MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Merry Christmas everybody!!

I am so grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ. I love this season that we have to celebrate especially His birth and His life and the reason why He's so important to ours. I know this is His Church, I know this is His work, and I know He lives, loves, and speaks through His prophets today.

Yafhet got baptized!! Wow was it a cool experience. His grandma has been putting in the work to help him make covenants, and it's paid off. Baptized and confirmed and excited to continue on the covenant path. His parents both came into town to see him baptized, they're not members.

We continue to see miracles as Jacomo, Michel, and Michel progress towards baptism on Jan 8. Jackie, the mother of the former two and wife of the latter, is working towards getting them all covenanted up like a momma bear on the warpath. Nobody's getting in the way of that sister and her eternal family. Her determination is inspiring.

We got back in touch with Oscar! Turns out he's basically been hospitalized for a month. We thought we'd lost his interest completely, but he's equally repentant and in much better health, so thank you so much for your continued prayers for him.

Miracles, blessings, guidance, patience, repentance, unconditional love and support, and this beautiful calling have been some of my Christmas gifts from my Heavenly Father. I know this is His Church!

So infinitely blessed, 

Elder Child 😊

Blessed Beyond Measure

Hello people I love!

Wow, I feel fantastically blessed to be a missionary for the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that this is His work, and it is advancing at a breathtaking pace. These past couple weeks we have seen a ton of miracles, especially with baptism-ready people just dropping into our laps! The Lord does His work on His timeline, and in a chapter where we feel like we´ve been doing the least in our area, He´s seen fit to send a flood of 9- to 11-year old children whose parents and grandparents are in various stages of reactivation who want to be baptized.

Wanted to tell the story of this beautiful family. Jacobo and Michel are two of the people that I have come to love most in my whole mission, and we´ve only visited them twice so far. They´re brothers, two little angels with sweet, pure hearts, and the most wonderful of desires. Their mom is returning to activity in the Church, and it feels like an army couldn´t keep them from the waters of baptism. They´re determined. We need prayers for their dad as well, who is a wonderful, wonderful man and an excellent father who loves God and works like a dog to provide for his family. He´s still uncertain about how he feels about the restored Church, but I´m confident that he will see more of the changes happening in his wife and kids and want to be part of it.

In all honestly, these have been a really difficult pair of weeks on personal front. I´m quite behind on a lot of the mission financial tasks, and I´m getting audited this week (regular, scheduled audit). I´ve been struggling with personal diligence, staying on task, and efficiency as it seems like the water is coming into the boat faster than I can bail it out. I know that the promise in 1 Nephi 3:7 is accurate though, and I have faith that the Lord will pull me through. I really do love my life, and I´m so happy.

I want to testify about the power of scripture study!! It is without fail that the days that are the hardest in the office and with regards to being consecrated in the evenings are the days I don´t make the time to study the scriptures. There is power in reading the Book of Mormon every day. To quote our beloved President Monson, "If you are not reading the Book of Mormon every day, please do so." I know that as we read we are given strength from on high to overcome the challenges of our day. Interesting thought: God isn´t yet teaching us to be independent. That will come in the next life. Right now, God is teaching us to become as dependent on Him and Christ as we possibly can be. As we become more spiritually mature, we´re invited to lean more on Them, not less. A la 7 Habits for Highly Effective People, we spend all of this life in Stage 1: Dependence, with regards to our relationship with God.

That´s all for me this week! Love you dearly, love receiving emails, love my Savior, love the people in my two wards and the missionaries in my financial stewardship, love the scriptures, and hope you have an absolutely fantastic week.

Blessed beyond measure,

Elder Child

The Most Repentant Soul

Dear loved ones!

I feel so blessed to be in the Lord's service. It really is wondrous that He carries out his work with such imperfect instruments that we are, but I can testify that He's doing it incredibly well here in Lima.

An absolute miracle this week has been Oscar 😊 I'm writing this from the bus en route to our next visit with him. In my mission, I have perhaps seen one other person so repentant before having contact with the missionaries. We met him when he showed up to Church, and that evening we felt good enough about his repentance to invite him to be baptized just 10 days later. It's looking like he won't make that date, but it won't take much longer. The Lord is willing to let us change as fast as we'll let Him. In that visit I had tears come as I witnessed how much these simple truths that I've known since my childhood could just bring light to this wonderful man. We would love your prayers for him to be able to keep the commandments and be cleansed through baptism.

The past couple weeks I've been better about setting and following through on written goals, rather than just intending to do things right, and there's been a marked acceleration in my progress. I feel like I've rediscovered part of my character I've been neglecting for a few months. I know that written goals have a real power to help us progress.

Thanks for everything! Sure love you guys. You're in my thoughts and prayers and yours are very, very felt down here. This Church is true. Christ is our Savior. Russell M. Nelson is His prophet. I know it. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Happy, grateful, lucky and blessed,

Elder Child 

Increased Load and Heightened Support

Hello amazing people!

