Letter from July 23

We were so blessed and were able to see 2 baptisms this week.  On Tuesday when we went to visit Michelle, Rubens sister, she told us that she wanted to change her baptismal date for the 22nd instead of the 28th, because she felt prepared to be baptized.  That was great news for us. So this past weekend we baptized Michelle and Judith, which is Hector’s niece.  It was awesome!  Michelle´s family is returning strong to the church.  They have now attended 3 Sundays in a row!  We have been so blessed in our area and we still have a goal to have a baptism weekly.  It’s going to get a little harder, but I know with hard work and the help of the Lord we can do it.  This coming weekend we have Jordan with a baptismal date. We reactivated his dad and they have been coming for 4 weeks straight. His dads name is Isaac, he is a high priest but made some bad decisions and for that reason went away from the church.  He lives with his girlfriend and his son.  The goal is to get them married, and get both the mom and the son baptized, because that is a big reason why he went inactive. We are hoping that this weekend he will be baptized.

This week we also had interviews here in Cerro with President Ardila. They were great! After the interviews President and his wife had a little meeting with Elder Norris and me where we talked about the zone.  As I mentioned before, Cerro de Pasco is the weakest stake in the mission, President said that every missionary that comes here either leaves discouraged and hating Cerro, or they leave very strengthened and loving Cerro.  He said that he knew it was hard, but that the Lord wanted us to be here because we have to humble ourselves before the Lord and rely more on him.  It truly is a blessing to be in areas that are a little harder because I have personally seen my growth in those areas.  I love Cerro and I’m stoked to finish my mission here!  As for my companion, this is his last week.  We are just hoping and praying that he can finish his last week with a baptism. He has been an awesome companion and a great example to me.

Well that’s about it for this week.  Today we will be making Mexican tacos!!!! I have only had tacos once in my whole mission, I am stoked!!!!  I love you all. Keep up the good work.

Elder Riggs

Letter from July 16

As you know I was in Tarma last Monday when I wrote you getting ready to head to Lima.  After emailing you, we went to buy some souvenirs.  We got a call from the other missionaries telling us the bus was there that we needed to catch to get to Lima.  We quickly headed to the bus station.  When we arrived I realized that I had forgotten my Book of Mormon (on the mission we always have to have the Book of Mormon). We asked the bus driver how long it would be before he left.  He said 5 minutes.  We ran a few blocks, found the book, Elder Norris also bought another souvenirs and we took off sprinting for the bus station.  While we were running we received a call from the missionaries that were on the bus telling us that the bus had left the station and was on its way.  About 20 seconds later we arrived to the bus station, looked down the street in the opposite direction and saw the bus about 3 blocks away.  We were already tired, but the only thing we could do was run.  We took off again, but this time breathing pretty heavy, because it’s not too easy to run with a backpack and stuff in your hands.  It was definitely an experience seeing the bus slowly advancing as we were just dying trying to keep up.  At last we saw the bus come to a stop where it was waiting to make a turn. We picked up the pace just hoping to catch it before it made the turn. Happily we made it to the bus right as it was making the turn.  I pounded on the window of the bus driver as he was making the turn.  He looked at me a little confused, but pulled over and opened the doors. We stepped on like we had just finished a marathon, but we were pretty stoked for catching the bus.  Well after the bus continued for a couple blocks more, it made a stop where people got on for a time period of about five minutes.  In other words, I don’t know if the running was necessary haha!

This week we baptized Ruben.  He made the decision to be baptized and his whole family is now coming back to church.  We have been working a lot with inactive members, one of the families that we have activated or we are in the process of activating is Rubens family. They are a family of 7 that have been inactive for quite some time. The good news is that the whole family came to church for the second week in a row and they were all in Rubens baptism except for his older sister.  Activating hasn´t always been my favorite thing to do as a missionary, but I am really starting to enjoy it, because we have seen some great success and we are seeing some baptisms from it. We have Judith with a baptismal date for this Saturday, she is the Hectors niece. She is 17 and is excited to be baptized this coming weekend.

I wanted to let you know out of about 200 missionaries in the mission, Elder Norris and I are the only Americans together.  I have to say it is pretty cool. He will be finishing his mission here in about 2 weeks, can you believe that? Well that’s about it for this week. Things are going great here!  I think with more and more experience and more and more time the mission gets better.  Every day that goes by I seem to enjoy it more.  I hope you are all doing well. Take care!

