6/17/10 Letter to Kim from Tyler - Pigs outside!

WOW that sounds interesting, i wonder why everything was going wrong. I am trying to take Job´s attitude with facing troubles like that. God doesn´t give us challenges so that he can sit back and laugh with amusement, no he loves us too much and he gives us challenges that way we have the opportunity to grow and become more Christlike. I know that i have had to really learn and understand how to bear all things with patience in this part of my mission and hope that i can be given the strength to continue on. OH i have had some interesting experiences. we were teaching this one family who are recent converts and they live in this woven bamboo hut and just outside is the pig pen. did you know how extremely loud pigs are? well we are talking to people the pigs are´belching´´ and they are talking softly and at the same time so naturally I'm not getting much out of it, but i did understand that this man has seen angels in his life and they are some pretty interesting stories. but the thing is i don´t know how much to believe. because you don´t really hear much of this in the US and i don´t know maybe it is culture these people really have nothing but family work and church, oh and TV and soccer. did you know most of the bamboo huts here have a TV for watching soccer it is way interesting, any ways I think maybe alot of them are real and that people in the US are simple too plugged in to really notice all of the miracles going on around them, i know that i have really seen the hand of god on my mission much more than before and i don´t know if it is the fact that i have unplugged myself or the fact that I'm a missionary and this is normal. anyways i love you so very very much and hope to hear from you soon! BTW have you had any challenging companions? what did you do? any great companions? why were they great? DEARELDER.COM me the answers! ADIOS! AMOR!

6/14/10 Left CCM - San Isidro, Santiago, Ica Peru- First bout with food!

Well from now on I'm pretty sure my P-days will be Monday from now until i return from my mission so that might make it a little bit easier on the email front as for letters i received dads first Dear elder before i left and am anxiously waiting for the others.? It sounds like a lot has been going on at home and sorry its been so long since the last email this week has been completely crazy!? Well i am in my new area. I am serving in the San Isidro, Santiago, Ica, Peru portion of my mission.? It took about five hours on a bus a overnight stay with our zone leaders and a 45 min taxi ride but i made it safe and sound! I love it here. The people are not a crazy as the people in Lima and i heard that it is the same with all of the provinces,? but the people here have absolutely nothing, i picture it kind of like the St David/Benson area small area with a bunch of houses the size of grandmas shed all sharing walls.  I have taught lessons in houses made out of woven bamboo and a dirt floor and have had a lot of times when I have said wow people actually live like this! Poverty is extreme but the people are happy and ready for the gospel, we keep finding a ton of people that would like to listen to us and it is way exciting, my new companion is ELder Rodas from Equador, he is an amazing elder he has only been on his mission since December but he is such a great missionary.? The language is as always a challenge, because the people here speak different than they do in the city of Lima, i think that it isn't so much as different words as it is that they say things differently.? Teaching has also been an interesting experience, the people here are not very educated especially the elderly.? talking to some of them about the gospel is very challenging because we will talk about how God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost are different people for a half hour not because they don't believe it simply because they don't understand and it takes a lot of patience especially when you don't know the language and have only one way to explain something but my companion has been a great help to me, the children are easier to teach because most of them are becoming more educated which i think is amazing, oh wow my zone leader just handed me 8 letters all from AZ WOOOHOOO! I'm looking forward to tonight! and will try and write back soon!? anyways my story ok so the people here are impoverished right but somehow they manage to have food, and i mean a lot of food.? most of the people here either work in the store or in the fields which i have no idea what they do but it is always store field or factory.? so our lunch appointment forgot and didn't prepare anything so we went back and had some rolls in our apartment and went back out to teach this part member family.? well they had prepared a feast they set us down and gave us a bowl of soup each and we ate and talked and i was full of rolls and soup and was ready to go when they brought out the main course, it was a giant plate stacked two inches deep with rice topped with potatoes and peppers and sauce.? I about died trying to eat all of it because if you don't eat it it goes to waste because they wont eat it if they give it to someone so I'm dieing and just as i finish my companion is about a fourth of the way through and he says I'm sorry i haven't been feeling well so do you mind if i can take this with us?? I was flabbergasted i didn't know you could do that here i ate until i was literally feeling ill and he just casually takes it with us.? ugh after that i had to go back to our room and lie down for a minute while my companion called the president and talked to him about how sick he was and i passed out for what was probably an hour and then we went back out teaching.? that night for dinner we were at this other house and were served a giant soup.? well i wasn't hungry but i started at it when my companion said STOP! and he pointed at the meat in my soup and said we can't eat this and he tells the woman and hear i am with ten spoonfuls of this bad meat and what not inside of me freaking out thinking i just got a virus and now I'm going to die great at least I'm dieing of my mission.? well today i am reaping the rewards of my meals i think i have literally dropped a depth charge into my bowels and have had a lovely time on our broken toilet.? Sorry i can't give you pictures i forgot my camera you will just have to be patient as i try and figure everything out.? I think that this next week will be amazing and hope to get more letters soon.? Don't  forget that you don't need an immediate response from me before you write again writing letters is a good way to make sure your doing something important with your week, if you need a recap of how i feel about letters and missionaries just ask SAMANTHA MANNES if she doesn't hate me too much! LOVE YOU ALL SOO VERY VERY MUCH!

