Happiness!‏

¡Hola familia!

Glad to hear from everyone! The weeks are just flying by… I can believe its already almost OCTOBER!! That means E’s birthday is coming up! What the 5th?!? Dang. Well, this week was awesome. Transfers are almost here,(4^th of October) but don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere… yet.

Lets see. To start off, we have been really focusing this week on Lizett’s family. She is on of our recent converts that was baptized maybe a month and a half ago. A little background on the Callapiña family… The dad is 42 and hardcore catholic. The mom, we found out, is a member! Completely inactive... for now. Lizett is 17 and the oldest sibling. Wendy comes next, at 12 years old. Then Alexandra, 11, and finally the littlest sister – I don’t remember her name. Hahaha, but she’s like 3 or something. Their family owns a convenience store, and they always invite us to everything from drinks… to dish soap. Haha. But they are super great, and the only reason the mom “can’t” come back to church is because she has to watch over their store. In the back of the store and on the second story is where they live. So. Here’s what we did, and what happened with them this week. We went  to their house on Friday for a FHE. Elder Whittaker and I decided to make them pizza! So, we bought all the ingredients to make a BBQ chicken pizza. We bought the chicken, made the dough, graded the cheese, and made everything with them at their house. Here in Perú, not a lot of people have ovens. Including their family. So, what some people have as a business, are giant ovens. We took the pizza to one of these ovens and cooked it their. They charged us 1.5 sóles. That’s like, 50 cents or so. So, we picked up the pizza after 30 minutes and took it back and ate it while we watched… we watched… “En Busqueda de la Verdad.” I don’t remember what it is in English… Something like the search for truth. Anyway, it’s a movie about the apostasy and how Wilford Woodruff searched until he heard from two of the first missionaries and found the true church. We watched that and Wendy looked at me and said, “That’s how were supposed to be baptized?” (The scene in the movie when Wilford is baptized in the ice water) I told her, “Yeah, but in warmer water than that!” Her answer kind of took me back, she responded, “Well, the water doesn’t matter to me…” So that was a good experience. We wanted to watch the Joseph Smith movie, the one they show at Temple Square, so the next day we stopped by and watched that. We even got the dad to watch with us. He sat throughout the whole movie, watching intently. Afterward, he had a ton of questions and we answered them with gladness. He just doesn’t understand baptism yet. We’ll get there, I’m not worried. But, the night before was quite different. The dad came home, hammered. Wayy too drunk to really know what was going on. The parents had a big fight the night before and so he went to drink. Bummer. Before I realized how drunk he was, I asked if he was gonna stay with us. He said that he was on another planet right now, and that he would come back later. I, feeling really bad, watched as he walked out and left. Where they live, you find a lot of drunks, fights, and yelling. Right as we were leaving, a fight broke out right across the narrow street, and one guy got his head smashed into the car, leaving a gnarly gash in his head. Someone called the police, who arrived way too late, after they all disappeared. I now, with more time in the mission, recognize a ton of slang and swear words. Woo… those two guys really, really hated each other. Hahaha. Anyway, moving on. So, yesterday night, we went back over to their house. I went with one of the Assistants, Elder Pastrana. He has some real power when he teaches. It’s great. So we got there and challenged them to baptism this Friday, and they accepted! Now, tonight we have gotta go back and talk with the parents. They have talked with their parents, but we still want to go and explain more to them. The dad has always said that it’s their personal decision what they would like to do. So, we are preparing the baptismal service for Friday. Seeing that Saturday and Sunday is General Conference, we will confirm them as well that same day.

Wow, my 3^rd general conference in the mission. That’s weird to think about. Only one left in April! Then, 3 months after that, I’m back! Way weird. But I’m stoked for this session of Conference. We're inviting a ton of investigators to listen to the words of modern day apostles and our beloved prophet Thomas S. Monson. It will sure be a treat to hear all of their words.

Mom, thanks so much for making some salsa just for me!! I’m sooooo excited to get that salsa. The camera too! Its weird to think that Eggleston is already going home. So weird… And, everyone is waiting with anticipation to see who will be the next assistant. Elder Huntsman, the current assistant, will be going home as well. There are a ton of north Americans coming in, so that’ll be fun to train them next week.

Whittaker's mom sent him some hair clippers so, were cutting our own hair now. 4 on top, 3 on the sides. I did it myself, too! Oh, and up till now on the mish, I've lost like 6-7 kilos. Something like 13-14 pounds. Crazy right? Today we will be playing soccer for 3 hours on a synthetic field here in Cusco. Always stoked to play!!

I'm really dedicating myself to seriously study the scriptures. I plan to have a firm knowledge and understanding of them by the time I get home. I hit 13 months this Saturday.

This month of September has been the best baptizing month our year-old mission has seen. Right now, we have 145 confirmations. We've never passed 150 yet, but this month is for sure that we will! So president is stoked, and he invited us to ceviche right now! YES.

