Sunday, February 22, 2015

Some Good and Bad News

Here is the bad news...

Not really that bad, but this month and the next month we have more strict rules and also have to make sacrifices. It is called the Faith of February, to see the miracles of March. (It sounds better in Spanish). But anyways, I am supposed to choose something that would be a sacrifice for myself, but also help the work. I chose to only e-mail for one hour and then watch general conference talks for the second hour...sorry. So I'll be on at the regular time to e-mail!


Good news...

This week was pretty fun. We had gotten a lot of rain. One of our challenges lately has been reaching our goal for contacting people, so to help us out, our zone leaders gave us a challenge to contact anyone who had a hat on. Turns out, the only people that had hats on that day knew the bible and want us to come to "talk" about the bible with them, so we have a bunch of great follow up lessons ahead of us, haha.

Anyways, the Gallardo's went to a lesson with us at the Vizcaino's, and it was pretty hilarious. It was a lesson about the 10 Commandments, and when we got to talking about not worshiping idols and stuff like that. Brother Vizcaino says "I told you that was bad" talking to his wife. Well his wife was catholic before and here all the Catholics worship Baby Jesus, and the Virgin Mary, and they all have these cribs with the little Baby Jesus idols in them...
She had one of these, and we started to explain why it was bad and to encourage her to get rid of it. Brother Vizcaino cuts in and says "You tell her!! She is a sinner!" It was a great lesson over all. She is still on the right path to be baptized. We had another lesson with them later that week, and we got asked if we have a communion, like the catholic church. We were not sure what that meant exactly, so we asked sister Vizcaino and she said, "Well in my church-" and brother Vizcaino cut her off and says, "You see when she says my church, she is a pharisee!" (hypocrite). We all laughed and then she explained what a communion was, and we continued the lesson. Something interesting always happens when we go over there.

Now for something pretty cool. Saturday we were supposed to have a meeting with all the other leaders of the zone, because my companion is a district leader. Him and I were waiting forever at the church. Well it turns out that the zone leaders forgot to tell us that there wasn't a meeting anymore. We went all the way to church for nothing, or so we thought. As we were about to leave, someone walked into the church looking for someone. This guy walks in where we were and says he wants to change his life and asks if we will pray with him for his family, and for his new job. We shared a scripture with him, and we prayed with him. After he asks if we could start to teach him and what time the service is on Sunday. It was pretty crazy that the actual reason we were at the church was because someone was searching for a church that could change their life.

Love you all
Elder Keyes

My Zone

Parade for Baby Jesus

Lidias Grandchildren







Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Lots and Lots of Meetings and Halfway Done with this Change

This week flew by because we had something almost every night at the church! Monday we went to see the bishops son get set apart to go on his mission, so that took up all night. 
Tuesday we had divisions, so I was in the zone leaders sector all day, and the best part of that was one of the members we taught gave us french toast! So that was amazing!

Wednesday we taught Lidia Mojomboy one of the recent converts. I guess she is moving to the jungle to work for her cousin. We will see how that goes. All of her daughters still live here so we will still be able to teach them. Some of her grandchildren were there when we taught her and my companion was playing with one of them before the prayer. When we bowed our heads to pray, the kid got mad and said "hey hey!" then shook my companions arm, then again said "hey hey!", and lifted up his head and opened his eye lid. This little kid is awesome. He can't say his own name yet, so he just calls himself papa. We also contacted into this really cool family in the street. The kid was about 9 that was with them, and he was very concerned that we meet with them on Saturday or Monday, because those are the days that he doesn't have karate. Then he ran off because he was late. 

Saturday we taught Dora again. We can't go over there without staying for two hours. She always gives us food and we talk about her trip to India. She studied in India for like 3 years to become a doctor of natural medicine. Oh and she also spoon fed us again. Ha Ha. 

But this week we had a meeting with the momitas (the members assigned to give us lunch) on Wednesday. A meeting with the ward mission leader the next day, the leader conference the next day (that I was splits for), and the normal leader meeting was on Saturday. We had hardly anytime to actually work this week. 

Anyways, love you all and ya...

My companion and Pepe!

This is a deacon who wanted to wear my tag!


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This change is going by super fast! Anyways, this week went well, one of Lidia's daughters has a date to be baptized, both her and her sister came to church Sunday. 

Monday we taught the Vizcaino Family, and they are doing great. They should be getting married here in a few weeks. Our ward mission leader showed us the pictures from this trip to Utah, and they had a ton of pictures of the Timpanogos Temple. It was one of their favorites. That was pretty cool. 

Wednesday we had service where we helped make a ton of concrete for these peoples houses, it was pretty fun to mix things up.

Thursday we had family night with the Vizcaino's, Trujillo's and the Gallardos, that was pretty fun! It was nice because the Vizcaino's have kids about the same age as the Trujillo's. At the end one of the Trujillo boys sprayed us with carnival foam...carnival is a holiday here where for like a week it is a massive food fight and they sell all these cans that spray a bunch of foam. This little knuckle head got us soaked with foam stuff, luckily it was our last appointment. We got to go home and change. 

Saturday we taught the Viscaino's again, about tithing and somehow no matter what we teach, they start to argue about getting married. She really wants to and he does too, but he is acting like he doesn't want to, to surprise her with a ring in a few weeks. He said to her "I don't want to get married because when we get divorced you are going to take my house and my car, and I don't want that to happen". He said that to her when she was in the other room feeding her son. Then he whispered to us "I found the ring, I am just waiting for them to size it." So we were pretty happy to find out from him that he actually wants to get married. 

And those were the highlights of my week. Love you all!
Elder Keyes, also, here is a picture with the Vizcaino's.