Aaron

Happy week!  I hope you all had a good week and that it was full of meaningful things!  This past week there wasn´t a whole lot due to ingrown toenail problems.  I had to take out my whole toenail so I have been resting the whole week basically.  

Other than that we were able to visit an investigator called Merida.  She is super cool.  She has a lot of desires to know more about the church and she accepted a baptismal date for May 28th.  

Today are changes and I have a change to Juliaca!  It´s about an hour away from where I´m at right now so it won´t be a super long trip!  It will be cool!  My new companion is Elder Chang from Lima.  I´ve met him before.  He was in my zone in Puno.

That´s about all that happened this week!  Sorry for the little that there is but it´s just that not a lot happened this past week!  Toe problems!  Well, I love you all!  Thanks for everything and the support you all give!

Hey everyone once again!  I hope you all had a good week full of good things and meaningfull things!  This past week was a little different but pretty good!  So like I said, yesterday there were no church meetings due to elections which was the weridest part of the week.  And what I have been hearing is that a couple of people tied so they are going to have to vote again!  Hopefully not on a Sunday.

This past week we have been teaching someone called Edith.  And for the longest time we have thought that she was a member.  She always told us how she was baptized and all that but this past week she told us that she doesn´t feel like a member.  We asked her why she felt that way and she told us that she was never confirmed a member!!  So that was really interesting.  She recieved baptism by water but she never recieved the gift of the Holy Ghost.  So we are now working with her to get to that point of baptism once again.

We are also working with a member´s sister who is an investigator.  She has a lot of questions and doubts but recently she went to the temple with her sister in Bolivia and she attended General Conference.  Those two things helped her out a ton with a lot of her doubts and questions, but hopefully we can help out on the rest.

The other Elders in my district are going to have a baptism this coming Saturday which is awesome.  I was able to interview her and it was a cool experience.  President Harbertson has talked about how we need to do baptismal interviews better so I put those things into practice and it was really cool.  She is ready for baptism.

That´s about all that went on this week.  We are trying to put ourselves in contact with some people that we have lost contact with and we are also trying to contact more people in the streets.  Everything is good and cold now here in Puno!  I just pray that it doesn´t rain!  Thanks for all the support and love as always!  I love you all!

Hey everyone!  I hope you had a great conference weekend!  I loved conference and I was able to get a lot out of it.  But more than what I learned is what I was able to feel during the conference.  That is a lot more important than what we can remember about a certain topic or a certain talk.

This past week we have been working with people to get them to attend General conference and it was pretty good.  We had a couple of people go that we weren´t expecting.  This week there won´t be any church meetings due to elections so that will be a little weird.

Well, I don´t have much to write this week because most of the highlights were in conference.  The only thing I could invite you guys to do is to go watch all the sessions if you haven´t already.  

I love you all and I hope you all have a great week!  Thanks for all the support and love you all show!

Hey everyone!  I hope you are all having a great week and had a great week!  This past week for me was pretty good.  Easter here in Peru is celebrated pretty much the whole week and it`s called "Semana Santa".  A lot of people just eat certain types of food for the week and they also have some traditions like climbing up hills.  It was pretty good.

This past week we have been finding a good amount of people to teach.  We found a couple that we are teaching that don`t believe in Christ or God for that matter so that was pretty interesting.  We are still working with them and things could turn out pretty well if we do our best.

This past week we also had interviews with President Harbertson and his wife.  There were a lot of good things that I was able to learn talking to him.  And talking to Sister Harbertson, she basically told me that I need to teach more English to the latins.  But it was good.  Now we are speaking a lot more English with them.

I don`t have much time to write today so sorry for the short email, but everything is well and hoping that it will keep improving!  Thanks for all the support and love you all show and give.  I love you all!

Hey everyone!  This past week was pretty good and I also learned a ton.  We are still looking like crazy for people to teach as always to have more and more.

So this past week we talked with a new investigator called Estefani.  She is a friend of a member from the other stake.  She is awesome.  Before we even met her, she had already gone to visit the temple!  That´s crazy!  Most members don´t even make it that far!  Well she has a baptismal date for April and if everything goes well, she will be able to follow through with that.

