Letter from May 7

We are teaching a guy named Christian, he is 20 years old and has desire to learn about the church. Well after our first lesson, we invited him to pray that night and ask if this is the true church.  In our 2nd lesson with him, he told us that he had read and prayed a few times, but hadn´t received an answer.  We continued by explaining to him again how God answers prayers and what we need to have so that he will answer our prayers.  We taught him a little about the Book of Mormon and at the end of the lesson he offered the prayer.  In his prayer he explained that he wanted to know if the things that we had taught him were true, at the end of his prayer he had a big smile on his face and said that he felt cool.  Those were his words.  As we were leaving he said that he felt something special and knew that God had answered his prayer.  It was a great experience to know that our job as missionaries is a lot easier when we invite the investigators to exercise faith and ask God.  The only problem with Christian now is Sundays.  This Sunday when we went to pick him up he wasn´t there, apparently he decided to play soccer instead of go to church.  Hay kurumba!  You probably know what we will be teaching him next lesson! I also have some wonderful news!  Evelin was baptized on Saturday!!! That’s what I’m talking about!!!  She is going to be a great member. She is already preparing herself to be sealed in the temple next year. She is going to go to the temple the first week of June with her husband and the ward!  I’m pretty excited about it.

This week I received a phone call from one of the assistants, Elder Avalos, my companion in Chosica.  He told me that the Branch President from La Oroya was in Lima and passed by the mission office. He told Elder Avalos that the Mantari Tacza Family were going to be baptizing their son this week because he turned 8.  You probably remember them, they were the family of 5 that got married and baptized, the strongest converts that I have seen in my mission. Well they asked if Elder Conde or I could travel to La Oroya to baptize their son.  How cool is that?  Although I couldn´t go, because I’m a long way from La Oroya, it felt pretty good knowing that they are very strong in the church.

I also wanted to let you know I ate fish this past week, believe it or not.  It was very fried so it hid the fishy taste, but now I can say that I can eat just about everything.  That’s one thing the mission has taught me, to eat whatever is on the plate, and to force yourself to eat when you’re full haha!  I would say those are some of the great qualities to prepare me for the All-you-can-eat buffets!  Well that’s about it for this week.  Thanks for all your support and letters.  I love you guys! Talk to you soon!!

Elder Riggs