Do You Help People?

Hey Familia, how's it going?

This week wasn't horribly interesting with a lot of drama or anything special but there was some pretty cool thing that happened and some special lessons that I learned. I'm glad to hear about all the summer activities that are going on in the ward and in all of your lives. I told Alex this, but I seriously wish I could have gone down to Bryce to see the cool rocks and to be out in the middle of nowhere for awhile. I kind of miss all that nature stuff becuase it really is pretty crowded and polluted here in Arequipa. But there's cool stuff too, like the three volcanoes and some Inca natives and ruins. I also could not believe that you finally decided to adopt, I'm really proud of you mom for making that sacrifice. It may seem like a struggle at first but I'm sure Karl will really appreciate the love and support he feels in our family. (Ha Ha). That's super crazy, I could not believe that Karyn totally went and shaved her head off!!!!! Everybody else should do crazy things too just to keep my life a little more interesting.

Monday we played volleyball and soccer, sorry no basketball to report on. It was pretty fun like usual, it's good to unwind and take a little break for a few hours from the daily routine of things. Also last Monday I was able to purchase a church movie about how special the Book of Mormon is, it's called How Rare a Possession. It's really good, I've seen it once before in Seminary. It's the story about Parley P. Pratt and also an Italian man who found the Book of Mormon on the side of the street in New York in like 1910. That Book of Mormon had no cover or title page or anything so he had no idea what the book was but he knew it was the word of god. He had to wait like 40 years to finally get baptized and to know the name of the book that he read for almost his entire life. Super interesting, you should definately buy it.

I think it was Wednesday when we found a really cool young man by the name of Carlos. He is from the selva in Pullcalpa, Peru. He had listened to the missionaries a little bit before and had played soccer at the church a few times. He was super receptive and said that he wants to get baptized. He's 19 so he can recieve the Priesthood which is what this ward and stake needs. Also, we found another man by the name of Victor who had heard from a taxi driver that the missionaries help people. So he asked us, "Is that true, do you help people. I have always wanted to talk to missionaries but have been scared to do so." So of course we said that we could help and that we want to talk to him more. I hope we will be able to talk to him more this week.

We also went to a Stake Dance Festival this week. It was interesting to see all the different dances of Arequipa and some more areas of Peru. For the most part I like this culture, but they don't like to make or keep commitments, which is what they need to get baptized. That is what happened again this week. We had a lot of people to bring to church but none of them showed up.

Well, I'll just keep going on and trying. I know that eventually all of our work will pay off. That's about time for me this week, so more next week.

Elder Child