Anyway, I love you all! Thanks so much for all you guys do for me. I appreciate it so much. I'm super happy here in the mish. "Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so." --Robert G. Ingersoll.

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ELDER CHRISTENSEN
Secretario Financiero

Misión Perú Cuzco

(51) 984-503-861

(51) 084-242-521

RPM #623574

PS - The other pic is of the pizza we made at the family night!

"The Suri Challenge"‏

¡HOLAAAA desde Perú!

Wellp, kinda forgot that you wouldn´t be writing yesterday! When I signed onto my email, I was super sad to see ZERO emails. :( But, then I remembered that dad had the LOTOJA!! I cannot believe that it was 2 whole years ago that I did that. But dad, way to go you stud! I’m proud of you. You trained so hard for this, and it paid off, didn’t it?? Good work.

This last Sunday was the decade anniversary of 9/11. That is so strange to me. I can still remember what happened. Mom, we were living in Clinton and it was before I left for school. I was in the kitchen with you, and I was flipping the channels on our little white TV that we had. I passed the news station by 1 or two channels when you told me to go back. I went back and saw the towers burning in flames. Then, if I remember right, you started to cry. I didn’t really understand what was going on, I mean, I was only in the 5^th grade. But all that day in school we talked about what happened and we watched the news probably the whole day. It’s still incredible to me how something so tragic, brought our nation even closer together that it was before. Even though it was ten years ago, we will never forget.

Mom, yes! The package got here! Tell me everything you sent, so I can make sure that nothing was taken out. I'm pretty sure that everything is here, but just let me know in case! Thank you so much for everything! I loved it all. I gave the blue tie to Pres. Carrasco, and the apron to La Carrasca. (His wife) I am savoring the Dew day by day, little by little. Even though we can actually find it sometimes here. I got the 8GB memory, (perfect) and the mangoes!!! LOVE the ties. Especially the Tommy Hilfiger one. Nice choices. Also, that was really sweet of you, mom, having everyone write me a little note. I miss everyone so much! Nano is a crack up, haha. Hope you read what she wrote. I also enjoyed the what, 5 wedding announcements? Haha... crazy that everyone is getting married. Tell Danielle, Christian, Sterling, Andrea, Chloe and Chase all congrats for me! Please let me know if you sent off the camera yet.

On Sunday at church, some people from Buenos Aires, Argentina that work for BYU International TV visited our chapel. They asked for a couple missionaries that could help them with some filming. So, turns out that I was one of the missionaries that went and filmed with them yesterday. Elder Chugden and I went to the Plaza de Armas, they filmed us contacting someone, did some walking shots, and then it was off to my bishops house. There, we did an introduction to the Book of Mormon with the bishop. He was supposed to be an “investigator”. All in all, it was fun I guess. They say that it is supposed to air in about 6 months to a year. So we got a little while before were able to see it. Cool right? Also, that same day, we went to play soccer on a full soccer field WAY on the other side of Cuzco hidden up in the mountains. It was way fun, but I think I pulled my groin muscle or something, because its hurtin pretty bad. But it was some way good exercise to run a lot… AND my ankle didn’t bother me! Afterwards, we ran to the office to do some stuff, then went to the Carrasca’s house. (We call her Carrasca, because in Spanish, words that end in “a” are feminine – when words that end in “o” are masculine. So even though her last name is Carrasco, we call her Carrasca) Now, this is where the fun begins. First, let me give you some quick background. Sister Villegas had to come into Cusco from Puerto Maldonado (jungle) to have a check up on her liver. She was pretty sick. So, President sent Sister Ortiz to take her place there in Puerto. She was there for a week. Our new assistant, Elder Pastrana (from Colombia) had served in Puerto for 6 months. He told Sister Ortiz to bring some ____ to Cusco from Puerto with her, so that we can eat them. Now, you’re probably wondering, what in the world did she bring home!? Well, I’m getting there. When we were in the office, I carried them home in a plastic container that was sitting in the fridge for a while. The other elders ate some earlier while I was out with Elder Chugden filming. Does, Lion King ring any bells? Typically they are fried, and have a “tasty” sauce on them. But on the Lion King, Timon and Pumba don’t fry them. In fact, they eat them raw. That’s right! JUNGLE WORMS! Hahahah, here in Perú they are called Suri. (SOO-REE) Well, she brought some home, and yes, we indeed did eat them. RAW. We dubbed it, "The Suri Challenge". The most disgusting thing I have ever eaten. We made a video, for proof, so I’m gonna try and see if I can burn it along with some pics to a CD and send it home. I almost threw up 3 or 4 times, but I swallowed it! The photo doesn’t really do it justice, because it’s so soft and mushy, but it has like a crunchy spine or something like that on the inside. Its head and mouth are especially hard and crunchy. But when you bite this thing, first it just explodes in your mouth, and then it crunches. Your mouth fills up with this rancid, bitter juice. I don’t even know how to explain the taste, but afterward I chugged some water, and dumped Tabasco sauce (Yeah, you can find that here!) in my mouth, and that kind of helped take the aftertaste away. Every time I burped though, the taste just came back up. Hahaha, oh man it was SO nasty, but a pretty cool story!

