Week 20

So this week was good. the transfer is already flying by which is sad because it is super fun. Elder Juarez is super dope and we laugh hard. Tons of contacting again but we are getting in a few more lessons. We have a guy who has a baptismal date for the 14 of January. His wife is a less active and he has a little 9 year old daughter that will be baptized in march so that is good that we have someone that is progressing. We will find others though.

A couple of stories that happened this week. We were knocking doors in this kind of alley way type deal and i ring the doorbell and hear "over here" from behind and i was super confused thinking it wasn't real. Anyway turned out to be this huge white dude from Houston that got married and moved down here. It was super duper weird to do a contact in English after so long of only spanish. We will see if he has any interest.

Another one is that i ate fast food for the first time in 130 some odd days! We went to the stake christmas activity and elder manzanera and i sang a duet lol it was trash but everyone here is tone-deaf so its ok, and we were getting home super late because it was way far away and we hadn't eaten so i stopped at the mcdonalds on the corner near our house and got a big mac and fries and a coke and it tasted exactly the same lol! it was awesome and so good!

Since this area is super rich, there are tons of malls and whatnot here and there is a huge one in our area. My comp showed me this place that looks the same as the nutrishop where i bought some stuff and we are doing our exercises. It is awesome because he actually likes to workout unlike my other comps.

We ate dinner sunday night with some members and her brother was there visiting from Bountiful lol. After his mission, his mission pres invited him to live with him in Provo and go to BYU, he is from Trujillo, and so he did and he got married and is living in bountiful right now. He is super dope and i think he will like call you guys or email you or something. They are the ones who are gonna loan us their computer to skype on sunday. Which btw we will be doing at like 3 here in Peru.

It is super weird to be celebrating christmas in like 90 degree weather. I have to wear sunscreen everyday otherwise i would look like a latino as well because i tan so easily. The peruvians celebrate about the same as we do, with trees and tons of lights and whatnot too. There are like infinity nativity scenes set up all around town and i am still working on getting a pic with this like 30 foot fake 

Brycie The (Gigantic) Elf

tree set up in ovalo. 

so ya ill talk to you guys on sunday! 

Week 19

Ya so this week has been pretty good! My new area is super super rich in comparison to anywhere else in Peru. it is like the U.S. it reminds me a lot of seattle tbh like the streets and little restaurants and whatnot. i will take pics to show you. My new comp is dope. Elder Juárez from Piura, Peru. He loves to workout and is super chill and teaches me a ton of crap it is awesome! There is a Chili´s in our area and a mcdonalds and a burger king and tons of other sic stuff that ive gotta go to. Its just difficult to go because we have the pension and on pdays no one wants to go but i will find a way. There are huge malls and whatnot here it is super weird to see after seeing the super poor side. 

I got your package and it was awesome. it was fetching huge hahaha. i weighed myself and turns out i have lost more than i thought! i am at 213 right now and i left at around 225 so that sucks. 

I got to go to the baptism of the Perez Family this week back in my old area! i baptized one of their twin daughters. it was super cool, they got married first and then baptized right after. they have been so prepared. i got to meet Elder Gozalvez´ brand new comp. i guess he has really been struggling but he is a really cool guy from Idaho falls! i will send pics. 

My new zone is pretty dope. my zone leader is Elder Manzanera who was elder Wilcox´s comp in the ccm. he used to be a super hardcore dude but he is cool. my comp is the District leader for our zone. lol it could be worse and he could be the DL of the other district in our zone which is complete hermanas hahahah. 

We went out with the elders from the ccm again this saturday. hahahaha boy am i glad i dont have to relive that or even relive the last 3 months of my training. They sure struggle with everything. 

We did 80 contacts this week in our area. There is absolutely nothing set up here, we are practically opening the area. To let you know, the mission-wide weekly goal is 50. We havent found much but one couple. We do tons of walking and a little tiny bit of teaching. It will be a real challenge but it will be a real good experience to learn and to grow here. 

we eat breakfast in our room here in San Borja and the rest in our pension. Everyone has tons and tons of money. The 2nd counselor in the bishopbric is an X mission pres and area 70. Tons of people can speak english. I have seen like jeeps and mercedes benz and even a ford raptor to let you know how rich it is. It is super cool. Hopefully we can find people that will progress. please pray for our area and the people that we can find those chosen souls.

 Elder Juarez and me lighting it up!

--Eating Lomo Saltado at members house

Much Love,

Elder Mortenson

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. 

--

Much Love,

Elder Mortenson

Week 17

This week was good. this transfer has flown by, if every transfer can fly like this one that would be awesome haha. So my email last week kinda lacked so i will try to make up for it. 

