Christmas - A Little Different This Year!

December 22, 2014

So yes I have been chastised and I guess that I will just have to do a better job with pictures and longer emails.

This week has been pretty good for the most part!!  We are finding lots of people that are really open to talk with us about Jesus this time of year.  We usually contact people for about 2 hours a day. So we just need people to be home now when they say we can come and visit them.  But a really good week for the most part.

Me and Elder Cueto during the rainy season!

Chuno- - "Yeah, it is so nasty mom!!!!  But I stuff it down in
like 10 seconds so that I don't really taste it."

This week we were up on the mountain contacting.  It is the rainy season here in Puno so it rains close to every day and all night every night.  We were up on the mountain contacting about 20 minutes from our house when it just started to pour. We were stuck up there.  We were standing next to this house when this little old lady opened her door and told us that we could hang out where she keeps all her potatoes.  We went into this little shack for like 25 minutes and just shared our favorite scriptures it was a grand time really.

I have been working really really hard on memorizing more words in Spanish the past couple of days.  It is starting to pay off.  I can pretty much understand anything anybody says.  It is a lot easier when you can understand the question of the investigators.

We won't have a baptism this week and we were a little sad about that.  We  just couldn´t teach all the lessons fast enough to Brayan.  We have been working so hard and are not seeing much progress in anyone and that is discouraging.  We were talking the other day in estudiar compañerismo (companionship study) and  we both said how disappointed we were.  I remembered a little quote in preach my gospel that says how you shouldn't measure your success by baptisms.  Think at the end of each day if you have given the Lord your all and worked as hard as you can - then you have had a successful day.  I have remembed that every day this week.

I bought lights to put above my bed.  Here we are being all festive!

Chistmas is different this year.  There is really no way to describe the feeling.  No snow.  No family.  No friends.  No tree.  No......yeah no lots of  stuff but I have watched the video that the church put out for Christmas and we all have the greatest gifts on earth.  Jesus.  His atonement and life is the best gift we have and ever will be given.

We are teaching a lady who went to church for 2 years when she was 19.  She knows so much about the church....it is kind of hard to teach her actually.  Her daughter is really awesome though.  She said that she know it is true.  We just need them to go to church now.

I don´t exactly know when we will skype.  We just found someone who is going to let us use their house so yeah.  I get to call you on christmas eve on the telephone for like 5 minutes to tell you exactally when and all that jazz.  so I will call that night will all the details.

Love elder George

My Week In a Nutshell

December 15, 2014

This week was a pretty good week.  We didn´t have a lot of work to do this week but we worked hard anyways.  No appointments and a lot of people that were not home.  This week was actually kind of sad.  A really hard long week in the mission,

First off the good.  I have recieved 2 packages and I had to open one so yeah, I opened one.  It made my week a little bit better!!  American candy cost a arm and a leg here and so I have to ration and eat only a little here and a little there.  But thank you all everything is recieved with much gratitide.

There were some really good parts to this week too.  We had our Christmas devotional with President Harbertson.  He is the BEST.  He gave us a gift.  It was a Book of Mormon.  His challenge for us was to read it this year and in every verse question why Mormon included this story or what not. I am really excited to start after I reak my Book of Mormon in Spanish.

We had kinda a bad week with investigators.  Maritza told us that she wanted to be baptized when she was her moms age or so, 50.  We really struggled with this and have been praying really, really, hard for her.  WE have a lesson in a few days and will try to explain more clearly the importance of baptism.  We are teaching a part member family and the two little kids really want to be baptized and so I think that they are kind of a blessing for us.  Yessica is hard to get with her husband and be able to teach at the same time but we are working hard with them right now.  We just visited with a family last night and they are so amazing.  They have 4 little girls and make me think of home and my 4 sisters though they are all smaller but so cute and I just love them.  The 4 little girls love me and Elder Cueto and told us that we could visit whenever we wanted.  Their parents are pretty religious and have some questions but I think that when they pray they will know.

That is pretty much my week in a nut shell.

Much Love Elder George

It's Always the Same But SO Good!

December 8 2014

Another week?  Whenever I heard some one say that in the mission the days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days I honestly thought that they were on drugs.  How can a week feel like a day?  How can a day feel like a week?  Well I know exactly what they were talking about.  I feel so blessed to be on a mission it is really one of the best experiences of my life.

