Buenos Dias!!
What a fantastic week here in El Milagro now with
the brand new Elder Romero. On Tuesday Elder Torres (the other missionary from
Milagro) and I went to go pick up our trainees. He is training Elder Brady from
Las Vegas and I have the privilege of training Elder Romero from Cali Colombia,
the salsa capital of the world. He is so awesome and I think I am finally with
a companion that is taller than me believe it or not. He is super excited to be
here in the mission field and is already teaching as if he were a seasoned
missionary.
This week, on Elder Romero's first day in the
mission field, we had a really awesome experience with an investigator who is
going to get baptized this Friday. His name is Pedro Benites and is our
pension's father-in-law. Basically his whole life Pedro has known the
missionaries but for various reasons he has never made the final step to get baptized.
He is a short very funny Peruvian who although has always known what we teach
is true however he has always felt personally unworthy to get baptized. Many
people have this fear to fail God in following our Savior Jesus Christ because
they do not understand that as children of our heavenly father he sent us here
to Earth knowing we would be imperfect. Jesus Christ is the only person who has
lived a perfect life, however, in our quest to follow his example as long as we
are constantly trying to be better through repentance we will be able to return
to our Heavenly Father's presence. Many if not most do not understand this, and
this was Pedro's stumbling block his whole life until recently his oldest
grandson returned from his mission for mental health reasons. Since the day his
grandson returned home, Pedro has been insisting on us visiting him and from
the first moment we taught him he right out and said he was going to get baptized
this month. What changed? After 20 something years of listening to missionaries
what changed in Pedro Benites? Well we were recently teaching him about the
importance of baptism and explaining to him a little more about what it means
and he told us that he is getting baptized because A) he knows what we teach is
true and B) he wants to fulfill a promise to his grandson and help him out. His
grandson suffers from mental health problems caused by a traumatic childhood.
If he spends too much time alone in his thoughts he breaks down, but when he
attends church and reads the scriptures he is able to be comforted by the
spirit and return to normal. Pedro told us is that one of the reasons he is
getting baptized is to show his grandson that he can change and can help his
grandson stay strong in the only thing that gives him peace, the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. He knows that if he shows his Grandson that his willing to change
and follow Christ, that his grandson will find strength to keep on trudging
along despite his mental challenges. What a sweet grandpa.
Well this Friday Pedro Benites is going to be baptized
and we have the potential baptisms of Julian and Sarita, so everyone stay tuned
it is going to be an awesome week.
My time with Elder Romero is going great and I am
so excited for a great transfer with my new Colombian Trainee.
Love,
Elder Vassau
p.s. Shoutout to my dear Colombian friends the
Bernals.
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