Sunday, July 21, 2013

There`s nothin` like home.

*Highlights* of my week:

1. We had three days straights where the sun came out and I could prance around without a goofy sweater on.
2. 11 investigators came to church last Sunday.
3. We found 6 new people to teach and they`re GOLDEN.
4. We got stopped by a drunkman one night after grabbing dinner from a member`s home. He began speaking English to me and I told him I was from France just to make him more confused. After he babbled a few words I let him know that we were in a hurry to get home. He then proceeded to give me a hug telling me that he needed Jesus and all o` the sudden I get this huge wet alcohol smelling KISS on my neck! I`ve never run so fast in my life....
5. I was reminded of the time when it was my last day in Mala and a naked drunkman/former investigator hugged me as well......
6. We have 6 baptismal dates for July!
7. I didn`t get transfered! So I`m STAYIN` home in Floresta folks!
8. I definitely have E-coli in my water every stinkin`day! So be grateful. Life`s just a hassle sometimes!
9. Who knew that playing mass hot potato was so fun?

So to say I had an excellent week would be an understatement. I was praying so hard not to leave Floresta an I promised I would work harder than ever before for the next six weeks that God has given me. I just didn`t feel like it was time to leave yet, and whatya know, wishes do come true. Things are just getting better every day as usual! 

I was super excited because Bishop De La Cruz here is excellent. Although sometimes he has the tendency to talk a lot about his mission, he really just gets the "whole idea," if you know what I mean. This last Sunday we had attendance spike up to about 160 after the month of May had an all-time low of 110. In sacrament meeting the Bishop gave a rallying talk to get the ward more motivated, and later that day we had a celestial count of 11 investigators in church. The last world training was such a booster to the misisonary work. FINALLY, the members and leaders are having an even greater realization that they are so important in missionary work.

Our ward mission leader, Hermano Roberto, helped us plan a Noche Misional last Friday. As usual, it some how came together with a lot of procrastination and waiting until the last minute to cook food, put up the decorations, and wait for the "Peruvian hour" to kick in as the crowd came about an hour and 15 minutes late. With one of the members who lives below our apartment, Jhonatan helped us create a list of "get to know you" questions for the activity so that all would participate in the fun. We had Hermana Franchesca with the games, but when it all came down to it, she hadn`t planned a thing! Hermano Rober brought the tables but forgot to put together the program. So the Spirit just kicked right in as I just played piano for the opeing hymn, signaled a brother to say the opening prayer WHILE playing piano (now THAT`S talent), picked up the microphone, welcomed everybody, plugged in my USB to play some good ol` MOTAB during the activity, and with my list of pre-cut questions that Herman Regina put together for me earlier, we played a mass game of "Hot Potato". I mean seriously people, I didn`t know what I was getting into when my voice turned into narrator for the whole game as well. We broke up into groups who each had their object as the hot potato, each person had several slips of paper with questions on them, and I began yelling into the mic "La papa se quema la papa se quema la papa se quema la papa se quema la papa se quema la papa se quema la papaaaaaaaaa se quema se quema la papa la papa la papa la papa se quema la papa la papa se QUEMÃ’!!!" And the whole salon just broke into laughter as the hot potatoes burned up. Whoever had the hot potato land on them had to ask a question like "Have you ever sung in the shower? If yes, then what did you sing?" or "If you could be called on a mission, where would you like to serve?" It literally never got old as the hot potato burned up each round and every laught so hard. At the end we had some balloons that for whatever reason we thought it would be a good idea to fill with white flour. So we popped them over the heads of those who had to ask the most questions as punishment or otherwise they had to do the famous Peruvian "Duck Dance" in front of everybody hahaha. Anyway, it was fun, and we had a great crowd attend. I was exhausted by the end of it all as well.

The Miranda family is doing great but Marilu`sbirth certificate has proven difficult to find and we`ve had to postpone their baptism over and over again. The hard thing is that tomorrow is the dealine for the mass marriage this Saturday but you know, we tried. There is a sister who works in the local government who might be able to pull some strings and get the whole thing rollin´for there little marriage party and baptism this Saturday. But I guess we`ll see!

Anyway, I love just being so busy in the work of the Lord. I am so blessed and know this is the true church of God on the earth. Last week Elder Christofferson visited Peru for the celebration of the 100th stake in Peru. I wasn`t invited to go but his words were something like, "These are the last days. but the end does not depend on the world becoming more wicked, it depends on us preparing the world for the Second Coming of the Savior." Wow. What a privilege to be a missionary at this time.

I love you all so much! 

Elder Lundberg

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