Week 11: Crazy Week

Hey everyone!! It's been quite a week! Our investigators kind of took us on a rollercoaster. I'll explain: 

Our best investigators, Eliana and her daughters, were progressing really fast. They have gone to church every week for all 3 hours since we met them and one of the last times we were with them they had us download Gospel Library on their phones for them and they were just super excited! Well the next appt we had with them was supposed to be a fun family home evening with a lesson last Monday night after P-day, and we got there and they we could tell something was off. The spirit wasn't there like it usually was and in our lesson they kept asking questions about the history of the church and stuff and it was pretty obvious that they saw some anti-Mormom stuff on the internet. They said that they didn't believe that the Book of Mormon was true and that they didn't want to be baptized anymore. Well my companion and I shared our testimonies of the BoM and the restoration and said that if they read it and sincerely pray then they will actually receive an answer. They didn't seem too excited and said that they were really busy this week so we couldn't set up another appt. That was a BUMMMERR. BUTTTT this Saturday they called us and said that they've read and prayed and they have received a testimony of its truth!!! We are super excited and we will be meeting with them tomorrow and hopefully all continues to go good!!

Second roller coaster ride was with Juliño and Tatiana. Juliño is an inactive member that saw us walking down the street a few weeks ago and pulled over and said that he hasn't been to church in forever but he misses the gospel and invited us over to his house. His wife Tatiana isn't a member and they actually aren't married. Hah, like nobody is married here they just live together and call each other their spouses. Anyways, we've been teaching them and Tatiana wanted to be baptized! But Tuesday morning Juliño called us crying and saying that they got in a big fight and she is way mad at him and they've separated and he wanted our advice. So the next day we met with him and talked about his situation and told him to be very humble and patient with her and to pray. And as of yesterday they are getting back together and working things out!! You'd be surprised how many people talk to us about their relationship problems I feel like a marriage counselor, hahah.

But this week was such a HUGE example of God answering prayers. He really listens and wants to help His children. Being able to pray and communicate with our Heavenly Father is such a big blessing, and I am so grateful for His love for me, and for all of His children. Also, something that I'd like to say is READ THE BOOK OF MORMON. The Book of Mormon is so powerful and we are so lucky to have it. We are lucky enough to have it at our fingertips in our phones and you can buy it for like 4 bucks at Deseret book! The key to a happy life, and the best "self help guide" literally costs like 4 bucks. I am so frustrated that I didn't take advantage of it before my mission. I didn't read it that much and when I did, I did like it was a chore or just something to check off. Reading the words while your mind wanders off about something else isn't how we should do it. We need to study it! Mark it up and put your thoughts in it. 

So yeah thats my week! We also had interviews with the President this week which was good I got to get all my frustrations about my comp out. And he told me just to be patient and just do my part cuz you can't control other peoples actions! Also, something cool was when we were waiting for our turns in the interviews, the Presidents son was skateboarding and learning how to ollie and so I taught him how to ollie and did a few tricks! Hahah, I realized after that if the President saw me he probably wouldn't be too happy with that. But that was pretty cool, haha. Also we go to CHILI'S TODAY!!! I am super excited because I only get like 1 normal meal a month and that's at Chili's. Sometimes the food here is terrible. They eat every part of the chicken. I often get handed a piece of chicken and just wonder where on the body this came from, hahah. Also I had to eat liver and what seemed to be the yolk of a large bird egg. It had vein thingies in it and it was terrible. I miss eating fast food everyday. 

Hah, well I love you guys and talk to you in a short week! 

-Elder Hale

This is me and my pal Elder Horsley at our service activity hauling dirt/sand 

up the mountain on Wednesday!! He came from the MTC with me and he's like 

my best friend since my comp and I aren't super tight, haha.

Some hermoso clouds

Pretty cool full moon from our apartment!

Week 10

Hey Everyone! 

Quite an interesting week! I got super, super sick and still don't feel good but it's getting better! I guess I ate something really bad on Friday! They took me to the Clinic last night and they hooked me up on the IV thingy. But it helped and they gave me a bunch of pills and I'm staring to feel a little better! The bummer is that we are going to a little amusement park thing as a zone today but I can't go, haha. 

Spanish is still going! Some people are still way hard to understand though like our new investigator Ricardo. He literally talks as fast as Busta Rhymes in that one song—its crazy! Haha, and he is really weird. He has back problems and in our last lesson with him he made me massage his shoulders for a minute and it was so weird and random. I don't even know if I'm aloud to do that, hahaha. But some good news is that we have a family that is progressing really great and they have a baptismal date for the 22! Right now they are super excited about the gospel and learning more so hopefully that continues to go great!! We also had a work visit earlier this week so I went with one of the zone leaders to his area and that was great!! Got to take a little break from my comp and we found so many new people to teach! It was a really successful and happy day! So yeah, that's life out here! Going great, aside that there is an alien in my stomach but the food out here is whack so I'm not surprised! 

