Week 38: Baby It's Cold Outside

Hey Everyone! 

Life continues to treat me well here as a missionary in Peru! The weather is getting colder which is a bummer. :( The perfect climate is changing and its starting be gray and overcast everyday. I miss the sun. But there's still sunshine in my soul today!!! Haha! We had a pretty successful week and although we weren't able to set any baptismal dates, we have some great potentials for May! We found a lot of new people this week too so we'll see how that goes.

I don't have much time today—but here are some quick highlights of the week: 

• We found a GREAT new investigator named Carlos! He's a friend of Eliu (who just got baptized 2 weeks ago), and Eliu was the reference from Billy (who got baptized in December), and Billy was a reference from Brayan (who also got baptized in December). So basically what we got going on is a big chain of friends that are sharing the gospel with each other and it is super awesome!! They all hang out together and support each other in church activities and it just puts a smile on my face! I am SO happy to be able to teach them and help grow this web of gospel ties. 
• We did a work visit with the zone leaders, and I got to go with Elder Varney (my pal from the MTC)!!! It was awesome and a good time to work with my pal again. 
• We held an activity night in the church on Thursday and we had about 30 people come! (Which is a huge success compared to the last one we had where only 2 people came). Haha, we are trying hard to help members get excited about missionary work. 
• I FOUND ROOTBEER!! I haven't partaken of the heavenly beverage for about 9 months but I found it last p-day in a store with American products! It was a little tender mercy. :) 

Well, time continues to go by super fast and I love being a missionary! Lost of lessons to learn and improvements to make! And most importantly, taking care of the Lord's vineyard and doing His work! I definitely feel privileged!!! 

Also...some great points of study and learning this week have been from: 

1 Corinthians 13; Alma 42; Ether 12; and "Beware of Pride" by Pres. Benson! 

These are some of the BEST teaching of prophets that I have ever read or listened to. They have really helped me develop Christlike attributes and help me to find true happiness! I hope you folks give them a read! 

Have a killer week!

-Elder Hale

A cone ALWAYS makes for a happy missionary! :)

Just another killer shot of my area (in the foreground) and the rest of Lima in the background.

The work visit with Elder Varney and drinking rootbeer!

Week 37: We Flooded the Church!

Hey Everyone!! 

Things are going good here! We had transfers this week but my comp and I both stayed here in Magnolias! I was a little bummed at first that I have to stay with Elder Onofre, but he is actually stepped it up a notch and is working harder and acting more normal. :) It's for sure a tender mercy. We did have somethin crazy happen this week though...Elder Turley (the blonde haired Elder thats often in my pics) went home this week! He got super super sick and his body started acting crazy so they made him go home. It was a bummer cuz he was a good pal and a great missionary! 

But some good news is that we had a baptism for Juan Carlos on Saturday! He is awesome. He knew the church was true since our first lesson with him. When we asked him if he prayed to know if the Book of Mormon is true he said, "why do I have to ask if I already know its true? I've felt it since the first time Ive read it." His parents are still timid about being baptized. They believe the church is true but don't think they are "ready" for baptism. Juan Carlos is a great example for his family and I hope that they follow his example in the following weeks! 

While we were filling up the font, we went to buy refreshments for the baptism and we had to stand in line forever so it took longer than we thought and when we got to the chapel the font was overflowing!! We felt SOOOO stupid but we cleaned it up as fast as we could with brooms and mops. We got it almost all cleaned up by the time that people came. :) Hahaha. 

We found a few great new investigators this week and hopefully next Monday we'll have some new baptismal dates to report! We also had 11 investigators this week at church!!! It was a little miracle for sure! The youth in the ward are getting super excited about taking their friends to church! 

Also I bought some SWEET shoes as an early birthday present to myself this week! They only cost 75 soles (20 dollars)! I'll send you folks a nice pic of em. 

Well...I hope you all have a good week! This church is true and God loves us SOO MUCH! That's why he made the perfect Plan of Salvation for us! I know that we can return to live in his presence again as eternal families. I sure love my fam and am grateful for the opportunity to be with loved ones for eternity. Thanks for all your support and all your emails and letters. :)

-Elder Hale

Just another killer sunset by "Elder Hale Photography"

The best 75 soles I've ever spent!! I feel like a missionary version of Tim McGraw 

with these bad boys on. The guys in my district are jealous of 'em!

Elder Turley right before he left to catch his flight! :/

Looks like some guy took an English class for a couple 

months and thought he was qualified to make this poster! 

If you play eye spy you'll be able to catch some funny errors.

When we accidentally kind of flooded the church.

