Miracles

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the emails and all of the support. It made me sad to hear that Grandma Virginia passed away this past week, and my prayers go out to all of her family. She will be missed, she was one of the most hardcore Lakers fans I knew!!!

It makes me very happy to know that there is more after this life and that we all have the opportunity to live together forever in God´s presence through his Gospel. To anyone that feels pain after losing a love one, I promise you that Jesus Christ can heal your wounds. He suffered so much so that he would know how to relieve us of our pains (Alma 7:11-12). Pray often, come closer to Him and I know that you will find the comfort that you are looking for, because I have seen it countless times on my short time here in Mexico with many of the people that I teach.

But thanks for all of the other updates, excited to see pics of Bryce doing shotput. I bet he´s getting really strong. Also, glad to hear that the Lakers are doing a little bit better. And I know...19 months tomorrow!! can you believe that? The time is flying. It just goes faster and faster as the mission goes on. And yes, the Carl’s Jr. food tastes exactly the same, I´m pretty sure they import it all. The double western combo with crisscut fries and medium coke with the oreo shake cost me 150 pesos. So it´s probably a little more expensive than in the states. Also, it’s REALLY expensive for food here--you can buy lunch at a little food place for like 35 pesos. But its nothing like good old Carl’s Jr.

This week was a miracle filled week for sure in our area, and a little bit stressful at the same time. We had a really sure baptismal date this week, her name was Janet. She was super excited for her baptism...then all of a sudden...we can´t find her for 3 days in a row and her daughter in law tells us that she got really sick and went to stay at her brother`s house and wasn’t going to be back for at least a week.... After getting the news, Elder Long and I for some reason both had the same thought pop into our heads (THE SPIRIT), that we should pass by and visit a guy named Juan Antonio. He had gone to church two weeks ago and was going to get baptized but we couldn´t find him at all since he went to church, so we had kind of given up with him. It was late and Juan lived far away from where we were...but we went to find him. We found him, and he accepted baptismal date for Sunday!!! He was baptized on Sunday...definitely a miracle.

Next miracle. We got a referral from our ward mission leader on Thursday for a girlfriend of a member that has been to church 4 or 5 times. We went on Friday to teach her. If she wasn´t prepared by the Lord to receive the gospel, I don´t know who is! She accepted to get baptized the very next day!! She was baptized on Saturday, but after a stress filled morning. Our ward mission leader went in the morning to start filling up the font...but there was no water!! apparently someone had stolen the pipes and the valves to the water (Why would they even want that?). So we had to think fast, we called the missionaries of the church closest to us, in Mixcoac (about a half an hour away) and asked them to fill up the font but they didn’t have keys to the church. They got someone from their ward to open the building for them and when they went to the office to get the keys to the baptismal font...they weren’t there either!! Someone from another ward had taken them. As Elder Long and I left the house we said a prayer just asking that everything would go well with the baptism. Right after we said the prayer and left the house, the missionaries from Mixcoac called us and said that someone just showed up to the church with the keys. They filled up the font and everything went as planned. All of Cristian´s (the girl that got baptized) family went to the baptism and they aren´t members of the church, so it was also a great introduction to the church for all of them.  It was a really great baptism.

So we were very blessed this week--on Thursday at 8 at night we didn´t have anyone with baptismal date.  By Friday at 12 we had 2 people to be baptized that we never would have even guessed. The Lord works in mysterious ways...but always blesses us when we work hard and have faith that we can accomplish our goals. Elder Long and I have a goal to baptize 2 people every week this change.  We failed the 1st week, but we know that as we keep working the Lord will provide a way for us to accomplish our goals, just like he did this week.

After all that, we are EXHAUSTED!! haha so today will be kind of a lazy Pday, not anything too exciting, but I´m sure in the coming weeks we will do more cool stuff downtown.

Love you and miss you all.

And this is my joy,

Elder Peacock