Elder Chad Peterson: Preaching in Paradise

Hello Everyone! Well this week was another great week here from Huatulco! There was some pretty awesome things that happened this week and others that were a little bit sad. At the first of the week this week Elder and Sister Dewolf told us that they were getting changed to work in the temple in Oaxaca, and this week was their last week with us. They had become our mission parents here and we had spent a ton of time with them. We celebrated National Pancake Day with them this last week (or should I say international pancake day) and they made us pancakes for lunch. It was just the small things that they did that made us feel so much at home with everything. Elder Dewolf couldnt really speak spanish and he wanted to bear his testimony to the branch yesterday and so we worked Saturday night to help him write a testimony that he could read to the branch. It was so awesome and so spiritual to hear it! We also got to go to the beach with them and walk along the edge yesterday before church and it was so beautiful! We saw another part of Hualtuco that is way nicer than any part, I cant believe that all this is in Oaxaca! Anyways to talk about the mission part of it, at the first of the week we had the Assistants here to do splits with us. I got to go with Elder Tomala from Ecuador. We started out visiting a lady named Nico that we had met before but she didnt seem interested that much. We started teaching her the lesson of how the Gospel blesses families. We got halfway through when Elder Tomala asked if she had any questions. She replied with "Yeah how can I be a part of your church to recieve this promise of an eternal family" It was so powerful and it is such a special promise to know of the truth of that! Afterwards we had the chance to go and visit Edith, who is a grandmother of three little kids who are very very energetic like all 5 and 6 year olds. They were all running around and we were teaching a lesson about Faith in Jesus Christ. She broke down and told us that on that day 20 years ago her son passed away and that she had never found the answer of how she can be comforted. She said she had found her answer and that it was through Jesus Christ. I wish that I could share all of these experiences with you because these were only 2 of the many that were the same. It has been amazing to see that as we have focused more on putting Christ into the lessons and as the main focus, Christ has entered the lives of all of these people and has found a way to help each and every one of them. The gospel is personal to each of us because Christ is a Brother to each of us. If we focus on him and find him he will find us and focus on us in everything that we need. I hope that you all have a great week this week! Elder Peterson