Temple Dedication

That's good to hear that Julie is sending letters. When she told me that I bought a guardianes de la galaxia notebook to hold mail!!! I 'm still working on the ruins, but last week we went to a museum and it was pretty cool. Bunch of skulls and other stuff.

                                                   part of our zone in the art musuem


Yesterday I watched two sessions of the dedication of the Trujillo Peru Temple and it was super cool!!!!  President Uchtdorf and Elder Bednar came here. When President Uchtdorf went out to seal the corner stone, he was a jokester and was cracking jokes and talking English to the kids, they didn't understand!! It was different seeing him in a non conference setting. He's probably in Cuzco right now. He's having a fireside in the Inti Raymi Stake there and It'll be broadcast to the whole mission. I'm about 95% sure he's going to Machu Picchu tomorrow also.

Yesterday we found out an investigator from another branch is moving to our sector, so we're gonna have a baptism on Thursday!!!!! I'ts going to be great, he's been going for years but just now decided to get baptized.  The other people are on track for their date the 4th of July!!!!!

Our Area President is coming this change, and he's going to quiz us on the Missionary Handbook in the conference ahhhhh!!!!!!

A funny thing happened on the way to the capilla...(chapel)

This week I had a lot of exchanges with other elders. I was leading here in the sector to all the visits and in talking to people. The first one was with Elder Jensen from Spanish Fork.  We went to visit a family and we were talking to the dad in the door. he's not a member and doesn't like the church too much, I was trying to make some small talk and I remembered that someone told me his daughter is in Lima and is going to get married so I was like 'su hija leslie está en lima ahorita, pero se va a casar sí? (Your daughter Leslie is in Lima now but is it getting married) (the dad did not know that yet,,,). him: QUE¡¡¡  QUIEN TE DIJO ESTO PASEN VAMOS A CONVERSAR.  I looked at my companion and he only said,  "they're gonna kill you." We went in and talked and I made up some vina and spoke beginner Spanish to get out of it, one sentence summary. I done goofed bad,  

The week didn't end there. I had another exchange with elder salvatierra limeño a little shorter than Mary. We went to a house and the door was moving and some abueltia  (grandmother) was trying to leave but couldn't open the door. and she was only talking quechua (Indian language) to us, and I'm still learning that. So I was like hey I'll push you up the wall to look over and help out the grandma. When he got done. some old guy came over and started yelling at us calling us ladrones de 'miericoles (thieves) and a bunch of other stuff. I tried to explain It.  He said callate (shut up) gringo and went back to yelling. He said he was going to call the police on us, and then my companion lost it and they had some words with each other. It wasn't going good so I was like we should leave right now. The good news is that in the end he was like' I thought you were Jehovah Witnesses  weren't thieves'  so we were like que bueno él piensa que somos testigos!!!!  summary: Well that escalated quickly.

Those were the highlights of my week pretty much, the sector is getting more and more interesting. 

                                                    that's the church next to the musuem

Love,

Elder Wilde

Working with Part Member Families

 I did some wrangling and I got my shoulder bag and stuff from Puerto today, it's a relief, I left most of my books in my 2nd shoulder bag their.   I could only bring one carry on bag on the plane. I'm so glad I left it in the plane and not bus!!!!!

A family we are teaching  is doing quite well. The dad works 2 weeks in the mine and 1 week rest, this week was his rest so we visited them with a special message. We found out they weren't married when he was away, so we taught the law of chastity. gosh. always goes interesting there, but he understood the message and why it was important, because he wants to get baptized. He was like if all goes good we could be married before the end of the year. His girlfriend was like no, this is something we should have done yesterday! so he revised it to the end of June!!! They're a great family and it's gonna be great day when they go to the temple.

We are trying our best in the sector but it is tough.

P-days are tough. All the Latinos want to do are play fùtbol.  I'm trying to organize a trip to some Incan ruins about 2 hours out of town, for the 6 of July. its called Sawite. I'm not sure if the Latinos will go but we'll just do divisions.

We are trying to work a lot with part member families. The majority of converts are kids that were baptized without parental involvement in lessons. There's a big pool but the fish aren't biting right now.  Honestly our teaching pool isn't doing good, and we don't know why. We're trying but the people won't listen. The worst was when Peru played Brasil en La Copa America. It was like a ghost town here. It was sad; a drunk engaged us yesterday and kept offering us his beer. I told him no because God doesn't want it. He said tell me a word why to change. I said, Jesu Cristo. He went off about his family and started crying and all, we were standing in the middle of the street.  He spilled beer on my companion, but I got out of the way, so we left. He was the only person that wanted to talk to us that day.