June 2, 2010 - Hard experiences - more growth!

How different are the keyboards? way different mast of the keys are in the same place but there are different letters like ñ and other things are rearranged so it is definitely taken getting used to! Have i found anyone to alter my clothes yet? NO I'm waiting for the field when have time to take it and pick it up and get measured. other than that i have no idea where other than maybe a dry cleaners. How is the language barrier? I'm knocking holes in it, i have officially gone for like a full 24 hours without being lost at any point during the day! Me and my companion can communicate kind of it depends on how patient he is and how focused i am but we manage. Were you able to go out on Friday? yes we were able to go out on Friday and it was definitely different from my other experiences. When is my departure date? Next Tuesday is my next P-day so write early and i leave wed morning! ;) Any rumbling in Peru? YES! we have experienced a minor earthquake and that one i didn´t even feel but the people in the cafeteria said the tables were bouncing and the windows were pulsating. I still haven´t received any of your letters yet however i do have to say i am sorry to SAMANTHA MANNES because i had just wrote a pretty decently long letter calling her and Lance and Leslie to repentance for not writing me and had just put it in the mail and sent it off when two hours later i got a letter from Sam so SAM I AM SORRY and i wrote you a pretty good make up letter that i put in the mail but wont be sent till next Monday, so when you get this one try and read it and laugh at my pettiness! but it is still necessary for lance and Leslie to read it so share it with the world. and i will thank you mom for hopefully relaying the message! ;) Okay my story about this Saturday is kind of a gut wrenching one because of how sad it was, but i was able to grow a lot from it and i think that i now have some idea of what really happens out in the real world. so we headed back out to Callao but were in a different part of Callao and this time instead of going with a teacher and a member we had the magnificent pleasure of proselyting with the brand new bishop of this ward. so we went out with him and he and my companion hit it off really well telling jokes and laughing, so i was feeling sort of like a third wheel in a foreign country where no one would talk to me but i had hope we would be able to get in and teach a lesson and feel the spirit! well this brand new bishop thought that this time to proselyte would be an excellent time to find out who the inactive members of his ward are so we would show up at the door and he would talk to the members for about ten minutes on the doorstep and then look at us and say they have a message to share with you. well i have no idea what the needs of these people are you were talking Spanish at high speed and i got nothing out if it, so i wait for my companion to bear his testimony, OK going to church OK that easy i can do that so i bear my testimony and then the bishop thanks then for their time and starts walking away and I'm thinking what the heck is going on we are supposed to be going out and teaching people and getting commitment to return to church and blah blah blah well this continues FOREVER and it honestly felt like we were making mandated office visits to bear a two sentence  testimony and move on, it was awful and i really struggled with feeling any unity with my companion or the spirit and so i returned to the CCM in a depressed funk. well thanks to some of the people in my district they were able to get me to smile but i really was trying to figure out why i couldn´t feel the spirit and why my companionship and speaking ability tanked. Well I prayed really really hard and this is the response that i hear'felt'thought ´´you are in a different country speaking a different language and have had the blessing of my spirit and strength continually with you and yet you feel robbed when you don´t have an amazing proselyting experience every single time´´ well after feeling that i put myself in the right frame of mind and being grateful for everything! i have even had a fast to try and improve my companionship and it has worked! i know God is real! no time love you by looking forward to my DEARELDER:COM letters