Week 26

Ya so this week has been pretty good. Our family with a baptismal date is progressing very well and will be baptized on the 11th and they are hyped. Church was pretty good with them yesterday, only thing is her 10 year old son gets a little confused sometimes because he goes to a catholic school and then we teach him the real doctrine so we gotta get that straightened out. 

This week we had the worldwide training which was crazy. The brethren are going to change everything in all of the missions. From now on we are only going to have 4 key indicators, and we are going to be allowed to move around our study time throughout the day and we will return to our room at 10 and wake up at 7. Also our Pdays will start at 8 in the morning instead of 11 so that is pretty cool. We will see what other changes pres. does. 

We have interviews and conference this Wednesday with president. And not next pday but the pday after we will probably go to the temple again on Tuesday just so you know. 

I just want to tell dad sorry that I blew a ton of money this morning in Wong, I ran out of food and so I went and bought a ton more haha we are gonna whip up some pancakes sometime this week and finally eat that bacon you guys sent me. 

The water went out this week on Thursday (due to heavy flooding and debris in the Rimac River, Lima's main source of potable water) and so we didn't shower that day which was pretty nasty because it was super super hot, but ya oh well, I return everyday to the room soaking wet because it's so hot and humid. lol 

I forgot to tell you guys that I got a haircut last week and the barber took away my agency and just shaved my head practically. I have never had my hair that short before but right now I look a little more normal after a week of growth. I will see if I have any pics. She was like this world famous hair cutter that owns this huge salon and you have to schedule a full month before to get in with her and she did ours for free and it def was like a free haircut because I wouldn't have paid for it. 

So they told me this week that nutella is cancerous? there is some kind of oil in it that can be cancerous...if you guys know anything please tell me because i have been eating so much nutella here. well, its like the great value no brand that mom always bought at home but ya it's nutella more or less. 

We took the elders from the ccm (the Peruvian MTC) out on Saturday again and it was pretty cool. Haha they let me go alone with a noob and he was so lost and I felt kinda bad for him. He was headed to Piura where it is soooo fetching hot. Elder Juarez came from Piura and he told me all about it...poor kid. So ya anyway that's about it. I am the zone English teacher which is alright I guess. I have to keep track of all the Latinos and their progress in learning English so its chill.

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Much Love,

Elder Mortenson

Week 25

So this week has been pretty good! I'm just creeping up on the 6 month mark as the days keep passing and they are passing fast. Every day is a struggle but i am learning how to look at the good things and handle the stress and whatnot. I found out the exercise was what i was missing...like back in the day, and so i have been getting up a little earlier and i have some of those motivational video sound clips on my USB and i go hard and it has been really helping. 

So this week, I found mtn dew! the stores here are kinda wack and just kinda get what they get but we found tons of mtn dew and i loaded up on it because you don't find that here, so i am pretty hyped! 

On saturday we had the opportunity to go to the CCM (The Lima MTC) and listen to Elder Cook talk to us and have a Q-A session with him! it was pretty cool to see a bro from the hometown. Something crazy that he told us is that he and Elder Holland were companions in the mission in England!!! how crazy that they are comps again in the quorum of the 12! 

We have a family of 3 with baptismal dates! The mom, Rocio, and her sons, Alvaron and Adrian. They are ancient investigators but she just recently kicked her X husband out and now they are progressing and will be baptized the tenth of Feb!!! We are super excited for them. Oscar is having some trouble but we will see how he does. We are working hard with them. The family is super nice though and even invited us over to eat KFC ahah. It is super different here, it is actually good lol. 

I am suffering in this heat. It is hot and humid but whatever, sometimes life sucks. We just got done playing ultimate frisbee with a football. It made me think back to the good times because I haven't handled the pigskin in so long. We also just played dodgeball with taped rolls of toilet paper and watched Finding Nemo so that is sweet. 

My comp hits a year on thursday so we are gonna burn one of his shirts and go somewhere nice to eat idk where yet. 

So the craziest thing happened when we went to listen to Edler Cook, I found a friend! Elder Brooksby is serving here in my mission from SV and just barely got here this transfer! How crazy is that!? 

Anyway that is my week for you guys, my spiritual thought that isn't so spiritual is "obsession is necessary if you want to be great" there you go be obsessed with whatever it is that you want to do. 

peace

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Much Love,

Elder Mortenson

Week 24

Ya so today were the transfers for real and we are sticking together. It should be a fun transfer my comp is super super funny and loves to have fun. But he also works hard and is helping me out and teaching me along the way. He hits a year in two weeks which will be a fun celebration. 

This week nothing new really has happened. We are still contacting hard and looking for people to teach and whatnot. We have another part-member family we are teaching, a guy named Oscar who is progressing really well and will probably get baptized. We set the date for Feb 4. I hope all goes well, please pray for him. 

Yesterday was pretty crazy, we ate lunch with The Hurtados and he is so sic. He told me all about the new Star Wars Movie because he and his son are huge fans. He told us the apartment he lives in now is worth like 320K dollars, apparently, he is super rich. He laughed with us talking about how rough the mission was but how cool it was too. 

We went to the hospital yesterday and gave a blessing to a 25 year old dude who has been in a coma for like 15 days. It was super cool because he had just barely woken up right before we came in and we gave him a blessing and he was starting to respond so that was crazy. 

We cleaned our room today because it was so nasty. It took us like 2 hours. I have found a new love in killing cockroaches. Idk if i already told you guys this but i didn't know cockroaches could fly. Oscar told us something very inspiring the other day,"We are all men...until the cockroaches start to fly" hahahah which is sad but so true. They are so huge here it is crazy. 

