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.]