Week 73 - A Capilla Abierta (Church Open House) - help neighbors feel comfortable with the Capilla in their neighborhood

Buenos Dias!!!!

This has been a great week here in Primavera. This week the ward in coordination with the missionaries, we have been planning what is the Capilla Abierta (Chapel Open house?). It is an activity where ward comes together to decorate the chapel and give a tour to various groups that come to visit. In these tours the groups pass through basically all of the rooms in the church where there are little booths or banners explaining about different beliefs and organizations that we have in the church. Elder Salas (The mission financial secretary) and I will be in charge of largely explaining most of the doctrinal points whereas the church members are going to be explaining the majority of the different church organizations. 

Here is a video of the capilla abierta... it is in Spanish but I think just watching the video for those who do not speak Spanish will you guys get the idea. https://www.iglesiajesucristosud.org/capilla-abierta

The idea of the capilla abierta is to help people get rid of those taboos or rumors they have heard about the church which maybe have made them afraid to enter. It has the purpose of helping to inform the people that come to visit about what we do and believe all while inviting the spirit to be present in a Christ centered atmosphere. It is truly awesome. 

Here are two scriptural references that really explain this point. The first is found in the Book of Mormon. It says in Helaman 15

7 And behold, ye do know of yourselves, for ye have witnessed it, that as many of them as are brought to the knowledge of the truth, and to know of the wicked and abominable traditions of their fathers, and are led to believe the holy scriptures, yea, the prophecies of the holy prophets, which are written, which leadeth them to faith on the Lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them—

Those who are brought to the knowledge of the truth and who diligently search the scriptures are going to bring within themselves a change of heart, as the desire to be more like Christ grows. 

The other scriptural reference is found in a scripture called Doctrine and Covenants which is written in largely by more modern day prophets. It says in Section 123,

12 For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it—

I am super excited to participate in this Capilla Abierta to help inform the people about the truth.  Afterwards each person has the opportunity, through prayer and scripture study, to receive an answer from God about whether what we teach them is true or not, so that they may reach a knowledge of the truth. That they may feel this change of heart that impulses one to do continually. 

It is just awesome being a missionary and having this opportunity to help and teach anyone and everyone. 

Love,

Elder Vassau 

 One of our temples in the distance.  See the Angel on top?

 See the big mountains outside?

At the city made of mud & sand

Week 72 - Finding Connor, a lost traveler from Canada

Buenos Dias!

This has been another great week here in Primavera. This week I had a number of great experiences. Working in the office you really begin to notice all of the little things. One of these experiences was a very unique opportunity to contact and teach in English. My companion and I were running some office errands in a post office here when a slightly raggedy looking backpacker came up to us and began to speak English. He had a beard, long hair, and some 3 different backpacks. At first he came up to us and began to ask me in English who we were and what do we do, but after a few minutes of explaining that we are missionaries the discussion changed to a much more religious message. This man´s name was Connor and he was from Toronto Canada. To be honest I am still not totally sure what he was doing here in Trujillo. He said the wind just kind of brought him here and he was now looking for a way to get back to Canada because he had no money. A little strange but we did not want to pry too much. We talked for a few minutes and then after saying a brief goodbye to continue with our chores he newly came up to us and asked if we could say a prayer with him. He said that he had felt the strong impression that he should ask us to pray and to talk with him. There in the middle of a post office we offered up a prayer with our dear friend Connor asking our Heavenly Father to please guide his life. After saying the prayer, in the best English I could, we began teaching him about how he is a child of God and his Heavenly Father has a plan for him. Connor, like many, was a person who although believes in God, really does not understand who God is or why he is here on Earth. As missionaries it is our privilege to help people to understand that God is our loving Heavenly Father who has a master plan for our happiness here on Earth and to bring to pass our eternal life. When we understand who God is, who we are, and what God's plan is, our lives will always have the direction necessary. We will always be able to find the peace and security to know that we are part of something bigger and no matter what our Heavenly Father loves us and that our Savior Jesus Christ suffered as to help us overcome all obstacles. It was really special to share a short and sweet message with this man Connor and try to add a little bit of direction to his life. Although we were not able to coordinate anything further with Connor I know that this brief moment in the post office is going to make a big difference in his life. 

This week we also had a great experience knocking doors here in our own area. I was in an interchange with one of the other office Elders, Elder Rosenhan, and we decided to knock on the door of a less active. This less active wants nothing to do with the missionaries, but us both being knew to the area, we decided to give it a try in hopes of finding some of her family members. We knocked and thanks to a little bit of luck we found her niece Naomi. We share a quick visit with Naomi where she shared that although she believes in God, she has a hard time believing in the divinity of Christ. It is proven that Jesus was a person on earth, but many question whether he truly was the son of God. To teach someone who does not believe in Jesus Christ is a bit of a strange experience here in Peru where nearly everyone is Christian in some form or another. What we decided to do was to talk about how we knew God exists and how we felt in those moments of our lives when we realize that God exists. Our Heavenly Father often times uses his messenger the Holy Ghost to respond to our questions, and this Holy Ghost often speaks through our feelings. Everything good comes from God and therefore that peace that we feel also comes from God. Naomi expressed that she had felt that peace many times in her life, and we then invited her to pray about Jesus Christ, promising her that if she prayed with true intention, through those same feelings she will know that Jesus is our savior. It was yet another short yet sweet visit this week where I know the spirit was present. 

