Sorry I wasn't able to email yesterday. Everything was closed down and we couldn't find a internet ciber that was open. So we got permission to come and write for a little bit today. I wanted to congratulate dad on his new call! You're gonna do great dad! As far as helping the missionary work, I don't know... Our bishops haven't really helped us too much in the past haha. Just stay in comunication with them, and maybe have some ward mission activities? I'm sure everyone else has more ideas though. We had our zone conference today, and we're feeling super pumped right now. We brought April and 2 of her daughters to church, and they said they liked it. It was one of the most powerful church services I have ever been in, and it felt like it was directed right to her. We have a lesson with her on Thursday. We'll see how that goes. We also experienced a miracle while we were at church before sacrament meeting. We were waiting when a sister in the ward introduced us to her brother. It turns out he had been going to a different ward for 2 months but was moving into this one. I felt the prompting to invite him to baptism right there before sacrament meeting. He said that the other missionaries had never invited him, and that he wants to get baptized in the end of january if things work out. It was a super cool experience. His name is Antonio.
The mission Christmas party was super fun, and it was nice seeing
everyone! I had 2 favorite Christmas presents. One was talking to you
guys, and the other is that we got water back in the house the tuesday
after Christmas haha. So we were able to more back in. Training has
been going well, and Elder Martinez came pre-trained. He's a fantastic
guy, and we've been working hard. New Years eve, he was feeling sick so
we went home after our interviews with Pres, and played some Monopoly
haha.
I'm ready for the holidays to be over and to get back to the
normal life. Sorry this is kinda short, but I'm out of time. Here are
some pictures. One is me and Martinez in our shades. The other is a
pic with some other elders. The other is the "Bocanegra Crew." We
share a dividing street called Bocanegra, and sometimes we see each
other there. And lastly is a picture of the zone. Love you all and
talk to you next week!!
1/8/2018
I will be writing you both this week at the same time to fit in a bit
more information. I hope this email finds you both doing well and
hopefully not overly busy haha. This was kind of a rough week. April
dropped us in the lesson this week. When we were walking there the
Spirit told me very clearly that she was going to drop us. It told me 3
or 4 times. It was still hard though, but it just came down to the
fact that she refused to listen to the Spirit. That's just part of the
reality we deal with, and that's that people have their agency. I asked
her what her idea was from where the Book of Mormon came from and she
says that she thinks it came from Joseph Smith's imagination. Pretty
impressive writer if you ask me haha. We had other investigators that
aren't progressing, and we really only have 1 potential baptism for this
month right now.
We had zone conference this week, and as a mission, we're going to
read this Book of Mormon in 3 months highlighting 4 things. Any name
that refers to Jesus Christ, His attributes, His words, and doctrine.
We're doing it in Spanish, and I actually don't need to look in English
too much. Just for really random words. It has been really
interesting, and I have been learning a lot from it. This whole week we
had been working super hard, but nothing had been coming of it. We
found probably 20 fake addresses in the last few days. However, Sunday
night we went to visit the last person we had planned. We had contacted
her a month ago, but somehow she fell through the cracks. We got there
and she let us right in. We taught her and her son and daughter the
Restoration, and they recieved it really well! It was a tender mercy
that we found new investigators after all the work we had done all
week.
We had a fair amount of drunk people come up to us this week. It's
usually pretty interesting haha. One claimed that we couldn't have
children in our religion. What an intelligent claim. A lot talk about
pologamy with us. That's always fun too haha. One guy (he wasn't
drunk) came up to us and ask if we wanted to have a lesson about the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. We said sure, and he gave us his lesson. It
actually was completely correct, so I shared about the Restoration, and
he tried to prove us wrong at some parts, but I completely destroyed him
using just the Bible. After the encounter, he wouln't even accept a
pamphlet even though I answered every doubt and question he had. It was
an interesting experience, but it helped me realize how much I've been
able to learn on the mission, especially about the scriptures. Today we
went to costco and I bought some protein powder. I was happy about
that. Anyways, I hope you all have a great week. Good luck with work,
and good luck with being a bishop! Love you guys!
Elder Cherpeski
1/15/2018
As you can see by the title of this email, this was a pretty rough week. Here is a day by day account of what happened.
Monday: We went and bought food at Costco and ate at buffalo wild wings. Nothing too eventful.
Tuesday: I went on divisions with the zone leaders. We taught
some lessons and found new investigators. I also did 102 pushups in a
row to win a bet.
Wednesday: We worked in the sun allllll day. From 10am until
around 8 we were walking in the street. Not one person let us in. It
was a discouraging day. We both were pretty worn out from being in the
sun for so long.
Thursday: Had another long day in the sun. I started feeling a
little sick, but didn't thing much of it. We had weekly planning and we
came up with new ideas to work with the members. We're excited to try
them out.
Friday: I woke up pretty sick. But I took advil and we set out to
work. We found a less active family who needs their son to get
baptized, so we put a baptismal date with him, so that was cool. It was
the best part of the week.
Saturday: I couldn't leave the house that day. I had a fever, a
sore throat, and lots of body pain. We stayed home, and I was kinda
dying.
Sunday: We went to church, and I was in really rough shape. After
church and the comida we came back and took it easy the rest of the
day.
Today: We went to a doctor in the morning, and it turns out I have
strep throat. Explains why I felt so terrible the last few days. They
gave me a shot in the rear, and I have 3 different medicines to take
now.
The moral of the story is: don't get sick on the mission. It
makes for a pretty rotten time. This next week is gonna be a great one
though (I hope)! Anyways, I'm out of time, but I'll send you a better
email next week! Love you all!
Ps. Another cool thing is that I found an old blender in our
house, and cleaned it and out it back together, so now I can have
smoothies and protein shakes again :)
Elder Cherpeski
1/22/2018
Last week I was in pretty rough shape when I wrote, so I hope to express how great this last week was!
1/22/2018
Last week I was in pretty rough shape when I wrote, so I hope to express how great this last week was!
This week we worked a ton, and I'm feeling back to normal. I had a
super crazy experience. 2 months ago we were in a public bus just
getting to our next appointment, when a man standing next to me read my
namebadge out loud. I started a conversation with him and we talked
about the church and how it was the church of Jesus Christ and nobody
else. I gave him a pamphlet of the Restoration, and that was that.
This last tuesday we were on a bus, and in walks this man. He
immediately came up to us and said that he had been looking for us! We
wrote down his address and went and visited him. If he had been one
street to the right, or further down his street he would have been in a
different area. We used the ward finder online and he lives in our
area, but barely! He was already in 2nd nephi when we visited him on
Thursday, and went to church all 3 hours and loved it. His baptismal
date is for the 10th of Feb. Hopefully everything goes well up to it,
but it was truly a miracle that all this happened. The chances that we
would run into each other on a random bus is impossible. The Lord
wanted him to hear the gospel. His name is Andreas, and he's a golden
investigator!
Today we went to the feria (fair) and I bought a leather jacket.
Leon is the leather capitol of Mexico, and I bought a jacket for about
$60, and the guy said a jacket just like it would be in the hundreds in
the US. It's pretty sweet. Well, we gotta go but I'll talk to you guys
next week! Love you all!
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