May 25, 2015

Hey all! So this week has been kind of boring. I wasn't even in Quillabamba for half of it because I had to go to Cusco. That said it was still fairly fun.

 

Tuesday we were supposed to head to Cusco. Well we have an investigator named Ulysses who offered to take us in his truck because he had to go to Cusco too. The only downside was he had to leave at 5 AM. So by 5 AM we were headed to Cusco, we got there about 9:30 and basically just had PDay there. They gave us the whole day to walk around and see the sights. It was fun because I ended up meeting with Elder Ramirez who I haven't seen since the CCM.

 

Wednesday we had a training with President Harbertson then I got to meet my new companion. My comp's name is Elder Montero, he's from Lima, he was baptized two years ago, and he's crazy about the work. I've never seen a missionary get so excited to leave and proselyte. I feel like we're going to get along really well, I'm pretty excited to be working with him.

 

Thursday we came home and this hermana in the branch called us. She wants us to take her son with us to work everyday because he got kicked out of his school and she thinks leaving to preach with the missionaries will help him learn. It's an interesting situation, and I'm not really sure how I feel about it. On one hand I do feel like we can help the kid, but on the other hand I'm a missionary, not a babysitter. I guess we'll see how it goes.

 

Oh more news! They just took the other two elders out of our branch and put them in another branch here in Quillabamba. So now Elder Montero and I are the only ones in Santa Ana which means we have a lot of work. That's going to be good, I'm excited to get to meet all the people the other elders were teaching and be able to help them.

 

That's about it for this week! Talk to you guys later!

May 18, 2015

Hey all! So this week has been another fairly normal week in Quillabamba. We've met a couple of new people, we did a couple of service projects, we got super cool jerseys where they spelled my name wrong, nothing really out of the ordinary.

I told my dad on mother's day that sometimes I don't know what to write in these updates and I was just going to start writing about the drunks we end up talking with. Today will be one of those emails. So there's this little park by our house that has these statues. The other day we're walking past the park when we see this guy, wasted out of his mind, approach one of the statues of a woman. He walks up to her, takes off his hat and bows, then slowly walked up to the statue woman and kissed her. A second later he turns around, sees Elder Santillan and I watching him, and yells "Elder! Don't laugh at me!" It was impossible to hold back the laughter after that.

Anyway, today's the beginning of a new change and my companion, Elder Santillan is being transferred. He's going to be a zone leader in Juli which is between Puno and Bolivia. I'm not going to know who my new companion is until Wednesday, and I have to go to Cusco to pick him up so this week should be pretty interesting.

Hope you're all doing well! Talk to you guys next week!

May 11, 2015

Well, another week down. I'm trying to think of what I can write you guys but there hasn't really been much out of the new. Oh, we found a golden family last week! We've only taught them once, but they've come to church two sundays in a row and even came to our english classes. Only problem is we don't know if they're married. Crossing my fingers that they are so they can get baptized! I hear baptizing a family is one of the best feelings you can have as a missionary. We have an appointment with them tomorrow so we'll see how that goes :)

Other than that, everything here has been pretty normal. We're just working hard trying to bring souls unto Christ! Unfortunately there's not many souls that want to talk to us right now, so we're not making as much progress as we've hoped. I have faith that we'll find more people though!

Hope you guys are all doing well.

Jeremy

May 4, 2015

Hey all! Por fin tengo tiempo para escribirles! So quick resumen of my past week (spanglish style)

First off quick story. Elder Santillan and I had contacted this girl named Roxana and we were supposed to have a cita with her the past tuesday. Unfortunately neither one of us could remember where she lived. So we were in that neighborhood looking for her house when we saw this little old guy outside reading his bible. We quickly started talking with him, introduced ourselves, yada yada, and asked about his reading. He told us he always reads the bible everyday because the teachings of his church don't always match up with the things he reads and "Jesus always teaches it better." We kept conversing with him and talked about the great apostasy and basically ended up teaching all of The Restoration right there in the street outside his house. I've never taught an entire lesson in a contact before, but it was really cool.

Wednesday I did divisions with Elder Cortijo. It was interesting because his style of teaching is very different from mine. I feel like I learned a lot though.

Friday I was on divisions again with Elder Wagner, one of our zone leaders. It was insanely stressful. We spent the whole day with the hermana missionaries because one of them is "sick" (She really is sick but it started out super weak and the zone leaders told her to take some medecine but she decided she knew better, didn't do it, and made it worse and she still doesn't do anything we tell her so I have a hard time feeling bad for her) and also they've been fighting a lot there so we had to try and play peace maker. I learned two things that day. 1- I never want to be zone leader in Quillabamba. 2- I absolutely love my companion. Elder Santillan is far from perfect but we get along really well. It's funny how watching other people struggle with that made me realize how blessed I am.

