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

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