Lima (LaMolina) Peru – Week 1

Feliz Navidad a todos!

Wow I honestly can't believe that this is my second and last Christmas in the mission. The time has flown by! I remember when we went to Disneyland 2 years ago as a family before the mission and it feels like yesterday.

Well this last week has flown bye! With my new calling of being a ZL I have been super busy. Haha I thought I was busy when I was a DL, but know I know that it wasn't that bad. Just alone in the last week we had to give a training at the new leader training on how to give a district meeting and do splits, we went on splits with the assistants, had a meeting with them, bought food for a zone Christmas breakfast and many other things. But let’s just say that we have been literally running to get everything done. But it has been super great! My zone is so great, and we have lots of American things here such as fast food, stores and even the American embassy. Its huge! And we have the temple. It is very much like the USA here in my area and in my zone! It is totally opposite than any of my other areas, but it is super great. There are so many amazing people here! Members and investigators. We are going to have lots of success here because the ward is strong and there are lots of escogidos here!

We were able to start visiting a person that has been coming to church for about 2 months and she is super good! At the beginning she didn't want to talk with us, but then she sent us a message wanting to know more about the church and the book of Mormon. And she has been asking the members a lot about baptism and what she needs to do to be baptized. So, this week we will be inviting her to be baptized for the end of January or beginning of February.

The pics are of a dinner last night, fireworks (because there were a ton of them) and from a breakfast we did this morning! Well I love you all and hope that your Christmas’s were perfect!

Elder Farnsworth

Lima (San Luis) Peru – Week 18

Hola!

Well these past couple days since I wrote on Thursday have flown by! Now the transfer has officially ended, and I have transfers. Tomorrow I will be leaving for my new area. I will also be a Zone Leader there so that is really exciting. And it will be a great opportunity to serve and learn a lot. So next week I'll let you know how it goes!

Well the biggest thing that happened during these last couple of days was our Christmas party. Half of the mission was on one day and the other half on the other day. We met up outside the temple and then took pics as a zone (pic attached below). Then we went to a restaurant literally directly in front of the temple and it was really good! It is a chicken restaurant. We ate as much chicken and french fries as we wanted. And we drank a ton of chicha morada, which is a Peruvian drink that is really good! Then we made ginger bread houses. Haha pretty sure that ours were the worst. We received a Peruvian soccer shirt from the mission and ties/candies from some of the parents of the mission. From there we went and changed from our proselyting clothes and went to an orphanage which was in one of my old areas. We played with the kids for about 2 hours, and all of the kids loved it! It was a great opportunity to help them enjoy the Christmas season.

Well I hope you all have a great week and I love you all!

Elder Farnsworth

Lima (San Luis) Peru – Week 17

Hello everybody! How are you all! I hope that you're all enjoying the cold weather while I'm getting a nice tan and sweating down here. Haha well I guess should say a nice half neck tan line and an arm one. Well this week is flying by!

We had our last district meeting for this transfer and I did splits with 2 areas. So, it has been very busy, but very great! We had one of our investigators change his own baptismal date from the 20th of Jan to the 30th of Dec. And he asked, can I be baptized this day and we said of course you can! He got really excited. He is 68 years old and he is so funny! He's got some crazy stories. He actually contacted us and that’s how we started teaching him! I'll have to let you know how it all goes with him!

I can’t believe that this transfer will be ending this Monday! It has flown by! So, I'll be able to let you know what my transfers are next Monday! This pic I have is of my district.

Well I hope that you all have an amazing week! Keep watching those videos every day. The ones that I shared with you last week. Do it so you can help somebody else have a good Christmas! I love you all and talk with you next week!

Elder Farnsworth

Lima (San Luis) Peru – Week 16

Hey! Haha it feels weird to be emailing you all on a Thursday. It was weird going for a week and a half without Pday. Mentally I was fine, but physically I'm really tired... But it’s great! We were able to go to the temple today. So, I was able to be spiritually refreshed. Because we went a month longer without going to the temple. we normally go every three months, but because the temple was closed for cleaning. We went 4 months without going. So, it was extra special today and the fact that it is December and remembering the Savior of the world.

Well this past week and a half were really great! Even though we didn't find a ton of news in this past week we were able to see lots of progress not only with our area and our investigators, but also with the ward. It has been a week full of miracles! It has been great! I really hope every week can be like the last one or even better. So first I feel like we’re are getting to have more trust from the bishop! Which is great. Because when I came here there wasn't a lot of it. But it’s getting a lot better. He came to us in this last week with some names of PF’s (where part of the family are members) that he wants us to go and visit and baptize! So that is awesome!!!! I'm really excited. We have visited some and we have more to visit before Sunday so that we can go and give our information to the bishop! 

We also are starting to see fruits of the new way of planning! Because we have been doing it, but we weren't seeing results. But in these last days of the week we the miracles have been happening. So here is what I'd say the biggest of them is. We had followed all of ours plans for that day and nothing had happened, and it was about 8:30 at night. And on our specific plan for that hour was that a person was going to contact us instead of us contacting them. We were outside of a member’s house looking for them when someone asked us if we were the Mormons. We said yes, and then he went on to say that he had been looking for our church during the past week. Because about 10 days before he contacted us he spent a week at his friend’s house. This friend is a returned missionary and all his family are members. The guy that contacted us just loved this family and the values that they have. He really admires them, and he said that he wants to learn more about how to have those values and increase his faith. He said that he feels an emptiness in his life and, so he wants to find God and fill this emptiness. He asked so when can I go to your church and learn more? So, we made an appt with him to teach him more. In this appt we invited him to baptism and he accepted! So, we are really excited about that and it helped us grow our faith, and helped us know that the angles that we send out to prepare the people really do help!

Oh, and I want to invite all of you to watch the daily videos that the church has made to help us "Light the World" this holiday season! The link is below:

https://www.mormon.org/

Well that's all for this week! Haha so some of the pics this week are pretty funny! The one with the camel on my bed was really funny. I got home from splits and that is how the elder in my area left my camel. Haha even funnier, he was reading Jacob 5. And those of you that have read it will know why its funny. The other pictures are from the temple.

Elder Farnsworth