We are also still working with the excommunicated guy and his wife (less active).  They are super cool and I love working with them.  We are trying to set up an interview for them with the stake president but this past week he has been busy giving temple recommend interviews.  But they are progressing really well and have a lot of desires to come back to church.

There is also this less active that we contacted a while back thinking that she was an investigator.  We finally had the chance to talk with her and her family that aren´t members.  She has two daughters that are pretty funny.  They are only 11 and 9 but they kept inviting us to go to the Jehova Witness website and things like that.  It was funny.  But they are really cool and she works with members so that should help a bit.

Yesterday I had to give a talk about the Plan of Salvation.  It was really hard because I didn´t know how to fit all of that into about 10 minutes, but I did.  I think everything went well.  My companion also talked about the Sabbath Day because people just don´t get it here.  Every Sunday there is at least one person that talks about the Sabbath Day.  Most people still work and do all that stuff so it´s kind of frustrating.

So the church released a new video called ´´Hallelujah´´ if you haven´t already seen it.  It´s a cool video about Easter when we remember the life of Jesus Christ and most of all that He lives today.  A lot of people remember his death, and although it´s important, it´s even more important to remember that  He lives.

Thanks for all the support as always.  I love you all and wish you a wonderfull week!

Hey everyone!  I hope you all are doing well as always!  This week was pretty good and tiring.  So basically we have been contacting all this week to find new people to teach.  The zone leaders put a new goal for the zone that each companionship would contact at least 10 people per day adding up to 60 in the week and 600 for the zone per week.  This past week we were able to contact a bit of people but the most of them live in other places.  

We are also starting to recieve more refferals from people as well so that helps us out a ton.  We have about 3 people that we haven´t been able to contact due to their schedule and all that.  

This past week I learned a lot about prayer and just how powerfull and important it is.  A lot of times, we as humans go to pray with a list of things that we want to happen and when we do this, our intention is to try and change the will of God when that is never going to happen.  So the purpose of prayer isn´t to change the will of God, but to ask for blessings for us or for others that God could give to us according to His will.  When we ask for the things that we want, we do not pray in the name of Jesus (as so often happens) because it does not represent in any way the desires of Jesus and for that reason, a lot of prayers remain unanswered.  We should also be aware of the things that we ask for.  If we ask for something that we shouldn´t, it could be turned on us for our own condenation.

Well, more than anything, I was able to learn a lot of things in this past week with meetings that we´ve had and experiences.  I hope you all have a great week!  Stay safe and be smart! I love you all!

Hey everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderfull week!  This week for me was a little surprising and unexpected.  Not a whole lot went on.

On Tuesday we moved houses which is good!  I love our new room and I´m so glad we got to get out of our other house.  I´m also pretty sure that the owners were going to kick us out anyways and that they were going to move in.  It took us a while to move so that was kind of a bummer.

Then on Friday I had to travel to Cusco!  Wahoo!  Not so fun.. The bus was hot and smelled really bad.  Well, that´s life.  At least we got to Cusco and back safely!  Also along with my trip to Cusco, I was able to see President and learn a few things which were cool!  One of them being (that isn´t really new, but good to remember) is that God sees everything we do.  People will do their ´´secret´´ things, but really it´s not secret because God knows!

Well, this past week we called and looked for our investigators and recent converts and for some reason, all of them are moving!!  Well, not all of them, but a lot.  It was really weird to here about so many people that are going to move so we aren´t going to be able to visit them anymore.  What luck!....  But with the new goals that we have a district and zone, we should be having a good week this week especially with finding new people.

As I said, not much happened this week... Today are also changes but I´m staying where I´m at in Puno with the same companion so it should be a good change!  Thanks for all the support and love you guys show towards me and all the missionaries.  I love you all and wish you a wonderfull week!

Hey eveyone!  I hope you are all doing well!  This last week was a pretty good one!  We were able to have a conference with our mission president that was pretty good!  We talked about a lot of things.

Where is Elder Augat?  Click the image to zoom in.

Well this past week it has been raining like crazy and it is hard rain.  The streets flood and it´s super cool walking down the streets in rivers... NOT!  But it´s alright.  We still get out to work and it´s super fun.  People just look at us like are you crazy!?  But it´s fun.

This past week we were able to find a handfull of new investigators.  One of which has a real desire to know more about the gospel.  He commited to go to church but he sent us a message saying that his parents didn´t want him to leave.  Bummer.  He gave us references to his family so that will be good to know them. 

