Monday, May 28, 2012

Moving Day, Again

Hey Family,

It was so good to hear from all of you this week and the stuff you did. I'm happy that summer is slowing coming around even though it doesn't seem that way. Hope Nicole's b'day party was pretty cool I didn't hear about it. I kind of forgot that Alex is graduating this week, congrats lil bro!!! I actually kind of wanted to be there for that but being here in Peru is where I need to be. I wanted to hear your name get called on the microphone and the whole stadium cheer for you, someone has to record that!!! Also, congrats for the Aguila (Eagle)! Really wish I could have been there but I know you'll have a good time. Save a seat for me in the Eagle's Nest!!!!!

So this week was pretty good for us. We talked a lot about working with the members this week. We as missionaries have to learn how to visit the members more and to get references. Sometimes we ourselves have a hard time thinking about how to encourage the members to give references but the Spirit helps. So we visit a strong family who already gave a family reference to the others missionaries before I got there. I wasn't sure if they were ready to give more references but we went to their house. They are super cool! We were talking and they already knew why we were there so they said, hey we've got two other families that were hearing the missionaries before but didn't get baptized becuase they went on vacation and didn't meet up again with the missionaries. Also, there's going to be two young men coming to ward sports night tonight and they could listen too. I was pretty stunned. They were definately prepared by the Lord to give us some references this week. I hope these references will turn out well I'm excited.

Friday and Saturday were kind of down days becuase my companion was sick. He suffers from migrains already and Saturday he woke up with a big migrain. We tried to work for a while but he just couldn't do it. I had a good time to study for the whole day though. Well we actually accomplished something big this week. We moved from the guest room to the third floor!! We had to clean all the cement dust off the wood floor and it took forever to do it but we did it. Now we have an awesome view of Misti and the gym is right next to our room.

Thanks for all the love and support and all your prayers. Unfortunately I ran out of time this week. Sorry for the kind of short letter. I hope all goes well this week and you all have a good time in the Court of Honor and the Graduation.

Elder Child

Monday, May 21, 2012

Transfers

Hey Family,
It's been so good to hear from all of you this week. I'm glad alls good in Zion and that everyone's still alive! It sounds like everybody's busy with work and finishing up with school. That's going to be really weird when Alex is just working and being a grown up. I remember going to Jackling in the mornings with alex and coming home with him too. That seems like an eternity away!!! Seminary Graduation is a pretty special event. I'm grateful for all the things I learned in seminary and that we could do it at school. Here, they have seminary at 5:30 in the morning then they go to school, it's crazy!! I don't think I'd be that dedicated!!!

This week was pretty much like most other weeks. We came back into contact with a lady that we were teaching more than a month ago. She moved away then we thought, ya maybe she'll find the missionaries over there on the other side of town. Well we ran into her the other week and she still wants to hear us and even accepted a baptismal date! We just have to get her to go to church. She is a seamstress and lives just with her teenage daughter that has mental health issues so she doesn't make a lot of money and is super stressed sometimes. So when she gets work she takes it. It just so happens that this past Sunday she got a huge order and took the work. I hope she'll see the blessings that come for some sacrifices.

Pretty much the rest of this week was filled with trying to get some new investigators. We are going to some really far away places because we've never been there before. I love my area becuase it is a lot of farms and huge open spaces away from the city. There's a lot of good people who accept an appointment to come and teach them but they rarely show up the next day, it's frustrating!! My area also has a lot of little towns but they are the few last "traditional" arequipanean towns which just means they see missionaries and come out with their Virgin Mary altars and swear the virgin saved their lives!!! Its a little funny sometimes but also, frutstrating.

This Sunday we talked in church and I went last as always. I like going last becuase Peruvians love to talk and they don't ever leave me time!! My talk was about how even though we've done things a lot of times (like trying to invite people to get to know the church) we should never give up on them, see Luke 5:1-9. Then I outlined 5 points that will help all members share the gospel.
1. Get a testimony- we can't convert anybody if we ourselves aren't converted
2. Make a family mission plan- set goals with the family about how many people we are going to invite to church or baptize this year
3. Involve the Lord- make revelation the guide to make decisions and ask the lord specifically for help with specific people EVERY DAY
4. Be diligent and active in the work- never give up and do things by your own will, see D&C 58:26-27
5- Have Charity- people will notice what we teach by who we are, see John 13:34-35?

I hope you all have a great week and apply some of these things in your lives. Happy birthday Nicole, have fun in the Cheesecake Factory!! I know the Church is true and the book is blue!!

Elder Child

P.S. Thanks for the ensigns!!!
P.S.S. We had transfers but I'm in my same area with my same comp

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Happy Mother's Day

What up Fam,
It was so incredibly good to talk to you all yesterday afternoon for el Dia de la Madre. I hope it all went well for all of you at church and whatever else you guys did. I was pretty self conscious about my voice and english but I hope you all understood me and it wasn't too funny to hear me. I can never really get used to talking long distance on the phone becuase I just want to talk and talk and talk and tell you all about all the people I meet and all the stuff that happens to me on a daily basis. I have to thank Karyn for sending me the pictures of me when I was huge!! I've already shown some of my friends and they absolutely can't believe that I was that size before. It was pretty funny!!!!