This week has been absolutely amazing. I'm so grateful to be in the Lord's service. The subject line highlights a principle that I feel has defined a lot of the past five months for me. I've been in the office for a while now, and in some ways the load has been gradually increasing, but the support from my Savior has never flagged in increasing in tandem. This week is going to take another big jump: transfers are happening and we're losing more missionaries, so my companionship of office secretaries is going to move from having a ward to ourselves (when I got here we had 1/4 of one ward) to double-covering, serving two wards at once, in addition to coming into the office every weekday. I know the Lord will support us, but we do need to raise our efforts and efficacy.

I love this work, and I am so grateful that the Lord is willing to and capable of using very imperfect tools to do it.

I want to bear my testimony. I know this Church is true. I know Russell M. Nelson is a prophet of God. I know that Christ lives, that He is my Redeemer, that the Book of Mormon testifies of Him, and that salvation comes only in and through His name. How great is the importance of sharing these truths with the world. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I love you all,

Elder Child

Repentance can be Complete

Hello everyone!

Wow has it been an incredible couple of weeks! The work is progressing, I am happy, I'm progressing, and miracles are being worked here.

This week, on top of that incredible General Conference we had, we had the awesome blessing of getting to sit at the feet of Elder Becerra, a General Authority Seventy and counselor in the South America Northwest area presidency (Poor Little Ones April 2021), for three days as he taught us about how to internalize our missionary purpose, raise our vision, set better goals and make better plans, and ultimate help more people along the covenant path. It was an incredible call to joyful repentance and invitation to participate more fully in the Lord's work.

General Conference was so wonderful 😊 I would love to hear all of your takeaways; personally I learned a lot about consecration being a complete commitment and the possibility of total repentance through our Redeemer. This Conference, I did something new for me: I took Elder Bednar's advice very literally of writing down little-to-nothing that the speakers said and only what the Spirit related to me personally. As one might expect, I understood a little less of talk topics and perhaps overall messages of what was said ... but I received a lot more personal revelation. The talks, however, are available for study for the rest of my life. I'm planning on talking this type of notes every Conference going forward.

I wanted to testify of something I've been learning in Conference, personal study, and the mission tour with Elder Becerra. Repentance can be complete. There is no point we can get to where God won't let us and help us come back. He never wants us to get down on ourselves for our errors, but rather only to feel remorse to the degree that it inspires us to change. Godly sorrow. The idea that we have to feel a certain level of hurt, wrong, or bad about ourselves as a necessary step to repentance is false doctrine. That's called atoning, and someone a lot better than us did it for us. In every moment, God wants us to progress towards having joy and making better choices just as fast as we possibly can.

Carolina is on date to be baptized!! Oh my goodness we had an incredible lesson Thursday night where we just let the Book of Mormon and the Spirit teach the doctrine of Christ just as purely and as simply as we could, and it was incredible to see her take that and commit. Her date is the 29 of this month; please pray for her.

I'd also ask for your prayers for the Peru Lima South Mission. After the visit with Elder Becerra, we really have an incredible opportunity to bring about drastic change in our mission culture and raise our efforts, our vision, our effectiveness, and our consecration. Many fruits will come as a result of this change, and we need your prayers and faith to be able to take advantage of this opportunity to accomplish more of what the Lord has in store.

One miracle from this week is that President rearranged the responsibilities in the office a bit. I'm still finance secretary, but I'm no longer going to be the housing coordinator. This feels like just a massive burden off my shoulders. The light at the end of the tunnel that I've been chasing for five months has suddenly arrived. I'll be able to put everything about the finances in order this month, and I hope that by the end of the year I'll be able to support my companion in getting everything with the housing put in order.

There are just so many little miracles and answers to prayer every day. God is in the details. I love Him, I love His work, I'm so grateful for your faith and prayers, they are felt in the lives of many of His precious children here in Peru. Thanks for everything you're doing to gather Israel!

Happy, grateful, lucky and blessed,

Elder Child

P.S. I finally tried the famous Peruvian dish cuy (guinea pig). I ordered half ... see if you can tell which half 😇

The Happiest Road

Hello beloved friends and family!

First off, my apologies for being so inconsistent about writing. I'm getting better, and those are some of the happiest words in the English language. They're also the essence of the Plan of Salvation. We're not meant to be perfect or even anything close to it in this life, and God doesn't get impatient with our imperfections. Rather, we're supposed to be improving. It's about direction, not location, and the road of discipleship is the happiest road that can exist. I love how remarkable it is that the little decisions we make every day to become better disciples of our Savior Jesus Christ can, over time, shape us an incredible amount.

I want to talk about several answers to prayer and miracles that we've seen.

One friend of ours was having an anxiety attack. It's the first time I've ever really seen somebody just break down like that. We were able to give him a Priesthood blessing and shortly afterwards, the attack calmed and he was alright. I know that was a miracle worked through Priesthood power, because God works through the Priesthood to work His miracles when the Priesthood is available to be used.

One cool miracle is that there are currently two Elders Child in my family serving. Brigham is doing incredible in Las Vegas, and I'm so grateful to be part of what's currently a two-missionary family.

One tender mercy. I was feeling pretty down a few weeks ago. This has been a somewhat stressful time in my assignment in the office and I'd definitely been feeling overwhelmed by the workload. Unrelatedly, I had also been missing my magnet nametag for about a week. One night in my evening prayer, I mentioned both of those things, not in connection to each other. I then went to bed and dreamt about finding my nametag on the right side of my hanging-up rain jacket. I remember a special feeling of, "I need to remember this dream." When I woke up, I found my nametag on the right side of my rain jacket, accompanied by a strong and clear impression that that was a specific tender mercy from God to show His love for me and to encourage me despite the workload, connecting those two elements of the previous night's prayer. God is in the details.

