April 24, 2017 – Week 30!

May 03, 2017

This week was great!

We had multizone conferences this week, and it was from 9 to 5. ALL DAY but it was really good to have lots of classes and lots of training! Hermana Larson also gave banana bread to those who had birthdays this past transfer, which included me! The bread was sooo good. The multizone conferences are always awesome. I also saw Elder TRujillo and Elder Golder, and I heard that some of the investigators we found in teh last transfer are now progressing! Awesome!

We also finally were able to have one lesson with a family of investigators (the dad is a less active member), and it went really well! The 2 young daughters that are 15 and 9 years old really want to get baptized. They've been coming to church alone for about the past year. We now are just focusing on the parents, because the mom is a bit hesitant about her daughters being baptized, since she's catholic and the kids have been baptzied catholic too. I know though that eventually the 2 daughters will have the chance and opportunity to be baptized, and I hope it's soon!

We also found 9 new inevestigators this week. A new investigator is when we have a 1st lesson with someone that we've found with a contact or a referral etc. A few of them really have a desire to continue learning, and they hae committed to come to church too this next week!

A funny little experience. The past few weeks, as we go though a little passageway, there's always a group of kids there, and they always stop what they're doing and ask me to speak in english. This week, the 3 usual kids and a group of 7-8 more came running up to us and i joked saying " theyre gonna want me to speak in english" but thats what they wanted! They all came to us and started telling me things to say in english, and my companion just said " come preach with us" and they followed for a minute. To make them happy, I invited them to baptism in Enlgish haha, even though they didn't understand. I felt popular that day. How can you not when 10 ish kids run up to you just to talk to you? It'd be awesome if we could teach their families now!

This week we also taught the Gospel Principles class with 0 preparation (which has happened a couple times now), and I learned that Elder Sanhueza is a really good teacher. I can teach, but he's really fast at finding examples to use and extending the time in creative ways on a subject. It was a good class! I hope to get better at my teaching throughout my time in the mission!

Contacting is always a new experience every day. You always get different responses. This week we had someone that was Christian who we contacted, and had a VERY strong testimony in what she believed. The contact went a bit longer than planned, and because of that I kinda wanted to cut it short, but Elder Sanhueza kept giving his testimony of the Book of Mormon, and it helped the contact end in a very calm way. I'm very sure that it brought the spirit too, and helped the girl we were contacting to realize how important our message is. Idk if she'll visit mormon.org or try to learn more, but the seed is planted! Contacting really has a big effect on people, even if we don't realize it always.

I'll just keep saying also, the food here is great. Sometimes it's too much, and I feel like I can't eat anymore, but then I surprise myself and finish the plate. I think I'm going to get used to eating tons here. That's not a bad thing I guess! I want to return to peru later, because you can get some really good food in large portions for a reallly good price! 3-5 dollars!

I love sharing the gospel, and I hope to do it better every day!

Have a great week!

--Elder Bruner