Hola Texas well this is going to be quick cuz I got on internet late cuz my comps dying had to go to a meeting  Well this week my comp was really like really trunky just wanted to sleep all day so I asked my district leader to give me like 4 work visits and when he asked what I was going to do I said find baptisms cuz well I have to baptize at least 3 this month that's what I put as the goal and I want to baptize 10 the next month so I have like 4 or more possibilities for this month but I gotta start looking now for March. So we went and I found two families that accepted to be married and baptized so sorry mom and dad but I am going to be sooo broke this month and the next I don't know why marriage is soo expensive here but what can you do . I also found a woman Annebell who also accepted to be baptized but she couldn't come to church this week because some family came to visit but shes coming the next.  I also found this lady who is a member but her husband and are not so jackpot I am also looking for some part member families which I should be getting a list of from our ward mission leader this week. Basically I was looking for people and contacting all week so my key indicators looked bad but I dont care cuz I will baptize like crazy and that's the only thing that I care about so ya . Funny things this week when my comp and I went to like a market to go get his camera fixed well they have like this movie stand where they sell movies and also usbs and technology I was asking about some memory cards cuz I need some more and well my comp calls me over and he is laughing and says lets go and I ask why he says those nurses want to eat you . So I was like what and I look over to where I was and there are these two nursesexcept they are not nurses they were like sexy nurses if you know what I mean I think they were advertising for like a club or something and I was like oh ok and right when I was about to go they tried talking to me and I was like uuuughgg ok then I was like Alejate de mi Satanas!!! Departe From me hence Satan!! and like gandoff from lord of the rings YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!!!!!!

 I hope my kid will be cool  so that we won't have any problems. I am about out of time, chow love y'!all

Hey Texas whats up 

Well this week we didn't have as many people in church, well investigators. It was stake conference but I told y'all that every other Sunday they have to do faenas right which is basically like diggin like crazy  to build stairs or foundation for a crappy wooden house so they will be coming to church every other week until I can figure out who is in charge of the faenas cuz it bugs me. The families they all told me how they loved church and how there kids loved church. It is awesome every time I go to there house the daughters who are like 5 and 9 just come running up to me and hug me I basically gave them my valentines package to them and they loved it haha!! I just love that  family! The fathers name is Edgar and the wife's  name is Maria and this family is just the best like I love them haha!! Anyway we have another family Eduardo and Carmela and we have her daughter Lezly who by the way is 17 but she has a kid and the father like abandoned her but anyway we are working on marrying them and I'm stoked cuz I have been working my butt off !  I had a work visit with Elder Iglesias my district leader and he told me dude I'm tired, and I said me too man!! We decided to take it easy that day work but not like all out and right when we said that the Lord was like NO I HAVE A BETTER  IDEA and we get to our first lesson and  I was just like lets verify way to take it easy but primitiva the lady we were going to baptize her daughter was there Carla.  Carla is like late twenties or early thirties but she has a kid and is 4 months pregnant well she is from a different part of Lima and the missionaries were teaching her there and she was about to get married and baptized but she found out that her husband was comitting adultery with this other chick then she tried to fix it but the dude was being gay and kicked her out and ya they separated   so she tells us this crap then how she is getting separated and by the way as missionaries it is illegal to preach separation it is never the  answer but ya she was mad at the dude so I shared the scripture from John 8 about the woman who had committed adultery and the spirit was there like I was like the SON OF GOD a man without sin forgave even the most dishonorable of sins and said neither do I condemn thee go thy way and sin no more. 

Then we had to visit my families and then we saw this family and
I was like dude and I looked at Elder Iglesias and we were just like man the Lord just told us to contact them and then we contacted a million more people and the end of the day we just went to get soup for dinner and were just talking  like dude I didn't want to work that hard cuz we were like sweating and dirty cuz at one point we carried a bunch of sand and then water up a hill for a family who I am now  teaching that's kinda how we contacted them but ya we were tired but anyway then I get a call from my old companion Elder Rios telling me that he and his family are going to be sealed in the temple Friday or  Saturday and he wanted me to come. I called the zone leaders and they said it was cool then I got  my division and I left at 5 in the morning woke up at 4 in the morning but it was so worth it when I saw him I almost cried I was actually stressed cuz i couldn't find him.  He wasn't answering his phone then someone covered my eyes with there hands and I was like RIOS we talked he presented me to his family and it was so dope I almost cried saying goodbye he told me that he is the stake secretary and will be also teaching seminary the old testament this year  I am so stoked for him but anyway I gotta go love y'all so much I'll find out how to send pictures don't worry love y'all chow 

