Navidad/ Año Nuevo

Had an awesome week filled with a thousand fruitcakes and meals with members. Before all that, I went on splits with Elder Hatfield in Yunguyo and then the next day I went to Ilave and did splits with Elder Stevens which was a super fun experience. I can only do splits with two missionaries because there's only 4 missionaries in our entire district of Yunguyo and Ilave but I love our little district. 

Last Monday two missionaries from Puno and our district came to Yunguyo and we ate seviche with chicken with a couple of members. Gringos took over Yunguyo that day. We've found a couple more investigators so I'm excited to work with them in the upcoming weeks. This area is so hard to find and teach so I'm excited that we've gotten more opportunities. 

Christmas weekend was soooo much fun. In Peru, Christmas Eve is bigger than actual Christmas day, everyone shot off fireworks that night, it was a better show than Disneyland I've never seen that many fireworks and also insanely close to me before in my life. I think we ate 4 or 5 dinners Christmas eve, it was awful I was about to explode but it was really good food. The best part about the weekend was skyping my family!!! It was so nice to see and talk to them, it was actually kind of hard to talk in english so that was pretty funny, I hope you all had a great Christmas and Happy New Year!!! I still write 2015 on everything so I don't know how I'll do 2017, excited for what's to come. Alma 57:21 / Alma 58:40

21 Yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; yea, and even according to their faith it was done unto them; and I did remember the words which they said unto me that their mothers had taught them.

40 But behold, they have received many wounds; nevertheless they stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has made them free; and they are strict to remember the Lord their God from day to day; yea, they do observe to keep his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments continually; and their faith is strong in the prophecies concerning that which is to come.

¡Feliz Navidad!

I'm going to keep this email short and send a lot of pictures. All the missionaries in the Puno area had a Christmas party which was so much fun, we ate a ton of food and performed skits and other fun stuff like that. 

A Mexican member moved into our city and fed us tacos which was the greatest christmas present in the world, I swear I almost started crying eating those tacos they were so good. He wants to open a taco shop here but no one in Peru eats tacos:( 

I had to say goodbye to one of our zone leaders Elder Cacoango who went home a couple days ago which was a bummer, I went on splits with him a couple weeks ago and he taught me so much. Tomorrow I'm going on splits in Ilave again which is exciting, my spanish is getting better every single day and the members are a blast, we're contacting like crazy but not having huge success but the members are bringing us investigators and church attendance is super high right now which is awesome. We drill the members about this because Sundays here are the best days to buy and sell food or whatever so it's difficult to tell them that you'll miss out on those things but you just have to trust in the Lord that you'll be blessed. 

I'm excited to Skype my fam this Sunday and eat a thousand meals with members. I hope you all had an awesome week and I hope you have a Christmas filled with family and food! Jacob 2:18-19 

18 But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdomof God.

 19 And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.

Ok Now It's Week 10 / Comida

First, HAPPY 40TH MOM!!!!!! 

This week was a ton of fun, we had a multi-zone conference with another quorum of the Seventy so I was able to see my CCM homies again which was awesome. We visit with the members a ton now, it's so hard to get investigators here because we don't start our day until like noon and then we have a couple of appointments and then by 5 there's no one on the streets. It's insanely quiet here at night, except for the weekends and holidays, then the people throw ragers but other than that Yunguyo is so peaceful it's weird. 

Elder Cubillas and I run Family Home Evening, which is a blast because everyone just tries to practice their English with me and we play games and eat food. Teaching English is my favorite thing in the whole world, the members love it and they get a taste of their own medicine since I mess up in Spanish all the time. I'm learning so much Spanish everyday I always have a headache by 6 PM. 

So a couple days ago I had to eat sheep foot. Probably one of the nastiest things I'v eaten in my life. There are so many parts of a sheep I don't know why these people choose to eat the foot, they eat the scalp too. We don't have a pensionista anymore so we basically live on the street when it comes to food but you can get a huge bag of bread here for 50 centimos, that's like 15 cents in American dollars haha. A member feeds us only lunch and that's when we had the sheep foot. Food here can be extremely good or just plain trash. Breakfast is usually just bread and cheese and sometimes eggs, (but it's the best bread and cheese in the world), Lunch is always rice and then either something disgusting or something amazing on top. My favorite meal I've had is rice with chopped up onions and tomatoes with eggs, meat, and french fries all mixed together. Dinner is always just a little smaller than lunch like bread with chicken or whatever, and we always have hot chocolate with every single meal, the people here don't drink water, it's either Inka Cola or hot chocolate or tea.

