Week 73

Don't expect this email to be too long because we are gonna talk on Christmas anyway. But so Thursday night we had Mauricio and Andre´s interviews and they were good. Oh but I guess I should tell you what we did for pday. We went and took pics at the temple with the whole zone and then afterward went and ate at Pardo´s chicken palace place and that was good and then we had gingerbread house making competitions and then they gave us some sick new flower ties and after we went to an orphanage and played with little kids and sang songs so ya it was pretty fun. 

On Friday we had to go get a mini-missionary to come with us but we only ended up going to the Municipalidad and then to the mission offices because we had to do a ton of crap for our Christmas caroling activity that we won't actually be able to do because we went back to the municipalidad and they said that we can't have permission to do anything religious, so that sucks. But ya I felt bad for the mini-missionary. But then we had to go interview one of the elder´s crazy investigators that read the Book of Mormon in 3 days and was screaming during her interview, she is so crazy. Luckily, my comp did the interview. But ya supposedly she is going to start proselyting every Wednesday now that she has the Holy Ghost and bringing references to the elders so that is interesting. Then, later Friday night we went to our ward Christmas party and that was fun. 

On Saturday we had the two baptisms. They went well except for the fact that Mauricio showed up an hour late! But we got some members to baptize them and confirm them. Then, at night we went into like the busiest spot in our whole mission and put up the banners we got and tables and free cookies/candy with Santa hats and contacted people. It was super cool and worked out great, we got like 85 references in like 2 hours. But supposedly we aren't allowed to do that so we won't be going back haha but they didn't get mad at us. 

 

Then Sunday was normal. Today we went and played basketball in the morning and then we had to clean our room and I had to pack because I have been  transferred. Then we went back to the municipalidad and that was when they told us that we can't do our activity. Then we went to Papa Johns with the La Molina zone leaders and now we are here. 

But ya so anyway I am being transferred. I'm going to an area called Surquillo. Its like a rich zone but my area is like a half and half. I am gonna be companions with Elder Malca...I'll tell you about him when we talk on Christmas. I'm gonna be the new District Leader there. So ya I'm super hyped about not being zone leader, it is super stressful and I've never been DL before so we will see how it goes. My district is made up of the zone leaders, and another companionship of elders that are in my room so I don't think it will be too bad haha thank goodness. 

But love you guys. Hope you are having a great Christmas season. Ill talk to you soon. 

--

Elder Mortenson

Week 72

We had a good week. On Friday we had breakfast as a zone where we planned and stuff.  We made chicken sandwiches which were super good. 

On Saturday we went to San Borja and had a zone attack there. The bishop of the ward planned the whole thing and brought like 100 copies of the movie "Meet the Mormons" so we just passed those out in this subdivision. I went on splits with Brother Hooker, so that was dope. He was mission president in Piura and then an Area Seventy afterwards and now he works in the area offices as their manager of planning. He knows a ton of stuff so I got to talk to him about some cool things. 

Sunday was a normal day. We are just visiting tons of members in these weeks so that we can invite them to participate in the IluminaElMundo (Light the World) thing. It is going fairly well. 

Monday and Tuesday were just normal days as well haha. The nice thing is, that the ward members bring tons of people to sacrament meeting so we just set up appointments with them during the week. There are a lot of Venezuelans that come because they have cousins or other family that are members. The assistants found a Venezuelan mom and her daughter that had escaped by walking all the way across Columbia, freaking crazy! The Venezuelans that we eat with always tell us about the circumstances over there and it is pretty sad. 

On Wednesday we had our district meeting and it was pretty fun. We told everyone to bring like a funny present so that we could do a white elephant gift swap. I used those weird plastic hands that you sent in my package and gave them away. hahaha Elder Fagg bought a Pokemon-go photo album and we put tons of random pictures of us and our families and whatnot in there hahaha it was super funny. 

Oh ya i forgot to mention that I got the package! Thanks a ton for all the sick stuff in there! I really enjoyed it! I haven't gone through the whole thing yet because I am gonna open it on Christmas! 

But ya today is the mission Christmas activity prep-day thing. Idk what we are going to do. But we are gonna take the zone on Saturday night and go either to the temple or Avenida La Molina where every single bus passes by and we are gonna sing Christmas carols. It is gonna be sweet. We got permission to spend a ton of money to buy light up hats and we bought two huge banners that say Ilumina el Mundo on them and we bought a stamp with the address of the stake center and our phone number so we can stamp tons of cards and whatnot it is gonna be sweet because literally thousands upon thousands of people go by there everyday from every part of Lima so we should get tons of references to send out. 

But I guess that is about it. Next p-day will be normal on Monday. Transfers are this next Tuesday but I don't think that I will be leaving, I think Elder Fagg and I will stay together. I'm excited to talk to you guys on Christmas, we already have everything planned out. Idk when we are gonna do the pre-call but it should be next week I think, so be ready for that!  Talk to you soon!

--

Elder Mortenson

Week 71

Sorry I forgot to tell you guys that I was going to the temple on Monday and to write me Wednesday instead. Next week I won't have prep-day until Thursday because of our Christmas activity. 

