Monday, May 25, 2015

Thanks for the birthday wishes.  Yes mom, the package did arrive in time.  I got it on Wednesday and I am not going to lie, I didn't wait to open it, sorry!  But ya, a couple people here in the sector knew that it was my birthday!!  A couple people cooked food for me and some had cake!!  It was really nice, I didn't really expect them to do it because I am a new Elder in a sector so I was really grateful that they took the time to do that for me!  I was really full at the end of it all because everyone gave us food and it was hard to pack it all in!  A tradition here is to smash eggs on people's heads and throw flour on them on their birthday.  I was hoping it wasn't going to happen.  It did happen.  We taught a lesson and afterward they came out and smashed an egg on my head and threw flour on me, so it was interesting.  

 My companion is Elder Romero.  He is from Texas and he is part Mexican, part American, but he didn't speak Spanish before the mission so he is learning.  He has 4 months in the mission!  So he is my comp and my sector is Zarate.  It is really big.  My other areas have been really small but this one is huge!  I don't like being the new one in a sector because you don't know the streets or the houses so it is confusing.  But it is fun!  We have a lot of work to do because there aren't that many people to teach here!  So it is rough but we are going to find a lot of people!   

We are going to work hard this change and see miracles.  This sector is really calm compared to the last one.  There are parts where there is a lot of traffic but there is like nobody in the streets.  My last sector there were always a ton of people in the streets.  So it is a lot quieter here in this sector!   Life is good and things are going well.  I am 20 and I feel older.  

Also we had stake conference this past week and the temple president was there and gave one of the most powerful talks that I have ever heard.  It was incredible.   Love you all!  Have a great week.   

Monday, May 18, 2015

Helloooo family.  I am still here in Bellavista2.  But that is only because they call with the changes later tonight.  We are pretty sure that I am getting changed, it is kind of sad.  I don't really want to go.  

First of all, we are teaching a family and they are seriously so cool.  Family _____.  So they were a reference from Hermana Edith, (the mom of the missionaries here).  Edith asked the dad of the family if he wanted a blessing and he said yes because he recently had heart surgery.  We gave him a blessing and talked for  a while with them and then made another appointment with them.  In the next appointment with them they had read the pamphlet that we left and they explained everything perfectly.  And they said that everything made sense that the pamphlet says.  By the way they are really Catholic but so awesome.  Anyway, we had another lesson this past week and we talked about the Restoration, and their kids were there for this lesson too.  Their daughter is 19 and their son 13.  We talked about the Restoration and the spirit was so strong and they all were accepting of it.  We got through the lesson and invited them to be baptized and the dad started to tell a really long story and it ended with him saying that when he had 13 years, he made the decision to be baptized in our church.  He didn't keep going to our church because he didn't have anyone to go with and then he married his wife and kept going to the Catholic church.  He doesn't remember much about our church and so it is all basically new.  But the lesson ended really good and the spirit was undeniable.  We had another lesson with them and it was all question and answer.  They had so many questions and we spent the whole time answering them but it was another really good lesson and they are learning more and they are reading the Book of Mormon.  They are progressing and it is so awesome to see.

One thing on the mission that I have learned is that the number of lessons that we have at the end of the day doesn't really matter.  It doesn't always show everything we did during the day.  We had a day this week that was really tiring but really good.  At the end of the day we had only taught 2 lessons but it was a good day.  In the afternoon we had SERVICE - two service projects.  1, was for _____, she was moving, close by but didn't have a truck or car to put the stuff in.  So we had a little cart hooked up to a bike that had pedals that didn't work that we would push with the things in it.  Her husband was working so he couldn't help and they had to get everything out that day.  So we would make trips back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.  Until finally we got everything put in the new house.  One fun thing was that the cart we had, the pedals didn't work but to go back to the house, the main road has a little downhill slant.  so one person would hop on and the others would push them and so that was fun.  We had to wait for a red light because it was against the traffic but it is legal here so it's ok.  haha but ya, we helped ____ then we had to go to another house and do another service project.  So that took almost the whole day then we had a couple hours to teach.  But anyway, During the day when we were taking things back and forth I decided to pay attention a little bit.  The whole time there were so many people watching us.  And it was a good thing because we were helping somebody.  It seems like so many people here know who we are, we walk by and they always shout Elder!  And when we are doing good, the people are going to see that so we should always strive to do what is right and people will see our example.  So in the mission the numbers don't always reflect how much good you did in one day.  

The third thing that I want to say is something that hasn't even happened yet.  Today, we are cutting our p day short because we are going to the hospital at 4.  At 4 o clock, thanks to the church, they are doing operación sonrisa!  Operation smile.  When the kids have the thing with their lips, I don't remember what is is called in English.  Cleft tooth?  Something like that, but anyway, today we are going to the hospital because they are doing free surgery for the kids and we are going to be with them before their surgery to play with them and help keep them calm.  So that is going to be fun and hopefully I have lots of pictures next week of the smiles that these kids have.  I am really excited for it.  

That is all for this week folks!  Hope you have a great week and that all goes well!!  I love you all.  I might be writing from a new sector next week!  Chauuuuuuuu

                                                                MORE PICTURES BELOW ENTRIES.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Hello family this week was great just like the last week.  The time is still flying by and it is insane.  The first highlight from this week.  TEMPLE.  We went to the temple on thursday with Luis!  There were other converts there too but it was the first time for Luis.  It was really awesome.  Luis was super worried about the water and how his head was going to be and all that.  But we went in the temple and there was (as always) a peace inside that is so special.  Literally words can't describe what we can feel inside the temple.  The temple president talked to our ward before we did the baptisms and he said that the veil in the temple is very thin and sometimes it doesn't exist.  After that we did the baptisms and afterward we were talking to Luis and he looked happy.  We were talking to him and he thought he was only going to get baptized for 1 person but he did 4 and he said that he was fine and his head didn't hurt him at all.  It is so good to see that he is progressing so much.  

The next highlight from this week was on Saturday.  So this week in our district meeting we had talked about being persistent and we all agreed to be more persistent and just go straight into testifying instead of accepting no for an answer.  Anyways, there wasn't really a differenece in the first part but on Saturday we understood what being persistent really means.  First of all, we were going  to the house of a lady that just got reactivated and she wasn't there but her son answered who is like 45 and told us to come back in an hour.  We came back in an hour and she wasn't there.  After about 20 seconds of walking away we both looked at each other and said why did we not talk with him??  So, FOR THE THIRD TIME we rang his doorbell.  He came out and accepted us and we ended up putting a baptismal date with him for the 6 of June.  

Second, after that we went to a house of this 80 year old lady who had listened to the missionaries before when I first got here.  We went and she said she was busy so we said just for 10 minutes and she again replied no.  Then we said how about just a prayer in your house?  So she went inside to ask around and then she came out and said another time and again we said that the prayer would help her and she said ok, come in.  Then we started to teach a little and at the end of it all we put a date with her also for the 6 of June for baptism. 

Then after that we went to search for a new investigator that we have and he wasn't there but his older sister answered the door and she said no one was there so then we contacted her.  She said that she was really busy at that moment but we kept on persisting and she finally said ok, ya, come in.  So we entered and it turned out that she wasn't doing anything but anyways we started to teach her.  She was probably paying more attention than any other investigator that I have ever had in the mission.  She was able to answer all the questions we gave her and at the end she didn't accept baptism yet but we got invited back for another time.  So all in all we got 3 new investigators from being persistent.  Before this I don't think I really understood what persistent meant but now I do.  It is really easier than it seems to go into a house to teach.  We were able to do great things on Saturday just from going one step farther. 

Also we had another lesson last night in which we were teaching about family history.  We have a convert Yolanda who has gone to the temple but hasn't taken names because her grandpa doesn't want her to be baptized for his parents so we were talking to her grandpa last night to try and get the names.  In the end we didn't get the names quite yet but we were able to soften his point of view a little bit.  And something that I really recognized in this moment was that we are actually in the church of Jesus Christ.  I already new it but this lesson just confirmed it.  Being able to teach him and respond to his questions with scriptures from the Bible (because he doesn't believe in the Book of Mormon) just reassured my testimony.  We are literally in the same church that Christ established in his time.  

This was a great week.  I hope you all have a wonderful week this week and that you have success in everything you do.  Love you all.  Oh and we have a baptism this Saturday if all goes as planned so that will be fun!  Love you all!!

Monday, April 27, 2015

Hello my wonderful family!!  That is so crazy about this week, Blake is married!  The week went by kind of slow because I think I was excited for Blake haha.  Friday it is a good thing that we had our baptism because if we didn't it would have been a very trunky day.  Anyway, this week was a really good week!

I am going to tell you all this story first so you can understand things later on in the letter.  This week on Tuesday we had a couple things in the church.  1.  Rocio had her baptismal interview.  2.  Luis had his temple recommend interview.  Anyways, we got to the church and only the sacrament room had light.  The other half of the building had no power.  So we called Luis and told him not to come because the bishop said he wasn't going to do interviews.  Luckily we got the sacrament room before anyone else so Rocio could have her interview.  But then people were turning the power off and turning it back on trying to fix it and I was just like NOOOO don't do that haha but oh well, she passed and it all went well.

First thing first...  The baptism!!  So Friday we had the baptism.  It was awesome.  Seriously I think one of the best baptisms I have had.  Despite a few things that happened.  So we were cleaning the church and filling up the font a couple hours before and then the light started to flicker in the church.  This is about an hour before the baptism that it happened.  So the light flickered and then it completely ran out.  So we ran back to our room and grabbed the little flashlight that I have and then we called the other missionaries in our ward to see if they had one and they did but weren't there so I had to crawl through their window and go through their stuff to find their flashlight and then we had to run back to the church.  So we kept filling it up after in the dark.  6 o clock comes which is the time that the baptism was going to start but nobody was there.  There is a thing here called la hora peruana.  Which means that everyone shows up late for everything.  Seriously it is so bad.  So the first person got there about 5 minutes late.  Rocio got there about 10 minutes late and then the bishop who was going to conduct got there 35 minutes late so we had to wait for him.  And the relief society president was going to give a talk in the baptism but wasn't showing up so I had to ask Elder Hiatt to give one of the talks at the last second.  But then comes the baptism and the whole thing started at about 7 so it was already dark.  We all go to the font and there is no light so the only lights we have are from the flashlights.  But, she was baptized and the spirit was so strong.  Afterward she bore her testimony and it was so strong.  After three years of investigating the church she was finally baptized and she wrote on Facebook afterward (someone told us) that she was so happy that she completed one of her goals and now she has a lot of goals to come.  She even talked with her husband about getting sealed in the temple so we are putting the goal with them that in one year they can go to the temple and get sealed with their children.  Really it was such an awesome experience.  There was white in Perú and Salt Lake on Friday.

Another thing that happened was that Luis again is doing so good.  He still thanks us so much for visiting him and he tells us how happy it makes him and how sad he was before we found him and it is wonderful.  He is so happy now.  And anyways, he is making friends in the church and we went to our missions office of family history and we printed out names of his family and he is going to the temple with us on Thursday to do baptisms for his ancestors.  It is seriously so great.  When we went to the family history place I also saw Elder Tonga so that was fun to catch up and see how everything is going.  But that is the update on Luis.  All is well.

Also we have an investigator named ____ .  She is the girlfriend of a young man in the ward.  Well he is about my age and is going to go on a mission in this coming year.  Anyways, she wanted to learn more and we taught her and she accepted baptism for the 9 of May.  I might have already told you all about her.  but anyway our lessons with her this week were so good.  She is reading and praying and said that she felt good when she prayed.  Also she said that before when she prayed she just repeated everything and now she is actually praying and feels like she is talking with God.  She is excited to get baptized so hopefully all of that works out.  Yesterday in our gospel principles class she sat down and the teacher said this class is for converts and investigators and I told the teacher she is an investigator.  The teacher said this because she seriously looks like a member!

We had an interesting experience this week also but what I will say is that it is interesting that when people have problems they call the missionaries.  We have 19 and 18 years and grown people are calling us to fix their problems.  It is awesome.  it really makes you think and realize that we are set apart by a leader with the authority from God to help people with their problems.  We really are representatives of Christ and the people recognize it.    

Oh and la hora Peruana.  for example.  Our church started at 2:20 yesterday.  20 minutes late.  Normally it isn't that bad but there is an example for you. 

 

All is well here in Perú.  Love you all.  

Monday, April 20, 2015

I will start off by saying Friday is going to be a great day!  I will be in two places at once.  Here in Perú and in Salt Lake.  Two very different places but I will try to be in both places at once with the help of my cardboard cut out.  Also Friday is going to be an awesome day because we have a baptism!!  It is the lady that has been an investigator for years and years but she finally decided that she wants to get baptized.  We had a lesson with her and it was easy.  She just accpeted it in the blink of an eye.  We originally made the date for Saturday and then she said that she couldn't so we changed it for Friday and I was thinking about it and in my head I was like oh, that is perfect!  My brother is getting married that day.  So that should be a fun day for us all.   I hope that you all enjoy it.  

Also, today I learned a lesson.  So I was running low on money for the month and for a couple weeks I knew it so I was using less and less and today something just told me to go take out money from my personal account.  So I went and did it and when we were eating lunch this guy walked in.  He shook our hands and he was really small and he told us that he was from the stake Maranga which is in our mission.  He was a happy little guy and he started talking to us and we were eating afterwards and he was just sitting there and I noticed he was hungry because he was happy but he was looking at the food a lot.  So I asked for a menu and brought it to him and told him to order and he was like no it's ok and so I told him to just do it and so I bought him his meal.  It wasn't anything huge or anything like that but maybe he needed that meal more than I thought he did.  But it was cool because something earlier in the day when we were by the ATM told me to take money out and I did it and hey, something good happened!  

Also this week I had an interchange with our district leader and it turned out so good.  We were able to find two new people and we put a baptismal date with both of them!  One of them is a young man that was sitting in front of his door.  We were actually going to teach his uncle but his uncle wasn't there and we started teaching him lesson one in his door.  It was cool because the teenagers usually don't pay much attention but he was the whole time.  Focused.  Then when I said the first vision it got kind of silent.  Seriously there is something so special about that experience.  Every single time we say it as missionaries it is almost impossible not to feel the spirit.  He accepted baptism for the 16 of May.  Also, we had a lesson with this girl that is dating someone in our ward and we started to teach and if people cry it is normally at the end when we bear testimonies but I noticed that her eyes started to get watery and she started crying at the start of the lesson.  The whole entire time there was a special spirit there and she accepted baptism for the 9 of May.  At the end the Bishop's wife gave her testimony and the whole thing was just really awesome.  

It is crazy how fast the time is flying by.  People are completing so much time in the mission.  I want the time to slow down sometimes.  It feels like just yesterday I was here in Perú and didn't understand a thing the people were saying and struggling and now I am almost done training Elder Aroni and it is just crazy how fast time flies by.  

I hope that you all have a wonderful week and that all goes well on Friday :)  Love you all.  Haz lo justo.

Monday, April 13, 2015

One thing that happened this week was a miracle.  With our recent convert Luis, we were teaching him and we are going over the lessons again.  He is getting worse because his pain is getting more and more in his head.  And still the doctors don't know what is wrong.  He was getting discouraged and it is hard.  Anyways, we starting teaching him about the Book of Mormon and we read the last two parragraphs of the introduction with him.  He normally reads extremely slow and it is tough and his head hurts.  He started reading and he was flying through it and the spirit just entered the room.  When he finished he looked up at us, stunned, and said, "I DON'T FEEL ANY PAIN!!!" He repeated the words and had the first smile I had seen on his face in a very long time.  He said that we are the only thing that helps his head.  Every time we go over, his pain seems to go away.

Unfortunately, his time without pain only lasted for a little bit.  He came to church on Sunday and the Bishop asked me to sit on the stand because I had a talk.  So I sat up there and during the sacrament hymn I saw my comp get up and leave with Luis.  I was like uh oh, what do I do, what do I do?  Because here in South America if you aren't there at the end of the hymn the door is shut and you don't get the sacrament.  It was the second verse out of 3 and I decided to get up and go see what was going on.  Luis had a terrible pain and was in the bathroom because he needed to spit or something and so I got them back in before the hymn ended and after my companion told me that Luis wants to tell us every time that we leave his house that he hopes that God blesses us because he doesn't know if he is going to live.  At the end of church I was talking with him and shook his hand and he started to cry and said please don't stop visiting me.  It was tough to see.  Being a missionary, you really develop a love for the people that you teach and they develop a love for you.

Also, we are teaching a grandma and her granddaughter and they have both accepted a date for the 9 of May.  It would be awesome.  I hope that they are able to come to church and be baptized this day.

