4/4/16 New Lima Temple!

So the gringo missionaries got the stake president to show conference in English in another room and when they made the announcement about a new temple in Lima we all shouted YES!! What makes it even funnier is that our mission president is always pointing out that in Trujillo there are 9 stakes and they now have a temple, Arequipa has 7 stakes and there is a temple under construction there, but that here in Lima we have 47 stakes and only one temple and it is very complicated to get to because the traffic is the worst I've ever seen in my life. He says if it were up to me, I think we need a 4th temple here in Lima. The current one is in central Lima so it ought to be either in Northern Lima (here) or in Southern Lima. We recently organized a new stake in Barranca, and two new wards in Prolima. Puente Piedra has just enough wards to be a stake but right next to us is Ventanilla with 7 or 8 wards (I don't remember) and here in Puente we have two of the largest wards in the area so if we split those and put another stake they'd have to put it north Lima! He has also mentioned how he has taken Bishop Wadell (now 2nd counselor to the presiding bishopric to Ancon to see how nice the beach is and said what a nice place to put a temple... and he has done the same with several other general authorities! Now all of the missionaries here are in suspense because we haven't been informed as to where in Lima the new temple is going to be... right after president Monson's talk the zone leader Elder Welburn got a text message from President Archibald saying my vote is for Ancon! haha

Also, Elder Dorius who was called as an area 70 there in California was the last president of this mission.

I guess I forgot to mention that this transfer is 8 weeks instead of 6 because of some changes in the MTC (gringos are staying there 8 weeks and Latinos 4 because the total number of missionaries went back down a little) so we have 2 more weeks in this transfer.

My favorite talks were, in order, President Monson in priesthood session, President Nelson in priesthood session, Elder Holland, and Elder Christofferson. Although I really enjoyed plenty of others. The Spirit of the conference was immense and unavoidable, when the British 70 was talking about refugees and started to list supplies given, Elder Welburn couldn't keep himself from saying "teas and crumpets" in the worst British accent he could muster to Elder Quesne who afterward informed us that his mom had kissed the 70 when they were in the London singles ward.

Anyway, it was a good week in spite of fewer investigators attending conference than I had hoped for and... the family who M----- shared a Book of Mormon with and took to the conference lives in another area.

Thanks for everything. Which was your favorite talk? Did Sarah and grandma see conference with you? Did Blake and his girlfriend?

To his dad:

Oh I forgot, when I was writing to mom, that I loved President Uchtdorf's talk. I'd heard plenty of Dresden in my history classes but I hadn't seen really understood how bad it was until now. When he said that in German, I thought oh dad is happy haha. Hey, whatever happened to the having general authorities speak in their native languages? I was super excited when they started that but I don't know what happened.

This week's ward council was the shortest one yet, only 20 minutes since everyone wanted to eat lunch and see the last session. And one of the only ones we've had without reporting any new baptisms this week in the ward.This week is going to be complicated because Peruvian elections are on Sunday and they are cancelling ALL church services in any denomination in Peru.

On Monday we had a family home evening with the bishop where he and his wife invited a neighbor. The bishop was kind of surprised and excited that we put a baptismal date with A-- after explaining briefly the Book of Mormon. It was great to have him baring testimony. The only frustration was that she had to head out of town and didn't get to accompany them to the conference like she was supposed to. anyway thanks chao