June 8, 2015

 

Well, Only have time to tell one story!

 This week president came to the zone to do interviews with all our elders and sisters. In our apartment we have a wall when the kids of the house started to put the names and height of all the elders to come through. So when we had president there, we got his wife on the wall, she's a short gal, and she signed her name and everything... when president saw it.. heheheheehee. But yeah, we won, I'll get a picture of the wall here for next week!! Sorry i dont have time for more.. lovee you all lots!! Be safe and keep on keeping on!!

-Elder Wright

June 1, 2015

 

Well, sorry about the lack of a group email last week.. Ive been busy busy busy. Too much stuff to do. Well, as you all know I was  tranfered, Im in Puno now... Puno is the city that has the floating city out on the lake. The people are called the Uros. We cant go out there unless we have a service project to do, but we're setting one up for the whole zone to go. I'll make sure to take some good picutres of it! They are literally reed islands!!

Anyway, my zone is on the hillside of Puno, In my picutres from a while ago there are picutres of a big bird statue, the Condor, that is my sector, ON the hill side.. we walk up and down that same hill every 10 minuets.. its burns the buns, but my comp suffers worse than i do... hes from lima, so hes not used to altitude, at all. 

Not much to report yet, next week I hope I have a funny story to tell, but we'll see i guess. Puno has a lot of potential, we'll get some work done here for sure. 

A few days ago they had a protest here... about the mines and all the bad stuff they are doing.. anyway... The protesters, werent all that many of them, moved a garbage bin to the middle of the road, and wrote Viva el Paro!! On the street with chalk... Thats about it... i guess someone burned a tire as well, but supposedly the same group put the fire out after a little bit... so yeah, these peruvians are riotous! Theres a picutre in my drop box of the extent of the damage they did with the garbage... :P

Love you all lots, stay safe and keep on keeping on!

-Elder Wright

Riots

PUNO

 

 

w/Elder Chacon

-Transfer on my way to Puno-

May 18, 2015

 

Well, This week has been a really busy week, really really busy. Lots of good things happened!! We found a new investigator that is the absoloute best!! Her name is Magaly, She is soo very very well prepared. Her sister lives in Lima, and her Mom lives Huancayo, and both of them are also recieving the missionaries. She'll be getting dunked here in just a little bit. But, i wont be here to see it. I have a transfer to Puno, its about an hour away, and its on Lake Titicaca. Well see how this new adventure goes!!

This week we had a pretty awesome Family History Activity. We planned it with the three wards that meet in our same building and it turned out great!!! We got some really good starts on all of their my family pamphlets, and had some good fun. We had an angel food cake kind of refreshment and they were all super excited to try a dessert from the United States!! They really really liked it when i showed them pictures of my family! And they really really loved my long hair. I'll tell you guys, There is a great spirit to be felt when youre doing family history work. Its something really incredible. Its probably one of my favorite things to teach these days cause it brings the spirit so fast. 

Well, thats about it for today, sorry its short, I gotta go pack. Love you all, keep on keeping on. 

-Elder Wright

 

 

May 11, 2015

 

Well, pretty good week this week, we just got really busy this weekend. We had full days and didnt have time to eat! The highlight would have to be using a hole puncher to punch holes in a card that a sewing machine uses to make patterns. I think i made thousands and thousands of holes. My comp doesnt have the hand strenth to punch the holes, and that was pretty sad, but he was there for moral support. 

We had a baptism yesterday!! Alberto got dunked! It was a cool baptism cause he didnt want a whole bunch of people to come, so we only invited the young people in the ward, so it was pure young adults there and we had a little testimony meeting which went very well.

We got a few there that are getting ready to go on a mission and it got them pretty excited. 

Hope everyone is doing well! Love you all lots! Keep on keeping on!

-Elder Wright. 

May 4th, 2015

 

Well, fun week this week. Highlight was I got to translate for the family history missionaries that came to our area. I'll let you know that translating isn't easy, you worry a lot about changing the meaning and thats a bit of a scare. It really was an awesome experience. The spirit of Elijah is a good one, and during that time we were able to prep a lot of ordinances for the Temple. We had a few from our ward come and do some work and that was even more awesome. They were all so happy during the whole thing, me included. The missionary couple that came are the Johnsons, from Utah. He is an awesome guy, been to Africa to hunt, has motorcycles, and shoots sporting clay. It was really an awesome day. So if you guys get the chance, do some family history work!! You won't regret it! 

