Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Sunday, September 8, 2013
The last week. 9/3/13
Thanks for the email! It was nice to get to read about you guys and how everything is going. I can´t believe that two years have already gone by it feels so weird to me. I´ve been thinking a lot the last couple of days about my mission and everything. I´m so happy I made the decision to go on a mission, it´s been one of the biggest blessings in my life. I´ve learned so much from my companions, the mission president and the people we´ve taught. I don´t think I´ll ever regret having served a mission because of everything I´ve learned and the people that I´ve been able to teach.
Yesterday I got to go to one of my areas to say goodbye to the people I taught with Elder Cabrera. It was sweet because we went to our old pension and ate lunch with the Arancibia family. We ate hot dogs for lunch and after we went to visit the people we taught and baptized. We visited Elsa Vallejos and her family it was the best to get to see them they told me they´re still active in the church and go to all the activities and are planning on going to the temple when the ward takes a trip to Lima! We went to Silvia Manay´s house after and she was super excited to see us about a year has passed since I had seen all the people we had taught. Silvia told us that she´s 1st councilor in the relief society and that next month she´s going to go to the temple. It made me so happy to get to see her and it got me so pumped for this last week in the mission. I felt the spirit so strong when we visited her and talked for a while, she said she was going to go to the airport on monday to say goodbye. It was the best to get to talk to our converts and see their progress, I´m most excited to hear about them having gone to the temple.
As far as things go in our area we´re still working with the same people. José Agip came to church on Sunday! That was cool, I didn´t think he was going to come to church but he showed up randomly. We´re having a tough time getting the investigadors we have to commit themselves to go to church on Sundays. This week were going to work on that and try and set some baptismal dates. I´m really trying to enjoy this last couple of days I´ve got in the mission and we´re working really hard. I´ve got a lot of mixed feelings with the mission ending and everything but I´m excited to be able to see everyone after 2 years. I love you guys soo much, thanks for all the support and letters you always sent me.
I´ll talk to you guys next week...in person! Love you guys :)
-Elder Connelly
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
2 weeks 8/26/13
What a week, we`ve been working hard in our area with a lot of different people and we`ve seen God`s hand in the missionary work. We`re visiting this newer investigador named Carlos Cabrejos he`s not really that new but we already taught him about the Restoration and we`re teaching him about the Plan of Salvation. We told him he could prepare to get baptized on September 7th the only problem was yesterday they called him to go drive a truck, he`s a choufer and sometimes they call him randomly. He`s capting really well everything we teach him and he`s a really humble person.
I`m really worried about some of our converts in my area because everyone is out of work right now in Ferreñafe because the harvest ended about 2 months ago and there really isn`t other way to work here in the city i`m in. One of the families we baptized about 3 months ago doesn`t have very much food and so I was going to buy some food with my companion to take to them but the bishop is going to see if he can buy some food to help them out. The problem is that the dad Luis doesn`t want to ask for help from the church and so it makes it hard for them to get help if they don`t want to ask for it. Olga Sanchez another convert we have in my area has been without electricity for the past 2 weeks and is using candles, she also doesn`t have to much food to eat but the bishop already helped her out and the president of the relief society went with Olga to the market and they bought her a bunch of food. It made me feel really bad for these people that don`t have anything to eat, it`s tough here economically especially in Ferreñafe.
Today I`ve been visiting my old areas where I was at before with my companion, we went to Las Americas my third area and visited my pensionista`s family and ate lunch with them. She went to Lima and wasn`t there but I did get to talk with her family and eat lunch with, i talked with her on the phone and she said she was going to say goodbye in two weeks at the airport. I got to go see a family that we baptized after lunch well we didn`t baptize the whole family but two of their kids. It made me soo happy to see, I sent a picture of me with them. I also got to visit Aldair he`s another investigador we taught and baptized, he went to the temple a couple of months ago! I guess he got to do baptisms for the dead, that made me super excited I was glad to see him. After that we went to José Quiñones my fourth area, I got to visit Iris and she is doing good she`s been going to church. It was a bummer to have to say goodbye to her, she`s doing really good. Then we went and visited Laura and Zair, Laura is going to seminary and is getting ready to go to the temple with the young women in the ward. I also sent a picture of the two of them with me. It made me really happy to know a lot of the people that we helped join the church are still going to church and have plans to go to the temple or have already gone. That`s a missionary`s payment, see other people come unto to Christ and live his Gospel. I`m so grateful for the time i`ve had here in Peru I don`t want it to end...I got another two weeks to go luckily :)
Thanks for the letters you`ve sent me and for the support, all the elders are always jealous of the letters I get :D I hope you like the pictures I sent. I sent a picture of Carlos and I, of lunch with the Piscoya Primo family, of the family we baptized and of Laura, Zair and I. Thanks for the email and the pictures! Talk to you next week...
-Elder Connelly
Bautismo 8/19/13
Thanks for the letter and the pictures, sorry last week I wasn´t able to write a very long letter but I have more time to write this week. I got the letters that you guys sent me with the mustaches and everything that was nice of you guys. Bryce´s enamorada went off to college? Be strong Bryce ha.
This week went really well a lot of weird things happened but in the end everything turned out really well. On monday we had a family home evening with the Popuche family they´re new converts and they´re getting ready to go to the temple, they´ve had a lot of tough things they´ve had to go through in their family but they´re progressing a ton. On tuesday I was with one of the elders in my district named Elder Pacori like my trainer haha, we taught some really cool people like Grimaldo he´s been adventist for about 20 years and he´s been investigating the church and he knows the bible really well so teaching him was fun.
Pretty much this whole week we were working hard on getting everything ready for Rosa´s baptism and I´m grateful that she got baptized because we had to overcome a couple of obstacles to help her. Like on Thursday night we had a family home evening with a lot of members in the ward at Rosa´s mother-in-law´s house and I guess some of the members got in a little argument about something and Rosa saw them arguing and it discouraged her quite a bit and it made her not want to get baptized. We swung by her house on Friday morning to review the baptismal interview questions with her and she said Elders I hope you don´t get bothered by the decision I´ve made but I don´t want to get baptized anymore. I was super bummed out Friday morning thinking that we weren´t going to have a baptism. Our pensionista went over to apologize to Rosa´s mother-in-law for what had happened and it helped a ton. Rosa´s husband Danni helped out a lot as well he helped her understand that it wasn´t something very important and that it shouldn´t change her mind about getting baptized. We went back to Rosa´s house in the afternoon on Friday to wish her a happy birthday because it was her birthday and Danni told us that she changed her mind, our prayers were answered I felt really bad that for something really insignificant like a small argument would make her not get baptized. Elder Cabrera my old companion interviewed her for her baptism and she was happy about everything and Danni bought her a couple of skirts to go to church in and for her baptism. The baptismal service went really well with the talks the members gave and my companion and I sung a hymn, but it was really tough when the moment came for her to be baptized ha. She has a phobia with water and didn´t want to put her head under the water, and to top it all off the water heater in the chapel doesn´t work so the water was kind of cold. And the other problem was that there wasn´t very much water in the baptismal font because the water pump was messed up so I was kneeled down in the baptismal font with her haha. In the end it was okay we sang her happy birthday and ate cake after her baptism.
So we´re still working with José Agip, we had a spiritual lesson with him on Wednesday and he cried and thanked us for visiting him like we had. The only problem is that he won´t accept a baptismal date, he had problems with some members in the ward a long time ago and I think that still bothers him. The bummer thing about being in a small city is that all the rumors and things like that get spread around and everyone knows each other haha. We´re still going to work with him because his wife Yolando wants to get sealed with José in the temple, it´s gonna be tough but were going to get help from God.
This last couple days have been good for me i´ve been doing a lot of thinking and reflecting over my mission and the things i´ve learned. I´m super happy i´ve got a little bit more time in the mission to enjoy and teach God´s children. Thanks for sending me a letter and with pictures, I´m excited to see you guys. I love you so much!
-Elder Connelly
PS Can I take out a little bit of money out of the bank to buy some souvenirs before I leave??
Monday, August 19, 2013
Loving the Mission 8/12/13
Today we´re going to play soccer in the afternoon with some members here in Ferreñafe so that´s why i´m writing you guys in the morning. I hope you have a fun time up at Deer Creek, the water should be pretty cold up there I would imagine.
So this week went really well we had a cool experience on Monday with Danni (was inactive member) and Rosa (his wife not baptised yet). We taught them about the Law of Chastity and at the end of the lesson Danni thanked us for having visited him and his family and bringing him back to the church he got emotionally and cried when he beared his testimony. It was a special experience for me and my companion to have helped him out, and now his wife Rosa is getting baptised this Saturday! She seems really excited about it all and her husband Danni has been helping us out a lot with references and always wants to go tracting with us. All of our investigadors have been going to church and everything is going well in our area..anyways talk to you guys next week.
-Elder Connelly
So this week went really well we had a cool experience on Monday with Danni (was inactive member) and Rosa (his wife not baptised yet). We taught them about the Law of Chastity and at the end of the lesson Danni thanked us for having visited him and his family and bringing him back to the church he got emotionally and cried when he beared his testimony. It was a special experience for me and my companion to have helped him out, and now his wife Rosa is getting baptised this Saturday! She seems really excited about it all and her husband Danni has been helping us out a lot with references and always wants to go tracting with us. All of our investigadors have been going to church and everything is going well in our area..anyways talk to you guys next week.
-Elder Connelly
The Last Transfer 8/5/13
Thanks for all the pictures that you sent me and for the letter. Wow that`s crazy, Dad`s retired now...how does it feel Dad? Your going to have a lot more free time I imagine. The pictures of Bryce down at Lake Powell look cool, it`ll be fun to go down there I`ve never been. So Bryce took Kaylee to Lagoon? I can`t even remember how old she is, everyone is going to be so much older now...
So this week my last transfer in the mission official started, and we had a really good week i`m excited to work hard up until the last day of my mission. We`ve got quite a few of really awesome investigadors we`re teaching, we`ve got a baptismal date on the 17th I`m sure I`ve already wrote about her but her name is Rosa Quevedo. She was supposed to get baptised a little earlier on this month but because she sometimes has a hard time capting and understanding we had to push her baptismal date a little further back. She`s really excited and has come to church with her husband Danni three weeks in a row.
We`re also teaching José Agip still he`s the one that had an accident about a month and half ago and his foot got run over by a three wheeler. It completely destroyed all the flesh near his achilles tendon but his walking more now. We had a spiritual experience with him on Thursday when we taught him and his wife that`s already an active member. We had just got done teaching him and we asked him if there was anything we could do for him and he started crying and told us that he wanted his sons to return to the church. He has two sons that are inactive and always hang out in the street and aren`t very obedient. I`ve been visiting José since I got to this area and ever since he had this accident with his three wheeler he`s a lot more humble and receptive. I think the Lord is preparing him to recieve the Gospel, he`s the only one in his family that isn`t a member.
Oh and on Friday we taught this sweet family, on Tuesday or Wednesday we contacted this guy in the street and he told us that we could visit him and his family on Friday so we set an appointment. We showed up to his house on Friday and we were able to teach him and his entire family. Theres about 7 people in the family and the guy we contacted is named José, his grandson Jorge who`s about 9 years old has had two surgerys to try and take a brain tumor out of his skull. We taught them about the Plan of Salvation and it seems to really have helped them a lot.
