27 March 2010--Bautismo de Branco hoy!!

Well it has been an awesome week, and we are going to finish it with the baptism of Branco today.  Its going to be different than any other baptism we have had because he is from Yugoslavia, or I guess Serbia now.  He is really awesome, and has been attending the church for like the last three months.  He had a problem with smoking before, but after we taught the Word of Wisdom he has completely quit.  Its pretty funny because he doesn't speak Spanish too well so we teach with a ton of actions.  We printed off the questions for the interview in Serbio so it would be a little easier for him.  He came out and asked me to baptize him, and said that I am going to be his padrino. :)  It was pretty funny, but we are just really excited for him.

         Yesterday was pretty crazy getting all of the monthly payments ready for Monday.  The zone Santa Molina had their interviews here in the office yesterday, and I'm pretty sure that one of them is going to be my re-emplacement.  Presidente was in an interview with Elder Moody, and he called me asking me what day I was going to start training.  I told him on Tuesday, and I'm pretty sure he was telling Elder Moody.  So we'll see what happens, but I'm just excited to be training and getting out into the field again.  It’s going to be awesome.  

         You’re not going to believe it, but my companion Elder Rojas started running this week.  He has run the last four days in a row, and is really excited about running every day.  How happy I am right now.  It’s always awesome when someone wants to run every day.  At times he is a little lazy, and it is really hard to get him to leave the office and teach.  Sometimes when Elders get called into the office they use it as an excuse to not work in the field.  It makes me sad because they are really wasting the Lords time.  So that has been a struggle I have had, trying to get him to work efficiently so we can proselyte more.  I really think we could have more success; it’s just been a struggle.  Its almost over though, and we are going forward.  It has really been a good experience in these wards too, and I'm going to miss these people so much.  We are going to have to come to Peru on a vacation someday so I can visit them again.  

          Well I don't have to much more news, just happy to be here in the work.  Today I have 19 months in the mission!  How crazy is that!  I still remember saying bye to you guys in the MTC.  I was thinking how Cecily is going through those same experiences right now  What a huge blessing the mission is.  I'm really excited for her to be out there too.  

          Well thanks for all of the news, love hearing from you as always.  Talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Lee 

The photos are Elder Lima (mi papa), Elder Anco, and Elder Cueva and a bunch of other missionaries finishing their missions.  You gotta love it, every time a group leaves we eat pizza with them.  Its awesome. 

20 March 2010

Wow, Dad thanks for all of the work you did for my school next semester.  It makes me feel a lot less stress to not have to register for all of my classes.  The classes that you went over with Paula Alger really look great.  I think you just chose perfect in every one.  The english class sounds great, and I'm actually really excited to have that engineering class too.  Wow, I just feel way excited about everything, just thinking about studying again.  It is going to be awesome.  Oh and without a doubt I'm going to be running.  I think I might just die if I wasn't, so whatever I need to do for that let me know.  I'm going to come home a week early too, just so I'm not starting out the year way behind in all of my classes.  I need to tell Presidente, but do you think it would be possible to come home the 23rd, or do you think I should come a couple of days earlier.  I have made the decision cut it a little short though, just to get home for classes.  I'm just way excited, and a little nervous too, but its going to be great.  I can't believe Cam broke 4 min in the mile!!!  Tell him he is my hero!!  I can't wait to get back running again too.  So I guess Shay already got married or is getting married soon?  How crazy is that!  Is Shay running right now too, or what is going on there.  I really enjoyed all of your letters, and I'm just really excited with everything that is going on. 
            Here the work is going great.  This week has been pretty crazy with the changes and everything, and practically everyday going to the hospital to visit ELder Sanchez.  He left the hospital Wednesday though, so he is with us in the office.  He is going to be the new secretary of registros.  Why am I always stuck with the sick Elders?  Thats ok, I'm going to start training a new financiero next week, and I'm really excited for it.  Its been a great experience here in the office, but I'm ready to get out in the field again.  I would really like to train again because it is so awesome when you have a new missionary that is willing to give his all in the work.  I went proselyting with Elder Guzman, a new Elder that entered the field Thursday, and it was great.  We took of walking way hard, you just got to love being with Elders fresh out of the MTC.  We'll see what happens though.  We have a new investigator that is different than any other investigator that I've had.  He came up to us in the temple, and said he had been looking for the Elders, and wanted to be taught.  He has already read up to Mosiah in the Book of Mormon, and before we had even started the lesson he was already sharing his testimony about the truth of the Book of Mormon and how much it had changed his life.  I really couldn't believe it.  The crazy thing is he has never even attended the church.  So we challenged him to be there with us on Sunday, and he wants to be baptized the 5th of April, so we are going to do all we can to help him achieve his goal.  We also have a new investigator named Rosendo that we have gone a few times, and this week he read his chapter in the Book of Mormon, and he said as he was reading alone in his cuarto he saw the corners of the book glowing, he feels that it could be an answer from God, and we explained that God answers our prayers in different ways.  He completely changed his actitud and now is really excited to turn his life around in the ways of the Lord.  It was really an awesome lesson yesterday.  We have an investigator Christian who is awesome too,  he didn't make it to church last week, but his mom and sister came, and he even invited his girlfriend to go.  He didn't go because he came down with quite a fever, and asked if we could give him a blessing.  it was awesome because the next day when we called him the first thing he said was "thanks elderes for healing me."  It was awesome, and it is really amazing how we have the power to actually heal people through our faith and their faith too.  It was another awesome experience, and has helped strengthen my testimony of the priesthood even more. 
            Things are just going awesome, and couldn't be happier to be here in the Lords work.  I'm coming down to only 5 months, I just don't know how to feel about that.  Thanks for everything you guys do for me, and I always love hearing from you.  Keep going strong, and I'll talk to you soon.
 

