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

Batallon Mormon, Beach, and Work, Visit Week

I don´t know what you guys did this week because you haven´t written me yet, but I had a good week well a really long week for a change. I´ve been so used to having time go by so fast but this week went by pretty slow. This week I got to tract with Elder Cabrera again in his area, we visited their area to see how they´re working and to help them out a bit. They´re office elders so they really don´t have that much time to work so it was really just a work visit to get them excited about tracting and out working. I respect the office elders a lot because they´re always in the office and busy and sometimes they don´t get to go out and work. But anyways it was sweet to get to go tracting with Elder Cabrera again, we were remembering all the good times we had in La Unión. It was cool to teach with him and see how much we´ve progressed, we taught a couple of really spiritual lessons it was sweet. 

On Thursday we had a Batallón Mormón in a small area in our zone called Ciudad de Dios, it´s a branch and so we went there with the zone to look for new investigadors and to contact. We also went to San José a small fisher town that same morning to do some contacting and to help people get to know the church a little better. According to Pte Risso they´re going to put two more elders in San José in the next transfer. I´m stoked about that, it´s cool to see the missionary work make progress. I tracted in San José with one of the missionaries in the zone and practically everyone that lives there is a fisher, so it makes it kind of difficult. It´s pretty easy to teach lot of women and children but all the men are out in the ocean fishing all day. I´m interested to see how that goes when they put a companionship in this new area. We went there today with the zone and we were playing soccer on the beach and hanging out it was pretty fun. 

This week in our area we´ve been working hard trying to find new investigadors to teach, our main problem is that no one comes to church on Sunday. This week luckily we had investigadors in the chapel. We found this special lady this week named Elsa, we were contacting wednesday morning in our area and we knocked on her metal gate door. She came out from her house and told us to come back in 15 minutes to teach her, so we contacted 15 minutes more and came back to her house. She kindly let us in and we got to know her a little better and she told us that her husband had passed away more than 15 years ago. Shes about 74 and lives alone with her kids. We asked her if she knew where her husband was and she told us that she had no idea, and so we were able to explain to her about plan of salvation and the spirit world. It made me reflect a lot about the blessing that it is to have this plan in our lives, to know that we can live together forever with our families. She seemed really excited to here what we had for her, sadly she didn´t go to church on Sunday but I have faith that she is going to progress soon. 

I just read the news about the new baby!! CONGRADULATIONS! Haha I about passed out here in the internet cafe, it really threw me off guard to read about that. Is everyone super excited about having a new kid? Mom your going to have to be so patient haha, you´ve got a lot of work ahead of you! That´s so crazy I really can´t believe it, but it´s going to be super cool. I hope that i´ll be able to see it on Mothers days when I talk to you guys again. I´m really like completely blown away right now, I don´t know what to think haha. It makes me remember the night when you told us that Eva was going to be born. I thought that you guys were done having kids, hahah that´s awesome. When do you know if it´s a boy or girl? Hahaha I´m still completely confused and shocked haha. But i´m super happy for you guys wow, I´m going to have another brother/sister our family is going to be gigantic. You have to keep me up to date on how the baby is and when you know if its a boy or girl. 

I´ll talk to you guys next week! Congratulations again! Haha that´s some crazy news, Im going to be blown away all this week I think haha. Love you guys! 