Please pray for Moises, Lidia, and Carolina, that they can develop and act upon testimonies that the Book of Mormon is true.

I love you all!! Thank you so much for your prayers. They are very felt here in the field.

Happy, grateful, lucky and blessed,

Elder Child 😊

One Amazing Week

Dear people I love,

This week has absolutely flown, and I am so grateful to be a servant of the Lord. Two days of interviews, a multi-zone conference, and a baptism have kept us on our toes for sure, and I feel like I'm learning, growing, and developing. Definitely getting a lot of lessons I didn't know I needed 😊

Ling got baptized!! I am so grateful she got to make covenants with the Lord. It was my first chance to see someone I'm teaching do so since March of 2020, and as such, I was reflecting on what makes baptismal experiences so amazing. I like thinking about how it's the knowledge and the faith that we have. Seeing a baptism would be just seeing someone get wet if not for our knowledge and faith that Priesthood power has been restored and that our eternal progression requires ordenances and covenants.

I'm in a trio again, Elder Baird has come into the office to be our referral secretary, bringing our secretary total to five. I'll still be with Elder Romero for at least a couple more months, and we are just living the dream. I'm super excited to continue learning from and working with both of them.

We need your prayers for more missionaries. The Peruvian government still won't process new visas, and President Holt is going through the painful process of deciding which towns and wards can survive without missionaries for now. We're down to about 60 missionaries, and by the end of the year we could drop as low as 40.

Life is amazing! I know that this Church is true. That is the most precious knowledge I have. Jesus is our Savior, and we are eternal beings on the road to eternal fulfillment if we make and keep our covenants. In the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

Happy, grateful, lucky and blessed,

Elder Child 😊

Blessed Beyond Measure

Hello my beloved friends and family!

Words cannot describe the joy it is to be a full-time servant of the Lord, nor can they do justice to the importance of the work of gathering Israel. What a blessing it is to be able to put our shoulder to the wheel, each in his or her own way, as we work to help people to come unto Christ.

A couple recent miracles! We made a new friend this week, Ling, whose aunt is a member of the Church. She came out of the blue with a message that her aunt wanted to return to activity in the Church and that she wanted to be baptized. It's such a joy to work with people that are just prepared to receive truth. We can also use prayers for Moisés, who needs some help to soften his heart and accept that this is the Church of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your prayers and everything that each of you is doing to help people come to Him :)

I'M GOING TO GET TO DO PROXY WORK IN THE TEMPLE!!! In a couple weeks, it will be my first time in the temple since February of last year. I'm deeply excited.

A gospel insight from this week. The last part of the Restoration will be the Second Coming. I hadn't thought of those two as being the same thing, but they really are. The Restoration will be complete when and only when Jesus Christ's literal presence is restored to the Earth, along with the restoration of the complete organization of the Zion society that we will be, restoring a level of universal righteous living not seen since perhaps the post-ministry Nephites or the City of Enoch.

I've also learned a lot in the last month about repentance. God is far more patient with us than we could ever be with ourselves, and He desires nothing for us besides our happiness and progression. He wants us to become like Him, and to do so, we need to avoid wallowing in our imperfections and instead intentionally and constantly improve. Satan would have us stop progressing because of our weaknesses; God wants us to use our weaknesses to become humble and Christ-like and to constantly improve. How blessed we are!

A huge story this past month has been the transition between presidents. President and Sister Richey have served faithfully and wonderfully in Lima South for the last three years. I've learned so much from them and am so grateful for their decision to leave their country, their language, and their family for a time in order to minister to and bless the lives of a lot of people in Peru. I'll be forever grateful for what I've learned from them. We've now been a couple weeks with President and Sister Holt. Being in the office (and them being vaccinated), I've been able to spend quite a bit of time with them, and I am super excited for what they're going to do for the Peru Lima South Mission. I am inspired by their willingness to serve and their love for the Lord. A moment I will never forget was on the Zoom call when President was being introduced to the mission. Talking about his feelings of insufficiency, he was emotional to the point of not being able to get words out. He recovered to get out "pero tengo fe y sé cómo trabajar", "but I have faith and I know how to work," followed by, "and that's all the Lord needs." Another big emotional point was him relating, in front of his wife (but she doesn't speak Spanish yet), that he would have gotten nowhere in life without her. It was powerful and inspiring. I'm definitely learning from him things I'm going to need to honor my future wife.

One friend we had absolutely broke down crying on a phone call when we told her that her son, who had recently passed away due to COVID and had not been the biggest believer in God, was being taught by missionaries on the other side of the veil. Restored truths can absolutely change lives. It was abundantly clear to me that the words chosen by the missionary who shared that truth were inspired by the Spirit.

I love my life! This work is true. It is more than evident that angels, both seen and unseen, are working with us and bearing us up as we go about inviting people to let God prevail in their lives. I love all of you, thank you for everything you're doing. Please continue to bless the lives of those around you.