And Sunday we went to talk to the branch president, as we were leaving we asked if there was anything we could do for him and he said "More than what you're already doing?" Yes! I'm actually helping in the branch! There is no better feeling as a missionary then when you realize all the effort acutally helps people. :)

Hope you enjoyed the ramble. Hoping to get a good one out next week too. 6 days and I talk to my family! Woot!

Talk to you all next week,

Jeremy

April 27, 2015

Sorry guys, no time for an update this week either. We went to this cool waterfall for our pday, but we didn't get back to Quillabamba until 4:30, didn't get into internet until 5:15ish and now I gotta go for district meeting. I promise a better email next week!

Jeremy

April 20, 2015

Hey all! Sorry about not sending an update the past two weeks, it's been kind of hard writing everybody I need to. Also sorry for this update because it's going to be super short. My comp's already waiting to leave so I got to make this quick. Just wanted everyone to know that I'm alive, I'm still going strong and I'll try and write a better update next week. Sorry I suck!

Jeremy

March 30, 2015

Ok, coolest experience! So last week I wrote about a guy named Balvino who was going to get baptized. Well Tuesday, we met up with him and he told us he couldn't get baptized anymore because he was moving. While he was here in Quillabamba he hadn't taken very good care of his farm which is like 6 hours away and without that he wouldn't be able to live, so he was going to move to some little pueblo that was closer. Unfortunately, the church doesn't exist in said pueblo so it was going to be impossible for him to get baptized or go to church there. So basically he just told us he was leaving, thanked us for coming to visit him and said goodbye. I was devastated. That night when we got home I still couldn't believe it and after planning I just said a prayer and asked Heavenly Father to help us so that everything would end up working out. Friday we ran into Balvino again in a little park by our house. We came up to him and just asked "Hey Balvino, how are you, I thought you were leaving." He responded that he was going to leave but it just didn't feel right. We talked for a while and he asked us if he could still be baptized since he didn't actually leave. How were we going to say no to that? So we had a baptism fall, then come back, within a couple of days. I'm not sure what exactly prompted Balvino to stay here, but I'm certain the Spirit was part of it. The Lord heard and answered our prayers, and because of that we were able to watch Balvino enter into the waters of baptism. The church is true!

Jeremy

March 23, 2015

Awesome contacting story time!  Early in the week Elder Santillan had read the story in 1 Nephi where Nephi goes to get the plates from Laban and ends up killing him. Well, we replaced the word "kill" with "contact" and that added a whole new level of understanding to the story. Ever since then we've been focusing more than ever on asking for references and contacting families and our efforts are starting to pay off. For example, the other day we went to the plaza to look for families. While there we decided that while our main focus would be families, we were also going to contact any person that we felt the spirit was directing us to. Immediately after deciding that we both went straight to a single man sitting on the other side of the plaza. While we were talking with him he kept expressing his desires to learn more, to come unto Christ, and actually thanked us for stopping and talking to him. I've never had a contact quite like that, and I know that the spirit directed us to him. Afterwards Elder Santillan turned to me and said he had seen that guy and it was like he was glowing - he was so sure we needed to talk to him, and I felt the exact same way. The experience really confirmed to me that the Lord will put those that are prepared in our path, and when we open our mouths, when we do everything we can to share the Gospel, we will find those people.

In other news, we're having two baptisms this saturday! Well, if Alex passes his interview... But two investigators are getting baptized - an old guy named Balvino and a teenage kid named Alex. Balvino was a reference from the zone leaders, a member of their branch invited him to church and he had gone every week for a month or so before they found out he lives in our sector. We've been meeting with him though and teaching him for a couple weeks now. The guy has so much faith, I can not believe it. He literally takes every word that leaves our mouths like it's scripture and was so excited to be baptized. Alex is an investigator that they've been teaching for a few months now. His story's a little interesting, because we had originally put the date of March 28 for his baptism, but then he stopped keeping his commitments, didn't go to church at all, seemed like he just didn't care. But then it's like he realized how important this was. We found him in the street one day and he totally ripped us a new one because we hadn't visited him that week. He was so concerned that we had forgetten about him or that he had offended us or something and he just told us "I can't get baptized without your help, you guys gotta keep coming over!" When that happened we realized like this really was important to him, and we were so happy. We didn't have time to talk with him right then because we had a lesson, but we invited him to come to the lesson with us. In that lesson he shared the most sincere, heartfelt testimony I had ever heard. The next day, Sunday, not only did he come to church without us reminding him, but he was there early in a shirt and tie. I don't know what changed him, but I'm so happy it happened. But moral of this story is that the church is true, and the next time I email there should be a couple of baptism pictures attached.

Hope you're all doing well at home. I love hearing from you guys every week.

Jeremy 

March 16, 2015

Well, this has definitely been an interesting week. For the most part it was really good, we're trying to work as hard as we can to bring people to the Gospel, but there were definitely some interesting experiences.