HI family 1/14/13

This week came and went I think it´s because we´ve been so busy lately. I´m drained of energy right now haha, we went and played soccer today with the zone. Oh yeah and transfers were last week and Elder Sampson is in the zone now! It´s been pretty cool having him around but at the same time really weird because it makes me remember being home, we were talking today a lot about what has been going on at home with some of the people we went to school with. So to fill you in on what happened this week, we had our zone training on wednesday and we talked about our zone goals and some of our plans for this month in the zone. All the elders seem to be hard working but some of them aren´t the most obedient I´m not really one to talk haha but we´re trying to help some of the elders out in the zone so that they can keep the rules. In the training we did practices with this thing that the mission made that´s called Plan 37:7 (there´s a scripture in Alma 37:7), it´s used for anyone that has a baptismal date. Whenever we set a baptismal date for an investigador we make this Plan 37:7 to concretize (if that´s the right word) the baptismal date so that it doesn´t fall through. A lot of time we set dates for our investigadors so that they can get baptized and in the progress of our teaching doubts or problems come up and they don´t get baptized. So the mission has implemented this sheet to help us use members, the BOM, etc to solve the problems and doubts of our investigadors, we did practiced with that in our zone meeting and it turned out really well. And on Thursday the doctors from the area that cover Peru, Bolivia, Chile and some other countries that I can´t remember came to our mission to teach us how to take care of ourselves and teach us some tips so that we can better maintain ourselves healthy. They asked me to help out with some of the translation for a missionary couple that had come from Seattle and had only been out for a couple of months. The training helped out a lot I think, it definitely made me want to get up more often in the morning to do excercises. Speaking of that I´ve been using that jump rope that you sent me, it´s useful especially because my companion doesn´t want to get up and go jogging. Sometimes I´m not to excited about doing sit ups or push ups in the morning because of how much we walk haha but I think it helps a lot.

 

As far as the missionary work goes we´re bummed out for our investigadors because this week we had a good number of lessons, we visited with members, and swung by the investigador´s houses sunday morning and no one made it to church on Sunday. We´re having a hard time getting our investigadors to commit themselves. On tuesday we found this bomb family, and we talked to them about eternal families and the priesthood. We we´re contacting in our area in this part a little bit more wealthy and we ran into a old coulple..well not that old but they we´re sat down outside their house and they let us in and we talked to them and their family. The spirit was strong in the lesson, I always get pumped or super happy to teach when there´s a entire family in front of you. We took advantage of the opportunity and talked about temples and how they can be sealed for the eternities. I feel really blessed to have been born into an eternal family. We found that family on Tuesday in the afternoon and on Thursday we had an appointment but they called us and told us that they left on a trip to Cajamarca so this week we´re gonna visit them, I´ll keep you updated on that. We´re working with some other investigadors that really aren´t progressing that much. This week we invited most of them to be baptized but they always get cold feet and get super nervous when we talk about baptism. I don´t blame em for acting that way but we´re gonna be working really hard this week so that we can put a baptismal date. I feel pretty adjusted now in my new area and with my new companion. Sometimes we catch ourselves arguing because he always wants to do the opposite of what I want to do and so everytime that happens someone has to humble themselves and accept the others idea. I´m working on being less closed minded and trying to listen to others, sometimes I´m a little prideful haha. But I´m working on it. 

Pictures 1/7/13

Thanks for keeping me updated and what´s going on at home! I like to know how everyone is, and what everyone has been up to. Oh and thanks for the packages that you´ve sent me it´s the best to get packages from home it makes your week here in the mission. Everyone is super jealous of all my ties haha. My new companion loves beef jerky and ate a lot of the beef jerky with me haha. I´m super excited to get that slip and slide in my package it´ll for sure help me to work on my tan and it gets so hot here in Chiclayo that i´m sure it will get in handy :D hahahaha. 

This week was hectic with all the meetings that we had and transfers. On tuesday we were in the health clinic for a while because my companion has been sick. We didn´t get to work as much as we would have liked in our area with what we´ve had to do this week. On Thursday we had the monthly zone council meeting, I was happy/bummed out because the zone where I was at has had so much success and I´m not even there to enjoy it....but it´s okay I´m trying to understand why the Lord has put me in this new area ha. President Risso talked to us about the faith, it was really spiritual and cool I would write all about it but it would take too much time ha. Then the next day on Friday we had a leadership meeting with all the district leaders and zone leaders in the mission, I was pretty tired from sitting down for such a long time. Our mission president is an inspired man and he´s always so worried about the well being of the mission and the missionaries it´s cool. 

Yesterday was cool we we´re knocking doors finally! My companion doesn´t really like to knock doors so we don´t contact as much as I would like but we knocked this one door and a girl came to the door and we talked to her for about 5 minutes there in the door and she let us in. She let us in a lot easier than most people do, so we asked her what made her open the door and let us come in and teach her. She said that something had told her that she needed to let us in her house, we have an appointment with her this week so we´ll see how it goes. It was just a cool little experience we had, Im convinced the Lord puts his children in our way so that we can teach them about the restored gospel. 

