Crazy Sunday

Child Family,

Its soo great to say hi to all of you this winter Monday morning here in Arequipa. I think its hilarious that they call this winter here because its like 60 degrees during the day and like 40 at night. This really is the land of the eternal spring. It would be awesome to take a vacation here because the weather is almost always perfect. I really hope I'll be able to do that one day after the mish. I really want to visit all the friends I've made and all the converts and missionary buddies, I just hope I'll have the means to do so.

This week was pretty crazy, I'm not going to lie. Last P-day we went downtown and spent a day there. I FINALLY ate mexican tacos after about a year and a half! They were so good! (Well, compared to like Red Iguana they were pretty horrible, but for Peru, they were pretty awesome). We walked around a lot and visited some souveneir stores. I think I know where I'm going to load up my suitcase right before going home to get all the souveniers I want. We also went and checked out suites. I can get a customized, tailorfit suit for about $100 here. I'll see if I'll buy one right before a leave to come looking sharp, and with something that actually fits.

Thursday we did an activity in the church, Missionary sponsored talent show. Our talent was pretty cool. We sang a song with the boys we live with. They played the guitar and I played a cardboard box as the percussion. We sang a song called "Dear John" about a missionary who leaves his girl behind but the classic letter comes and everybody laughs a ton. I'll have to show you all the video when I get home. The bad thing is that there were only like two other talents that showed up. The ward just didn't really prepare for the activity that we had been announcing for almost three weeks. So we taught about how we should always be preparing ourselves for the second coming and not just wait for someone to always nag us about reading the scrips, praying, going to church, having FHE and other stuff. It applied really well!!!

We found a pretty interesting young man this week that wanted to hear us but said he knew pretty much everything about god and didn't need anything from Him. He said he doesn't need religion because it doesn't offer anything to him. We were kind of struggling with him because he listened but was pretty closed to accepting our invititations. I felt the impression really strong to talk about the love that he's missing. Turns out after I said that, he manifested that he has never really felt love from his father or mother. We testified that the gospel helps our families and that if he obeyes the gospel he will fill this love in his home. He softened his heart a bit after that and accepted another appointment.

Sunday was CRAZY. This week was stake conference and our mission president spoke. He announced that the area authorities asked the First Presidency permission to send out the missionaries when they are 18 and the prophet gave the nod. They can now leave a whole year early than us.That was exciting. But some parents don't exactly encourage their sons to leave on missions so he told the story about the sons of mosiah in mosiah 28. The lord promised his sons eternal life and safety. He told him to let them go becuase many will believe their words. That was powerful!!

Later we were teaching a lesson a kid threw a wet t-shirt from a window and landed on my face!! It was HILARIOUS!! I could not stop laughing!! The kid has down syndrome so he was just messing aroung, so
couldn't get mad at him, but his mom freaked! Then at night we ran into a drunk guy who was genuinely concerned because he didn't know what to do to prepare himself for the end of the world. He said, "I heard that aliens are going to rule the world, is that true?" We laughed our heads off after that!!!

Well, my time has come to an end. I know the church is true and that this work is the most important thing we can do with our lives. (see D&C 15:6)

Love,

Your Elder

Child

P.S. Hope you got the pictures.

P.S.S. Thanks for the invitation to Alex's graduation

Couple of weeks ago we played soccer as a zone and took some pictures.

NOTE: So much harder than it looks to actually do a human pyramid,
took us like a half an hour to finally get this shot