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 

Catching up on some pictures from Christmas!!

 

 

Christmas Day! 2014

We went to our pension (she cooks for us) "ranch" for Christmas day.