More people are coming to church and we are having more references than ever and it´s awesome.  Hopefully we can get to contacting them!

Well, I don´t have much time so sorry for the short email.  Next week will be more!  Love you all and have a good week!

Hey everyone!  I hope you are all doing great!  It´s super exciting to hear about Kaleb and his mission call!  It will be an awesome experience!  The mission is awesome!

So this past week, not a whole lot happened during the week.  We looked for people and they weren´t there.  I was able to go on divisions with an Elder in my district and I learned a few things there.  It was good to see that they are still working hard!

So this past week we had a mission conference with Elder Holland!  It was pretty cool!  We were able to shake his hand before it had all started.  He also mentioned that way back when, every missionary (in the world) had to be interviewd by someone from the Quorom of the Twelve each year.  But with 75,000 missionaries and soon to be 85,000 missionaries, it´s a little hard.  So he said that by shaking someones hand and looking them in the eyes, he could interview someone.  So I was pretty much interviewd by an Apostle of the Lord.

I learned so much from the conference and would like to share with all of you a few things.  First off, he was talking about how his wife had been struggling with health and that about a year and a half ago, they about lost her.  But as we know, she is still with us (althogh she wasn´t able to make the trip to Cusco due to health and precautions).  He explained that God is always required to do what is best for us.  Although we might not like it, it is always what is best.

He also talked about how missionary work is the most important work in the universe.  It is the most important work throughout all of God´s creations.  Then he talked about Moses 1:39.  He asked what are the big words in this verse and we said ´´work, glory, immortality, eternal life´´ as most of us would say.  And he said that these are the big words of this verse, but what is the most important word of all this verse, and someone said,  ´´My´´.  The reason why this is the most important work in all the universe it because it´s His work.  And if it´s His work we do it His way.  If it were our work we could do it our way with our rules and all that, but this is His work and we have to do it His way.

Another thing that caught my attention is when he talked about an experience when someone was interviewing him.  They asked Elder Holland, ´´What is the church´s symbol?´´  As we all know, the church doesn´t really have a so-called symbol.  But he said, ´´Two young men in a shirt and tie preaching the gospel.´´  Ever since then he has wondered if he was right or not, but he is convinced that this is the symbol of the church.  So as missionaries we are litterally representing the church.  We are symbols of the church.  Then Elder Holland said in his voice, litterally yelling, ´´You do not have the right to destroy the image of a missionary!  Nobody has that right!´´

Well there were a lot of things that I learned that I don´t have time to write it all in here, but it was a great experience.  I am so greatful to be able to have heard the voice of an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I love you all and I hope you all are doing well!  Thanks for the support and love you all show!  Have a great week!

Hey everyone!  This week was pretty good!  Full of service as well.  Basically this whole week was service oriented for a lot of people.

First, we were looking for a house to move into and we found one.  We asked the owner if she needed help with anything so we helped here move a few things (brownie points).  But she is super nice and I hope we move into that house.  After that we helped our pension put a roof on her third floor.  Also the traditions here are really weird and stupid sometimes.  The stupid one I´m talking about is that when you hire someone to add another floor to your house, you have to buy them a box of beer so that ´´nothing happens´´.  I honestly think that´s just rediculous.

This week we have been looking for a lot of people and we also had a lot of appointments with new investigators, but a lot of them fell through.  It can be really dissapointing sometimes.  This week we are going to focus on visiting the members and the leaders so that we can strengthen

the ward first.

This last week we had a meeting with all the leaders of the zone and it was really good.  The sisters read their mission calls, but saying elder instead of sister, and it was really cool.  It basically reminded us of our purpose here as missionaries (INVITE others to come unto Christ... etc.) and it was really good to hear.  It really helped me remember why I am here in the mission and how much my perspective of the mission has changed over time.

Well, this coming week we will all be going to Cusco to hear Elder Holland which will be really good and cool experience!  I will be preparing myself this whole week to hear him speak!

I hope you all are doing well wherever you may be.  I love you all and thanks for all the support!  

Hey everyone!  I hope you all are doing well as always!  As am I!  This week was a pretty difficult week but I learned some good things and have also heard some good news!

