So this week I have seen the blessing of fasting and the church in action. Elsa, one of our investigators that we´re working with to be baptized the 23rd of August, had to make some tough choices and leave an abusive boyfriend. They´re still talking and apparently he tries to visit with her, but were working with her to try and put an end to the terror and pain he has inflicted on her and her family. The thing is that she is trying to finish up high school and has no means of work or how to support herself. So we talked to her and she agreed to try and talk to the bishop. At first she absolutely did not want to, but we helped her overcome her fear and ask for help. The bishop then explained what the church can do, and with the help of relief society Elsa can go and buy food for a little while until she can secure work and become independent. This was fast offerings in action, and it was so great to see the end result, and how the charity of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being put to use.
I was also studying in Jesus The Christ about how Jesus fasted for 40 days before he started his ministry. There was a point that was very interesting on how the fast was necessary to subject the mortal side to the spiritual. Fasting isn't only going without food for a bit because mom or dad says so. It's not only just a way to get God to notice our prayers a little bit more. It is us subjecting our mortal frames to the spirit that we have, and drawing closer to who we were before we came to this earth. I thought that was interesting.
With hopes and prayers we´ll have a baptism of our Investigators Dalila. This last Sunday she bore her testimony and it was a really tender experience. Dalila is a tender soul, and when she feels she FEELS so she came sobbing back to her chair and gave us a standing hug and kept telling us thank you for how we knocked on her door. It was sweet, but just a little, awkward in front of everyone.... in the middle of someone else s testimony. But yea you take what you can get.
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| My companion and I |
Another precious moment was last night when I taught a less active family the game that my family does to read their scriptures. I explained how we read two pages, each person a verse, and whoever reads the last verse gets the point and has to say the family prayers, de rodillas, or of the knees! I had the father pick a letter and then whoever was closest read first. We drew up a piece of paper, wrote all the names and Joseph won the first point. I hope that this will help them read scriptures more as a family and help them further develop their testimony. No one in their family has read the book of Mormon all the way through, so what a better way- than doing it as a family? This also makes me want to give a shout out to my family and I want to say thank you to my parents who always made reading the scriptures a priority. I can testify of the blessings of this in my own life and share it with the people here in Peru. I have really been humbled to recognize how great of a family I have and the blessings that I have been able to take a part of thanks to the gospel constantly in my life.
This week for service we helped cleaned this abandoned house, and the second floor is a storage unit for costumes, so we have some pretty funny pictures as a zone and companionship with random masks and costumes-- I will send them when I can! Sorry to those who e-mailed me, next week I will have time to get back to you, and keep up the good work in Zion!
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| Having fun cleaning out the costume closet. |
http://www.scribd.com/doc/34660140/The-Fourth-Missionary
Until next week!
Hermana Bowers
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