Aaron

Click image to find me. I am in the center with a huge smile!

Hey everyone!  I hope you are all doing well wherever you all may be!  This past week was awesome!  There was a ton of work to do and there is still a ton of work to be done here in Julicaca.

So this past week we put a baptismal date on a girl that we are teaching for this Saturday and she is going to be baptized this Saturday!  She also told us that it´s something that she has been wanting to do so it´s pretty cool that she has decided to take this step.

Yesterday at church we had a lot of progress!!  There was more attendance in the ward and a lot of people brought investigators to church!  I don´t know what impelled them to do that but it was awesome!  Now there is a full week here in Universidad!

Well, apart from all that, today are changes and it looks like I´m going back to Sicuani!  Deja vu!  I don´t know how that happend but it will be cool!  I´m really glad I was able to work here in Juliaca.  I love the people here.  A lot of the members are awesome here and I am happy to have been able to work here!

Well, these next months will be interesting but awesome!  I hope you all have a great week!  I love you all!

Hey everyone!  I hope you all had a good week!  This past week more than anything was a learning week for me.  I was able to learn and experience a lot of new things that have and will help me a ton.

First off, we have been able to find a couple of new people to teach that are really progressing!  It has been awesome to see a lot of people come out of the woodwork.  Now we just have to take care of them and help them get to the waters of baptism.

Second, we have been working with a lot of old investigators that have been progressing as well!  Some have been investigating the church for years and they are starting to progress little by little!  At least I feel like it.  Even though some people have been investigating for some time, they still have the potential to inherit Eternal Life so that doesn´t mean that we are going to stop working with them forever.  We might leave them for a little time, but eventually we will make it back to them, if they permit it.

Other than that we have been doing a lot of walking!  The sector is huge and there are only 2 companionships.  If it really interests you, the sector goes from Real Plaza (center of Juliaca) to almost Sillustani (tourist attraction).  But the good part is that there is a lot of work!  

We have also been teaching others who are preparing for baptism.  Some weird cases.  One of them says that she is scared of the water and if it weren´t for that, she would be baptized.  Sometimes there are those weird cases.  

This past week I was also able to study a little bit more of General Conference.  There are a few talks that I love!  Some of them are the 2 talks from President Monson (from Priesthood session as well) and David A. Bednar´s talk about Always Retaining a Remission of Your Sins.  Those are some that I love!  I am still studying more so we will see what more I can find!

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

Hey everyone!  I hope you are all doing well!  This past week was crazy for me!  But it was awesome as always.  We had a lot going on such as finding new investigators and our last interviews with President Harbertson!  It was a full week!

First off the interviews with president.  Before we went into our interviews, he talked with all of us in general.  He talked about a bridge that is pretty close to Cusco called ´´Qeswachaka´´.  If you look at the picture (attatched) it has four big ropes made of straw.  He compared each one of these to the motto of the mission which is Vaya SOLO (go alone).  It doesn`t really work in English so that`s why I wrote it in Spanish.  But each letter means something in SOLO.  Servicio, oración, leer, y obediencia (Service, Prayer, Read (Scriptures), and Obedience).  He said that we need each one of these to help sustain us in our lives.  He also compared the river to our lives so that with these four things, we can sustain ourselves to get accross life.  But not only that, he also compared the two big ropes that are up higher that we can hold onto to keep ourselves balanced.  He said that we need to hold on to the word of God and our covenents to keep us balanced.  It was an awesome conference.

I`m a little sad to see the mission president leave because he has helped me a ton but I`m excited to see how I can work with the new mission president.

Apart from that we found this girl called Shami.  She is 18 and from Sandia (jungle).  She had a friend that left on the mission recently this past week in Puno and he had introduced her to the church inically.  When she moved to Juliaca for studies, she found a church and luckily that day we were having our interviews so we were all in the same chapel.  She understands a lot and is really prepared for baptism.  She is really open and loves to hear more about the gospel.

This week was awesome but there is always room for improvement!  I look forward to working hard this week!  Thanks for everything!  I love you all!  Hasta Vernos...

Hey everyone!

I hope you are all doing well!  This past week was kind of rough but none the less, there is always something that goes well if you just look for it!  We have been looking for new investigators to teach this past week and there haven´t been very many.  We have also recieved refferals but the address is not exact and it´s impossible to find the people.  This coming week we are planning on street contacting a lot of people.

We also have a new bishop in the ward!  Those are the best!  He is with a lot of desires to work and ready to help out in the mission work!  We will be working really closely with the new bishop to keep up his desires!

Well, now that I have a little bit of time, I will explain the parables in Luke 15.

First.  The Lost Sheep.  Elder Godoy (area president) exlpained it like this:  First off, why did the sheep get lost?  Maybe he was eating grass and he just kind of wanderd off not wanting to.  So maybe these are the people that just kind of don´t go to church one Sunday, then 2, then more and more until they don´t know where they are!  So what did the shepard do?  He went looking for the sheep!  We need to go looking for those type of people!

