Shaking Things Up

Hello Family and Friends,

Good to hear from everyone, always glad to hear that everything is going good back home. Sounds like Bryce is quite the beast at shotput and disc, he´ll probably be able to take me when I get back...dangit. Also, I will be praying for Jordan, so that he can find a tie uglier than mine...that is not an easy task. Oh, and I got the package already...I think that´s a record for delivery time?? It seemed to get here pretty fast...or maybe the time is starting to go even faster than I realize. That is another possibility.

Ok Ok, so I know what is on all of your minds. What happened with the earthquake? So, the earthquake was last Tuesday, and from what I understand it happened in the state of Guerrero, which is southwest of DF. We were in our District meetings down in the church in Mixcoac when it went down. I was sitting there and I felt kind of like I got really dizzy all of a sudden...I wondered what was going on...but then I noticed that everyone else in the room was getting the same feeling. Someone said ¨Está Temblando!!¨ And then I finally understood what was going on. And like the really good Eagle Scout that I am, I just sat there while it happened, instead of diving underneath a table or something like that. It shook for probably a good 10 seconds, but it never started shaking so hard that I felt like I was in any real danger. Just kind of felt dizzy. Apparently, in another part of our mission, a bridge fell and crushed a bus that was underneath it...but there was nobody inside the bus...so no harm no foul. So, everything is fine...no worries.

This past week went pretty well. Elder Jensen, who is from Orem, Utah, and I are working hard and working well together. We were blessed with a baptism of the Sister Cecilia that has been rock solid and wanted to get baptized since the first lesson that we taught her approximately 2 weeks ago. Golden. We did have some difficulties on Sunday. We had like 10 people who said that they would go to church with us on Saturday...and everything was solid...and then we passed by for them on Sunday and NOTHING. We didn´t bring anyone to church which is always a super lame feeling after a week of hard work. However, 3 random guys showed up to the church on their own, and we got their address and everything like that...but we can´t see them until Saturday, so we´ll see what happens with that.

So as for what will happen next change. I´m pretty sure that after this transfer I will no longer be zone leader. President likes to lower zone leaders for their last couple of transfers and a lot of the time he will give them a kid and have them train for their last 2 transfers. To be honest that would be great. I would love to train a new missionary my last 2 transfers. But whatever happens, I´m pretty sure that I will be leaving Puerta Grande after this transfer.

So, on Monday, we had the monthly meeting with all of the zone leaders (hence the email on Wednesday), and it went pretty well. Tacubaya (the zone where I am at) baptized and confirmed more than any other zone!! We finished the month of March with 43 baptisms and 49 confirmations in the zone! It was a very successful month. Culturas finished with 41 baptisms and Toluca finished with 40. I´m extremely grateful for all of the work of the Elders here in Tacubaya and I hope that we continue to qualify for all of the blessings that the Lord is giving us. President talked about how we need to be emulators of Christ. He explained that Christ was a perfect emulator of the Father...everything that He did was so that we could learn more about the Father (Luke 2:47-49, John 5:19, 14:9-10, 8:28,8:38, 6:38). Then he explained that if we are going to be TRUE representatives of Jesus Christ...we need to be emulators of Him, and help others come to know Christ through the things that we do (3 Nephi 27:27). Pretty cool.

Ok so Miracle of the week. Last night, the day was just going terrible. It started raining, and we were knocking doors all day with very little success. We taught one person, and we taught one of our recent converts as well. But none of our other appointments were there. We were on interchanges yesterday so I was not with Elder Jensen. It was 8:05 at night and we were still gonna need to change our companions back at night. I decided to go knock a few more apartment buildings over by the church before changing back. I knocked one building...nothing. At that point Elder Jensen called me and let me know that he was on his way to where we were going to meet up. I could have easily left at that point and stopped knocking to go meet up to change back. But I decided to knock one more building...because that is where the miracle will be. On the second floor of the next building we found a Mom and her son that live there alone and they  have always wanted to learn more about our church. They are people that God prepared for us, and it was a miracle that we found them.

I know that God blesses us according to our desires. But we have to work for it. When we think we have given it all and we´re ready to throw in the towel, in that moment, the Lord requires just a little bit more. In that moment that you just think you´ve done everything you can...give a little bit more and that is when you will receive answers to your prayers, blessings and Miracles in your life. I know that is true because I have seen it time and time again in these past 20 months in my service of the Lord.

