Today at 11:44 AM

Hey everyone!! Well, this week was a stall week for our investigators, they havent progresed and they all have their problems. Our golden family, family Morillo, dogged us twice yesterday so we dont know whats happening there. As always well keep working on them. Tons more borrachos and a couple of them have been brave enough to act like they were gonna hit me as I walk by. I think the Lord is trying to teach me patience before he'll give me any success. Oh well, ill be pacient with all that I can. I find myself drawing on the patience of the Lord very often. We had stake confrence this week, only 20 guys in the priesthood meeting. The stake pres got up and told us we dont even have enough holders to run a ward, let alone a stake. They talked about reactivation work. In our ward we have 30 regular attenders, and over 120 less actives. Our mission pres was there and was next to speak. He told us the statistics for the missionaries in the area. This area is the hardest in the mission. and of the missionaries that leave from this area and return after two years... 10 out of 100 remian active.... i was amazed, these are return missinoaries. Then he had all 24 missionaries in the meeting stand up and he told the members these men have been called of God to do this work, they are the best, use them. It was a bit of a butt chewing for everyone. In the adult session there was about 40 in attendence. Sunday however, there were about 200. Which isnt great considering the thousands in the stake, anyway, we had 3 investigators promise to be there and one less active. One of the investigators came and the wife of the less active told us today that our less actve had attended. So yeah. 2 of 4. Me and elder were waiting out front of the church until 20 min after the meeting started, the less actve got there an hour late, and the inves, got there 30 min late. But we were glad they came. Pres Harbertson talked in this session as well, he held up a recipie for tres leche cake and said he was  terrible baker, but if he follwed this recipie to the best of his ability he could make somewhat of a cake. Then he held up the church admninistaration manual, and siad if we follow this, we can run the church the way Christ wants, and the cool part is that Christ, the master baker, will help us follow the recipie. Its was a good talk and good confrence. I just wish our other inves had attended . The choir sang and they dont sound all that well but they look really happy as they sing and invite the spirit well enough. As far as everything else goes, we had a lot of cancelations this week, one really good lesson that we taught in the doorway and one less active that has warmed up to us. I'll let yall know whats happenig with them next week cause there isnt anyhting else to report. No cool food yet but ill keep you posted. Navidad isnt much of a holiday here, its more of an excuse to get gifts... absolutly no decoration ouside. But lots of tiendas selling toys. We had out a lot of dadiva cards and people take them cause it has Jesus on them, im not sure how many of them watch the video though. Its not easy i guess cause they have to go to an internet shop to watch it, none have internet in their houses. but yeah not sure how much success the video has in this area. But it really is a beautiful video. Anyway, all is well. We jsut keep working. We forget ourselves and go to work. Spanish is at a stall for me at the moment but thats okay i guess. All is well, Im happy and healthy, and love what im doing. Hope all is well stateside, and i miss you all lots. Stay safe and Merry Christmas!! Dont worry, im gonna get myself a tresleche and inka kola for Christmas so im all good. And i hear were getting pizza for Christmas dinner which makes me happy that i get to carry on the tradition to some extent. its deffinitly not gonna be bald mountain pizza tho . Oh well adios!

-Elder Wright

 

Fight Ring....

