Elder Taylor Fawcett: Week 58 - 20th Birthday in Peru!!!

Hola,

What a solid week! First off I just would like to thank everyone very much for all of the birthday wishes. It really means a lot to me and I am so grateful to have so much support. As you all will see in the videos that I sent home, birthdays in Perú are really interesting. Take the first bite of the cake and getting your face shoved in it, the happy birthday sung in English and then the Perú version, and finally the eggs being smashed on your head. It honestly was a really great time and definitely a birthday that I will remember for the rest of my life. I plan on carrying the traditions of the Peruvian birthday for the rest of my life… well at least without the eggs hahaha! Anyway besides the birthday celebrations with President Herrera and his family and with my Penchanista, my Companion and I had a super great week!

First off I want to let you all know about Julio´s progress! This past week we finished up teaching the Word of Wisdom, The Law of Chastity, and Tithing and he accepted ALL of it. As we explained and taught each and every commandment to him, with tears in his eyes he committed to living each of the commandments for the rest of his life. But perhaps the very best news of all is on Sunday we had him interviewed for baptism. As he came out of his interview the smile on his face was priceless as he told us he was ready to be baptized! So this coming weekend we are going to be having Julio´s baptism and I can honestly say that he is more than ready to be a member of the church. He has such a strong testimony and when he meets other members, they already think he is a member because of his incredible spirit that he carries everywhere he goes. Like I have previously explained, he is very young and he also has a strong desire to prepare to serve a mission in the future as well!

As well this week we continued teaching Ismael and his wife but perhaps the best part was the fact that we were finally able to uncover the reason as to why they aren’t progressing as much as they were. After having a lesson in which we taught the power that the Book of Mormon can bring into our lives, we felt inspired to ask Ismael why he hasn’t been reading it. After thinking for a second he looked at us and responded saying “Are you both Happy when you read it because it seems every time I try to do what God wants, my life gets worse.” After that answer we immediately knew that Satan has been working really hard against him to convince him that doing the things that God wants brings you sadness when it really brings you happiness in the end. It was then that we took the time to explain to him that in all things that are right, the devil is always there to try and stop and us from doing what we know is right. After explaining and bearing testimony to him, he committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. We have another visit this week and are very excited to see how it went for him.

One of the other big highlights from the week was Julio presented us to one of his friends who is not a member of the church. This friend however, recently converted to the 7th day Adventist church probably 4 months or so ago. So as we were getting to know his friend, we were just talking about what we do as missionary and then he started attacking us with his believes and how we were teaching false doctrine. He started attacking us with the whole thing about how God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are the same person and how the Sabbath day was a Saturday not a Sunday and a whole bunch of other stuff. Well, personally this is something that I have faced and heard probably a million times so I knew for a fact where I could show him evidence in the Bible about how it was incorrect was he was saying and having Julio present I was worried that he would start to question everything we had taught him. So worrying about Julio and how he may react I started turning in the Bible to show how God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate distinct beings (I was going to show him the part where it talks about Stephen and how he saw Jesus Christ standing on the right side of God) I felt the distinct impression to stop what I was doing. So I stopped and it was at that moment that Julio opened his mouth. He testified to his friend about how he knew that we were servants of Jesus Christ and how we brought the truth and although other churches taught different things, he knew that ours was True. Shocked, I realized how much different the situation would have gone had I not listened to the prompting of the Spirit.

In closing, I just want to testify of something I have grown to learn throughout this week. When we found Julio he was an incredible person and ready for us. As missionaries our job is to find these people who are ready. All though at times it takes a while and you don’t always get the results that you hope for, I know without a doubt in my mind that God is preparing people to receive his true word. There are tons of people out there waiting for this message, but before our Heavenly Father will trust us with his select we must first demonstrate to him that we are ready and willing to do all we can to help them learn and accept the message. I know this is His Church filled with all of the doctrine that we need to be happy and succeed in this life. I am so grateful to have it in my life and to be able to share it with those that I meet each and every day! I love you all and wish you all a safe and good week!

Love,

Elder Fawcett