8 August 2011 Three spiritual highlights this week

Dear Family.   Well, this week has been a week of testifying like crazies. All the people who we could teach and visit and pray with, prayed giving thanks to God for sending us. An especially great example was a lesson on Tuesday. Wow!  We knocked on the door and heard a man say, "Open the door, you."  His wife came, obviously directly from sleeping and opened the door. She said, "Yes?" We briefly said, "We have come to bless your lives." She said "One moment," and went in, prepared the room a little and came back to let us in. She said her husband was from a different religion and didn't want to listen so we would have to forgive him to my companion, while I walked to the other side of the room and spotted the husband in the back. I animated [encouraged] him to come join us just for the prayer and he was like ok, just the prayer because I have to go to a meeting. So we came into the front room and asked if there was anything they wanted us to pray about, and prayed. The spirit came strongly as we went through a little bit of the How to Start Teaching part of Preach My Gospel in chapter 10. That's when I asked the husband if he would have time to listen to us, and he said, "Why not, of course it is important to listen to this message from God. So we taught and testified and it was awesome. The wife had received all the lessons before turning 18 years old and wanted to be baptized but her dad said, "NO." Now we shall hope.   I am right now in Arequipa for another of the Zone Leader counsels. Pretty excited. In the Office I saw Elder Mateus!!!!! and Hermana Pinillos from the district in Tacna. Elder Mateus told me that Gerald Calderon who we taught so much was baptized the Saturday after I left?¿? I think my leaving kind of shocked him and made him realize that he KNEW he should get baptized, and that he actually had a testimony of all the comandments he had decided to start living and that it meant something. He had a car repair shop, and when we got there, the walls were full of pictures that were not ok. My favorite moment with him was when we taught about the Law of Chastity and all of a sudden he stood up and said, "OK, letss go rip all those pictures off the wall." I was nervous what his reaction would be. He said, "Nooo! They are for the customers. Let's wait a week.  Noo!" We pointed out how ridiculous his reaction was and we reminded him that he knew that they are no good. The next day all of the about 80 pictures were gone. When people do things that the light of Christ tells them are right, it is the VERY sweetest.   Visiting a member this week we also had a very awesome moment. We invited her to share her testimony. She said, "Well, Elders. So you know before coming to know the gospel I wasn't very learned. I didnt know how to read before.. I learned to read with the Book of Mormon. When I first started receiving the lessons I didn't really understand very much but it felt good and I did what the missionaries invited me to do. Then she told of her experience praying and it was quite powerful. So many people don't believe that we can really know if these things are true by prayer.  It's so awesome when they finally ask.   Love Elder Johnson