Hey everyone, sorry i havent written in a while. they wouldnt let us and they told us they werent gonna let us call this time. Ive honestly never been so mad at a religious leader... Oh well i guess. I closed out the MTC with getting called into the office of presidente 2 times. One for sending that email to everyones families to let them know p-day was changed... and for the fight ring. Yeap. Its official, i started an underground CCM fight ring. aannnnnnnnd got in trouble for it. He said if id had another p-day there... he would have had to take it away. Good thing i didnt. anyway... Our last day as a district... we had a testimony meeting and 3 of our 4 hermanas asked me to give them a blessing. So that was cool. i dont remember what i said but it was spiritual. We left for Cusco at 3 am and got in about 9. We flew. Meet president and his wife, took that picture you've all seen then went to the mission home. We ate and had a testimony meeting then went to our hotel... which wasnt bad i guess. Then in the morning we had orientation, and meet out comps and learned our areas. My comps name is Renzo Concepción. Hes from lima and was baptized when he was 15. Hes a good guy and we get along great. Our area is Juliaca... the ugliest dirtiest area in the mission. but im loving it. Our apartment is just fine but the bathroom is a concret box.. we dont have hot water, and no toilet seat. None the less.. i dont fit straight on the toilet.. there isnt room so i have to sit sideways. Fun stuff. Our area is all city. We have one ward. Were in the san jose ward. Weve met bishop and our mission leader for the ward. our ward misson leader is supposedly a doctor... but i dont think hes a real doctor... ive seen his clinic.. his certificate looks like something he make in WORD doc. sooooo yeah. I think theres a dead body next door. We live one the 4th floor of a tall single stack building and everytime we climb the stairs we smell the smell from the other side of the wall... its gross. I'll tell ya, ive walked a lot farther for a lot less... but never have i felt the disappointment of finding none to teach... we have taught one lesson. but it was a good one. We were loooking for a less active member and were knocking on his door and his dad, in his barber shop next door, told us he wasnt there. So we asked if we could share a message with him. He accpeted and we came in and started to teach about prayer.. his wife showed up and she joined in. We pulled out a restoration pamphlet and he gets up and goes to his closet and pulls out a restoration pamphlet that looks at least 4 years old. its frail, sun faded and falling appart... Then we talk about the cover picture which is Christ holding a lamb.. he tells us that he knows that we are the lamb. Then asks if god hears all languages in prayer... we tell him of course and then i finally contribute by saying my first language is english and i know god has heard my prayer... he seemed to like that... then his son showed up... not the one we were looking for but one thats a member that lives in another ward. He joins in and adds his testimony.... then all of the sudden... i dont know how.. were giving a blessing to the mom. i did the annointing, Concepcion did the blessing. I did my part in english to go along with the part that god knows all languages, it was pretty cool. So we got a return date and were gonna go teach some more. We asked them to read the pamphlet and he really seemed like he was going to.so yeah. 1 really good lesson. Im healthy happy and doing great. our pension is a awesome lady and has a very cute family. Havent had anyhting weird yet. Today we had pday as a zone so we had to hop on a bus and go to our zone headquarters which is an hour and a half away in araviji. We're the branch of this zone. There is another zone that is soley in juliaca but were not part of it. We did get to sing with them at the stake christmas activity though.. We sang two songs. rejocidad jesus nacio. and I know that my S

avior loves me. We sounded a lot better than i thought we would. so yeah, thats about it . i miss you all a lot. more than i can express but im happy here. love you all lots i cant send pictures this week but will next week so expect a flood. adios!

Last week at the CCM....underground wrestling ring!!

Finally its my last week here at the CCM!! I can't wait to get to Cusco!! This whole training deal is getting really old. It wouldnt be that bad if these 23 year old teachers of ours realized they arent that much older than us and that were adults, not grade school children that have to be looked out for and told what to do every day. These silly peruvians. Oh well, i can hold on for one more week. A couple cool things happened this week. The Latinos all call me Captain America or Captain Rogers now. Thursday night they mentioned it then the next day every Latino was calling me that. So now ive learned to respond to Captain. Another cool thing. As of today, I have seen all the new temple videos. I said a prayer last night that i would get to see the only one i hadnt seen before i dont get to go to the temple for about 2 years. I was so happy when it started and it was a different voice than the three id seen. Now that ive seen them all i know which is my favorite. Although if i could i would pick parts of each and put them together to make an all star edition. So that was pretty awesome how that worked out. I think i accidently started a underground fight ring here at the CCM. A couple latinos asked me to wrestle them cause they heard that i knew how to wrestle and so i showed them a few things then all the sudden they are telling me make match ups for each of them so they could wrestle. Then they started throwing punches and it escalated from there. Annnnd now they do it every night. I'm not too worried cause they couldnt hurt each other if they tried. Its just funny to watch them circle up and laugh at each other and throw really unathletic punches. Then some of the braver ones asked to wrestle me so I put the first one in the dirt and the rest didnt want to. So we arm wrestled instead and they werent very good at that either. Playing soccer with them isnt bad. One of the teachers here, Hno. Del Alia runs the games and plays with us always puts me on the same team as him and we pretty much control the game from there. It works pretty sweet. We've started playing vollyball too. It gets really hard to play sometimes cause there arent very many athletic people here at the CCM, but everyone laughs so its all a good time. Turns out one of the latinos in our room from Honduras is a neo-nazi... yeah, he gave us a hour long lecture about how Hitler was a good guy and all his choices were correct. That Jews were an enemy to the whole world and we need to take it back from them.... then he showed us a picture of him and his friends in their clothes doing the Hitler Salute. We asked him how he knew this and he said he read it in a book. He also said the Jews control the internet so you cant look it up to confirm any of the information. We brought up how Hitler killed all that were Aryan Race, so anyone latino, black, arab, was killed... he told us that wasnt true and that it was a cover up. soooooo yeah.... I dont know how he made it through his recommend interview with his affiliation with a group that goes against the church and its standards... but yeah.. its crazy.

