Week 90 - Family History and Missionary Work

Buenos Dias!

This has been a great week here in Primavera. This week we have been real focused on history. Mission history and family history. I will start by explaining mission history. This week a number of former missionaries returned here to Peru to visit their mission. Amongst them was Elder Maddocks. Andrew Maddocks served in the same ward as me in Milagro for almost 7 months and we had become great friends. Today the office Elders and I had a trip to the temple and we found Elder Maddocks there waiting for us. It was awesome catching up with Elder Maddocks and seeing a few other past missionaries.Makes me feel a little old now. 

This week we have really been focused as well on family history. The idea is that one fills in their family tree spreading back generations by looking up old documents through various websites, finding important dates, etc. as to be able to take these names to the temple. The area goal is that every recent convert does their family history and is able to attend the temple soon after baptism, taking names of their ancestors to the temple to perform ordinances in their names. Yesterday we held a ward mission night where we set up a bunch of computers and we helped out all of the recent converts and members to fill in their family history. The goal was that every member could bring at least one name to the temple this coming thursday when we are going to have a caravan to visit the temple. The activity was a huge success. Jessica Quiroz has already found ancestors back to 1820 and many other members had huge discoveries. It is super fun to learn about where we came from and how that impacts our lives today. 

This is going to be an awesome week and we will be able to take all of these names to the temple on Thursday. 

In other news today we had the opportunity to go out to lunch with President Marble and his wife. We ate chinese of course. 

The mission is awesome. 

Love,

Elder Vassau 

Week 89 - Service and a Birthday in Peru!

Buenos Dias!!!

This has been an awesome week here in Primavera and today has been an awesome birthday. I will first start with the birthday update... yes I am 22... I feel so old here in the mission. It is as if everyone looks at me and thinks "Oh look there goes old uncle Elder Vassau" haha. That is alright though. Last night we started the birthday celebrations with a cake and today the festivities continued with a visit to a waffle house. What are the odds that there is a waffle house in Trujillo?!? Well it was actually really good and I am sure we will now turn in to very regular customers. As for the rest of the day I think it is just the usual. We played some soccer and in the evening we will get right back to work. That is just how the mission is. 

This week has been a really awesome week. Yesterday we had a really cool experience doing a little bit of spontaneous service. We had decided to go visit an older lady that we had met a few weeks back. The plan was just to go to her house, knock on her door to see if she was home. Well right before heading out the door, as usual, we prayed and this time we specifically asked for more opportunities to serve our neighbors. Well, keeping that in mind, as we approached Dorothi's house to knock on the door we hear someone say "Hey Hermanitos, over here". We quickly turn around and there is Dorothi at her neighbors front door asking for to borrow a ladder. Why a ladder you might ask? Because she had locked herself out of her house. It was a rather funny looking situation. Some old lady trying to use a ladder to reenter her own house. We took this situation as an answer to our prayers and so I offered to climb up the ladder, hope over her wall, climb through the window, and basically break into her house for her as to be able to get the keys out. It was a really funny, rather strange act of service, that allowed us to do what Christ would have done. I mean there are no stories of Jesus Christ breaking into someone's house for them but I think the idea here is service. Afterwards Dorothi invited us in and we shared a quick message with her. It was awesome. 

Another awesome opportunity we have had this week was while visiting a young couple, Karlo and Rebecca. Well the plan was to teach this couple about God's Plan of Salvation, but the idea is that we should never teach structured lessons but rather everything in the Gospel of Jesus Christ can be and should be applied to the needs of each person. God's plan is indeed something personal fo each one of us. We began teaching this couple, who began to make big changes in their lives a few months before there their baby boy was born, about God's eternal plan. How it worked though was we just asked simple questions and as they thought about each question the began to explain to us God's plan. It was so awesome to see the spirit work within them. We would ask a question, they would begin to think, the gears would begin to turn, and you could see a light in their eyes as the knowledge of God's plan and this sensation of familiarity came over them. Before coming to this Earth everyone accepted to follow God's plan, come here, receive Earthly bodies, and be tested. Each one of us was taught this plan and therefore as we begin learning more and more about God's plan it begins to feel like such a familiar thing, something we have known all along. Yesterday we had the opportunity to see Rebecca and Karlo discover that sensation for themselves as they began to feel the truthfulness of God's plan as they figured it out for themselves. 