Other than that, we have a mall here with some american fast food in it.. and this week, after some saving, I bought a pizza hut family size pizza and ate it all myself. Its the most and best i've eaten since I left, and it was awesome. :) Other than that, were just  working.

 If you guys could help out, pray for the baptism that we have this weekend. 

Love you all!!

-Elder Wright. 

 

Hey everybody! Hope everyone is doing well and reading your scriptures!!

Sorry, but i only have one story for this week:

So yesterday we're visiting people and we find this drunk guy that had gotten his car stuck in the mud. To be frank, him and the people helping him ( nearby neighbors) had no idea what they were doing, and had no idea how to really get him out. So we go over and start helping out. The guy looks at me and asks if im a Christian, I told him yes, (remember that this guy is drunk, and falling asleep in between everything he says and does) he tell me then I must be a mormon! I tell him yes again and and why he knows that, he falls asleep for a second, then tells me its cause im American, and only the mormons send people from the United States to preach in Peru. I tell him we send people from all over the world to all over the world and he asks me why. We tell him cause we have a message that everyone needs to hear. He asks why we're called mormons. We tell him its cause of the BofM... he falls asleep, wakes up and says ''so, the bible isnt enough for you mormons'' i asked him how many hands he had, he looks down, counts, and says two, so i told him about two, one to support the other, and how the BofM suports the bible and vice-versa. That just seemed to blow his mind! So we start getting the car unstuck, my companion didnt want me to get in the car and get it unstuck cause we have a rule against driving cars. So I tried to explain to them how to get it out but no one thinks the Gringo knows what he's doing... oh how little they know. So they bring in another car and try to pull it out, but they dont know what they're doing so it doesn't work. So I tell them to take gravel and get it under the tires, and they listen to me.. surprisingly. And while they're doing it, we talk to the guy again... hes in his car now, falling asleep, off and on, and I try to explain to him how its all gonna work... he thinks I told him that God will get him out.. so he tells us that he's a bad person and that God won't help, I keep telling him what to do cause I didnt know thats what he thought yet. So I leave cause its not helping out, and my Comp keeps talking to him about no one is an exception to the help of God and the guy doesnt believe. We push him out of the mud with the help of the other car and 6 people pushing (all of us pushing didnt help for nothing) and he catches the gravle and peels out of there spitting mud like crazy.. I saw what was happening and got out of the way... but everyone else got mud splattered, Elder Chacon the worst cause he was right over the tire. The guy gets out of the car and runs to give me a hug telling me that God did it!!! I was confused at this and it wasnt untill later that Elder Chacon told me that the guy thought I told him God would get him out.. so yeah, this guy wants us to come visit, asks to take us home, we tell him where were headed and its the other side of the mud puddle and he insists that he drive us across.. The others when they heard this started laughing, we talk him out of it and promise to come see him and help calm his wife down, etc. The local neighbor let Elder Chacon wash up in his house, even though we had to go change cause he had mud al over his white shirt. But what was crazy is they gave us a 2 liter of Fanta and a loaf of bread for ''bringing motivation'' So yeah, maybe we'll get an investigator out of it, but we dont know, all we know is that we got fanta and bread in exchange for Elder Chacon getting all muddy. 

Yeap, thats the story, long, sorry, but its a little funny.. Love you all lots, stay safe!

-Elder Wrig

April 20th, 2015

We these 6 months have passed by really fast. Missions are funny. You forget a lot of things that you thought you knew, and learn many things that you've forgotten. Its crazy to experience but its all good stuff.

  For my 6 Month Birthday I got an electric shower. I have been havin ice cold showers for 6 months now, and after all that time I can testify of how great of a blessin it is to have hot water. I went through ____ to get it, but it was worth it. So the next time you casually turn on your hot water, remember me and remember the blessings that come out of that shower head!

  Lots of cool little things happened this week, one of the biggest is we got Olga reactivated offically, Shes now off the list and a participating member of the chruch. She's awesome! Yesterday she took us to meet a family she knows. We met with them and the family is awesome and very well prepared. It was incredible to see Olga talk to this family!! After the lesson Elder Chacon told, we had

 

been replaced for that lesson by Olga!! I cant even explain how awesome it was! She bore her testimony and made the spirit thunder down!! It definitly fulfills the statement that when the members participate in the work of salvation, they make it all better. 

  One of our investigators came to church yesterday in sunday dress... and that might not seem like a big deal, but it is. We cant even get the members to put on their best to come to the house of the Lord. What was even cooler is that he brought a friend, so we have one more investigator to teach! 