Hey whats up texas HOLA TEXAS! whatever ahahjaja well this week was dope I
don't know how to explain this to you all but I AM A DAD!!! I just had my first kid!!!!!!!!!!! In mission language that means that I am training someone don't worry people I don't plan on really having kids for the next 10 years or more but ya that's that. So well my kids name is Elder Tirado he's peruvian he's from Trujillo like a really pretty part of Peru. Well hes 18 so ya normal. Also this week I have been doing alot of damage repair.   Me and my comp have basically been looking for new investigators this week and just knocking doors contacting people and looking for references. It was hard and exhausting just contacting from 10 in the morning to 10 at night yes I said 10 at night and like nothing else other than our study hours so ya but it was hard cuz well it's hot and I got sundburned pretty bad but oh well. But all this work payed off! I got 7 people to church 6 were new investigators that I found this week and they are amazing and I got a baptismal date for 2 investigators Ubert and Primitiva so I am stoked. I have to marry 4 freaking families this month of march uahhagghhg thats alot of families and alot of money but I  talked to the assistants and they are going to help me out with it so that's a relief but the only other problem is well they live in hills like every other person here and well what happens is every other Sunday they have to do fayenas its like constructing stairs and foundations for there crappy houses. Its a little crude but thats the best way I can explain it  but ya I am trying to talk to the people in charge to see if I can do service two  times a week so that these families can go to church but it doesn't seem to be working so I am just going to have to baptize everyone in the area so that they will all be like ya guys were not going to do that were going to go to church instead so ya thats my solution well ya everything else is chill. The zone leaders put a goal for me to baptize 10 people which I want to do but it kind of makes me mad that the rest of the zone together will get about 10 baptisms so I feel like I am doing all the work but oh well I love baptizing.That's actually the first thing I  said to my kid when I met him I hope you like to baptize . haha so ya anyway that's all for this week love yall chow!

 My companion got crapped on

 

Hola Texs
Well this week was dope and frustrating all at the same time, as you know the mission life is. 
We have a potential of baptizing 8 people this week on Saturday, it's just a matter of animating them. 
Familia Cruz Peleaz, this is a family of 4 so they are a major focus. The thing with them is hermano Juan the father of the family is awesome but he likes to be real sure of his decisions but  he had his interview last night with Elder Iglesias and looks like everything is cool for this Saturday.  They were a little shaky this last week like I guess hermano Juan learned that any worthy member that holds the priesthood can baptize and I guess that bothered him a lot because in the catholic church only the high ups baptize but well in that lesson me and my comp were like inspired by the spirit like crazy and I asked him where the catholic priests got there authority and he didn't know (shocker).  Then I asked him if he knew where I got my authority cuz he knew I could baptize and he also didn't know and well this will sound crazy but I suddenly remembered my priesthood linage.I literally haven't seen my card in years and i remembered it perfectly all the way back to Jesus Christ and well he was in SHOCK it was just awesome.   Then later this week we had a noche de hogar with them and we shared a message about families and how well if they really want to be a family forever they had to not only get baptized but be sealed in the temple or at death will you part and well we went to there house like Friday or Saturday night and we found on there calendar a bunch of sticky notes with things written on them like read book of mormon , pray as a family , and don't complain when Elder Rosales comes ahahjaja!!!  My favorite get baptized as a family and get sealed in temple as a family. Me and my comp were just in shock I'm actually trying to send you a photo but its not working oh well. We also go the fecha con luis 17 years old and jerry 19 years old but we are struggling to seal the deal with this investigator Diana, she is 28 her sister is a 19 and a recent convert and potential future missionary.   Diana's mom Primitiva is 55 and also an investigator , we are focusing a lot on Diana cuz if she gets baptized Primitiva will kind of just follow .  Diana is hard like insanely hard we were asking her how she felt about baptism and she was saying well I need to stop my costomes and my habits and we asked her if those were en contra las normas de la iglesia and she said no then we were like well if it weren't for those things would you be baptized ?She said yes but then later we learned that she wanted to get and answer to her prayers and she was telling us some experiences and we were like there like she was like at the point of saying yes baptize me and then her child of like 6 years started crying and fue el espiritu and we had to leave so we were mad about that.   She gets home at like 9:30 every night and leaves for work at like 7 in the morning so the only time we have been able to visit her are fin de semanas so I told her were going to be passing by at 9:30 everynight just to verify her lectura and her prayers because she is reading but not praying cuz well to be honest president with her I feel like she knows the church is true she knows she needs to get baptized but she doesn't want to cuz we are telling her to so I feel like God just needs to tell her so that's what we are praying for and probably are going to be fasting for this week anyway well . Ok so well that's the letter I wrote papi erickson so well for u guys to know well this ward is just dope like we don't really even teach less actives or recent converts.Our ward mission leader is a returned missionary and well in our ward we have like 8 returned missionaries and like 10 people that are getting ready for a mission in a couple of months or in a year or two so basically what we did is we were like Bruno the ward missionaries name, dude we want to focus on baptism and all but we have like 30  plus recent converts and we can't visit them all  so we created a program where  a returnend missionary goes with a mini missionary or a someone preparing for a mission and teaches our recent converts so they are teaching all of our recent converts and we can just teach investigators and converts that really need our help and this program is sooo dope cuz look our retention of converts is like 90 percent most of the time which is just like the highest in the mission and we may baptize like 10 people this month and all so its dope . I really think that this is the way a ward should work cuz after all the purpose of a missionary is to baptize after all so well its awesome for us cuz we can just baptize like crazy and well the mini missionaries learn to teach and get real experience and the converts get the lessons a friend and invitations to activities and parties stuff that missionaries don't know about and well so everyone benefits its like the optimal way to work anyway well I am stoked about this week anyway love yall chow

This is me and my old zone leader Elder Romero.   We took this picture in the night after he went and got us pizza for his last week in the mission .He's home in Hondoras right now. 

