the chapel to use the computer that was in the secretary's office.  (On the way home we walk past a woman giving a foot massage to a man) Me: That is pure love Elder Saavedra: If she really loved him they would get married Me:’’: :O - We also tried to buy board games and the store had the fol...

Domingo We visited people in their houses to bring them the sacrament We went to some appointments with Hilton, a member. He has a super strong testimony and we met someone with him that went to school with him. Hilton called us during dinner and asked us for help to take his merchandise out of his stall in the market. The country is in a state of emergency because of CoronaVirus, and during times such as these, there are many people that burgle. This week we invited just about everyone to be baptized and the fruits showed. The most baptismal dates that I have seen in one week. I really saw miracles this week. I was guided to specific houses and people on numerous occasions. Close to 11 pm, we received messages from the president of the mission. We are all required to stay in our rooms. I have heard from people in the street and from members that there is a quarantine for 15 days here in Huarmey, but the messages from the president didn't give any specific definition of time. 

Sabado We baptized the little girl today When we arrived at the house of Mariana, her mom arrived right after we knocked. (I am so glad for the inspiration we receive during daily planning.) It turns out that her father is an inactive member. Seems like he still believes in it, and they have a TON of respect for the Elders. Reina, the mom of Mariana bought us soda (even though I really don't want to drink soda ever again I accepted and enjoyed it with them). Mariana and her sister wants to be baptized. I have never before placed so many baptismal dates in the first lesson before than in this area.  Luis (the uncle of Deborah) had a really bad day today. He invited us in, and after us asking various questions we realized that he went fishing (his job) and didn't catch anything the whole day because of bad weather. Also, his phone got robbed. He was absolutely exhausted. I reminded him of the experience that Deborah had had in the course of a couple days when she had only been st...

Viernes We visited members today. We're trying to help them get ready to be self-sufficient. It made me worried when one teen told me that the last time that he read the scriptures was two weeks ago, and it was because he was obligated. We are hoping that we are going to be able to baptize without church attendance.  After a meeting with the branch president in the night, we went to the house of a member, whose daughter had been taught by the other Elders. Since my companion is the district leader, he conducted a baptismal interview. 

Jueves My companion and I woke up at 3 am for whatever reason. I heard later that there had been an earthquake. He told me that he had dreamed that he saw his family super far away. While we were knocking doors, we got the call from Elder Mostacero, who is in our district. "No hay capilla! El profeta ha declarado que todos capillas estaran cerrados." How will we baptize? We have a ton of people that want to, and are progressing. What will happen with them? Will we be taken out? I couldn't sleep the whole night.

Miercoles Had a great interchange with Elder Arguellas. He is from Mexico, and is very loving. He's like a big teddy bear. Very proper, and has exact pronunciation. Amazing missionary. Despite that we had a hard time filling our schedule, I felt that God was satisfied. We kept busy and we always had someone to teach. We started inviting people to be baptized in the contact! It was amazing. People want this when they can feel your love for them. Angelica: We came to the house of a member for whom my companion had set an appointment with. He had to leave right as we got there so we visited with his wife and his sister in law. His wife told us about how they were doing, and introduced her sister as Angelica, the catholic. (We have a lot of respect for the religion of each other and... blah blah blah.) Anyways, I just had a burning question that kept returning to my mind. Has she asked God if she should be baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints?  It went like: Me: ...

Martes Marcio is someone super special that I had the pleasure of having a discussion with today. Elder Saavedra had told me that he had responded a little hard to the invitations in the past as a catholic… however, I saw none of that this time. He was exceptionally excited to see us, and invited us in with a smile on his face. He explained in amazing detail all that he had learned from the pamphlet and recited definitions of the words and it was amazing.  He said that he had prayed and received an answer. However, contrary to all that he read, he came to the conclusion that all churches are the same if they lead to Christ. I explained to him that I could potentially then make my own church with cooler commandments, including which that one is required to eat Jell-O every single day. He seemed to understand the point afterwards.  He has decided that he wants to learn more about the church but that he is really interesting in baptism in the church prophesied in the bible that h...

Lunes I got a feeling "We are very close to meeting someone that is gold." The next door that we knocked, Jose Pineda came out. He was not available at the time to receive us, but over the course of the conversation, he agreed to a baptismal date while we were talking at his door. Missionaries had never come into his house, but he had great interest in the prophet Joseph Smith. We spoke with great power and authority since the first moment, and he seemed impressed with the importance of the message.