So yeah, i'll be burnin a pair of socks tomorrow (6 months is socks not a tie in this mission), and maybe eat some cake :)

Love you all lots, stay safe! 

-Elder Wright

April 13th, 2015

Well, this week was a really hard week for the work... we had so many lessons planned but just about every single one of them got cancelled on us. Lots of disappointment. But, the little time teachin we had this week was really really good!! One more part of the miracle less active family we have, we have contact with all the family now!! At first it was only Sister Felicitas, and her two grandkids, Seni, who we'll be baptizing pretty soon, and Sebastian, who is the only person in this city who can say my name correctly. But now, we have the mom of Seni and one of Felicitas' other kids. They are all coming to church and every lesson we have is awesome!! This family has re-taught us that this is a work of the lord, we just paly a small part. Nothing was thanks to us, its all thanks to Him!

Im teaching some pretty awesome English classes these days, So if any of you need to learn English, I got your back. Something really hard, is when we tell them they gotta talk a bit more with their throat to sound better, they leave a whole of spit in their mouths and talk on the sides of their cheeks. Its sounds like they have a huge set of braces on and they think they are talking like an american... They are

Relaxing and staying warm...

 

 

all head cases. Its pretty fun though, we actually ended up getting a lesson after the class, which is the purpose of it all. There were two investigators there and we got to give them a lesson on Christ and the Restoration. One seemed interested, the other looked hungry and wanted to leave to eat someting, but he was interested while we were throwing down some testimony. 

Sorry, short email this week, not much to report.. buttttt stay safe, love you all. Keep praying! ( for me and my investigators as well) 

-Elder Wright

April 6th, 2015

Well, we had a really hard week this week as far as the work goes. Lots of appointments were cancelled on us and we didnt get to teach all that much. But conference was awesome!!! You can tell those men and women are inspired!! Its cool to have the perpective of a missionary. The whole time I was writing the names of people we could bring each talk to cause it allined with their problems and troubles perfectly. I got to watch in english which have my mind an awesome break from spanish. All the Americans had our seperate room to watch... so we brought food and had a party. I brought a tres leche cake, and made french toast!! It was a sweet time. The attendance wasnt all that great though... everyone came to the sunday morning session but we had less than 50 for the whole stake in the other sessions... so we got some work to do, obviously.

All that were wondering about the meat i brought for tacos last week... no im not dead, but it was some terrible terrible nasty badly feed cow that went into making that meat... I miss America! Where we have good cows and good meat... but thats alright. I'll just keep on sticking with the safe options here in Peru.

I dont have a change or tranfer this week, so Elder Chacon and I get to keep working together. We got a lot of promise here in the area, we just gotta get it unlocked. 

I got to visit a little town to do a work v

Pizza night! w/ Elder Chacon

 

isit. Went to Lampa, awesome little town. The people there are great people, and really nice. Went Friday, so we got to see all the little festivities there for holy week. They cook twelve plates of food here on holy friday, but we didnt have time to eat with anyone. We were offered many times but sadly didnt get to do it. We met with some awesome people and taught some good lessons. The little branch out there is doing as well as our ward in the big city, but they have problems with gossip.. its literally killed the spirit out there for a lot of people, so the lesson for the day is DO NOT GOSSIP.. it is destructive, hurtful and against the teachings of Jesus. 

Thats about it for the day!! Love you all lots!! Stay safe and keep on keepin on! 

-Elder Wright

March 30th, 2015

Well, we had 4 inches of hail this last week... 4 whole inches. When you squinted your eyes, it looked a bit like snow!! It made everyone go crazy... the little moto taxies were crashing all over the place, the old ladys were still trying to do their work. We help a lot of them push their bread carts through the snow, and put up their tarp shelters, then watched as they hunched over and chewed their cocoa leaves like it was just another day. haha, elder Chacon stepped in a foot deep hole that had been covered by the hail and looked solid... after that we had to go back to the room for him to change and to get our goloshes on. Crazy day though, everything flooded and just about every street was a river. Lost quite a few lessons that day which was really sad, but thats alright.

Our investigators all had a rather terrible week. All have problems that are making things really hard for them, but for some of them this made them a little more humble and now they say theyll come to conference to get a little more strength.

Im pretty excited for conference, we get to watch all of it.. and they set up a room off to the side for the american misisonaries to watch it in english. Annnd everyone brings food and snacks. Cake, cookies, candy. Im gonna bring my little stove and cook some french toast and pancakes the foollowing day. Its gonna be a party!! 

