First off, huge shout out to Cheyenne Housler on making
her first covenant with our Heavenly Father and
being baptized this past weekend!
We also had a baptism this past weekend but allow me
share what happened on Monday
to build up to that special day.
We celebrated my birthday last Monday by going to this sweet private beach and as
we were there some workers from the beach shore restaurant brought out and gave
us some free chicken nuggets and soda without us even asking. Then in the night after some lessons we went back to the pentionista’s house
where my face got dunked in the cake, a McCook family tradition.
The week went on and we were doing things to get Ricardo ready
for his
baptism.
Then there were a few problems.
Ricardo is a young single adult from Cuzco
that lives here in Matarani. He came to
work and has no family here. Anyway this
Hermana member of the church took him in and has been taking care of him and she’s
kind of like his grandmother / mother now. She’s been in bad health! At the end of the day
we went to go do his interview we ended up carrying her out of the house on a stretcher
to an ambulance! He was devastated, and didn’t
want to talk, so we just sat there with him and I just said a few things to
help him out.
Before I left I gave him a big hug and told him it would all be ok and that we
would come back the next day. It was a
sad experience but amazing. The
next day
we left from the tribe and went to find an old investigator and we found Ricardo!
I’ll tell you about the tribe in a
minute. But we found Ricardo!! We asked him if we could come over! And he said yeah! So we went to his house and were chilling with
him chatting Quechua and English and such just learning words, having a good
time! He looks at us ( this is Friday
night, the day before his baptism) and anyway he says so am I going to be
baptized?? And we were like. Yeah! If you still want to!
And he goes! Yeah!! So immediately we got to planning what needed
to happen! He still had to have an
interview and we needed to get things in line and planned and people invited
but everything just went smooth!! We
called the zone leaders and they came over on Saturday and did his interview
and everything went smooth!! He got
baptized on Saturday!!
The next morning is Sunday and we get woken up by our President de Rama. He forgot to assign people to talk so he asked us if we could. We told him yes and then about twenty minutes later we got another call from the zone leaders saying that Elder Alvey is being transferred over to Arequipa to go and be secretary of materials for the whole mission, so if you send me a package Elder Alvey will get it first then send it my direction. Now for the tribe! I’ll tell you about that!! We found a group of like 6 kids playing marbles and we’ve been teaching them!! Their names are Kevin, Miguel, Ruebeño Andy (and these two brothers names are classic) Jet Lee, and John Cina, hahahha its incredible!
They’re so fun! And smart!! It’s incredible! We asked them
what they wanted to call our
little gang and they said “los misioneros de Dios”!!
Which translates to “the missionaries of God” !! And
they absolutely love us!! We played
marbles with them and they loved it. They
want to play soccer now! Then there’s Cornelio. This story is incredible. One day as we were walking we saw
this old
man sweeping his front porch so we decided to go and talk to him. We started talking to him and we found out
that he has a kid that’s a member of the church and a daughter also and they
both live in Utah!! We wanted to visit him again but never found him. So we kind of
had put him on the side. Until the
other night I felt like we should go and see him. The following
day we went on divisions so I
will now copy and paste the experience Elder Alvey had" we went to the house of Cornelio and there was a tent outside the house.
They usually do that when someone dies. So
I said to the Elder Loor I’ll bet ya someone died! We get to the house and a lady inside says “the
brothers are here”! Then a lady comes out
named Martha and she says
thanks for coming I’m glad someone sent you. I was confused. I
told her no one sent us we just came here.
She said someone must have sent you. Because mom just passed away and for sure my brother who is from your religion called you and sent you here. I looked at her and said no one sent us here. I’ve never talked to your brother or anyone
about you and we didn’t know
your mother died we just felt like we should come over. I think the lord sent us here. She was really surprised and let
us come in. Then when we got in there they asked me to
lead in a prayer. I just prayed. Said whatever came to my mind. Anyway afterward they
began to ask us if we knew the brother and such and we obviously knew nothing
and they were just amazed. and they came to the conclusion that the Lord sent us because their brother couldn’t come. He is having
problems with his passport. And I think they’re
right! It was incredible. We shared with them that the death isn’t the
end and that one day we will see our loved ones again. Then we finished with a prayer and left. It was so cool!! Sad because they don't completely understand but cool because the way the lord works!!"
Elder Alvey is leaving and going to Arequipa as I said so within these next few days I’ll get a new companion but as for now things are great!!
Elder McCook
