Peru

Peru
Machu Picchu

Monday, February 29, 2016

Another week of travel and meetings

Hey guys! So this has been a good week, we were pretty much traveling all week to Puno and back for Zone Meeting and a Multi zone meeting so we didn't get to do too much, but stayed in Ludlows [his trainer and now his Zone leader] house for 2 days, pretty cool!

We were in Puno from Thursday to Sunday so we didn't spend a ton of time in our sector this week, but did manage to set up a ton of appointments for this upcoming week, so should be better this week with work and teaching in Juli!

Today we ate in Puno in PlazaVea (its like a real mall), and we ate in a restaurant called Bembos...I guess its classified as fast food but its the BEST thing I have eaten in 3 months!

[I had seen in another blog that Elder Holland had told the entire mission that he had received specific promptings about some missionaries who were being less than obedient, and that he told the Mission President specific names!  The Mission President then had interviews with each of those missionaries after the conference.]

Yes, as Dad said in his email, our Mission President interviewed people that were not doing well according to Elder Holland, but luckily I wasn't one of em :) (Scary cool promptings from an Apostle though right?)

[One of the Senior Missionary Couples (same one who posted re: Connor in Juli last week) had a great summary of the Mission Conference with Elder Holland.  It includes a lot more detail than what we get from an 18 year old in Peru! :)  Here is the link if interested.  LINK]

Not sure what else to say for this one, just one story that makes me think of Dad.

So today we had our district meeting in Ilave, and after it was over we decided to go to Puno since its pretty close. After being there we came back to Juli, and as usual to get home from Puno you have to go to a terminal and take a ........mini van bus looking thing. So me and my companion got in, and the only seats left were the back seats, (where APPARENTLY 4 people can sit, or at least that is what they say).  So we got in the back, 1 guy was already back there so it was my companion in 1 window, some random guy in the other and me in the middle ......now here it gets interesting.........so guess who gets in for the "4th" seat?...

A very large person .... probably largest I have seen in my life!  :) So pretty much had a 2 hour ride squashed .... made me think about Dad and his stories from various trips / plane rides.

I am so bad with pictures, I promise I literally THOUGHT of you guys, saying to myself that I was going to take pictures with Ludlow, so I brought my camera but then didn't remember to take any pics lol....sorry, but when we go again I will take tons, sorry.... I feel bad....Gonna do voice recorder tonight or something from the camera haha.

Here is a picture of the ENTIRE mission from when Elder Holland was here.


[Good luck finding Connor in this "where is Waldo exercise" -- a hint -- find the guy in middle / far right side on someone's shoulders it looks like and head left.  His face is a bit hidden by a raised arm!]


[Another picture of Connor with his MTC group]

Yeah, its time for me to go but going to do something tonight.

Going to try to improve in that aspect, taking more pictures.

But I love you guys a ton, hope you guys have a great week.

Talk to you next week

-Connor!

Monday, February 22, 2016

Conference with Elder Holland

Well, it has been a really great week!

We got to see Elder Holland ...CRAZY...

We left from Puno at 12 at night... had a crappy nights sleep with a terrible stomach ache in a bus for 7 hours.... We arrived and got a little breakfast and then we like .. took a few pictures and waited for Elder Holland. When he arrived it was insane.




In the beginning, he shook all of our hands and looked us in the eyes as we told him our names and where we were from. It was amazing. He spoke about obedience. It put a lot of things into perspective for me and I think that it will really help me in the future. He is so powerful.

He speaks really strong and passionately, practically like shouting half the time.  It was awesome what he said though, I think everyone in the room felt the spirit. Was actually a bit scary though because he was legit walking around like...talking to people and like touching them grabbing them and calling them by name, crazy...

I got to shake his hand and talk for like 15 seconds hah!

How was your week?

And yeah, I like that bit from their blog, that is really what its like here haha.

[Connor was responding to a paragraph I found from a senior missionary couple who are working in Cusco Peru on a family history mission.  Basically the senior couple had made a trip to Juli -- where Connor is -- and spoke about their experience.  That blog entry is below:]

[Sunday morning we drove to Juli.  It is a tiny branch South of Puno.  The branch was so small that the Elders were doing everything. (I just have to say that all the missionaries here are simply amazing.  They just see what needs done and do it, it was especially true in this small Branch).  The Branch President was there and he had to conduct and give the opening prayer.  There were a handful of women there.  The Elders led the music and prepared and administered the sacrament.  There were no other men, so they called Lyle up to help.  Lyle ended up blessing and passing the sacrament and blessing a baby.  The little blessing circle consisted of Lyle, the elders and the baby. The mother stood just outside of the circle.  Lyle was taken by surprise and didn't know what he was supposed to be doing at first.  He said later that he just hoped he got the name right, luckily the baby was in a blue blanket so that was a clue to the gender. Later toward the end of the meeting, I noticed two young boys had arrived, they probably weren't old enough to pass the sacrament, but someday they will.  There is hope for this struggling branch.  It was testimony meeting and the testimonies were sweet and strong.  Even though their numbers are small these saints have faith.  As we were getting ready to leave Sister Hassler asked if Lyle had done the paperwork for the baby blessing, we were glad she remembered.  So this little boy who lives in a tiny area of Peru will have Lyle's name on his blessing certificate.  When we came out of church, we were surprised to see all the market people selling in front of the Church.  That was different -- a picture is below.]



Here is a pic that Elder Segura..my old comp sent me...my hair is a MESS because we were in a bus sleeping for 8 hours before that haha


Was weird there. LITERALLY more than 20 people asked me how much weight ive lost!

