We had an interesting week! Very
busy like always.

Monday: We had a free P-Day. Everyone just did their own thing. We
went and look around at the Cachina. It’s a huge flea market with
super cheap things because the people come from Chile to sell, or
something like that. We didn’t find anything too interesting. The
Elders like to go and find neck ties. They’re usually like 1 Sole,
which is like 30 cents. We went in the afternoon, though, so most of
the venders had already left. Then we just kind of chilled in the
afternoon. At 10:30, we went to the bus station with the Zone. We
needed to travel to Arequipa to have interviews with President, learn
about the new Family History Center in Arequipa, and learn about the
new English Program in the mission. We left Tacna at about 11:00 pm.

Tuesday: We got to Arequipa at about 5:45. We all just slept the whole
time. From the bus station, we went to the mission home. We ate
breakfast there and all got ready for the training we were going to
have. We all went to the new Family History Center together. It’s the
first Family History Center in the entire South America North West
area, which is pretty cool. We got trained on how to use
FamilySearch.com and everything to be able to help our investigators
and recent converts send names to the Temple. We also learned about
the new English program we’re going to be using. And during all of
that, President Zobrist was interviewing us one by one. It was the
first, one on one, sit down interview I’ve had with President. I’ve
had 2 others, but they were with my companion. Everything went fine.
Haha, the whole time I was there at the Center, they had me cleaning
viruses off of the computers. We ate lots of pizza for lunch. We left
to come back to Tacna at about 4:00. Then the bus broke down on the
way. We were stuck for a little while. Then it started working again.
Then it broke down… again. We were waiting some more, then another
bus came to bring us the rest of the way. A couple other Elders and I
had to stand in the aisle for the last hour of the trip. We got to our
room at midnight, very, very tired.

Wednesday: We were tired from only getting 6 hours of sleep. Now I
know how important it is to sleep 8 hours a night. We worked like
normal, though. Nothing too exciting happened.

Thursday: It was another normal day. We went and planned for the next
week with all the Elders and got some stuff ready for the activity we
had planned for Friday.

Friday: We had an activity! It was all centered on families. We made
little invitations and handed them out to all the members. For those
that came, we took pictures of their families together. Nobody has
family pictures here. Everyone in the States has them. Member or
non-Member, they have a picture of the family in the house. Here, they
don’t. So we wanted to start that. We talked abou the importance of
families, shared some Mormon Message videos, and took their pictures.
We’re going to print the pictures and hand them out this week. We’re
going to be helping them do their family history work, too.

Saturday: I got the birthday cards! Besides that, nothing super
exciting. We went and visited a less active and her mom that we ran
into one night in the street. We had a good lesson with them. We
talked about the importance of attending Church, taking the Sacrament,
and praying.

Sunday: Fast Sunday. Many members forgot that this week was fast
Sunday instead of the next because of the Conference. Testimony
meeting went well, though. The less active that we visited’s mom bore
her testimony. She talked about how great it was to have the
missionaries in her house and to be able to talk with them. She said
it was a huge blessing. We weren’t trying to do anything like that; we
just decided to visit them for a little bit. But the seemingly little
things we do can have a really big impact on others, both for good and
bad.

Sunday miracle: We need new investigators in our area. We’ve been
looking for a long time and haven’t really found anyone. Before we
left our room to go out and work, my companion and I said a prayer
together like we always do. It was my turn to pray. While I said the
prayer, the idea came to me. “Pray to find new investigators. Not only
investigators, but a whole family.” I thought about it for a little
bit. My faith wavered. “Can I really ask that?” “What happens if I
pray for that and it doesn’t happen?” I asked myself. But I decided to
do it. I asked God to help us find a new family of investigators. I
didn’t know what to expect or what would happen, but I asked. We left
and contacted for a little bit. While we were walking to another house
to contact, we saw a couple people working outside. They were building
a wall. We offered to help them. Like always, they told us, “No. It’s
okay. You’ll get dirty.” We told them it didn’t matter and that we
would just wash our clothes, like we always tell them, but they
insisted that they didn’t need help. And that’s how it always happens.
Nobody ever wants to accept our help, but that’s not the miracle. We
stayed there talking to them for a little bit. They knew that we were
Mormons. Their brother or cousin or something is a member. He came
home from his mission early and is less active now, but at least they
know something about the Church. We kept talking. Basically just small
talk. Turns out, they’re a family! It was the mom, dad, and their 2
daughters! And they said they’d like to listen to us! We set up an
appointment to visit them and their daughters! They were the new
investigator family that I prayed for 15 minutes earlier! The Lord
does hear our prayers. But He does more than that, He answers them,
too.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week! Enjoy the General Conference!

-Elder Kehoe