 

we just got back from the temple. it was so nice to go somewhere clean and reverent and spiritual haha because you cant find that here in peru. the temple is a little baby one, like our stake center seems about as big as it but it awesome nonetheless. we did one session with our zone and then took pics and went shopping. i dropped like 100 sols (about $30 U.S. Dollars) and didnt even feel bad because you all just spent 100 dollars for black friday. 

 

thanksgiving isnt a holiday here but our pension made us mashed potatoes and chicken which was somewhat like thanksgiving i guess. you dont eat a ton of mashed potatoes here. 

 

So last sunday we missed the sacrament. we went to pick up a less active family who both served missions but just kinda fell away and they took forever to get ready we ended up waiting at their door for an hour and a half haha but it was awesome because they hadnt been to church in like 12 years. 

 

we went on divisions this week and i went with elder paiva our new zone leader. he is so dope. he served in the military for 3 years before he came and he was like super inactive beforehand but now he is so spiritual. he taught me so much crap just about life and whatnot and i am beginning to see why i am here. but most of the guys in our mission arent unlike him, super inactive before hand and then active just long enough to be sent out to the mission. it is pretty cool stuff. 

 

it is getting super hot. the heat here is like that of lake powell. it is super dry and the sun just bakes you and you cant hide from it anywhere. but it is alright i guess im just glad it isnt like that year round. i am also glad that i should only miss one lake powell trip too haha

 

so this week i had my first baptism. Her name is Esperanza and the missionaries have been visiting her for like 6 months now. her whole family are members and they are going to get sealed here soon which is really cool. The baptismal service took 3 hours because everyone was late and we had to wait on her brother to arrive from la molina which is like an hour with the traffic and whatnot. but in the end it was really cool. ill tell you what the water in the font is like ice water holy fetch its like wading out into bear lake in may when you think it will be warm but it still takes your breath away haha. Also, our golden family should get married and baptized this saturday if all goes well with their paperwork and whatnot. it will be really cool to see. they have made so many changes in their lives to live the commandments and they want to learn so much about the gospel. i will email you next week with pics and let you know how it goes. 

Much Love,

Elder Mortenson



Week 16

This week went by fast which was good. We have been hard at work. We went to Pizza Hut last p-day because there is one not too far away in our zone so that was dope. The most american thing i have eaten in 3 months haha. Our pday's here are trash because there is nothing to do or to see so we literally do nothing but like watch a disney movie and play soccer but its ok. 

 

we rescued 2 less actives this week which was dope. There is so much fetching work to be done with the less actives because fetching everyone is less active. literally Peru holds like a 20 part of the whole church and almost all of them are less active lol. But the promise a member of the Seventy made to the mission is that for every person rescued you get a baptism and randomly on sunday 2 ancient investigators showed up to church and said they used to have a baptismal date and that they want us to come back and visit them so there you go. 

 

So i had a thought this week and this one is for Brett and Brock, baptism is the door to eternal life right? and after we open the door we find the straight and narrow path in which we have to persevere. its kinda like goku on snake way lol. and when we finally get to King Kai we still have to do more training to be the best. 

 

Honestly nothing much has happened this week. I should have divisions this next week so that will be fun because our zone leaders are dope. i cant believe i only have 2 weeks left  in this transfer, it has gone by so fast. soon enough i will talk to you guys on Christmas and then soon enough i will have 6 months already in the mission. The two years really is a short period of time. Once I hit the new year its almost like 1 year more haha. 

 

Just one thing that I think I want. Will you send me some contacts? with the hot sun I sweat and my fetching glasses like fall off my nose constantly and it's super annoying. Elder Wilcox, our zone leader wears his contacts and he is fine so i think if i am just careful i will be alright.

 

And also tell gram and gramps thanks for the package and the card and tell jan too. i am so hyped about my Cholula because the peruvians dont like spicy stuff very much and that is something that I really miss. 

 

Anyway all is just fine. I am adjusting slowly but if i get transfered, which i probably  will, i will probably have to readjust but ill be fine. ill talk to you guys in like a month over skype. 

 

 

--

Much Love,

Elder Mortenson



Week 15

So this week has been pretty good! i am starting to enjoy this a little more and get used to my circumstances here. it has been hard and i still am not completely there but it is a little easier. 

 

I have been keeping a personal dictionary where i write down all of the new words that i hear and it is filling up fast! but it has really been helping me learn the language. i still have trouble with the way that they say things and the structure of things but i am learning everyday. it has been nice to have Elder Gozalvez as my comp who speaks practically no english. one of the things that i noticed this week that is a real disability as we were talking with a less active member is that i have no idea how to help these people with some the things they experience in their life. haha im only 19 with practically no life experience and they expect me to help these people? but as i was thinkin about that i realized that i dont need to because the gospel of jesus christ is there to help everyone find their answers and solutions. i love the invitation that the brethren make to us, that if we have a deep question or concern in our life, read the book of mormon with it in mind and look for ways that it answers it. the book truly can answer almost anything in ways you never wouldve thought. 