Today we went to the beach in Pimentel with the zone and played soccer it`s like the 5th or 6th time i`ve gone to that beach. It`s one of the best beaches in Chiclayo, there wasn`t very many people there because of how cold it is. Anyways I got to go but I sent some pictures of us at the beach, thanks for sending a package!
Talk to you guys next week!
-Elder Connelly
Obendiencia 7/29/13
I got the package you guys sent me today when I went to the office! Thank you! We´re going to have to put to use the water balloon launcher, my companion thought it was funny that you sent me that haha. I liked the pictures too that you sent, the baby is so cute.
I had a good week, the only bummer was when I had the flu on Tuesday we didn´t tract at all. It was only for one day, luckily my companion has a lot of pacience and I rested the whole day. I feel a lot better now. On Wednesday we had exchanges with the zone leaders, one of the zone leaders is Elder Cabrera he was my companion in my second area. So it was cool to get to go on splits with him and remember when we were companions. I learned a ton with him when he was my companion and we baptised some really great people.
We´re teaching Rosa and her husband Danni still, and Rosa has made a ton of progress. She went to church on Sunday with her whole family and is really excited about the church and everything. We visited them on Wednesday when I was on splits with Elder Cabrera and we taught about Repentance. Turns out that Danni and his brother in law Marcos (he´s a member too) were breaking the law, they sell bricks to build houses and apparently people would buy bricks from them and they would give them less bricks than they bought. They realized it was bad what they had been doing when we were teaching them and they said that they wanted to change and were going to stop doing it. It´s tough because they have been inactive and they don´t give a very good example to Rosa. They´ve been going to church on Sunday and it´s a sign that they´re trying to change and repent.
With my companion I´ve been learning a lot about obedience, he´s helping me a lot to be more obedient. It´s always been something kind of hard for me to be 100% obedient but it´s cool to see my companion make an effort to do it and it´s been helping me to do the same. This week we met an awesome hermana named Elvira she was outside of her house on Friday afternoon sweeping her patio with some of her kids and we contacted her. She let us in her house and it turns out that she´s a member, apparently she got baptised about 15 years ago and they never registered in the church and they didn´t give her the gift of the Holy Ghost either. She seemed really happy that we had come and wanted her kids to go to church as well. It felt good to know that God had led us to her and her family.
Anyways that´s pretty much a summary of what happened to me this week, oh and the Primary President had a mini MTC for the kids in the primary and we helped her out with that and tracted with some of the primary kids it was fun. I sent a picture of that with the primary, it was cool. Thanks again for the package and for supporting me.
Love you guys and talk to you next week! :)
-Elder Connelly
Por fin estan progresando!
Wow the mountains look so green in the pictures that you sent me, the wild flowers look really cool too. That picture of the family is awesome, everyone looks about the same except for Ava ha. My mission already e-mailed my arrival date? That´s a weird feeling, a lot of the elders from my group are going home early like Elder Sampson goes home the 29th of this month. I´m glad I didn´t shorten my mission, I´m learning so much still everyday here. Dad thanks for getting all my school stuff squared away, it´s the best knowing that I don´t have to come home early to study and that you already signed me up for classes. What classes we´re you able to sign me up for? I´d be excited to make a trip down to Moab and do some mountain biking, hopefully I´ll have a little bit of time to do that.
So this week went well, my companion had his birthday on Tuesday and the members threw him a surprise birthday party. The members here are really cool and love the missionaries. Then on Wednesday we had exchanges in the zone and all the elders were with other elders that aren´t their companions. I was in an area in the zone named Latina, it´s a tougher area because the people there are wealthy and the elders there have to work with members. It was nice to get out and preach in a different area for a change but I like my area a lot. In the interchange they set a baptismal date for August 4th for Rosa, she went to church yesterday and is progressing. Her husband is inactive but he also went to church with her on Sunday.
Our investigadors are finally going to church, and we had a breakthrough with Hermana Gladys. We´ve been teaching Gladys for quite a long time now but she never commited herself to going to church. We had a lesson with her on Thursday and taught her about the sabbath day, she finally understood how important it is to keep the sabbath day and at the end of the lesson in her prayer she promised God that she was going to go to church. On sunday she made a lot of friends really fast and one of the members in our ward is a friend of hers that she knew before. We´re also trying to help this one hermana get married, she wants to get baptised and her daughter is a recent convert. Her birth certificate is in Chota and to get married she has to have her birth certificate we called the elders that are in Chota and they´re sending us her birth certificate.
Me and my companion are good, I´m learning a ton from Elder Harris and he learns really quick everything. He´s helping me a lot to stay focused on the missionary work. Today was cool because I ran into Elder Cometivos in Chiclayo, it was cool seeing him he was one of my favorite companions we worked a ton in our area and had a lot of success.
Oh by the way your letters got to me! Thanks for sending me them, it always helps to get a letter from you guys. I´m sending pictures of the suprise birthday party we threw for my companion and also a picture of lunch that we had today with the zone. I hope you guys have a good week! Love you!
-Elder Connelly
So this week went well, my companion had his birthday on Tuesday and the members threw him a surprise birthday party. The members here are really cool and love the missionaries. Then on Wednesday we had exchanges in the zone and all the elders were with other elders that aren´t their companions. I was in an area in the zone named Latina, it´s a tougher area because the people there are wealthy and the elders there have to work with members. It was nice to get out and preach in a different area for a change but I like my area a lot. In the interchange they set a baptismal date for August 4th for Rosa, she went to church yesterday and is progressing. Her husband is inactive but he also went to church with her on Sunday.
Our investigadors are finally going to church, and we had a breakthrough with Hermana Gladys. We´ve been teaching Gladys for quite a long time now but she never commited herself to going to church. We had a lesson with her on Thursday and taught her about the sabbath day, she finally understood how important it is to keep the sabbath day and at the end of the lesson in her prayer she promised God that she was going to go to church. On sunday she made a lot of friends really fast and one of the members in our ward is a friend of hers that she knew before. We´re also trying to help this one hermana get married, she wants to get baptised and her daughter is a recent convert. Her birth certificate is in Chota and to get married she has to have her birth certificate we called the elders that are in Chota and they´re sending us her birth certificate.
Me and my companion are good, I´m learning a ton from Elder Harris and he learns really quick everything. He´s helping me a lot to stay focused on the missionary work. Today was cool because I ran into Elder Cometivos in Chiclayo, it was cool seeing him he was one of my favorite companions we worked a ton in our area and had a lot of success.
Oh by the way your letters got to me! Thanks for sending me them, it always helps to get a letter from you guys. I´m sending pictures of the suprise birthday party we threw for my companion and also a picture of lunch that we had today with the zone. I hope you guys have a good week! Love you!
-Elder Connelly
Happy Birthday ELI 7/15/13
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELI I wish I could have been there to wish you a happy birthday but I guess I´ll have to do it through my email to you guys HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELI!! From the pictures you sent me looks like you guys had a good time with the cake and everything :) I´m not going to lie all the pictures you guys send make me miss the mountains and green. I´m glad you were able to go and see Kash it´s weird to think that he´s already back from his mission. If some of my friends want to be there in the airport when I get back it´s fine by me.
This week was good, I´m learning a lot from my companion and from the experiences we are having here in our area. I feel really blessed because my companion is obedient and likes to work hard and that´s what we need to be successful as missionaries. Especially right now it´s helping me because i´m getting close to finishing. God has given me companions that i´ve needed to be able to learn and progress, I was able to think a lot this week about the mission and the things i´ve learned and it´s the best being a missionary. I´m especially liking our area because of all the member help that we get, we pretty much work through members and nothing else.
We´re still teaching José and Jesús, and they making a lot of progress. José relapsed saturday night and drank with some of his buddie, it was really discouraging for me. We´ve worked so much with him and seeing him drunk bummed me out, things like that happen he ended up making it to church on sunday so it´s okay. I´ve defintely seen a big change since we fasted with José, I´m certain that before the end of this next transfer we´re going to get them married and baptised. They´re so close to doing it, we watched the Restoration with them this week and asked them if they believed Joseph Smith was a prophet and they believe our whole mesage and everything. On thursday we´re going to go with the ward and have a family home evening in their house, pray for José and Jesús please!! We´re also teaching a man named José Agip he´s not a member his wife is but he hasn´t been baptised for some problems in the ward. He had an accident about a month ago when he was driving his three wheeler with a trailer and cut his achilles tendon and messed his foot up pretty bad. He´s become really humble and has been listening to us this past week. Pray for him too! Other than what´s going on with our investigadors nothing really that crazy has happened this week. I´m happy and healthy and enjoying the mission.
This week on Sunday we got to give talks which is always the best, I´ve gotten to really like giving talks. Today we went and played soccer, that´s pretty much the Monday routine now we always play soccer. Thanks for the letters that you sent with the drawing from Joel, Evan, Eli and Eva. Love you guys and i´ll talk to you next week!
-Elder Connelly
ps I sent two picture one is of the ceviche that our pensionista gave us for lunch and the other is of the money we took out of the bank the beginning of this month.
This week was good, I´m learning a lot from my companion and from the experiences we are having here in our area. I feel really blessed because my companion is obedient and likes to work hard and that´s what we need to be successful as missionaries. Especially right now it´s helping me because i´m getting close to finishing. God has given me companions that i´ve needed to be able to learn and progress, I was able to think a lot this week about the mission and the things i´ve learned and it´s the best being a missionary. I´m especially liking our area because of all the member help that we get, we pretty much work through members and nothing else.
We´re still teaching José and Jesús, and they making a lot of progress. José relapsed saturday night and drank with some of his buddie, it was really discouraging for me. We´ve worked so much with him and seeing him drunk bummed me out, things like that happen he ended up making it to church on sunday so it´s okay. I´ve defintely seen a big change since we fasted with José, I´m certain that before the end of this next transfer we´re going to get them married and baptised. They´re so close to doing it, we watched the Restoration with them this week and asked them if they believed Joseph Smith was a prophet and they believe our whole mesage and everything. On thursday we´re going to go with the ward and have a family home evening in their house, pray for José and Jesús please!! We´re also teaching a man named José Agip he´s not a member his wife is but he hasn´t been baptised for some problems in the ward. He had an accident about a month ago when he was driving his three wheeler with a trailer and cut his achilles tendon and messed his foot up pretty bad. He´s become really humble and has been listening to us this past week. Pray for him too! Other than what´s going on with our investigadors nothing really that crazy has happened this week. I´m happy and healthy and enjoying the mission.
This week on Sunday we got to give talks which is always the best, I´ve gotten to really like giving talks. Today we went and played soccer, that´s pretty much the Monday routine now we always play soccer. Thanks for the letters that you sent with the drawing from Joel, Evan, Eli and Eva. Love you guys and i´ll talk to you next week!
-Elder Connelly
ps I sent two picture one is of the ceviche that our pensionista gave us for lunch and the other is of the money we took out of the bank the beginning of this month.
New Companion 7/9/13
My companion left on Wednesday and now I´m with Elder Harris, it was a bummer because I learned a lot from Elder Cometivos but I´m excited about a new companion. He´s from Nevada and was serving his mission in California for 6 months waiting for his visa. We get along really well and he´s really going to help me a lot I think. It´s different because I´ve never had an american companion but I´m getting used to it.