It was a long week. To start out with, on Tuesday we had a multi-zone meeting. It was pretty good. They explained a lot of good things to the missionaries like inviting investigators to baptisms and whatnot so I think it will help out the mission a lot. 

On Wednesday and Thursday we had to move. We went to the other multi-zone conference on Wednesday morning and also got all of the money and stuff for our new apartment, and then went and payed the Leaser and started moving in because we had to be out of our old place by the First of Dec. We pretty much lost 2 days of proselyting, unfortunately. Even though we moved right up the street it took forever because we just carried practically everything we own to the new place. I'll send you some videos of it because we live on the fourth floor but there are these little tiny spiral stairs at the top and we couldn't get our beds and whatnot up them so we had to take them up the "Peruvian way", with rope and man-power! hahaha and we got Miguel, one of the members, to help us out. And we are all settled in now. 

On Friday we had leadership council. We talked about some of the new rules that there are in our mission. We can now only listen to hymns, but we can eat with members and investigators now, so that is cool! We had a huge debate on if the missionaries would have to ask permission or not and decided that they did but that we, as zone leaders, would be the ones to give it. Elder Fagg and I got invited to some member's house and they gave us turkey and then that night they brought us turkey sandwiches, so that was awesome! They also told us that we could skype at their house and she invited us to dinner on Christmas! Another thing was that Aaron Garate, my old companion, came to our leadership council for some reason. He came to go to the temple and his girlfriend came with him, so we met her too. He took us to breakfast on Thursday morning as well, so it was cool. 

Sunday we finally got a new pension (The person that cooks meals for the missionaries)! It is a member from Venezuela. It is awesome to eat some different food other than the normal Peruvian menu. The Venezuelan's are so funny! We also got to go to the Christmas Devotional on Sunday. 

Monday we didn't do anything, and yesterday we just had district meeting and a meeting with President Amato and the stake president about the activity that he is doing this month. It was just about following up and whatnot with the members. 

But today we went to the temple, it was so nice! There are so many activities with Christmas coming up and all.  It seems pretty stressful, but I guess I am getting used to always feeling that way. I'm excited to receive the package you sent and to talk to you on Christmas. 

--

Elder Mortenson

Week 70

Happy Thanksgiving.  Peru, unfortunately didn't have a president that freed the Slaves and officially established a day of thanks as a holiday...S/O to Abe. 

One of the sisters in our ward that studied at BYU invited us over to eat Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. The only way we got permission to go was by taking an investigator, her husband is from Venezuela and lived in Florida and Missouri for most of his adolescence so we just spoke to them in English the whole time. It was super cool. They didn't have turkey nor stuffing, but she made us good chicken and mashed yams and delicious rolls and whatnot so I couldn't complain. 

On Tuesday this week we had a meeting with our district leaders to present to them all of our new ideas and talk about the zone. One problem that we have been having is that they don't really take on all of the responsibility that they have. Elder Fagg and I spent two full morning just racking our brains for thing we could do to help the zone out and I think we have come up with a good plan. They seemed excited to work after we finished presenting everything and then on Wednesday we presented it all to the zone, and it turned out well. 

Practically every other morning we have been out looking for a place to live. Where we live is so expensive and we couldn't find anything. The financial secretary gave a price range under like 800 soles and we were finding things around like 1500. But then Saturday, at the last minute, we found this place literally up the street from where we live that is only 900 because it is on the 5th floor haha but it is really nice and we couldn't get all the paperwork and payments done today so we will have to move on Wednesday. But it is even nicer than where we are living right now. 

We went to the office on Thursday for Jhoise`s interview with president. The good news about that was that Elder Fagg had two packages waiting for him there haha so we got to bring them home. They were those ones from like the website where you order the stuff here in Lima and the people put it together, but they were better than nothing. So Jhoise passed her interview and got baptized on Saturday! It was a pretty cool baptism...let's just say she had done some pretty serious stuff in her life and she was so excited to be clean and forgiven. She bore her testimony afterward and it was super powerful, I think she will be a solid convert. 

On Sunday we went to Ward council and it was all good. We came with a plan where a couple that we are teaching is going to cook a bunch of stuff and then the ward is going to buy it from them so that they can pay for their wedding because they want to get married. Afterward, we had called a reference that we had received and he told us to meet him by the university that is in our area on Sunday morning. So we went and he was a super nice guy, he was 25 I think. But he started explaining to us all of his beliefs and whatnot and it was kinda weird. He told us all about how he had come to the conclusion that God didn't exist that only 'Good and Bad' existed and all this stuff and we were super confused because it didn't really make sense.  He is a super good guy and like wants us to be his friend but he doesn't  really want to progress in the gospel, from what it looks like. 

Today, as far as prep-day, we didn't do anything. We went to Pizza Hut, I bought a backpack at the legit Nike store that is in our area but nothing else. Everything is going well. We have zone conference tomorrow and then we are going to move on Wednesday and then we will have Leadership Council on Friday, so ya that's fun. 

I would tell you all of the things that I'm grateful for but it would take too long, just know that I'm a grateful guy and that I'm excited for Christmas now. 

--

Elder Mortenson

These are my homies here in the ward, the missionaries that just barely got home.

And this is us at Jhoise`s baptism. The sun was kinda in my eyes if you cant tell...