Tuesday, January 27, 2015

01/26/15 Transfigured - Smart Boy!

(He begins by answering my questions from last week)

To the meeting in Lima, yes my companion went too. And with the DL it was splits, the DL went with my companion in our area and I went with his companion in his area. I haven't gotten to write in my journal every night but in general yes I do. My shoes are fine, the water doesn't really get inside so I'm good and Huaraz is the only part of the mission where it really rains so I'll hold off on the boots, I'll be good. Well every transfer people come into the mission and the last few have had more than usual, in fact my group was one of the biggest, maybe it's in preparation for opening up the Trujillo South Mission or something.

So a new family we're teaching, the A------ family, seems pretty interested. We asked the father whether he'd read The Book of Mormon with his family and he said that he would but that he doesn't read well, like first grade education was what the wife said and it was interesting because the son, who's maybe 11 or 12 years old, really understood everything better than most investigators, in fact when we spoke of the first vision he said "I remember the Bible said that people can't see God in person because of his glory so how was he able to?" (a question that my companion said no one had asked him before in the mission) So we kind of explained being transfigured, with such examples as Moses speaking face to face with God. 

Anyway, just this morning we were on our way to meet up with the zone leaders and the father of the S---- family we're teaching opened up the door to the taxi he was in (which was stopped in traffic) to tell us that he'll be waiting for us on Wednesday, they weren't home at the last appointment we had, so that was good.

Also the young couple who are working as tour guides are going to be married this Friday and baptized Sunday morning. I think Elder (or now Brother) Salazar who was zone leader here and recently finished his mission (he lives in Peru, just a little North of here) will be coming down here for that.

Anyway, love you guys. I hope Holland gets a little less frustrated with her crawling. Chao

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

01/19/15 Responsibility

The week was good but I had work visit where I went to the district leader's house on Wednesday.  On Thursday we went to Lima and got back on Saturday so I didn't get in as many lessons as I would have liked to, but it's good. Yeah, it hailed recently I don't remember what day it was. And, sorry, I have no picture of them smashing eggs on my head. The sink in our new house is inside, in fact we have two.  One in the bathroom and one in the, uh kitchenette. 

I wish I could see those two nieces of mine, they sound so cute.  

So, yeah, we went to Lima for a training, because as the president said, we have had so many come into the mission that the majority of the mission has fewer than 6 months in the field which is why they're doing a few more trainings but he said for my group that would be the last one.  He mostly talked about how we do planning, studying, and get a baptismal date. For this last training, the mission president did a practice where he said "does anyone think they can say no to me when I ask you to being baptized?" and Elder Welburn and his companion went up and Elder Welburn was annoyed because his companion ended up saying yes. President also said that when we start teaching someone we're bringing extra attention from the adversary into their lives and are therefore responsible for them which was an interesting point I'd not heard before. 

Tell Taylor I love her too and good luck with her Arizonian. We're not sure yet what we're doing for Pday today but in general we do often go with the other district here.
love you too. chao 

To his dad:  
I can attest to the fact that there is no other opportunity like a mission...

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

01/12/15 Baptism!

I haven't printed things out to read later. I have downloaded some of the pictures onto my memory card. yeah that is a cool picture. I hadn't seen it before either. 

(I sent this picture to Chad to show him. I love it!  I have always loved the scripture Doctrine and Covenants 84:88  And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face.  I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about your, to bear you up.)

Yes, Elizabeth was baptized on Saturday. 


Neoman was baptized yes and I sent you pictures from it. We're working on getting him an interview to receive the priesthood this Sunday so we'll see. Some others that we're working toward baptism are Kathy and a new family of three that a family in the other ward introduced us to (the family at whose house we skyped).  They are the Saenz (pronounced signs) family and they really seem interested. they're also pretty well-off because both the husband and wife are lawyers and I got to learn a little about the Peruvgian judicial system.  None of them came to church yesterday, however one of the ladies in the ward brought her nonmember husband so we'll be working with him but he has to be away from home for work a lot.  Around here they can't move to accommodate to work so often the father has to be away from home a lot at a time. In fact, my companion asked me how people move so often in the US.

Sounds like a nice place that Derek and Brittany are moving  in to.  What major do Aimee and Shalee both have?  That reminds, me the Fresh's sent me their Christmas card, so please tell them thank you from me.  It's pretty cool that Aimee is teaching Hungarian in the MTC.
Here is a picture of our district minus the sisters. starting from the bottom: Elder Norton (ZL), Elder Quezada (DL), Elder Poveda (ZL), me, Elder Sandoval, Elder Pilacuan.

Also, it appears they have had a big rain storm!
His email to his dad: (He is talking about 3 of his friends and their missions... )
Is Sam's companionship the only one on the island? I'm curious as to what those villages are like. (Marshall Islands) Yeah, I've been talking with Michael (Madagascar) and I didn't know Mckay (Chili) was so far down south. They always make fun of the Chilean missionaries I'm not quite sure why yet.  Yeah we have a nokia 100 or something like that (he and his companion). I imagine it would be slower than them all if it had anything to do that could be slow haha. (Brad is looking into getting a new phone and was telling Chad about the differences) what is Brady doing these days?

Monday, January 5, 2015

01/05/15 Another Baptism Scheduled!

Tell Dallin happy birthday!

So our church is now at 2 pm it was pretty weird being in fast and testimony meeting after having broken my fast (I'm not sure if I already mentioned that they fast from lunch to lunch here).  And then ward council was right after at 5:15 so it was a weird Sunday.  

We had one investigator at church she has a baptismal date for this Saturday and seems pretty excited about it!  We got them to announce it in sacrament meeting and her brother (who is already a member) was nudging her shoulder like "it's official now."

Elder Lunt and Elder Jensen are both training (one from Ecuador and one from Guatemala if I remember right) but they're now in the other district.  Our district still has the district leader and the zone leader and now one companionship of sisters: Hermana Mcknight and Hermana Gutierrez (Hermana Mcknight came in the same group as me from the MTC but she was in the Provo MTC and Hermana Gutierrez is from Ecuador as well) We also have Elder Quezada and Sandoval, Quezada being the district leader. My companion has not been either district or zone leader he was also glad that he wasn't made district leader this transfer haha. 

One of our other investigators, Kathy, is here living with her cousins and aunt who are members so they're usually there in the lessons. It is always great to have people she knows personally to testify to what we are teaching is correct

The week went by pretty fast. 

Oh by the way, apparently around here the color yellow is lucky in new years or something... especially yellow underwear which explains why they were selling really oversized yellow whitey-tighty style underwear. I imagine so they can wear them on the outside of their pants when they're drunk at midnight of the new year. There were also lots of fireworks again. The pentionist of the district leader asked if I had tried Tocush (pronounced like tocoosh) and said she was going to make it for me when I said no. I am told its potatoes that have been buried until the point fermenting.  They say it smells horrible and tastes no better... so we'll see, I haven't heard from her about it since. chao

His email to his father:

Brad sent him these goals for the new year and he responds...

Good goals!  I especially like the last 4, the last being a nice laconic summation of all goals we should have--with the point of emulating the Son so as to become like the Father and as preparation we must maintain that goal in mind and be able to evaluate ourselves well. As to the "forgive quickly", I've just always thought that was really important and a thing people sometimes miss. 

As far as The Hobbit, if it came first I imagine they might not have had the same concept of certain characters and might not have brought in Tolkein's other writings and it would've been more like the book in the aspect that it was written for a children's bedtime story which I guess is why before the Lord of the Rings movies came out it's only movie version was cartoon. yeah anyway cuidense

No pics this week... :(