This week went well we´re teaching a lot of really great people but the problem that we have right now is that no one wants to come to church...but we did have a breakthrough with one of our investigadors. We´ve been teaching the Segura family for quite a long time and we´ve thought about giving them some time so we can look for new investigadors that will progress faster. This week José told us that he wanted to fast with us, so on Saturday after lunch we went to his house and started a fast with him. I´ve never fasted before in my mission with one of my investigadors, but it seems to have really helped. He came to church on Sunday with his wife Jesús and they seemed to have liked the church meetings. The problem with them is that José doesn´t want to get married yet with Jesús because he wants her to change, she has kind of a in your face personality and he is more passive. They already have two kids and it doesn´t really make sense that they don´t get married but we´re working with them right now.
So teaching has been a little different with my companion because he´s still learning spanish but he´s picking up really fast spanish and we teach well together. I sometimes don´t have very much patience but I´m learning a lot right now, my companion is really obedient and humble and he´s teaching me a ton. I´ve been lucky to have had companions that have wanted to work and keep the rules.
I don´t really have much to write about this week but I´m enjoying the mission I´m happy healthy and tired like always haha. I´m sending a picture of me because here in Ferreñafe there´s a lot of walls that have poetry here and so I decided to take a picture of this haha. Love you guys talk to you next week.
-Elder Connelly
This week went well we´re teaching a lot of really great people but the problem that we have right now is that no one wants to come to church...but we did have a breakthrough with one of our investigadors. We´ve been teaching the Segura family for quite a long time and we´ve thought about giving them some time so we can look for new investigadors that will progress faster. This week José told us that he wanted to fast with us, so on Saturday after lunch we went to his house and started a fast with him. I´ve never fasted before in my mission with one of my investigadors, but it seems to have really helped. He came to church on Sunday with his wife Jesús and they seemed to have liked the church meetings. The problem with them is that José doesn´t want to get married yet with Jesús because he wants her to change, she has kind of a in your face personality and he is more passive. They already have two kids and it doesn´t really make sense that they don´t get married but we´re working with them right now.
So teaching has been a little different with my companion because he´s still learning spanish but he´s picking up really fast spanish and we teach well together. I sometimes don´t have very much patience but I´m learning a lot right now, my companion is really obedient and humble and he´s teaching me a ton. I´ve been lucky to have had companions that have wanted to work and keep the rules.
I don´t really have much to write about this week but I´m enjoying the mission I´m happy healthy and tired like always haha. I´m sending a picture of me because here in Ferreñafe there´s a lot of walls that have poetry here and so I decided to take a picture of this haha. Love you guys talk to you next week.
-Elder Connelly
Another Week 6/24/13
It`s funny hearing about cub country, some of the greatest memories I have are from cub country with all my friends and the Corner Canyon 2nd ward. That`s cool that that man was able to help you out with the cooler, sometime the Lord is there to help us out when we least expect it. I was able to read a little bit more about what happened to Dan with more details, I`m glad he`s doing well and recovering from the accident.
This week we baptised Olga Sanchez! It was awesome, another one of God`s chosen children was able to join the church. I think I already wrote about her but she`s about 72 years old, and one of the members in our ward gave us the referral. We starting teaching her about a month and a half ago and she progressed quicly and now she`s a member of the church! The baptism service went well, our ward mission leader baptised her. She couldn`t bend her back at all to get submirged so we had to use a chair so that she could get baptised without causing any damage to her back. After the baptism she shared some of her feelings about her baptism and said that she couldn`t have been more happy. She already has a lot of friends in the ward and visiting teachers so she should stay active.
Now we just going to try and find new investigadors, we`ve got two prospects but they didn`t go to church yesterday so they aren`t progressing...On Sunday there was a missionary work training that got transmitted to our stake in Chiclayo, it was an inspiring training. The prophet talked and some of the apostles, it pumped me and my companion up to work more with the members in our ward. I liked a lot this quote that "the most effective missionaries act by love" the also said that "good leaders act by love", it`s so crazy there`s 70, 000 missionaries serving full time.
Other than that the mission life is going good, I`m enjoying a ton my area and finally it`s getting a little colder at night and sometimes I have to use a sheet when I sleep. We played soccer today like we did two weeks ago at a synthetic soccer field here in Ferreñafe. The whole district came and we played with all the elders and some members as well. I`m doing good, my companion is still waiting for his Visa so I don`t know how long I`m going to be with him. Thanks for the letter and the pictures, Bryce looks like he`s really tall now...luckily I`m huge and can still take him haha. Love you guys! Until next week...
-Elder Connelly
Monday, June 17, 2013
Matrimonio y bautismos!!
Thanks for the letter, and for the pictures :) I heard about the baby`s new name, it`s Leah right? That`s a cool name I like it a lot, you could have named her Daisy Rose though hahaha. Crazy that Dad is working half time now, what a blessing for the family no? Obedience brings blessing.
So things are going really well right now, we`re working with some awesome investigadors and the members are helping out a ton with referrals. We`re planning a marriage this week on Friday, Luis Alberto and Maria are going to get married! Then on Saturday they`re going to get baptised with their two kids Jesús and Maricarmen. The family is so awesome, they`re really humble people and have progressed a ton. They aren`t in the best situation financially but they`re willing to keep the commandments and join the church. They have already seen some blessings in their lives, because the dad Luis was out of work for a long time and just recently he got a job in construction. It`s really hard right now for a lot of the people here in Ferreñafe because there isn`t a lot of jobs. Pray for the Cornetero family this week so that they can get married and baptised this week!! We`re also teaching this lady named Olga Sanchez who is progressing a lot and told us that she wanted to be baptised so we set a baptismal date for June 15th and she accepted, she`s about 64 years old and has been going to church she went to stake conference yesterday in Chiclayo with us. We`re still working with Manuel, we taught him and his family this last week about the Plan of Salvation and taught a little bit about temples. As far as investigadors go right now the Lord is blessing us, me and my companion are doing good he`s still waiting for his visa so that he can go to his mission in Mexico, Merida.
Nothing to crazy has happened this week other than the marriage and baptisms that we are going to be having this month. Oh and we`re working with Walter Armando as well he still hasn`t made it to church because he is sick, he has a problem with his kidneys and he used to drink a lot before and now his body is having problems. It seems like what happened to him has made him more humble and willing to follow Christ because before this happened to him he didn`t want anything to do with the church.
Thanks for sending a package :) Keep sending pictures and writing about what goes on at home! Love you guys and i´ll talk to you next week!
-Elder Connelly
So things are going really well right now, we`re working with some awesome investigadors and the members are helping out a ton with referrals. We`re planning a marriage this week on Friday, Luis Alberto and Maria are going to get married! Then on Saturday they`re going to get baptised with their two kids Jesús and Maricarmen. The family is so awesome, they`re really humble people and have progressed a ton. They aren`t in the best situation financially but they`re willing to keep the commandments and join the church. They have already seen some blessings in their lives, because the dad Luis was out of work for a long time and just recently he got a job in construction. It`s really hard right now for a lot of the people here in Ferreñafe because there isn`t a lot of jobs. Pray for the Cornetero family this week so that they can get married and baptised this week!! We`re also teaching this lady named Olga Sanchez who is progressing a lot and told us that she wanted to be baptised so we set a baptismal date for June 15th and she accepted, she`s about 64 years old and has been going to church she went to stake conference yesterday in Chiclayo with us. We`re still working with Manuel, we taught him and his family this last week about the Plan of Salvation and taught a little bit about temples. As far as investigadors go right now the Lord is blessing us, me and my companion are doing good he`s still waiting for his visa so that he can go to his mission in Mexico, Merida.
Nothing to crazy has happened this week other than the marriage and baptisms that we are going to be having this month. Oh and we`re working with Walter Armando as well he still hasn`t made it to church because he is sick, he has a problem with his kidneys and he used to drink a lot before and now his body is having problems. It seems like what happened to him has made him more humble and willing to follow Christ because before this happened to him he didn`t want anything to do with the church.
Thanks for sending a package :) Keep sending pictures and writing about what goes on at home! Love you guys and i´ll talk to you next week!
-Elder Connelly
Jhon and Jahira's baptism 5/27/13
It was the best to get to talk to all of you yesterday and at the same time it was really weird to say goodbye ha. I couldn´t really see my new sister but in the pictures that you sent me I was able to see a little better what she looks like. She looks so fragile, the pictures you sent look really cool with all the family holding the baby :) It´s a bummer to have not been able to be there with you guys to see her be born and all that, but like you said mom maybe she was able to acompany me here in my mission. That´s funny that you said you wanted to have 10 babies, I would have never thought that are family would be as big as it is. You and dad have really been able to keep the commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve to multiply and replenish the earth haha. It´s really special to have a big family I think, here in Peru I´ve seen that in the culture families are important to the people.
I didn´t really tell you guys what happened this week when I talked to you on skype, but to fill you in we baptised this week! We baptised on Monday Johana, sadly her husband wasn´t able to get baptised because he didn´t pass he baptismal interview. Manuel her husband, has had a problem with his personality because he has an explosive personality. His sister got robbed and he used to walk around with a pistol and he had stopped using his pistol but when that happened he was on a mission to find the robbers and either fight them or shoot them. So we decided to give him a little of time to be able to progress a little more. He went to church yesterday with his wife and he was really participating in our Gospel Principles class. I think he´s going through the repentance process, I see him more calm now and humble. A lot of times Christ taught that we should become as a small child, meek, submissive and if we do that we can experience the power of the Atonement and repent. If i´m not mistaken it´s in 3 Nephi 9 and in Matthew somewhere, I can´t remember the verses. He was really upset that he wasn´t able to get baptised with his wife, but I think this will help him to reflect and really repent of his sins. We put a baptismal date for his two kids Jhon and Johana for May 25th, so were hoping by the 25th Manuel will get baptised with his two kids, keep your fingers crossed :)
On Saturday we had a fun ward activity for Mother´s Day and we acted out a funny sketch. Where there´s a mom that has kids that lie and wants to find a way to detect the lies that her kids tell her. In the sketch this lady sales a lying detecting mummy to the mom and everytime someone lies the mummy shakes. It´s kind of hard to explain but it turned out super funny. I sent a picture of me rapped up in toilet paper as the mummy haha.
I´m doing really good like I told you guys yesterday and I´m really enjoying me new area the investigadors my companion and the members. God has blessed me to always have cool companions I think, I´m always able to learn a lot from all of them. I´m glad that you guys are glad that i´m here in the mission and it always feels good to have your support. It´s a bummer for some of the elders in the mission because their families don´t support them or because their families don´t want them in the mission. Things are going good other than the freakin mosquitos haha. I´m using repellent now but I think I got cursed with mom´s blood because the mosquitos love to bite me.
Oh today I went and bought two pairs of pants I hope that´s okay :) haha, they costed me 120 soles I¨m not sure how expensive that is in dollars I tried buying pants inexpensive but at the same time pants that weren´t going to rip within two weeks. Thanks for sending the package! It´s the best when you get a package in the mission, it´s like a little slice of the outside world haha. Welp I got to go love you guys and have a good week!
