The Savior's Love

Hola a todos!

Esta semana fue corto por el viaje a Cusco, pero estaba bien. Tuvimos mucho éxito cuando regresamos.

This week was great, short, but great.

I'm really feeling the love of the Savior more for investigators, the other night we were talking to Hermana Ana, who had her baptismal interview a while ago, but is having a couple problems still, we read the Book of Mormon with her and another investigator who lives next door and the Spirit came so strongly there, it was amazing.

I've felt that love for my companion too, he's really trying to develop and strengthen his own testimony of the Book of Mormon, I shared my experience with him and we just felt the Spirit so strongly, the Book of Mormon is true! It's so great to be a missionary!

I think I'll just let you guys know that you can feel that same love as you open your heart to others and seek to help them as the Savior helps us. Do it, feel loved, feel love, share that love.

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Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher

Still alive! And Semana Santa (Easter)

Hola a todos!

Que tal? Esta semana fue bueno, pero también raro por la Semana Santa, pero bueno.

This week, it was pretty good, but Easter's almost not celebrated here. Semana Santa or the Holy Week is huge, but almost no Easter. It was good though.

I'm honestly a little lacking in the memory banks on last week, because today we had a "Grand P-Day" Or, we came from Puerto to have a multi-zone conference and a p-day with President and 4 whole zones. (or, for no RMs, 70ish missionaries) We played tug of rope, a couple hula hoop games and hand ball. Which was basically soccer with hands and a yoga ball. Our team won that one, we were tired, but happy. I got really sunburned though, because I forgot sunscreen. Be wise, learn from your mistakes. Do not become a human tomato in physical or other form.

The conference yesterday was really good. We learned that by living the Doctrine of Christ (not doctrines rather, Doctrine of Christ, as is found easily in 2 Nephi 31, and 3 Nephi 11 and 27) you are able to remove stress from your life, because Christ will help us and we will remove burdens that are in us from not repenting or not having faith in Christ or from not following the Spirit or from not keeping covenants or from not enduring to the end.

In other words, as we have faith in Christ, that will lead us to repentance, which leads to covenants that we keep and are blessed for keeping, with those covenants we receive the Holy Ghost as our constant companion to guide us and we can endure to the end with all these blessings. All of these pieces or principles will help with at least one form of stress that we can have in life, but as we live His Doctrine, we are free and at liberty, from all kinds of bondage, including stress.

--

Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher

P.S. I was in an airplane to Lima exactly a year ago at this hour! I'm a year in the mission! Woo!

Starting to let you guys know how I'm doing again

Hola a todos!

Que tal? Esta semana ha sido bien, pero que significa eso? Voy a esforzarme a explicarlo.

Questions

How was your week? Did you meet new people to teach? Were you able to share any of the messages from conference?

It's been a great week. Yes! 11! :D More or less, I made a huge sheet of application notes, now how to apply them... But we've shared some from the conference too.

How has the weather been?

It feels like Sicuani again, I don't know why, but it does. It's rainy still, that's odd they say, but it's sun otherwise. It's hot.

One experience that was fantastic this week is when we were visiting Izabel, she's a sister that we've visited a couple times, more or less mid-thirties, and shared the Plan of Salvation and last week we shared the Restoration. Then this week we remembered to do the verification of commitments that people do, so we asked if she had read the Book of Mormon. She said that she had and that she prayed too.

She said that she felt a burden lifted off of her like never before felt, that God was right there next to her and she knew that the Book of Mormon was true, as well as the Restoration. That experience brought the Spirit strongly.

Another is when we visited Miguel. He and his partner Juana, more or less sixties, have received us well, we've shared a couple different things with them and he's been more or less interested. She's not doing well with her health, we shared a couple scriptures and had a good experience with that and a blessing we gave her a couple weeks ago. Then this week we passed by and she was sleeping, but Miguel invited us in, we talked to him about the Plan of Salvation and that God has a plan so that we can have hope, be happy and not fear anything at all. He felt the spirit really strongly so we invited to baptism, he said he needed to learn more still, but he sounded open.

I was able to do exchanges with Elder Villavicencio this week, that was good. He teaches well. It's amazing being here in Puerto and helping so many people. We reached many goals and we're excited to keep reaching goals, because that means more people will know about the great blessings that God, our loving Heavenly Father, has for all of us His children. And even more than just knowing, that they can experience them themselves.

God loves us, that's why He gave us commandments, so that we can be cleaned of our sins through the Atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior.

--

Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher

Conference and Rain

Hola a todos!

Que tal la conferencia?!? Para mi fue muy, muy bien! Ahora para aplicarlo!

First, I got some questions from my family, so I'll answer those. The more questions I have, the better I can think of what to say. But I think even better, what messages have you liked the most? So that I can imitate that same type of information.

So, can you tell me a little bit about Elder Rodriguez? Where is he from? How old is he? How long a member? Any other tidbits you want to share since you have been with him a couple of weeks now?

Elder Rodriguez is from California, Utah and Las Vegas, Nevada. In that order. He's 19 like me, birthday February 28th. Since baptized at age 8. but his family has been members his whole life. He is really awesome, we talk a lot in English, but he speaks almost perfect Spanish since his parents are from Mexico. But that Spanish is different than here in Peru, thus, almost perfect.

He's great, he participates in the lessons great, has wonderful insights that are teaching me and he's dedicated. He found a gecko during the English class we teach, he called him "Lag-i-a-chris" (spacing for sound, never spelled it out, so...) He's really cool. He worked in the temple as an ordinance worker too!

By the way, where did Elder Quevedo go?

He went to Urcos by Cusco. Cold again, but it's by a scenic lake. I've heard it's great over there.

Who is in your district?

Elder Rodriguez and I, Elder Peña and Elder Rüeckart as the zone leaders, Elder White and Elder Villavicencio as other elders and Sister Arana and Sister Webster, the sister training leaders. We've yet to take an updated picture, but I'll get one sometime.

Anyway, conference was fantastic! It rained here between Saturday Afternoon and Priesthood sessions, but we had appointments, so we went out in the rain, and the guy wasn't there, but we contacted someone in his house. (mom, wife or sister, the rain was loud)

The talks I really liked in conference was all of them except for Sunday afternoon, that first hour I just didn't get anything out of what was said. Probably because we were eating a late lunch with people and sharing a short lesson before booking it to the church to catch the last half of that session, but I'm downloading those speakers as I write this. So I'll like them later.

But the important part is, we all liked different speakers because the Spirit talked to each of us something specific in each. I really like Elder Rasband's teaching on the 1st prompting, I sometimes wait for a second one justifying myself by saying, "If it was the spirit, I'll get a second prompting." No more of that! Act or don't. And as a prophet, John Taylor liked to say, "The Kingdom of God or Nothing!"

I hope that we all put in practice that which we've learned in the conference, be it little or great, the Lord will help us do it, if we but act.

--

Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher