Training Complete

I have completed training and am so ready to take on the work with everything that I learned. Elder Monroy taught me so much and my Spanish improved immensely. I dropped him off this morning at the buses to head up to Tumbes and my new comp came later from Tumbes, his name is Elder Wittwer. He is white and has blonde hair, so I'm looking forward to the respect we will receive from everyone now that there are two of us. Just kidding, I think we will do great, he only has six more weeks than me so we are still relatively new but we get along already so that's good.

The work was great last week and our investigators are progressing. Hermano Villajuan, an 18 year old who is preparing for his mish has been coming with us and helping a ton during the lessons, he will be a great missionary one day. On Wednesday we were teaching Maria Fernanda and she has been avoiding baptism saying she wants to wait until she is 16, she is 14 now. I was asking her why she wanted to wait and explaining the endless blessing if you are baptized now. Villajuan helped a ton and she finally settled on getting baptized on the 20th of March, a day after her birthday.

Elder Monroy and I have really gotten to know her and Monroy already left and I will too by the time her baptism comes, maybe we can get her to move it up. We had our 12 week conference to wrap up training, later that day we went to check on David a recent convert who has been struggling recently. We pray for him and hope he and his family will be better.

After an awesome exchange with Flitton came Friday and we went to the 24 month converts devotional by Elder Holland, it was amazing!! He taught about trial in our lives and how we should expect them, God didn't give them to us, we are in mortality, what do you expect? We are not perfect but the church sure is. He talked about staying in the boat, during a crazy storm why the heck would you jump out into the water. Sure the boat will shake and your life will be hard but the storm will pass, it always does. God keeps His promises, don't turn your back just when the blessings are about to come. Don't leave the truth of the gospel, thats "Loco in la cabeza!" as an apostle of the Lord put it. Anyways, he taught a lot of great stuff and I was so happy to see our converts there listening to it.

Lots of fun this week, catch ya on the flippity-flip.

Serving in Northern Perú

Quick week in the field and only one more left of training. Not that my trainer is bad or anything but let's just say I'm ready to work as a team rather than being told what to do. It is amazing how I see miracles every day in the mission as we teach and spread the good word. A guy Jesus Villajuan who is preparing for a mission soon has been accompanying us and is a great help in the lessons. We talked to a couple for a while about the importance of marriage and they were not taking it, it was hard to understand their reasoning but we'll keep working with them.

Another service opportunity with the district leader smashing a wall so that was a good stress reliever. Been teaching Dixon the guitar lately and he is so excited to learn more. Blessed a members house today and then went to another service project late at night moving a pile of dirt to another pile of dirt, more fun than it sounds. Maria Fernanda is improving so much and we are so excited for her and hope she receives an answer about her baptism soon. A recent convert, David has been struggling recently with family matters and such so please pray for him. Been teaching about the Tree of Life lately as part of Come, Follow me and it has been awesome to see the reactions from people who have never heard it before. Hope all is well for everyone, I learned that the harder you work the greater miracles you will see, so put the work in and you will be blessed.

Mas Despacio

Crazy fast week out here in Capullanas! Been working with a few investigators a lot and teaching a lot of young people too. On Friday alone we got 6 news because Hermana Paiva pretty much invited every kid on the street to come and hear our message. They were cool and we played games afterwards. This was during our splits with the zone leaders too where Elder Blanco, another gringo, came and was in my area with me. We had a lot of successful which was very exciting for me as I was able to receive help a little easier because of the language barrier that is there at times. Had interviews with the president on Tuesday too and that went well, everyone was so nervous when they shouldn't be, pretty funny. A kid started talking to us at a park and he was playing basketball, we played with him and I shot a basketball for the first time in 2 months, felt good. The rim was 11 feet tall for some reason and when my comp went to dunk, he ripped his pants lol. Had a multi-zone on Wednesday and learned a ton about the importance of the Sacrament and inviting others to come and partake of it. Later that night we had a district dinner and I ate cow heart and what might have been alcoholic lemonade, don't worry it wasn't, I think. A few of the young people we've been teaching are Olenka, Daniel, and Snayder. Daniel is very smart and pretty much teaches us during the lessons, he is only 10 and I will have the opportunity to baptize him on the 25th of January. Snayder turns 8 next month and couldn't be more excited. They are so cool and are pretty much my little bros now. Gave easily more than 10 blessing this week too to members and such which is always an amazing opportunity to help and utilize my priesthood abilities. The members are helpful here and my Spanish is improving more and more, hope all is well for everyone. Always be looking to serve and be a light to others.

El Nuevo Ano

Beginning of my mission year and starting off strong! Cannot believe its already 2020 and I will be here in Peru for the whole year. Time is flying and I am almost done with training, WOOT! Celebrated new years with the Elders at the Zone Leaders apartment like we did last week for Christmas and we stayed up to watch all the amazing fireworks. They also like to burn muñecos which are human scarecrow things that represent someone they do not like or something and you burn away your problems from the past year, pretty interesting. Been meeting with a lot of new people and got a total of 11 new investigators this week. Service project as a zone on Saturday was awesome, we picked up trash and cleaned up a park, one of the Elders was so disgusted and vomited because of all the maggots and rats, pretty crazy. Fast Sunday yesterday as well and we saw miracles right away as that day we met a family and the 10 year old said, ´´I want to be Mormon baptized.´´ Also had the opportunity to bear my testimony during sacrament meeting and that was awesome. Pretty fast week with a lot more work to do, stay busy always!