I'm going to start with the funnest and strangest thing we had to do this week. After every cita we always ask if there's something we can do for the family. We'll always joke around and suggest things like "We'll cook for you, we'll clean the house, we'll bathe your pets" Well, this time a member took that last one seriously. Last Monday as we were planning for the next day Elder Ard and Elder Cortijo came up to us and informed us that Kike (a less active they're visiting) wanted all 4 of us to come bathe his pets the next morning. So Tuesday morning we headed out and bathed 7 dogs and 1 cat. Needless to say it was the strangest service I've ever done. That cat especially looked like it was going to kill us. It was really fun though, and definitely an experience I'll never forget.

On Saturday President Harbertson came and we had interviews. It's always good to be able to see him and learn how we can improve the work. We were in with President from 8 AM til 2. We ran home and ate lunch then went back to the chapel for a branch activity called a "Jincana". That basically just means games. It turned out really well and we had a lot of people come and play. We also talked to a less active that Elder Santillan and I are visiting named Williams and borrowed his sound system so the whole time we were playing, listening to music, and just having a good time.

Other than that this week's been pretty normal. We had to change baptismal dates for 2 of our investigators (boo) but we have a lot of other people that have been progressing. It's been a great week, being able to see these people and help them accept Christ in their lives.

One last thing - The zone leaders just informed us that there will be a new video called "Because He Lives" which will be similar to "Because of Him" and "He is the Gift". I'm not sure when it will be online, but if any of you see it I encourage you to watch it. I guarantee that it will be amazing.

Jeremy

March 9, 2015

Hey everyone. So this week has been kind of weird, we haven't been teaching as much because we've had some weird activities going on. We're doing zone english classes now with all of the missionaries in Quillabamba so that took some time out of our week, and also on saturday we had a district talent show. There's a song called "Vete y Paga La Vuelta" and the elders all sang a parody of that about a less active family that the missionaries are trying to contact. It was interesting to say the least. I feel like it went a lot better than the hermanas skit though, and the audience really seemed to enjoy it which is what matters the most.

We're also planning for a "noche blanca" on Mar. 28. Almost every companionship in the zone has a baptism set for that date so there's going to be quite a few baptisms if everything goes well. We've been working with a kid named Alex who's going to be baptized then, and also a guy named Jorge. I'm not sure if Jorge will actually get baptized that soon though because he needs to get married first. We're doing everything we can to help him though, and he's really excited. I guess we'll see how it goes!

Also some stuff has happened this past week that makes me want to share my testimony. I know that this Gospel is true. A lot of times we'll pass through challenges and things may seem bleak, but there's always hope. In the scriptures we have a promise from the Lord that he will always be there to help us in our times of need. We can confide in Him and in the Atonement. I know that Christ came to this world and paid the price for our sins. And through this Atoning sacrifice, everyone of us can have hope. Everyone of us can overcome sin and temptations, and can live with God, in an eternal family. Through the Atonement we can find happiness. I know, without a doubt, that these things are true.

Sigue Nadando,

Jeremy

March 2, 2015

Nothing super exciting happened this week. We've been out working hard, meeting a lot of people. Most of them don't really want to talk to us, but a couple have been really interested. Honestly nothing makes you feel better than when somebody actually wants to talk to you. For example, a couple of weeks ago we were walking down this street when we heard somebody yell "Elder!" We looked around trying to find a member or somebody we knew, but we couldn't find anybody so we just kept walking. About 6 hours later we were walking down the same street and it happened again. This time we were determined to find out who was calling for us so we turned around and there was a guy in a shop waving for us. He told us he had seen the missionaries walk by his shop for years now, and always wanted to talk to them but they never went into his shop when he called. We set up a cita with him, and taught him and his family for the first time a couple of days ago. It was an amazing lesson, this family's golden. They asked all the right questions, they have so much faith, it's such a blessing. We're going to keep teaching them, and if everything goes well they could be getting baptized fairly soon. We also have another investigator named Jorge Luis who's the same way. Jorge has a super strong testimony, he's been coming to church consistently for almost a month now, the only thing keeping him from baptism is that he's not married. He's been talking with his wife though, and I think it's very likely that they get married within the next couple of months. I'm so grateful for these people and the examples they are to me in my life. There's so many people here who are open and willing to recieve the gospel, and it's amazing to be able to know them.

So that's the good about the work here. Now for the bad. There's 4 of us living here in Santa Ana, and the last week one of the other elders, Elder Cortijo, has been butting heads with all of us. It ended up in a huge confrontation saturday night between him and my companion and now things at home are just awkward for everybody. I honestly think it's impeding the work also, because none of us ever really feel good or like we have the spirit as strongly as before. It's become quite the challenge. I read a conference talk today that I think will help us though. It was all about the power of love. That when we love one another, overlooking the differences and things that bother us, our relationships will always be better and we ourselves will feel better about everything we do. It really made me think, and is something I'm going to try applying into my life more.

Anyway, hope you guys are all doing well. Can't wait to hear from you next week!

