Week 18

Whats up guys so tomorrow i finish my second transfer. Haha it seems like just yesterday i got to the CCM in mexico scared to death for what waited for me ahead. I am being transfered to San Borja in La Molina. I am super pumped to see what it is like. La Molina is the richest part of Peru and San Borja probably only comes in second in richness in all of the districts that are in La Molina. My new comps name is Elder Juarez and they say he has like 9 months in the mission and is from peru so we will see what he is like. Elder Wilcox served there for 2 transfers and was telling me that the teaching is hard because the people are a little more prideful but the members and area are awesome. I will let you know how it is next week. 

 

So this week we had our zone meeting and they are changing everything in the mission around. Just some things that will affect you guys is that they are changing the scheduling of P days so i will be writing from now on at 3 here in peru. They are changing everything though. There is no longer a program to rescue less active members, they just want us to baptize. They say that the keys and the responsibilty for rescuing falls with the ward quorum presidents. But they can assign us a couple families to visit and just motivate to come to church but we no longer have to like teach them all the lessons and whatnot. but also the rules to be able to baptize will change in the coming year. There is tons of stuff that will be super good and cool for the mission and i am excited. 

So the family Perez wasnt able to get all of their paperwork in and whatnot so they are going to get married this friday at 3 and then get baptized right after so hopefully i will be able to get the invitation to come back and see them. They are so dope and have truly been prepared by the Lord to receive his gospel. That is also another stress this upcoming year is finding the chosen people and get them the gospel. idk if its just me but with them wanting us to just baptize and baptize it seems that the second coming must be near. 

We were able to watch the christmas devotional last night in english like we did with conference so that was cool. The talks had super interesting takes on why we celebrate Christmas. I really liked the first one where he said we celebrate Christs birth but that is not the start, neither is his death the end. And how we came here to earth fully trusting that He would pay the price and make it so that we could return. And also how Christ entered the garden almost completely alone with the fate of humanity in his hands. So that is what we really celebrate, the fact that we can receive mercy through our Lawyer, so to speak, and not receive the penalty of justice from the Judge. We also had a stake wide activity where we sang as missionaries and it was super cool. For christmas this year, as zones, we are going to go caroling from what i understand so that will be fun in like 400k degree weather. 

I had my 12 week final training with president boswell this week so that was fun. It made me really think about where i want to go in not only the mission, but in life. i am really figuring things out here. like why i am here and where i want to go and what is important. It is super cool. One thing interesting that they mentioned to us in our training was that, what other time in our lives will we have the opportunity to study the scriptures for like 3 hours a day for 2 years. I have learned so much just from that and i hope to just keep rollin. 

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Much Love,

Elder Mortenson