On sunday we got to see the new bishop in action, he´s a pretty neat bishop he´s already been bishop two times so he´s doing a good job. The whole bishopric got changed and we dont have a mission leader it´s kind of a bummer we´re hoping that they call one soon! Other than that I´m not too sure what else has happened this week haha. I´m doing good trying to stay healthy and we´re just working hard here in our area :) Thanks for the packages and the stuff you´ve sent me!! Love you

-Elder Connelly

P.S. Here are pictures from the past couple of weeks, one of the stuffed hay manequin we burned, me and my companion at christmas time, and one of my buddies here in the mission from AF 

Feliz Ano Nuevo! 1/1/13

So it was really nice to get to talk to you guys on new years, it always weirds me out to see everyone on the video camera. I hope you guys could hear me alright when we talked. It was crazy to see Eva, mostly because she looks so much bigger than I remember her. Sorry that I didn`t let you know that I wasn`t going to be writing yesterday because they pushed our pday to tuesday because of new years and all the drunk people haha. I didn`t even know until sunday night that they were going to be doing that.

This week has been kind of interesting, I`m really getting kind of burned out lately. We`ve been going at it harder since Christmas just got over with and now the new year is beginning. On Friday we had to go to City of God it`s this small little town on the outskirts of Chiclayo because of a baptismal interview. The little family group(a family group is smaller than a branch, and a branch is smaller than a ward) is making a lot of progress out there, I haven`t been able to go tracting in the area yet but it seems to be progressing a lot. We haven`t seen a lot of progress with the investigadors in our area, It`s kind of a bummer. My companion isn`t too excited about getting out and knocking doors and we continue to try and work with the people that he and his companion were teaching. Were yet to see any results. I`m trying to get adjusted to my companion he`s a lot different than my other companion. We teach well together and I pretty much always feel the spirits in our lessons, so as far as that goes we`re doing well. I`m a little bummed because the zone didn`t have to much success this month, it was hard to leave the zone where we had done so much work and then get to another zone where there`s a ton of work to do. I was able to hear that some of the investigadors I was teaching with my old companion have gotten baptized. That made me pretty happy. On sunday our bishop got released, that was super sad because he was a really great bishop and he was soo sad when he gave his last testimony. We got to hear the new bishop speak in sacrament meeting and he seems to be really nice and down to earth, he shared a really strong testimony. The whole bishopric was changed, and so that caught me off guard. 

This week we put a baptismal date for one of our investigadors and she needs to get permission from her parents, she`s 14 If i`m not mistaken and she`s really desirous to follow christ. We`re gonna see this week if she can get baptized on the 12 her name is Stefani. Maybe you could keep her in your prayers :D It was pretty cool last night for new years because of all the crazy stuff the people were doing. All the people here burn like hay stuffed people, I wish I knew the word for that but they`re hay stuffed people with fireworks inside. We left our apartment for a little to watch all the people light off their fireworks and watch them burn their hay stuffed people the name for that still is coming to me haha. I thought a lot about this past year in the mission last night, and I feel pretty good about what I did with my companions and feel good about the work. Im really amped for this year, I hope that I can take advantage of this time and do the best I can :] ON a side note me and my companion got sick...it`s not too bad but my companion went to the hospital today because he has asthma and so if he gets too sick with the flu it can really affect him alot. we both have flu type symptomns. I`m feeling a lot better already but it`s a crummy because this week we have a million things to do. The beginning of every month is always the most nuts and crazy. Oh well...oh so I guess the packages you sent me got here :DDD Thanks so0ooooo much it`s the best thing to get a package, straightup makes your week everytime letters too. Oh and don`t forget about the pictures that I was hopping you could send!  :DDD I really wanteed to send a christmas package this month but I just never found time to do it :( I feel bad but i`m going to try and write some letters to everyone. I really have slacked off on that, it`s just so easy to email every week! But io`m going to try and write some lettesr i`ts the best to get those drawings from the little kids !! Love you guysss sooo much talk to you next week. SOrry theres no pictures because the comp is soo slow that I can`t download nada...byeee!