Jeremy

February 23, 2015

So not much to write about this week. My comp is district leader, so wednesday we ended up doing divisions with the zone leaders. While I was there they informed me that I had to go to Lima and we were leaving the next day. So I worked in the zone leader's branch that day, the next day I spent the whole day in a combi going to Cusco. We got to Cusco at 9:30ish, went and bought pizza, then spent the night in the office. At the office I actually met up with Elder Salazar, one of my buddies from the CCM. I hadn't seen him since we left the CCM, so that was awesome to be able to talk to him. The next day they woke us up at 4:00 in the morning and Elder Salazar, Elder Bordon, Hermana Esplin and I all got on a plane headed for Lima. I really don't like Lima because everything we do there is a lot of "hurry up and wait" When we got there they rushed us over to migrations so we could sit in a waiting room for 6 hours then sign one paper. And that was literally all we did. Our flight was supposed to leave from Lima at 4, so there wasn't time to go to the temple or do anything. We were rushed over to the airport, then we had to sit and wait forever there too because the flight back to Cusco was delayed. We ended up getting back to Cusco at about 6, then we went to a talent show that some ward there was putting on. On saturday we hung out in the office until 10 or 11, then spent 6 or 7 hours in a combi headed back to Quillabamba. When we got home the other elders in our branch had a baptism so we went there to support them. And that's my whole week. Sorry this email was so boring haha. Anyways, hope you're all doing well and talk to you next week.

Jeremy

February 16, 2015

Hey all! Not much to share from this week, but I do have a couple things to write about.

The other day Elder Santillan and I went out looking for a less active family named la familia Roca. We went to their house and a girl came and opened the door. This girl was their cousin, Yuli, who's living with them so she can go to school. We told Yuli who we were, that we were looking for the family, and asked her if she would like to learn more as well. We set up a cita with her, then went along. Since then we've had two citas with Yuli, and one of the members of the Roca family, their son Roy. The first one we had we talked with her about prayer, how important it is, and asked her if she would start praying. The next cita we taught her the Restoration. At the end of the lesson we were talking about the Holy Ghost and how He answers prayers, and she suddenly got really excited and said "I felt that!" She then told us about how after we had left the time before she went into her room and prayed and she had "This huge feeling, like I was just so happy." She then told us "It was the best feeling I've ever had." We explained to her that those feelings came from the Holy Ghost, and if we're baptized and follow the Gospel we can feel like that everyday. She told us she was going to pray more, but she wanted to be baptized so she could always feel that. So cool!

In our mission we have a goal to contact 12 families every week. This week especially they were really stressing that we find as many families as possible, so the 4 of us here in Santa Ana went to the Plaza de Armas in search of families. You always find the most interesting people contacting. For example, we went to go talk to this one couple: "Hey, we're missionaries can we talk with you guys for a sec?" "No, I don't want to talk." "Ok, well can we at least give you this card?" "Nope, I don't want that either. But you know what I do want? I want the United States to keep killing all of the Muslims!" "....Ok then, have a good day." It turned out being a really good experience and we ended up contacting 13 families for the week. Not bad at all.

Also yesterday was Carnaval. As far as I can tell, that's just an excuse to dump buckets of water on people or pelt them with water balloons. Well, I'm a missionary and I'm white so that was like a double target. I got back last night completely soaked.

Hope you're all doing well. Can't wait to hear back from you guys.

Jeremy

February 9, 2015

Well, this week has been a little different but mainly because I'm just trying to adjust to things. It's been cool though, I've really started to like my new sector and my new companion. He's a really funny guy, but kind of evil. He especially likes to pick on Elder Ard. He'll just walk up to Ard and say "Kill yourself, you ape. Your life sucks." things like that. He has this Spanish-English dictionary and during language study he just looks up words that he thinks are funny and asks me if he can use them as insults. "If I say 'Shut up, chicken pox!' does that make sense?" "No..." "Shut up chicken pox!" He's a funny guy.

This sector that I'm in is the coolest too. It's in the jungle so it's beautiful, and I've noticed that the people are generally smarter than in Puno. I don't want to say anything bad about Puno, I loved it there, but the people were not bright. Here they understand everything we teach, and really know the Gospel, which has been a welcome change. That's about all I have, it hasn't been a very exciting week. Just working hard, bringing people to Christ.

Hope you're all doing well!

