Letter from September 5

This week I had the opportunity to cross a river in my missionary clothes to get to the house of a reference.  It was actually pretty cool, because if we went around it would have taken a ton of time so we took off our shoes and socks, rolled up the pants and crossed.

Another night we were going to take a bus to one of our appointments, well I should inform you that the busses are stuffed full of people at night, and stuffed is an understatement.  Well we had to get to the appointment so when a bus finally passed we had to take it.  The bus was so full that they couldn’t shut the door, and I, being the last person to board the bus, was holding onto a bar with almost all my body hanging out of the bus.  Now you might think that is dangerous, but here in Peru it is quiet normal, so you don´t have to worry.  It was like a rollercoaster for me!  Good times!!  Also on Saturday after eating a big lunch we went on divisions.  My companion went with a member and I went with the Bishop. While we were walking he told me some pretty cool stories of how he became a member.  The bad part is that the beans, Coke and lemonade didn’t seem to enjoy the walk, especially the beans.  With every step it got a little worse, but being the man that I am, I told myself not to be a wuss. haha yeah I know you are all mocking me now.  Well we literally ended up walking miles, and miles, to a reference that he was going to give us, and it seemed to get worse and worse. Well as we were walking and he was telling me a story, I politely pulled off to the side and began to throw up. When we got back to the room it didn’t get much better. We had an appointment at 8 so we couldn’t stop, but he wasn’t there. I think it was the first time in my life I was a little glad that he wasn’t there, as bad as that may sound, I was dying.  But it all got out and I was just fine!  

As for this week we have found a handful of great new investigators and we are working hard with those that we have.  The two daughters of Flor that was baptized last week, aren’t as excited because some of their friends seem to be making them unexcited, but we will be visiting them tomorrow and we have a good plan to help them out and excite them again.  Today for P- day we are going to some ruins.   Keep the prayers going for the daughters of Flor.

We have been helping build the house of a member.  We go every Thursday for about 2 to 2 and a half hours to help out. I have learned to use some very crazy tools here in Peru, like a Machete. I also stepped on a nail, but the good news is that the Lord protects his missionaries. I have a huge testimony of that.  The nail went through my shoe and miraculously stopped right when it touched my foot, it was a long nail so it was very weird that it stopped.  But the Lord knows that I need my foot to keep working.  So that is another reason why you have no need to worry about me.  I am doing great, being protected by God and the pensionistas, other than the beans. Haha  Hasta Luego!

Elder Riggs