Im making tacos tonight for district meeting, and had to go on a goose chase to find all the stuff to make them... my adventures took me to the meat market... Its a little sketchy getting meat thats been sitting out in the sun for a whole day, amongst the flies, from a littel old lady with a blood stained and crusted apron, who weilds a rusty bloody cleaver to chop it all up. But i guess i'll cook out all the diseases hidden within, right? Just kidding its not that bad, she washes her hands pretty frequently, even in the water looks a little old.

We got Easter coming up!! Its the perfect time to put more effort in always remembering him, He Lives, which is the title of the new video the church just put out! Go check it out!! I know he lives and I

SNOW!! Here comes winter....

 

know what that means for me, FIND OUT WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU!!!!! 

LOve you all lots, stay safe!!!

-Elder Wright

Well, this week flew by, really really really fast... yesterday me and my comp were running through our numbers for the week and we both felt that we'd skipped days cause we couldn't believe it was Sunday! Not much to report this week. We have a few new people to teach but not enough. Were fighting with our ward to get refrences, its really hard to get them to give us a name, its like they don't want their friend in the celestial kingdom with them. We had a record attendence this week of 87!! We almost have enough to be considered a branch.. even though were a ward. They're still trying to find trust in our new bishop and new leadership. But its getting better, little by little.

My English class is in full swing. We have about 15 people there every Saturday, and the only thing they seem to learn is the slang... but thats alright, its english... Well, i permitted a bit of apostasy to go on in my class.. we start and end with a prayer... in english if they can. We had a young girl there for the first time and she volunteered to say it... I knew she couldnt do it in english, so I accepted  Spanish... She did it in English... but said the lords Prayer.. Our father who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name,thy kingdom come... etc. I guess she memorized in in school... So yeah, im an apostasitic Elder that permitted such wickdness to go on in the house of the Lord... its okay though, the only one that understood was Elder Falslev, and we both had to choke back laughs. 

Its really hard to program a baptism, and have it go through... our first baptism fell through cause the dad couldn't be there all of a sudden, and now we have to reschedule it for a while down the road.. about two weeks... they're a little upset, but there's nothing we could do. 

Things are looking really good, Chacon and I are working better and better together. We are getting good at recognizing the spirit, and its the reason were doing so much better. 

Not sure who the Elder in the middle is??

W/Elder Chacon

One cool story, we have a little family, very humble, very receptive.. The wife asked what happened if she drank after she was baptized... We told her there as always repentence but that she could get through whatever situation with the help of the holy ghost... She then told us that her, her sisters, and their mom who is special needs, go to their little field in the country and drink together. She told us it was really hard to say no in a situation like that. I was still trying to grasp the fact that her, and her sisters took beer to their mom to get drunk together. This lady was so sincere in telling us this though. It was really a concern that she wouldn't be able to get through that situation... Her husband just sat there shaking his head. She was so funny about it though, then we got spiritual with her and got it all taken care of. After we left, Chacon and I just laughed at the situation they put themselves in... all to have a good time and dance. We also found out that she couldn't read, she was so honest with us about it but told us her husband has been teaching her, and she can now read some of the headlines in the newspaper... both Chacon and I had the thought that the Book of Mormon was gonna help her to learn. I told her about the help of the Lord in things like these and how I was an example.. 5 months back I was lost.. but now, with the help of theLlord, im fluent in this language.. they were really surprised that I had only been speaking castillano for 5 months. But she really belived she could do it and is really determined now!!

So yeah, all is well, hope the same for you all!! Stay safe and keep on keeping on .

With love, Elder Wright. 

March 16th, 2015

Well, I did my first service for someone in my area. I've done service before, but never for any of my own investigators or for any of my less actives.Guess what i did... I didn't wrangle llamas or alpacas, I didn't help them pull their potatoes and quinhua out of the field, I didnt help them fix anything, nor build a house, nor clean, nor anything like that... I colored... my first service for one of my people, was coloring. School just started back up, and all the kids have their subject sheets that they gotta tape to the front of their notebooks, and they have to be colored as well... so i got to color everything that has to do with America, cause im from America, and I know how all of it should look. I colored the Statue of Liberty, eagles, American Flags, Military things, trucks, the golden gate bridge, mountains, etc. So yeah, took about 2 hours to color everything, and they were super grateful. Not what I tought my first service would be... but thats alright I guess.

Our baptism last saturday fell through, but I think well get it rescheduled soon and get'm dunked. We have a new inves. that might progress faster than all the others and we might get him baptized within the month. So pray for us!! 