 Anyway, i finally found a knife today.. in a little flea market deal. He had cheap chinese knockoff guns, butterfly knives, and the little pocket knife i bought. Im soooo happy now, it only took me 6 flippin week to find one of the suckers. so yeah that was a good thing. We get to have a couple devotionals this week, one we have tomorrow thats by a surprise speaker, could be an apostle, area 70 or someone else, we dont know. They asked me to write a question to ask him so if my question gets picked ill let you guys know.. and no i didnt ask why we have to follow all the rules. Then we had two other devotionals earlier this week. One was by president Gonzalas the CCM President. And an apostle Devotional that was broadcasted from the provo MTC they were both very good. Presidents was on Faith in the Holy Ghost and Elder Oaks was on being an instrument in the hands of the Lord. He gave an object lesson, he pulled out his pen and said it was his instrument, and he needed it to work, be full of ink and not say '' Im not gonna work today cause im on my P-day'' he was serious that whole time til he kinda did a mock whiney voice to say "pday", it was hillarious. Another cool thing. Our morning teacher, Bro Davalos is leaving the CCM, were his last district so I got one of my ties and we all signed the back of it and gave it to him. He almost cried, got really silent and said thank you, thank you, thank you. He seems pretty sad about leaving the CCM. But yeah thats about it. If i could get one thing it would be true silence where I couldnt hear anything that was created by man. Constantly there are cars honking and they honk every 5 minutes. Its getting really old. But yeah thats about it. I'm healthy, Happy, and still breaking rules. Love you all lots The churros are clean, i didnt get sick, they are amazing.

 

-Elder Wright

Half way thru the CCM! Churro's are my fav!

Sorry I missed a week  Nov 13, 2014

Well, not a while lot to report this week. just lots of classes, lots of spanish, and lots of lessons about teaching with the spirit. I swear thats all they ever tell us. Some cool things that happened; The girls in our district gave us all animals, i guess im a lion cause im the alpha male, and clearly in charge. :p Everyone else is lame sauce animals, like cats and owls. Another cool\funny thing is during devotionals we watch MTC apostle videos. Everyone falls asleep, so i take all their name tags and they have to get them after, I had quite a few. One of the kids whose badge I got said "im glad that was his focus while an apostle was talking¨then starting yelling at him for saying that cause he was the one that was asleep, during the talk of an apostle. I can say exactly what that talk was about, he cant, so everyone was razzing him. Everyone else thought it was funny. ill tell you one thing... peruvians are the sassiest (sassy) people ive ever met. Everyone of them that ive met. The funny thing is that they dont have a word for sassy in their language, and anything you could use as a substitute would be considered offensive and innapropriate. We got everyone in the CCM to say it with a spanish accent so im betting in the next couple of months theyll add it to the spanish dictionary. :p Well, im half way through my stay here at the CCM, and cant wait to get out of here. Its very repetitive and gets tedious after a while. Good thing everyone here is generally a happy person otherwise these 6 weeks wouldnt be so awesome. Sundays are by far my favorite day, we actually get to study and learn gospel with out the spanish barrier. The sacrament meeting is incredibly stressful for the first 15 minutres untill they call on those who are gonna speak. I got lucky again this week. We started the week being able to send pictures home but i guess someone messed it up for the rest of us so no pictures as of now, maybe next week. sorry. Churros are by far the best thing in the CCM. ask anybody and theyll say the same thing, statements like, id kill someone for a churro, and id trade spots with Job for another churro are thrown around quite often. Im stocked up on treats so im not so hungry anymore so thats good. And i got a Cars, Lightning McQueen note pad to help me learn spanish so i should be fluent pretty soon here. :) I wish we could get out of these walls more often but ill last for another 3 weeks. Love you all lots. p.s. this sunday some of the elders had a ¨deep doctrine¨discussion and they all put their opinions out in the open and I had to teach them the throw your tie over the shoulder trick, where you put your tie over the shoulder and it means your preaching your personal doctrine and cant be be held responsible for any lies you tell or argumentable topics discussed. Love you all lots. Talk to you next week!!

