Week 68

Phew. so much has happened this week!!! its hard to remember it all:)

The huge highlight was the special devotional with Elder Andersen in Trujillo!! I felt like all of the messages were so directed by the spirit and so inspired. straight to the heart!!!! It was so wonderful to have ALL the mission together again, the 1st time since Christmas!!! Wow. it was incredible. We woke up at 4:24am in order to catch the bus in Trujillo and arrive in the capilla de primavera in time for the gigantic picture of everyone. keep an eye out for it on the blog!! I´m standing behind all the leaders that came to speak to us. 

Now its all about how we can apply the messages and impressions of the spirit that we received with all the members, investigators, less-actives, and recent converts in our own area!! 

 I´m really excited for this new transfer, filled with goals and souls to save and rescue. I love my Savior and this wonderful and sacred time to serve Him with all my heart, might, mind, and strength!! These members are incredible and I love their desires for righteousness.

So many amazing experiences have happened recently, too many to share right now, but just know how happy I am to be here. Truly, this gospel has brought me such great joy, its hard to even try describing it. I love my Savor Jesus Christ and the life He freely gave for each and every one of us. I know that I have this sacred and special responsibility to share His gospel with these amazing people here in Peru. I feel so grateful, just so full of love for them and the changes that they will make through the powers of the Atonement. 

Love you all tons, you are all in my thoughts and prayers EVERYDAY!!! xoxoxoxoxoxo besitos Y abrazos, como siempre:) 

huuuge fhe

our room. peru flag I bought for 6 soles

our district leader celled us at 4:24am to make sure we were awake to leave for trujillo. trying to fake being awake

cinthia, do you remember her from el bosque??!?! well she´s headed off to chile on her mission to chile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tomorrow. legit.

legit primary anniversary stake activity slash party

yepp. just a little innappropriate. maybe she came free with the clown. awk.

cachangas, with our investigator evaline

jorge, a recent convert, who completed his 1st year as a member yesterday!!! he´s awesome.

Week 67

this was from last week, but forgot to send it!!

Love all these awesome pictures that Hunter sent me! Grant, it looks like you already LOVING your baseball team-that's fantastic!! Enjoy it man:) Rex, what happened with your hair? Don´t worry, your still a stud. Mckay looks like a California beach boy. haha I love seeing pictures!!! Please keep them coming:) mom stop counting the days, why are you so trunky? haha but for real, pleaaaase don´t. whenever people here say falta poco para terminar, yo siempre dice pshhh falta MUCHOOOO!! if people from the ward ask when I´m coming back, tell them never. ever. but if they really insist, I think my flights on November 17th. but stop counting! its ruining all the fun. 

I feel like I´m the happiest kid in the world, this week was fantastic! we have the full love and support of the ward members, testifying strong so these investigators can feel the spirit, and had some less-actives at church yesterday! The Lord is hastening His work and its amazing to see the many miracles that we have seen in our area and ward. He certainly works in mysterious ways! Elder Neil A. Anderson is coming and we have a devotional talk this Saturday with all the mission in trujillo!! I´m so excited to hear a prophet´s voice. 

Something really funny, we have our own door to our room, and people knock all the time-which is sort of strange. so the other day I opened it, guess who it was...that's right testigo de jehova! haha knocking on a missionary´s door! it cracked me up. too strange, that its just too funny. also I chewed out two disgusting men the other day and it felt so satisfying. just wanted to slap the one so hard right in his face, but instead I reminded him that we´re missionaries and he shouldn´t talk to us that way. too good. 

Remember the Josellin girl that we invited to read the bom and finish before the new year?? guess what..she´s already reading in ALMA!!! whadda stud.

well sorry its kinda short this week, but know how much I love you all and hope you all have a lovely week!! we´re gonna play basketball with our district today!! wahooo

Week 66

Last P-Day we hiked cerro de paz and it was a BLAAAAST!!! I mean just imagine, hiking, sun, and even 3 leches cake that I packed up. Can you even think of a better way to see all of chimbote?? it was amazing. absolutely looved it. my companion and I took our own way up, and by own way I mean literally rock climbing, instead of the trail. Saved a lot of time and I was sore for a solid 2 days after. haha i miss hiking sooo bad!! 