First off, this past week there wasn´t a whole lot due to a huge party called La Candelaria.  It´s the second biggest party or festival in all of South America behind Rio.  So for that reason, there weren´t a lot of people in their houses and even less today because today is the actual festival.  I guess it´s pretty big because people come from all over just to see it.  And it´s in Puno!  So the zone leaders are going to lock us in a chapel pretty much the whole day.

On Friday I had a meeting with all the leaders in the zone, Puno Central.  It was really good.  We basically just talked about attitude the whole meeting and how important it is.  Things will happen in life.  We can´t avoid the inevitable and we can´t change the past no matter how hard we try.  The only thing that we can control is our attitude.  There was a quote that they gave us that talked about the importance of attitude.  That it can either build or destroy a buisness, church, home, etc.  The quote finished by saying, ´´I am conviced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I decide to react.´´  Attitude is everything.

So a couple of weeks ago I wrote an old companion of mine that has been at home for a while, but he wrote me with some good news!  In Puerto, we were teaching an investigator and right before I left, she decided to be baptized on May 30th, 2015.  I was never there to see her be baptized with her daughter as well, but that was the last I heard of her, that she got baptized.  I got an email today from my old companion that had been talking to her by facebook and she is doing great!  She kept thanking him (and me) because we were able to bring her the gospel.  It was super cool to hear that she is doing well!  It´s one of the best feelings to know that you were able to help bring the gospel into someones life and nothing can replace that feeling.

Well, I love you all and hope you all have a great week!  Thanks for all the support and love that you all show!  Stay safe and have a great week!

Hey everyone!  Hope you all are doing well.  I am doing pretty well down here.  It´s been raining these past couple of months which makes things pretty cold but things are warming up down here.

This past week there wasn´t a whole lot but it was good.  The other Elders in my district had a baptism which was pretty cool.  This past week my companion and I have been trying to find new investigators to teach and so far, there aren´t a whole lot.  The good thing is that we have some references to contact this coming week.

We are teaching one investigator that is pretty good.  She says that she want´s to get baptized but she travels each Saturday to her moms house and doesn´t come back until Sunday.  She has said so many times that she is going to come but never shows up.  It can be hard for a lot of people here because  a lot of them are the only member of their family or are going to be the only member of their family.

This last week I went on divisions with one of the zone leaders, Elder Flores.  He is from Bolivia and he is pretty cool.  I learned some good things from him.  We are also finishing the mission together so we were talking about a lot of that stuff when we were together...  But everything is good!

Well that´s about it...  Like I said, it´s not a lot, but hopefully the efforts of this week will convert into a lot this coming week!  Love you all and thanks for all the support!

Sometimes doing missionary work you feel like you are just running into a wall.

Hey everyone!  Hope you all had a good week!  This week was pretty good here in Puno considering we had a baptism this last Saturday.

His name is Oskar and was a reference from some members.  He was pretty cool and had a desire to be baptized from the beginning.  He was a gift from heaven.  He also shared a testimony that was pretty cool afterward.  He was really happy to be baptized.

We also were able to teach a family this week and the dad is an excommunicated member.  It was really cool to talk with them.  They actually contacted us so that shows their willingness to listen.  The mom is a less active member and they have two little kids.  From the moment we started to talk with them, I felt just a little bit of the love that Jesus has for them.  It was really cool to feel that.  I felt what is called charity or the pure love of Christ for them.  They also came to church this past Sunday so that was also really cool.  We will be working a lot with them this coming change.

We have also been working with a less active that has been less active for some time now.  Yesterday we were able to rescue him and he is now an active member.  He has been coming to church which is awesome.  He knows how good the church is for him and the blessings that it brings.

This past week we didn´t have much, but it was a good week.  I learned a lot in this past week.  Especially in a special conference that we had.  There was a satilite conference broadcasted to all the missions around the world.  We were able to listen to 3 apostles and other genereal authorities talk about the mission work.  It was really cool.  One thing that really stood out to me is that in the mission, we are the tools and the spirit is the teacher.  Sometimes we get those two mixed up, but it´s really important to remember that without the spirit, we will not have converts.

Hope you all have a great week and stay safe!  Love you all and thanks for all the support!

Hey everyone!  Hope you all are doing well as alwyays!  Everything is just dandy down here in the south!  I can´t tell if it´s getting warmer or not because it rains one day and the other it´s sunny.  That´s life!

