Hello Family!
This past week started off amazingly. The temple in Trujillo was dedicated, and President Uchtdorf came to speak to us! Sadly I wasnt able to go and see him where he was speaking, but the word of God is still all the same. He, his wife Harriet, and his daughter each spoke about the temple and the blessings of attending. President Uchtdorf gave us counsel that can help us overcome whatever challenges we may have: keep the commandments. It´s as simple as that! If we strive to keep the commandments, no matter our circumstances or our challenges, we will receive divine guidance and be blessed and happy beyond measure.
As far as work goes, many of our appointments fell through but the Lord made His will known in every situation. Hna Vitola and I made use of our time by searching for less active families and contacting references - we now have a number of new people to visit!
One of the families has been inactive for years, but has been wanting to return to church for some time. The dad is a return missionary (yeah, melchezidek priesthood holder!) and his two little girls are old enough to be baptized. We are so excited to visit them, especially because they are a super bubbly family. Yeah!
Another family we met was contacted by elders in a nearby area, and it turns out that the mom has been inactive for two years. Her name is Mercedes and she told us that right before we stopped by her house, she had been praying for help to return to church. She is super humble, and showed her willingness to repent by coming to church this Sunday. That made us so happy!
This Saturday Hna Vitola and I also took part in this cool Family History stand at a fair here in Cusco. All of the missionaries have taken turns, and it finally was ours to contact people and invite them to learn about the Regional Archive here that takes fotos of ancient documents in order to make them available on the internet. I seriously havent been more happy that I was there getting to know complete strangers. People´s eyes just sparkled with excitment when they learned that they could find ancestral records for free on familysearch.org . I met a mad from Italy who is interested in helping take pictures of the documents and many cusquenians that want to learn how to start their family trees. That just shows how the spirit of Elijah is working on all people!
I´ve also been feeling a little sentimental this week. Living in the sister-missionary house of Cusco means that Hna Vitola and I see a lot of missionaries off as they end the mission. This week I´ve ran into elders and sisters that I met in the very beginning of my mission, and it´s a little hard to say goodbye to those who live here in South America. The thing is, you never know when you will see each other again! Sigh. It´s been a big wake-up call for me, which makes me want to live it up here in Peru while I can. I will go crying, that´s a promise, but it´s better to have loved than to never have had the experience. :)
Hna Arroyo
