Finding others, and feeling good

Week 43 (May 8, 2017)

Helllloooooo People. May 8th, 2017. 
well, that's another week down. My new comp Elder Peña came this week! He is from California and Mexico…. He´s basically a gringo. But he is from my group from the CCM and we´ve been working our butts off this week! We´ve found a lot of success, and we´re just going to keep getting it as we put our faith in the Lord. I'm excited to work with him for these 6 weeks!!! 

That’s the Mamita, we took Elder Peña out for his birthday to Bembos(: (A burger joint in Peru).

We´re doing a lot for our ward. We are coming up with a plan to get more people to sacrament meeting and church. Our goal is to have more baptisms and more trust with the ward. A missionaries life is not all rainbows and baptisms. There are moments like that, but there's a lot more struggle to reach that point. We´ve had some trouble in our ward with the young men and young women scaring our investigators away and making them not want to talk to us again. So we want to fix that problem by showing them what exactly it is we do. We have a lot of work to do! We´re super excited!
We spent a lot of time finding people to teach this week. So much time in fact that I have forgotten to take pictures. But I´ll tell you about our experience with that and how the Lord guides his servants, even though we may just be doing routine, or just acting on a feeling. On Thursday this week we were out looking for some of our old investigators. In the morning we planned on which houses we were going to go to (Planning for the day really is inspiration as missionaries), and we planned exactly how we felt we should go. So we did our studies, and our weekly planning and ate lunch, then set off for the day. The first house we went to, the person we were looking for wasn´t there, but someone else answered and was willing to listen to us. And so it followed for the rest of the day.  Most of the people we talked to didn´t even live in the house, they were there just visiting. But luckily they all lived in our sector. And it was incredible to me that we just happened to be passing by that specific day. I promise you that the Lord guides us in every day of our lives, whether its as a missionary or as someone back at home. All you have to do is be willing to listen. 

We also rented out a basketball court today. It was good to play again. 
I love you all sooo much, Next week will be a better letter I promise! Keep it real. 

Elder Montero se va!!!

Week 42 (May 1, 2017)

HEY YA´LL its been a trunky week. Haha.
Anyways as you know my good friend and comp Elder Montero went home this week because he has completed 2 years of service to the Lord. 

He was the best. Love him so much. 

We had our Noche Blanca this week and it was a big success, 12 people got baptized and confirmed. 

We spent this whole week saying goodbye to people, we didn´t do a whole lot. Although we did find one family who is awesome!!! The wife, Andrea is a less active member, and the rest of her family aren´t members. Andrea wants to get sealed in the temple with her husband (yes they are married) but she has to come back to church first, and her husband has to obviously get baptized too. We are going to be working a lot with them this week so they can reach the temple. 
I think a lot of missionaries and members don´t understand that our goal as missionaries is not baptism. Yes, that is vital to our work, and without it we could not reach our ultimate goal which is a temple sealing. (Congrats to my older brother Ethan who got sealed to his week last week!) As missionaries, we walk around all day every day trying to find people who will listen to our amazing message. It's hard work. It is not easy. But it is the most rewarding thing that we can do. SHARE THE GOSPEL!! It rules. 

This week I was Reading a neat Little book that my parents sent me. It has a bunch of doctrine that helps us know that our church is the true one. And we can use this stuff to help them see the fault in their church. Haha that sounds bad but its true. Anyways. I'm trying lately to understand what is the meaning of repentance? And what is it for? 
We all think that repentance is paying back Christ for Him paying for us. But that's not how it Works. Christ paid everything for us. We are clean through him completely. But as we all know some of us are afraid to repent. Because we don´t understand it. Do not think that we don´t have to do anything to gain the kingdom of God because there is a lot to do. But I wouldn´t use the Word gain here, I would use ¨want¨. Because Christ paid for us, we will be resurrected, and we will go back to God (for the final judgment). But the only thing determined by our repentance and obedience is what kind of body we want and how long we will want to stay there. Because if we are not used to holy things, why would we even want them in the next life? There are missionaries who think they can change their lives right before they come. But I´ve seen this, how long do these missionaries last? Not very long before they are saying to their President, ¨President I can´t be here, It's time for me to go home.¨ So you guys repentance´s purpose is to change us. Not to pay Christ back. If we do not follow the steps of repentance we will not even want to go back to him. 
¨Jesus I can´t be here, it's time for me to go where I can be comfortable.¨ 

I love you all so much! Cuidense!!! 