The Prisoner...and a Earthquake!!!

Nov 20, 2014


Well, im just about done with this here CCM, (centro capatacion misional) (didnt spell that right) but yeah, its MTC is spanish. Anyway, im done with this place. its a prison with too many wardens and too many silly rules. I wanna get out in the field. I want my spanish to be perfect already and i want to teach real investigators in stead of my teacher dressed up as someone else. I also want to get out of this smoggy city and into a less populated area. Oh well just two more weeks. im still learning lots, spanish is loco. But i found out something pretty cool. I'll come home with two additional languages under my belt. They told us that we would, out of neccesity, pick up quchuan, the native language in the southern part of Peru. Me and Elder Falsev picked up our quchuan Books of Mormon. Its a crazy looking language. But im gonna learn it. Book of Mormon in quchuan is 'Mormonpa Qelqanmanta Aqllaska T'aqakuna'... yeah... they say its not too hard to learn how to speak, writting is a different story. but yeah, thatll be cool. Everybody better brush up on their quechuan while im gone so i have someone to talk to when i get back. Everything here is grulling routine. But im still learning so i cant compalin. Churros are still the best thing in the entire universe, i bought some from some street vendors today, ill let you know if i get sick from them and start throwing up all over the place. They'll be worth it though, they're amazing. I got to watch a different temple video today, the one with the saints and soldiers dude. Its by far my favorite. It was awesome. Another cool thing that happened was we had an earthquake, supposedly a 5.8 in this area. It was way cool, it started with a deep hummm that shook your brain then everything else started shaking. It was awesome. The Peruvians were worried but all the americans were having a blast. The hardest part about being in the CCM is following all the rules. They ask us to say how many days of strict obediance we've had out of the week, and i just leave it blank cus there hasnt been a day that i havent broken some rule or another, sometimes unknowingly. The new group of latinos this week are pretty cool, in our room we have 4. Last night we had a scripture share and well do it every night from now on. They kinda treat us like idiots cause we cant speak the language and thats slightly annoying that they dont understand just how above average intelligence me and Elder Falslev are. Oh well, i think they mean well. I miss the snow, its way hot down here. And we have to  wear our suit coats way too much. other than that i dont have any complaints. I miss everybody but there isnt a place I would rather be besides Cucso. I still cant send pictures but when i get out of here i will send some. Got a email from Clancy and some pictuers and that made me pretty happy, hes looking good!! Ive been reading the bible and im almost done with the Old testiment, its amazing how many examples we have from these people, some of them must be truly incredible. I want to meet them, then there are those who arent so awesome. But you learn from them. Its crazy how different things were back then. Im glad Chirst did what he did for us cause id hate to kill animals everytime i swore... id have to kill a lot of animals, and thats a lot of blood. Anyway, I blame those whiney Israelits for our lack of giants these days, they killed them all. Well adios, stay safe everyone. Be smart in the snow. Love you all lots!!

Starting to get in the rythm!

