Week 87

Bonjour everyone! Hope everyone is doing well!

Honestly we just griiiinded this week. I went on an exchange with one of the district leaders, Elder Pacheco, and we were feeling wild so we decided to just put someone on date for baptism. His name is Isaí, and he's been taught by missionaries for the past two years and has gone to church some 45 times! And for reasons, he hasn't been baptized, but we've been working with him a bunch and he accepted a date for October 9th! The following day, we taught a family that moved here from Perú just a week ago, and two of them accepted a baptismal date for October 23rd!

We went to go knock one of our amigo's doors, and as we pulled up to the house, we spotted an old, white lady on the porch steps, and she spotted us too. We thought this would be a nice interaction, but little did we know... she was on drugs. Like... baaaaaad. She was speaking English decently, but there was absolutely no understanding what she was trying to say. We walked past her as she was attempting to talk to us, knocked the door, and on the way back to the car, I got an epic video of her taken from my shirt pocket. 

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post the video here without her consent, but here are some of my favorite quotes from her:

  - "Take my hand. Cause you're going to hell if you don't." Then, with her greasy hand, she grabbed Elder Stuflick's hand and started walking away.

  - "Boo boo... BOOM! They did go bowling."

  - "Eat my peppers." (she didn't have peppers)

We made it back into our car (thank goodness), and she started shouting at us from outside the window. As we drove off, she forcefully banged our window, leaving her greasy handprint behind.

Don't do drugs kids.

Miracle:

So in the past, Sundays have always been disappointing for us since a ton of our amigos commit to going to church, but a bunch flake on us and only a couple show up. Yesterday, we were surprised when 11 of our amigos came to church! And a lot of them came for the very first time and had an awesome experience! We have plans to put more of our amigos on date for baptism now that they're showing their desire to keep their commitments!

God is still a God of miracles.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) I came up with this door approach which I call The Glowing Word. (I put my phone in a Book of Mormon with the flashlight on, open the book, and share Mosiah 16:9 --> immediate baptism)

2-3) Reflection photos

4) Zone Conference with Elder Perkins of the Seventy

Week 86

Hey guapos!

This past week, we had the wonderful opportunity to have Elder Perkins of the Seventy come and visit our mission. We had a Zone Conference where we learned a bunch about the Preach My Gospel and using the Book of Mormon to resolve concerns. He also came to our Mission Leadership Council and, in a way I've never seen before, we addressed the problems of the mission, and we counseled about them. I cannot do his stories and his teachings justice, but all I can say is that he brought a very personal Spirit into my heart. He will also be giving a talk at this October's General Conference, so be on the lookout for him!

We had a lesson with my boy Rubino and his household of 6 muchachos. After we had started to read in the Book of Mormon, the legend himself, Brayan, walks in the door and takes a seat. We handed him a book and at that moment, we realized that he was absolutely drunk. He starts rambling in broken Spanish about some random unrelated topic, and everyone else was quietly chuckling to themselves. At some point he crashed on the couch, just to wake up blabbering off something he was dreaming about, went silent for 3 seconds, and then crashed again. This segment was brought to you by the Word of Wisdom.

So with the blessing of being able to eat with other people now, comes... the curse of eating with other people as well. Our recent convert, Carlos, invited us over for some food, and it was pretty good. I was still a bit hungry, so I asked for "un poco" of everything. Apparently "un poco" meant filling up my entire plate more than what was on it the first time around, including the burnt rice at the bottom of the pan. Carlos stated, "I see you got the best rice." I was like, "What, the burnt rice?", to which he had the audacity to say, "It's not burnt, it's toasted." 😑 It literally stabbed my gums every bite.

On exchanges with some English Elders in the Zone, we came across an atheist, who must've had a grocery list of problems with our church and with religion in general. With the worldly perspective that he possessed, he honestly brought up some decent points. But if he were to have had an eternal perspective, these problems that he brought up would be insignificant in God's eternal plan for us. Normally an experience such as getting bashed by an atheist would be a faith-damaging experience, but I feel like my faith grew. I honestly am super grateful for the hope that comes through the knowledge of God's plan for me, the 

Miracle:

We had a visit with a guy named Antonio, and his brother-in-law, Hugo, was sitting in on the lesson. We got to know him a bit, and although at first he "wasn't very religious", he asked us a bunch of questions and doubts that he's had with the Catholic church... ALL of which we were able to answer using the Book of Mormon. It was super cool to hear him perk up every time we had the answer, and at the end he said, "I would love to learn more about this Joseph Smith guy. He gladly accepted a pamphlet of the Restoration and a Book of Mormon, and promised to read 4 chapters before our next visit.