Grateful,

Elder Child

Service, Progression, Focus

Hey everyone!

Sorry it's been a few weeks since I've gotten a weekly out. I'm doing fantastic down here. Life is crazy but wonderful; it's been a time of a lot of growth and I'm sure way more miracles than I've been able to keep track of.

First off, a cool lesson that the Spirit (re-)taught me last week that I wanted to share. I was thinking about the balance between praying for myself and my personal progression to become a better disciple of Christ, be fortified in my trials, etc.; and praying for others, so that they can receive all of the same. Both are crucial, but I had frankly been focusing a bit too much on the former and not enough on the latter. The thought that clearly came to my mind as I was praying was something along the following lines:

"There is no purpose in your personal progression if it does not augment your capacity and disposition to serve others."

I think in the general sense that might be a bit of an oversimplification, but for me it was what I needed to hear and helped me immensely. I hope that pondering on it can help you as well.

Life in the office is going great! I'm learning a ton about finances and time management and housing and organizational skills and having an office job (including managing relationships in a business-like setting) and all of the above. It's really a different dynamic, but it's led to a ton of growth and learning, and I'm definitely grateful for it.

We could use some prayers for Charly, a friend of ours that is deciding whether or not he wants to commit to making baptismal covenants with God.

This Church is true! I know it with my whole soul. Happy Father's Day! You can always ask my parents for my pictures.

Happy, grateful, lucky and blessed,

Elder Child

Happy days, all is well!

This week has been one of a lot of growth for sure. I'm getting into a rhythm of getting all the pertinent financial tasks done and still squeezing in time to share the gospel. One tender mercy: In truth, the pandemic is the best time to get landed in the office, because our office is an hour outside the mission. So, to get to our proselyting area is an hour there and an hour back. However, because all missionary work is being done over the phone, we can actually get nearly as much time in as a normal companionship, which is a huge blessing.

Super out of time, love you all! Did some touristy stuff this preparation day and the pictures don't want to unzip for some reason.

Happy, grateful, lucky and blessed,

Elder Child

Goal-focused living

Hey everyone!

Today's email is to be focused on focus. I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my voice memo last week, but I've been pondering on this a lot recently, as with all the craziness of getting transferred twice in the space of a week and the adjustments to a new mission culture (and the fact that I'm now in an apartment of five), I've not been doing great at having written, specific goals for how I want to progress each day and week. As a result, I've really been able to see, starkly contrasted, the difference between living according to goals and not, and I want to testify that progress occurs much more consistently if we progress intentionally. The mission is, of course, extremely goal-focused, and I know that that's inspired, because this work is being directed by the Lord. I had a good personal goal-setting session this morning though; I'd love to hear what goals have helped you in your life and/or mission!

Miracles are happening here in Peru!! We've only been allowed to baptize for a few months down here, so this ought to be taken with a 7-month-backlog-sized grain of salt, but baptisms have been way higher in my mission during the past few months than they were before the pandemic. Instead of us knocking doors, people are knocking down the proverbial Facebook ones to get our message. In neither of my areas so far have we done any contacting whatsoever; there's often not enough time to teach all the people that are contacting us.

We could use some prayers for Wendy, Mary, and Moisés. Thank you for all of your prayers. They are extremely felt.

This is the Lord's work! I know it's true. Truth is truth, we can know it, and the Spirit testifies of it.

Love you all!

Elder Child

Miracles and Obedience!

I love my life!

Hey all, happy Mothers' Day!! I am so unbelievably grateful to be a missionary :) short on time so made a voice memo. Love you all!

Elder Child

This is the Lord's work

Hello dear friends and family, 

I am so grateful to be a missionary! I love my life and my Savior. I'm learning so much and am so grateful for the chance I have to constantly change as a person and help others to come unto Christ. I know that this work is His. He directs it. 

One little miracle! I message-contacted someone on Facebook (who turned out to be a member), and it wound up being the exact moment that she needed help. She was very happy about the prospect of an uplifting spiritual message from the missionaries in her hard time. I asked her what was making things so hard, and it turned out (on top of a lot of other things), her son was about to fail math! So, that turned into an on-the-spot tutoring session. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and He will use our unique gifts and talents to do so, even when it's something like enjoying math.

Another pair of miracles. This isn't all new, but I haven't put it in my weekly. Turns out when I got transferred here, my comp had just barely gotten symptomatic with covid. Then within the next week and a half, the other two elders we live with got sick. I had gotten the first vaccine just three days before transfers. We looked into it, and it turns out that the antibodies often take only a couple days to develop! (those with medical knowledge correct me if further explanation is needed). I never got sick even a little bit, even though I spent most of three weeks with three contagious, symptomatic, sick elders, a miracle we put down to my having gotten vaccinated just in time. Then, we had an answer to prayer with them approving my waiver to get the second dose a few days early so as to be able to get it and recover before leaving the country! Prayers are answered and we're being looked out for. 

Next week I'll be writing from Peru! This week's going to be a little crazy what with transit, prep, and accommodations, but it'll be okay. This last week was a little crazy with quarantine, but that's okay too. I'm learning more and more every day how to be a better missionary and give more to the Lord.

