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