Teaching in Lima

 Hey, Everyone:

 

This week was pretty eventful. I´ll try to go in order of how everything happened. 

After I emailed last week, we went to the temple and had a good experience there. We go to the temple every week on our Preparation Day, and that´s always a good experience to have. 

On Wedesday, the new group of elders came in. It was nice to see some new faces and they´re all a good group of guys. That´s when my responsibilities for zone leader kicked in. It´s not the demanding of a calling: a lot of it is just making sure lights are off and that the district leaders are handling everything pretty well. So far everything has gone good and I´m enjoying it. 

Thursday and Friday and were normal days. We went to classes, taught mock investigators, ate chicken and rice -- again. Nothing too exciting or out of the ordinary. 

On Saturday though, we had a proselyting activity. That split my group of Elders and Hermanas (the ones that have been here for 3 weeks) into two groups. One group went to Lima East and the other group went to Lima South, or Sol. We got on buses, drove to meeting houses in the area we were assigned. The group I was with went to Lima Sol, which is the poor area of Lima. 

When we got to the meeting houses we were paired with either a companionship or a single elder. I was assigned to a native Elder. I can´t remember his name, which I´m kind of upset about. He was very nice and spoke a little English, which was a big help to me. He was a convert: I think he said he joined the church when he was 9, and was from Trujillo, Peru. 

The first thing we did after leaving the meeting house was hop in a taxi/minivan sort of thing. It was packed full of people and we paid a couple of soles (the Peruvian dollar is called the sol) for the ride. After about a 7 minute drive we got off near his apartment. I didn´t know we were getting off, though, so I kinda had to hop out of the van as it was driving away. 

We then went to his apartment so he could grab something for a member. We met up with that member at a street corner, gave him what looked like a painting, and then headed out to teach a couple of lessons. 

The other missionaries from my MTC group did a lot of different things. Some made street contacts, some taught lessons, some did both. All we did was teach lessons. The first man we taught was handicapped and he didn´t live in the best conditions. We taught him about the Atonement. He was an inactive member. He seemed very responsive to the lesson. I tried my best when we taught. My Spanish wasn´t perfect, but I was able to bear my testimony that I knew the things that were said were true. It was an amazing feeling.

The second man we taught was not as receptive. I´m still not too sure if he was an investigator or what, but we taught him about the Book of Mormon. Again, it was an amazing feeling getting to share my testimony of its truthfulness and the power it has to change and bless our lives. I know this to be true without a shadow of a doubt. I can promise anyone that if they read the Book of Mormon and asked with sincere heart and real intent whether the words in it are true, they will receive a confirmation that they are. At the end of the lesson he agreed he would try to make it to church the next day. 

That was all we were able to do for the activity. After the second lesson we went back to the meeting house and then back to the MTC. It was a very comforting experience to have. On Sunday I taught a lesson in priesthood about the Book of Mormon that I feel went pretty well. We then had a devotional that night from Elder Bednar and it was really amazing. I´m not sure when it was originally given (It was a recording from the Provo MTC) but it was on the character of Christ and it was really powerful. 

Monday and Tuesday were similar to Thursday and Friday in that they were also pretty normal days. Tuesday we had a devotional by Elder Stevenson though, about things in the church we should be grateful for, and I really enjoyed that talk as well. That is one of the things I´m going to miss a lot when I leave the MTC. The weekly devotionals really uplift me. 

That was a general run down of my week. Nothing else happened, really. My companion and district are great. I get along with them really well and if I go back to BYU after my mission, I will enjoy seeing them there. 

Hope everything is going  good back  home. I´m really glad to hear Yaya Toure scored for Manchester City. He´ll always have a special place in my heart.  I hope Thanksgiving is a good time. I´m going to miss everybody. Love you all.

Love,

Elder McMurray