God is still a God of miracles.

Elder Terry

Fotos: 

1) Our Zone covers the new Taylorsville temple and I got a shot next to it during construction 

2-4) Found a cat with a double Paw

5) Leatherby's with some Elders in the Zone

6) Our p-day activity was painting, and I made this painting of a cool waterfall

Video:

1) Chilling with the guapo 

Week 85

Hola mis queridos fanáticos,

Once again I am super excited for this next transfer! I got everything I wished for...

Things that didn't change:

- I am still serving here in the El Camino Spanish ward

- I am still serving alongside Elder Stuflick. We have been working super hard this past transfer and we're hoping to see even more success this one. I also forgot to mention that he was also originally called to serve in the Peru, Lima South mission, and there's a tiiiiiiiiny chance that he'll still make it there

- I am still a Zone Leader in the Taylorsville Zone

- I am still in the same apartment with the same roommates

Things that changed:

- Although nothing really changed for us, our Zone got completely flipped upside down, with areas being moved in and out, and half of the missionaries in the Zone are white-washing. We also got another 30+ greenies in the mission, 6 of which are in our Zone. 

One of our amigos, Jose, who is 16 years old, has a desire to get baptized, but he feels like it's gonna take him a long time to make that decision. We taught about prayer and how he can receive answers to his doubts, to which he gave us a challenge. By our next visit, he would have either accepted or declined a job offer, and he wanted us to pray to receive an answer if he accepted the job or not by pure revelation. For the next two days, we had prayed and fasted, and came to an agreement that he had indeed accepted the job. 

We showed up for our next visit, and confidently stated that he accepted the job... to which he looked at us super confused. Well apparently, we had misunderstood his request, because he actually wanted us to tell him if he was missing out on a big opportunity for having not accepted the job :/ but he was still glad that we had put the time in to pray and fast for him and he felt like we really cared........... but he still doesn't feel ready for baptism :// We'll work on that.

Miracle:

A lesson cancelled, and we decided to knock on some neighboring apartments. We felt prompted to go to building 44. We stood in front of four doors, two on top, and two on bottom, and pondered which one to knock. The second Elder Stuflick said "I'm feelin' one of the bottom two," one of the doors on the bottom opened, and out walked Antonio, who was about to walk his dogs. At that same time, his wife had just arrived from work, and was "Elders come on inside!" and brought us and her husband inside. She was a convert in an English ward, and had recently met Antonio, who wasn't a member, and she wanted us to start teaching him. So we did! We taught about prayer, and although he really doesn't know much about religion, he said his very first prayer in front of us at the end and it was beautiful!

God is still a God of miracles. 

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) Served at the bishop's storehouse, and we had an order for a family of nine that filled 6 shopping carts

2) Saw this graffiti, and we imagined that they were going to write some profanity, but they became exceedingly sorrowful and went their way to repent

3) Balancing a big ol' mop

4) Funny sign at Jimmy John's

Week 84

Wasssuuuuuup!

Ladies and Gentlemen, for the first time since the first week of my mission, we are now allowed to eat with members!!! We got a new Area President, and he made a bunch of changes, such as moving our dinner up an hour so we get an extra hour of proselyting time as well as being able to do quarterly temple visits!!!! I am super glad that things are looking up and I can't wait to take advantage of these awesome blessings that we have!

Carlos got baptized!!! I am super excited for him, and I know that he really is ready to enter into God's kingdom. This last week has honestly been ~stressful~ cause he cancelled a bunch of our visits, and we didn't even know at what time the baptism would be until the morning because he didn't know his work schedule yet.... phew I'm glad everything worked out though. We only got a little bit of backlash from the ward for such a late notice.