Jeremy

February 2, 2015

This has been the craziest week! So up until thursday we were working hard, same old mission life, just trying our best to help the people in Puno. Then Thursday night right as we were getting ready for bed we got a call from the zone leaders. "Elder Thacker, you have a change. You're going to Quillabamba tomorrow morning. Your new companion will be Elder Santillan." I couldn't believe it, I was so shocked. Most elders stay in an area for 4 or 5 changes, but I had only been in Puno for a little more than 2. So thursday night I stayed up until about midnight packing, Friday morning I went and said goodbye to a couple members, and then I left. I spent all day Friday on a bus to Cusco, then the office elders were supposed to pick me up at the terminal. Well, I get to the terminal and there's nobody there. I actually ended up meeting some members who lived in Cusco, and they called the missionaries from their ward so that somebody would come. We waited about fifteen minutes, then the office elders showed up and took me to the office. I spent the night there with them, then Saturday morning got in a car for Quillabamba. When I got here my new comp and two other elders came and picked me up, and since then I've just been trying to adjust to everything. I'm now in a branch called Santa Ana. There's 4 elders working there, and we all live together which is really fun. Quillabama's beautiful too, it's just getting into the jungle so there's a lot of plant life and more animals. It's also very hot, which is the exact opposite of Puno. My new companion, Elder Santillan, is from Ecuador. It's been a little weird trying to adjust to things with him, but I feel like we're going to get along fairly well. He's also going to help me a lot with my spanish. The other two elders here are named Elder Ard and Elder Cortijo. Elder Ard is from my group, and he and I have become fairly good friends. Elder Cortijo's pretty cool too, but he's kind of reserved so I haven't got to know him very well yet. I've only been here a couple of days though, so I'm sure things will pick up. So that's where I'm at now, just trying to adjust to a new sector, new companion. It's crazy, but I do think I'm going to like it here.

January 26, 2015

This was the most boring week ever. I don't have much to write about. We're just sticking it out, trying to find new people to teach, helping out the people we already have. It's kind of hard, we only have like 3 investigators now. Today for p-day we went to some ruins called Sillustani with the whole zone which was really cool. Apparently "Sillustani" means toe nail in quechua. I'm putting the pictures in my dropbox, so my parents should have them if anyone wants to see. Other than that nothing really exciting happened. On friday I was on divisions with Elder Enriquez, an elder in our stake from Lima, and it was really hard for me because he talks super fast and stutters. I've gotten fairly decent at spanish by now, but I still really have to concentrate to understand him. It was also my first time completely leading the sector, and all of our citas fell through so we just went and walked around for several hours. Very exciting. Sorry this letter sucks, hopefully I'll have a better one next week. Hope you're all doing well.

January 19, 2015

So this has been an interesting week to say the least. I'm just going to start with Tuesday.

Elder Thompson had to go to Cusco early Tuesday morning, so I spent all day with Elder George, a kid from my group serving in the branch Azoguinea while he waited for his new companion to get here. We went straight to Azoguinea from the terminal after our companions left and did our studies there then we came to Llavini because I forgot something. We got here and Mamita hurried up to us and told us she had been talking with an old investigator named Liset and that Liset wanted to meet with us that day at 2. That put us in kind of a pickle because Elder George had citas in Azoguinea all afternoon and we weren't planning on doing anything in Llavini until 6 or 7 in the evening. We worked it out though and taught Liset the Restoration. The whole time we were with her she just kept telling us how much she wanted to get baptized. After that cita we ran over to Azoguinea and taught a couple lessons there about the word of wisdom and the law of chastity. That evening we came back to Llavini and went to Brigham's birthday party. Coming back ended up being quite an adventure. We use these little vans called Combis to get everywhere and we found a combi right outside Elder George's room that I thought was going to Llavini. We figured out way too late, though, that instead of going there it was actually coming from Llavini and we ended up in Segunda Etapa, a neighborhood clear on the other side of Puno. I wasn't in the mood to try finding a combi again so we got a taxi from there and when I told the taxi driver what happened he just laughed at us. He was a pretty cool guy though. The birthday party was super funny, after we ate cake bishop asked Brigham to share his testimony and he stood up and said "Brothers and Sisters, today I turned 4 and ate some cake. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

On wednesday we spent the whole day in Azoguinea so Elder George could clean up before his new companion got here. We also left after lunch to try finding some people, but nobody was home. We did run into the taxi driver from the day before though. He drove past us and yelled "You guys lost?" out the window. Jerk. Elder George's comp was supposed to get here at 5, so 4:45 we got to the terminal to wait for him. We waited. And waited. And waited. Finally around 8 he got there. After he got here they went back to their room and I went with Elder Monson, our zone leader, because he was the only other one without a comp.

Thursday I hung out with Elder Monson until 4ish then we went to the terminal again to pick up our companions. We taught a couple lessons when Elder Thompson got back. The most interesting one was with Liset, who''s going to be baptized Feb. 21.

Yesterday we had a big stake conference with Elder Useda, the area president, and Elder Calderon, and the mission president, President Harbertson. We were all expecting huge changes, but then all they did was change the stake president, and talk about the Trujillo temple dedication. That's going to be really cool.

That's about all. Hope you guys enjoy the ramble.

January 12, 2015

Well, this week has been fairly boring. We had changes today and everybody was convinced that Elder Thompson's leaving, but it looks like we're going to have one more change together here in Llavini. I only have a couple of experiences I wanted to share.