This has been a great week here in Trujillo and I hope everyone back home has a great week as well. 

Love,

Elder Vassau

Week 71 - Finding Carlos Quispe!

Buenos Dias!

This has been a great week here in Primavera. This week we have been seeing lots of little miracles. There are two that really come to mind. This week we have been making a real effort to use our ward directory to visit lots of members. The thing is though is that the addresses here in Peru are sometimes super complicated and mixed up. The majority of the addresses we looked for this week do not exist or the people no longer live there... so please any ward secretary please keep these directories up to date. That being said we had been looking in particular for a member named Carlos Quispe. He is an active member who always comes to church, however, recently because of possible health problems he has not been coming. We have been a little worried and so we went looking for his house, which according to what it says in the directory is not a real address. After looking for about an hour or two on Tuesday with nothing close to luck, we had kind of given up when yesterday while proselyting in a completely different part of our area a man called us over. He was a member who called us over and invited us into his home, and it turns out it was Carlos Quispe. We had no idea how but the man we had been looking for all week had found us, and he lived in the complete opposite part of the area. A little miracle, and to make it even better, after sharing a short message with him we are now planning to hold some small activities in his house to start teaching his grandchildren who are all young adults and teenagers. It is going to be pretty awesome. 

Another little miracle that happened to us this week was with this couple we have been teaching Isabel and Carlos. Isabel has been a little frustrated because her spiritual progress is being blocked by the fact that she is not married and that her husband, do to a past divorce, is really afraid to get married. She was so discouraged that Thursday she had reached the point where she decided that she was going to tell us to stop coming to visit her and that she was no longer going to attend church. Some serious discouragement. However that very same night she had a crazy dream. The people here in Peru are always having super cool and crazy dreams. Well her dream was like something straight out of Revelations. She dreamed that it was raining fire over the entire Earth, and the only people unaffected were her and her family. You can interpret it as you want, however she took it as meaning that she has to stay in this path to follow the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ even if it is really difficult right now. The Gospel is what helps FAMILIES enjoy blessings here on Earth and enjoy eternal life together and I think she really understands that. Even though everyone is imperfect these blessings today and for eternity are available to all her work hard to follow the Gospel. Friday when we went to visit her she was newly energized to attend church, read, and now she even wants to attend institute religion classes on her own account. Way cool to see her re-energized and ready to continue working towards marriage, baptism, and eternal life. Just another little miracle. 

Well this has been an awesome week here in Primavera, Trujillo. 

Love,

Elder Vassau

Week 70 - Baptisms back in Los Banos, New Work, Conference Time!

Buenos Dias!!!

Hello from Trujillo!   OK, to be honest I am going to have to start getting creative with my blog emails because I spend a lot of my day in the office or in immigrations, and the stories of office life only go so far. Ok well this week during our time actually teaching about Jesus Christ we had a really awesome opportunity where we found some old investigators who had disappeared for months. They had been receiving the missionaries for 4 month, were reading the scriptures, and attending church. Then all of a sudden summer rolled around and they completely disappeared for 3 months. That is until yesterday when we found them in the house a couple we are teaching. It is sometimes so cool to see how the Spirit guides us to do little things that can often make all the difference if we choose to follow them. In this case following the prompting to visit this investigator couple helped to guide us to find these old investigators once again and to pick up where we left off. How marvelous right?!?

That reminds me also of something that really called my attention from the previous General Conference this past weekend. General conference is a worldwide broadcast put on by the leaders of the church where we are able to hear messages from the president of the church (who is considered to be a prophet of God), the twelve apostles, and other church leaders. The current president of the church is named Russell M. Nelson and he is just awesome. He gave a message about the importance of seeking personal revelation and how to obtain it. Revelation is when God communicates with us, and therefore personal revelation is when God gives us personalized answers to our prayers to guide us in whatever situation that presents itself. If we seek personal revelation through prayer, scripture study, and by living worthily we will have his guidance in his life constantly that helps us take the decisions necessary for both our Earthly and Eternal happiness. We have the guidance from someone who is all knowing and all powerful and all we have to do to receive this help is to ask for it. It is amazing and it is a true sign of how much God loves us. 

Well this has been an awesome week and this week will be just as great here in Trujillo. }

Love,

Elder Jack Vassau