-Elder Connelly

Merryyy Christmaassss 12/17/12

Wow, it made me really miss Christmas in Utah when I saw all the pictures that you sent me. Christmas just isn`t the same here in Perú...but it`s been nice seeing some Christmas lights around. It`s definitely not like in Utah but you can feel the Christmas spirit. I really liked seeing the pictures of the family, I feel like everyone has changed soo much. Maybe it`s just me but Ava looks completely different and it feels super weird to see our house...I`m glad you guys are enjoying Christmas and doing a lot to keep that christmas spirit. We have one Christmas sock put up in our apartment hahaha we`re not to crazy about putting up a bunch of stuff in our apartment. Bryce is thinking about learning to play the banjo? What`s going on Bryce? Hahha. That`s cool i`m sure he`ll be good at just like at the drums. 

This week was jammed packed with tons of things that we had to do...on Tuesday we had Zone Council with all the ZL`s. It was cool the asistents talked about how are contacting can be more effective. President talked a little bit about the visit we had from Elder Camargo when he came a couple weeks ago. Then on Wednesday we had zone meeting with the elders and sisters and talked about similiar things in our zone meeting. We did a bunch of practices with contacting and how we can use the book of mormon to answer questions of the soul. It turned out to be a really spiritual meeting I think , It was cool. On Thursday we did a service project in our area and we painted in one of our investigadors houses, we`ve been teaching this family and they wanted us to help them out. So we painted their house that`s why I sent a couple of pictures where i`m in normal clothes hah. It`s a bummer because the family is struggling to progress because they don`t make to church everyweek so we`ve been trying to figure out what their main need was. They told us that their uncle is a catholic priest and that they didn`t want to cause any problems in their family by going to the mormon church. We we`re able to help them understand a little bit more about how they can overcome a challenge like this when there are people that keep us from doing what is right. On Friday we had to do divisions because of all the baptismal interviews we had in the zone, we had our second baptism in Sta Rosa (the new area) and so that was pretty awesome. On saturday we went to one of the baptisms in the zone. We`ve been running around everywhere it feels like this week. It`s been crazy. 

Oh sadly I didn`t think this was going to happen but there was changes this week. I thought that they were going to leave me here for three weeks more, because these changes are like in the middle of this transfer because there are lots of elders that are headed home for christmas. So we had emergency transfers in the middle of this transfer. Anyways yesterday we reported the zone`s numbers and they told us the transfers and I`m leaving :( it was so random I had no idea that they were going to take me out of my area. Just because I don`t have a lot of time here. It`s a bummer because I was planning on staying three weeks more and staying here for Christmas and now I^m headed to an area that I`ve never been in. I had an interview with President Risso on saturday and he didn`t tell me anything about me having a transfer but today in the morning he told me he was sorry but that they had to change me..I was soo bummed to have to have a change. One because I like my comp and two because christmas is next week..It`s okay though, i`m only going to be about 5 minutes from my current area and my comp is elder tamani I think he`s from the jungle here in Peru. I told elder ocampos that I`d try and give him the stuff that you guys sent in my package haha. The two of us were super confused when they we heard about the transfers. But I`m sure it`s for a reason, even though it`s not something that I really wanted. 

Oh on sunday we talked to Genesis the girl that is going to get baptized on the 29th and we were talking to her and we asked her how she was feeling about her baptism date. She said that she was excited and was happy how the gospel is changing her life. She told us thanks for teaching me the gospel and helping me to change my life. It was really cool to here her say that and watch her change her life. I read in my patriartical blessing that I would see people find enduring happiness as they centered their lives around Jesus Christ and now I`m seeing it happen. Sadly Îm not even going to be in this area...but I`m going to try and go to her baptism well at least I hope so..

Well I hope everything goes well for you guys during christmas and I`m excited to call on christmas and see everyone! Thanks for the packages and all the love you give me :) I hope you like the pictures!

-Elder Connelly

The pictures are from the service project, the christmas buletin, and in the pension today with the pensionista´s family. 

