Monday, July 31, 2017

Week 55 - Answers to Prayers Through Patience and Hard Work

Hola,

Hope everyone had a great week! As I say every week, this past week was packed with work! Elder Uceda (from the Quorum of the 70) landed yesterday and today we are having some meetings with him. We have almost all of the missionaries here in Cusco which was a whole lot of work for me but overall everything is working out as planned. We are really excited to have him here and it was awesome to meet him personally.

Other than his visit I want tell you about some exciting news for us. So we have been working super hard with changes this past week and literally changes are the busiest time for us. But, my Companion, Elder Ordoñez, and I are always super determined to get out and teach. Although it was difficult we got out as much as we could and worked as hard as we possibly could. At the start of July we had some pretty solid investigators but not a whole ton of them. So throughout the past month we have been finding and teaching so many new people. When we started July we put of goal of getting at least 1 person ready for baptism by the end of the month and have been striving to complete our goal. Though we are teaching families and so many different people right now, no one has progressed to a point to where we have actually felt it was necessary to set a baptismal date yet. With the month ending we have been hoping to get at least someone ready. Praying each day and striving our hardest, we found a new investigator this past week names Julio. Julio is 19 years old and has recently moved into our area from another city in Perú and has had a really hard life. When we met him, he told us how happy he was to talk to someone because he has felt so lonely the past while and has passed so many struggles in his life including being essentially kicked out of the house.

So after living on his own for the past while, we contacted him and had a visit with him. The visit with him was honestly one of the best I have had in the mission. The Spirit was powerful as we testified to him that he never needed to feel alone because the most perfect man had been left alone to suffer for him so that he didn’t need to feel that. With tears in his eyes he accepted to message of the Restoration and all that we taught him. At the end of the visit as we closed with our testimonies, we felt the strong prompting to invite him to be baptized. Not more than a second after we asked him, he immediately accepted the invitation and said he would do all he can to learn the things we are going to teach. We put a baptismal date for the 19th of August and are planning on working as hard as we can with prayer and fasting to prepare him. We are so grateful to the Lord for guiding him to us and literally blessing us with the ability to complete our goal for the month of July at the very end of the month. The interesting thing is that in Spanish the name Julio literally translates and means July in English, which I find very interesting.

Anyway other than that, this past week was honestly packed with meetings with President Herrera and just trying to work every second possible. We had our P-day on Saturday again because we have the Conference with Elder Uceda today so we decided to just take the time and play some sports. President Herrera and his Wife were in the office getting things ready for the Conference and just doing various things so we played some sports with his daughters and I even taught his girls how to dribble a basketball! They are Super Cute and love my ATM tie, I don’t know if you remember seeing pictures of that from a while ago but President Herrera lets me wear it because of my job and his girls love the tie hahaha. They always come up and pull the money out of it and they are always sad when they come to office and I am not wearing it hahaha!

In closing I just want to bear Testimony of the reality and the Divinity of the Savior. As mortal people we cannot fully comprehend how large his work is. Sometimes we think we understand his plan pretty well but let me tell you that we can barely grasp it. The Lord knows why we go through certain things and why things can’t go as we always want them to go. I love him and know that he is preparing me more each day not only for those that I will Teach, the Companions I will have, but also preparing me for a future that I don’t even know yet. I Testify that this work is a reality and that each day it changes me for the better.

Love,

Elder Fawcett



Teaching President and Sister Herrera's Girls to Play Basketball!!! 

Beginning with the Basics of Dribbling!






The Youngest Daughter is Ariella


The Older Daughter is Gabriella






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