Aaron

Hello everyone!  I am finally in my assigned area!  Puerto Maldonado!  I´m not sure exactly where it is but it´s in the middle of a jungle!  If you thought Portland had a lot of trees, this is insane!  But it´s always hot here!  80 degrees is considered cool.  It´s also really humid from all the rain.  It feels like Florida in the middle of summer just after a rainstorm, except all the time!  But I like it here.

I was able to fly in because I was by myself and they didn´t want to send me on a 12 hour bus ride by myself.  i was able to see more trees!  And when we got closer there was also a river but it looks disgusting.  It´s sad to see all the garbage they put in the river and make it a dump.

So before I left to Puerto,  I was able to have a couple of lessons with the office elders that I was with.  There were a few lessons that I can still remember really well.  My first lesson that i was a part of there was a family of 4 and the dad is a member and served a mission.  But now he lives with his girlfriend and has 2 kids.  when i got there, we found out that they had a marriage date set and the elders challenged her to be baptized.  What a first lesson to have!  she said she would pick a date after the marriage.

The next lesson was also in cusco.  We visited this guy and he almost had nothing.  He lived and a room that was just a little smaller than my family room at my house.  It was all cement, with 2 windows, and a wooden door.  He had an umbrella, a backpack, 2 chairs, a mattress type thing, a small box tv, and some water.  That was all that was in there.  It really shocked me at how little he had and he was still just getting by.

The next lesson was in Puerto.  We have a recent convert named Meyer.  He is way cool and he loves the church!  He has an uncle and an aunt that are deaf.  Their names are Mario and Lucia.  We had Meyer help us out with the lesson and we taught them the importance of the sacrament.  We also found out that they are both members and have actually been through the temple.  but they stopped coming to church because they don´t know what anyone is saying.  However, we got him to come to church and the brach president was nice enough to welcome him by holding up a paper that said, ``Bienvenido Hno. Mario``   I thought that was super cool.  And Meyer was able to write down some things for him.

Church was interesting.  We got there right at 8 when church is supposed to start and there were maybe 10 people there.  People were just showing up like crazy after it had started.  Even 45 minutes into sacrament meeting people are still just showing up!  But church was good.  We had testimony meeting.

Thats about all i can remember from this week.  Thanks for the emails and all the support!  Love you Guys!

-Elder Augat

P.S.  Also if you have not seen it yet, I challenge you to watch He is the Gift from the church.  It´s a small 2 minute video about Christmas.