Transfer...Or Not

Yay! Today was our days of missionary transfers and I get to stay in MALA!!! Whoo! Elder Tohara has FINALLY left. No ha. I´m actually really sad he had to go, and I really have learned so much from him these past 12 weeks. I sure do appreciate him as my first companion! And boy does the time fly by. My new companion is Elder Luque from Ecuador. He´s from an area about two hours south of Guayaquil (I forget the name of his city). He seems like such an excellent missionary and I´m super excited to serve with him! I can tell he´s not afraid to just open his mouth and talk to people because he was already having a gospel conversation with a complete strange 5 minutes after arriving at the bus stop. I´ve only heard and seen good things about him so the time that I have with him will be a definite success!

Things are looking just up, up, and away with the missionary work here in lil´ol´ Mala. This past week has certainly been a blessed one, and although the people continue their emmigration to the playa, we still finding people to teach and baptize. This past week we´ve had two people with baptismal dates, in my last letter I mentioned Delicia, who literally seems to already know it all, and so she continues to progress smoothly for her baptism on the 9th of February. She recently found a job maintaing the garden for a beach estate, and sometimes she invites us over there to enjoy sitting and teaching her there in the beautiful surrounding foliage, with a giant beach home and two pools to admire. I´m tellin´ ya, there´s some richie mcrichies down here!

In my last letter I also mention Roberto and Beatriz, the parents of Antuane and Alexis who we recently baptized. We´re continuing to work with them and collecting their documents for civil marriage with the state so they can be baptized at the end of March. To get married in Peru is really difficult for some reason, so it´s actually pretty rare to find married couples or complete families. But I know that the despite the challenge, the Lord provides a way for families to become complete in the gospel and eventually be sealed in the temple. Also, this next transfer, instead of the normal six weeks, is only four due to the huge influx of missionaries in the church. I´m hoping that I might get to stay until April to be a part of Roberto and Beatriz´ baptism, because then I can be a part of their sealing the next year! I guess we´ll see! 

I think the highlight of my week was finding jolly good fellow named Juan Diaz. He´s a reference of our recently called mision leader, Hno. Avelino, in the branch. Although he has around 65 years and now lives alone, he´s literally a child in the gospel. He didn´t even know Christ was baptized or who Moses really is. Nothing has ever been explained to him he says, even though he went to Mass his whole life. We challenged him with a baptismal date in the first lesson, and he already has his baptismal stuff ready laid out on his table for the 16th of February. It´s been a pleasure getting to know him over the past week!

Wellp, I´m just happy to be staying here and to have my new companion Elder Luque. These past couple weeks have shown a lot of promise with some really quality investigators. I love my area and things just keep getting better and better! I know that the Lord is guiding us in this work, and that this gospel changes the lives of so many. I´m growing closer to my savior every day and know he loves Mala as much as I do (actually more with the ifinte love he has for these people!)

Have an excellent week and see ya´ll next time!

Elder Lundberg