Monday, March 20, 2017

Week 14 - Rains and Flooding in Peru, plus Hermana Vergara gets baptized!


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Queridos Amigos,

To say the least this has been a bit of an unusual and crazy week here in Trujillo. Right now everyone throughout Peru is kind of in Emergency mode due to the abnormal amount of rain. Too be honest here in Jordan any amount of rain is an abnormal amount of rain. The increased amount of rains this week has cause flooding throughout Trujillo and Peru that has left a lot of people isolated or without water. Luckily here in Jordan, La Esperanza, we are basically in paradise relative to basically every area around us. In other areas there have been Huiacos (Flash floods) that make people really scared. The land, buildings, and streets here are not used to much water so they fill up quickly and create rivers of water and debree in various streets along with filling up dried river beds that have not been filled in over 20 years. Every time it rains everyone has a mini panic attack that a Huiaco will come or that the rain will fill there house. In our area the only problems we have had were tuesday when because of the extreme rain we were up until 1 in the morning using buckets to clear the water from our house and room. Our room filled with 3 inches of water... and we live on the second story... It might not seem this way but in reality we are extremely blessed. A couple days this week we have taken in Elders from other areas to stay and proselyte with us while their areas are still a bit dangerous. Soooooo between the rain and flooding sending us to our rooms early on occasion, the service and filling of sand bags to protect houses and streets, and having a rotating hotel of elders in our apartment it has been an exciting week. 

One of the highlights this week was the baptism of Hermana Zoila Vergara who we have been working with for sometime. She is about 70 years old and is she a sweet lady. Her baptismal date for January fell through due to her family being really hard on her but we had helped her choose this day March 18th and had been prepping for it for some time, and it was so close to almost not happening. Basically on friday there was major flooding all throughout trujillo so almost all the chapels were without water. We had planned the service for 3 in the afternoon and between 1 and 2 that same day we changed the location of our baptismal service 4 times... it was a little stressful. In addition once we were able to help Zoila get to the chapel we had to wait for another young lady who was going to be baptised in the same service by Elder Lavado and Elder Fernandez. Turns out her family was stuck on the other side of a Huiaco sooooooooo we had to wait until about 530 to start the baptismal service. After stressing over how we would fill the baptismal font, where we were going to do the service, and if everyone was going to be able to make it to the service it ended up happening and it was a very beautiful and spiritual day. She was so excited and was not going to let anything get in the way of her baptism. It was awesome. 

This week with all the service we have been doing I have been studying a lot and gave a talk this sunday in church about service and the importance to love or our neighbors. A great scripture to sum up some of my studies is Mosiah 2:17, a scripture that we can find in the Book of Mormon that says, "and behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." Some other great scriptures I studied this week are found in 1 John in the Bible, anyone who has time should read 1 John 3: 16-18; 1 John 4:19-21. These are some great scriptures that teach a lot about the importance to serve and show our love for others through our actions and that through these actions we can help others feel of Gods love. Service is sacrifice and it is a wonderful opportunity to share Christs love with others and help us to feel Christs love for us as well, because in reality he is the ultimate sacrifice. Well that is all for this week, everything is relative calm and safe here in Jordan and pray for those in this mission and all around Peru that they will be out of harms way and will recieve the help they need in these times of natural disasters. 

Sincerely


Elder Vassau

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