Elder Parker Reber: Guy from Peru

Hi hi!

Happyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy birthday to the bro Cannon earlier this week! If anyone sees him make sure to wish him a late happy birthday. Hopefully you’re day was a pro one :)

Another busy week! We had two more zone conferences this week. It’s really interesting how different each conference is. President Fermanis is big on going by the spirit and according to the needs of the missionaries. I feel like I’m one who likes to have things mapped out and prepared so I know what I’m going to do and say but I’ve really learned a lot from switching my normal ways of doing things. Elder Mitchell and I show up knowing we’ll be teaching but we never really know what it will be until a few seconds before we stand up haha! as a missionary, trusting in the spirit is a very important thing we must remember. Without the help of the Lord through His spirit, we wouldn’t be able to do this work. But with His help, we are capable of doing whatever it is we’re asked to do.

We went looking for an apartment a few times this week. It’s just been hard because we need parking and cell signal which is pretty much impossible to find here haha. We have a few potentials now so we should be moving in somewhere soon. I still haven’t unpacked since my last area in Las Piñas haha! We’ve been able to make lots of friends throughout this process though and have found a few opportunities to share the gospel as well. It’s kinda funny because we both have no idea how contracts with renting apartments work but we basically just walk in places not knowing what will happen haha.

We had an awesome experience this week! We were walking in our area and we were confronted by a man from Peru! Definitely have never seen a Spanish-speaker here before. He asked us in broken English if one of us speak Spanish and i said “poco.” (a little?) - like the one word I remember from Spanish classes in high school haha. Well that was a bad idea because he then started going off in Spanish and elder Mitchell and I just looked at each other thinking “ohhh whoa.” We had to stop his snazzy Spanish speaking and got him to explain his situation in english. He’s a super active member of the church who is here in the Philippines working at a call center speaking Spanish (I guess the pay here for Spanish is much higher.) He was in a tough situation but had prayed for help and when he finished he saw us both walking down the street towards him. After we helped him he told us he knows that God knows him and sent us to help him. It was a miracle! After helping him we started off for our destination again and realized we had taken a wrong turn. But that wrong turn was what helped us find this brother!

That’s about all for this week! We went on an exchange in Mandaluyong and I was able to work with Elder Pehacek from Vernal. We found a full family who was watching NBA… it was the first time I’ve seen NBA playing inside of someones house! We were able to introduce the Book of Mormon and they seemed to have a great desire to start reading. The oldest works at a call center and their whole family takes schooling very seriously. Such a cool lesson! In our area we didn’t have much time there last week but this week we’ll have a good amount of time there.. we’re really excited!
Love you all. Thanks for all of your support.
Elder Reber