Elder Riggs

Letter from July 9

My birthday was awesome. My pensionista made us good food and surprised me with a little party and a big cake!  We enjoyed it with their family as well as with another family of members. The best gift that I received though happened in the afternoon.  Elder Norris and I were proseliting and it seemed like all of our appointments were falling through.  We started to knock a few doors with the hopes of finding someone. If you remember Hector, he is the guy that was going to be baptized about 3 weeks ago, but left the city the day before his baptism without informing us.  For the past three weeks we haven`t been able to call him because he has been in a village where there isn`t any service.  Well we passed by his house hoping that he was home and to our surprise he was!!  He invited us in to the house and we began to talk with him. He apologized for leaving without telling us and said that there was an emergency in the family. Later in the conversation we asked him how he felt about being baptized and he asked us if he could be baptized the following day.  The next day Hector was baptized!! It was such a huge blessing to be able to receive such a great gift like that on my birthday.

In other news, I am currently in Tarma.  Last night we travelled to La Oroya to baptize Sebastian.  I can honestly say that yesterday was the best day in my entire mission!  I am sure of that!  We arrive at the chapel in Marcavalle excited to see the family of Dina and Abraham. To my surprise there was a ton of members there!  They had all come to the baptism of Sebastian and some of them heard that I was going to go to baptize him.  I went around the room shaking everyone’s hand with a smile on my face that only a kid in a candy store would have.  I saw so many of the members that I had worked with for months. I got to baptized him and let’s just say that it was a full house.  There were about 60 people there, which is more than I have seen at any baptism in my entire mission.  At the end of the program Dina and Samira were crying with tears of joy!  I got pictures with the members afterwards and got to speak with most of them for a few minutes. There is not a better feeling in the world than going back to one of your areas to see the members that you worked with and the people that you baptized strong in the gospel.  It was even better that they had all come out to see the baptism and how they all somehow remembered me and what we did there.  Afterwards we headed to Dina and Abrahams house where they surprised me with a birthday cake and a present!  I can`t believe they even remembered when my birthday was. We talked for a while and I heard so much good news about them. They repeatedly asked me if I would be coming back for their sealing.  So I might be going a few months after I get home!

Today we are headed to Lima for Conference with President!  Which means a great conference, excellent American food, long bus rides, and a jungle workout Wednesday morning with the boys.  I`m pretty stoked!  I think we have the best mission president in the world.  Most mission Presidents wouldn`t give permission to a missionary to go back to their old area to baptize someone.  After giving me permission to do it, he mentioned that it would be an experience that I would remember always!  Boy was he right!!  I hope you guys are all doing well!!  Thank you so much for the package!  I love you all.

Elder Riggs

Letter from July 2

This week has been a wonderful week here in Cerro.  We have been blessed so much this week in finding new investigators and getting them to church.  These past 3 weeks we have found 35 new investigators, which is good, but it seemed like none of them were progressing.  This week everything started to come together and we now have 2 families that we are teaching and a few individuals as well. It was a testimony builder for me to know that if we continue to work through the challenges and especially when we aren´t seeing success, the Lord will always come through in the end.  Our goal is to set most of them with a baptismal date for this month.  One of the families that we found was truly a miracle.  Our Sunday schedule has changed and we now attend church at 2 in the afternoon. Yesterday when we got done studying, we went to an appointment that we had.  Well, the appointment fell through, so we began to knock some doors.  We knocked on a door and an 18 year old came out.  We began to talk with him and he invited us in.  After teaching him a little bit, his little brother came down and began to listen to us as well.  When we were finishing the lesson the parents got home.  We talked to them for just a minute.  As we left we invited Jon, the 18 year and his brother to church. When we returned to pick them up at about 1:50, the mom came out and had that look on her face that said, ¨you’re not taking my kids to church.¨ We talked with her for a minute and then invited her to join us as well. To my surprise she agreed, but said that she would come late because her family was eating lunch.  With Elder Norris we went to the Chapel with the hope that they would arrive.  The good news is that they did!  It was awesome to see, especially because we had first met them a few hours earlier.  Dina, the mother, said in one of the classes that she has been praying to know the path that she should follow, then she continued by saying that she believed that being in church yesterday was an answer to her prayers.  We also had 3 other investigators in church, it’s the most we have had in my time here in Cerro.  We can say that with the help of the Lord we are making progress!

Things are going great with Elder Norris as well!  It looks like we are going to be staying together another change, which will be his last change.  On Saturday we also taught a little bit of English to some people that want to be English teachers.  Most of them speak very well.  I do have to tell you a pretty funny story though. They would come up to the front with a word, then they would have to put a sentence together in English using the word in past tense.  Well one of the guys used the word cost.  Well in past tense he used the same word, cost.  When he finished I went to correct him, because that was our job, and told him that cost in past tense was costed.  Then I realized that I was wrong.  I felt like an idiot, ha I never did too well in English class.

This coming Sunday I will be traveling to La Oroya to baptized Sebastian, then afterwards we will be heading to Lima for the monthly council with President.  I will let you know how it goes. Talk to you soon.

Elder Riggs