Thanks for your thoughts, emails, and prayers! Sorry I haven't gotten to answering all of them. 

Happy, grateful, lucky and blessed, 

Elder Child

Re: A Quick Klein Stopby

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Peru!!! Yay!

On Mon, Apr 19, 2021 at 4:58 PM Elijah Child <elijah.child@missionary.org> wrote:

Well, this will be pretty quick. First and foremost, I love being a missionary! This life is one of constant growth, becoming more like my Savior, serving people, loving as completely as I can, and working to help others to come unto Christ. I absolutely love it, and it's the same work wherever we go. 

Second of all, I'm going back to Peru! I'll be back April 30. I'm super excited :) 

I'm not sure if I mentioned in my last weekly, but I did also just get transferred. So I'll only be in the Klein Oak ward for a total of three weeks and three days, but I'm super grateful for the time I have here and am doing my best to give my everything to invite others to come unto Christ. It's fascinating being in an English ward and seeing it from the missionary side. I've grown up in English wards, but it's quite different being the missionaries here. 

My new comp is Elder Salgado, from California, who grew up speaking both English and Spanish, which is super fun to be around.

One cool quick spiritual thought for this week, a math-related one. The nature of infinity teaches us that if we had an infinite sequence of random letters, it is 100% probable that that sequence, at some point, contains the complete works of Shakespeare, as well as Websters dictionary and any other finite sequence of letters. In Alma 34:9-10, Amulek very clearly teaches that any finite sacrifice could not have done what the Atonement of Jesus Christ did. What Christ did was infinite. To me, it makes sense that the same principle would apply. Christ's Atonement is so deep and infinite that it not only includes the pain and price of everything that humanity has done but the pain and probability of everything that we could ever possibly do, every possible lifetime combination of pain, sin, injury, and suffering. To me this makes sense, but I don't necessarily have doctrine to back it up. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! (inspiration credit for this week's insight goes to Sister Lucy Ward and Elder Wilkins). 

We're seeing miracles. This work is the Lord's. 

Happy, grateful, lucky, and blessed, 

Elder Child

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To see all of Elder Child's email, see https://elderelichildinperu.blogspot.com/
 
Elder Child loves to get notes. Please send them to elijah.child@missionary.org.
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A Quick Klein Stopby

Well, this will be pretty quick. First and foremost, I love being a missionary! This life is one of constant growth, becoming more like my Savior, serving people, loving as completely as I can, and working to help others to come unto Christ. I absolutely love it, and it's the same work wherever we go. 

Second of all, I'm going back to Peru! I'll be back April 30. I'm super excited :) 

I'm not sure if I mentioned in my last weekly, but I did also just get transferred. So I'll only be in the Klein Oak ward for a total of three weeks and three days, but I'm super grateful for the time I have here and am doing my best to give my everything to invite others to come unto Christ. It's fascinating being in an English ward and seeing it from the missionary side. I've grown up in English wards, but it's quite different being the missionaries here. 

My new comp is Elder Salgado, from California, who grew up speaking both English and Spanish, which is super fun to be around.

One cool quick spiritual thought for this week, a math-related one. The nature of infinity teaches us that if we had an infinite sequence of random letters, it is 100% probable that that sequence, at some point, contains the complete works of Shakespeare, as well as Websters dictionary and any other finite sequence of letters. In Alma 34:9-10, Amulek very clearly teaches that any finite sacrifice could not have done what the Atonement of Jesus Christ did. What Christ did was infinite. To me, it makes sense that the same principle would apply. Christ's Atonement is so deep and infinite that it not only includes the pain and price of everything that humanity has done but the pain and probability of everything that we could ever possibly do, every possible lifetime combination of pain, sin, injury, and suffering. To me this makes sense, but I don't necessarily have doctrine to back it up. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! (inspiration credit for this week's insight goes to Sister Lucy Ward and Elder Wilkins). 

We're seeing miracles. This work is the Lord's. 

Happy, grateful, lucky, and blessed, 

Elder Child

Deep thoughts and transfers

Greetings from down South! 

I love my life :) I was thinking this week a lot about just how much of a blessing it is to be a full-time missionary. I love just serving, loving, and teaching people with all my time and effort. It's wonderful to be in the Lord's service.

Updates on my life: I got transferred and live in Spring now. Life is pretty fantastic here, and it's really interesting to be in an English ward for the first time as a missionary. My new comp is Elder Salgado, and we've been having a great time together. 

One deep thought and one deep question:

We talk a lot about our body's five senses. Then there's the kinematic sense for #6. I think that knowing the plan of salvation, we can actually add a couple more, spiritual senses. This list is far from comprehensive, I'd love your thoughts.

     The first we add is the truth sense. We as spirits and intelligences can sense truth, especially divine, religious truth, when we are presented with it. This is otherwise described as the light of Christ.

     Next is the revelation sense. There's something that feels different when the Spirit is speaking to us, something different from anything we can experience with the first seven.

Both senses have to be learned and are imperfect and develop as we learn to use them and gain experience about what it is that we learn through them, just as sight or hearing or smell. So the list of "senses of the soul" is sitting at eight so far, but I'm sure there are more you could add to the list. I'd love your thoughts! 