Christmas Time :) 12/10/12

Hiii, i`m doing good! I had a good week it was kind of a really long week but it was good :) How`s it going? Wow it`s getting really cold in Utah, I definetely miss the cold weather sometimes it`s getting to be a little bit hotter here now. I`m adjusted to the heat but it`s getting a lot hotter like in Arizona. Bryce is gettin pretty serious with his girlfriend it sounds like hahaha, how`d he meet her? You`ll have to fill me in a little more about that ;) You guys were watching the Grinch? That movie is a classic, I`m suprised dad has never seen it since Jim Carrey is the main character. That should be sweet to go and see Hobbit let me know if it ended up being a cool movie or if it was lame...When did Eli make that birthday wish?? Haha that made me laugh, I like to hear about the little kids and what they`re doing. I need to write Jessie a letter I haven`t written him at all I`m a loser. I`m glad he`s making so much progress, I`m going to keep him in my prayers. 

This week went good on Tuesday some elders from Guadalupe came to Chiclayo because they had to go to the hospital and they slept in our apartment. It was cool because we did splits with them and one of them had been my Zone Leader in Cajamarca so I got to catch up with him and talk for a while. On Wednesday we had a MultiZone meeting with about half of the missionaries that are here in Chiclayo and a Area Authority with his wife spoke and trained us at the MultiZone meeting. He`s name is Elder Camargo you probably haven`t heard of him but he taught us a lot about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how it is a Gospel of action. I took a lot of notes but I don`t want to waste too much time writing about it. hah. 

We`ve been working with this one reference named Genesis I wrote about her. She stills has her baptismal date for the 29th of this month. We couldn`t find her all this week and she came to church yesterday. We took advantage of the opportunity to teach her while she was in the chapel. It`s awesome because she pretty much does everything herself we don`t have to always be reminding her to keep her commitments, she`s fully commited to everything we invite her to do. But in the lesson we had with her yesterday we taught about the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom. She said she wouldn`t have any problem with these commandments and that she was willing to keep them, and then we asked her how she was feeling about her baptism on the 29th. She suprised us by saying that without question she is going to get baptized. That`s like the one thing a missionary wants to hear from their investidagores, it was pretty great. We`re going to try and meet up with her this week and see what happens. 

We`re also working with this family that has been coming to church and we put a baptismal date for the whole family for the 29th of this month. There`s three of them and so were going to do everything we can to get them to fufill their commitments and keep the commandments. We`ve been blessed in our area and we`ve found some really great investigadores. Keep Diana, Mercy, and Aldair in your prayers :D were going to be working with them this whole month. Oh yeah on Friday we sang christmas hymns in the stake relief society meeting, which turned out to be pretty cool. I can`t remember what songs we sang but one of the sisters in the zone knows how to play the violin and it was turned out good. 

Nothing too crazy happened this week, I`ve been listening to a lot of Christmas music at night. It`s super relaxing. Oh we put in our shower heater and now we have hot water, that was a highlight of this week, it`s funny sometimes because if my head touches the shower head I get shocked haha. The shower in our new apartment is a little bit bigger so it makes showering more enjoyable..and the toilet is also higher off the ground :) Things continue to go well in the zone and we`re just working and enduring to the end trying to pull through and have success. I`ve gotten a lot closer to my comp and we get along really well, I think i`ve been blessed to have awesome companions my whole missions because they`ve all been cool. Sometimes you can get in small arguements but I`ve gotten along really well with all my comps. 

I was reading the book of mormon this week about Alma and Amulek when they bust out of jail, it so awesome ahhaha sometimes I wish the book of mormon could be a movie. Alma and Almulek were so awesome teaching the gospel in Ammonihah. I`m going to try to finish the BOM before the end of this week Im not sure if I´ll make it but we´ll see. 

Today for PDay we did a Jinkana, it`s like a activity with a lot of different small games that you play with a group of people. We played this game where I got super deezy and felt like I was going to throw up haha, it reminded me of Lagoon. I never liked getting spinned in circles. I think I get that from Dad. But it was a pretty good day, I think the zone liked it too luckily. Its tough because if you plan something and the zone doesn`t like it we get the blame always haha. 

I`m stoked to get the packages you`ve sent me! :))))) Love you and talk to you next weeeeekkKKK!!!!!

