Chiclayo Bound!!

Hey hey hey:

Alright so this week has been absolutely crazy, but let's go ahead and start with the cambios. We found out today where we will all be for the coming weeks ahead. And……Elder Royal . . . out more than 18 months, all spent in Piura . . . will he finally leave Piura? Answer: YES!!! I am heading three hours south to Chiclayo. Good things. First, it's not nearly as hot. Second - and most importantly - my companion is Elder Hanke, from Lima, Peru. And that's gonna be OFF - THE - HOOK. Elder Hanke is one of my very best bros, and now we are gonna be comps, so that is way, way cool. Bad things – well, the shower will be colder and I don’t know anyone or anything outside of Piura, so it may be hard to get around for a bit. But, I am not worried. Nope, not worried at all. I am REALLY looking forward to it. I talked with Elder Machacuay yesterday (my old comp, one of my best friends, and the current AP) and he said that President Chipman nearly brought me back into the office, because I am one of only three elders that have a legal driver's license and the other two are finishing really soon. Having already spent eight months in the office, that would have been - well - uh - lame. Mind you, I will happily serve where, when and how the Lord calls me. So, if returning to the office was the call, then I would have taken it on. But honestly, I am just so stoked to stay in the field. This is just where the great experiences are. So I am happy - very happy - with the change.

Now, what happened last week. Well, we had everything from some people showing interest in what we had to say, some yelling at us, and others kicking us out of their homes. (You know - the usual.) We were teaching a young man for the first time when his mother walked in and started yelling, “What? Are you a Mormon now?! Huh? HUH?! Are you?!” And then she opened the door and order us to get out. That was a bit on the stressful side, but I couldn't help but laugh as we left. We actually got that stuff a lot this week. I mean, that’s sadly kinda normal for this area, for people not to listen, but we had a whole lot more people being rude to us, yelling at us, all kinds of weird stuff. It was naturally a bit discouraging, and I was kind of afraid to do street contacts and stuff, just because Los Ficus had seemed to turn the very fire of hell on us. It was nuts. But, we made it out alive and managed to have a pretty good week still.

If anyone would have told me what was going to happen to the Maza Ramos family when we first knocked their door, I don’t know if I would have believed them. We met Carmen Ramos a long time ago, a less active member who hadn’t been to church in years, and started teaching her non member husband, Harold. He had been taught several times, visited by missionary for years, but nothing ever came from it. With a lot of teaching, and a lot of time and patience, Harold Maza entered the waters of baptism along with his eight year old son, also named Harold. It was a very good baptismal service, with a rare high attendance of local members. Harold and his wife now have plans to go to the temple in a year with their three young children. Now, I mentioned that a lot of other missionaries had been in the Maza home, dating back years, and I am sure there was a lot of fasting and prayer that went into all prior efforts. We were just blessed to be the instruments available to the Lord when Harold was finally prepared by the spirit, and ready to commit to change and be baptized. How did the spirit witness it to him? I don’t think it was anything we did or said. I know, without a doubt, it came from reading the Book of Mormon. In all the years that he had been taught, he had never read it . . . until now – and the power of that book, the great witness associated with it, bore strong testimony to his heart that it was true. He could feel it and could not deny it.

My testimony of the Book of Mormon has strengthened so much through this last transfer. We did not baptize a lot of people in my three months here. However, we did baptize two great men who I know will stay very strong in the church – and they were both converted by the power of the Book of Mormon. I am very happy for the Maza Ramos family. It is as if we found a family and baptized all of them. They are going to be great, of that I am sure. We worked hard here in Los Ficus. It was definitely a bit more difficult, but I tried to do all I could – and I learned a lot from my companions and the members. It was an interesting three months, but it was great, too. There are a lot of less active members that have come back to church, and the regular church assistance has gone up by about 20 in just the last two weeks - that includes Ricardo Vilchez and his two less active daughters. It was great to see him there and not have to see his wife sitting in church all alone. She looked so happy yesterday! I’ll really miss playing the piano. It's been fun playing every week for sacrament meeting and I hope I have more opportunities to play before the end of my mission. The stake president asked me to play for stake conference next week, but - I am not gonna be here. So, hopefully they find someone else. The only thing that ended bad at church was that I woke up early yesterday morning and for two hours prepared an AWESOME lesson for the conversos and investigators, only to have one of the counselors tell me that I couldn’t teach, and that he instead was going to teach the lesson . . . from a book that he hadn’t even opened. Great. (Oh and it was wonderful. Not. Seriously, standing before a class and just reading from a book is . . . not good. My apologies for the negativity, but occasionally I just have to vent a tad.) Of course, life goes on. Hey, at least I got to learn a bit more about the creation of the world! That’s staying positive.

So, life is good, and we can look forward to some new adventures from the missionary who is finally going to see Chiclayo. Our zone ended good this month. We really stepped it up in the last two weeks and were ended with 13 baptisms (the whole zone) for the month of January. Not bad. It just so happens that two weeks ago was when I asked for everyone to pray for us, and we really felt those prayers here. So thanks to all – we baptized 8 of the 13 in the last two Sundays. Just awesome. Ok, this is getting long. Hey, so I hear that Elder Foote is training? He has like five months, right? That’s nuts. So congrats to him. That is way cool. I wouldn’t have been able to do that with my Spanish at five months. In fact, even at my Spanish level now I think training would own me. Okay, everyone, have a good week, and remember the Church is true. Always has been - always will be!

Elder "Rice Belly" Royal