Baptisms in Juliaca

Hi Mom and Dad!  So this week was a great one working away in the mission field.  In particular, this week we had 4 baptisms in my District.  It was a "White Night" with that many great baptisms scheduled.  We also had 12 investigators come to church in our Ward this week!  That was pretty crazy and is definitely a record for me on my mission.

Our Mission President is talking about opening up a second area in our current area (Universidad), so that would mean we would have 4 missionaries in the Ward.  That would be neat, but we wouldn't live together, although we would share the same pension!  It is always fun to have another set of Elders in the same area.  We will find out the specifics next week when changes happen (May 1st).

I can't believe that this will be my last change / my 17th in the mission!

My companion got his cast off this week and everything is good with him.  We are guessing that we will be split up next week. I am guessing they might just move one of us to the NEW Universidad area and bring in two new companions (one for each of us), but guess we see.  We have 14 missionaries going home this transfer and 17 come in, so I think that means the mission will try and open up at least 3 new sectors.

The next multi-zone conference we have will be my last one and the one that I am asked to give my "last testimony" at.  Is a time when the old timers talk to the younger missionaries about what they learned, what they might wish they did differently, etc..  That will be around mid-May for me.  

So yeah everyone was making fun of me in my baptism pants!  They are HUGE on me.  People didn't believe they were actually my pants.   

My companion and I are still running (pretty consistently) in the mornings. But only for like 25 minutes.  Is really nice though, but TIRING. We get literally like 5 to 10 minutes into the run and our chests start throbbing and just hard to breathe.  Will be interesting to see how I do at home.  

It still would be a great way to end my mission with training a new Elder.  But I doubt that will happen.  I have seen it before with only one transfer left, but is pretty rare.  They just usually want the trainer and the trainee together for 2 changes.

Well we are off to have lunch and then just hang out and relax (no plans this p-day and that is actually kind of exciting!).  

Love you guys.

Hope you have a good week..

NEXT WEEK NEWS WITH CHANGES :)

Floating Reed City of Uros

I can't believe another week has gone by so fast!  Is crazy how time seems to be speeding up as I get closer to the end of my mission.  I can't believe I have 8 weeks left, but just have to finish these last few weeks working hard.

We unfortunately had to postpone our baptism from last week.  The new date is this Saturday (the 22nd).

We had a great "super" P-day this week at Uros.  It is a super big tourist trap now for sure.  Overpriced stuff that they sell on the shore cheaper than on the islands!  We had probably 80 missionaries on the floating islands!  It was our entire zone, the 2 zones from Puno and all the missionaries from Sicuani.

Me and my companion started running this morning.  We got really tired at like the mile+ mark.  Then my chest was throbbing, etc..  People where looking at us like we were crazy.  Was sort of funny!  I guess the elevation (12,000 feet) makes seeing a jogger something more unique.

We worked hard this week, trying to find more investigators and started teaching the two families we found last week.  About the only excitement that happened was that we almost got EATEN by dogs!  They came out of nowhere in a pack and just charged us!  We are fairly used to crazy dogs here in Peru, so we just threw some huge rocks at them and after hitting a few, finally forced them to leave us alone.

Well we are off to go play soccer and run some more errands.  Love you guys!  Looking forward to Mother Day Skype.

-Connor

Some more pics

From our zone conference and zone activities on island

Hi guys!  I am online now.  So we don't have P-day today, but only time to write emails.  We aren't having a true P-day today because we are going to Uros with the Mission President on Friday.  Uros is that floating island of reeds in Puno.  I will make sure and send pics when I go.  So Uros has been off limits to missionaries for the last year or so.  But apparently we get to go for a special occasion with the Mission President, so that will be exciting!  

Here are a few selfies with a member who was baptized like a month or so ago and is so excited about the Gospel and sharing it with everyone!  AWESOME!

In terms of work here is what we have going on:

-Avril passed her baptismal interview and so we will have that on Saturday!  That will be exciting!

-A really cool 20 year old came to church this week with a member, and he is VERY interested in learning more.  So we have an appointment already scheduled to teach him this week.  

-We got 10 (other) new investigators this week, so we will see how they progress over the next week or two.  

We found the 10 new investigators by just knocking on doors this week!  We are still working through our old area books, and we found an entire family that was interested in taking the lessons!  They were NOT the people in the book, so was very cool to find them.  

We would have had 12 new investigators, but decided not to count 2 of them, because they were a drunk husband AND a drunk wife, but they did in fact listen to us and were asking questions.  But obviously not understanding that much given the amount of alcohol they had drunk.  

So my companion's hand was not broken last week, just a torn ligament.  He has to wear a cast for like 2 weeks.

We found this place out walking around this week.  I think it is a bit of a copyright infringement on Napoleon Dynamite!  

Well I am off for today.  Love you guys so much! Take care!!!!!

I will  take pics at floating island this week...pretty much have Pday on Friday..but we won't be able to write again until next Monday.