Last week I wrote about a less active we've been visiting named Guillermo. Well, we've started teaching his daughter-in-law, who's not a member. We've met with her a couple of times and she seems really interested in the church, especially in eternal families because her husband just died about a year ago. A couple of days ago we had a cita with her and Guillermo sat in with us. We taught the Plan of Salvation and at the end Guillermo shared his testimony and it actually brought him to tears. I was so amazed by the power of that moment. If I had any doubts about the Gospel, they vanished right then and there listening to Guillermo share his testimony. It was amazing.

Also yesterday one of our zone leaders, Elder Yepez, left. He's finishing the mission and went early to Cusco. This left our other zone leader without a companion for a couple of days, so he's in a trio with us. It's been a little weird, but he's helped us quite a bit in our lessons. Especially last night, we had a cita with Adelia and we had to drop the bomb on her - That is to say, the law of chastity. It's always scary teaching that lesson since nobody here gets married or anything, but with Elder Monson there with us we were able to handle it really well and she completely changed from "No, I'll never get married" to "You're right, marriage is important and I'm seriously going to consider it." We were so relieved after that lesson, and I think she really is going to seriously consider this. I'm excited for her.

That's about all. We've got a big conference this sunday so hopefully I'll have something more to write about next week. Until then, I hope you're all doing well, and I love hearing back from you every week.

January 5, 2015

What a week! Holy cow! I have a few things I want to talk about, but I'm going to start with the most stressful/exciting: Baptisms!

So  we have an investigator, Wilber, who got married last week and was going to be baptized on saturday. We were all ready and prepared for the baptism, then we found out on tuesday that he got super drunk at his wedding and they found him the next day passed out in the street. Not exactly what you want to hear less than a week before the baptism. So we were freaking out because we had no idea what to do about him, especially since he himself hadn't confessed (We heard it from his sister-in-law) Tuesday night we called his wife, Ines, and explained the situation to her and that he may not be able to get baptized right away, and she agreed to help us try and get him to confess. So wednesday night we went over and talked about the baptismal covenant and repentance and Ines kept dropping hints to him but he didn't want to tell us anything. We got another appointment with him on friday, the day before he was supposed to be baptized, and I wasn't actually there because we did divisions but they just flat out told him "We know that you drank and it's possible you might not be able to get baptized tomorrow." Well we talked to the zone leaders and president and got it worked out so that he could get an interview with one of the zone leaders on saturday morning, and if the zone leader felt good about everything then he could get baptized that day instead of postponing it. Saturday came and they were in the interview for about an hour, but afterwards Elder Monson told us that he was good to go. So he and Grover, another investigator, got baptized yesterday! It was such a crazy stressful situation, but in the end everything worked out fairly well. The Lord was really looking out for us and answering our prayers, and it was such a blessing.

That wasn't the only blessing we've had this week though. There's a couple less active families we've been working with since I got here that we're really trying to activate again. On Tuesday we went to visit one of them, Guillermo and Antonia. They're amazing members with such strong testimonies but they've been inactive for years because their son had to come home from his mission for health reasons and after he got better the stake president wouldn't let him leave again. Well last week Guillermo ran into some Jehovah's Witnesses and he had some questions for us about some of the things they had said. We spent an hour there on tuesday answering his questions, an hour and a half on wednesday talking with him, and they went on friday too. It's like meeting with those witnesses just sparked a fire in Guillermo and he's been going crazy studying the gospel since. Yesterday he came to church for the first time since I got here, and he was so excited to be there. He got up and shared his testimony in sacrament meeting, made comments in sunday school and preisthood, and he told us next week he's going to bring his whole family. We were so excited for him, and seeing him here is such a miracle.

One last thing - On friday we did divisions. Our district leader, Elder Cueto, came to Llavini with Elder Thompson and I went to his sector, Azoguine, and was with his companion, Elder George. Elder George and I got in the mission at the same time so neither one of us are super experienced. I was a little worried about that, and then I got there and figured out that despite the fact Elder George is only ever with latinos he can not speak spanish to save his life. So we went out and I was basically leading the whole time. It was weird and hard for me, but it actually helped me quite a bit. I proved to myself that I can actually teach and take charge. Needless to say my confidence raised quite a bit.

Well that's all I have. Hope you guys are all doing well!

December 29, 2014

This has been the craziest week of my mission. We've had so many cool experiences, I just can't believe it all. Let's start with Christmas.

The branch from Los Uros has started coming to our casa capilla for their meetings, and last sunday a couple from their branch asked us if we could teach their 8 year old, Emerson, a little bit to help prepare him for his baptism. They also asked if one of us could baptize him, because his dad's excommunicated and can't do it himself. We set up citas with them for Tuesday and Wednesday, then on Thursday he was going to be baptized.

Tuesday was a fairly boring day. We had a couple citas with Emerson and Grover and we also met with a college kid named Jhon who wanted to talk to us because he's learning english.