Elder Haws! 

Heeeeeelllllllllo everybody

Week 41 (April 24, 2017)

This week was super uneventful workwise in the vineyard. but it was plenty of fun. 

We basically didn´t get much done until Thursday this week. President decided to get 4 zones from our mission together and we had a GRAN P-DAY. Since I'm a zone leader here I had to spend all of Monday picking people up and taking them to where they needed to be. Tuesday we had our mulitzone conference, and Wednesday was our gran pday! It was sweet, except I felt like I was in the primary all over again. We played a bunch of random games and then shockingly, we played soccer. (: 

Thursday rolled around and we finally got to work. But no one was home. So we spent our day visiting members and knocking doors. Friday we had a meeting with our leaders in the zone and we talked about our ¨Noche Blanca¨ that we have planned for this Saturday!! WOOHHHOOOOO. 

¨La Noche  Blanca¨ 
If you don't know what a Noche Blanca is, I´ll translate it. ¨The White Night¨. Now why do we call it that? Because its when we get our zone together and we have all of our baptisms on the same night and the same place. It's a super cool experience. We´re planning this noche blanca with the other zone in Cusco and it is going to be amazing. We have altogether 20 baptisms planned. WOOOO. It's so amazing to see stuff like that. I´ll be sending pictures for sure. 

Anyways we´ve been running chores for the zone all week, doing baptism interviews, and all sorts of stuff. That's been my whole week. LOVE YOU ALL. 

The week I turned 9 months old

Week 40 (April 17, 2017)

Haha Im old. Almost at that year mark.

Holy smokes just want to say congrats to my big bro, because he is getting married this week. What a stud. 

First things first, I broke my bed this week. That was cool. 

Second, we did more splits with the elders in my zone, one is cusco and then another in the sacred valley of the inca. In Calca. Chevere no?

Not a whole lot happened this week, we just spent a lot of time finding people to teach and helping one of our investigators finish all of his marriage papers. I´ll tell you about him.

 Efraín Espinoza,
Efraín is a complete pimp. This guy is a musician and he is completely sober which is weird for people here. Jaja. But Efraín has a wife and kids. Three daughters and a son. Their son, Anderson, is serving a mission in Lima. Anderson has no idea that his parents even want to get baptized. Let alone married. So we found this family through a reference and they are so amazing. The hermanas in our ward are teaching Josefina, his wife, and have convinced her (through the spirit of course lolz) to get married and get baptized. WOOOOT. Seriously Anderson is going to be so happy that his family is  following the Savior. 

This week was Semana Santa, or Holy Week. So what does that mean?? EVERYONE IS A CATHOLIC(((: Even our members attend the catholic events. What a week it was, we went down to Calca on Friday, the day that they remember the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I have never been more scared in my life. Catholics as you all know celebrate more the death of Christ than his resurrection, kinda sad. But all day long they had a kind of a town days thing going on and all the girls were not wearing sufficient clothing. So we were trying to stay away from that area. As you can imagine work was not that great because EVERYONE was down there trying to partake of the apostasy. So we spent our whole day walking on the outskirts of Calca without any success. 
Calca is a city part of the ancient sacred valley of the inca. Its not very big but there is a small branch of the church there. But its a house church. The coolest part about Calca is the gorgeous view that it has. It is surrounded on all sides by HUGE mountains. No theyre not Utah big, they are Peru big. Which is a lot bigger that Utah big. Elder Pujalla (The elder I went on splits with) went to the foot of the mountain. To see the top of the mountain you have to look straight up. From 200 yards away you cant even see the top of it out of your peripheral vision. Its incredible. The mountains have teraces cut into them, but the incans so they could grow things. And they are all the way up the mountains. Just google it and you´ll see a part of what Im talking about. 