Everything is going great here in Primavera. This has been an awesome week with Elder Valencia and I am sur e this next week will be just as fun. 🎂😇😎

Love,

Elder Vassau

Week 88 - Murga Family Baptism!!!!

Buenos Dias!!!

This has been one crazy week here in Primavera and I am just glad that I survived. On Monday Elder Valencia and I had the opportunity to take a group of missionaries to the airport as they were finishing their missions. That is always a very bittersweet moment. All are excited as they are on their way to see family that they have not seen in 2 years. On the other hand they are finishing their time as full time missionaries. We said some hard goodbyes and sent them off home. Tuesday morning once again we needed to be at the airport bright and early to pick up the new group of arriving missionaries. 16 missionaries arrived, 15 of which are foreigners, and 13 of which are from the USA. That meant that I needed to spend the entire week in the migrations office with them. To make it even better, not only did the missionaries not come with the necessary documents from Lima, but also in the migrations office all of the normal workers are on vacation leaving their replacements there slightly clueless. Too say the least it was a really long week seated in the Trujillo migrations office. In addition the migrations website that we use to make appointments was not working this week... What luck right? But in the end everything turned out alright and no one will be deported or ilegal. 

I think the only way I got through the week was the experience that we had on Sunday. After overcoming a few obstacles and required persistance and determination on their parts, Juan, Daniel and Jessica Murga were all baptized Sunday morning at 8 am right before the 9 am Sunday service. It was awesome. A little stressful to get everything coordinated and done on time before the 9 am church start time, but I think we pulled it off nicely and it was a very spiritual experience for all involved. Although many things came up on Saturday night to try and convince Jessica otherwise, she was determined to make the decision to be baptized. She came in at 7 am to have her interview and then we passed directly to the service. It was great to see how everyone welcomed them into the ward. 

To make this week even better Jessica and her two sons attended the temple with their neighbor Mercedez to receive a tour and now they are super excited to go back. 

Everything is going great here in Peru with Elder Valencia. This week we have seen some good friends go home and we had the privilege of helping a few new missionaries start their adventure. The mission is awesome.

Love,

Elder Vassau 

Week 87 - The Ocloco Family and a Baptism tomorrow!!!!

Buenos Dias!

This has been a great week here in Primavera. To be honest we have not had a lot of proselyting time this week because of all of the assignments we have had here in the office. This coming monday are transfers. When transfers come I am in charge of all of the travel logistics, where every missionary needs to go, when they should be there, how they are going to travel, etc. It is lots of fun. It is like a giant living puzzle. Let us hope that all goes according to plan on Monday. I would like to start off by mentioning how awesome last Sunday was. Along with Jessica and her family, Roberto Cabrera, and some other people we are teaching, this past week Brother Oclocho came to church with his whole family for the first time in years. For so many weeks he had been promising to come to church and he finally made the decision. We had arranged with him to go by his house Sunday morning so that we would be able to attend the church together, however, when we arrived to his house Sunday morning nobody was home. We were a little sad only to find, when we arrived to church Sunday morning, Brother Oclocho with his whole family filling up a full row of seats 15 minutes before church started. Each one was seated reading the scriptures, all ready to go. It was awesome. 

In addition if everything goes well tomorrow Jessica Murga and her two sons Daniel and Juan are going to be baptized. They had originally had the goal to be baptized tomorrow however they want their whole family in attendance so they decided to change their own baptismal date. On Wednesday we were conversing with Jessica about how she would like to go about it and she mentioned to us that she was not willing to go another week without being baptized and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Awesome right?!? After one is baptized they receive what is known as the gift of the Holy Ghost, the right to have God's spirit with us always as long as we are worthy. 

We are all super excited for the 8am baptism tomorrow which will be followed inmediately by the regular church service. The mission is awesome. 

Love,

Elder Vassau