Perfect plan

We went to pisaqa today, which is the second most visited place here disincluding Machupiccu. I`ll send a pic next week because this week we got home late, and have hardly any time to write. BUT tell Ezra I am so proud of him, and Harrison that I am so excited for him! I have time to tell you a story this week:

We contacted a family this week who have been suffering the loss of a loved one. We went to visit them, and they poured their hearts out to us, saying that they just want to know where there son is. He passed away just a few weeks ago. Their son is very interested in the work in the temple, and wants to know more. They are Catholic. I just think how blessed we are to know this perfect plan. It`s perfect. When we explained it to them, I realized how unique and how much sense it really makes. We hope to continue working and helping them this week. 

Love you BOTH and hope you ALL have a great week!! I am more than glad to have an Eternal Family!

Love your son,

Elder Jeffery

Meeting Fredrick

Wow, I saw everyone writing ´´happy birthday´´ and realized that wow, my birthday was in two days!! My companion asked me when my birthday was on Saturday. I told him, and he counted the days, and said, hey, your birthday is in five days!! I had no idea!!

This week was so full of so many spiritual experiences I can´t even count them all!! I will tell you one. We were walking to eat dinner at night after a lesson in the almost empty street light by a few damp street lights. There was a young man walking behind us on the sidewalk. From one second to another, I had a strong feeling that made me turn around and contact the young man. I started talking to him, and found that he has my age, and was walking to his house. We talked like we were already friends, and when we got to his house, set an appointment with him. When we came back to his house a few days later, we talked and explained more about who we are and what we do. He explained that he wanted to learn more and believe more in God. I told him that I knew we were supposed to be with him and told him about the feeling I had to talk to him. He then told us that he had been praying that same night, and felt as if he should walk down that street. His name is Fredrick. On Sunday, he came with us to church, and even participated in the classes! I´m so excited for him, and hope he can continue following this path he´s taken. 

Elder Cuba and I talked in church this Sunday. I talked about the Resurrection and how to receive a testimony and be more grateful for this miracle that Jesus Christ performed. Elder Cuba talked about the importance or temples. We came to Cusco this week again, and played soccer but next week we are going to Pisaq which are some crazy cool ruins. I just love climbing mountains to look at big rocks. Totally my new hobby. 

 Before I forget, Mom, I hate asking you, but I don´t have money, and I need to buy acne stuff for my face because it´s gotten kinda bad. I don´t need a lot. I don´t know if I can use my card that you gave me? I don´t know, I´ll try. I hate asking you for money, but if it´s possible it would help a lot. 

I am so thankful for all of the birthday wishes!!! I feel so grateful to have all of these people that care for me, and I hop ethat you can all have a great week! I am so thankful for this WORK!!! 

Love you MOM!! 

Elder Jeffery

Here in Calca

First, to answer your questions.... Things are WAY different, I guess that´s why they call it a "change". I have a pension and she is an exact copy of Chan Swan, my boss at Flip´s. We had hot dogs once for breakfast, but they were pretty good! I actually rode a llama to my next sector... NAH just kidding, I took a bus for about 50 minutes to my next sector. I met a lady on the bus going there, and she talked about the Book of Mormon, giving her one to read. When I got off the bus, I riding alone, didn´t see the elders anywhere, so I called my zone leaders and they just told me to wait. So, I waited, an old man came up to me patting me on the head asking where the other young man was. haha Obviously he had seen the Elders always walking in pairs. Anddddddd, to answer your last question.... I actually forgot my retainer and my pillow... Wow, that´s not new... But, I´m actually in Cusco right now, us coming last night because part of our zone is here, so I will be traveling here a lot to come to conferences and such. So, I´ll have all my stuff I forgot in no time. 

Wow, I am SO happy to hear about your family night you had with the missionaries and the Rohers! If I could, I would have been there in a split second! I know that you were meant to have this experience together to help you become closer as a family. And a giant THANK YOU FOR THE AMAZING POSTER!!!!!! I totally put that on my camera to have forever!!! 

I know I have a ton to learn from the time here in Calca. It´s a HUGE change for me. Everything in Cusco was work work work and we always had something to do or somewhere to go. Now, it´s more like, hey, what should we do today? I know that out of the many things I have to learn, Patience is one of them. My companion is so Christ-like. He´s always worrying about how I am and if he can do something for me. It catches me off guard, but he has already taught me to always be thinking of others. I will send a pic of my sector. It is sooo beautiful. It´s very flat, Huge change, and every way you look, there are HUGE mountains in the back ground. There is a beautiful river that flows through the very peaceful city, and they hardly use cars, just ´´moto taxis´´ Motorcycles with a cart on the back to ride in. haha It´s pretty fun. 

I´ll send more pics nextg week. Love you MOM and all of the family and friends that mean so much to me. Thank you for all of your support. Love, 

Elder Jeffery

First Change

Hey Dad, I missed eating chilly cheese fries with you this priesthood session.... Butttt,,, I did eat chicken foot soup, so that´s kind of close, right? Love you Dad, and hope you can have a great week. Just know that you do so much for me and our family. YOU ARE MY HERO

 Soooooo, the results are in! I actually have a change!!! It´s crazy, I am actually leaving my area! I´m am headed to Calca which is only about an hour away from where I am in bus. Last week I think I sent a picture of that mountain I climbed for the second time and sent a picture with an elder in all blue. His name is Elder Cuba, and turns out he is my new companion! The mountain we climbed will be in my sector! He was in the CCM with me at the same time, and is from Lima! So, we have pretty much the same amount of time in the mission! SOOO excited!! I love that guy!! 

Conference like I stated before, is better than Christmas. I´m already waiting till the next one. There were so many great talks, I can´t even pick a favorite!! Now, the hard, and most important part... we have to APPLY what we learned! I know I have a TON to improve!!