 

i have had some experiences with some agnostic people and even a couple of atheists as well. trying to teach these people or listening to them make their point kind of tests your faith occasionally. it makes you really think about what you believe. but all of my doubts disappear when i realize how perfectly everything in this church fits together. i just thank God everyday that i was born into a family where i know what i know since i was born and for the blessings that i have received through that knowledge. it is so sad to see how lost people are out here and for the ones we find, how hard they have been searching for the message that we bring. it is amazing. 

 

i was reading in PMG this week about Eternal Marriage because we are trying to ease this couple into getting married so she can get baptized because he is less active and i found the coolest quote. it says ´heaven is a continuation of the ideal home´ it made me think of how my future home might be and how it should be. imagine heaven how you will and then put that into your own home... pretty cool thought. 

 

Anyway i am learning a ton out here. more than i ever could have anywhere else. things that i think i always knew, make sense now and i have been given so much knowledge. i just hope that i can continue learning and growing constantly. thanks for all of your prayers and support i really have felt the strength and the hand of the Lord in my life these recent 3 months. 

 

oh and i found out when we are heading to the temple. We are going Nov 29th at like the 8:30 morning session here. so i am excited. time is going by pretty fast i cant believe this transfer is already winding down. i am excited to see where i might be transferred next. I might have to train because we have a ton of noobs coming in. that would be super hard but fun. 

 

ya anyway reading over what i just wrote makes me feel a little weird like that was all gospely so i gotta say some more. cant wait to get home to play some fetching ball. cant wait to speak spanish like a boss. Brett said it best, ´aint no billionaire that didnt have to work hard´ to be a boss you gotta work like one. AMEN

--

Much Love,

Elder Mortenson

Week 14

So in my last email i was really struggling but this week has been much much better. We contacted so much last week and into about tuesday were just days full of contacting but now we are seeing the fruits of it and i have some stories. 

so remember that one time that i said that i would punch that dog in the face at Lake Powell? ya well it happened. we were headed to pick up some investigators to go to church and there came out of nowhere these two huge dogs one was like this huge black lab and they werent peruvian dogs, they had been well fed and had their battle scars and whatnot. anyway they chose me and ran full speed to jump on me and tried to bite me. idk if i told you but we have to carry around  a BoM in a case with us everywhere we go and so i smacked this thing down with it and then the other came at me and i kicked it in the face. this happened a couple times and they almost got me hah. my comp just stood off to the side. i freaking kicked these things so hard in the face it was so dope but they just kept coming back until about the sixth time.

story two, we prayed for an hour and 15 minutes. It was our first lesson with this guy named Carlos and it was hot and after lunch and there was slow music playing that made us drowsy while he talked but he started telling about how his son had passed away and he had had tons and tons and tons of problems in the past. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and invited him to pray at the end of the lesson. He made up every excuse not to. he told us he felt like a pharisee and other weird things that we shot down. after about 30 minutes of that we told him that we would kneel down and wait for him to pray. the spirit was so strong and had guided our words and responses so well throughout this lesson. i spoke spanish as if i had been born doing it. we felt that if he said this prayer he would change his life so we didnt give up and we ended up kneeeling down for an hour and 15 minutes! hahaha he finally broke and prayed. we will see how he does after this because that was on friday. 

something i am looking forward to this week is that i hit 100 days on wednesday! that is a mark! i am finally starting to have some time under me. The language is still difficult, i can understand almost perfectly but speaking gives me trouble. there is so much to learn hahah.

we committed 7 investigators to baptism this week. one family that is straight gold that will get married the 19th and then get baptized afterwards and then some others who are pretty solid too that i think will hold out. It is amazing to see these miracles happéning because at the start of this transfer we literally had nothing. i found a cool quote tht i would like to share that says {there is no education like adversity.} haah boy have i found that to be true. it reminds of a talk dad gave as a bishop where he talks about the tearing down of muscle fibers to rebuild them even stronger and i have just beeen trying to keep that in mind right now. because i sure have been torn down. 

 (A "dope" USU Bull on a taxi)

also i would encourage you guys to go and listen to the conference talk by elder bednar idk exactly what it is called but i think it is the 20 marc note. it is super cool and i found a lot of inspiration in that. 

 (La Mision)

i have a couple of requests though. my comp wants a quadruple in english idk if you can get one and send it or how expensive it is? he said he would pay me back. he might want his name on it too his name is {Yecid R. Gozalvez M.} thats what he wants on it. and another comp here wants a hymn book in english so if you could send me a couple that would be nice too. and send me a rubics cube for this kid. 

  (elder Gozalvez and me)

i am doing well and i am good. thanks for your prayers and support!

--

Much Love,

Elder Mortenson