Domingo I was so filled with love and excitement when I saw Jonathan and Jacki come into the church with their daughter. Jacki brought her DNI so that we could take a photo of it (we need her ID card information so that we can have the office Elders retrieve their papers so that they can get married). Jonathan told us without us asking that he would even be willing to pick us up in his moto taxi for when we have appointments so that we don´t have to walk so far.  I love this family so much. We met them yesterday and explained to them very clearly that it is an act of faith to come to church. I promised them blessings in the name of Jesus Christ that they would see blessings in his work, and in how their children act if they come to church and participate in the sacrament. Jonathan then looked me in the eye and had promised us that they would come. They didn´t enter until after the sacrament was over, but that was my fault because we didn´t wait outside to receive them like we had o...

Sabado Deborah moved back to Huaraz. I am devastated. She was so certain of the truth of this and it had wrought such a great change in her. Baptism was this close. It´s all in the timing of the Lord though. We were walking and I felt to go a little back and to a certain door. We met Jonathan, Jaki, and Yotan. I immediately testified that God must love them a lot. They were sincerely interested and Jonathan explained that he had wanted to come to church in the past but had always been confused about which hour it started. During the course of the meeting he explained that he didn´t know how to receive personal revelation. I was able to explain about the quiet security that one feels in righteous actions, and that if we ask God if a course of action is right, we will feel peace -  as I did when I came to their doorway. Jonathan and Jaki want to be married but are having trouble with the papers. We will help them. Jonathan looked at me in the eye and told me, Ï promise you that we wi...

Viernes An appointment fell through and so we knocked on the door of someone that we had met awhile ago. He was home, but he started to tell us that he already had faith in Jesus and he didn´t have any questions for us. That´s when his friends came up behind him and said that they did. We were invited in and we told them all about how we are not racist, misogynists', obligating, super wealthy, people. All cool. Really a spiritual experience. We taught them about how to receive their own spiritual revelation and I hope that they´re going to be trying it out.

 Jueves The past couple days when I was looking over the list of less-active members, trying to choose who to visit, I felt really guided to a specific person. We finally visited her and she explained to us that she had just a couple days ago had decided that she was going to return to church. She realized that she really wanted to change and she wanted that light in her life again. Her adult niece, Rosalio, gave the final prayer. I don´t remember exactly what she said, but I think she said that she is really grateful for being able to feel God´s love through us. My companion has been always talking about how we should change apartments… And every time he makes remarks about the subject I always feel, "not before your neighbor gets baptized." He hadn´t wanted to teach the family, but we were finally able to pass by today after like two appointments that fell through. We waited for her for like 30 minutes while we talked with her parents (grandpa age). She finally arrived and ...

Miercoles Deborah shines. I remember 9 days ago when I met her and asked her if she was happy. She said no. But now she shines. She has been reading the Book of Mormon (her bookmark was 130 pages in or so), and she says that she knows that it is true. She described that when she prayed she felt an emotion, and she couldn´t describe it further but simply smiled.  Hahahha we returned to visit Gregoria, Ernan, and Elvia. Gregoria had already put out some seats and told us that she had been expecting us and wanted to make sure that they´d be ready for us. We invited Elvia to invite her daughter to join us, and she was starting to say nah, but then I just asked her, "Does your daughter like to feel peace?" Right after we heard her daughter talk on the phone and she said, "no." Everyone laughed.  When her daughter came over she ended up with a baptismal date after talking with us the first time. She told us that her uncle invited her to baptism and when she thought about ...

Martes  We had the multi-zone conference today. I saw the Elders and Hermanas I missed. I kept connecting people to the new Elders in Jardines 1 so that they could share references. Eduardo de la Cruz got baptized a week after I left. I wish that I had been able to see it. I asked President in my interview if there was anything that would impede me from being a trainer in the future. He said no and that he has plans for that to happen in the near future!

Domingo - We had a visit with Xiomara, Carlos and Marck. Their mom told us that they were saying yesterday about how they felt absolutely happy unlike any other. Their family was SO united and it felt so good to visit them. I only wish that we can help their dad finish up with his papers so that he can be baptized and their family receive the complete blessings of God the soonest possible.  - I was able to hear some great tips from a returned missionary today. Luis. Felt so good to talk to someone that really understands me. He explained how to fortify the branch and what we can do. Really inspired me. I know we can do this.