Well to finish let me share something spiritual. For Easter(: 
Jesus Christ suffered for me, for you, and for all of us. He not only suffered on the cross, he sweat great drops of blood because of what we would do. But he did. And he did it willingly. 
In our lifes we suffer, not to the extent of Christ, we will never know that pain. But we suffer. Some of us feel that there will be no end to it. Some of us may even give up, thinking that it would be easier to do so. What most of us DONT understand from the story of the atonement, is the hope that it brings to all of our souls. 

Christ suffered, and suffered some more. But he rose again after death. After all the hardship, and pain, and tears he overcame it. And because he overcame it. We will overcome everything that drags us down. There is nothing in life that will stop the savior of the world. He has already won. The only thing left for us to decide is we went to grab on to his tight grasp, so he can lift us out of the pits that we ourselves dug. I love my Savior. Happy Easter ya´ll(: 

1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.

2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.

3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

6 He is not here, but is risen: 

Another week, another nuevo sole

Week 39, (April 10, 2017)

This week was good! I had the opportunity to go on splits with some of the missionaries in my zone. They are problem missionaries and we have been worried about them for a little. Part of my job as a zone leader is to help them in any way I can. But unfortunately, sometimes we can't help everyone. It's sad to see elders of the church of God not put themselves into something they chose to do. 

I´ll tell you about one experience I had that was pretty cool this week. 

So on Friday, I was on divisions but we were in my sector. I had the feeling to go up and work on the mountain that day but I didn't know why because we have only about 3 investigators up there. But like Elder Rasband said in conference, ¨Act on the first prompting¨ so, we called the other people and rescheduled our appointments. So we got on the bus and went up the mountain. Without any success happening, I was soooo confused as to why I received that prompting. I doubted it. And part of me was saying to go back down. But I still felt like we needed to be up there. Interestingly enough I had the feeling to go visit a reference that we couldn't find weeks before on the other side of the mountain. So we went over there. I had no idea why we went because I didn't know the references name or their address. I was so confused as to why I was going there. We got to the part to climb up to the pueblo and we saw a family, carrying a large amount of soda to their little store up this mountainside. So we went and helped them out and carried their soda for them. They were so grateful and were willing to listen to us. They gave us bottled water, and we taught them a little bit about the restoration. The Dad told us that they had been going through a really rough time as a family. He told us his prayers to God have been pleading for help to know what to do. So you can imagine my thoughts in that moment. What a testimony builder of not only listening to the spirit but of listening to the counsel of the prophets.  I love mission life. And living in Cusco. 

I have been learning so much here. Things I never dreamed I would know, I know how to give blessings to people in Spanish, I know how to teach people in Spanish. But that the fact that I'm becoming a teacher of the gospel just blows my mind. 

This week my testimony has grown that God can make so much more of us than we ever could. We are nothing. But He, the almighty, made us from the dust of the earth, so that one day, we could be as he is. He loves us. He has done everything for us. And so has His son Jesus Christ. The more I learn, the more I work every day, the more I feel capable. The more I keep His commandments, the more liberated I feel, to make my own decisions. Because I know and have confidence that I can choose his will. 

Love you all so much. Have a great week(: 

It was a good week...CONFERENCE

Week 38 (April 3, 2017)

Hello, family and friends.  I hope you're wonderful wherever you are and whatever you're doing.  This week was a good week.  We didn't get a lot of work done, but I got a lot of spiritual progress done, Personally.  So this letter will be personal, but for everyone.