-Elder Connelly
Feliz dia de la Madre!! 5/13/13
It was the best to get to talk to all of you yesterday and at the same time it was really weird to say goodbye ha. I couldn´t really see my new sister but in the pictures that you sent me I was able to see a little better what she looks like. She looks so fragile, the pictures you sent look really cool with all the family holding the baby :) It´s a bummer to have not been able to be there with you guys to see her be born and all that, but like you said mom maybe she was able to acompany me here in my mission. That´s funny that you said you wanted to have 10 babies, I would have never thought that are family would be as big as it is. You and dad have really been able to keep the commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve to multiply and replenish the earth haha. It´s really special to have a big family I think, here in Peru I´ve seen that in the culture families are important to the people.
I didn´t really tell you guys what happened this week when I talked to you on skype, but to fill you in we baptised this week! We baptised on Monday Johana, sadly her husband wasn´t able to get baptised because he didn´t pass he baptismal interview. Manuel her husband, has had a problem with his personality because he has an explosive personality. His sister got robbed and he used to walk around with a pistol and he had stopped using his pistol but when that happened he was on a mission to find the robbers and either fight them or shoot them. So we decided to give him a little of time to be able to progress a little more. He went to church yesterday with his wife and he was really participating in our Gospel Principles class. I think he´s going through the repentance process, I see him more calm now and humble. A lot of times Christ taught that we should become as a small child, meek, submissive and if we do that we can experience the power of the Atonement and repent. If i´m not mistaken it´s in 3 Nephi 9 and in Matthew somewhere, I can´t remember the verses. He was really upset that he wasn´t able to get baptised with his wife, but I think this will help him to reflect and really repent of his sins. We put a baptismal date for his two kids Jhon and Johana for May 25th, so were hoping by the 25th Manuel will get baptised with his two kids, keep your fingers crossed :)
On Saturday we had a fun ward activity for Mother´s Day and we acted out a funny sketch. Where there´s a mom that has kids that lie and wants to find a way to detect the lies that her kids tell her. In the sketch this lady sales a lying detecting mummy to the mom and everytime someone lies the mummy shakes. It´s kind of hard to explain but it turned out super funny. I sent a picture of me rapped up in toilet paper as the mummy haha.
I´m doing really good like I told you guys yesterday and I´m really enjoying me new area the investigadors my companion and the members. God has blessed me to always have cool companions I think, I´m always able to learn a lot from all of them. I´m glad that you guys are glad that i´m here in the mission and it always feels good to have your support. It´s a bummer for some of the elders in the mission because their families don´t support them or because their families don´t want them in the mission. Things are going good other than the freakin mosquitos haha. I´m using repellent now but I think I got cursed with mom´s blood because the mosquitos love to bite me.
Oh today I went and bought two pairs of pants I hope that´s okay :) haha, they costed me 120 soles I¨m not sure how expensive that is in dollars I tried buying pants inexpensive but at the same time pants that weren´t going to rip within two weeks. Thanks for sending the package! It´s the best when you get a package in the mission, it´s like a little slice of the outside world haha. Welp I got to go love you guys and have a good week!
-Elder Connelly
Transfered... 5/6/13
Hey family! Liked the pictures you sent of you guys up in the mountains, it looks so pretty there. I can finally see a little bit of the mountains here in Chiclayo from my area, it`s about 30 minutes from Chiclayo. I`m in a small area called Tarapacá in a city named Ferreñafe. Up until now I`m really enjoying the area and especially the members, everyone is super nice and welcoming to the missionaries. That`s what really makes an area for a missionary when the members are willing to help and they`re nice to the elders. It`s a little different because i`m outside of Chiclayo after being there for a little more than a year but I`m liking it a lot. The downside is that in my area it`s pretty dusty there isn`t a lot of paved roads but all the people that we`ve been contacting and teaching are really humble and receptive of our message which has been nice. My companion is a from the department Loreto from a city named Nauta, his name is Elder Cometivos. He`s cool and likes to work a lot we get along well and we`re teaching a lot of awesome people in our area. He`s a new convert to the church, he got baptized in December of 2011 when I was in the mission it`s super cool because I don`t know if I could ever have done that. He`s been a member for about 15 months, it makes me wanna be a better missionary when I heard how he got baptized and that now he`s in the mission. He`s actually supposed to be in Mexico in the mission Mexico Marida I think that`s the name of the mission, I think Carson Herbert is there if I`m not mistaken. He`s waiting for his visa so any day now he could get transfered.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVAN!! :D It`s a bumer to not be able to do anything other than send a message saying happy birthday, but I hope you guys had a happy birthday. I`m pretty blessed to have a mom and brother like you guys and I hope you were able to eat some cake for me haha. Evan is 8 years old now right? When is he gonna get baptized?? I`m excited to get to be able to talk to the family on Mother`s day, we talked to a member in our ward that has a video camera and she said we could use her computer on mother`s day to talk to our families. I`ll most likely be calling on Saturday night quick to figure our what time I should call. It i`ll be cool to get to see everyone again.
This week has been pretty crazy I`m the district leader here in Ferreñafe and there`s 8 elders here in the city including me and my companion. We had 4 baptisms this week and that kept us busy with baptismal interviews and baptismal clothes for the people that got baptized. In our area the elders have been working with this family that is going to get married and baptized and so on Saturday Manuel and Johanna got married. They had this big party and a lot of the members showed up. They`re going to get baptized today, well only Johanna is going to get baptized because her husband Manuel has to get interviewed by our mission president before he can get baptized. I guess there was a small problem and so he has to get interviewed by our mision president. It i`ll be special to see his wife get baptized today. In our area pretty much everyone isn`t married sadly haha, and we are teaching a lot of families where we are going to have to marry them first and then they can get baptized. We`ve got a good pool of investigadors and this coming month we should have baptisms. My pension and the apartment we live in is the best part about the area i`m in now, because we live with a cool family and our apartment is really nice. Up until now Irma (the penisonista) cooks really good and is really nice to us and worries about us. It`s almost like if mom was here in Peru haha, she has a son in the mission and her husband is in Lima working. I`m enjoying everything up until now and just trying to get adjusted to a new area.
It`s crazy that mom is going to be having her baby soon I`ll be praying for you so that everything turns out okay! I`m really excited to see pictures or see the baby when we skype with you guys :) I did get that package with the white shirts in it thanks a bunch! Thanks for everything I love you guys!!!!
-Elder Connelly
4/29/13
Family,
Hey I´m doing good, my week went by really fast. So there´s some bad news, I´m getting transfered tomorrow to a new area :( We weren´t supposed to have transfers until next week but we had emergency transfers and so I¨m getting transfered. Tomorrow is the transfer meeting but I´m not sure where they are going to send me. I was in José Quiñones since December so I guess it was about time that I get transfered, I´m not going to lie I was hoping to have another transfer here with my companion and everything. It´s funny because we´re going to have a baptism at the end of this week and I´m not going to be here to see Arturo get baptized :( I was planning on getting transfered at the end of this coming week but because of the emergency transfers I have to go. On the upside we had a baptism yesterday, Jefferson got baptized! He´s a cool kid, we´re helping his mom get back to church and she wanted her son to get baptized as well.
Thanks for the pictures that you sent me it always makes me happy to see the family and see how everyone is getting, Ava still is the biggest shock for me because I hardly recognize her. So the baby is due this next week?! Thats crazy, how come you haven´t told me if it´s a boy or a girl? I think I¨m going to be able to Skype in my new area well I hope so, I have no idea where i´m going to be haha but usually the members have video cameras and they let us use their computers. I´m excited to get to talk to you guys again that´ll be cool :) Did you sell pretty much everything in the garage sell at grandma´s house? That must have been kind of hard to have to sell some of her stuff but at the same time I´m sure it helped. How´s the family doing now with her passing and everything?
This past week we did a ton of service in our ward, it helped a lot so that we have more trust with the members. We cleaned off a member´s roof and painted at two member´s houses. We had exchanges and I went on splits with one of the elders in our zone on Friday. Nothing really too exciting happened this week, other than the baptism that we had. The baptismal service turned out One of our investigadors showed up to church drunk, he had been drinking all night and then in the morning came to church ha. We had to escort him out after sacrament meeting.
Sorry I didn´t write very much! Love you guys and I¨ll talk to you this next week :) BYEEEE
-Elder Connelly
4/22/13
Hi familia! I`m doing good, we went and checked out that museum this last week it was super cool. It has a bunch of artifacts from Los Mochicas and it has the remains of El Señor de Sipan, it was an old civilization that was here in the northern part of Peru by Lambayeque. I think Mom would like the outside of the museum a lot since she likes everything to be modern looking. That was cool to here about Mitch`s stories from his mission, it always pays off to listen to the spirit and then act a lot of times we receive promptings from the spirit and we just ignore it or think that it really isn`t the spirit talking to us. That`s so nuts about Tate...haha he didn`t want to wait at all to get married, but I guess it makes sense that he gets married before Keaton takes off on his mission. I really liked the pictures you sent of Hawaii it looks so pretty there, I miss the good ol family trip to Hawaii. That picture of Joel`s hand it`s pretty crazy, was it a big knife? How many stiches did they give him??
This last week like I told you we went to that museum Tumbas Reales and we had a zone exchange with all the elders in the zone. Everyone of the elders in the zone got put with someone in the zone that was their companion to work with that elder for the day. I think it ended up turning out okay, it always helps to go tracting with another elder that isn`t your companion so you can learn from other elders. So everything is going well with the people we are teaching, Arturo is staying strong going to church and making a lot of progress. His answer about the church is coming little by little, he already told us that God answered his prayer when he asked Him if The Book of Mormon is true. We`ve been working with the ward and the members a lot, we`ve been trying to reactivate members and through the reactivation we`re finding people to baptize. I think I wrote about Jefferson, he`s going to be baptized this week on the 28th. He and his mom showed up to church yesterday, and so we were happy about that. There`s this other lady we`re teaching named Mercedes she`s progressing a ton, she`s about 72 years old and we`ve taught her a lot about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. She went to church yesterday and seemed to have really liked it so were excited for her as well.HI! 4/15/13
Thanks for the pictures of Hawaii it brought back a lot of good memories from when we would take family trips there. It looks so green, I haven`t seen vegetation in months...haha. It was also cool seeing the pictur of Mitch coming home.
So today we had zone meeting on P-Day because tomorrow were going to Tumbas Reales in Lambayeque. We would have gone today but it`s closed on Mondays, so tomorrow were going to go in the morning. It`s supposively one of the better Museums here in Chiclayo, I`m yet to go to a museum but it sounds cool. This week went good we found some awesome people to teach in our area and one of the investigadors we have recieved an answer about the Book of Mormon. I wrote a little bit about Arturo this last week and how we met him and his wife at church about three weeks ago, well this week on Friday we visited him and watched a video about the Apostasy and talked to him a little bit about the Restoration of the church. We had already taught him the Restoration but it`s a video with Wilford Woodruff and how he found the church. Arturo is super cool and we`ve been trying to help him revieve an answer about the BoM and we invited him to read the BoM and find out for himself if it was true. In the same lesson we invited him to be baptized on the 4th of May and he accepted, then 2 days after he called us and told us that God answered his prayer. And yesterday he went to church and was taking notes in Sunday School and Priesthood it was sweet. God`s has definitely placed him in our path :) on Tuesday we were tracting in our area in the afternoon and found a family super cool and we taught them a little bit about the church and apostles and prophets. They were really interested in our message and told us that they hadn`t heard any message like the one we had for them, we visited them with some members but they didn`t end up going to church yesterday...other than that everything is going well in our area. Nothing too out of the ordinary has happened. I`m kind of tired lately just a little bit burned out I guess. Tomorrow were going to have a zone exchange with all the elders in the zone and so I`m excited about that, it should help a lot of the elders in the zone.