-Christopher

P.S. sorry for the pictures they`re the only ones I have this week my comp thought he was funny and took the pictures hahaha

Endurance 12/3/12

This has been one of the longer weeks of my mission. I`m not sure why but it went by so slowww. We had to do a ton this week and I thought it was going to go by faster but it went by pretty slow. We had to move from our apartment to another place. It was kind of a bummer because we were living in this member`s house and it was a lot bigger than where we`re living now and it was in a nicer place. We had to move on Saturday morning and we were doing that all Saturday morning and on Friday we had a baptismal interview in Santa Rosa (the new area that just got opened up in the zone!) It`s the first baptism in this small fishing town in our zone we`re all pretty excited about the baptism. We took advantage of the situation and did a work visit with the elders that are in that area because of how far away they are from our area. I stayed there and tracted with Elder Canales he`s one of my better buddies here in the mission because we`ve been together in the same zones up until now in my mission. It`s funny because just about everyone in the city is evangelist and so they always like to argue about the doctrine and so sometimes it makes it hard to teach with the spirit. But it was a good experience and I always like getting to teach and tract with other elders to learn more. We got our tshirts too that was cool, they turned out to be pretty cool I`m going to attach a picture of me with the shirts we made. Today we hung out with the zone and ate tacos in Monsefu in the church it was fun just like we always do. 

We`re getting better and better in our lessons, our unity could be a lot better but I think it`s a lot better than it was from the beginning in this change. We`re still teaching the family calle cordova and they`re progressing a lot they went to church yesterday and they also went to the devotional last night. But they still don`t want to accept a baptismal date so we`re trying to help them to get a testimony. One of the daughters has told us that she prayed about the book of mormon and recieved an answer and knows it`s true, but for the family like for lots of people its hard to leave behind traditions. Sorry to only write this much but I don`t have a lot of time left to write...I attached some pictures of our new apartment and the shirt that we made for the zone :) Love you until next week!

-Elder Connelly

a good week 11/19/12

This week was pretty good well, just a lot more "tranquilo" than most weeks. I felt like we had a lot more time to teach and work in our area so that was pretty nice, i`m super stoked and really happy about the families that we are teaching in our area. We found 30 new investigadores last week and so we`ve just been teaching and working with them this week and only 6 of the 30 made it to the chapel yesterday. I`m pretty happy with that but it could be better :] We`ve been teaching famlies, that`s what has been the greatest. It makes it a lot more special to be able to teach famlies because you get to see them progress as a famliy and not just personally. We finally got a reference from the ward the last week and she had come to church the other week and we went to visit her this week and she accepted a baptismal date for December. Her name is Genesis and she told us that she wants to change her life and start from ground zero and follow Jesus Christ so she wants to get baptized just before new year to do it. While I was sitting here I just got a call from Elvis and he told us that he wants us to visit him tomorrow at 8pm, it was super random and I hope that it means that he is really actually ready to change. He had called us about 2 weeks ago drunk and told us how we had lied to him about the church and that Satan had sent us...it was a super big bummer. But I guess it means something good when he is the one searching us and not us. Sometimes it`s hard when people have to change their lives and leave behind addiction and old habits well actually it`s pretty much always hard. 

I`m working a lot with my companion so that he can learn more english it`s been pretty cool helping him out, he already knows a ton of english and we can have pretty much normal conversations in the apartment. He says he really has had to make an effort to learn the english that he knows, and he wants to be able to talk fluently in english. it made me reflect a lot the opportunity that God has given me to be in a different country and learn a different language, i`m not sure how it will benefit me after the mission but I feel really blessed to have been able to learn it. 

so today we went to Pimentel with the zone and played soccer and ate lunch as a zone it was relaxing and nice to just hang out and be with all the missionaries. Everyone is awesome and really nice in the zone so that makes it a lot more enjoyable. To answer your question about the food we don`t ever run out on food so you don`t have to worry about us we always have enough food and money to buy what we need in fact right now we`re going to go to the grocery store to buy food for the week. We probably don`t eat super healthy but what can you do when you don`t know how to make healthy food and your not a good cook hahahha. I`m learning new dishes to cook my companion knows how to cook a little so we don`t have to always eat macaroni and cheese haha. 