Mamita's daughter came the day before Christmas Eve, and we spent most of the day on Christmas Eve helping them decorate the house. We put up the tree and the nativity and hung lights all over. After lunch we met with Emerson and got everything figured out for his baptism. He asked Elder Thompson to baptize him and we got permission from all of our leaders so everything was good to go. That night we were supposed to be in our room at 9:30, but Mamita had left so we still hadn't had dinner by then. They ended up getting home at like 10 and we called and told them we couldn't leave our room so they came up and brought dinner to us in there. We had fried rice and fruitcake, which apparently is a traditional Christmas Eve dinner. Weird. At midnight everybody in Puno launched fireworks off their roofs, which was super cool. We went out on the roof and just watched them for 20 minutes or so. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen, definitely puts the 4th of July to shame.

Christmas we left super early to go fill the baptismal font. We got the font all filled up, but we couldn't get the water heater thing to work, so the water was freezing. At 11 Emerson and his family started coming, and by 11:30 we were ready to start. Elder Thompson went to go change into his baptismal clothes but he had forgotten his pants, so we had to run back to the room to find them. We grabbed the pants, ran back to the church, and ended up meeting up with Gabriel, Elder Thompson's old mission leader from Juliaca. He had come down to lend us his web cam so we could skype with our families. The three of us went into the baptism and we got the service started but when it came time to actually baptize him, Emerson didn't want to do it. The water was so cold that he was scared to go into the font and started crying when he stepped in. His mom had to go talk to him for like 10 minutes to convince him that he could withstand the cold. We finally got him in the font, ready to go, but when Elder Thompson dunked him he freaked out and started splashing around trying to get out. It was really funny, I wish I had videotaped it. Afterwards, we were supposed to go to an orphanage and play with the kids, but the baptism ran long so we just called the zone leaders and told them we wouldn't be able to. We went back, ate lunch, talked with Gabriel and our families, and then the day was over. It flew by, I couldn't believe how fast it went. It was great talking to my family though, I'm so grateful we were able to do that.

On saturday we went to LOS UROS! Los Uros are these floating islands on Lake Titicaca where people live. They make the islands themselves out of reeds. It's super cool, and missionaries aren't allowed to go there normally so this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Emerson's family has their own island, and the whole zone went and helped them lift their houses. They start sinking, so they have to literally lift the entire house and put more reeds under it every 2 or 3 weeks. We were there for a few hours, then we came back to Puno and went to a wedding! There's a couple in our ward named Ines and Wilber, and they finally got married yesterday. They've wanted to for years, but now they finally have. I was so happy for them, and it was such a fun experience. Wilber's also going to get baptized this coming Saturday, since he finally got married. I'm so excited for them, they're doing a lot to come closer to The Lord.

Oh, and one last random story. This isn't the slightest bit spiritual or anything, I just thought it was funny. The bishop has a grandson named Brigham who's about 3 or 4 years old. He's like the cutest kid I've ever met, he's so funny. Anyway, the other day we were walking home and we saw Brigham and his Mom on the other side of the road. Brigham was peeing on the side of the road and when he saw us he waved and yelled "Elderes! Estoy haciendo piss!" Too funny.

Well, that was my week. Hope you guys all had a good Christmas. Talk to you all next week.

December 22, 2015

I don't have a whole lot to write about this week. We had ward conference yesterday and our christmas party on saturday, so most of the week was just spent visiting members and inviting them to everything. We also bought some more Christmas lights, so every night we have our lights on while "All I Want For Christmas Is You" plays in the background. That's been pretty fun.

We did have two investigators, Grover and Wilber, do their baptismal interviews this week. They'll both be baptized on Jan. 3, which I'm really excited for. Wilber's also getting married this coming saturday, and there's a very good chance we'll be involved in a baptism on Christmas, so this week should be very eventful.

Hope you're all doing well,

Merry Christmas!

December 15, 2014

Ok, I've got to explain the subject line before I say anything about the rest of my week. The lady that we live with, Mamita, has like 5 dogs but one of them (Kenji) died on saturday. It was hit by a car, then an hour later Mamita had to come speak in stake conference and she was on the verge of tears during her whole talk which was super sad. So this whole weekend we've been mourning Kenji and just trying to comfort La Mamita. It's ok though, because families are forever and we know that she'll see Kenji again. I was especially sad on saturday because I had let Kenji out that morning, so I thought it was my fault that he died... Turns out it happened several hours later though, and it wasn't my fault at all so I do feel a little better.

Aside from that it feels like we've just spent the whole week in meetings. On friday President came and we had a multi-zone Christmas program, which was super fun. I got to see a lot of missionaries I had met in the CCM, which was really cool being able to talk to them and see how they're doing. We also had a white elephant. We were told to get a gift worth about 10 soles, so last P-Day we went to find presents. I brought colored pencils but Elder Thompson was looking for the weirdest thing possible and ended up buying pet diapers. When we got there everyone ended up getting fairly nice presents like hats or candy or whatever, except for one elder from one of the other zones who ended up with dog diapers. He was a good sport about it though, and took it really well. After the white elephant we all sat down and sang Christmas carols and the zone leaders were able to share their testimonies. It was really spiritual, and probably the highlight of my mission so far.

