I Have Grown a Foot or Two: Week 10: Baptisms and Belly Button Rings...

Buenos Dias Familia y Amigos!

This past week was really, really sweet! The highlight was definitely our 2 baptisms for Melany y Manuel. Another guy, Emilio who was taught by E. Coleman y Vela, got baptized as well. About an hour before the baptism Elder Pauro and I went to visit Melany to make sure everything was still good, turns out it was except for one thing. I'm still not sure how we got on the topic, but for some reason the topic of weird piercing popped up and it turned out that Melany had one! It turned out to be a great moment though. We taught her really quickly that piercings like those are contrary to the word of wisdom and that our bodies are literally temples. She thought about it for a minute or two, then gave us her ring as a promise that she wouldn't do anything like that again. I was inspired by Melany and her willingness to obey Gods laws before mans laws and to give up something that she didn't think to be wrong so quickly. The baptisms were really great too and the spirit was there. After the baptisms the new converts bore their testimonies. I missed Manuel's, but I got to be there for Melany's y Emilios and they have great testimonies. Melany even said that she wants to be a missionary some day, it was really awesome. Emilios wife, Betsy, bore her testimony and said its one of her goals to get married in the temple, it was really cool and a great spiritual moment. After the service and all that was over Manuel's parents invited us over for some cake and stuff. That turned out to be a little bit awkward though because they started serving some sort of alcoholic drink, it was weird. So we had some Inca Kola and left. All in all, it was a great day. Right now, we have on marriage lined up for December 12 for Osmar y Yesena and Yesenas baptism is scheduled for the 20th. She's also an investigador de oro, she's great and willing to accept all of our message, it's really cool because they don't have much, they live at the top of the cerros, one of the poorest parts of Lima, but they're some of the best people out there, I'm really excited for them.

Also, this past p-day we got to go to cento Lima, and its really, really cool and really pretty. Its way, way cleaner than north Lima too and there's not any dogs. It's pretty much a different country. We went to this huge catholic cathedral and it was amazing. But I had a thought while I was in there about how different their cathedrals are than our temples. I think its great that Catholics have a foundation of faith and hope through our Savior, but it's sad that they focus on his death. It made me think about our temples and how they're the exact opposite, they focus on the fact that Christ still lives and is glorified and that we can be with our families forever through the atoning sacrifice and resurrection of Christ. So yeah, central Lima is really cool. For lunch we ate at McDs, the good ol golden arches. Before my mission I wasn't a big McDonalds fan, I was more of a Wendy's guy, but let me tell ya, I have never been so happy and excited to eat at McDs. After lunch we went to this little mall place that had a bunch of little touristy stores, it was really cool to see all the cultural stuff of Peru and just chill in a nicer part of the city.

Thanksgiving was pretty good this year too for being in Lima Peru. After all of our appointments me, E. Pauro, E. Coleman y Vela, y E. Ruiz y Segura went to KFC for a Thanksgiving dinner, it turned out to pretty good, I got a little apple pie so I was satisfied haha.

Elder Potter

(This is a little excerpt from his family email.) For part of our weekly zone and distrito meeting this past week we watched a segment of the movie "Facing the Giants" and a line really stood out to me that went along the lines of this..."our actions follow our beliefs...". I was thinking that if we think were going to fail at something, we most likely are. But the same goes for if we know we can succeed. If we have faith and truly believe and hope we can do something,than we can. I related this to missionary work in that if you believe their are people to reactivate in the church, we actually spend a lot of our time with menos activo miembros, or people to teach and to help to progress, then you will be able to find, teach, and help those people. Just an extra thought I had that I forgot to put in the big email.