Love you and miss you all.

And this is my joy (Alma 29:9)

Elder Peacock

[P.S. Note that Justin’s homecoming talk has been scheduled.  See the sidebar for more details.]

3 Transfers Left

Email dated 3.19.12

Hello family and friends,

Thanks for all of the letters, it´s always good to hear how everything is going back home.   But, I am pretty BUMMED that the Lakers would do that to Derek Fisher. Ok, maybe he is getting old and can´t play like he used to be able to ...but don´t TRADE him...he could still come off the bench and be good....so that`s pretty lame. Hopefully the Lakers can keep playing well. And congratulations to Coleman!! [Elder Madsen has been called to the Alabama-Birmingham mission, he leaves before Justin gets back].  I guess I`ll see you in 2 years then....crazy.

Well, we did have changes today. I will be staying here in Puerta Grande, which is fine by me...I love the area. My new companion is Elder Jensen!! He is from the same MTC district as Elder Rowley, Green and Long and it will be his first change as a zone leader. Funny, he was actually in Cassandra`s ward at BYU before the mission. He`s a really good guy and I think we are gonna have a lot of success. He plays the piano like a machine...you name a song, he can play it. 3 changes left...can you believe it??? 18 weeks. Elder Jensen has 12 weeks left...it`s going fast.

This last week with Elder Long, went well. We worked hard...BUT the streak of consecutive weeks baptizing was ended. We had a family of 3 that was looking very promising on Thursday, they were going to pray about the Book of Mormon and if they knew it was true they would have gotten baptized on Sunday....BUT, instead of asking God if it was true (James 1:5, Moroni 10:4) ...they asked the Jehovah`s Witnesses. Well, I`m sure you all know how that turned out. They promptly returned the Book of Mormon to us the next day. Good one. It`s really sad when people trust other men, instead of their feelings or God...they were SOOO close to the truth, but they didn’t trust in God. It was a little heartbreaking. But, we finished the change with 11 baptisms.  Huge blessings that we are extremely grateful for.

 

Well, thanks for everything. Love you and miss you all.

And this is my joy

Elder Peacock

P.S. I’m (Lisa) posting this after the 7.4 earthquake hit 200 miles southwest of Mexico City.  Thank you for the calls of concern!   It appears that no serious injuries were reported in Mexico City.   No news is good news, right?  We are confident he, and all of the missionaries, are fine:)  We hope that they are making themselves useful helping if anyone sustained damage in their areas.

Más Milagros aka More Miracles

Hello Family and Friends,

Thanks for all of the emails and love and support. It´s good to hear that Grandma´s service went well...and I´m really proud of you Mom for not crying, if that is, in fact, the case. Also, it sounds like Bryce is gonna be able to beat me down when I get back (19 weeks!!!!). Glad to hear as well that a lot of people are interested in the whole mission thing, at this rate my blog is gonna be more popular than Brother Rober YouTube videos haha [if only….]. And yes, I will put a guess in for Coleman [his cousin recently put his mission papers in.  It’s like the Mormon lottery and we all like to guess where, when and what language]...I´m guessing Japan. That´s right. I think Coleman is definitely smart enough to handle that language, so I think that´s where the Lord will send him...although I will be rooting for Spanish speaking so that ALL of the Peacock cousins can speak Spanish to each other.

Also, I have a tiny request...I would like another package full of non nutritional American junk food. Ideas - EL Fudge, fudge stripe cookies, trail mix, Reese´s, Nutter Butter, BROWNIES, s’mores Pop Tarts, gummy bears, gummy worms, Girl Scout Cookies....just are a few ideas of things that cannot be found in Mexico...also Oreo Double Stuff are good too....you don´t have to include all of them obviously...but they are some ideas....let me know what you think of sending me another package . Oh and also...Tyler you better not be slacking off on that list of music and movies, just remember, you´ll be going on a mission soon too so remember the Golden Rule. I want ALL of the songs that you have liked or have been popular and are good over the last 2 years...as well as movies. Te amo.