So this week was really really good.  We taught a lot of lessons and a lot of people are really progressing in our area.  First off Maritza, she is awesome and really wants to be baptized.  There is one small problem.  She still lives at home with both of her parents and they want her and her older brother Jonathon to be baptized on the same day.  We have a cite......appointment (I forget that word for a minute) this week where we will talk to their parents and explain to them the importance of baptism.  Jonathan is not progressing at all and that makes our job really really hard.  We asked if she would be baptized on the 27th of this month and she said yes, we just have to work with her parents now.  Hermana Virginia is doing really well too.  She has 4 kids.  Luis, Jose, Micheal, and Jasmine.  They are so cute.  We are asking them this week if they will prepare to be baptized on the 27 also.  We have really, really, really, really, big plans for the 27th.  We hope all goes well and that our plans will all work out.  It will bless lots of lives if they do.

Last week we went out for pizza and let me tell you how insanely awesome that was.  I have to tell you something - - that was one of the most celestial experiences of my life here in Peru.  Really though, the rice and chicken is not so good for my insides and I have been, well in the john like all of the time here.  I am healthy I just well......don`t know really.  But really I am fine no need to worry.  It is normal here, at least for the white people.  And it is really only during the night that I have any problems.  When we are out and about during the day I am just fine.  I guess Heavenly Father makes sure I can get the work done that he wants me to do during the day and leaves me to deal with myself during the night.   When we went out for pizza everything got better.  How weird is that?  But I am grateful!!

Anyways it is hard to write about each day because they are all the same.  Walk around a lot.  Have a lot of APPOINTMENTS fall through and walk around some more.  Teach a little, show a little video to a family and try to get EVERYBODY to come to church.  We literally invite everyone we see to come to church. No one ever comes but our attendance is going up.  Our goal it to consistently have like 60ish people come.  That is huge for us really we have had 54 one time and that was like......awww - - I don`t even know how to explain it!!!

My testimony is the strongest it has ever been and I love Peru.  The people here are so awesome, when they are sober, and I just awww.  Don`t really have word for it.

Elder George

PS mom could you give my Andrew's Email

Dogs, Drunks, and Six Weeks in the Field

December 1, 2014

Another week!?!  So time is  crazy in the mission because we will work and work and work and then it is P-day and I get to write my family.  I feel like just yesterday I was in this gross little shack writing another letter. ;)

I just finished my first change in the field and what a 6 weeks that is had been!!  I have learned so much and my testimony is so much stronger!!  My companion, Elder Cueto, is from Santa Cruz in Bolivia.

So I was reading in the Bible and I read a scripture that I love so much!!! It is in Matthew 19:26!!  I love it, go read it!  "But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all thing are possible."

Any ways the work is going really good.  We contacted this family in the street and the mom's name is Virginia.  She is so awesome.  We taught them the night that we contacted them.  She loves the fact that you could say a prayer and really talk to Heavenly Father, not just say the same repeated things over and over.  She was more than happy to say the prayer at the end of the lesson.  She didn´t come to church but two of her little boys came.  They love us and they loved church so that is good.  Our other investigator that is coming along really well is Maritza.  She has been to church twice but hasn´t committed to baptism yet even though she tells us that she knows that is it true.  Soon, I can tell.  I will just keep praying for her.

We have problems with dogs like everyday.  The other day we were just walking down this path, definitely can´t call it a road, when we heard 10 or 12 dogs running and barking.  At first I wasn´t worried at all because what is new really here?  But after about 20 seconds I got a little nervous. We turned around, and you know how in the movies when there is a bunch of dust following fast moving objects, well I got to see that in real life.  Something new right.  But WOW.  Yeah we threw a lot of rocks and ran a little and in the end only dog got to us.  Perfect way to end a day.

Elder Cueto and Me

We had some problems with drunks this week too.  One tried to fight us.  Elder Cueto was ready and told me if it happened again he would take care of him because he didn´t want his little baby to get hurt.  He loves having a white "hijo."  I am his "son" in the mission and he is my "dad" in the mission.  He love that I am white.

I am a little sad today because one of my friends from the CCM, who I really love and  that was in my area when home.  He hated the mission and the language.  It was really really hard for him.  But who isn´t the mission hard for right?  The Zone Leaders gave me his package that came today and I felt really bad opening it and seeing the pictures his family had sent him and all the things.  I emailed him hopefully he will get it and feel of my love for him.  He really is a great guy and I am blessed because he was with me in the CCM.  He will always be my friend!

We are working hard and are seeing the blessings of it!!

Love you all keep praying for me I can feel of you love and support the 8000 miles away!!:)

Much love,

Elder George!!