Oh funny story this week, yesterday we went to church and after church we were going to our apartment when some of the neighbors came walking up to talk to us. There`s this new house that is getting built in the neighborhood and so they were cleaning the street and shoveling dirt from the street and they wanted us to help them out on Sunday. We weren`t able to help them out but like I said we were coming back from church at about 11:30am and some of neighbors came walking up and start telling us how dirty and flithy we were for not having cleaned the front planting bed. We hadn`t been able to clean the planting bed out and there was some weeds and garbage there and they told us that we were dirty and filthy for not having cleaned our yard out. It was funny because they came with the only intention to make us feel bad I think well at least I felt that way. Our next door neighboor was yelling at us and we told him to calm down and we told them that we would clean our yard, they kept yelling at us and told us that we were dirty and needed to clean the yard. It was funny because we were talking all calmed and nice to them but they kept on harrasing us about our apartment. I cleaned the yard out this morning but it was a good learning experience for me to learn to be Christ like and to avoid contention. It made me feel so bad and it was funny because after it made me not want to do what they had told us. I believe that everyone needs to be treated with kindness and care just like you would want someone to treat you. It was something interesting and funny that happened to me this week.

I was glad to read a little bit about Tate`s homecoming and how everything is going back at home with everything and everyone. Keep me filled in on what is going on back home, you guys will have to let me know what your going to do for thanksgiving and all that! This is kind of random but if you were going to send me a package it`d be super nice if you`d send me a english dictionary not a english spanish dictionary but a english dictionary. I know that is kind of ironic that I want a english dictionary but it will help a lot! Love you guys!!!

-Elder Connelly

ps. the picture i sent is of the tshirts we made for our zone, what do you think???

hello...Hello...hello 11/12/12

Hey you probably shouldn`t send me pictures of the snow in Utah cause it makes me all home sick and sad knowing that I won`t be able to ski in that snow...haha. That looks so pretty with all the snow and the mountains makes me miss Utah a lot, there`s not too much to see in my area other than a lot of dirt and dust but that`s Chiclayo for ya haha. Sometimes it`s a pain because you get small specks of dust caught in your eyes you should send me my snowboarding goggles so I can track with those on :) That`s freakin crazy that Tate just got home, you´ll have to tell him I say hi. Did you guys go to his homecoming oh well I guess he wont have it til next week or the week after. Bryce is pimpin it up on the dates with the chicks uhhh  hahahha that`s cool i`m sure he`s enjoying that, but your definitely right mom he should avoid "movie watching" dates haha. Good to hear Joels surgery went well, tell him to feel better for me! 

So we had the zone conference on Tuesday and it was pretty sweet, it`s always been pretty special to go and hear about all the plans for the mission and all the work we´ve done. October was supposively the lowest month in baptisms for the mission, we finished with about 68 I think. It`s been a cool meeting to go to because President talks about all his worries in the mission and the plans that he has and his vision of the mission, he talks about doctrine and all sorts of cool stuff. We presented our work plan for the zone for this month and we`re excited about the plans we have. On Friday we had a work visit in Santa Victoria, it`s like the richest part of Chiclayo I think. When I was tracting there I felt like I was in the united states it was weird ha. I was with Elder Worsham he`s a stud, he`s from South Jordan I think he went to Taylorsville High. It really was a humbling experience because freaking nobody and I mean nadie wants to listen to you. There`s just a ton of doorbells with the microphone thing to talk through and so doing contacts is a complete failure in that area. It made me gain a lot of respect for the elders in that area. I`m so used to contacting people and being able to gain their trust and have a little conversation but the people in Santa Victoria don`t show any interest ha. 

This week we found 30 new investigadores it was bomb, we found a lot of families to teach and so we`re pretty happy about that. Sadly the baptism that we were going to have fell through because the dad doesn`t want to give permision to his daughter to get baptized...but we`re working with this super awesome family of 4 I think I already told you a little bit about them. On sunday it was cool because finally one of the members brought a friend to church and introduced us, we took out an appointment for this Thursday and she`s super interested so we`re going to see how everything works out there.

Thanks for writing tell Bryce and Dad and them to take like 5 minutes to shoot me a small email! Haha. I like to hear from you guys and know what`s going on. Talk to you next week!!!

-Elder Connelly