As for the week, another miracle filled week. We´ll start with the H* family. We found them probably a month ago. The parents are members, they were baptized 6 years ago in another stake, and when they moved here 3 years ago they went inactive. They have 2 daughters Renata and Alexa who are 10 and 8 years old and were not baptized. When we found them knocking doors, they told us that they were in a moment of decision in their family...they were thinking about going back to the Catholic Church or if they should go back to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...but they knew that they needed to come closer to God. Coincidentally, we found them in the middle of that decision...funny how that works isn´t it?  Wow, God really does know His children. We got the family to start coming back to church and once they did that the decision was easy. The daughters decided to get baptized and the parents decided that the Mormon Church is the right church for their family. The Lord blessed us and them by helping us find them...it was a crucial moment in their life and I feel blessed that the Lord used my companion and I as instruments. They were baptized on Monday.

Next miracle (or MILAGRO as the Mexicans say), Felipe and his wife Zuleica. We found Zuleica knocking doors about a week and a half ago, and she was very open and went to church with us with her husband on the 4th of March. They stayed for all 3 hours and really enjoyed the experience. As we passed by Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with them we were really emphasizing baptism with them, and they understood it but they just wanted time to learn more before they got baptized.  They wanted to read the whole Book of Mormon and watch General Conference before making the decision to be baptized. We read them a lot of scriptures with them helping them to understand that Christ wants us to follow Him in faith (Acts 8:27-41, Acts 16:25-33, Alma 7:14-15, Alma 32:16). At the end of your appointment on Thursday, we left them with the commitment to pray as a couple and ask God if they should get baptized.

On Friday, we were on interchanges, so my companion went to the appointment and I was in another area, but he told me this is how it went down.  He asked them how their prayer went, and Zuleica asked him right off the bat ¨How much will the baptism cost and what do we have to bring?¨ My companion said he could not believe what he was hearing, after explaining to them that the baptism is free, they told my companion that they had prayed, and talked and decided that they would get baptized on Sunday. MIRACLE. The Lord can do anything...He COMPLETELY changed the hearts of Felipe and Zuleica from wanting to act completely on KNOWLEDGE, to being wiling to act completely on FAITH. So we finished the week with another 3 baptisms, giving us now 11 in this change.  It has been a miracle filled change and we still have 1 week left!!! The Lord has blessed us SO much this change, I don´t think I will ever be able to completely thank Him for it.

Love you and miss you all.

And this is my Joy.

Elder Peacock

Milagros

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all of your letters and love and support. It´s always good to hear how things are going back home...Bryce looks like he´s getting muscles!!! That´s weird.  The pictures of Grandma Virginia were also cool...I had no idea that she had been to so many different places. Let me know how the service goes. Also good to hear that the Lakers are stepping it into high gear. So thanks for all of those updates...and sorry about the shorter letters Mom...I do try but to be honest all of the weeks are just starting to blend together and they all seem the same...teaching lessons, knocking doors and baptizing. But I will get better about that. Thanks for all of the pictures though...and although my letters are short I do usually always try to include some pictures from the week.

So, as for the week. We had a meeting on Tuesday in the offices with all of the zone leaders, the assistants and President. We have the meeting at the end of every month to analyze the progress of the mission and talk about the things we need to do better and different. President usually talks about things we will do different and new things we will try and he´ll finish with some kind of spiritual thought from something he has been studying.  He read with us D & C 138 [You can read it HERE] which is an amazing section and at the end it talks about how all missionaries were preordained before the creation of the world for the work we are doing now--really an amazing thought. Those meetings are always great because I get to see some of my old companions as well. Saw Elder Rowley and Elder Green there.

On Wednesday, we had our zone meeting to teach our district leaders as normal...but we went to a different church and we got flu shots haha. It was the Hermana Villarreal´s idea...on the way there as usual we were jammed into a bus with about 60 other people...So Elder Long and I got the short end of the stick and were basically hanging out of the jam packed bus...don´t worry though Mom...its a normal thing here in Mexico City.

Other than that we just kept working hard. Another 38 lessons this week, with 3 baptisms, and we have another 2 baptisms tonight. The baptisms were miracles. It was a family that had date all week. But then on Thursday, the Mom of the family told us that she got a job interview on Sunday...and she is a single mom that needs work...she didn’t know what to do....we explained to her that if we follow the commandments, we are blessed and will prosper in the land...as it says time and time again in the Book of Mormon. Saturday night we kept teaching her this principle and she decided with a ton of faith to not go to her job interview, but to go to church and get baptized instead. I know that the Lord will bless her for that decision. Because of that small decision that she made with faith...her whole family took the first step to becoming an eternal family....amazing experience...miracle.

I love being a missionary. Love you all and miss you tons.

And this is my joy.

Elder Peacock