Were working very slowly to build up the attendence in our ward. They've been through a lot these last 4 years, and they've lost a lot of members cause of leadership change... we are trying to convey to all of them that we go to chruch for God.. not the bishop.. but they got some grudges and are very chismoso/ gossip. So the lesson for today is don't be chismoso, it really hurts the kingdom, and really doesn't get us anywhere. Speak kind of others, be honest, and make your word your law!!!

Love you all!! Stay safe!! 

-Elder Wright

Mar 9

Well, Elder Chacon and I are newbies. We have very little expirience and don't know a whole lot. But we learn our lessons little by little, always. We forget things, like to schedule another appt when we finish a lesson, and we don't quite know how all the processes go. But I dare say were always with the spirit and always offering it to our investigators. 

A cool expirience, we were trying to decide a baptism date for some of our investigators, and we came up with the idea to pray about it to get an answer. So we got down on our knees and prayed. We each said one and we each presented the Lord with the dates we had in mind and asked for which would be best. We both got the same feeling that both were great, But he leaned more towards the later, and I the earlier.... So we decided to put the later, and as I was writing it down, I wrote the earlier without even noticing. It was rather wierd. Then it hit me, we ask our investigaotrs to ask a specific question to get a specific answer.. such as, is jo smith a prophet, that way they they get the answer yes. Our question was which was better, which isn't a very specific question.. So we didnt get a specific answer. So we learned our lesson, that everything we teach applys to us as well. We can get wisdom from God, we just have to ask in the right way. So in another prayer we asked specifically and got  a specific answer and during the time presented this date to the investidagotr, the date felt right. So yeah, were learning, little by little, but were defintly learning. 

This applies to eveyone, ''do it right to get the result''. So yeah, were headed to Puno today to play soccer with another zone, so that should be fun, anyways, thats the reason for the short letter. love you all. Stay safe!

-Elder Wright 

Well, things look great!! Me and Elder Chacon work great together. We started with the plan to talk about each lesson after we leave. So far I feel like I've grown a ton. I've realized im pretty much fluent in spanish. Chacon and i make a really good team. We have three with baptism dates already. Neither of us says to much and we recognize the spirit together. 

Jesus, one of our investigators got up and bore his testimony in sacrament. He told everyone Christ was the reason to change and the way to change, then thanked me personally for bringing that to him.

Sandra moved to the jungle.. we think so we'll see about when we'll baptize her. 

The Murillo girls have a date for the 14 pray for it!!! And their mom told us she was talking to Joel about gettig married!! So things are moving along!!!

Sorry for the short letter, love you all!!!

-Elder Wright

Last week together in Cusco.

Goodbye to Elder Conception..

New Comp Elder Chacon!

Cusco Airport w/ Elder Conception

Today at 11:37 AM

Well,this week was carnival... that means every decent person left the area to get away from the indecent... we didn't teach anyone, find anyone, contact anyone... Nothing.

Our streets were filled with the drunk dancers, and the regular old drunks. The dancing they do before they start drinking is cool, and has culture to it... but the purpose of the dancing is to drink... so its sad to see the culture being taken over by the things of the world. They have this tradition, they put up a tree in an open space with lots of gifts hung in the branches.. then they dance around it while they take turns chopping it down with an axe... when it falls, everyone, kids included, run and grab a gift. At least thats what its supposed to be. My comp was telling me that thats how it used to be and it was a good time for everyone... fun for the families and especially the kids. Now, its an excuse to drink. The drunks make it a horrible enviorment for the kids, so they dont really come anymore, and the ones that do, are without the rest of their families. So yeah... Its kinds sad. But they still have that bit of culture before the bad starts and its very cool to see!! 

For my comp's last day, we got to go to Lampa and go to the catacombs!! They weren't really catacombs, more like a sepulchur... they had a little mosselium where they hung bones and skulls and people threw money down there for luck. I still dont like how dark the catholic church is with all its apostacy, but its was cool too see. Observe the Picture where im kissing one of the skulls.. ;) 

Well, its transfers today, my old comp is on his way home, and my new comp is Elder Chacon. Its not official, we haven't gotten our emails with the changes yet, but my old comp called me from Cusco this morning to let me know. Elder Chacon was in my MTC group, so were both pretty new. He's coming here to my area, and yeah... Hes a cool kid, very very good at soccer, and i think we'll have some success to gether. 

Thats about it for the week, I'm happy and healthy

CARNIVAL!

Catacombs in Lampa

Kiss of death!