13 March 2010--Your Letter

It has been another great week.  A few interesting things happened.  The other day President called me at night, and wanted me to be in his house the next day at 7 am.  He told me he needed me to drive a car from San Isidro to La Molina.  A little while ago he had me order my international drivers license.  I was also a little nervous to drive here though, because people drive crazy here.  It was a good time though, I got to drive Presidents Nissan Pathfinder back to La Molina, and it was awesome.  He has been putting me in charge of picking up the cars, and everything so it has been a good time. 

The work this week has been going awesome too.  We have the ward list of all of the inactive members, active members, and the people the bishop doesn't know.  We decided to go out, and just start contacting the inactives and the unknown people, and it has been really effective.  We are teaching a family that was inactive, but they have an 18 year old son named Cristian, and Thursday we put a baptismal date for him for the 28th of March.  He is just a great kid, and the lessons are helping to activate the family too.  They just seem really excited, and his mom is just as excited as ever that he is finally preparing to be baptized.  He is reading the Book of Mormon, and saying his prayers.  Its great.  We are also teaching a 22 year old named Johnny who is cousin of the hna Ambar who was baptized in January  He also accepted a baptismal date for this month.  Then we have an investigator named Branco from Serbia.  He doesn't speak to much Spanish so we have been doing a lot of sign language during our lessons, but he has had problems with smoking.  He has been attending church for quite some time, and he hasn't smoked for over 3 weeks.  We are excited as ever for Branco, and we are preparing him for the end of this month too.  We just need to find the interview questions in his language, because we won't have his mother in law there translating.  Its all good though, he is really converted, and is quitting smoking. 

Presidente called me in for an interview the other day, and asked me how I was doing and how I felt in the oficina.  I told him I was fine, but I think I'm ready to head out in the field again.  He agreed, and he asked me to help him for a few candidates for a new financial secretary.  So in the next few weeks I will be training my reimplacement.  It is going to be at least a month of training, but I have the field in my sights.  Its going to be great to get out there and work all day long teaching the gospel.  What a great experience it has been here in the office though, and I'm sure it is going to help on resumes and getting into a Masters program in accounting at BYU.  Well we'll see what happens, but its just whatever the Lord wants for me.  Thanks for all of your support, and sorry its a little short this week.  There is an Elder in the hospital and its my turn to stay with him today.  So we'll be talking next week.  Love You.

