That´s How Miracles Work!

Well, this week I received my new companion, Elder Salazar! He was in the mission office for seven months and received the news last week that he´d be coming here to Puerto Maldonado. We´ve been working with a lot of families. We have had success in finding four familes. Now, the struggle is in helping these familes progress! None of them are married, so we are working with them to be baptized and married! The challange is helping them attend church. One couple, Samuel and Janeli are scared to come. Janeli is a less-active member and is expecting in a few months, so she feels very scared to come. We are learning a lot as a companionship about the importance in sharing spiritual experiences with investigators. If we think as members of the church, we have LOTS of spiritual experiences! Many people have never even heard or felt these things. They´ve heard of God, but never experienced what it´s like to worship him. We are trying to share our experiences with others to invite the spirit. We, together with four other elders live on the second floor of an apartment building behind the chapel. We always talk about ways we can strengthen the Elders in the zone and our companionship. We decided to knock on our ´´neighbor´s´´ door and teach them a lesson during companionship study. It´s turned out to be a success practicing teaching them  as if they were investigators. there in the apartment. We give feedback and try improving our teaching skills. 

To answer your questions, I love the zone! We are honestly isolated from the rest of the mission. The whole mission is full of mountains, kind of cold, and not super pretty, but Puerto is way different and definatly not cold. It´s SO hot and I constantly sweat. And there are no mountains whatsoever. We are twelve hours away from Cusco. So, we are pretty tight as a zone here. Everything is done together. We are 14 missionaries here in Puerto and all ten Elders get together to play soccer almost every Monday. We DID do the blindfold walk with the zone, but we don´t have mountains here, so we put it in the back yard of our pension´s house which pretty much looks like a jungle, so it worked out great. One sister was at the end of the rope a few steps away from ending her journey blindfolded. But, she was one of the last, and everyone else before her had let go of the rope. So, the whole zone, in an intent to make her let go, all started clapping and saying, ´´good job!! You finished! You can take your blindfold off!¨ She took it off and realized the mistake she´d taken. Sometimes life is just like that. Our peers pressure us in saying that we´re done. We can rest from our labors because we´ve already gotten far enough. I love serving in the Perú Cusco Mission! I love learning and know that I will be able to take all of the habits that I´ve learned and apply them in my every-day life for the rest of my life! 

Love you MOM and FAMILY and FRIENDS!! Have a great week! Remember that God won´t ever do something for us that WE can do. WE must do what we CAN, and HE´LL finish the rest. THAT´s how miracles work! 

Elder Jeffery