Hey hey hey
Elder Tietjen had what we thought was a good idea for a short lesson to contact a family: Street surfers, I think they are called – a “newer” skateboard kinda thing that only has two wheels. Ok, so these kids were trying to ride it in the street without much luck, and Elder Tietjen tells me that before his mission his was really good on those. So I say to the kids, “Hey let my friend show you guys how its done.” Elder Tietjen rides about 15 feet, looking all cool like, before the front wheel hit a tiny rock and broke off. OOPS. That was pretty much one of the best moments of the week. The kids left after that. Plan failed.
We had a pretty dang scary experience this past week when I woke up Tuesday in the middle of the night because my bed was shaking uncontrollably. Now, people always talked about after shocks in Vegas from California earthquakes, but I have never really been through one myself. But I knew right when I woke up what was going on. We live on the top floor of our building, the third floor, and boy was it shaking big time. That was kinda nuts because the first thing that went through my head was…I have no idea what I can do about this. We are completely at nature’s will right now. It shook the room pretty hard for, maybe 10 seconds before it stopped. There was a big flash of light at the electricity went out in the whole town. The best part was that Elder Tietjen woke up about three seconds after me and started yelling, “Elder Royal! What are you doing?! What are you doing to me?!!” Amidst the fear of death I couldn’t help but laugh. Hahaha. He figured out it was an earthquake. Ok, the good part, no damage done, everything is fine. There was some damage in the city, though. Had it lasted another 5-10 seconds and there were definitely gonna be some problems. It was pretty nuts, and it definitely shook hard. Walking around the city the next day we could see a lot of cracks in walls, fallen roof tiles, and even a wall that fell over. Luckily nothing has been too bad, though. Another wonderful experience for the book.
We did two more service projects this past week – one cutting down sugar cane trees, and the other digging out and clearing out a nice solid piece of land that lied in front of a member’s house. I’m not sure why it was built like that in the first place, having the front door right in the side of a hill, but either way, we dug it out a few feet to make it possible to pass through. The sugar cane stuff sure was fun. The four of us got into this patch of 200-300 sugar cane trees, I’d say, that were all between 15-30 feet tall, and just started whacking at them with machetes. Oh man, good stuff. The digging out the hill wasn’t nearly as fun and my body hurt afterward. But we felt good about ourselves, and that’s pretty important.
Church went pretty well yesterday, even though we only had one investigator showed up. Cecilia, who came last week with her two kids, came again. That was awesome because we didn’t see her all week long, and couldn’t find her, apparently she was sick and staying in her mother’s house. So, crossing our fingers, we went to her house Sunday morning hoping for a miracle after not seeing her since the past Sunday. Her little daughter answered the door in a dress, and that was a good sign. Cecilia came to door nearly ready and said she would meet us there. That was awesome. Elder Tietjen and I taught the second hour about the priesthood. It went just extremely well and was kinda sad that not more members and investigators showed up for it. I really enjoy teaching like that. I dunno, it’s kinda been a surprise to me but my teaching skills have gotten so much better, especially in class situations like that. So it was an enjoyable class. As far as investigators go, no one else came to church yesterday. Some people were still using the Tuesday night earthquake as their get out, which, well - c’mon. Lucero and her family are still doing pretty well. With some luck we will be able to have Lucero baptized on June 5th. Her kids will follow her eventually, if she can just make the decision to do it. She is a good lady, but just scares herself out of it. So, hopefully we can help her through that. We have another baptism planned, Leidy, but at the end of June, so we still have some time for that.
I don’t think I mentioned Arturo Tenorio yet. We found him a week ago and finally were able to teach him and his family Friday night. We ran into him twice during the week and reconfirmed the day and time. It’s always a toss up, but this just worked out great. We went to his house and his son answered the door, his wife, who we had never met yet, came to the door and says, "Youre here! Come in!" That was just...I dunno, like walking on air. We talked with them and Arturo had talked to his wife, Edith, all about the Book of Mormon and what we had taught him previously. We had a lesson with them and their youngest son, Napolean, so I am totally gonna look for that movie, and had a really good lesson. I see an incredibly bright future there, not just baptisms, but future leaders here in Chachapoyas. So, hopefully all goes well with them.
Well I think that’s about it for this week. Life is good here. My comp and I are doing great and working hard. I can’t believe how fast time is going, but I love just looking back and seeing how far I have come. I have really changed a lot, I think. I know I still have a long way to go as far as improving myself, but the change I have seen up until this point has been just tremendous. The mission is definitely a great experience that no young man should let go to waste. I can’t say that enough. At the same time it just can’t be understood in the slightest by the mouth of another - so get on out there and experience it. I know that Jesus is the Christ, my Redeemer, and this is His true gospel and church in the earth. Have a great week!
Elder Super Cheesy Chicken Lunch (mmmmm) Royal
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