Elder Lee

6 March 2010--Hola!

We had another great week down here in La Molina.  We had the baptisms of Reuben and Krishna, and they just went great  We had a lot of members there to help support them, and they are really excited.  We have been working hard with Suzanne and Ceasar, and they really want to follow this gospel.  They even accepted the challenge to be baptized, the problem for the hna Suzanne is the word of wisdom.  She has smoked for quite a long time, and we are trying to help her quit.  I know with the Lord´s help she can do it.  We also have a kid named Johnny who is the cousin of the hna Ambar, who just recently was baptized.  
We taught him how to pray the other night, and we asked him to give the closing prayer.  He was pretty nervous, and really didn’t want to do it at first, but he finally did.  Then when we arrived to teach him another lesson, we asked if he would give the closing prayer and he just gave it with a ton of confidence.  He had been practicing, and now he is just way excited.  When we went to leave, he asked us when we were going to return before we could even make the appointment.  We also went over with Jorge, and his testimony was so powerful, as always.  I love going around teaching with recent converts because they can share about their conversion which was so recent.  So we are really excited to be working with Johnny too. 

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go to the temple, and it was just an amazing experience.  I really wish we could go every week, especially since we pass the temple about 10 times a day.  They only allow once every change though, so I guess we’ll just have to live.  Its really great how much you learn when you go through a session, and I always come out of the temple knowing exactly what I need to do better in my life, and really how I can do it.  It is just a wonderful opportunity. 
Other than that nothing too exciting happened this week.  We had a service project in the pensionista´s house.  They are going to re-do the second level of their house, so we were helping take stuff down, and a little bit of destruccion.  It reminded me of the good old days, working with dad in the other houses, and I realized how much I really love doing that kind of work.  That is definitely something I want to keep doing.  Dad, we are going to have to do the business you were talking about, renovating homes. 

Well that’s just about it for this week.  Next week is the last week of the changes.  Next change ‘my son’ is going to be coming too!  I’ll be training the new financiero.  Its going to be a good time.  Love you guys, and thanks for always writing.  Talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Lee

Happy birthday Mom, and uncle Nate!!   

27 February 2010

As always the last week of the month, and it has been crazy.  I got all of the payments ready to go Tuesday because we had zone conference Wednesday, and I wasn’t going to have time to get them done.  I had President approve them Wednesday night, and it all turned out ok.  At least until yesterday when I received an e-mail that 4 of the payments didn’t go through because the missionaries had received to much money in one month.  The problem was February is shorter than the other months, and I guess we weren’t supposed to enter in the payment until the 25^th, so it looked like each missionary had received double for the month of February, when it was really there money for March.  It wasn’t too big of a problem, but it had me worried for a second.  Then I went to start to download phone cards for the missionaries to find out that the company that we use is in maintenance.  So I was going crazy yesterday trying to figure out how we were going to get all of the missionaries their phone cards.  So working with President, we found one of his friends that is going to be mission president in the Cuzco mission, he hooked us up with about 80 phone cards.  The problem was it wasn’t until about 7:30 last night, so now I have to use p-day to get them all sent off.  Its all good though.

                We had two baptismal interviews yesterday, and they both passed!  So we have Rueben that is going to be baptized at 3 today, and then Krishna (hna Erica’s son) at 1:30 tomorrow.  So the weekend will continue to be pretty crazy.  Its all good though, its always better when its crazy for baptisms.  We are teaching the hna Suzanne from Canada and her husband Ceasar, and they are really great people.  They even accepted a date to prepare for baptism.  The challenge that the hna Suzanne has is she smokes, and has done it for years.  So we are praying hard for her that she can overcome this addiction, but we know that with God’s help she can do it.  They really are feeling the spirit when they pray and read the Book of Mormon, so they will be baptized it might just take a little more time. 

                So they are changing the boundaries of the mission with the two new missions here in Peru, and it looks like we are going to be losing about half of Lima (around 50 missionaries).  President jokingly said that I’m going to be financiero in the other mission for another nine months, and I told him, "not so much, in 6 months I’m going to be en mi casa!"  We’ll see what happens though; I guess we are going to lose about 50 missionaries to the other mission. 

                So things are really going great.  I hadn’t run for two days, so I decided to put down a 5 miler this morning.  I don’t think I’ve run that far in the mission yet, but I really felt pretty good, so I’m going to start doing the longer runs more often 

                Well thanks for always writing, its really great to hear how everyone is doing at home.  Talk to you next week!!

Love,

Elder Lee          

Grandma and Grandpa, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!  Thanks for your weekly dear elders too.  I really enjoy hearing from you.  ¡Nos Vemos!