Love you all!

-Elder Hale

Remember the dog that wanted to kill me? Haha, well we are friends now and she 

follows us everywhere! Like all the way to the other side of our area! Haha, we like 

to call it ¨lessons with a member present¨ haha.

And this is just a nice view from one of our investigators houses!

Week 9

Hey Everyone!!

Life is going well out here in Peru! Spanish is still coming along too! Little by little, but I find that there's less situations everyday where I'm just lost. There are still sometimes though when we are talking to someone and then they ask me a question and I just have to guess what they said. Also drunk and crazy people like to come up and talk to me because I'm white. Haha, anyways, fun stuff has happened this week! We got to eat at Chili's last Monday which was heaven—it made me miss eating normal food!! Haha, this week we were eating at a members house and I'm pretty sure we ate pig skin!! Ands it was pretty terrible! But it's really disrespectful here to not eat all of your food so you just have to man up and do it. Another fun thing that happened this week was our little service project on Monday, we hauled bags of concrete mix up super steep stairs to get to this old home on the mountainside. I'll send some pics of that. My comp still bugs me a bit but its getting better and I'm learning to get over it! I just wish he was more, obedient, clean, and taught me how to do stuff, but I'm figuring it out, haha.

This week we had Gustavo's baptism! We had it on a Friday which is unordinary but it was good!! His kids were kinda rambunctious and didn't really understand what was going on and but they're kids. The Bishop shared some thoughts and feelings after and it was a really cool experience. Gustavo was really happy. ALSOOOO I got to watch CONFERENCE in ENGLISH!!!! My prayers were answered and I am so grateful. Us gringos just went on splits with each other's companions and watched it on a computer in the secretaries office of the stake center! And it was great! How cool is it that we live in a time to be able to listen to living Prophets and Apostles every 6 months! They are truly men called of God and it is really evident while listening to their talks. We had a few investigators come to the Sunday morning session too which was good news!!

So yeah, life gets better and its going good!

Nos Vemos—Elder Hale

Gustavos baptism!

Me mastering the digital camera selfie at our service project at the top of the mountain

View of the North Lima Valley from the service project

View of the stairs we had to climb for our service project

Killer sunset

Week 8

Hey Everyone! 

Week 2 into the mission. Life is good! Spanish is getting better too! It’s really weird though because somedays my Spanish can be pretty good and then others I feel like I can’t understand anything. Like sometimes I am able to hold up conversations and ask questions and all that, and other times I have no idea what people are saying and I just smile and nod, hahahah. And Peruvians start talking for soooo long about random stuff and telling random stories that I just don't have the vocabulary to understand. Like earlier this week we were talking with an investigator and I thought he was talking about his job but I guess he was talking about tornados and I guess I accidentally told him that there are tornados every day in Utah, hahaha.  And my Comp got super sick this week and lost his voice so I had to do a lot of the talking and whenever he would talk to me I couldn't understand! hahaha. A lot of the little things he does are starting to bug me, but I defintely need to learn how to be more patient so its kind of a blessing. 

This week I think I figured out why people call it the best two years, and I also figured out why some people struggle really badly. Lots of ups and downs—it’s defintely a learning experience! One of the best feelings though is being able to teach somebody and watch their countanance change as they feel the Spirit. You feel so happy for that person and just want them to continue to feel it and progress! And you feel like you are really making a difference and I love it!

But then there are the times where people just don’t accept it or just don't care, and you can’t speak the language very well and stuff so that just bums you out from time to time. I only have 2 weeks here so I’m not super experienced, but that’s at least what I've noticed so far. 

Something great that happened this week though is yesterday at church we had 3 of our progressing familes come to church AND 3 less active families come too! Very cool, we are really hoping that they let the spirit in and noticed the joy of the gospel. Hopefully I’m not just getting my hopes up. 

Our investigator, Gustavo, and his family didn't get baptized on Saturday because they couldn’t make it to church last week so the baptism is set for Friday! 

Also, general conference is this weekend and I’m praying that our mission Pres lets us gringos watch it in English because I wouldn’t get too much out of it in Spanish and that would bite because GC is my fav. ALSOOO we are going to CHILI’S this afternoon and I am stoked out of my mind! Also since I couldn’t send pics last week—here are some now.

-Elder Hale

This is me and Elder Ramirez!!

This is the dog that's outside our door that wanted to kill me the first week but now we are pals!

This is the view from my front door.

This is the hole in our roof, which I like to call the sunroof because it makes me feel fancy, lol!

This is just the daily view!!

This is my area—super good view!

Week 7

First week out here in the real world

Hey Everyone!