This week was pretty awesome besides the phone call. This week we worked quite a bit with some less active families. Turns out that they are pretty awesome people!!! What happens here in Peru is that most people absolutely fall in love with the missionaries (becuase we're awesome) but when the missioaries leave and the ward doesn't friendship the new members they slowly fall away and stop coming. Well, I just want to tell you all to try to make friends with the new converts and the less actives. It doesn't matter if they're weird or you don't have anything in common with them, they are children of our Father in Heaven and they need our love. There's this one family that is having marriage problems so we are now their marriage councilors. That's always interesting to do as a 20 year old kid who has never been married. But we felt the spirit really strong testifying to them that the gospel is true and that families really can be together forever and that they need to put thier priorities in order in order to recieve exaltation. I was soooooo thankful for the example that my parents have given me. Nobody is perfect, we all mess up and get on each others nerves, but my parents never called it quits when they had some little disagreements, they always worked it out and tried to help each other. I testify that if we really try to become like the savior and try to see people as god sees them, we will always have a good relationship with our family.

I love you all lots and hope this week goes by super well. Don't have toooo much fun without me!!! Say hi to everybody in the ward and tell them that they are awesome. When I don't know how to work with the ward here, I think, "What would the Heritage Ward do?" and it helps. Living in Zion was such a blessing!!!

Love,

Elder Child

P.S. Did the Ensign get there yet?

P.S.S. There was a big earthquake just south of us this morning in Tacna. The sister in our house freaked out and came down to check on her new "sons" at 5:00 in the morning but we were fast asleep, just thought I'd let you know that we are taken care of.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Fotografias














Moving Day

Hey Family,
This week was super awesome!!!! I was so happy to see my family (thanks for the pictures Karyn) and to hear about all of you. I'm guessing spring is pretty much here by now and there isn't much snow. It's super amazing how time flies. It seems like just yesterday that I was calling for Christmas and there was snow on the ground over there in Utah. Now that Karyn is home I bet there's a little more noise and a lot more laughs!!! I truly can relate with moving people to different rooms, that's exactly what we did this past week.

So we've kind of been looking for a new room the past couple of weeks. The problem was that we didn't know where to look and who could give us the food. My area is pretty huge and so we didn't want to walk like two miles just to eat breakfast. So we made a comment to the ex branch president one night at like 8 oclock that we were thinking about moving and he got on the phone and called a sister and said, "Hey when can the missionaries move into your house?" and she was like "Ya, come on over and look at the room and you can come tomorrow with all your stuff." My comp and I were like, WHAT?!!! That was cool. So we went over there and it was all good. The next day, Friday, we moved all our stuff to her house. It was all soooo fast.

This sister is super cool. Her and her two teenage sons are members. Her husband still isn't, but he's cool. They are SUPER rich compared to all the other people here. They want to give us their whole third floor to live in but the bathroom isn't finished yet. So we are living in their guest room for a couple of weeks till they finish it. Sister Nadine is awesome!!! She is a stay at home mom in the huge house so she has the whole day to cook for us and she cooks good!!!! The best thing about the house is that they are like the only people with a hot water heater!!! So it was like the first time in more than a year that I showered with really hot (actually steaming) water!!!

Also a cool thing is that they have a mini dachshund like Lucy except that she is black, not brown!! I pretty much flipped out when I saw her. This week we had Edna's baptism and most of the ward showed up. It went over really well. She is slowly warming up to the idea of being an active social member of the ward. This week I really felt the Lord's blessings and love. We were really bad with our numbers coming up on Sunday but that afternoon we found 6 new  investigators and two families (which like never happens) and I know that if we are diligent we will see the progress of these new people.

I'm excited about calling on Sunday. I should be able to call at 2 oclock your time, I hope that's okay. It's going to be weird trying to talk in English for such a long time, but I'll try. Just don't laugh at me!!! I know the church is true and that the more we trust in the scriptures the more faith we'll have to follow the commandments!!!

Love,

Elder Child

P.S. We even have a rug in our room!!!
P.S.S. And our own GYM!!! (Seriously)

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Couldn't Think of a Subject, So Pictures

Hey Family,

Well this Monday I was blessed to hear from a few of my family members and friends and was a little occupied writing them so I don't have a ton of time right now. These are some pictures from my last couple weeks and mishchief! Did you know that there are still dinosuars in Peru? Well, we had some fun with them for a little while. My comp is crazy and so we go together well becuase I'm not crazy at all, have to come out of my shell a little bit more! The ward is sooo cool, they bought us pizza on Tuesday!! Hawaiin Barbeque Chicken was so delicious!!! There's also a picture of our zone playing soccer the other day, I have a few friends there that are cool!

This week went by super quick and came up on me like a theif in the night. I love quoting scripture, we always do it usually during soccer games, instead of swearing!!! Great alternative, right? We talked with the sister who didn't get baptized this past week, Edna. She had some doubts but on Wednesday she said she wanted to get baptized this next Saturday. So hopefully we'll have a baptism this week!!

We went on splits this week, I was with the zone leader from Virginia, Elder Johnson. He's a good friend, super obedient and good stuff always happens when we do splits. We found a guy who contacted us while we were talking to another guy on a motorcycle. He was so prepared by the Lord becuase he has a sincere desire to know which path to take with his life.

In our area we had a lot of love by the ward members. They bought us pizza, we had ward mission night with tons of sandwichs and soda and last night we said goodbye to the first councilor in the bishopbric who is moving to another "state". He gave us some ties and TONS of food. We've been happy this week and I think that this month we'll have a ton of success!!!

Thanks for all of your prayers and support. Sorry about the short letter. Did you know that charity isn't just a good thing to have, it is necessary for our salvation (see Moroni 7:48)? I love the mission, only 6 months left to proclaim the gospel!!!!

Elder Child

P.S. What does the revelation, "every member a missionary" mean?