We went to visit one of our amigos, and as we drove into her apartment complex, some of the local kids spotted us and chased after us on their bikes (cause we may or may not have promised them candy last time to get them to stop bugging us). We circled the entire apartment complex to try to shake them off, but they were relentless, they ended up chasing us out of the apartments without having contacted our amiga, cause we honestly weren't about to get out of the car and deal with their shenanigans. Heckin' hooligans

A cool thought that I had this week was that when missionaries plan for the day and for the week, they are making their own little "plans of salvation" for those that are in their areas. I don't know why but that made me just really appreciate the responsibility and trust that my Heavenly Father has given me for just a few of His many children.

Miracles:

We have met a lot of cool people this week!

- We pulled up to have a lesson with a new person we found named Carlos. We said a prayer in our car, and right when we opened our eyes, Carlos was standing there right in front of our car! He came over to our window, and was like, "Guys thank you so much for coming. I actually can't do a visit right now cause I gotta head out, but I really appreciate you both for everything you do." He then continued to pour his heart out to us for the next 20 minutes and showed that he was willing to start making changes in his life, and at some point he confessed that his real name was Omar, and that he lied cause he thought we were working for the government haha. Silly Omar, we just work for God ;) 

- We had a visit with a new person we found named Susana. She let us in, and her husband came in, and we started our lesson. As time went on, another family member walked in... and then another... and then another. We ended up teaching more people than expected, but what was even cooler than that was that during the course of the lesson, they all slowly crept up towards us little by little because of how invested they were in the lesson. And then I slapped them with the Spirit as I recited the First Vision. Suuuper cool experience.

- We got a referral named Nacho (a different Nacho from last time), and he is super prepared and seems to know more about missionary work than most members! Although he talks a lot, he is such an understanding person, and has done every single commitment that we've given him!!

God is still a God of miracles.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) Carlos got baptized!!

2) The Zone goofin' off at a sick park (featuring a finger in the shot)

3) Cool spider web thing

4) Our apartment has a gym! 💪😤

5-6) Quick photo shoot while waiting for Carlos to show up to his baptism

Week 83

Hey everyone! 

We had two baptisms this past week! Before I got into the area, the previous missionaries were teaching a couple, Ana and Edgar, and they were a couple days from their baptismal date, and then Edgar stated that he didn't feel ready quite yet. They then went out of town for the first couple of weeks of this transfer, but we re-established contact and set a baptismal date for the 28th of August. And this time, it was truly their time. We are very thrilled for their decision to let God prevail.

Carlos continues to be dropping our jaws with how golden he is. We retaught the Restoration with him and his cousin, Francisco, and he was like, "Elders, i wanna share this cool spiritual insight I had..." and then continues to read Moroni 10:3-5, which is a scripture that we were just about to share with Francisco since it talks about receiving knowledge of the truth through the Holy Ghost. In a later lesson, we taught about tithing, and Carlos already had a testimony of it. What was crazier is that we put Francisco on date for baptism for September 18th... in a tithing lesson.

Elder Stuflick and I are absolutely popping off in this area, and this has been probably the happiest I've been on my mission. We found 14 new people to teach this week just because lessons get canceled and we take advantage of it by knocking doors and talking with people on the street. We have found that the best way to find more people that are willing to let God prevail in their lives is to just simply find more people. By chance alone, a portion of these people will have been prepared by God to start making these changes in their lives.

Miracle:

We were in an apartment complex knocking doors, when we felt prompted to knock this one door. We knocked, and from the inside we heard a dog barking, but no one answered. We knocked again. More dog barking. No one answered. We started joking around trying to get the dog to open the door by jiggling the door handle (for some reason), to which someone immediately opened the door and was like, "ARE YOU TRYING TO BREAK INTO MY HOUSE!?" and we were like "uuhhhhhhhhh.... no." She responded, "Oh... okay!" and then pointed to another apartment building where there might be some Spanish speakers. 

We went to that building, and the very first door that we knocked, a girl opened the door and waved her mom over. They spoke Spanish, and had a massive image of the Virgin Mary on her wall *cough 10 Commandments cough*. She invited us in, and we learned that although they believed in God, they really weren't practicing religion or attending a church. We continued to blow their socks off with the message of the Restoration and they were super receptive. 

Moral of the story: attempting to break into people's homes will guarantee that they answer the door, and you'll find some pretty sick people because of it.

God is still a God of miracles.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1-2) Ana and Edgar got baptized! 🥳🙏

3) There's an a apartment complex where a bunch of stray cats chill

Video:

1) Cat party