Okay, here is alittle of what has been happening this past week...We are exhausted but feeling the urgency to keep going hard with the last year ticking away on us now! It is amazing how fast the time goes by and you wonder sometimes if you are really doing that much good in building the church. There are many baptisms in Peru but the retention is always a struggle. They are many wonderful people here but the false tradtions of their fathers is also a constant battle. We love the work though and the missionaries are wonderful and their faith is growing. It is awesome to see the change that happens over a two year period of time in their lives...they go from boys to men in a hurry! I think we as parents underestimate our kids when they return home from a mission and don't always realize the tremendous responsibilities they have carried on their young shoulders. We are learning to have alot more faith and we are seeing many miracles happen when we have the prayer of faith in our hearts. The prayer of faith has been my topic this change in zone conference and I am learning the importance of being specific in our prayers to the Lord. I love Ama's prayer in Alma 31:30-35 where he really talks to the Lord and asks for specific blessings. I think too often I have been very general in my prayers and I am learning that I have to be more specific if I want specific blessings. I feel more of the Lords guidance too when I pray this way. I have been praying to have my own personal misisonary experiences and the other night when I went to the grocery store as I was walking back to the car with the young man who was helping me I realized it was the same young man who had helped me before and with which I had a had a gospel discussion and so I asked him how he was doing. I told him about Institute and what they do there and he said: "What can I do to have someone come and talk with me about the church?" Well, it just so happened that one of our assistents was ending that night his mission and in the office with Jeff having his final interview and he lives in the same area of town as this kids does. So I gavehim the reference and tld him you need to go right away and teach this young man. I knew too right then that God does guide us and does answer our prayers in marvelous ways and I felt so grateful to be able to be the one to open my mouth and ask. I am sure you feel the same about your friends that were just baptized--you feel honored to be able to share in the conversion process and your testimony grows along with theirs. Jeff always says that I do all the talking when we get in a taxi and he never gets a chance to make a contact himself! So the other day he went to Cusco ahead of me and had to take a taxi so he was praying for the opportunity to find someone to talk to when the taxi driver turned to him and said: "You're religious aren't you?" To which Jeff told him: "Yes, I am a mormon and a missionary". Then the guy shows him a pamphlet of the Restoration that some missonaries had given him to read. He had read it and had hoped they would come to his house but they never came! So Jeff gave him the whole 1st discussion all the way to the airport and it turned out that he lived in Callao so when he got into the airport he immediately called the elders and gave them the reference...it is a miracle alone that the reference was in our mission!