Anyway i am out of time so i will talk to you next week. I will start writing the group emails first so i can tell you everything!

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Much Love,

Elder Mortenson

Week 23

Hey so ya we had emergency transfers today ahha. An elder is going home a week early and i think he kinda screwed everything up and tons of people got transferred so my comp left this morning and went to go train in a new area and i just received Elder Garcia my new comp from Honduras. I will send pics next week and you will see why i laugh when i see him hahahahaha. He is super funny and whatnot so i think it will be fun this transfer. 

This week i received a letter from the Morrison´s it was their Christmas card and it made me really happy. It sure was nice to see some familiar faces even though Ckev is still pretty ugly lol. Zack is asking me if we can come to his mission one pday so we can meet up but we can't. Maybe when our new president gets here he will let us because that would be really cool to see Zack out here. 

We had dinner yesterday with Hermano Hooker who has been a mission president and area seventy. He and his wife were so nice and spoke really good English. Haha they gave me a banana split and talked about really cool doctrine and whatnot and served us pachamanca(i think that's how its spelled) which was really good. 

Nothing much has happened this week. I am super nervous to be directing our area because it is absolutely huge and we don't have tons of investigators but we will see how it goes i hope we can find some new ones and the ones we do have can progress. 

I have really been struggling this week just trying to learn the lessons and what i could say in Spanish. It is really frustrating at times when things that i have been taught since i was 5, i cant even share with someone but i hope i will get there someday. I am just waiting for the time when i start enjoying this and time starts rolling by. Time goes fast but every day is a struggle. It does feel good to finally be under the 20 month mark though. 

I don't know if you guys know Jordan Larson the son of the dude that owns the sports academy but i was told he served here as well as Colton Pearson that i think went to SV as well. There seems to be a ton of people from Logan that have served here in this mish so that is pretty cool. 

Ya nothing much more to say only that i am struggling along everyday. Sometimes i look at all there is to learn and how much i need to grow and just get overwhelmed and idk where to start so there is that. Anyway, I will keep going on and keep struggling through! 

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Much Love,

Elder Mortenson

Week 22

On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 3:58 PM, Bryce Cameron Mortenson <bryce.mortenson@myldsmail.net> wrote:

So this week was pretty good. The Peruvians celebrate New Year´s here pretty crazily haha. They wear everything yellow(idk why) and they burn dolls to pass on the dead and hit piñatas that look like people to take out their anger lol and shoot off a billion fireworks and projectiles. We weren't allowed to stay out and i was super tired so i just went to bed haha luckily i am a heavy sleeper and i have earplugs. It was cool though, I took my comp to Pizza Hut to celebrate on Saturday night and we got a huge meatlovers pizza!

This week we finally found some new people to teach! We have been searching and searching contacting all of the members we have on our registry and we found a mom of 7 who isn't a member but all of her kids are and they have even served missions too! I think she should progress. We also found another mom whose son is studying to become a priest haha and we had a lesson with them both. luckily he doesn't know much and didn't want to argue so we will see how they go. 

I found a Dunkin´ Doughnuts here in one of the grocery stores and it is the exact same as in the States, so we have gone there a couple of times. My comp has never tried any of this stuff so i let him try it. the grocery store is also connected to a mall that we arent supposed to go in but they didnt have bathrooms anywhere else...super weird. I realized that we are so disconnected from the world haha. 

I have found out a couple of things in my time here. First, that like at Lake Powell, the sun just saps my energy and I tan super easy. And second, that I literally know nothing about the gospel or how to teach people. So ya that's about where i am at right now. I've got a lot of reading and practicing to do. I just read the Book of Mormon over again in Spanish and i am going to read the New Testament afterwards and then the missionary library. It is super hard because people expect me to know everything because i have gone to church since i was born. 

but ya anyway this week has been pretty normal. Everyday is a grind to contact people and find them. I am hitting plateaus in the language which isn't good. We started the new mission rule of speaking english in the apartment so Elder Juarez is learning a lot. I finally got under the 20 month mark today so that is pretty cool! 

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Much Love,

Elder Mortenson

Bryce and Elder Juarez 17 Stories up

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Much Love,

Elder Mortenson

Week 21

On Mon, Dec 26, 2016 at 4:00 PM, Bryce Cameron Mortenson <bryce.mortenson@myldsmail.net> wrote:

It was so great to talk to you all yesterday, but now there is not much to say today. We went to McDonald's again today. Elder Manzanera goes home in 3 weeks so he dropped like 1000 sols at the Nike store here. Like its a real, legit Nike store and I feel like it's cheaper than in the States lol. 

I woke up at 6 this morning and lifted legs. I am gonna try harder not turn into flub as Laura would say. Not that i think i will but i dont want to lose too much weight. Im trying to find someone who can buy me a pull up bar to put in the doorway but we will see. 

It's super weird celebrating Christmas here, it was cool but weird. we hardly did anything yesterday hahaha. The family where we skyped from gave us ties and socks and whatnot so that was nice. Their sons were all there from Utah so i gotta talk with them. they brought their new xbox down from the states so that made me a little trunky. 

Shout out to Brock for hangin in there with the broken foot. 

I've got plenty of picture to send you guys. When you are just chillin in the room with your comp and Christmas decorations you gotta take a ton of pics. These are with some members too and my comp loves dogs so we pet and take pics with tons of dogs because they are actually clean here lol. 

 

I have some big ole blisters on my heals from those brown shoes I have. I'm gonna have the soles and bottoms replaced or probably buy some new ones. 

ya nothing more, Merry Christmas! hope it was chill and you didnt get too involved in the presents and took some time to think about our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

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Much Love,

Elder Mortenson