Here is a pic of me and my MTC group!



Well my time is up.  I gotta go love you guys a ton.

Dad you can also add whatever you want to it though, please do haha i want as much songs as possible...

[Connor and I had shared a few emails: what music was ok via mission rules for him to have and so I am off to try and fill a nano with some music for him!]

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Quick update from Connor

So we are in Yunguyo right now, dont have my camera with me but will upload the photos when I get back to Juli tonight. Doing divisons with Elder Powell (from the July 2014 group), should be fun. I will be working in Juli with him until Wednesday.

Carnival is still going strong, tons and tons of drunks in the plaza, the plaza is stained with urine, I am totally serious though actually stained......

So the ex mayor we live with here in Juli was throwing water balloons at drunk guys to keep them from adding to the urination problem the other day! Never really thought that would be something I see on the mission!

How are you guys?

Well to be honest I was super sick to my stomach this week....Not sure what happened but from like Tuesday to Saturday I was literally dying inside.  Wasn't too fun with that....

But lately we have decided to try to knock doors and try to have the first lesson right then, in the house....We are going to see if this will help us because lately we haven't been having too many appointments....Tomorrow we have a service in the campo (field?) Should be interesting because I am pretty sure its just moving sticks around again...

The other day it was burning hot here and we were just crammed in a taxi.......guy didn't roll down the windows and no cars here have AC....Was game over for me..

But listen to this --  our traveling schedule to see Elder Holland.

So Friday at 11:30 at night, we have to be at Puno at the terminal, where we take a bus for 8 hours to Cusco...We arrive at 7 or 8 in the morning.....eat breakfast and go to a chapel in Cusco for our meetng with Elder Holland......after we eat lunch and leave in bus again for another 8 hours...Thats just SAVAGE! But the good news is that we were told every missionary is going to get to meet Jeffrey.R.Holland, or just like shake hands, but will be cool!

Love you too! Think of you guys all the time too, more than you would think...haha

Miss pretty much everything about our home...

This week, due to carnival only 17 people came to the church, the 3 people who were going to give talks didn't come....Sacrament wasn't prepared...no one was there to lead the hymn, of course as usual we don't have piano...it just was bad......Sunday school lasted 2 hours so there wasn't even time for priesthood and everyone left...just a hard Sunday here in Juli!

So we are going..............I will try and send some photos tonight.love you guys tons!



Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Quick Email Update

Hey guys, so these next weeks here in Juli are carnival, which is bad here. Just a bunch of crazies running around spraying people with something that is like shaving cream and throwing water balloons, and they don't care if you are wearing shirt and tie....hahaha.



Everything is going good work wise I think haha, a lot of walking and I hate walking when its super hot or super cold so that sorta sucks...

Here lately its been FREEZING at night but BURNING in the daytime, it sucks!  It is just hard with the weather sometimes here, hate when it rains hard and then the sun burns me 20 minutes later haha.

In July about 45 missionaries are going home at same time (along with our mission president), so I imagine everyone in the mission will be training the newbies that come in that change, because there will be a ton I think.  So I am guessing I will be a trainer about 1 year out!  That scares me a bit, hahah.  

So my time is already up, love you guys tons, gonna make sure to send more pics this week from my camera, love you guys!

Have a good week

P.S. Take care of my stuff for me :)

Typical breakfast without a pension....evaporated milk sucks



Monday, February 8, 2016

A picture is worth a thousand words (or 8 as the case may be)

[We waited all day for Connor's email and finally got ONE picture sent directly from his camera -- which sends pictures via wifi when he is at home / within range of free / open wifi.  :).  So hopefully will get to hear from him tomorrow.]



Monday, February 1, 2016

Late in day P-day email

Hey whats up..super busy day so we are writing super late but its alright, had an appointment after we came from Puno so didn't have any time to write..

So this is what happened, so we were going to just write on a laptop that the owner of the house let us use to write today, but my comp started using it first for like 30 min then it died and he cant find the charger, so we were like...crap....and so we ran out and came here to internet and i forgot my camera....lol....but I think I will log in tomorrow for 15 minutes tomorrow just to send all the photos and get off, no problem there. 

Well, it was a good week work wise. We had 5 news investigators, and a 2 came to church, and everything was good, we had little new contacts which sucks, but i really have trouble contacting. I know its something important to do, but I just don't like it. I know its something that if we do constantly, we will see slow and steady improvement but its just hard for me, so contacts and references asked are our lowest point right now. 

But me and my companion have been studying the plan of salvation last week, the entire week. It really payed off when Janice (our recent convert), started to ask us some deep questions haha. She even said, "I bet you guys cant answer this question", my companion (from Colombia of course) is super competitive in these kind of aspects so we bet an "arroz con leche" (rice pudding) that we could hah. She ended up like asking 5, questions like....Why did Heavenly Father send Adam and Eve only to the Garden of Eden... (Answered with Abraham 3:22-23 which talks about preordination and stuff), but it was really awesome to see how studying helps us so much hah. I have learned a LOT this last change with my companion, mainly about the plan of salvation, but its awesome...

But hey mom, I really don't know what even weather we are in right now. Literally EVERY person I ask tells me something different. I have heard around April, May and June it is bitter cold though, like sometimes close to snow (just like little ice and stuff), but I guess we will see!

I will be sure to send some pics tomorrow, but dang you guys are going to have frost tonight and be in the 30s?  At least you have like heating and that stuff, we don't have that here, but I already gotta go...love you guys tons...talk to you next week...

[Follow up pictures sent the next day]