Tacala

This week was great :)

Monday we played volleyball and who doesn’t love volleyball? We threw eggs on Elder Wilde’s head again because it’s an excuse to throw eggs on someone’s head and who does like doing that?

Wednesday we stopped by an old investigators house... Oscar Cunya. I think I told you about him a while back. It was amazing, almost like he had a different look.  To make a long story short he basically told us that he is ready to get baptized and ready to change his life.  We were really happy for him and we set a baptism date for the 12th of December. 

Thursday was crazy. My companions and I were just ready to leave the office about 5:00 when President called me in his office to talk for a minute.  I walked in and he put his arm around me and told me that there was going be an emergency transfer in the mission and that he needed me to help.  It caught me a little off guard but of course I told him yes. I was really sad that I was going to miss the baptism that we are going have this Saturday for Martiza and I told him about it so he gave me permission to go back to my area for the baptism. 

SOO Elder Wilde and I stayed up ALL NIGHT going over everything he needed to learn. I’m pretty sure his head about exploded but I think he’ll be alright.  :)   I made a manual for him of about 30 pages and it took me forever so he better like it. 

It was hard to say goodbye to my area Ignaciomerino, especially on such short notice.  I tried to stop by all the families that i could in the shortest time possible. I took pics and I’ll send them :)

Friday morning I packed up all my things really quick and Elder Villalba and I were off to my new area, Tacala. :) I love the area.. it’s great :) I guess I could say I’m back to camping........

On the bright side we almost always have water in our room :) But as far as electrify goes... well... not so much :) The first day we went to this little village called Culucanos - thick sand, hot, sweaty, salty, dirty, middle of the stinkin’ desert.  It amazes me to see people that live like this, mom. I have never seen stuff like this in my entire life.. I will forever be changed. Forever grateful.

Saturday we had a lesson with our pensionsita’s son. I tried to apply what I learned from Elder Paredes and be DIRECT.  I didn’t every know him and invited him to be baptized and he accepted. I’m trying to do all that I can for this area before I leave next week.  We also found a new investigator named Carlos. We entered his house and taught him the Restoration and at the end invited him to pray to see if it was true. His prayer that he offered was one of the most powerful, sincere prayers I’ve heard in my entire life.  A simple, humble question "God, is it true?".  The spirit instantly filled the room and I felt a peace come over my shoulders... another reminder that this is true. I’m really excited to see how he progresses.

As we were walking back to our apartment about 9:30 we saw a drunk man pinning 2 little girls up to a wall.  It freaked us out a little so we walked over to see what was going on. We presented ourselves as missionaries and asked if everything was okay.  The two little girls were crying so we assumed not. We offered to walk them home and while my companion was talking to the drunk guy, I was talking to the little girls trying to get them calmed down and a little more information out of them. As we arrived to their house, we found 3 more little girls sitting on the ground, the oldest maybe being 12.  It turns out the mom had left the family cause the dad was an alcoholic and they have 5 little girls. Just to see the look on their faces absolutely broke my heart. They were abandoned... a lack of love. They were dirty almost as if they hadn’t showered in a week.  I’ll never forget their faces.  As we continued to talk, the dad said that he was gonna drive the girls to his sisters house for the night and started walking out to his car. We hurried and tried to calm him down telling him that he wasn’t going drive 5 little girls while drunk. Things started getting a little heated but we weren’t going to let him drive the car. Some things happened and he ended up driving away with the girls. My companion and I said a really strong prayer asking God to protect them. I don’t really know how it ended but I really hope they’re okay.

Sunday was stake conference. It was nice because I got to have a formal goodbye to everyone from my old area. After church we had a lesson with the Torico family. They’re recent converts and when we knocked on their door, they were watching a church movie as a family! Haha! It was really cool. We taught them about enduring and then they invited us to stay for dinner because everyone is so ridiculously nice here. We had soup with cancha :) haha 

Anyways, I love Tacala. I honestly wouldn’t mind staying here :)

Love you guys!

I hope you have a great week.

-Elder Harris