Anyway, we are doing well here in the office! We had some fun things happen this week, and the work continues forward. Something that Elder Whittaker and I have decided to do is to really work more with the members. Elder Bednar gave a statistic that 20-30% of referrals given to the missionaries are baptized…When only 2-3% of people found knocking doors or contacting in the street are baptized. So, our goal is to go to as many members houses we can and ask for referrals. We have a couple returned missionaries that live in our ward, and they help us out a lot.

I love Perú. I love my mission. El tiempo aquí está volando. Todos dicen que el segundo año se pasa como 2 meses. No sé, pero sé que el primer año ha pasado bien rápido. Me encanta todas las experiencias que estoy ganando como misionero. Estamos aquí con un propósito: Llevar a cabo la obra del Señor aquí en la tierra. Somos instrumentos en Sus manos. Si confiamos en El, El nos ayudará y preparará el camino al andar.

Les amo a todos muchísimo, ¡hasta la próxima semana! 

Con ,

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ELDER CHRISTENSEN
Secretario Financiero

Misión Perú Cuzco

(51) 984-503-861

(51) 084-242-521

RPM #623574

PS, enjoy the pics! One is of all the Suris in a tupperware thing, and the other of me with the camera used to film. And, the sunset over Cuzco. And me, washing a dish in the apron. They loved and appreciated what you sent them! They send their love and say "Thanks"!

D&C 29:7‏

Hey everyone,

Well, this week has been great! It´s gone by pretty quick as well. Last Saturday, we had Carol’s baptism! She was confirmed yesterday. She had been attending church for 4 months or more, but had never really had the desire to be baptized. We talked with her, and a few weeks ago she came up to me and said, “Quiero ser bautizada, pero dame un poco de tiempo. Quiero estar bien segura de lo que voy hacer.” Awesome! So we were stoked. We have been teaching her this last week, and she already knows that the church is true, and everything! It was great. We went over the baptismal interview with her, and she passed with flying colors. I have attached a pic of the baptism, so enjoy!

We visited Medaly yesterday, after a while. She has been busy working and teaching dance to little kids. Pretty cool! I don’t know if you remember her, but she is one of our old investigators that have been listening to us for 2 months or so and nothing. So, we decided to give her time, and come back later. She said that she didn’t come to church today because she had heard some things from one of her friends about the church that isn’t true. We cleared her doubt up, and she said, “Okay! I’ll come next week then!” We’re hoping that she will read the Book of Mormon like we challenged her to, and receive the answer that she is looking for. She has said in the past things like: “Do you think I would be a good missionary?” or “I know that if I ask, I’ll receive an answer, and I’m afraid.” She just needs to gather up some faith, and I know that she will be baptized.

We have been loving our new house. It’s actually a house! Were officially out of the “apartment” status. Even though its one floor, we love it. It has a big patio in front of the house, as well as another towards the back. The only funny thing is that if we open our bedroom window, we look into another person’s patio where they do their laundry, play, and shower…. Hahaha. Gotta be careful. It gets kinda cold at night, and my throat is really killin me right now.

I can’t really explain what the problem with money was, but after so long, its finally taken care of! I know this might sound silly, but I was so stressed and down about it. I was sitting in my office, said a quick prayer, and the first thought that came to my head was, “Go talk to President.” So, I did just that. He really helped me so much. He set everything that he was doing aside and said, “Ok Elder, let’s get this figured out.” We sat down and talked, and then just at that moment, the exact man that I needed to talk to in Lima called asking for me! We transferred the call to Presidents office and we all 3 talked about the situation. It was all resolved in a short 10 minute call. Can you believe it? Talk about an answer to prayer. I don’t know how it sounds to you guys, but to me personally, it was an answer to prayer.

Let me know if you got to talk to Sister Rogers about the package and stuff. And please tell me you sent off the MINOLTA camera…. Haha. It’s totally safe! Send film as well! :)

I can’t wait to get the year package! Thanks so much for that. Have you talked to Whittaker’s mom yet, mom? If not, her number is: 801-510-0587. Don’t remember if I gave it to you yet, but if not, there ya go…. Ha, well, actually he just told me that she talked to you for like 2 hours? Nice! Hopefully you two get along well just like we do!

I love my mission. I learn so much each day, and I know that we are being led by the Spirit to those who are elected. In D&C 29:7, it explains exactly why we are called. To bring to pass the gathering of the elect. Those who are elect, will hear us and not harden their hearts. 

Well, I can’t think of anything else, and I gotta go! Take care everyone.

MUCH LOVE. 

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ELDER CHRISTENSEN
Secretario Financiero

Misión Perú Cuzco

(51) 984-503-861

(51) 084-242-521

RPM #623574