I talked to Elder Sampson and he told me that he`s going to go home a transfer early because his sister is gettin married and so that he can study but supposivley theres a possiblity to come back like 3 weeks early to get back for the winter semester. Im still undecided about where I want to study, but I still feel like SLCC is the best option at least until I get my generals out of the way. That could change, I`m not really sure yet...So i`ve been sportin some of the ties you sent in my package for my birthday it`s so nice to have a big variety of ties. So I think I`ve grown a little in the mission because some of my pants don`t fit me anymore..some of my pants make it look like i`m gettin ready for a flood. I don`t feel any taller but I think I`ve grown a little. Thanks for writing, send more pictures!! Love you guys :)
-Elder Connelly
ps the pictures are of me and my comp when we had our birthday because he had his birthday on the 30th of march :)
So today we had zone meeting on P-Day because tomorrow were going to Tumbas Reales in Lambayeque. We would have gone today but it`s closed on Mondays, so tomorrow were going to go in the morning. It`s supposively one of the better Museums here in Chiclayo, I`m yet to go to a museum but it sounds cool. This week went good we found some awesome people to teach in our area and one of the investigadors we have recieved an answer about the Book of Mormon. I wrote a little bit about Arturo this last week and how we met him and his wife at church about three weeks ago, well this week on Friday we visited him and watched a video about the Apostasy and talked to him a little bit about the Restoration of the church. We had already taught him the Restoration but it`s a video with Wilford Woodruff and how he found the church. Arturo is super cool and we`ve been trying to help him revieve an answer about the BoM and we invited him to read the BoM and find out for himself if it was true. In the same lesson we invited him to be baptized on the 4th of May and he accepted, then 2 days after he called us and told us that God answered his prayer. And yesterday he went to church and was taking notes in Sunday School and Priesthood it was sweet. God`s has definitely placed him in our path :) on Tuesday we were tracting in our area in the afternoon and found a family super cool and we taught them a little bit about the church and apostles and prophets. They were really interested in our message and told us that they hadn`t heard any message like the one we had for them, we visited them with some members but they didn`t end up going to church yesterday...other than that everything is going well in our area. Nothing too out of the ordinary has happened. I`m kind of tired lately just a little bit burned out I guess. Tomorrow were going to have a zone exchange with all the elders in the zone and so I`m excited about that, it should help a lot of the elders in the zone.
I talked to Elder Sampson and he told me that he`s going to go home a transfer early because his sister is gettin married and so that he can study but supposivley theres a possiblity to come back like 3 weeks early to get back for the winter semester. Im still undecided about where I want to study, but I still feel like SLCC is the best option at least until I get my generals out of the way. That could change, I`m not really sure yet...So i`ve been sportin some of the ties you sent in my package for my birthday it`s so nice to have a big variety of ties. So I think I`ve grown a little in the mission because some of my pants don`t fit me anymore..some of my pants make it look like i`m gettin ready for a flood. I don`t feel any taller but I think I`ve grown a little. Thanks for writing, send more pictures!! Love you guys :)
-Elder Connelly
ps the pictures are of me and my comp when we had our birthday because he had his birthday on the 30th of march :)
Conference Week 4/8/13
Thanks for the email I imagine it was kind of hard sending an email with your cell phone but it was nice to hear from you guys and see pictures of Kauai. You might have to consider making another trip down there in about 5 months or so :) haha. It was cool seeing pictures of Mitch coming home, he`s lost 20 lbs? It must depend a lot in what mission your in because I`ve gained a little bit of weight eating all the rice that the peruvians do. I`m pretty much used to eating rice 5 or 6 times a week with potatoes too. I`m super happy to hear about Chad and that he was able to leave jail and on the same day that Mitch got home, that`s really sweet. From what Dan tells me Chad is trying to go through the repentance process. The Atonement is so special, I was able to reflect a lot on what Christ did over Easter weekend. The atonement changes lives as you learn more and more about it your perspective on life changes.
This last week we were super busy, on Tuesday we had the zone leader conference and it took up the whole morning and we didn`t get back to our area until about 4:30. Then we had to plan for the zone training on Tuesday night, and on Wednesday we had the zone training. On Friday we had a leadership training with all the zone leaders and district leaders in the mission, and then on Saturday and Sunday we went to all the sessions of Conference. We pretty much didn`t have too much time to workin in our area so it was kind of tough this week. Oh were you guys able to watch some of the conference? It was awesome, they talked a lot about the missionary work and how the missionary work is growing throughout the world. I was only able to see one session of conference in English and the rest in spanish, it`s defintely not the same to watch conference in Spanish it`s cooler to hear they`re own voices. It was cool for me because I was able to recieve a couple of answers to questions I had, and listening to the prophet was awesome. It means a lot more to me now than it did when I was home to listen to conference and listen to the prophet. There gonna build two more temples! One in Brazil and one in Cedar city I think, pretty cool. There was hardly anyone in the church on Saturday morning and afternoon session, most of the people here aren`t able to watch conference at home because they don`t have cable so they go to the chapel.
Were working with Arturo now, I wrote a little bit about him last week in my letter. He didn`t go to conference because he got sick this week but he`s really interested in the church, we`re trying to help him gain his own testimony of the Gospel so that he doesn`t get baptized because of his wife. We gave him a book of mormon this last week and we have to check up on it and see if he read the part that we left him. We went and visited Iris this last week and she is the best. She went to the conference on Saturday and she`s staying fiel in the church it`s sweet. We also went and taught Luis we only found him once this week and he hasn`t had any problems with drugs lately as far as we know.
On a random note I learned how to solve a rubix cube, if you guys send me a package it wouldn`t hurt to send a rubix cube :) haha. Today was nice we went to San Jose again and hung out at the beach and played soccer with the zone, then after we went and ate lunch in this little restaurant. So i`m good friends with my compi it`s sweet, everything is going good in our area. I haven`t really put to much thought into what I want to do after the mission with my studies, I think I`m gonna give it a little thought this week and let you guys know what I`m thinking about doing this next week. I haven`t really thought of going to UVU after the mission, it seems to be a good decision to get my generals finished at SLCC and then transfer my credits to a state university in Utah somewhere but thats just a game plan that I think will work for me. Thanks for sending the packages that you sent! I only got three of the four that you sent because one of them had a messager in it and at Serpost they told me that it isn`t allowed to send that kind of stuff...but thanks!! Love you guys :D Until next week
-Elder Connelly
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
This last week we were super busy, on Tuesday we had the zone leader conference and it took up the whole morning and we didn`t get back to our area until about 4:30. Then we had to plan for the zone training on Tuesday night, and on Wednesday we had the zone training. On Friday we had a leadership training with all the zone leaders and district leaders in the mission, and then on Saturday and Sunday we went to all the sessions of Conference. We pretty much didn`t have too much time to workin in our area so it was kind of tough this week. Oh were you guys able to watch some of the conference? It was awesome, they talked a lot about the missionary work and how the missionary work is growing throughout the world. I was only able to see one session of conference in English and the rest in spanish, it`s defintely not the same to watch conference in Spanish it`s cooler to hear they`re own voices. It was cool for me because I was able to recieve a couple of answers to questions I had, and listening to the prophet was awesome. It means a lot more to me now than it did when I was home to listen to conference and listen to the prophet. There gonna build two more temples! One in Brazil and one in Cedar city I think, pretty cool. There was hardly anyone in the church on Saturday morning and afternoon session, most of the people here aren`t able to watch conference at home because they don`t have cable so they go to the chapel.
Were working with Arturo now, I wrote a little bit about him last week in my letter. He didn`t go to conference because he got sick this week but he`s really interested in the church, we`re trying to help him gain his own testimony of the Gospel so that he doesn`t get baptized because of his wife. We gave him a book of mormon this last week and we have to check up on it and see if he read the part that we left him. We went and visited Iris this last week and she is the best. She went to the conference on Saturday and she`s staying fiel in the church it`s sweet. We also went and taught Luis we only found him once this week and he hasn`t had any problems with drugs lately as far as we know.
On a random note I learned how to solve a rubix cube, if you guys send me a package it wouldn`t hurt to send a rubix cube :) haha. Today was nice we went to San Jose again and hung out at the beach and played soccer with the zone, then after we went and ate lunch in this little restaurant. So i`m good friends with my compi it`s sweet, everything is going good in our area. I haven`t really put to much thought into what I want to do after the mission with my studies, I think I`m gonna give it a little thought this week and let you guys know what I`m thinking about doing this next week. I haven`t really thought of going to UVU after the mission, it seems to be a good decision to get my generals finished at SLCC and then transfer my credits to a state university in Utah somewhere but thats just a game plan that I think will work for me. Thanks for sending the packages that you sent! I only got three of the four that you sent because one of them had a messager in it and at Serpost they told me that it isn`t allowed to send that kind of stuff...but thanks!! Love you guys :D Until next week
-Elder Connelly
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
Birthday week 4/1/13
I really liked seeing the pictures that you sent of Grandma Frank´s funeral, it looks like everything turned out well. I liked looking at the pictures of Grandma and the family, I also liked reading about the spiritual experiences that you had preparing for the funeral. It was a bummer to hear about the passing of Grandma Bonnie, I know that she´s now resting with her family and friends in the spirit world. Grandma always made me feel good about myself and always had something good to say, it´s funny because everytime I drink Coca Cola it reminds me of spending time at grandma´s house for family parties. I still remember heading down there for the 4th of July and doing fun stuff like that with Grandma. Did they bury here by Grandpa Frank´s and Reed´s grave?? It looks like the same spot.