This week has been pretty good!  We have been finding some new people to teach which is always good.  We also have an investigator that had his baptismal interview this last Saturday so he will be getting baptized this coming Saturday!  Pretty exciting!  Baptisms are always exciting.

And the same as baptisms, there is a lot of excitment in the mission.  Recent converts, less actives, rescues, etc.  This past week was a good week for all of that!  We have a recent convert that recently was ordained to a priest.  The following Sunday (yesterday), he was able to bless the sacrament!  It´s super cool to watch and see your converts grow in the gospel and stay faithful.  Just as exciting as a baptism!

We have been teaching this less active for quite some time called Serafín.  He lives on the hill and pretty high up so it´s not super fun hiking up to his house, but we do it anyways because we care for him!  He hasn´t been coming to church and this last time we talked to him, we talked about the covenents that we make at baptism.  During the lesson he kept giving excuses for why he couldn´t go to church, but during the prayer he said, ´´I promise that I will be at church this Sunday.´´  Right after he said that, I gave a little fist pump because I was pretty happy.

Other than that, everything is going pretty good!  We talked with a new investigator yesterday that believes pretty heavily in science but also in God.  It´s pretty interesting.  I´ve never taught someone with beliefs like her.  Well, all is well!  And I hope it´s the same for all of you!  Take luck and good care!  Love you all!

D&C 88:124

Hey everyone!  Hope you all are doing well!  Everything has been pretty good here!  Not too cold this week!

This past week, my companion and I got to work!  We were able to find a ton of new investigators and members also came with us so that was pretty good!  Some of which are already progressing and know members!  It has been a pretty good week.

One of our investigators was supposed to get baptized this coming Saturday, but due to his schedule, he wasn´t able to have his interview in time so he will be getting baptized the following Saturday.  He is doing well and understands a lot.

We had another investigator that was progressing for baptism but he fell through and now we can´t find him..  I don´t know if he doesn´t want to anymore or if he just doesn´t have time.  Hopefully we can find him and help him.

Other than that we have a lot of good new investigators.  One already went to church and his kids are members.  All of them accepted the baptismal challenge which is good.  Now we will be working with them to get them to the waters.  Not a whole lot of cool things this week but a lot of good things.  Hopefully even better this next week.

Love you all!  Hold to the rod!  Thanks for all the support as always!  Until next week!

Good morning everyone and a happy new year!  2016!  I hope you all had a great New Year and old one as well.  Let´s all learn from this last year and keep moving forward no matter where we may be!  That´s why new years is such a great time of the year!  New beginnings!

Well, this past week was pretty good!  We were able to find a new investigator and he now has a baptismal date!  He is a good friend of a member and he is dating a member as well so that might have helped.  But he is really excited for his baptism on the 16th of this month.

We also have another investigator that we have been teaching for a while that has his third baptismal date.  It´s also for the 16th.  Hopefully we can get him to the chapel!  We talked to him yesterday and he still isn´t sure about baptism.  He knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that through him, Jesus was able to restore His gospel.  Everytime we go he feels the spirit and he knows that it´s the spirit, but he is still a little hesitant to be baptized.  I don´t know exactly why and neither does he.  We will be working with him a lot this week.

Well I passed New Years trying to sleep.  It seems like it is a big time of the year for Peru.  There are a ton of fireworks and it´s super hard to sleep through all of it.  But it´s good.  I think the members of Salcedo are a little bit more excited to work this year.  We have recieved a couple of references and they came to church as well so that´s pretty good!  We also started off the year with a member accomponying us the whole day.  Not a bad start.  Hopefully we can keep the fire burning.  We didn´t start the fire. It´s always been burning since the world has been turning.

​I hope you all have a great year in 2016!  Enjoy it!  Love you all, learn a lot!​  Thanks for everything as always!

Hey everyone!  I can´t believe that I had just passed my last Christmas here in Perú!  I hope you all had a merry Christmas and were able to remember why we celebrate this time of year.  This Christmas I had a good time talking to my family and also watching the other Elders talk to their family.  And for all of them it was their first Christmas!  How crazy...