 

So do you all remember when I said that last year, I had the best birthday ever? Well, that was certainly topped on Tuesday!! And I have a bunch of birthday emails in my inbox too!! Pucha it was lots of fun and certainly memorable. My companion put notes and candles on my study desk in the morning to start off the day. When we went to my pensoniesta´s house for lunch, I got the absolute biggest surprise EVER!!! one of my favorite families from my old area of monserrate in trujillo took a 2.5 hr. bus to chimbote just to wish me a happy birthday. Holy cow, I was so surprised!! familia castro, your the greatest!! Anna Claudia walked in from one of the doors when we were about to eat lunch and it was just so wonderful. Her & her parents brought a HUUUGE stuffed dog from Trujillo and my pensioniesta invited them to have lunch with us too. it was so awesome to see them and catch up a bit of how everyone´s doing in monserrate. absolute best and greatest surprise ever. my pens and her mom gave me a blue sweater, its getting chilly here in chimbote! the seminary kids sang to me, and the bada family threw a little party at their house. and the sister training leaders in our zone gifted me new shower sandals, mine had been broken for the past 2ish months. my only true birthday wish was to finally have hot water to shower in and when we came back to our room from lunch, i found a post-it on the bathroom door from the zone leaders that they had installed the temo!! wahooo, showering in hot water for the first time in a month. seriously, thats a gift that keeps giving. it was certainly a really special day!! plus cerro de paz the day before, yeah it was the greatest!!! 

 

We had a wonderful zone training on Thursday, I felt the spirit so strong and thought of so many things that I want to improve and focus more on. it was great!!

 

Our zone had the wonderful opportunity to help out with our stake´s youth conference, we did a mini MTC at the stake center and it was an incredible turn out!! my companion and I taught them how to contact, talk with strangers on the street basically. we taught them how to do it by showing them an example first, then they had a practice too. I love the energy and testimonies of the youth! at the very end, 2 youth that have their mission calls shared their testimonies and 2 missionaries from my zone that are going home really soon.  

 

Once again, i´m so grateful for our ward. such strong, converted members and strong desires to support us. we had tons of members accompanying us to our teaching appointments and one of the members even said that her patriarchal blessing talks about supporting the missionaries and she´s so thankful that she now has that opportunity. very few members have cars, but 2 families that do take the time to pick up a bunch of people that would otherwise have to walk or take public transit. isn´t that so nice?? church combis. 

Hey you know whats a lot funnier than a hurt nose from futbal? A runny nose cause I´m definitely rock-in the common cold nowadays. ironic? Halls are a life-saver. 

Loooooove you all, thanks for all the B-

day shout-outs and love!!!!

Week 65

How exciting, Boody Chodo´s gonna write us all about Japan today!! or maybe we´ll actually receive it tomorrow with the time difference...who knows but that's pretty exciting!! 

Phew! This week just fleeeew by!! We had a gigantic family home evening Monday night, which was really fun! There´s this fruit salad game that's always a hit when there´s a lot of people that we played. they were all cracking up so bad!! 

So we´ve been teaching a legitimate MARRIED couple named Ericka and Michael! they´re awesome. kelly and helmo, a couple from the ward went with us to teach them and it went really well. we taught about the book of mormon and left 3 nefi 11 to read. they were gonna come to church yesterday, but traveled to nuevo chimbote instead...:( michael always has a lot of solid comments and questions.

Evaline is also a new investigatos. single mom of 2 daughters. she´s cool, but i don´t know yet how interested she really is yet...we´ll see.

Katharine is the niece of a member from the ward. she´s 15 and previously came to church before with her aunt. thought she was gonna come to church yesterday, but her mom said she was sleeping...

Yuriko is the girlfriend of a less-active member of one of our favorite families that live in our area. she´s great and came to church yesterday for the first time in awhile, since we started visiting her!! tonight we´re gonna teach about the book of mormon at their fhe. 

This ward is seriously the GREATEST!!! ward council´s helping us out and we had a TON of members to help us out and go with us to our teaching appointments. I could feel the spirit so strongly at testimony meeting yesterday. I love these members! they have the countenance of the Savior in their hearts and minds. I shared my testimony in RS yesterday and just felt so extreamly grateful for all their love and support. hermana mirtha, a less-active that we´re working with also bore her testoimony! she thanked us for visiting her and ended in the name of heavenly father, amen. haha hermana carmen bada wants to crochet my companion and I a sweater. haha mustard yellow puhlease! 

we´ve been getting to know and visit all the recent converts too, they´re all wonderful! juan carlos always has tons of questions and is preparing to recieve the priesthood. we always invite him to play futbol in the mornings, so he can get tight with the members. vanessa is a single mom of 2 and has tons of friends! we have a fhe with her tonight. alejandro is the dad of the family jimenez that has the goal of getting sealed in november, we visited them yesterday and just LOVE ém!!! oooh plus Josselin, she´s 13 and this week we challenged her to start reading the book of mormon from chapter one and have the goal of finishing before new years. the very day after from when we invited her, we passed by and she was on page 40!!!! IN ONE DAY!! we were so pleasantly surprised!! whadda stud. 

these are the libros de mormon that we gave ericka and michael, a MARRIED couple that we´re teaching. and this is a delish anticucho that our investigators sister gave us. cow heart has never tasted so good!!!

this is our pensioniesta and her 2 kids-grace and isai. we gave him cookies and a cartuchera