So this week for my birthday I really didn´t do much, it´s funny because in the mission your birthday is pretty much like any other day I worked with my companion like normal haha. But in the morning when I woke up the elders that I live with smashed eggs on my head and threw flour at me haha, it was a crummy way to wake up but it´s okay haha. The apartment smelt like eggs for like 3 days straight, we had to clean it all up but it´s okay now. On the 28th in the morning we went to a ward activity and invited a ton of our investigadors and everybody showed up it was sweet, we´re working a lot with the members in our ward and we´re really starting to have more success. They planned a bunch of small games and we ate lunch at the church and they sung happy birthday and gave us cake. And before my companion Elder Tamani had his transfer on Monday night last week the pensionista gave us cake and their family sang to us because Elder tamani had his birthday on the 30th so it ended up working out it was cool. On Tuesday was the transfer meeting and now I´m with Elder Uriarte he´s from Bolivia, and we get along really well. I think the Lord has blessed me in my mission because all of my companions have been cool and have wanted to work, I should probably knock on wood but I´ve been blessed up until now with my companions. I already knew my companion from when we were in the same zone like 6 months ago, we´re always joking around in the street and we´re working hard. On wednesday we were headed to one of our appointments when this guy stopped us that was sat down in his small motorcycle taxi, he told us that he wanted to talk to us and we sat down with him and he told us that he had been wanting to talk with missionaries. His name is Luis, he´s addicted to drugs and he told us that he couldn´t quit drugs. We talked to his for about 30 minutes in his taxi and explained to him a little bit about the atonement and told him that we could visit his another day. We visited him on Saturday and taught him about the word of wisdom, it was cool to see the Lord place one of his children in our way. On Sunday in the church one of the members brought one of her friends to church and her friend brought her husband, their names are Cielo and Arturo. Cielo has been a member for about a year now and just moved here to chiclayo with her husband from Ecuador. They got married here in chiclayo about a month or so ago and we went and visited them after church in the afternoon. We taught the restoration and the spirit was super strong as we taught and Arturo told us that he is interested in joining the church. We´ve been seeing the many blessings that God is giving us this last week, and I´m so grateful because we have tons of people to teach right now and the ward is helping us out a ton. We even has ward missionaries right now, i´m super happy right now in this area with mly companion and everything, so life is good for me right now. Today we played soccer in the institute building and I played a little bit of basketball with Elder Sampson so that was cool. As for me I´m doing really good and just trying to enjoy the mission.
Sorry I don´t have any pictures to send right now because I forgot to buy batteries for my camera but I´ll have to send the pictures that I have next week! Love you guys, until next week :)
-Elder Connelly
Hi 3/25/13
It was really nice to get to talk to you guys today, even though it was for a little while. I was super nervous today when my mission president called me in to talk with him, and I felt sad to hear about the passing of Grandma Bonny. My mission president is really loving and helpful and I got to talk to him for a small moment because he was interviewing all the elders and sisters that were going home. It caught me off gaurd that´s for sure, but I was able to reflect a lot about what we learn in the church and how great of a blessing the Plan of Salvation is. If you can imagine how hard it is for the many people that don´t have that knowledge of the restored Gospel, and that our lifes continue after we pass away. Like you said about Grandpa Gary this life is such a small speck in comparison to eternity, but at the same time it´s so important for our eternal progress. Without Christ´s sacrifice God´s Plan for us wouldn´t be possible, because of Christ´s ressurrection everyone will be immortal and live again with a physical body. I´m sure Grandma Bonny has been able to be reunited once again with those that love her and her family members, and like it says in Alma 40 she´s going to be in a state of rest until the second coming of Christ. I´m going to write my thoughts about Grandma Bonny next week when i have a little more time to think about it and come prepared to the internet cafe to write everything down.
To fill you in on what I´ve been up to this week has been really busy we´ve been getting everything ready for the new elders that our coming to our zone this transfer. We had to go to San Jose on Thursday to find an apartment and we were looking for an apartment all morning. When we found it we went back to Chiclayo and picked up all the furniture for the apartment and went back to San Jose to drop off the furniture, it´s a nice apartment and everything is new. There´s a lot of transfers happening right now in the mission, 34 new missionaries are going to be arriving tomorrow and so everything has been kind of crazy. My companion is getting transfered as well, so I´m staying in the area and a new elder is coming. Tomorrow is the transfer meeting with all the missionaries so we´ll see what happens, i´m kind of nervous for this transfer for some reason i´m not sure why.
On saturday we had Laura´s baptism, it was a really spiritual baptismal service. All the members from the ward showed up and we watched a cool video of Jesus´s baptism and when Jesus talks to Nicodemus about baptism in John 3. This time when I got in the baptismal font to baptize it was special to be able to raise my arm to the square and say the baptismal prayer because you feel so strongly the spirit. Laura has been going to seminary as well and reading her scripts a lot, she´s super excited about the church and her mom needs to stop working on sundays so she can go to church too. Her mom is inactive and stopped going to church a while ago because of her work but were going to work with her mom a little bit and try and reactivate her.
Thanks for all the support and love, and tell the family I say hi and that I say hi. Love you.
-Elder Connelly
Tired this week 3/18/13
Thanks for the email and the pictures that you sent, it`s always the best getting to see pictures of the family. It`s crazy how different everyone looks, mainly Ava. I don`t think I saw any pictures of Mom! I want to se the whole family! It made me happy to hear that the boys Jr. Jazz team won their last game, I liked the pictures too Joel can`t be hanging on the rim like that after he dunks it haha. St. Patricks day? Holidays here in Peru aren`t really the same like in the United States and you hardly even pay atention to the holidays that come and go, other than Christmas and Mother`s Day ha.
So transfers were last week and there`s a new elder now in the apartment where we live, he`s not an american like I was hoping for haha but it`s okay. It`s weird to think about it because I live with three other latins, I`m yet to live with an american or have one as a companion. This next week were going to have transfers again because of some of the elders and sisters that are going home. It`s most likely that my companion leaves this change and i´ll stay with another compy. I`m excited for this transfer, they`re supposivley going to open like 24 new areas in the mission so that`s super exciting. In the stake where we`re at they`re going to open up San José it`s right there off the beach I got to tract there one day in the morning about 2 months ago. Its a straight up fisher town and it makes it kind of hard for the missionary work.
Good news! This week on Saturday were going to have another baptism :D Laura is going to get baptized. We`ve been teaching her for about 2 months now, we found her with the ward directory and her mom is a member but she`s inactive. We set the baptism date on tuesday last week and she was prepared for the baptismal invitation, so we need some prayers headed our her way for Laura Garcia. We`re also hoping to see a couple more people be baptized that we have been teaching, we just have to set a baptismal date. We tried setting a baptismal date for another investigador that we have she`s named Bridget and her mom is a member. We invited her to be baptized on Saturday and she accepted but her mom says that she`s not old enough to make her own decisions. We`re going to try nd work a little more with that family. We`ve been working a lot with unactive members and we`re finding a lot of investigadores that way. We visited Iris this week a couple times and now we`re teaching her daughter Yorka. It`s awesome because Iris is super excited about the church, she went to this relief society activity the other day and she seems to be getting more involved in the church and has a lot of friends. Oh yeah and were still teaching Antonieta and her exboyfriend Carlos they`re "just friends" now from what they`ve told us haha. But anyways we taught them this weekend and Carlos got let go at his job and so he was all bummed out and down in the dumps so we watched a couple of mormon messages about Hope and tried helping out a little bit. We still have faith that they`ll get baptized, Anotnieta told us that she went to the catholic church the other week and the sacerdote was talking and told everyone that they shouldn`t get baptized in other churches and all this other craziness. Satan is working hard on her but we`re going to fast on Tuesday for our investigadores that we have, maybe you could pray for these people: Antonieta, Carlos, Laura, and Zaid! Other than that everything is going well here in the mission, it`s just raining a ton here in the city and nobody knows what to do when it rains because all the houses are built with flat roofs and everything gets flooded haha. It almost never rains, I don`t think I saw rain for like 6 months until this last week it really cleared the air up a lot but it makes everything super dirty because none of the streets are paved. But luckily my area has paved roads and it`s super calm and they`re isn`t much theft.
Today we didn`t really do anything for pday we just went to the institute building and played soccer and ping pong like always, because the zone always gets discouraged and wants to go to cool places here in Chiclayo but there`s not really anything here. Thanks for the letter and the pictures keep sending them! Love you!
-Elder Connelly
ps Sorry don`t have any pictures!
So transfers were last week and there`s a new elder now in the apartment where we live, he`s not an american like I was hoping for haha but it`s okay. It`s weird to think about it because I live with three other latins, I`m yet to live with an american or have one as a companion. This next week were going to have transfers again because of some of the elders and sisters that are going home. It`s most likely that my companion leaves this change and i´ll stay with another compy. I`m excited for this transfer, they`re supposivley going to open like 24 new areas in the mission so that`s super exciting. In the stake where we`re at they`re going to open up San José it`s right there off the beach I got to tract there one day in the morning about 2 months ago. Its a straight up fisher town and it makes it kind of hard for the missionary work.
Good news! This week on Saturday were going to have another baptism :D Laura is going to get baptized. We`ve been teaching her for about 2 months now, we found her with the ward directory and her mom is a member but she`s inactive. We set the baptism date on tuesday last week and she was prepared for the baptismal invitation, so we need some prayers headed our her way for Laura Garcia. We`re also hoping to see a couple more people be baptized that we have been teaching, we just have to set a baptismal date. We tried setting a baptismal date for another investigador that we have she`s named Bridget and her mom is a member. We invited her to be baptized on Saturday and she accepted but her mom says that she`s not old enough to make her own decisions. We`re going to try nd work a little more with that family. We`ve been working a lot with unactive members and we`re finding a lot of investigadores that way. We visited Iris this week a couple times and now we`re teaching her daughter Yorka. It`s awesome because Iris is super excited about the church, she went to this relief society activity the other day and she seems to be getting more involved in the church and has a lot of friends. Oh yeah and were still teaching Antonieta and her exboyfriend Carlos they`re "just friends" now from what they`ve told us haha. But anyways we taught them this weekend and Carlos got let go at his job and so he was all bummed out and down in the dumps so we watched a couple of mormon messages about Hope and tried helping out a little bit. We still have faith that they`ll get baptized, Anotnieta told us that she went to the catholic church the other week and the sacerdote was talking and told everyone that they shouldn`t get baptized in other churches and all this other craziness. Satan is working hard on her but we`re going to fast on Tuesday for our investigadores that we have, maybe you could pray for these people: Antonieta, Carlos, Laura, and Zaid! Other than that everything is going well here in the mission, it`s just raining a ton here in the city and nobody knows what to do when it rains because all the houses are built with flat roofs and everything gets flooded haha. It almost never rains, I don`t think I saw rain for like 6 months until this last week it really cleared the air up a lot but it makes everything super dirty because none of the streets are paved. But luckily my area has paved roads and it`s super calm and they`re isn`t much theft.
Today we didn`t really do anything for pday we just went to the institute building and played soccer and ping pong like always, because the zone always gets discouraged and wants to go to cool places here in Chiclayo but there`s not really anything here. Thanks for the letter and the pictures keep sending them! Love you!
-Elder Connelly
ps Sorry don`t have any pictures!
Baptism week 3/11/13
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! Dang your getting viejo haha kidding, I almost forgot that it was your birthday. I liked the pictures of you guys at the pinewood dirby, it made me remember having pinewood dirby as a little kid.
To fill you guys in on this week since I don´t have to much time to write. We baptized this week which made us pretty happy, the baptismal service turned out well and it was spiritual. I baptized and we didn´t have any problems luckily she got dunked completely the first time. She is a bigger lady so I was little nervous that we were going to have problems but it all turned out okay ha. We were nervous that we weren´t going to have a baptism because she didn´t show up for her baptismal interview on Thursday and when we called her she didn´t sound very excited about being baptized. In the end everything came through and our prayers were answered :) So i´m staying another two weeks with my companion, I´m glad because we get along well and I´m not ready to have another comp yet and having to guide the area and the zone haha. Until then I´m going to enjoy the time I got with my companion. We´re working hard with a lot of people, mainly inactive members and teaching the people in their family that aren´t members, it´s a pretty good plan reactivate and baptize at the same time. It seems to work really well in this area, we don´t have the support we would like from the ward as far as references go and contacting in this area doesn´t help so much. We found a sweet family yesterday in the afternoon while we were tracting, the spirit never lets you down. I was studying with my comp this morning about the spirit and how we need to learn to listen to the spirit, and act. A lot of time we feel the spirit and either assume that it´s our conscience or we reject the promptings that it gives us. I have had that happening a lot to me in the past couple of weeks, the spirit speaks so quietly to us and if were not listening we might miss a prompting from the spirit. So the sisters that came with us in our group to peru went home, that was weird. Other than what i´ve written nothing crazy has gone on, but I´m happy and everything is going well with me :) oh yeah we went and played pool again today that was pretty fun. We still got to go and buy food for the week and pick up missionaries that are coming to chiclayo from jaen that are going to get transfered. Keep in your prayers Laura, Zaid, Antonieta, Bridget, Miguel Angel, and Carlos please! I know that your prayers are helping :) I love you guys a ton and we´ll talk this next week byeee!!