We started with our leadership conference on Tuesday, in which I fell asleep once, lol.  No worries it was only when the assistants were talking.  Joking.  Don't take things so seriously.  President Herrera talked to us about the mission and what we could do better and how we could get there.  But in the end, he talked to us about our potential.  Not just as missionaries, but as children of God.  WE CAN BECOME AMAZING. But we have to let the Lord stretch us to find that amazing potential.  For us, amazing things are in store.  We need to be willing to receive it.  We have the potential to become as God is now.
Wednesday and Thursday were filled with office work and planning.
Friday we gave our zone training.  We talked to our zone about what it means to be missionaries.  We shared with them a lot of scriptures about how we can be like Jesus Christ.  It was a good time. BUT THE BEST TIME OF THE WEEK WAS CONFERENCE :)

I always have love general conference (well not always) I'm such a big fan of listening to God's prophets speak.  I was so pumped for this conference that it was pretty much like Christmas for me.  (Yes is was in English).  I was so hyped because there is always one talk that stands out fro the rest and I was excited to see which one it would be.  Saturday passed and I hadn't heard "the talk" yet. So I said to myself "it's fine, Sunday is the best day anyway".  And then Sunday came and Sunday went and I hadn't been brought to tears by any of the talks.  None of them dazzled my ears.  I was somewhat disappointed.  Frankly, I was kind of upset.

On the bus ride home I was put to think because that is what you do on public transportation and it was as if I heard my own voice telling me the following statement. "it's not about what you heard, it's about what you felt."

WOW...I was so lost in listening with my ears that I didn't even pay attention with my heart. So in that moment, I prayed. I told my Father in Heaven I was sorry, and that I didn't listen to my heart.  Then suddenly the sweetest feeling of joy, peace, and knowledge washed over me. I knew that His prophets had spoken and that He was proud that I did my best to listen to them.  I opened my heart and all at once my heart was full....

Chandler's computer crashed in the cybercafe, so we were not able to receive the third page of his letter.

Ya, Normal

Week 37 (March 27, 2017)

Well, another week down, this week was a bit weird but it was good! We started off with changes, and that means picking up, taking, and dropping off missionaries so they can get to their new sectors.  So on Tuesday, we didn’t get the chance to work at all.  Poor Elder Skousen’s comp left and he didn’t get a new one, so he is tagging along with us for a little while. 

I’ll tell you a bit about some of our investigators now, lol.

Familia Mora Correna
These are some amazing people.  They are a family of 4.  Brady is the dad, Vilma is the mom, Arazeli and Yaritza are the two hijitas! (daughters).  It’s hard to have visits with them all the time because they are the hardest working people I’ve ever seen.  They don’t make a lot of money, but they have what they need.  I hope they will accept what we are teaching them.

Alfredo
This guy is the coolest.  He is 18 years old and makes money for his family.  Like most families here he doesn’t have a father figure.  He has to travel all the way to Abancay for a month to work and then comes back for a week or so.  So it is hard to keep visiting him.  He wants to be baptized and he wants to be part of Christ’s church.  He just can’t when he is always traveling.  So we’re going to have to talk to president and see what we can do.

Angel
Angel is awesome!  He’s 14 and the only non-member in a less active family.  But what is funny is that he’s the only one who comes to church, lol.  Angel was going to get baptized about 4 years ago, but when he saw how hypocritical some of the members were he didn’t want to be part of it.  But now we’re getting him interested again!!

Those are just a few of them, but they are my favorites, lol.

Holy cow ya’ll it is almost April.  Freaking time is flying.  I almost have 9 months out here.  The mission is really cool.  It’s stressful too.  Sometimes I just want to lay sown and die, but you just gotta keep going.  Other times I never want to do anything or go anywhere else.  Missions are really weird, but they are cool.  I would highly recommend one. 

All in all, this week was just, normal.

Elder Haws