So another branch had a baptism, the kid waited 3 years for his dad to give permission. It was a really good service, the best I've seen. A giant turnout. The missionaries sang a special musical number of A Child's Prayer, in English and Spanish. It was super nice.

Wow Sawyer was always super fine chillin' with me, I still got the picture of me and him on  my desk.

About those meters. they aren't to hard to put on. We did those at Greg's i think. Just cut a section of the pipe, slip on the gadget, then they got like to clamp suction thingys on both ends to prevent sinusoidal deplanaration.  Good work with the tank it looks real nice, especially from a preparedness perspective!

This picture  is from our zone meeting today. The older guy is Elder Sandberg, He and his wife are couple missionaries from LA!! They're finishing this change, 

Elder Wilde

Glamour shots by Deb - in Abancay

We were out exploring our sector and got to the river and so we took some pictures. Glamour shots by Deb!   Later we saw a member on the other side in his chacra (farm) and we crossed to go to see him.

That's sad about the Giants they lost to the darn Pittsburg Pirates!!  I heard from my zone leaders here that they accidently sent some of my mail in the office to Puerto! ahh!!

SO in Abancay, my sector Patibamba is sloped pretty much the whole thing and it ends in the river Mariño. Its a lot smaller than my last sector and most of the roads are paved here. Most houses are made of adobe bricks or CMU (Concrete Masonry Unit) blocks. I'm finally using the blanket Alex and Bianca gave me here haha.  My Spanish is going pretty good, I can communicate with anybody and most of the time they understand me. But sometimes they don't try to understand, and after my companion says I said everything correct. But they just see a Gringo so they don't listen.

Lessons are going pretty good. We are opening up the sector pretty much so we have big chunks of nothing in the agenda so we use members a lot to show us around to members, less actives and investigators. We started to teach a new family that we contacted, and I felt real good in the lesson, so we'll see how it goes with them.

Last week we went to a hill overlooking the valley. This is me and my companion Elder Valdivia. He's from Mendoza Argentina and finishes next transfer.

Love Elder Wilde

Transfer in the Night

Yeah so last Tuesday in the night the DL (District Leader) and ZL (Zone Leader) showed up at my apartment at 9:30 at night and told me I have a transfer to Abancay, and I will be leaving tomorrow morning in an AIRPLANE!!!!!  I didn't get to say goodbye to anybody and it was a rush. My plane ride from Puerto to Cuzco was 33 MINUTES!!! I timed it... I waited a day in the office in Cuzco and after took a bus to Abancay in the region Apurimac. It was about 5 hours, not that much haha.  I think Abancay is at 6000 ish feet and its in a valley. My Branch is called Patibamba, it's a lot of steep streets. My new companion is Elder Valdivia from Mendoza Argentina. He's a pretty cool guy and we're getting along good. We're teaching a family and they have a baptismal date set for the 4th of July!!!

We were talking about pioneers, and I told the mom I was related to pioneers and she like freaked out, in a good way. She was all like it's an honor to meet their descendants and she wants to take a picture with me. I had them google Gilbert Belnap (4th Great Grandfather)  and showed them his photo. They're a really cool family.

We're pretty much opening this sector but I'm getting used to the streets a little; they aren't organized to good here.

                                                              picture of my sector

                              my new pension smashed an egg on my head to welcome me to Abancay

 I pretty much went from the farthest East to the farthest West in the mission. We had a District Conference (Conference with missionaries)  here in Abancay this weekend and President Harbertson announced in his talk that Elder Perry (an Apostle for our church) passed away, we sustained him in the conference the next day anyway!!

ahhhh your going to the giants!!!!!! lucky

In my new sector we were at the District Conference (meeting with several congregations) and the President conducting was like and uh this Elder will conduct the hymns and pointed at me!!!!  Luckily I learned to conduct hymns in the CCM and I went and conducted all the hymns for the Conference, I was a little nervous but its not like anyone follows the conductors hand so I was safe!!!!

In my new branch my companion only has a few more days than me so were pretty much opening the Sector here. We're working with the Branch President. he's a pretty cool guy, he can say my name and when he presents me to new people he said I was from Cajamarca (a place in peru where the people are white). There's work to do here to get the Branch good, and I feel like the progress is going to come soon.

I didn't see too much in my sector this week, but ill have more next week.

                        This is the end of my fishing adventure in Puerto. Weird catfish thing!!! 

                                                      This is me in the sector Patibamba

Love,

Elder Wilde