Elder Scott Learning, Living and Sharing the Gospel in Perú: July 2018

The other day I was able to go to Yungay with Elder Quincho to say goodbye to people before he left the area. During that visit we went to Hermana Karla's house. She is the mom of Jael, the 9-year old who I baptized when I first arrived in this area, even though I was not one of the Elder's who had been teaching him. Now the plan for the baptism had always been for his dad to baptize him, but his dad had fallen into inactivity prior to his baptism, and had been working hard at becoming fully active again. After working on his activation for a few weeks, his dad met with the bishop and passed an interview so everything was working out for dad to baptize Jael, but that was revised a day or two before the baptism when Jael changed his mind about who was going to baptize him and said I was going to do it! At the time I was with Elder Aldea on an interchange in their area and because of that I was part of the baptismal interview.

We all tried to talk Jael out of it, like a lot, and have his dad baptize him. But his dad didn't push it, and said it was Jael's choice if he wanted me to do it, and then said it would be best if I baptized him. We left it at that up until this past visit when we asked Jael why he had changed his mind. He then explained that on the way to his interview his dad had mentioned it would be best to choose someone else because he just didn't feel quite prepared to do it himself yet (by the way, dad is now fully active and serving in the Elder's Quorum presidency 🙂) As Jael was telling us this he shared these words with us, "My dad was like a peach, you have to give it time to ripen." Pretty inspiring words out of the mouth of a 9 year old! He then went on to tell us that his choice on who he wanted to baptize him was between me and Elder Quincho. He actually asked if both of us could do it, but the Elder conducting the interview told him he could only pick one. And so he picked me. So I asked him, "But why chose me if I hadn't even taught you?" He explained that days prior to the interview we had come over for lunch because we were spending the entire day in Yungay, and it wasn't feasible, or worth the money, for us to return to Caraz just to eat our lunch. After lunch we spent a few short minutes kicking around a soccer ball with Jael because he loves soccer. During that time he fell, and I helped him up and asked if he was alright. I don't even remember doing it, honestly. But that simple act impacted him so much. That was his reasoning for choosing me. So today I want to talk about the small and simple acts of service that to us might seem like literally nothing, but mean the world to other people.

Every day we need to make it a habit to serve in small and simple ways. So simple that we might not even realize them, but these are the acts that change and put a mark on the world. These are the acts that stay with people.

It was rough narrowing down favorite photos this past month (I have over 1,000 to choose from, lol) so in the end I randomly chose a few from each batch Elder Scott sent home. I can't even tell you where he is in most of these, but each area is breathtakingly beautiful.

P-Day Activities