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