Second.  The lost coin.  How did the coin get lost? Some careless person had misplaced it perhaps.  Maybe these are the people that leave the church for some comment or rumour or a conflict they had with another member.  So what did the woman do?  She also went looking for it.  Most likely appolgizing for what we had done to that person.

Third.  The Prodigal Son.  How did he leave?  By his own free will.  He wanted to experiment the world for his own and try different things.  So what did his father do?  I´m sure he waited with love with lots of prayers.  And when his son come back home, he recieved him with open arms and they had a party because he had come back.

Let us all find those who may have wanderd from the church for some reason.  And let us all help them return!

The church is true, Jesus is the Christ!  I love you all and thanks for all the support!  Have a wonderful week!

Hey everyone!  I hope you are all doing well wherever in the world you may be!  It seems like everyone is going their own seperate ways!  But hey that´s life.  I hope you all had a great week! This past week was ok.  There wasn´t a whole lot but we were able to do some good things!  Well.. We are always doing good things.. Haha!  But yeah you know what I mean.

This past week more than anything, I remember something that Elder Godoy said (Area President) in a Face to Face devotional.  He was talking about Lucas 15 and the 3 Parables that there are.  The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son.  They all have to do with people that leave the church for some reason.  I´m not going to explain it all due to the time but in the parables, think about, how the sheep got lost, and how or who lost the coin, and how did the prodigal son leave or why.  Then think about what they did to find them or recieve them again.  And that´s how we should treat each one of those people.  If I have more time next week, I will explain it all!

Apart from that, we had stake conference yesterday.  And it looks like we are going to have a new bishop!  We still don´t know who it is but hopefully we can get a good one!

Other than that, we have been looking for other people to teach and with the recent converts to be able to find new investigators!  Sorry for the short email, but thanks for all the support and love!  I love you all!

Hey everyone!  First of all, I`m sorry that I didn`t send an email last week... I found it today in my drafts so yeah... I`m sorry!  But these past two weeks have been pretty good!  To start out (I can`t remember if I already said this) we had 4 baptisms in our ward these past weeks which was really cool!  They are all super cool people and I`m happy to see them in the gospel now!

So this past week we met a kid, 19 years old, that says he preaches the ``Word of God`` as well sometimes.  We talked to him for a while and he had some good questions, but he obviously wasn`t listening to me!  I told him about a million times that he just had to pray to God to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet, and all the rest will just come naturally.  I told him that it`s like a tree.  If you want to take out a tree from the ground, you start straight from the roots!  You don`t start from the top cutting off every little part to get to the bottom, you go straight to the roots!  He still kept asking the same questions and all that. I`m sure he just wanted to Bible Bash.  He tried to be all fancy in how he talked but it really didn`t work.  He also called us Prophets because we preach the gospel.  It was kind of weird.

Another experience, probably completely opposite to what I just mentioned, is that we met a less active member (who`s mom is an active member) and we invited her to listen to us again but she just told us no and that she wanted to keep sinning.  We just left it at that.  We didn`t want to fight with her.

This past week we were able to find some new investigators which was cool.  Hopefully we can keep that up!  Other than that there hasn`t been much!  On Wednesday I`m going to try to cook tacos so we will see how that goes!  Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week!  Don`t be rumerous!  It really destroys people!

Hey everyone!  I hope you are all doing alright!  This past week was pretty sweet.  It was super crazy as well but all good!  This past week the zone leaders went to Cusco for concilio (I think that means council) so I promised them that I would work 100% this past week and I feel satisfied about it.  Now I am tired everyday.  It´s just something that happens after a while.

To start off, we have been visiting a lot of people but especially those who will be baptized this coming Friday.  We have 4 people that will be baptized and they complete 2 families (as in everyone in their family will be an active member).  All of them are awesome.  One of them is getting baptized because her baptismal record got lost somewhere and there is nothing to say that she got baptized so that was interesting.  2 of her kids are also getting baptized which will complete their family.

The other is someone called Janeth and her husband is a member that we recently rescued.  They have 2 little kids.  One is 3 and the other one about 8 months.  They are an awesome family.  Yesterday they invited us to eat dinner with them so we went and it was awesome!  Her husband also recently got a new calling which will be awesome for him.

Also this past week we had zone meeting.  It was probably my favorite zone meeting that I have had.  The best part was when a couple of people were giving their testimonies.  We have 3 people in the zone that are going home in about a week.  The 2 zone leaders and a sister.  They are all awesome.  I am really sad that they are going home.  I wish they could stay haha...  They have taught me a lot that I will never forget and even moreso through their examples.

Well that´s about it for this week.  This coming week we will be cleaning the chapel and keepin it clean for the baptisms on Friday!  I hope you all have a great week!  I love you all!

Speaking of 100%...Aaron giving 100% on the soccer pitch on his p-day.