, and hope everyone is doing well!! 

-Elder Wright

The Work Goes On.....

Well, not much happened this week. We had a companion exchange, so i was with Elder Reyes from Honduras for a couple days. He's a good missionary, says some funny stuff at times, and wants to know everything he can about everyone he meets, especially their little details... but then forgets their names. So had a good time with him.

Our investigators are stalling a bit, baptisms have ben put off, again, but thats how it goes. We keep working and helping them along. One of our investigators really opened up to us this week. She told us that she believed that Jesus and God were sinners as well... we told her that the sacrafice had to be perfect and if Jesus was imperfect, the atonement wouldn't have worked for us.. and we know that it worked so he was obviously perfect. But I think she's really starting to get it all. She's the only one of our investigators that is reading the Book of Mormon like we asked her too. But she's slow to pray about it. We think she might know though. Everyone else was out of town this week.. so we contacted a lot of families.. like 41 families.. most dont live in our area, but the other areas hopefully will get some new families cause we were able to talk to them and give the invitation.

This week is Carnival!! Which means I, as a gringo, have to watch my back and always have a water baloon in my bag, and a water gun on my hip. And look out for the matacholas ( roughly translated means ''killer field/country woman'') They carry around nylon stockings with a rock or fruit in them with a whole bunch of baby powder. Like they do in prisons with a sock and a bar of soap. They call their weapon matacholas as well so its not just the killer field women, but everyone who has one. So yeah they wail on people and they have a certain desire to kill gringos. So this week ill be fighting for my life. Pray for me. Supposedly the drunks get worse as well, really really bad. And im told  they pee everywhere and get in lots of fights. They cant hold their fire water. So yeah, its all a big party!! With lots of dancing and parades! 

Thats about all I got to say this week, hope y'all are well. I love you guys, when you're thinking you dont have time to do your calling, remember who gave you the time you have. I've had to teach this lesson to a lot this week, so I hope my people back home understand it.

 

-Elder Wright

-District-

 

Pancakes!!

Well, not much happened this week. I had some pancakes on the 6th casue i felt like it, as well as a little tres leche cake.

We had  zone conference this past week and got to see president for a day. Its about every 6 weeks we see him. So that was fun. He talked about going through trials and how they make us stronger. Its very true, they make us who we are. So Never bad mouth a challange, cause God is trying ot make you better. 

Our investigators are well, still progressing, and we have some baptism dates set. Pray for them. The most exciting thing is Jesus and his family. He's an alcoholic, and wants to change.  He's proving it to us every day we talk to him. He's one of my favorites here cause he's got a back bone... and his wife has one to match him. He had a trip to Arequipa saturday to deal with famliy emergrencies and would have had to take a car at 4 A.M. to get back for church, which we understood. But his wife tells him that he otta make it to church if we has to take a van, bus, or ass. I almost busted a gut laughing with everyone. Anyway, his family problems were a little more than he anticipated and he's still there.But its all good. He's a stong man. 

I have a dog now.. his name is Milo. He's the dog of a member and always follows us around these days. He's a big dog and its funny to see the reactions of the people when they see the big Gringo and his big dog. Milo gets the other dogs worked up and they always try to fight him, but we calmly tears them apart.. so thats funny to watch. 

So yeah thats about it for this week. I hope to baptize someone this month so were workin on that. Pray for it. The

President Harbertson and wife

Pancakes!

Happy Birthday to me! Tres Leche:)

Our new dog 'MILO"

Lord loves us even when he throws a little hell at us. Its all for our good. 

-Elder Wright

Opposition in all things...

Today was a pretty good week, no much to tell. Only stories about losing investigators. So Esmerelda and her daughter are no longer getting baptized. She says she follows the Bible, and if something goes against the bible its not of God. She thinks the sabbath is Saturday. She won't pray about it cause she doesn't feel she needs to when she has the answer in front of her. It didn't matter what we said, she'd...

 

 hardened her heart and there was nothing we could do. Kind of sad. We told her that the way to know the truth of all things was through the Holy Ghost but she wouldn't listen. We told her the bible is the testimony of others, the information God gave us to guide us, but that we needed to receive our own testimony of the truth of all things through prayer and the Holy Ghost.. but she took that as us saying the Bible is only information and that means its invalid... then she told us we were the false prophets and devil servants that the Bible talks about. Oh well... She might have another chance later on in her life but she's got a hard heart to soften first.