To fill you guys in on this week since I don´t have to much time to write. We baptized this week which made us pretty happy, the baptismal service turned out well and it was spiritual. I baptized and we didn´t have any problems luckily she got dunked completely the first time. She is a bigger lady so I was little nervous that we were going to have problems but it all turned out okay ha. We were nervous that we weren´t going to have a baptism because she didn´t show up for her baptismal interview on Thursday and when we called her she didn´t sound very excited about being baptized. In the end everything came through and our prayers were answered :) So i´m staying another two weeks with my companion, I´m glad because we get along well and I´m not ready to have another comp yet and having to guide the area and the zone haha. Until then I´m going to enjoy the time I got with my companion. We´re working hard with a lot of people, mainly inactive members and teaching the people in their family that aren´t members, it´s a pretty good plan reactivate and baptize at the same time. It seems to work really well in this area, we don´t have the support we would like from the ward as far as references go and contacting in this area doesn´t help so much. We found a sweet family yesterday in the afternoon while we were tracting, the spirit never lets you down. I was studying with my comp this morning about the spirit and how we need to learn to listen to the spirit, and act. A lot of time we feel the spirit and either assume that it´s our conscience or we reject the promptings that it gives us. I have had that happening a lot to me in the past couple of weeks, the spirit speaks so quietly to us and if were not listening we might miss a prompting from the spirit. So the sisters that came with us in our group to peru went home, that was weird. Other than what i´ve written nothing crazy has gone on, but I´m happy and everything is going well with me :) oh yeah we went and played pool again today that was pretty fun. We still got to go and buy food for the week and pick up missionaries that are coming to chiclayo from jaen that are going to get transfered. Keep in your prayers Laura, Zaid, Antonieta, Bridget, Miguel Angel, and Carlos please! I know that your prayers are helping :) I love you guys a ton and we´ll talk this next week byeee!!
-Elder Connelly
Por fin bautismo! 3/4/13
How´s it going? Wow those pictures that you sent of Bryce are awesome, haha. It made me remember high school dances and prom, it´s crazy how time flys. Happy Birthday Bryce :D Sorry I can´t really do anything other than write you happy birthday in my email. Promise that it i´ll be a lot cooler the next time you have your birthday because i´ll be there to wish you happy birthday. That´s cool that Bryce went to prom I like his tux and vans that he wore, Bryce has gone some long hair right now and looks soo mucher taller than I remember him it´s weird. His date is cute, I don´t recognize any of the kids that were in his group only the Mott kid and Miller kid wow they look completely different a lot more mature. Sounds like Joel did a good job on his oral book report, you guys really went all out on that :)
As far as I am going, I am really good :) healthy and happy. I´m super excited because we are going to baptize this week, we´re going to baptize Iris. I don´t know if I wrote about her in my last letter but she´s 46 and has been listening to us for about a month and half. She´s really special and super receptive and completely open to our message. In the zone all the elders are working really hard and if ever thing turns out well and if it´s God´s will we should have 9 baptisms, pray for us this week please! And pray for Iris. We´re still teaching Antonieta and her friend Carlos, they went to church yesterday and we taught them Saturday night. Carlos told us that he wants to be baptized but Antonieta isn´t quite sure yet, there´s these lame neighbors that she has that have told her that if she gets baptized in the mormon church everything will turn out bad for her :[ satan is working hard to keep her from getting baptized. She says that she thinks it´s the right thing to do but she´s worried about the change that she is going to have to make and what might happen to her life if she decides to become a member. We´re there working hard with her and we fasted this week for them. Speaking of fasting I had a cool experience. I decided to also fast to strengthen my testimony of the first vision and Joseph Smith and during my fast in the gospel principles class that we teach to the new converts and investigadors in the second hour at church we watched the video of the restoration. We talked about the power of the prayer and watched that video and every time that it gets to the part where Joseph Smith leaves to the grove to go pray I get a really strong feeling/impression and the goose bumps ha, but I know that it´s the spirit testifying that what Joseph Smith saw is true. It´s pretty crazy to think about all that happened to him and all that he had to go through to restore the primitive church and the gospel back to the earth.
We had the zone leader council this week and it was super awesome. They talked about the gathering of israel and how God is hastening His work in these last days. It´s crazy because in July the church is supposed to be creating 58 new missions and by July the number of missionaries serving full time should get up to 70000 if i´m not mistaken, we´re at about 55000 I think. In the book of mormon in one of the chapter headings in 3 nephi I can´t remember what chapter, it says that God was going to begin gathering israel in the last days when the book of mormon is translated and brought to light to convince all jew and gentile that Jesus is the Christ. I feel pretty blessed to be able to particpate in the gathering of israel and help others to come to Christ helping them make the first steps back to their Heavenly Father.
On a random note I ran into that black dude I was teaching in the second area I was in from the US. I talked to him for a little while and he told me that he had been reading the BoM that I gave him, too bad though because I wasn´t able to teach him more. He never really progressed but it was cool to get to teach in english. Today we went to and played Billards in our area with some of the elders from our zone. It was fun, it was different because all the pockets were really small and it made it tougher to play. Speaking of Billards, you guys never bought a pool table right? Haha.
Anyways that´s pretty much all that I have to write about this week, I´ll try and keep you updated on everything that happens. I love you guys soo much. Until next week! :D
-Elder Connelly
PS Don´t have any pictures...sorry next week!
As far as I am going, I am really good :) healthy and happy. I´m super excited because we are going to baptize this week, we´re going to baptize Iris. I don´t know if I wrote about her in my last letter but she´s 46 and has been listening to us for about a month and half. She´s really special and super receptive and completely open to our message. In the zone all the elders are working really hard and if ever thing turns out well and if it´s God´s will we should have 9 baptisms, pray for us this week please! And pray for Iris. We´re still teaching Antonieta and her friend Carlos, they went to church yesterday and we taught them Saturday night. Carlos told us that he wants to be baptized but Antonieta isn´t quite sure yet, there´s these lame neighbors that she has that have told her that if she gets baptized in the mormon church everything will turn out bad for her :[ satan is working hard to keep her from getting baptized. She says that she thinks it´s the right thing to do but she´s worried about the change that she is going to have to make and what might happen to her life if she decides to become a member. We´re there working hard with her and we fasted this week for them. Speaking of fasting I had a cool experience. I decided to also fast to strengthen my testimony of the first vision and Joseph Smith and during my fast in the gospel principles class that we teach to the new converts and investigadors in the second hour at church we watched the video of the restoration. We talked about the power of the prayer and watched that video and every time that it gets to the part where Joseph Smith leaves to the grove to go pray I get a really strong feeling/impression and the goose bumps ha, but I know that it´s the spirit testifying that what Joseph Smith saw is true. It´s pretty crazy to think about all that happened to him and all that he had to go through to restore the primitive church and the gospel back to the earth.
We had the zone leader council this week and it was super awesome. They talked about the gathering of israel and how God is hastening His work in these last days. It´s crazy because in July the church is supposed to be creating 58 new missions and by July the number of missionaries serving full time should get up to 70000 if i´m not mistaken, we´re at about 55000 I think. In the book of mormon in one of the chapter headings in 3 nephi I can´t remember what chapter, it says that God was going to begin gathering israel in the last days when the book of mormon is translated and brought to light to convince all jew and gentile that Jesus is the Christ. I feel pretty blessed to be able to particpate in the gathering of israel and help others to come to Christ helping them make the first steps back to their Heavenly Father.
On a random note I ran into that black dude I was teaching in the second area I was in from the US. I talked to him for a little while and he told me that he had been reading the BoM that I gave him, too bad though because I wasn´t able to teach him more. He never really progressed but it was cool to get to teach in english. Today we went to and played Billards in our area with some of the elders from our zone. It was fun, it was different because all the pockets were really small and it made it tougher to play. Speaking of Billards, you guys never bought a pool table right? Haha.
Anyways that´s pretty much all that I have to write about this week, I´ll try and keep you updated on everything that happens. I love you guys soo much. Until next week! :D
-Elder Connelly
PS Don´t have any pictures...sorry next week!
Happy Birthday Bryce! 2/25/13
`m glad you guys got my package I was nervous that you weren`t going to get what I sent, I didn`t want to say anything because I wanted it to be a surprise but I`m glad that the package got to Utah haha. I sent some things that I thought you guys would like. Be careful with the hats I sent :) and with my plaque! Bryce is going to prom? That`s sweet, i forget that he`s a junior now. Are they going to have it at the capital building?? I remember Prom the last time I went as a senior and Cameron Rafati played, haha that feels like forever ago.
So to fill you in a little on whats going on in our area were finally going to have baptisms!! Yaaaa. We`re teaching a coupld of different people one of them has a baptismal date for March 09th and were going to put a baptismal date for the end of this week. We`ve been working a ton with Antonieta and she had been scared about the answer that God was going to give her about the Book of Mormon but we had been praying a lot for her and this week we visited her and she told us that she`s been recieving her answer little by little and that randomly she felt that she needed to get baptized. It was awesome to hear her say that, we`re excited for her keep her in your prayers so that she can get baptized on Saturday! I had a cool experience with the Holy Ghost, about a week and half ago we were tracting in one of the more wealthier parts of our area and I felt like we should knock this yellow house so we knocked the door and this guy came out and told us that he didn`t have any time and that he didn`t want to listen to us. Lately I had been feeling small promptings from the spirit and everytime I felt the spirit I tried to act on what I felt with out doubting. I was kind of discouraged because just about every time that I thought I felt the spirit i didn`t see any results, I was little confused. We went back to that yellow house where we had knocked the door a week and half ago because the guy that came out of his house told us that we could come back and visit. We showed up to the house and his brother came out and we asked him if we would be able to talk to him and he invited us in, we talked a little about the restoration and he is really interested in the restoration of the Gospel. We gave him a book of mormon on friday and he was really sincere and told us that he would read it and ask God. He didn`t make it to church on Sunday but it strengthened my testimony of acting on the promptings of the Holy Spirit, even if we don`t see the results right away the Lord knows what he is doing. Sometimes I feel the spirit and maybe ignore the prompting I felt but it`s always important to act on that still small voice that you hear. We`re teaching this other lady named Iris and she`s somebody that really has a strong belief in God she has gone to church two times and we watched the Jesus`s baptism with her. She told us that she felt the spirit and knew that she needed to be baptized, she doesn`t share the same beliefs as the Catholic church and none of her kids have been baptized. She wants us to help her son Marco out so we`ve been working hard with him but Iris is the one that is more interested in the church.