This is Lima where I serve in my second area Collique.

Hey Texas Whats up I actually started to write in spanish and all but then I remembered that none of you know spanish and that google translate sucks and anyway well everything here is dope I am working hard this week. We actually found a golden investigator her name is Susan not Susana so that a first but ya apparently her friend invited her to church and she well really liked it. She was going to another ward but she lives in our area so the misionaries passed the reference and ya were teaching her and she will be getting baptized this month of December the 12. I am stoked the only problem is her aunt is like anti mormon, we actually first taught her with her aunt and she was like fighting against us the whole time especially when I brought out the book of mormon ( my comp got mad at me for bringing it out ) she started  saying were replacing the bible but her niece was like no they told us they use the bible too . I explained it pretty good I thought and we actually had a returned missionary there with us who was Susans friend who helped a lot- but ya I told her to at least pray but she refused saying I'm not going to pray about what I already know is false . By the way that's how you tell that someone is really hard of heart if they refuse to pray . Anyway Susan came to me at church yesterday and explained how she prayed but didn't get an answer. I explained to her that just because you pray doesn't mean that you will get an answer. It depends on how diligent she is on finding that answer which means diligence in reading praying coming to church and even fasting. Our president of the mission actually did a training on this a couple of months ago and during it he asked which of you have had an investigator who prayed about your message but didn't get an answer it was cool to see about every missionary raise his hand . He then said well from now on you are forbidden to promise people an answer from praying. That kinda shocked all of us. He said  they will receive an answer according to there diligence then he showed us like a lot  of scriptures that teaches just that so I was like dude dope. Now looking back on my personal experience that is so true . I remember in the mission wanting a testimony of the book of mormon like a witness and not just a belief like I had before. I read the book of mormon maybe once before my mission and ya in the mission I was just reading reading praying fasting and getting frustrated because I wasn't receiving an answer but I read it again and again and now I have read it like 4 or 5 times and I have a testimony divine of the spirit that it was true it didn't come to me my first freaking night but after months yes I said months of reading praying and fasting honestly looking for a divine witness . I got it now and I am doing it again - By the way I had an interview with the president this week like we all did and it was DOPE I loved it ok basically his prayer was dope which was weird by the way that he started the prayer usually I start and he finishes. so ya but it was dope like he was saying bless Elder Atwood with all the spiritual gifts needed to preach they gospel and a bunch of other dope stuff but ya for the most part we talked about baptismal potential for December how many I'm going to baptize and how many the sisters in my district are going to baptize he was like cool ok so Elder here's the thing I need you and your district to be the example here in the zone cuz your one of the few missionaries that constantly baptizes so ya anyway I asked him first how I could get a stronger testimony of Joseph Smith and to teach with more power and authority and he told me that I need to memorize scriptures ( he knows I've read the book of mormon a lot)  so ya and then he was like telling me how the spirit will reveal to us what we need to say but only if we give it something to remember and ya he told me how he can quote thousands of scriptures now from the top of his head and I'm just sitting there like man I wanna be like this dude hes cool. So ya then I asked him the main question if I could extend my mission a year and ya he told me no that the mission only lets us extend it 30 days so ya i was like nooooooooooooooo like you sure and he said ya sorry but then he was like but I am happy to see that you have those desires that means your heart is in the right place so ya. and then he said BUT I PROFECY THAT YOU WILL SERVE ANOTHER MISSION  he told me that his mission president told him the same thing so ya I'm stoked but I want to serve while I'm still young so I won't be doing family history when I am old with my bones all weird . I am not giving up on another mission I am currently working on my letter to the first presidency to extend my mission or to put in my papers again . I think they can give me a no saying no you have to go home and get married (president talked about that as well) and I will explain like look guys I am 19 I will be 20 I don't really care about getting married right now so if I go home I can go study and goof off for three years or I can go on another mission . The sons of Mosiah served for 14 years I think I deserve a good 3 or 5 years just saying I'd like to baptize thousands as well and I got like 30 in the water already so like 30 times 5 is like 150 people so I would be happy with that I mean baptizing is dope I love it. Anyway by the way I think I would tell you that yes I have had a comp that I loved remeber Elder Rios we both write each other every single week the dudes awesome anyway I gotta go love y'all