The Tello family and Juan Carlos ready for his baptism. :)

Anotha one.

Week 36: Another good week of building Zion!

Hey Everyone!!

I hope y'all had a good week and are enjoying all the great conference messages we received last week! This week for us was pretty good!! Nothing too out of the ordinary! We did have the Baptism for Eliu this week though and it was great!! So...a little background about him is that he is an 18 year old that we found through one of our recent converts that's his age! His family are all members of different religions! (His mom is one of the Pastors or leaders for her Evangelic church, and his older brother is a strong member in some different type of Christian church, and his dad is Catholic, I think). Anyways, he has super confused as to what is the truth and he was instantly interested and learning more about prophets, apostles and the Book of Mormon! He has been waking up at 5 am to go to seminary EVERYDAY since we met him! And he's been going to mission prep classes!! He got baptized on Saturday and it was awesome! He is going to be a future bishop or something someday!

And this Saturday we will have Juan Carlos's baptism! He is part of the Tello family that I've talked about a few times. The whole family believes that the church is true and comes to church but the parents don't believe that they should be baptized so soon, and don't think their daughters should either, so they are deciding to wait a little longer! But Juan Carlos is ready and really wants to be baptized now! Haha, so he will get baptized Saturday! He is such a champ! I love that guy. He loveees listening to the Book of Mormon on his phone while he sits at work. He always tells us about what's going on with Lehi and Nephi in the chapters that he's in. 

Transfers are tomorrow! But we don't get the calls until tonight so we don't know what'll happen! I want to stay here in Magnolias but with a different comp. Haha. I have made peace with it and put up with him but I prefer to have a happier, humble-er, more obedient companion! We will see what happens! 

Well, you guys have a good week! Read the Book of Mormon! It will turn a frown upside down and will fill your life with light and direction! I love Jesus Christ and I love His Church!! I love being a missionary!

Love you guys

-Elder Hale

Doing service this week, painting walls and mixing cement

Your boi Elder Hale playing the piano at Eliu's baptism!!

Eliu's baptism! (he is the bigger guy on the right)

Week 35: 8 Months ?!?

Hey Everyone! 

I hope you are all doing great! We had a great week down here! It went by fast!...too fast actually! There was so much that happened this week that we didn't have much time for finding new people. :/ Also, I hit 8 months in the mission this week...kind of crazy!

Well, here's the scoop this week...

Monday—just a classic, relaxing p-day consisting of fried chicken and ice cream!

Tuesday—district meeting and got to do a baptismal interview for some Elders in the district! 

Wednesday—we spent the whole afternoon inviting people to a missionary activity night that we had later that night!! But NOBODY showed up! Only 3 people...and they were members....hahaha, it was a big bummer and awkward. We were going to watch Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration but only 3 people came.

Thursday—we had zone conference, which was good! President shared some GREAT ideas how to find new people! 

Friday—we had some good lessons and found a great new couple! We were walking down the street and passed this couple sitting down and I got a feeling to turn around a I said to him "sorry to interrupt but, do you like to read?" it sparked a conversation and I mentioned the Book of Mormon and he was super interested, he invited us to his house to learn more. He promised to read it and to pray and ask if it is true! Things just clicked so fast with him! It was awesome. 

Saturday—CONFERENCE! I got to listen in English for the morning and afternoon sessions so that was cool! The afternoon sesh was my fav! There are some real good talks in that one!

Sunday—more CONFERENCE!! Today I listened in Spanish with our investigators and they loved it! We had 7 people come! I was super thankful! 

I am so happy and feel so blessed that we live in a time where we have prophets and apostles with the power of revelation and the Priesthood keys restored on the earth! AANNDD we get to listen to them every 6 months! Sometimes we forget how much of a blessing that is in and of itself! 

Well, this week should be a good one! Eliu's baptism is on Saturday and the Tello Fam should be coming up real soon! I don't have time right now so I'll tell you all about them next week! :)

Have a good week everyone!

-Elder Hale

Grubbin on some good ole fried chicken last P-day! 

I NEVER miss an opportunity to get my paws on a cone!!!!!

Service we did for our investigators this week! They made me wear a cowboy 

hat/sombrero so that I wouldn't get sunburnt. It made me reminisce on the good ole times.

Me drowning out my sorrows of our unsuccessful activity night with Oreos and milk! Hahaha!

Me wearing my "special occasion tie" to kick off the conference weekend. 

Also, Elder Ramirez by my side (he was my trainer and now he's in my district, haha.)

Testing out the self timer on my camera.

A guy with a TROUT TIE at conference this weekend! 

HOW funnny!! It made me miss my fishies back in the Provo River, haha.