Other than that, we might not have a baptism this weekend, pray for them. The Murillo family had been getting heat from their grandma and other extended family.. in ward council the bishop asked us to take his wife, who knows the grandma, and go talk to her... we'll see how that goes.. The change of their excitment to be baptized to not wanting to listen to the last lesosn we have to teach was astounding. Its crazy how violent famliy can be on each other, i imagine they tore them apart, when they didnt know anything other than that they had the feeling and a testimony it was true. So yeah, opposition. 

We had our drunk give in on us this week, he got drunk and so now he can't get baptized this weekend. His friends were just too persuasive i guess. Even though its destroying his famliy. We dont know what to do with him. His wife told us she expected him to give in which breaks my heart that she didnt think he could do it.

 

Other than that, not much as far as the work goes. We met a new family that wants to chagne their lives and noticed the change in a freind of theirs when he found the gospel, so they're super excited and came to church and everything. So we have high hopes for them! 

I'll tell you guys, There are always problems. When you're climbing a mountain, and your tired, and beat up, its easy to look down at your feet. You look down to make sure your progesssing even if its just one step at a time. But the challange is to not look down, rather to look at where you are and the mountian that your climbing. We can look back for strength, to see how far we've come, and look up to the goal, to get some motivation to fulfil the task, but we've got to make sure we dont look down, casue then we miss the journey. There will alwasy be troubles, there hasn't been a day out here that I haven't had troubles. A lot of troubles. I know that if I focus on these, i'll miss the beautiful parts of this expirience. So im trying to not look down, even if things are hard. 

Love you all lots, 

-Elder Wright    

Hola!
Well, it was a pretty good week!! Last P-day the Bishop invited us to his house to make pizza and cookies.. and when i got  there, im not gonna lie, they were struggling. They dont bake here, and very few people have ovens. So it was a mess. But we got them straightened out and the cookies were probably the second worst ive ever had in my life but they were good. They absolutely  loved them. They were really scared to try the cookie dough raw, but after they had a bite they ate half the bowl before we could get them in the oven. We made a lot though so its all good.

I had splits with the zone leaders on Tuesday, Elder Lindblom from Arizona, Gilbert (He knows Payne) was my compainon for the day. We started the day by finding scriptures to share with the Adventisits who keep asking us to justify our beliefs with the Bible. One of the ones they wanted was proof that Sunday should be the sabbath and not Saturday like it says in the time of Moses. So I took them to the Tora where the Lord institutes capitol punish for those who break the sabbath. The dude that picked up sticks and Moses recieved revelation that the people should stone him and everyone else who did so. So I asked if they still stoned people like they were suposed to? If they followed the law of moses so closely. Then I told them that the life of Jesus changed the gospel, the the biggest event in the history or ever, was the Atonement and ressurection of Christ. Its what gets us into eternal salvation so memory of the reason we get to fulfil our purpose and return to God. We hold the sabbath on Sunday, and that they should pray about it to know for sure... they didnt like that answer but they couldnt contest it with anything so we might have a chance to correct this apostasy. Then we went to a little town an hour away to fetch a birth certificate for someone in Lima that was gonna get married, then get baptized. So we went to these people that haven't ever seen white people excpet in movies and just let them stare at us while we ate popcorn and waited for the government building to open... all the moms that passed with their daughters told them that one day they needed to marry one of us... Im guessing they thought we couldnt speak spanish cause they said it really loud. So that was funny, the birth certicicate was in one of those old old books that are huge and leather bound. It was pretty cool, but impossible to read casue they did everyting in this crazy cursive. So this lady that specialized in reading the book found it for us and got us a copy. It was pretty cool. Anyway, the rest of the day me and Elder Lindblom had appointments and sang country songs on the way to all of them. He's got one more month left and he goes home, but he told me we have permission to listen to patriotic music on the 4th of July!! So thats awesome!! Anyway, good day with him.

