Having good people to teach, and some of them being baptized

Sorry I'm writing a little late we went to a big rock formation 1.5 hours out of Puno. It's called Arama Muru in the native language Aymara, La Puerta Del Diablo in Spanish, and the Devil's Door in English  It was super cool!!!!  Lots of cool looking rocks and supposedly a portal to another dimension.  But don't worry I didn't get teleported or nothing ahaha!!!!  We just got back and we had to wait on the highway for a bus to go by but eventually one picked us up.

So this week was pretty intense. Our investigator Jason that is going to get baptized may 28th. We invited him to come to a baptism the elders from my District had and he showed up with his friend Jimmy.   It was a really good baptismal service and after we had a lesson with them, It was really good, Jason testified that this was the only true church and it was a really powerful lesson.  I invited Jimmy to be baptized June 18th and he said he would he really liked the service and all. And Jason said he would bring him to church the next day and sure enough, the 2 came for 3 hours. We are so happy, We  are working with others.    

We went to a part member family Sunday afternoon, where the mom and youngest daughter have been investigating for years. The daughter has a baptismal date, for June 4th and after a powerful lesson and asking good (inspired) questions the mom accepted to be baptized on June 18th.!!!!  It was a happy day and we had another lesson with an investigator Aldo that said hes for sure getting baptized may 28th.   

We're working really hard and we have lots of heaven prepared people we are teaching. In these lessons I've felt the inspiration to use scriptures and words phrases that I didn't think of before, and to give a strong testimony as a servant of  Jesus Christ to every one that will here me. The member less active investigators or street contacts.   We're working to the best of our ability for the salvation of these people here in Puno.

 Love,

Elder Wilde

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Wow. that was my last call home. What I've seen it's good to invite people to activities and then the discussions. Here we just invite them to go swimming and we baptize them hahaha (thats from the old days).  Yes I did get the granola bars, and I did get the letters.  today in pday we played billiards it was fun I took 2nd in the District Tournament.  There's not too much to tell after talking yesterday but we had our soldier investigator come to Church yesterday he's super cool. We have an appointment today with him.   We are gonna keep working hard with all our investigators, and we found some more this week. It's getting colder though!!!!

Just keep up the work, and remember to complete a goal you have to set goals. Like I want to contact 20 people today. 10 before lunch and 10 after to get 120 by week. Split everything up.  We get along good here in the District and I interviewed a baptismal candidate yesterday and he was really prepared it makes me happy to help out. Next Saturday I have 3 more interviews. it should be a crazy day.  I'll write more next week. Today for pday were gonna eat food and chill in the room because we can't leave Puno for protests in the highways.

Love,

Elder Wilde

Baptisms, and More Baptisms

Hello Cameron Park,

Wow that all sounds fun going to the temple. When i tell people there's a temple 30 minutes away they freak the closest temple to Puno is in Cochabamba Bolivia.

Sounds good that you want to have that 21 day missionary challenge. Here's some advice from Puno, my Stake President has a phrase, vision - action = dissilusion. So you can all fast but if you guys don't help you'll just end disillusioned. Here in the Stake the last Sunday of every month  they have goal meetings. Every ward gives reports on the months baptisms rescues, converts in 24 months, converts that attend, people from unknown addresses found, and from those found people how many returned.  Every organization attends from each ward, the missionaries, they do roll call by ward, then the bishop says how many they had the month that's finishing and says the goals from the next month.  Every organization has a standard of excellence, of 1 baptism and rescue per month.  That's how the we keep the work progressing here in the stake.    Maybe you could apply that in our stake it would hasten the work of salvation.

In the District we're killing it were 4 elders and we have 14 people committed to being baptized, and there's more to come,   

Wow this is my last call home.

I can't believe that, so I'm gonna call from my pension, at about 5 my time or 2 yours. if a plan changes I'll  communicate through my Pensionista Shirley.

So this week was super good, we have a lot of new people to teach and 5 have baptismal dates, this week was insane in a real good way!!!!!!  We contacted a family, we had a small lesson, we shared part of the proclamation, and the wife said that they want to hear more and that' '' things happen for a reason''    we invited them to a FHE with our pension we had it last night, super good, they loved it and now they have some friends.  But even more surprising we were in (Gospel) Principles and she showed up with her three kids!!!!!!!!  She couldn't participate in classes because her 2 year old needed to be outside class, but she came. We're really excited to help this family out.  

Another new person is Jason, he's a soldier in the Peruvian army, super cool a reference from a member, his house is in our sector but is always on the local military base, but he gets out every once in a while and we teach him. He accepted a a baptismal date in the first visit for May 28th.   He's golden, he came to church for the 3 hours, and loved it. He's finishing up his 2 years of military service. He only got deployed once, and it was to Abancay when I was there and there were all those riots.  

So today I have 17 months in the mission and I'm still wearing the same shoes everyday they're kinda beat up now haha

 SEE YA SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Wilde

A Powerful Week and a Day without Power

Wow Mary passed her test I thought she was for the record!!!!!!   The Utah trip sounded fun. When I think about driving to Utah after the mission it doesn't seem like anything after all the bus rides I've been on here, haha. The shortest one was to Abancay about 6 hours. but yeah I guess one of the things you learn on the mission, boring trips.  

Elmer is doing fine, we are working on new people.  This week, some couple missionaries came to Puno, to work on family history. They were going to have an activity Sunday afternoon,  but Saturday night I was in the church in the mutual combined activity waiting for an investigator to finish, and they showed up at the church because they didn't have anything to do. They were about to leave when I got the idea to have them visit with us. They went to 2 appointments and they were both very good. In the first appointment the kid said he would be baptized, we're excited. Elder Poulsen speaks good Spanish, Hermana Poulsen is still learning. We went to the next appointment with a part member family in the ward. 2 children are less active and the mom and another daughter are not members, but they've all been coming to church lately. We started talking and everything was going good. I asked them about goals they have in the gospel, the 17 year old said to go on a mission, the less active girl wants to go to the temple, the mom said her goal is to be baptized so did the other daughter,  We suggested a date, of the 28th the daughter agreed but the mom would like more time, (shes a nurse and works alot) and they all said they would come to church the next day. The kids all came and sat with the Poulsen's the mom had a work emergency so she couldn't come, they were all happy, The son went in the afternoon with the other young men to visit people. Another investigator came to church for the first time he's solid, and about half way through Sacrament Meeting an investigator Aldo that before had a baptismal date but had just vanished showed up and wants to talk again.   We're pretty happy down here in Puno and in the District, the new Elder in my district is Elder Maldonado, one of my best friends trained him in Andahuaylas,  We are all working really hard and we're gonna have baptisms in May and June.   

So this week was interesting I think the most interesting thing happened Sunday morning.  I woke up to shower and I tried plugging in my speaker to listen to music, didn't work I assumed the breaker dropped in the night so I showered then another elder couldn't iron his clothes, I flipped the breakers nothing, so we assumed something was wrong in the building, went to church and the lights weren't on or the heating I asked who was in charge and they said the power was out for the entire city!!!  We did everything without lights, less people came 140, because of that.   But everything went off without a hitch. Four investigators came, and I didn't hear a single person complain about the cold or why the lights weren't on, it was fun. The power came back at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Internet was down but we still had cell service. 

I was looking at my family tree and I saw little green temples on both sides of the family they said that ordinances waiting to be done, a lot on Mom's side. it doesn't make sense cause they're super Mormon, Could you investigate that please?   I just had an idea and searched Milna in family search there's a record, there from there microfilm search the family last name in there!!!!!!!    

I've got to  go bye!!!!!

Hope all is well!!

Elder Wilde