Week 82

Buenas tardes! Cómo están?

So we started off the week with an epic service project with the district where we helped this woman with digging up a nice garden. It would have been a simple, easy project... had it not poured the entire night before. Once you started getting just a little bit of mud on you, there was no point in even trying to stay clean. And I'd have to say that I had one of the best showers after being cold, wet, and dirty.

Sad boy hours:

We had big plans for an awesome English class with the racetracks that we used last transfer, but only 18 people came to the class (as opposed to the usual 70). And only 3 or 4 stayed after to attend church.

We also had high hopes for church on Sunday, and were expecting up to 10-12 of our amigos to come (cause they said they'd come of course). Our hopes were then crushed when only one person came, and he didn't even get there on time 😔 But you know what it's all okay because we're gonna learn and do better next time!

On Friday, we had a mission-wide conference with presiding general authority Elder Gonzalez of the Seventy. We received great council about the importance of getting the Book of Mormon into people's hands, be it through a physical or digital copy, as well as having shorter, frequent lessons. Later that day, we met with our amiga, Lorena, and had a short, simple lesson, and received the promised blessing of a follow-up lesson for the following day!

During the conference, I also had the privilege to perform a special music number in a string quartet.

Miracle(s):

So just a week ago, we really didn't have very many people progressing in the area. 

- Then we put a couple (Ana and Edgar) that had fallen off date a month or two ago back on date for the 28th of August. 

- Then Carlos came here from Colombia already on date for baptism for the 4th of September. 

  - Carlos doesn't have a license here in the US, so his cousin, Francisco, drives him to our lessons at the church, and now we're teaching the both of them! Francisco asked for a Book of Mormon before we could even offer him one.

- Then we put our next door neighbor, Mario, on date for the 12th of September (btw it has always been my dream to baptize someone that lives right next to me).

- Then we found 9 new people by just knocking doors, street contacting, and the grace of God when lessons cancel!

God is still a God of miracles.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1-2) Had Zone Conference and we got Cane's catered for lunch and saw a bunch of studs

3) Rainy service project

4) Recently discovered a small apartment complex in our area that has 8+ stray cats and they're super chill

Video: 

1) Found a door with two door handles on it

Week 81

Hola holaa!!

So throughout the entire 18 months of my mission so far, I have only eaten with members 4 times... and that was all within the first week of entering the mission field when COVID didn't exist. Flash forward to now, and we keep telling members that we are soooo close to being able to eat in their houses again............. and then the COVID guidelines changed once more... in the opposite direction, and now we can't give handshakes again and we gotta wear the masks during missionary and church meetings. It's kinda crazy how many missionaries and other people are complaining about these changes though. The word of God is the word of God, "...whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same." (D&C 1:38) I'm excited to see what comes of these changes.

So our area had been a bit unmotivating recently with the lack of solid new people and a bunch of cancelled lessons. But then we had an exchange with the Assistants, and I stayed in the area with the one, the only... Elder Hansen, who has no fear of talking with everyone. It was actually kinda ridiculous how we'd be walking to go knock on a certain door, but the second he spotted someone, he was shouting across the street to some confused Latino, and we'd close the gap and just teach them. Even if they didn't seem interested on the spot, I definitely learned that it's better to talk to someone who's not interested rather than not talk to someone who would've been interested.

We had another English class, and although there weren't 80 people like last time, we definitely planned it a lot better and taught a really fun class about naming the parts of the car as well as learning directions, which involved a legendary activity where 60+ students all leaned to the left and to the right as we pretended to drive down a road (pictures down below)

Miracle:

So, we had been a bit bummed and a bit hopeless from all of our cancelled lessons lately. But on Tuesday, we received a call from some missionaries in Colombia, who informed us that one of the people that they've been teaching, Carlos, would be moving to Utah into our area in the upcoming week. At first we were like, "Cool cool." And then they mentioned that Carlos had already accepted a baptismal date set for August 28!! So in our struggles, God blessed us with someone who is willing to let God prevail in their lives, and we're super excited to work with him!

God is still a God of miracles.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) Me at the conference center

2-3) We and our English district visited temple square and saw a bunch of the progress they've made on the Salt Lake temple

4) Found out that the angel Moroni statue on every temple is massive

5) Found a cool duck statue on someone's porch

6) Got some massive horchata ice cream at Leatherby's 

7-8) Our english class straight whippin' it

Week 80

Helllloooooo everyone! I'm gonna preface this email by just saying that this week was awesome!

This past Friday, we held a Zone Council with the theme of having ~miracles~ since we want all the missionaries in the Zone to look back at this transfer and always refer to it as "the miracle transfer". And just two weeks into the transfer, things are lookin' gooood. I'm going to try to include at least one miracle in each of my emails this transfer. Today, I will share three.

Miracle 1:

So Elder Stuflick and I as well as the hermanas misioneras in the ward, Hermana Krummenacher and Hermana Creer, decided to start our own English classes every Sunday at 10am (just before church, which starts at 11am). I carried over the idea to teach the driver's test from my last district, and with the power that the sister missionaries have to get 100+ comments on one individual Facebook post, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. 

9:30am rolls around and people are already showing up. By 9:55am, there was a line of people almost going out to the street. We brought everyone into the gym, and had a total of about 80 people present!! We broke the mission record (which was about 40) in our very first class 😎!!! Then 13 of these people stayed after the class and attended church and told us that they'll definitely come back!!

Miracle 2:

We were at some apartments in our area looking for inspiration as to which doors we should knock. Neither of us felt any promptings, so we started walking and came across this stray dog. I said out loud to the dog, "I will literally go wherever you go," and thus we followed the dog until it led us to this one apartment complex with four doors, two on the first floor, the other two on the second.