Today for my friend´s last day in the mission, Elder Shumacher, we played Rugby. It was super fun! As a zone, we bought soccer jerseys and they are HILARIOUS! I´ll send a picture. This week we had the chance to go out with the Johnsons, senior missionaries, who help families with members. We had a lesson with the Uman Family including their dad, and even their brother who isn´t a member. It will be hard to leave behind this amazing family, but I know they are in good hands with Elder Pavon staying in Cusco. 

We have been teaching a man named José for quite a while now. He is married to the sister of the bishop, but isn´t a member. He said he has had many missionarys, but none of them have convinced him yet to be baptised. I decided that I wouldn´t convince him, but I sure knew of a book that could change his mind. He´s a super interesting man, and I respect him a lot for his point of view. He is very open, and loves learning. Last week, he asked me about faith. He says it´s hard for him to understand what is faith but everyone seems to say they have ´´faith´´. So, we gave him Alma 32 to read. He diligently accepted the challange, and read the chapter 2 times. When we came back, he explained the chapter fully and said he had actually learned a lot about faith  from this chapter. So, I asked him if he thinks faith is enough to show our love or thanks to God. He thought about it for a while, and said that no, he didn´t think so. So, we gave him 2 nephi 31 to read and study. I hope in this manner, he´ll learn to have confidence in the book that solves all of the questions we have in our souls. 

Well, I´m sad that I won´t be able to see Eva´s and Kevin´s baptisms next week, but I´m very happy for them, and hope they continue changing their lives through Jesus Christ. Well, Love you family and friends!! I´ll send a pic of Calca when I get there! It´s BEAUTIFUL!! Have a great week! I LOVE YOU MOM!!! 

Love, Elder Jeffery

I Have Grown A lot

Desmond's response to our question about easter in Peru 
Well, here they have ´´La Semana Santa´´ or The Holy Week which is a tradition of the Catholic Church which concists of a lot of symbolic stuff including my favorite part of eating 12 plates of food for one meal... haha but their way of remembering Christ, and his death. So, since practiclly every one here is Catholic, and celebrate this week. But, I don´t think there are any baskets or bunnys. My comp told me that in his city they have stuff like that, but not much. I don´t know, we´ll see this week what goes down]!

This week was one of the hardest for me. We started out the week, and for what ever reason, I don´t know if I was tired or what, but I just couldn´t get myself to be happy. I felt like I had lead shoes on, and it didn´t help that we hardly had any lessons. But on Thursday, we had Interviews with President. During Interviews, we have a training from the assistents while we wait for the interview. I learned a lot in the training, and helped me a ton! When President Harbertson just looks at you, he can see exactly what you need. It´s amazing. He talked to me for a while, and told me lots of useful things. He told me that he can see that I have grown a lot in the mission (he doesn´t mean by height.. :( haha). He then told me that I might not see it because I live with myself every day ( which is true I don´t see it that much). Then he told me that my mission is like a cake. Some of the ingredients don´t taste very good by themselves. Some of them do. But, you need all of these ingredients to make the cake taste good. He said when I look back at the mission I will see what I´ve really learned and turned into. 

This week has been a little sad, but a good learning experience. We found out that the son of the recent convert Juana, Anderson, has chosen a different path from what we hoped. He had accepted the invitation to be baptised, but has started going off with his friends. I´ve learned this week an important lesson. That is that a lot of the time, it isn´t a substance that people are addicted to, but more they are addicted to their friends. I have seen this concept apply a lot in the mission between our investigators, and between missionaries too. It´s amazing to see how one person can change the whole group or attitude of the group for better or worse. I was reading the Liahona of the last general conference we had. One of the quoram of the seventy talked just about this. The reason of why we should do the things we do. I think it´s called ´´the way we look´´ or something like that... But, I loved what he said about Jesus Christ. He explains that the reason Jesus came was to do the will of the Father. It´s simple, but sometimes not easy to follow. We´re not here in the mission, nor earth do our own will either. I´m soooooo excited for GENERAL CONFERENCE!! I remember before the mission, I would sleep through a good portion of General conference.... But, now it´s honestly better that Christmas!!! I hope you can all enjoy it as much as I am going to. We are so blessed to have such amazing inspired men so easily accessed! Even all the way over here in Peru!! 

Love you family and friends and Mom! Sounds like you are very busy and I like that!! A return missionary came home this week named Nefi. He instantly came over to us freaking out because he didn´t know what to do. haha ok, have a great week, and stay YOU. 

We All Have Bad Days

This week was hard at first, honestly us not having any set appointments. But, we ended up making the best of it, and had some success. We are teaching a young lady named Lucy, who is living with a return missionary named Jorge, and all of Jorge´s family. Lucy is very open and knows quite a bit about the church. She says that she has prayed about the church before, and believes it is true. We challenged her to baptism and she accepted. The next lesson we taught the plan of salvation. I don´t know why but I got really nervous to ask them about marriage. I spit out a few words, and finally said ´marriage´. My companion thankfully picked up my slack and laid down the law about everything. They accepted. Jorge will be going to live in an acadamy for a year and a half to become a police man, so we set the goal to get Lucy baptized and in a year and a half, Jorge can return and they can get married. I felt so bad after the lesson, feeling like I couldn´t teach with power or authority. My companion is such a great support, helping me realize that we all have bad days, and I just need to chill out next time, take a breath and say what needs to be said. The next lesson we had went great, and made me realize that sometimes God really brings us down, so he can lift us higher. I remembered the first invitation I made to someone to be baptized. I laughed to myself, and remembered how I´m here to learn not be perfect. ´´mistakes are proof of trying´´