Life is crazy! I left the MTC Tuesday morning and got to the mission home and got assigned to my trainer Elder Ramirez! He is a good guy! He has been out here for about 15 months. He is Chilean so he speaks super fast and mumbles a lot so that it's so hard to understand him. Haha. I thought I knew Spanish pretty well until I got out here the first day and heard people speak. The first few days I got wrecked and just nodded and said "si" to everything people said—but I can understand them more and more each day. People that have teeth are a lot easier to understand, which is actually more rare than to find you'd think, haha.

Our area is super poor. It's crazy how different it is here. We live in a members house on the 3rd floor, and it's super trashy but we have hot water!!! kind of... it's this little electric thing in the shower head, and it you touch it you get electrocuted, and its not even 6 feet high so I have to duck so I don't shock myself all the time. My comp is really nice but he's a cochino (which means dirty person). So basically in all the extra time we have I am just cleaning the house.

Our ward is great! Lots of members—the Bishop pulled a fast one on me and told me to speak for 5 mins in sacrament meeting which was really hard and scary but I pulled through, haha. We do a lot of work with less active members here. Basically half of all of our missionary work is teaching and visiting less actives. People here have faith and believe, but they don't act on it and it just dies. They need to read James 2:11-15 "faith without works is dead." It's hard to teach them the importance of obedience.

We have a few people that are progressing really well though—one family, Gustavo and his children have a baptismal date for this Saturday the 24. He is keeping his commitments and sees the importance of obeying commandments, so thats pretty exciting. Moises has a baptismal date for the next Saturday after that but he just doesn't show up to church. It's really frustrating because in our lessons you can sense him feeling the Spirit and believing and having a desire to live the Gospel but he won't act on it so I don't know what will happen with him. So, all is well here! Spanish is coming along, although it is super frustrating at times, and we are working hard! 

-Elder Hale

Week 6

Jarett left the Peru MTC (CCM) on Tuesday to head out into the field and to his first area. I was hoping to hear from him on move day, and it looks like he did write, but it was just delayed in getting to me. This handwritten letter was emaied to me today from the mission secretary. It looks like he is doing well, and should be able to write more on his new P-day, Monday.

Week 5: Last Week in the MTC

Hey Everyone!

Last week here in the MTC! I leave on Tuesday to Lima Norté! It's been so great here in the MTC. I've learned so much about the Gospel and a lot of Spanish. I used to think that when missionaries left the MTC that they were fluent in their language, haha not really how it works out. But!! I can speak a lot of Spanish. I am able to speak about the Gospel really well and can understand most of what people are saying, but for not Gospel related talk—I have a ways to go, haha. My teachers have been the best, their names are Hermano Valera and Gavancho. Hermano Valera speaks no English so the first week here was super tough but now that we can communicate, he is one of the funniest people I've met and a really great teacher. I'll send  pictures with them next week. 

New things that happened this week are we had KFC style chicken this week (with rice of course) and it was super good and reminded me of home. I finally lost in ping-pong here, it was a tough loss but I got over it. I ran out off all my American candy and they don't sell too many sunflower seeds down here as far as I'm aware so that is a bummer. It’s the last week with my companion Elder Perkins! He's super smart and very driven, he is going to be a great missionary. Earlier this week he said ¨If you're around someone 24/7 for 6 weeks you start to talk like them¨. Haha, I guess I talk a funny way. He's going to Lima North too so I'll probably see him from time to time. 

This week was awesome because I finished to Book of Mormon again!! I love reading the Book of Mormon. I am so sad I never took as much time to read it back home as I do now. It is just filled with plain and precious truths and so much to get out of it. I definitely know it's true and if I could give anyone advice back home it would be to take advantage of what a great gift it is for us and read it! Im very grateful for that God let it be translated through the Prophet Joseph Smith so that we can learn and grow from it! I hope to someday know and be able to quote the Scriptures and the Book of Mormon as much as I know "The Office" and am able to quote it! Haha. I also finished "Our Search for Happiness" by Elder Ballard and that is such a great book! It was definitely a testimony booster and such a well rounded book about the truthfulness of The Church. Sunday was also a great day like always. We watched a video about John Moyle who was a stonecutter for the SLC temple and he walked 22 miles each week to Salt Lake for 20 years to work on the Temple—it taught me a lot about diligence and enduring till the end. He said ¨callings are seldom convenient" and that’s true–sometimes being obedient and doing the right thing is hard but it is The Lord's work and so it is important that we give it our absolute best. 

Some great scriptures that I read this week are all of 3 Nephi!! But especially chapters 9, 11, 13, 18, 27, and 28, Ether 3, and 12 Moroni 7, 8 and 10. ALSO Elder Holland’s talk called "The Only Living God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent" is one of the best talks I’ve ever listend to! 10/10 would recommend!

Bye everyone!!

Elder Hale

Me and Elder Perkins lookin smug

View from our dorms. The vegetation on the mountain is a garden, so don't be fooled
to think this place is tropical. The mountains are all just big piles of dirt here, haha.

This HUGE bird landed on top of Angel Moroni today so I had to take a pic.