We got another letter today that was dated February 6, 2009. In it, Justin told us about the lady whose three kids have already been baptized and her "surprise" baptism. Her name is Soledad and they always thought she was already a member because she was at church almost every Sunday. She was taught by the missionaries before Justin arrived as well as by Justin and Elder Gil. She always told them, "Everyone has a time, but mine hasn't gotten here. And one day it will get here, I don't know when, but when it does, I myself will tell you when I'm ready. I've just got to wait for my moment." Justin said that no matter how many times they tried to convince her that it had nothing to do with a moment (because she knew it all to be true), she wouldn't budge. Then she finished reading the Book of Mormon and had a dream and told them she wanted to get baptized. She was urgently looking for Justin and Elder Gil to tell them. She was baptized the next day.
Justin mentioned that he was starting to read the Book of Mormon in Spanish. "We'll see how that goes." He must be feeling pretty good about his Spanish. What a huge hurdle and trial that was! It was about his six month mark when he overcame his difficulty speaking and understanding Spanish. Amazing if you think about it. Six short months and he's fluent!
Justin met with the bishop of their ward (by direction from their stake president) to talk about
the ward's bettering the support of the full time missionaries and helping the converts by giving them home teachers, callings and friends. The retention rate in their stake is 49%. He said they weren't talking as missionaries of the La Villa area, but as zone leaders of the Pisco area. He wanted to help with a ward mission plan. He said a lot of the wards there don't have ward mission leaders or ward council. He said , "Normally as missionaries we don't tell the bishops what to do, but because the stake presidency wanted us to and we are the zone leaders we had to." Now on to the plan.
Justin said, "Church on Sunday was good. The stake president came to give 2 people their mission calls. The stake president receives the calls and makes them open and read it in sacrament meeting. One is going to Chile and the other to Colombia. He also said 2 twins got back from their missions last week ( Paraguay and Argentina). They called one of them as our new ward mission leader and the 2 that got their calls as ward missionaries. We had our first mission correlation meeting Sunday afternoon and they are going to start working more with us and visiting the less active and converts to teach them lessons. And last Sunday, Elder Gil and I started a training of the missionary lessons for the ward missionaries and all the members. It turned out really well. About 25 people came, taking notes and everything. We want the missionaries and members to be able to participate in the lessons more. So we are teaching and practicing the lessons with them so they can help more. Then at church we passed around a list asking everyone for their (phone) numbers and schedule every week when they can accompany us. A lot of people did it, about 3 pages. So things are getting a lot better with the missionary work in the ward. We should be working a lot more with the members and having a lot of success." Sounds like Justin is doing just fine as a zone leader. He certainly has his heart in the right place.
"Well we have reached the end of another letter. Until next week. Love you! Justin"
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