Interesting question. I've been and will be studying this as well. How did Christ's Resurrection make our own possible? Again, I'd love your thoughts. 

Thanks for the emails, the prayers, and doing the things you're doing to gather Israel! This is the work of God.

Happy, grateful, lucky and blessed, 

Elder Child

Wonderful Westgreen

Hello all! 

My life is wonderful. I'm so happy to be a missionary and feel enriched every day by feeling of the Lord's love for those around me. 

I am so grateful for living prophets! This past weekend, we got the chance to listen to the Lord's prophet, and for me it was a powerful testimiony-bulilder. I know that this Church is led by Jesus Christ through men called of Him to receive revelation for the whole world. We are so blessed to live in this the last dispensation!

One interesting thought I wanted to share. For context, during my time in Peru, President Nelson invited us in the NASW area to share, as the first part of the Book of Mormon that our friends are invited to read, 3 Nephi 11. From that point on, every time we taught someone about the Book of Mormon, we would invite them to read 3 Nephi 11 and pray to know of the truth of the book. I was recently reflecting on why it was that that of all chapters might be the first we are to invite people to read. It could be explained in many ways, but here's an explanation that just occurred to me. 3 Nephi 11 is really the keystone of the Book of Mormon. The book's writers spent 600 years prophesying of Christ and then 400 years testifying of Him. If He hadn't come down after His Resurrection, the entire book would be rather erroneous. Thus, the truth of the entire book rises and falls with the fact that Jesus Christ fulfills His promises, including visiting the ancient Americas as the prophets testified He would. 

I'm getting transferred! Westgreen has been a miraculous place to work, learn, and share the light of the gospel of Christ for two transfers. I've really loved my time here and am excited to find out where I'm heading tomorrow. 

I got vaccinated and don't think I ever got Covid, so that's a little miracle. 

Happy Easter :) I know that Jesus Christ lives. Easter is such an incredible holiday. Texas is very Christian, and it's been inspiring to see so many people trying to bring Him into their lives in so many ways. Everyone deserves the truth, too, and we're doing our very best to share it with them. Among those truths, I know that because He lives, we will all live again, and because He chose to suffer for our sins, we can be cleansed and come to live as perfected beings forever with our families. I am so grateful to know these eternal truths. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Love you all! Happy, grateful, lucky, and blessed, 

Elder Child

Why does repentance work?

What a week!! I have absolutely loved being an imperfect and improving missionary and a full-time representative of Jesus Christ. 

Here's a few deep thoughts. I more fully learned some cool stuff about how exactly Christ makes repentance possible for us. Before Wednesday, if someone had asked me that question: "Why does repentance work; how is it that Christ takes upon Himself our sins, and why can that rid us of our guilt?", my response would have been something along the lines of the following:

     There is a great law of justice that is incontrovertible. We as humanity have committed an unfathomable amount of sin, and in order for us to be freed from the guilt of it, someone without sin had to suffer a correspondingly unfathomable price to balance the heavenly scale.

I still love that way of answering the question, but I learned a different way of thinking about it that I hope may be of benefit to you. Same question, second answer:

     We are eternal beings of light and truth. Although we may not recognize it consciously, our spirit understands perfectly when it is unclean, which we experience as guilt whenever we act inconsistently with the natural principles of intelligence, correctness, and truth outlined in the commandments of God. We understand that for every sin there is a price, and our guilt is alleviated by the *knowledge* that that price has been paid, rather than through the balancing of a celestial ledger. 

The difference between the two is slight, but for me it was very thought-provoking. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well! 

Here's a few of the milagros that went down in the Great Republic of Texas this week.

Saturday night, Hermana Anzora had a dream about Raiza and Eduardo, a couple of her friends that we taught for the last time in January. She invited them Sunday morning to hop onto zoom church and... they did!! Then, the last speaker closed his talk with Psalms 23:4, a scripture that randomly turned out to be super personally significant for Eduardo and he was super touched. Little miracles, God is in the details :) 

Jairo is progressing well towards his baptismal date of April 10! He came to church for the second time yesterday, and he had a really positive experience. I really loved seeing how he and some other friends of ours, including some new members that just moved in, were just welcomed so enthusiastically by the ward. It's pretty incredible how much the gospel and the Church can create community and turn people into loving neighbors and caring friends.

We hadn't heard a peep from Alexi for two weeks till fifteen minutes into Sacrament Meeting when he just walked in. Said he hadn't been planning on coming to church that day but kinda just did.

I'm loving learning, growing, serving, and changing here in the mission! I feel so incredibly blessed. Life is wonderful. Difficulties and imperfections are part of growth. 

Until next week! 

Elder Child

Just Beyond Blessed

Hey all!

This week was so great! I've learned a ton about the Plan of Salvation, hope, forgiveness, and effective missionary work. I'm so grateful for my life and for my Savior Jesus Christ.

One cool insight from studies this week. We are so blessed to have bodies! I've often taught the necessity of bodies in the Plan of Salvation somewhat like this: God is our Father, and He has a body; therefore to become perfect and like Him, we also need perfect, glorified, resurrected bodies. All true, but our bodies, more than just being part of mortality, are in many ways the vehicle by which our perfection is achieved. It's through our bodies that we are able to be tempted and tried, have weakness, experience pain, and put forth effort. It's through our miraculous brains that our spirit and the Spirit are able to even interact with our body. In so many ways, our bodies are like perfectly designed little learn-to-progress kits that were perfectly prepared for us by our loving Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ. So cool! 