Today in the zone we played soccer with the elders at the institute building and ping pong again. Oh I was going to ask you guys if I could pull some money out to buy a memory card for my camera, I don`t know how but my memory cards have broken so I need a new one and I`m not sure how much the window is going to cost that we broke :/ if I do take money out ill be careful to only take out what I need to take care of the things I need to fix. Tomorrow is zone council so we have to plan for that after we go and buy food! I got to go right now! But I love you guys I hope you like the package i sent! see you later :D
-Elder Connelly
ps my comp is in the yellow shirt in the pictures i sent
So to fill you in a little on whats going on in our area were finally going to have baptisms!! Yaaaa. We`re teaching a coupld of different people one of them has a baptismal date for March 09th and were going to put a baptismal date for the end of this week. We`ve been working a ton with Antonieta and she had been scared about the answer that God was going to give her about the Book of Mormon but we had been praying a lot for her and this week we visited her and she told us that she`s been recieving her answer little by little and that randomly she felt that she needed to get baptized. It was awesome to hear her say that, we`re excited for her keep her in your prayers so that she can get baptized on Saturday! I had a cool experience with the Holy Ghost, about a week and half ago we were tracting in one of the more wealthier parts of our area and I felt like we should knock this yellow house so we knocked the door and this guy came out and told us that he didn`t have any time and that he didn`t want to listen to us. Lately I had been feeling small promptings from the spirit and everytime I felt the spirit I tried to act on what I felt with out doubting. I was kind of discouraged because just about every time that I thought I felt the spirit i didn`t see any results, I was little confused. We went back to that yellow house where we had knocked the door a week and half ago because the guy that came out of his house told us that we could come back and visit. We showed up to the house and his brother came out and we asked him if we would be able to talk to him and he invited us in, we talked a little about the restoration and he is really interested in the restoration of the Gospel. We gave him a book of mormon on friday and he was really sincere and told us that he would read it and ask God. He didn`t make it to church on Sunday but it strengthened my testimony of acting on the promptings of the Holy Spirit, even if we don`t see the results right away the Lord knows what he is doing. Sometimes I feel the spirit and maybe ignore the prompting I felt but it`s always important to act on that still small voice that you hear. We`re teaching this other lady named Iris and she`s somebody that really has a strong belief in God she has gone to church two times and we watched the Jesus`s baptism with her. She told us that she felt the spirit and knew that she needed to be baptized, she doesn`t share the same beliefs as the Catholic church and none of her kids have been baptized. She wants us to help her son Marco out so we`ve been working hard with him but Iris is the one that is more interested in the church.
Today in the zone we played soccer with the elders at the institute building and ping pong again. Oh I was going to ask you guys if I could pull some money out to buy a memory card for my camera, I don`t know how but my memory cards have broken so I need a new one and I`m not sure how much the window is going to cost that we broke :/ if I do take money out ill be careful to only take out what I need to take care of the things I need to fix. Tomorrow is zone council so we have to plan for that after we go and buy food! I got to go right now! But I love you guys I hope you like the package i sent! see you later :D
-Elder Connelly
ps my comp is in the yellow shirt in the pictures i sent
Monday, February 25, 2013
Hiii 2/18/13
Good to hear from you guys, I missed having some pictures :( haha kidding it´s okay. That´s funny that you wrote about the fight club thing that´s going on at Alta, I still remember seeing some of those fights in high school it´s pretty lame ha. That was huge what happened to that kid in high school, I´m suprised they´ve payed him for what happened. Sometimes stupid things that like that happen, but it´s part of life. That´s too bad that you´re feeling sick right now, hopefully you´ll get better soon. It´d be tough to be sick and pregnant at the same time I think, I´ll keep you in my prayers :)
This was one of those weeks in the mission where all your appointments fall through and you get a little discouraged, happens sometimes haha. That´s what happened to us this week, we had a lot of appointments scheduled this week but pretty much everyone that we were going to visit either wasn´t home or didn´t have time to listen to us. Luckily we have quite a few people that our progressing and will soon be baptized. We have a baptismal date for the end of this week on the 26th, her name is Antonieta. We couldn´t find her this week but she told us last week in our lesson when we set a baptismal date that she would be baptized on the 26th if God answered her prayer about the Book of Mormon. We´re going to try and find her tonight I think and see what happened, keep your fingers crossed ha. We´re also working with two young people that haven´t really ever gone to church but their mom is an inactive member of the church. We found them a couple of weeks ago with the ward directory because one of our appointments fell through so we were looking over the ward directory and found their grandma first and talked to her. Then we found out that the whole family has been baptized except Laura (15) and Zaid (10), we talked to them on friday night about baptism and the Holy Ghost. We invited them to be baptized and they accepted and also went to church yesterday. They already talked to their mom about everything and she said that they could be baptized, so were excited to see how all that works out. We didn´t end up getting permission for Rubi to get baptized, we´ve tried teaching the whole family but the little kid that the mom has is super wild. In our lessons he´s always jumping from the furniture onto my head or doing something crazy, he reminds me a lot of my little brothers.
So on Valentines Day since we can´t do anything, we got up on the roof of our apartment with our dinner and the kitchen table and at dinner on the roof haha. We talked for a long time between us four, it was pretty funny haha. We´re yet to fix the window becase we just haven´t had any time to do it yet. I hope it doesn´t cost to much I think it i´ll probably cost 60 to 65 soles, we have to split it between me and another elder that was playing in our apartment with me. Today with the zone we went to the institute building and played soccer, ping pong and foosball I hadn´t played foosball in forever so that was pretty fun it reminded me of the foosball table we used to have in the Hackamore Circle house where we lived. There was transfers this past week so there´s a couple of new elders in the zone, my better friend Elder Cabrera that was my companion in the La Unión is leaving the zone it´s kind of a bummer. But he´s headed to Cajamarca which will be cool.
But other than that, that´s pretty much what is new with me. We have a new office now, it´s a lot smaller but it´s really nice. Here´s the address: Los Alamos 128, Urbanización Santa Victoria, Chiclayo, Peru. So anything you send now should be sent to this new address, thanks for the packages you´ve sent :D it was the best to get some jerky and that candy. I dont have any new pictures to send, but next week I will :D Love you guys until next week...
-Elder Connelly
Transfers 2/12/13
This week was transfers and....I´m not getting changed and neither is my companion. So we´re going to be together one more change, i´ll have been with him longer than any other one of my companions unless they transfer him in the middle of this transfer. I like my compi so it´s okay that i´m with him for four months haha. This week was interesting we had all sorts of things happen to us, like on wednesday we were tracting in our area and we knocked a door and this half naked man opened the door. He was only wearing a shirt and whity tities, it was really awkward and me and my companion didn´t know what to say so we kind of panicked (I think thats how you spell it) and told him we´d come by another day when he was busy...We have been contacting and trying to find new people to teach, we´ve found some pretty great people. On Saturday we had exchanges with Elder Sampson and did splits with him, we were working in his area. It was funny to be with him in his area teaching and contacting, it freaks me out seeing him in Peru but we had a good day and it was cool to get to work with him. The girl in our area that´s supposed to get baptized this weekend might not get baptized because we have to get permission from her mom so that she can get baptized, hopefully her mom can give her permission. Her mom says that she shouldn´t get baptized again because she was already baptized catholicly but I think we´re going to talk to her mom this week and explain everything to her. We had this bomb really spiritual lesson this week yesterday with Antonieta, one of the people we are working with. She didn´t go to church on Sunday but we had seen her in a really long time and we dropped by her house to visit her. She told us that she had read the book of mormon but that she hadn´t prayed to God yet about the book because she was afraid of recieving an answer and having to have to change her life and be baptized. We explained to her all the blessings that she could recieve if she recieved a confirmation of the book of mormon and had a testimony. She aggreed that she needed to know if the book of mormon was true. My companion and I testified of the truthfulness of the book of mormon and told her that we knew that God was going to answer her prayer, it really brought the spirit to the lesson. We invited her to be baptized on the 23th of this month she said she would be baptized if she recieved that spiritual confirmation from God. Were going to be working and praying so that she can be baptized, maybe you could keep her in your prayers :) This other lady that we are teaching named Iriz went to church on Sunday we´ve only taught her two times but she´s super creyente and wants to know more about the church. She cares a lot about her son Marco and wants him to be able to learn correct principles. There´s a ton of investigadors that we´ll be able to progress with a little bit more time and a spiritual confirmation from God. Thanks again for the packages that you sent me I liked a lot everything you sent me I got the medicine for my nose and the candy :D Tell everyone that got their mission calles congradulations! That´s awesome, its so crazy how many people are leaving on missions now. Oh did you hear that the pope retired from his position leading the catholic church, it´s been 600 years since a pope doesn´t die as pope and retires, I thought that was pretty interesting. Anyways I love you guys and hope to hear from you next week!
-Elder Connelly
Fotos
1 and 2: Weekly planning...hahahaha
3: Visita de trabajo ...
ps. Keep your eyes on the mail I sent something to you guys :D
Hey 2/4/13
In our area we finally were able to put a baptismal date on one of our progressing investigadors Rubi, she´s 14 and has gone to church now 2 different times and reads the book of mormon and prays. We´re working a little bit with her family but she´s pretty much the only one in her family that show´s us that she´s willing to follow Christ. She´s got her baptismal date for the 16th of Feb, keep her in your prayers so that she can get baptized :D We´ve also been working with Antonieta and Carlos, they´re about 26 years old and good friends. We found them through one of our investigadors that we had that wasn´t progressing. We´ve had some of the most powerful lessons with these two people and they show a true and sincere desire to know more about the church and at one point be baptized. We had a lesson with them on thursday and talked about the book of mormon with them and left a chapter for them to read. They haven´t really had any doubts up until the lesson we had with them on Saturday when we showed up at their house at about 8pm. They told us that they had read that part of the BoM together and had prayed together, after praying they opened up the bible to a random page to see what it said. Sadly they opened the bible up to a part in the old testament where it talks about false prophets of all things...They told us that God wouldn´t call prophets anymore because it wasn´t needed. We had to explain to them why prophets and apostoles are so important, and why Christ organized a church. At the end of everything it came down to the answer that they needed to recieve and Antonieta anxiously told us "why don´t we read a part of the BoM together and pray after" it was pretty cool to hear her say that so we read a small part together and then got down on our knees and prayed. After the prayer we took like 3 minutes of silence to see what the holy ghost would help us to feel. I felt strongly the impression of the spirit after the prayer, but Antonieta and Carlos didn´t seem to feel anything. They said that they need to pray again and ask God, we have a lesson with them this week on Tuesday I think so we´ll see how that goes. Keep them in your prayers as well :D
Today with the zone we went to this place called the Quipampa in Lambayeque it´s pretty much like Cajamarca, it was super sweet really green and the weather was cold and rainy. It felt good to get out of the dusty hot weather and up into weather colder and wetter. Youll have to see the pictures I sent to see what it looked like.
So that is pretty much what happened to me this week, ill keep you guys filled in on what is going on here in the mission whenever anything worth writing here happens to me :) Love you!!!
-Elder Connelly
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