I am Sister Ynes. Pensioner de Elder Royal. We are happy for having to Elder Royal in our home. He is excellent missionary. They did good work like parents. Not English. I hope to understand me.
Affections.
Sister Ynes
Sooooooo. I just read Dad's email about TCU putting the smack down on BYU. Ouch.! How disappointing. But, on the bright side, Dad's right - now I don't have to worry about missing the greatest season of BYU football in the world. Maybe I'll miss the greatest season next year. Oh, well. On with life we go.
Alright, so....let's see, there is like an army of Jehovah Witnesses in this place, wow. They walk around in packs here, like...lions, and they all dress funny (no, wearing white shirts and ties is not funny), and give us weird looks. So, I smile and give them a nice friendly wave. Actually, during a lesson we had this last week... about 10 of them (I told you they walk in packs) walked up to the door while as were teaching. They approached kinda slowly, and in the middle of saying..buenas tardes...the lady saw us and kinda trailed off...made for kind of an awkward moment. It was funny. I laughed. Anyway...they're everywhere. It's fun.
We had a much better week this time around - taught a lot more, found more nuevos, and...got more done I guess. We had two baptisms scheduled, only one ended up going through...the 16 year old Yakory. The baptism of Maria (the 300 pound mother) and her two children didn't happen. Maria had her interview, but then had a change of heart. That was kinda disappointing. But, we'll see what happens this week. However, Yyakory is way good. I can tell that she'll remain active and all that good stuff. So we have had five baptisms so far...all girls. It's pretty rough trying to teach the guys here... especially teenage boys - no idea why, they just sit there when we teach with a look like...dude I really don't care. It's the same with younger boys too, and older...grandpas I guess you could say. Totally the opposite with girls for some reason...most of them usually listen pretty well, and have a desire to learn and know. But we did find one kid this week who actually liked what we taught, 16 years old, Jesus (hay-suess)...so hopefully that will start a trend. We have another guy that we have taught, Rodolfo, he's like 24 or so, but he is pretty difficult. He enjoys our lessons, reads everything we give him, but he doesn't want to pray because he won't pray in the name of Jesus Christ, and he is not ready to attend church.
Anyway, we did find a lot of good people this past week that hopefully we can help progress. But getting people to church is SO HARD. People have to go to church at least twice before baptism, but it is absolutely the hardest part about working with these investigators. My companion says this varies from area to area, some hard, some not so hard - like the guys not listening...he says he also had an area where they baptized more guys than girls, getting people to church was way easy, and so on. so....just challenges that we gotta work with.
Hmmm...oh this was exciting! We finally got an awesome fan for our room. It just cooks in there during the day, and we die, and our district leader had two. Seriously!? So...having the fan is nice - that's for sure.
Not really sure what other stories I have right now...I'm sure I'll think of more in an hour when I'm no longer on the computer. Oh, I gave my first talk in church yesterday, in Spanish. Holy cow was I scared! But it actually turned out pretty good...and was a good experience too...because I had been kinda frustrated Friday and Saturday ... just with Spanish ... good days and bad days, ya know...and all morning on Sunday I was trying to think of things to say, but really had no idea, and I just wanted to give up and not try. But I couldn't let myself for some reason...I have all these ̈pick me up̈ scriptures in the back of my scriptures that I read a lot, and all morning I had a couple going through my mind. One was: For it shall be given unto you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say. (D&C 100:6.) So, I was just praying for that...but at the same time being really hard on myself and...dunno how to explain it really. Um... my head was about to explode. That works I guess...lots of different emotions. So I got up, gave my talk, didn't really have to hesitate much to think about what to say...and in all honesty, I can't remember much of what I said. Anyway ... good experience...and I think I needed it for a nice confidence boost.
Okay, I think that's about it. Oh and I received a nice fatty letter today. First actual mail in...probably almost two months. Pretty exciting. So it was a huge thing from Tia, with something from Cody, Brea, and Gian. Sweet!!! But to be honest, I haven't finished reading all of it yet. There's a ton. But, it's sooo cool. And, of course, I received the usual 100 Dear Elder letters from Dad, mostly BYU football articles probably. Haven't read them yet. But, seriously, I love those. They are way fun to read. So thanks for all your support. A nice uplifting word is good to have sometimes...and I'm very glad to be out here and to have all the great support from home. Thanks a ton y'all. Church is true.
Elder It's Warm in Peru Royal
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