This week wasn´t super eventful due to the parties and the festivals.  It was a little bit harder to find people with time on their hands.  A lot of people traveled, others had visiters so it was a little hard to get to people.  We did have a few lessons however.

One of which we talked with the guy that fell through on his baptism..  He said that he felt that he was taking it too fast and he was scared to sin and commit errors after being baptized and wanted to be baptized within 5 years.  We explained to him that even if he got baptized in 5 years, he would still make errors afterward, so we explained the sacrament and the atonement as well.  Afterward, we put another date for Janurary and he accepted.  We will be working with him a lot this week.

The other Elders in my district had a baptism this week which was pretty good.  It´s always good to have a baptism in the ward.

Yesterday we had a meeting with all the leaders of the stake talking about goals and achievments of December and Janurary.  Our ward had the highest numbers for the month of December which was pretty cool.  It always seems that the ward I´m in is the example ward.  They even talked about a goal to have this ward turn into a stake.  I don´t know how long it will be for that, but it will be a while.

That´s about it this week.  Sorry there isn´t a whole lot.  There will be a lot more this coming week I think.  The only holiday is New Years and that´s pretty big here but we will get through it.  Thanks as always for all your support and love! Love you all!

Hey everyone!  Hope you all are doing well and have a wonderful Christmas!  Puno is finally starting to look a lot more like christmas (although there is no snow...)!  

Well this week we sent of my old companion and I got my new companion, Elder Girón from Hounduras.  He is an awesome missionary although he has very little time.  I was able to show him a little bit of the sector and introduce him to some members.  He got to Puno Wednesday in the afternoon so we had very little time to work this week.

This Friday we had our Christmas dinner with our mission president and his wife.  It was really good!  We watched a movie called ´´Freetown´´.  It was really good about missionaries in Liberia that had to survive through a civil war.  After that we ate the typical chicken and rice!  Then we did a white elephant type thing.  I ended up with my own!  So I traded with another Elder in my district that also had his own!  What luck!  Aferward we were able to listen to testimonies of several apostles and prophets.  It was a really spiritually uplifting dinner.

For the rest of the week, we have been contacting a lot of people that we had contacted the past week.  Hardly anyone was there or had time, but we do have return appointments!  It also looks like we will be able to have several baptisms in January which will be awesome!

This past Saturday we sang in the Plaza for a little bit until a catholic band just drownded us out with all their instruments.  This week we will also be singing so that´s pretty cool!

On Thursday we went to a pizza place (which has the best pizza and owned by members) and we ended up talking to 3 Europeans.  It was pretty cool but I didn´t know how to talk English with them!  I don´t know why, but with missionaries I can talk with them easily, but with tourists and others, I don´t know what to say!  But there was one from Holland, Switzerland, and  Belgium.  They all spoke English really well!

Well that´s about it for this week!  Have a very merry Christmas and remember why we celebrate this time of year!  He is the gift that keeps on giving.  Love you all and thanks for all the support!

Hey everyone!  Hope you all are doing well and staying safe wherever you may be.  I´m doing pretty good here.  Today are changes and I am staying here in Salcedo, but I will have a new companion.  I don´t know a whole lot about him but he will be getting here around Wednesday.  Pretty cool!

So this week we just went out full on contacting people and trying to find new investigators.  We contacted a little bit more than 200 people this week so that was pretty cool!  Hopefully they will turn out to be new investigators!

We also had a baptism this week!  There were supposed to be 2 but one of them got scared or something like that...  But we did baptize the other.  It was cool!  He had a couple of friends go to his baptism as well so we contacted them.  They live in another ward so other missionaries will be teaching them.  He is a good convert.  After his baptism he gave a really good testimony that will help him be an example to his friends in the university.

This week, we had a small zone meeting.  More than anything to motivate us and it was actually really good.  I learned a lot.  One of the things I liked the most is a video clip we saw of Elder Holland.  He was talking about Peter and Jesus when He asked Peter ´´Lovest thou me more than these?´´.  Then Jesus responded ´´Then feed my sheep´´.  If we really love Jesus, we will leave behind our nets, or be it, all of the things that hold us back, and we will ´´feed His sheep´´.  And that is exactly what we are here to do as missionaries.  We need to feed His sheep.

Well, that´s about all that happened this week.  Hope you all are doing well!  Stay safe!  Love you all!  Thanks for everything!