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 

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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!

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!!

-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!

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