My time here in the mission is quickly
coming to a close. But we had a good week, and we’re going to keep working
with the time I have left.

Monday: We visited some families that my companion knows here in Arequipa.
Everyone else in the Zone went to Chivay. My companion has gone a few times
already, and I lived there, so we decided not to go with everyone else.
Sadly, nobody was home at night to visit. We just did some street
contacting.

Tuesday: We had our monthly Zone Conference. We also visited the Cruz
family. They’re all excited about the baptism!

Wednesday: We found a new investigator today. He seems interested.
Hopefully he reads the pamphlet we gave him and thinks on it. There were
more birthday parties this week. 2 of them today. We could only go to 1 of
them though. They gave us a huge plate of food. I gave my American candies
as a gift. Our new investigator from last week, Manuel, is reading his Book
of Mormon! He’s also praying! He’s also going to come to the baptism on
Saturday to see what it’s like!

Thursday: We set in stone everything for the baptism today. Then at night
we had a Multi-Zone Conference with the bishops in the stake and President
Zobrist. It went well. We talked about the Area Plan from the local 70.
They want us to focus on family history work and helping the youth
strengthen their testimonies. The youth are being attacked spiritually and
if they aren’t prepared, they won’t be able to complete their eternal
destiny.

Friday: In the morning, we helped a member carry 250 bricks onto her roof.
Obviously not all at the same time, so we walked up and down a lot of
stairs. We met another new investigator today. He’s actually from Chivay.
And it turns out that his cousin is the owner of the restaurant where we
had our Church meetings. However, the investigator didn’t know that Mormons
existed in Chivay. He’s a very honest man and had good questions for us. He
wants to read the Book of Mormon, so we’re going to visit him again this
week.

Saturday: We had to hand wash the baptismal clothes this morning to get
ready for the baptism. Luckily they dried in time for the baptism. Then we
visited a less active youth who hasn’t come to Church in a long time. He
was happy to see us, though. We went to the Church and filled the font
(this time it didn’t overflow). Then we had the baptism! Almost all of the
family was there, plus a few members. And our investigator, Manuel, did
come! After the baptism, we went to visit him. He said that he wants to be
baptized July 9!

Sunday: We were able to take the Sacrament again after 2 weeks today. One
week we had Stake Conference. Then last week we had elections here in Peru.
Also, because of those two events, this week was Fast Sunday for us. We had
9 investigators at Church today! It was great. The Cruz family was there,
and we did the confirmation. In the afternoon, we visited the family of old
investigators that we found. Sadly, they didn’t read the Book of Mormon.
But we explained it to them again, and they committed to read it. We’re
going to go back and verify during the week.

That’s about it for my week! Hope everyone else had a good one! Enjoy
summer break!

-Elder Kehoe