Looks like a goal celebration!

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic week!  I am really enjoying Juliaca.  Right now I´m in Puno visiting so I don´t have much time but I will try to get in as much as possible!  

So this past week I got kind of sick....  Wasn´t so fun but now I am past it!  The best part about being sick is that a ton of people give you stuff!  But just stuff to help you get better.  They also have a lot of weird thoughts on how to get better.  They are just crazy down here!

We visited someone this past week and we set a baptismal date with her.  Her name is Yanet and has two kids and is married to a member.  We are planning on rescuing her husband first so that he can baptize her.  Her date is set for the 28th of May so that will be pretty cool!

Yesterday in Ward Council, we got some pretty crazy news.  So we have been visiting a ´´member´´ who the other Elders had rescued but it turns out that she doesn´t have any records in the church!  The ward secretary called the church offices and they say that she has no records.  So it looks like she will have to be baptized once again!  Pretty weird.

Well everything is going well.  The ward is progressing which is awesome!  The only problem is getting to places and starting activities on time... But other than that everything is pretty good!  Thanks for all your support and the the birthday wishes this past week!  I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Happy 20th to Elder Augat on May 15!

Hey everyone!  I hope you all had a good week!  This week was pretty good.  There wasn´t a whole lot because of Zone Conference and Mothers Day and a ´´talent show´´ type thing.  But it was a good week!

So like I mentioned, this last week we had a zone conference.  It was awesome.  It was outside so we were in P-Day clothes.  We started off with the zone leaders talking to us a little bit about obedience.  Then we did an activity that had to do with obedience.  We had to follow what the zone leaders said exactly and if we didn´t do it, we all had to start over.  Then we moved on to a bigger activity.  Basically we started out with an egg, a raw egg in it´s shell.  And we had to hold that while we went through a type of obstical course.  There were a couple people trying to break our egg while we were going through and if it broke we had to start all over again.  We eventually changed the egg for a hard boiled egg and when we finished, into a rock.  After we had the rock we helped other people finish the course thing.  It was way cool and fun.  They talked about how the egg is kind of like our testimony and sometimes we fall and have to start over again but eventually we can turn it into something as hard as a rock.  And once we have that testimony, we can help others come unto repentance.  It ws pretty cool.

Later in the conference President talked a lot about Temples (what he could) using a lot of scriptures and how satan works with us and how he makes us feel.  It was really cool.  I forgot to bring the scripture references with me so I cannot send them.... Next time.

Well there isn´t much but I hope you all have a great week!  Thanks for all the support and love!  I love you all!

Hey everyone!  This week has been pretty good!  I hope you all had a good week as well and look forward for the blessings to come!

So this past week on Saturday we had another baptism!  He is a cool kid named Alejandro.  He is 19 and is now the only member of his family.  He is a really smart kid.  He studies medicine and basically he is the guy that makes the drugs (the good ones) so he has to get exactly the right amount of everything.  If it`s too much, they die.  If it`s too little, they die.  So he is a really smart kid.  I also had the opportunity to confirm him member of the church so that was pretty cool.

After the baptism we went to a restaurant calld El Tablon and got a huge pizza!  It`s a meter long so that`s pretty cool.  The pizza wasn`t the best though.  We went with the other two Elders in our district so it was way fun.

On Thursday and Friday there was an activity about Family History.  A senior couple of missionaries came to help out so that was pretty cool.

This past week I went on divisions with an Elder named Elder Bird.  He is awesome.  He told me a quote that I really liked that said, ``A goal not written down is only a dream.``  So I was able to write down some goals that I wanted to accomplish this change and it`s helped me out a lot.  So if you guys want to accomplish something, write it down!

So this week was pretty good and I`m looking forward to the time that I will have in Juliaca.  I hope you all have another wonderful week full of cool things to do and see and service and all that jazz.  I love you all!

Hey everyone!  Well, I made it to Juliaca!  After about an hour drive!  Juliaca is pretty cool and I`m super excited to work here.  I also think I have the prettiest part of Juliaca so that`s pretty cool!  

So this past week we had a baptism!  It was a pretty cool surprise.  Her name is Helen and she is 14 years old.  Her mom is a member that the Elders before me had rescued so that`s pretty cool.  Now we are going to try to work with her little siblings that have a certain fear of being baptized.

We also have another baptism this coming Saturday.  Some guy named Alejandro.  He is 19 and super smart.  He is studying medicine.  He knows a lot and it will be really cool seing him be baptized.

Other than those two things I have just been getting used to the sector.  It`s huge.  The other day I think my companion took me to Bolivia.  We walk a ton here.  The ward seems ok.  It seems like there is a problem with the retention.  A lot of people go less active because of stupid little things like something another member said so it`s kind of sad.

Well, I`m really excited to be here in Juliaca!  Hopefully we can accomplish a lot of things here.  I love you all and I hope you are all doing well!  Have a great week!

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!