Elder Estela Clutching Up

Monday

We got transfer news as we were playing soccer, and it looks like I'm staying another go in Deporte. This will be my 4th transfer, meaning that by the end of it I'll have spent 1/4 of my mission in this area. Honestly, I'm still more excited about it than anything; we have a lot of cool people with potential. P-day was normal, just full of soccer, ice cream, naps, and family.

Tuesday

Since Elder Baldeon had a training meeting because he was getting bumped to ZL, I got deported to another area for the day with Elder Judd from Taylorsville and Elder Sanchez from Bolivia. Trio life was a party, and it honestly ended up being a fun day. Something I realized is that with my Spanish, the only thing I lack is confidence that what I already know is sufficient. Elder Judd came in a transfer after me, but we still had an awesome day with finding people and having lessons regardless. Elder Sanchez didn't speak much, which was kind of funny because he was the most experienced out of all of us, but that's alright. After a day of work there, we had to meet up at the offices to reunite with our comps, but while we were waiting for them, we got to see the missionaries from this transfer leave. It was so wild to watch. I ran into Elder Ryan Coleman, who was one of the people leaving, and he told me that my new comp that I was receiving was one of his favorites, which made me excited.

Wednesday

Transfer Day! We woke up pretty early and headed to the offices, where we waited with all the other missionaries. The bus ride there and waiting in the offices is honestly super fun because I got to catch up with a lot of people. After not too long, I said my final goodbye to Elder Baldeon and got to meet Elder Estela. When we got back, it was a very chill day. It was just filled with contacts while getting to know each other in between. His Spanish is a lot faster than Elder Baldeon’s, so it will be good to practice my listening with him. We didn’t have a lot of time to do much because of transfers, but still, we found some cool people and had a pretty good day.

Thursday

Our day was loaded with meetings in the morning. If you know my attitude about meetings, then you already know that I was having such a good time. We also had weekly planning after lunch, so we got out to work pretty late. But regardless, following Elder Estela, we worked like animals! We got David to come out with us for some lessons, first with this girl named Madelit, who we ended up putting on date! Kind of wild because Madelit was the very first lesson I ever had in Peru when I first arrived, and now she's on date. We had a couple lessons after that, and I love the way that Elder Estela teaches: short, simple, and about Jesus (somehow a lot of people miss that step). But because of that, we had a really good day and found lots of people. Also kind of funny, we knocked on the door of one of the girls we're teaching, and when we looked around, we saw a bunch of Jehovah’s Witnesses doing the same thing. We snuck our way into their group. At the end of the day, we had a video call with one of our friends, Teresa, about the Restoration, and it went really well! I also completely forgot it was Thanksgiving, so that night I also called the fam.

Friday

The day started pretty slow, just with a few contacts, and so we were pretty focused on finding people. Ever since I got here, whenever I walk past a group of kids under the age of 25, people shout at me things like "Gringo! Hello! What is your name!? English or Spanish?!" Elder Estela told me that it was a superpower that I needed to use in order to find people because to a lot of people it's very random to see a 6'4 white gringo in such a random part of the city. So whoever was interested in my gringo, we tried to contact and found a few families through it. We had a lesson with the Miranda family and talked about why it's important to go to church so that they can get ready for their baptism. After, we had a lesson with Luis, who the missionaries have been meeting with for a while, but for whatever reason, just can't get him to baptism, so we're trying again and put a date on him this night. It was honestly a very easy invitation to extend because he wants to be baptized, just has lots of questions.

Saturday

Simple day. We had Giuliano come out with us for some lessons. First up, with Brisa, not gonna lie, when I first met her I thought she was like 14, but apparently, she's 21, haha. We talked about baptism and put a date on her as well. It'll be hard because she's busy with school, but it's still very possible. That night we got David to come out with us again, and we had a lesson with the Miranda family once again. It was about the restoration, and it went super well!

Sunday

Holy cow, Elder Estela is a machine! Getting people to church since day one has been our biggest struggle, but today we had 7 of our friends pull up, which for us was huge! It was the Miranda family, Madelit, and 3 friends Angie brought to church. That day we visited John, and I got to meet his wife for the first time after 4 months of knowing John. She's been very busy, but now work has calmed down, so we put a date on her. Then we made our way up to Angie’s house to meet the friends she brought to church. Unfortunately, she was pretty busy, and we only met one of them, but tomorrow we're going to try again and hopefully put them on date!

Spiritual Thought: I read a scripture in 2 Peter 2 this week, which explained how knowing of the Gospel and turning to sin is worse than already being a sinner and not knowing of the Gospel. At first, that kind of scared me that judgment could be stronger for me just because I already know the Gospel, but also it's because of blessings that the Gospel brings that I want to stay away from things that will separate me from Christ. And even when I mess up, I want to try my best to immediately repent and return to His presence. I truly am blessed for having this Gospel ever since I've been born, and there isn’t anything that'd make me want to separate myself from the loving arms of our Savior.

Thanks for tuning in, hope y'all had a good Thanksgiving and that you enjoy the Christmas season. Till next time, peace out!

-Elder Mitchell IV

Fotos:

Elder Baldeon’s final goodbyes
Elder Estela y yo
Deporte sunset
Graffiti



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