Week 63: Week 3: How to kill a missionary

Well guys, to tell y’all the truth, I don’t have much to report this past week. It was really a week just full of learning fA BUNCH OF IMPORTANT STUFF. I learned a lot of things personally and spiritually that was needed for my progress personally and has a missionary. I look back on this week and even though it was a little rough, it helped me change a lot and was in a way... kind of sacred.

Here are some things that happened to us this week:
1. RAUL GOT BAPTIZED!!! And the amazing thing is his whole family came!!! We are working with them in teaching them the gospel. But we both feel that with his parents are going to be a social conversion first before a spiritual conversion. And the cool thing is that he told us that he is doing everything he can to help prepare himself to leave on his mission in just a little over a year. Ahhh!!! Hna Argueta and I literally started crying tears of joy when he told us that!

2. We had a cool experience with a random guy that was amazing. So we were playing volleyball with the Relief Society on Friday night when a random man comes in with his bicycle. He was walking towards the court with a lot of hesitation like he wasn’t sure about coming in. Right away when I saw him, I immediately got the impression to stop playing and go talk to him. So I ran up to him with my companion and asked him if he was a member and he said no but he stopped by bc he wanted to know what he needed to do to know more about us. We explained that we were missionaries and that is what we do is teach ppl about the gospel. Well long story short we figured out he was a contact that Hermana Argueta had before I had even gotten here to Itzaes. Argueta told me that he was drunk when she and her old comp contacted him and usually we don’t contact drunk guys for obvious reasons, but she felt impressed to do so. So she did and told him that if he wanted to be happy in life to stop drinking to read the pamphlet of the Plan of Salvation. Hermana Argueta said that she tried getting his address before but he was too drunk that he couldn’t remember it. So she left it at that and never heard or saw him again until he showed up at church Friday night telling us that he read the pamphlet, stopped drinking, and wants to learn more and get baptized and go to church. So we got his address (sadly he lives in a different area than ours...) invited him to church and gave him a restoration pamphlet and a Book of Mormon. Want to know what he did when we told him that the book was free and that it was his? He literally started to cry. He said that no one has ever given him something so special in his life. The sad thing is that he wants to know how he can be with this family again. He started drinking bc his wife and 5 kids died in a car accident years ago and since then his life has just gone downhill. But he told us that he read the Plan of Salvation and it gave him hope and he knows that it’s all true. I’ll tell y’all. It was suuppperrrr powerful and a strong testimony builder of how as missionaries we are to talk to everyone!! And to pray for the contacts that we make that sometimes we think that they will never accept. Who knows? Maybe in the moment that we talk to someone it’s just not their time... but that it will soon come.

Well that’s all for this week folks. I’ll send pics soon. Love y’all soo much!!!

Hermana Perryman

Week 62: Week 2: How To Kill a Missionary

Wow. This week was just.... wow. It was super busy with all the running around we were doing here in our area. In the beginning of the transfer, my companion, Hna Argueta and I both decided to work suupppeeeerrrr, super hard to help this area and have success here and so that her last transfer in her mission isn’t "chafa" or in English, "lame". The first week was definitely hard. We both got sick and it was just like blah and wasn’t really anything fun or good. This week we were both ready to hit the ground running and boy, did our results come out great.

For one, it was one of those weeks where we both got to the house at night just exhausted to the bone. It’s such a satisfying feeling to know that you worked so hard that your body and spirit are exhausted and literally every night we just planned, actualized the binders and the map and just went straight to bed. Yesterday we both talked about how well this week went and we both came to the conclusion that it was because we were working with the Spirit the whole time. Literally almost all of our lessons were right in tuned with teaching with the power of the Spirit. I just can’t tell you guys what an amazing feeling it is to be walking the whole time just feeling the Spirit and being guided in the words you need to say and where you should go and with who. So yeah.

EXCITING NEWS!!!!!! EL PODEROSO RAUL LOPEZ VA A SER BAUTIZADO ESTE SÁBADO!!!! For y’all who don’t know Spanish, our powerful investigator Raul Lopez is going to be baptized Saturday! We are all suuppppeeerrrr excited. Yesterday we showed up to church and when we got there Raul hadn’t showed up yet and we kinda got worried bc he’s always there early b4 we get there. We were going to send him a txt message when we realized that we had left the phone in the house and just then we both said a huge prayer that everything was okay and that he would be able to come. Just like 2 mins later he walked in ..... but IN A WHITE SHIRT, A TIE, DRESS PANTS, AND DRESS SHOES. Looking like a pure Mormon. ahh, we both just died. He sat down next to us kind of breathless and whispered that he had problems tying his tie. ahh, it was such a cool thing to see. Seriously nothing is the best thing for us to see is when the investigators or converts start to change the way they physically dress to go to church and even the members noticed and congratulated him. So yeah, pics next week of his baptism.

Today we decided to get up super early and have a little adventure and go back and visit my old area... IZAMAL!! So we got up at 4:30 and caught an early 6am bus to the city of magic. We went and visited the pyramid and took a bunch of pics. We went bc I talked a lot about it and Hna. Argeta wanted to climb a pyramid one time in her mission, haha. Then we went to the market and just looked around at all the cool things that we don’t have money to buy... haha and then we visited the Ricaldes who hold such a special place in my heart for everything they did for me during my first months there in the mission. They had made us lunch, something called Sopa de Lima. It’s just like chicken broth with lettuce, chicken, and tortilla chips. Sounds super simple, but its sooo goooood. And then we came back in the afternoon. So it’s been a pretty long day. I’m super tired, but it was definitely worth it :)

Pics coming soon! Love you all!!!!

Hermana Perryman

The sign says: "If any man defile the temple of God, God to destroy him for the temple of God is holy."