Also, this Sunday I had to give a talk in sacrament.  Of course on missionary work.  People in this ward are probably getting tired of listening to me haha.  I think this was my fourth talk in this ward.  But I like to talk so it was good.  I talked a little bit about the talk the Elder Bednar gave two conferences ago.  About why we invite people.  I talked about how Alma Dad and Alma Son both had conversions.  They were both doing bad things at first and then they repented and started to preach the gospel.  Alma Son said that he repented almost to the death but after, his soul felt no pain.  Then after he had the desire to share the gospel and this message.  I talked about how we should all have this joy because like the third article of faith says, we believe that everyone can be saved through the ordinances of the gospel.  ( not the exact words ) but an important word there is THROUGH.  A person has to be a member if they want to be saved.  There  are really only two options.  Salvation or no Salvation.  If we want to be completely forgiven we have to be baptized and after partake of the sacrament worthily each weeki.  So someone has to be a member to gain salvation.  To someone it might sound harsh but it is like that.  That is why we should be so anxious to share this message with everyone.  We are literally bringing the Salvation to people.  

I love you so much family.  I pray for you all.  Have a great week!  

Monday, April 6, 2015

Hello wonderful family!!  Happy Easter to all.    This conference was amazing.  Something that hit me really hard was the statement that our of all the days in the year, the most important day is the Sunday that Christ resurrected.  Isn't that crazy?  Out of 365 days, the most important one is when Jesus Christ lived again!  He defeated death.  He was alive, dead, then lived again!  How sweet the joy this sentence gives, I know that my Redeember lives.  This conference was absolutely incredible.  I was thinking back to the difference between this one and all the conferences as a kid when I would play ping pong or be on my phone or sleep until the prophet talked.  This conference for every single one I was glued to the screen and after I was looking around saying wow, that was incredible.  Some of my favorites were of course Elder Holland's.  From the very start it had me on the edge of my chair.  It was incredible.  We are literally all on the cliff of some of us even falling and the Savior is there to catch us.  He is always waiting there and will never go away.  Also the talk about where we have to hear the music.  It is like hearing the bell in the Polar Express.  We need to be like little children with a lot of faith to be able to hear the music.  Also, another favorite was from Elder Ballard in priesthood.  He did a "personal" interview with everyone there and it was crazy.  We all need to continually ask ourselves the questions that he asked us, we need to always keep ourselves in check.  

Also, another favorite one was the Prophets talk especially when he was talking at the start about the temples.  In Perú in June they are dedicating another temple and that will make two here in Perú.  We are so blessed to have temples here in the earth that make us families forever!

So this week a couple exciting things happened!  First of all a lady, ____ has been an investigator for 3 years almost and still isn't baptized.  Her husband is a less active and her little daughter of 9 or 10 years is a member.  With my other comp, the lessons always felt a little empty.  Something was always missing.  But with Elder Aroni she seems like she is always thinking in the lessons and she is feeling the spirit more.  Anyways this week, the relief society president called us and said that she wants to be baptized this month!  It is crazy, after so much time of waiting she wants to be baptized.  There are people that are specifically prepared for specific missionaries.  There is seriously something different in the lessons with this companionship than the last one.  She has been prepared to listen to us in this time.  

Also, a couple weeks ago we had a aunt and her niece contact us saying they wanted to listen to us.  The girl didn't say anything and it kind of freaked us out.  We went to her house and she lives right next to a place where they make the headstones for the graves.  We got a little freaked out and she wasn't home that first time so we were kind of relieved haha.  Then the other day we felt like we should go back.  We went and tried and she was there.  We went in and her uncle and grandma were there.  We sat down to teach and she told us that her Dad had died when she was young and she kind of threw the blame around at everyone including God.  We talked to her and she felt better.  She had also had a problem in the past week and we helped her with that.  Anyways, she was excited to read the Book of Mormon.  She is going to read it and pray.  We have another lesson with her today so we will see how it went.  Hopefully all goes well and she was able to read and pray.  

That is the most exciting things that happened this week.  We had one day that was really hard where basically every door didn't get opened and the ones that did got shut in our faces.  But hey, every no means we are one step closer to a yes.  Hopefully I will have more stories to tell next week.  I love you all.  Work hard in everything and have a great week!