Our investigators had a good week this week! We found a new gal that agreed to be baptized on the 14th so we have three baptisms planned!!! The Murillo Girls confirmed their baptism date of the 7th so were gonna get them dunked! Alex told us he wants to be baptized but neeeded a littel more time to decide on a date, hes got to marry or seperate is wife/girlfriend to do it though. But he wants it now which is awesome! He's got doubts about how God works, especially when it comes to saving sinners. His whole life he's thought there was no way to please God and that we were all going to hell. We had him read the "if you love me keep my commandments" scripture and you could see it just smack him in the face. He got real quiet for 5 minuets and told us he understood that part now, so that was a huge step for him. Our new gal is named Sandra, She's definetly been prepared beforehand to recieve the gospel. She came to church and loved it, found some friends and wants to know more. Then we have our less actives, Guillermo is one week away from having his interview and getting the priesthood which is exciting. He's changed a lot. Now we have a new Family... the mom is the only member. They have 4 kids. We've met 2 of them, anyway, the dad just lost his dad and had questions about where he was and stuff. The plan of salvation cleared that up, and the lesson was really cool, then it got weird.... Somehow we got on the topic of spirits and if they could manifest themselves... we said yes but with lots of limits... but they took that as a sign to tell us all about the ghost stories they've been apart of... ghosts picking up a piece of paper and playing with it like a streamer, a baby ghost throwing a bottle against the door, a old guy ghost with a hat runnning in front of a car and then not being there... it was worse when Elder Concpecion said he'd seen ghost as well.... i felt like i was in Ghost Busters or Supernatural... So the lesson took a dark turn but we have a date to come back and teach them how to do family history to get his dads name to the temple. 

Thats about all for the week, we get to go to some catacombs today for p-day so ill have some good pics next week, i up loaded some to dropbox if yall want to check them out. A video as well of one of the games they play here and the punishment for losing. Love you all lots! Stay safe and do everything your supposed to do, the Lord will bless you! Elder Wright

Pizza and cookie making!!

COOKIES!!

???

 

 

FRENCH TOAST!!
Well, I broke... I couldn't take it anymore.... I needed good food.... so I bought a little griddle thing and made myself french toast!! It was sooo goood... in reality it was probably some of the worst french toast I've ever had in my life, but compared to what I have been eating it was the best. I didn't have a plate, so I ate it off a card board cereal box and that made it taste even better!! The syrup down here isn't all that great but that's all good. Im now gonna have to make it every other day. Maybe eventually ill try to make crepes, and pancakes, and biscuits and gravy... Maybe.

Anyway, lots happened this week. First off, our zone of Ayaviri was dissolved this week. The church hasn't grown there in years so they pulled the missionaries out. There were six of them. I'm still in the same place of Juliaca, but now we pertain to the zone of Julicaca. So thats fun. Said goodbye to my first zone leader and got a picture of the 3 gringos that were in the zone. So yeah, now we don't have to travel to Ayaviri every other week now which is awesome.

Our investigators are progressing as of the moment and we have another golden family that we met yesterday. The family Morrillo is doing alright, the daughters agreed to be baptized on the 7th of February, but the parents needed more time to think about it so we'll probably move it to a later date. But we had an awesome lesson with the parents this week and the spirit was way strong the whole time. You could see them realize what we were saying was true which was awesome to see, but, the ball is in their court, they can accept what they've learned and get married then baptized.. or they might not. We'll baptize the daughters for sure, but we would like the whole family to be part of it. Esmerelda, and her daughter are reading the Book of Mormon but  were having trouble getting them to pray about it and to come to church. Our long time inve. Alex, told us he wants to be baptized, but we have a lot of work to do with him. He's gotta get married or leave his kid and girlfriend. And he was a little weird at our last lesson, he was really laughy. Which isnt bad, but it was during the lesson and usually he's really serious and has questions. Then there's our new family, its a young couple and the sister. They are cool people and in my mind, they're the kind of people that not only will endure to the end, but excell to the end. So I have high hopes for them! We taugh them how to pray and they seemed excited to do it and get an answer. 

A lot of our work is reactivating people, so we have 6 families that we see and have lessons with, they all have their problems. But the biggest problem is they dont read their scriptures and say their prayers. One family thats been inactive for years, just sent their kid on a mission, Eddie, hes in Lima Central. Since then they've been getting active and we had an awesome family home evening with them on Saturday. It started off bad though. None of the people that said theyd come, showed up. So while we waited, for about an hour and  a half, for the son who was working, the bishop showed up with everyone!! It was a prayer answered. The mom looked relieved and after that we had an awesome lesson about families and temples. Then we played a game where you light a match, say a phrase that means, lighter i give to you, lighter give back to me, then whoever the match goes out on.. gets drawn on.. i uploaded a picture to drop box! Its pretty funny!! I got blue marker all over my face. 

FRENCH TOAST!!

Elder Asay, Elder Hyer, Me!

More game fun.....

Other than that Spanish is hard, and people don't understand me which sucks but i guess that's just how it goes. I cant wait till I can actually have a flowing conversation with our investigators and can answer their questions without having to stutter and stop to check my dictionary. Little by little though. So all is well, and I'm having fun! Love you all lots!

Elder Wright