We could use prayers this week for Hector and Jairo. Both have circumstances that need to be overcome and testimony that needs to be gained in order for them to make covenants with God through baptism. Thank you for all your prayers and support. Miracles are being worked out here, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I love my life! This is Christ's church. I feel so blessed to be able to share the message of the Restoration of His gospel with everyone I meet, and I learn more about that message and its importance every day. I could not be in a better place right now. 

Love you all :) 

Elder Child

Miracles are being worked

Hey all!

What a joy it is to be a part of this miraculous work! The past two weeks, I've been so grateful for the evidences I've seen that miracles are being worked: according to our faith, by the Lord's power, and through revelation. I can testify that God is always willing, through the Spirit, to dispense the knowledge and wisdom we need to work the miracles necessary for the blessing of those around us. These past couple weeks, I've been especially impressed by how much that's carried out through our studies. The Lord is ready and waiting to guide us, through revelation, to work miracles, and if we have the faith, they will be.

Elder Price and I saw that in action this week in our first visit with Sendy. She had been going through some really difficult things. We were just getting to know her, and Elder Price, led by the Spirit, started talking about the Footsteps in the Sand poem. She disappeared into her house and came out not two seconds later with a framed copy of it. She doesn't speak English. Apparently she had owned that poem for years but only that afternoon, after getting back from something very difficult, did she feel prompted to Google translate it. That was when she told us God had sent us.

Another instance where we felt an extreme measure of the guiding influence of the Holy Ghost was in a lesson with Hector and Anthony. Hector has been attending church unbaptized for 20+ years, and Anthony, his son, is working on his mission papers. We felt directed to share Chapter 1 of Preach My Gospel as a lesson directed towards Anthony, and we invited Hector to receive missionary lessons taught by his son, discussing his genuine concerns and doubts, as a way of helping his son prepare for his mission. The Spirit was felt powerfully in that room as we testified about the importance of missionary work. The next day, Hector accepted. We NEED your prayers for both of them. 

I'm so grateful to be a missionary!!! I love my life and know that this is the work of exaltation. Some incredible things have been worked by the Lord this week through His servants. What a privilege it is to represent the prophets and Apostles working out here :) 

For all those that have been following the situation down here in Texas, thanks for your thoughts and prayers. It was a little crazy last week, but we were fine (I just got a little caught up playing basketball to send a weekly out 😂). The worst that happened to us was a night where it got a bit chilly and going two or three days without a shower. Prayers were definitely answered on that front, and the Lord protects the missionaries. Some other folks have gone through crazy things though, I've never seen the food bank line as long as it was on Thursday, and Walmart is still rationing milk and water sales. 

I love you all! Thanks for your prayers and for the work you're doing. Please pray for the revelation that YOU need to work the miracles God's preparing for those around you, through you.

Happy, grateful, lucky, and blessed,

Elder Child 

What a wonderful work!

 I feel so happy, grateful, lucky, and blessed to be in the Lord's service! This is an incredible work, and we see miracles every day out here as we work to invite people to come unto Christ. A few of those:

Juan got a baptismal date! He's not grown up believing in Christ, and he's so excited to now center his life on that, and he is so motivated by wanting those blessings for his daughter as well. Where his daughter is at, there aren't missionaries, so the responsibility of teaching her about Christ and the Church has kind of fallen to him, as we're teaching him those same things. God works in mysterious ways, and He finds ways to work miracles for His children, no matter what part of the world they may be in. 

This week we had an incredible mission-wide multi-zone. I was very impressed about how we need to treat Facebook as sacred ground when it's used for missionary work. We were helped on how to work more effectively through social media and to contact our referrals promptly; it's exciting to see how the work is going to continue to progress through more and more exciting methods. That multi-zone also included some rule adjustments that I think will be very helpful for our missionaries to stay more consecrated and focused on the work. 

We had a visit with Travis this week, and I think the guy might be the most humble and repentant person I've ever met. His family are all diligent, very active members, but he's been a little bit off-track for a few years. He's now preparing to get his patriarchal blessing, get the Melchizedek Priesthood, and get out on a mission, and hearing just how strongly he wants to turn his life around gave me new understanding about the Savior's power to change lives. He's there for us, and no matter how far we've gone, His grace is sufficient for us to turn it around. I know that's true. 

Stake Conference was yesterday! It was absolutely wonderful. The visiting Area Seventy at one point, completely impromptu, had the entire two zones of missionaries present go up to the front and sing Called to Serve, and the Spirit was palpable. I got to play the piano for the missionaries-only session of Conference, which was incredible in its own right. My testimony of the power of my calling and the importance of this work has been fortified immensely. I'm so grateful to be here.

I've been studying humility this week, and I've definitely been called to repentance; it's been awesome. Here's one interesting insight: We should never think of how good we need to be as a bar to clear. If there was a bar, the only one to clear it would be our Savior, and if we ever are thinking about how we've done "enough," our thoughts aren't focused in the right direction. Rather, what the Lord asks of us is our absolute everything, and our thoughts ought always to be focused on how we can give Him more. This doesn't mean we should be dissatisfied though. We can be overwhelmingly happy and content if we are progressing, instead of being impatient with our imperfections. 