On Saturday we had interviews with President from 8 AM until 1. While we were waiting for our interviews the assistants talked to us about companionship inventory, how to conduct a baptismal interview, and tips on contacting families. The best part though was right at the end when Hermana Harbertson gave a little english class. Most of our zone is American, so we all just chatted while the latinos were working with her. After that we had stake conference from 4-6, then another session from 7-9. Sunday morning we were able to bring Grover and Rosa to the session, and they seemed really impressed.

Well, that was my week. Hope you're all doing well.

December 8, 2014

Hey guys! So this has been a really fun week, but different from every other week of my mission so far. Last monday in zone meeting they showed us a Christmas video the church is doing called "El Es La Dadiva" (In english it's called "He Is The Gift"). They gave us these cards about it to pass out to people and told us we needed to talk to 10 people a day about it. The most we'd ever contacted in one day was like 4 people, so that seemed like a lot but that first day we tried it we were able to find 14 people. Every other day after we got less than ten though, and for the week we got like 45. It's still fun though. We also got to help out with a service project here. There's a couple doing a toy drive and they got a guy to dress up as Santa and we got to go help with that. It was really fun.

That's about all. Hope you're all doing well!

December 1, 2014

I don't have much to write about this week. We have a couple new investigators with a baptismal date, so that was cool, but that's about it. The two investigators with dates are named Grover and Rosa. They're brother and sister, and Grover's going to be baptized Jan. 3. We challenged Rosa to be baptized on Jan 3 too, but she felt like that was too soon and is going to pray about it to know if that date is right. We're meeting with her again tomorrow morning, so we'll see how that works out.

This week was really boring. They don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, and I didn't even realize it was thanksgiving until like 6 PM. Thursday night we had a Noche Misional activity where we all played a game called Pelachuño, then ate Salchipapas (french fries with cut up hot dogs). That was fun, but I do wish we had had an American Thanksgiving or at least have done something to celebrate. We're going to have American Christmas though, so that will be really fun. Elder Thompson got some fudge in a package, we have Christmas Lights, I have hours of Christmas music, and Mamita has a tree. I'm excited for that, it's going to be fun.

Hope you're all doing well. I love hearing back from you all.

November 24, 2014

Wow, what a week. This has probably been the best week of my mission, I feel like we were able to accomplish so much and get a lot done.

Let's start with monday. After internet, we went and watched the best two years with a member named Torivio. He's super cool, we usually end up spending any free time we have with him, and next week he wants to take us to these ruins that are about an hour away. We're going to ask our zone leaders for permission, but I'm really hoping we can go. After pday ended we had a district meeting and I got a birthday package from Mindy and letters from all of my family, which made me super happy.

Tuesday was a pretty normal day. We got a new investigator, a woman named Rosa. We're teaching her and her brother Groberg now, and they both seem really interested in the church. They both came to sacrament meeting yesterday and Groberg already has a baptismal date for Jan. 3. Rosa can't get baptized for a while though, because she's not married.

Wednesday we were supposed to have a conference with Elder Evans, the director of missionary work for the whole church. They had split our mission in two conferences, and he gave one in Cusco on tuesday, then was going to come here to Puno on wednesday. Unfortunately all of the drivers here in Puno went on strike on Wednesday, so he couldn't come. There's only like a 5% chance he'll be able to come back too. We were pretty upset about that, so we made a cake to cheer ourselves up, which actually ended up being pretty fun.

Thursday we went to the hospital and helped out with Operation Smile. I think what they do is give free surgeries to little kids with cleft lips. We were there for a few hours and we got to color with the kids while they waited then help bring patients up and down from the surgery room. It was actually really fun to be able to get out of our regular routine and do some service, even if it was in a hospital.

Friday was boring.

Saturday we had our baptism! It was the coolest experience. We went to the stake center in the morning to fill the font with Elder Monson, one of our zone leaders, then at like 2 we went to set everything up. We wanted to start at 3, but nobody ended up coming until like 3:45 except Nefi's family which was super awkward... Anyway, we started at like 4 and we had a couple of ward members give talks, then Elder Thompson and I did a special musical number of "Yo Se Que Vive Mi Señor". After that we did pictures, then Cristian was baptized. A member from the other stake named Nefi baptized him, which was amazing. Nefi does so much to help us and he's like a brother to Cristian so he was the perfect choice. It was honestly such a cool experience, the spirit was so strong the whole time and Cristian seemed so happy to be there. He really has a strong testimony and has already told us he wants to go on a mission.

Yesterday at church everything went really well too. We were able to confirm Cristian, then we had a primary program. It's funny, our primary's only about 10 kids but it was still one of the most energetic primary programs I've ever seen. There's one little boy named Brigham who was singing at the top of his lungs, and started shouting during his part because he was so excited. It was awesome.

Well that was my week. Hope you're all doing well and can't wait to hear back from all of you.

Elder Thacker