Hey everybody! Been a relitivly normal week as far as special events go... not much has happened. Spanish is coming along fine, i can pronounce a lot better than anyone here but i dont have the vocab yet. Having lots of enjoyment though... We cant have "fun' here cause its not what we came to do. We can just enjoy ourselves along the way.. i dont agree but i dont want to rock the boat. Speaking of rocking the boat.. The thought for this week is Jesus. We were told a quote that said, people want a God that doesnt rock the boat... and a lot of the times, what they come up with is a God that not only doesnt rock the boat, but doesnt even row it!!, Jesus isnt that kind of person, his rules are clear, strict, and without leineance. People these days mistake Christs infinite amount to forgive as leiancy when really its not. Christ isnt soft, hes the rock, solid , unmoavble, shelter from the storm. The open arms of Christ are a welcome to all, hes our shelter from the storm.

Anyway, i cant stand having someone with me at all times, its terrible but its okay. we play lots of riddle games like the green glass door, and the camping trick where you have to pack your bag acooring to your name. its lots of fun and really frusterating to try to figure out the key to some of the puzzels. It makes me think of riddles in the dark and the hobbit. I wish i could watch that movie. And LOTR but i cant yet. Oh well. We finaly had some authentic peruvian food. Its amazing. The churros are incredible. Ill be happy if everything i eat here is that stuff. I still want a hamburger though. :p We had elders leave this week.. Theyre so annoying, they act like they've been on a mission for years already and the have to pass on this great and important knowledge. They're stupid. Its like for every week youre in the CCM, you gain a year on everyone else, up untill you think about it and they've only been here for a couple weeks. Im gonna hit someone... not really but i want to. the other elders and hermanas in the CCM arent too bad for the most part. Some are really cool like Bullek the marine, our zone leader  Ludlow and my comp Elder Falslev. We go to the temple every pday and i go to see an old video.. All the beautiful scenery that was shown made me miss Montana a lot. I want to see beautiful landscape again. I cant wait to get to Cusco. I wore my boots today and everyone loves them , especially the teachers. Im probably going to wear them every pday. Last thing I want to say is about music.. The teacher turned on some while we studdied, it was amazing to listen to. I miss the stuff a lot. It makes everything super peaceful and makes everyone happy. One more thing, we teach fake investigators every week and its kinda weird at times... theyare usually our teachers so its awkward to try to teach them in spanglish. Oh well, Elder falslev is almost fluent in spanish so he can clear up most everything i try to say. Anyway, learning lots. Everyone keeps saying teach with the spirit. I guess they might think the spirit needs to do his work  too :p ahhaha we are supposed to correct the english of our teachers all the time and it gets pretty funny. They cant say" w" to save their lives. Love you all stay safe  -Elder Wright

My First Week!

October 29, 2014


Alright, for starters.. my p-days will be on Thursdays from now on. I only get an hour or so to be on the computer. As of now, i cant send any pictures. Alright, i'll do this chronologicially... First of all, the plan ride was long and cramped. I had no space. After landing in Peru we had to go through customs and stuff but as soon as we stepped out those doors... it was a wave of a smell, a humid, and not a very good smell. Bus ride from the airport took an hour and we got there late, went to bed very late. First day was fine. We eat lots of rice and im sick of it already! Rice and chicken, id kill for a hamburger. They dont feed us much for breakfast, and im hungry throughout most of the day. But its okay, i'll live. Today we got to have our p-day, we went to the temple and to a store, I got some inca cola to try, i'll let you know how it is... First day was just a bunch of orientation stuff... nothing special happened. Classes started the second day. but first... my companion is Elder Falslev from Clinton Utah, he already knows a lot of spanish so he helps me a lot. Alright, classes go on all day long and we only get one hour of gym time for the whole day so im antsy for most of the day and my knee is always bouncing. Sundays are pretty cool, we have our own Branch for the MTC, for the talks, everyone prepares a talk and they randomly pick 4 to give their talk... its the most stressfull first half hour of church ive ever been too. Then we just have regular classes. Sundays are very relaxing cause all we have to do is learn more about the gospel. We had an area 70 come give us a devo. It was very cool... he said we need to convert members that will endure to the end. And that our end goal should be to get them to the temple, it was great. Spanish is coming along alright. its a language that is muy loco. There are rules that they have for no reason. Alright im out of time, ill tell you more next week... love you all. >The CCM is a prison.. were surrounded by 10 foot walls anyway bye!