It snowed like 2 inches, and the entire city is shut down, and we aren't allowed to drive . 

I love my life! Emails are very appreciated, can read them whenever during the week :) 

Happy, grateful, lucky, and blessed, 

Elder Child

Consecration, little by little

Today I want to testify about the power of consecration. As missionaries and as disciples of Christ, if we strive and give our best, our will can be brought more in line with God's every day. That's been something I've seen repeatedly this week. With several specific items, as I've prayed for help, I'm becoming more and more the missionary I want to be and more the one that God wants me to be. I know that God changes us if we're willing to work for it.

Couple miracles! Oscarin was this random guy we called that had been taught a long time ago by missionaries. He had moved but had been wanting to get back to the Church, but didnt know how to get in touch with the missionaries in his new area. We called him, and he's so excited! He's now meeting with the sister missionaries somewhere in South Houston. Also we didn't get covid, or if we did we didn't get sick! Huge miracle since we were definitely exposed, but our quarantine just ended.

Love you all! Sorry I didn't get to most emails this week, pday got way busy. I'm so so grateful to be a missionary! I know this is God's work :) 

Until next week, 

Elder Child

Charity and Consecration

I love my life! I'm so grateful and lucky to be a missionary. This is the work of the Lord, and we're helping people progress towards eternal happiness. That I know to be true. 

A few highlights from this week: I've been studying charity, among a lot of other things, and I learned a lot. Some impressions have been the importance of praying, as Mormon counsels us, with all the energy of heart that we possess so that we can be filled with that love. I also learned a lot about how Christ demonstrated charity; one of the favorite ponder bits was Christ's counsel of, "greater man hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends," compared with how He gave His life for even His bitterest enemies. It's also so important to have charity with ourselves. Sometimes we can be so much more negative and hard on ourselves than we ever would be on our loved ones; love thy neighbor as thyself" has two parts. 

Aside from that, we could really use prayers so that we can find more people to teach! We're struggling with that right now. I'd also love to hear any insights from your scripture study, general life updates, or cool ideas for videos that could be used to do missionary work you have. 

Love you all! Thank you for your prayers; they're very felt, and thank you for however you're participating in missionary work, wherever you're at. Open your mouth, and it will be filled. This is the Church of Jesus Christ! The house of Israel is being gathered. 

With charity, 

Elder Child

Blessed to be a missionary

Hi everyone!

I feel so incredibly grateful to be a missionary! This is the work of the Lord, and we are so lucky to be able to participate in it, even when it involves spending large amounts of time in the apartment.

Here's a few highlights from this week:

On preparation day, we went and played basketball with some of the priests in the ward, as a contacting activity since a couple of their friends were nonmembers. Nothing's come of it yet, but we can keep hoping and working :) 

I watched this wonderful training on how to better work with members! The big takeaway was that member missionary work doesn't always have to be missionary work; sometimes it can just be being friends, letting your friends meet the missionaries, and then letting the missionaries do the hard part: inviting your friends to learn more. We're super stoked to start putting more of these principles into practice as we're working with the members.

I spoke in Church this week, along with the two other elders that are new to the ward with me (including my comp; not sure if I mentioned we're whitewashing). I spoke about the reasons I decided to serve a mission, and it was a very powerful experience for me. I'm so grateful that I'm serving a mission. It's such a blessing.

Honestly, this was a hard week. We don't have anyone that's really progressing and kinda didn't have anyone come to Church yesterday. It's given me a chance, however, to testify of the truthfulness of the promise at the end of Chapter 1 of Preach My Gospel: that even when we're disappointed that people aren't choosing to receive these blessings, we don't have to be disappointed in ourselves, if we're giving our everything. I'm very grateful for how much I've been able to grow and progress, as a person and as a missionary, this week.

I know this Church is true! I'm so grateful to pertain to it :) 

Until next week, 

Elder Child

I'm back

Hello everyone!

After spending as much time at home as I did in Peru, I am officially a set-apart, full-time servant of the Lord once again, and I could not be more grateful. I love the work. It's very different in some ways, but very the same in all the most important ones. We do lots of Facebook finding here as well as working with members; still not allowed to knock doors or street contact.

My new companion is Elder Price, a super chill rugby player from Boise. We're whitewashing in a Spanish ward (and a Spanish stake) in Katy, Texas. We love our ward! The people here are so cool, and the members are so incredibly supportive of missionary work. It's inspiring :) 

This week I've been pondering about goal setting, as I'm starting a new year of missionary work and the second half of my mission. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on good missionary goal-setting, in terms of the longer-term goals. I'd also love anyone and everyone's thoughts on how best to find new people to teach in the current covid world!

As a freshly set apart new elder, I'd like to start off this new email by bearing my testimony. I know this work is the work of God. This Church is Jesus Christ's. God is our Father, and through our Savior, we can be healed, whatever our maladies may be. This is the work of salvation; we're gathering Israel. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I can read email at any time during the week, but I won't respond till Monday, so write away. Love you all!

Elder Child