To save time, we thought it'd be fun to knock two doors at the same time, cause... what's the worst that could happen? Both of them answer? Well..... that's exactly what happened. Elder Stuflick and I each talked to our respective people and set up follow-up appointments.

Miracle 3:

One of these people from Miracle 2 was named Ignacio (his friends... and us... call him Nacho). He was super cool and showed interest, but we gave him our number upon request and he hadn't called us for a couple of days. On Sunday later at night, we were in the area and we heard a faint voice. We turn around, and 100 feet away stands Nacho, waving his arms and calling us to him. He apologized for not having called us, and invited us into his home. I had the feeling that this was gonna be goood.

He started by saying how much he respected us and admired what we do as missionaries. He then threw his arms up and said, "The time is yours. Teach me!" He continued to be a very open, repentant soul and had a great sense of humor. We are very excited to keep working with him.

God is still a God of miracles.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1-2) ❤ Elder Stuflick ❤ and I

3-4) Our English class with 80 people present!

5) My first time on my mission having Pho (on an exchange)

6) Our ward held a family home evening 

Week 79

Hola holaaa!

So like I mentioned in my previous email, I am suuuuper excited for this transfer cause some big things are about to go down. Here's a rundown of how transfers looked:

Things that didn't change:

- .....

Things that changed:

- So I am no longer serving in the Parkway Spanish ward, and now am serving in the El Camino Spanish ward. The El Camino ward is infamous for having some of the greatest members, having the largest English classes, and getting some of the most baptisms in the mission! This was made manifest when I walked into church on Sunday and there were chairs going halfway into the gym, and every chair was filled! Our ward actually meets at the mission office as well, so I'm located very conveniently for meetings and everything.

- I got a new companion, Elder Stuflick, or should I say... Elder STUDflick. This man is an absolute legend! He is from San Diego, California, and is one of the most diligent and spiritual companions I've ever had. He's going to hit his year mark this transfer so we're gonna party!

- I downgraded from a District Leader back to a Zone Leader, and for the first time I am Zone Leader 1, which really doesn't mean anything, but it does have a nice ring to it. We are over the Taylorsville Zone, and I am back in my old district, the Jordan District!

- Once again I moved apartments, and I finally live in my area! And once again it needs some cleaning.

- I got a pristine 2021 Chevy Equinox (that for some reason doesn't auto lock when you leave it like the Chevy Malibu does and it makes me angry)

On Sunday, the Salt Lake valley was once again hit by a pretty gnarly thunder and lightning storm. What was crazier was that we were walking outside going from appointment to appointment, and although the sky was being lit up every 5 seconds with a lightning flash and visible rain could be seen all around us, we were completely dry. It felt like God had put a dome around the apartment complex where we were at and just wanted us to keep working. At a point I said, "Watch it just start pouring the second we go back to our car jajaja." And then the time came where we had to go back to the car to go to another appointment outside the apartments, and wouldn't you believe that it indeed started pouring some thiccc rain once we got safely into the car. This was a true testimony that God is looking out for us and that he does indeed protect His servants.

We also had some really cool leadership trainings and goal setting meetings this week, and I'll just say that the Salt Lake City West Mission is headed in the right direction. It was our mission president's first time running these meetings, and in the middle, I decided to just look around me, and the amount of love I felt for President and Sister Spencer and for all of the leadership in that room was surreal. I could just feel the power, and I'm excited to see what we are going to accomplish this transfer.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) We had a district lunch and happened to run into the old office missionaries, Elder and Sister Given, who are some of my favorite human beings

2) Some really cool members we visited this week!

3&4) The big ol' spooky rain clouds around us

Video:

5) Me eating a pepper-shaped leaf

Week 78

Hello helllooooo!

This last week of the transfer was another one in the books! 

On Thursday, in the middle of a lesson with some Catholics that were being very... firm in their beliefs, a rain/thunder/lightning storm came out of nowhere. It made a very frustrating conversation into a pretty dope one. While they were telling us that they pray to the virgin Mary, have never actually read the Bible, and flat out admitted that they don't know if their church is true, there were some pretty epic lightning bolts in the background so it was a pretty cool lesson.

Being that Friday was Pioneer Day, and I'm also here in Utah, things get pretty crazy 'round these parts. So we had an all day p-day, and we basically just partied the whole day. We were kept up 'til midnight from all the leftover fireworks that people had from the 4th of July. We spent most of the night playing... get this... a board game escape room. After having worked at an escape room, you'd assume I'd be pretty decent at solving puzzles, but this game was on another level, and it took us like 4 hours to beat the whole thing. But boy was it fun!

For those of you who don't speak Spanish, the title of this email translated to English means "I'm staying here". On Thursday afternoon, I received a call from President Spencer saying that I am permanently reassigned here to the Salt Lake City West Mission!!! Sure I'm gonna miss out on the culture and food and immersion of the Peru, Lima Sur mission, but I've invested so much of my time and my heart to the people and missionaries here in this mission. I've truly learned firsthand that we are called to a work, not to a place. However I'm grateful that the place is here in Utah. I'm super stoked to stay and to continue working for these final four transfers!

Also we got the info for the next transfer, and all I can say for now is that some pretty cool things are about to go down these next few transfers. I hope you're all as excited as I am.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) Us in the rain

2&3) Said goodbye to some of the people that we taught (foreshadowing 😉)

4) The West Valley Zone

5) Got a nice screenshot of Elder Smith and I shaking our heads violently 

6) My favorite cat, named Gorda Gorda

7-9) Elder Bowles sent me some pictures of when we went to the Jordan River temple 6 months ago. Also car gang