 I'm finally in Yunguyo for P-day so after I email ya'll we're going to go visit the border of Bolivia and the lake and all that cool stuff we have that I still haven't seen haha. Tomorrow we're going on splits with the town next to us called ilave. I'll be going with a homie from the CCM but that bad news is we're both new so it'll be interesting haha. Wednesday we have our Christmas party with all the missionaries so we have an awesome week coming up. I hope you all had a good week!! Let me know how things are. 

P.s We find dogs in the chapel all the time I have no idea how they get in.

Week 10 / Mas Tinieblas (we have lost count of weeks might be 9)

Very fun and normal week of fighting dogs and more insane thunderstorms, I'm loving Yunguyo, the members are a blast and even though we have like 15 strong members and almost no investigators, I've grown to love this place so much. 

We had another insane thunderstorm during the week that cut off all the lights during one of our lessons with a member so we whipped out candles and kept teaching and it became the best lesson we've taught so far. Other than a flashlight I carry a rock with me now because when dogs start running at you, you don't want to look down and not see a rock by you. 

As soon as December came, the old ladies on the street started selling fireworks, and all sorts of Christmas stuff so I'm barely in the Christmas spirit. You forget what day or month it is when you live in the absolute middle of nowhere but it's a blast.

 Yesterday I conducted sacrament meeting which was interesting but it helped me practice my Spanish, Elder Cubillas teaches me a lot of Spanish everyday which is awesome, I'm learning so much everyday and growing spiritually and in the language. We went to a different town called Juli to listen to a member of the quorum of the seventy talk, from what I got out of what he said it was a very good talk haha. 

Other than that it was a very normal week, I'm loving Yunguyo more everyday and I love visiting and strengthening the members. I always hear that a successful missionary isn't the one with all the baptisms, and I can agree with that, Yunguyo isn't growing in membership or anything crazy like that, but the members love to hear what we have to say and everyone is a strong family, they're are lots of less actives here, but they love to have us come over and hear our message and sometimes all you can do is invite. I think one thing I've learned more about is respecting people's agency, the best thing we can do is be their friend and sometimes that means a lot to the person. I'm having so much fun meeting the people of Yunguyo. Service is the thing we do most here and it's my favorite thing to do to meet people. I hope you all have a good week! Go do some service or something:) Alma 18:7-10,17

7 Now it was the practice of these Lamanites to stand by the waters of Sebus to scatter the flocks of the people, that thereby they might drive away many that were scattered unto their own land, it being a practice of plunder among them.

 8 And it came to pass that king Lamoni inquired of his servants, saying: Where is this man that has such great power?

 9 And they said unto him: Behold, he is feeding thy horses. Now the king had commanded his servants, previous to the time of the watering of their flocks, that they should prepare his horses and chariots, and conduct him forth to the land of Nephi; for there had been a greatfeast appointed at the land of Nephi, by the father of Lamoni, who was king over all the land.

 10 Now when king Lamoni heard that Ammon was preparing his horses and his chariots he was more astonished, because of the faithfulness of Ammon, saying: Surely there has not been any servant among all my servants that has been so faithful as this man; for even he doth remember all my commandments to execute them.

17 I say unto you, what is it, that thy marvelings are so great? Behold, I am a man, and am thy servant; therefore, whatsoever thou desirest which is right, that will I do.

7th (or 8th idk anymore) Week / Yunguyo-Puno Pics

I had a blast this week, we got so much done and I'm settling into Yunguyo nicely. The members are super helpful and patient with my spanish especially because I give a talk every Sunday at Church now. I also get to teach English every Saturday now! Everyone who wants to learn comes to the church building and Elder Cubillas and I (mostly me) get to teach English which is sooo much fun and it makes me realize how hard our own language is, but it's difficult to learn a language no matter what. 

We do a lot of service at the end of the day which leads to teaching oppurtunities, since they're absolutely no stores or malls or anything, these old ladies sell everything you need on the streets and after the day is over, they have to carry ALL of it back to their house so we try to help as many of them as possible. After they always ask where'd we come from and who we are and boom teaching, I love it. Okay so I get a ton of weird looks from little kids that are like 6 or 7  because we're in the middle of nowhere and some of them have never seen a white person before its hilarious, on the terrrible 2 hour bus ride to Puno that we always take, there was a little girl next to me and she kept telling her mom that she wanted to brush my hair because she's never touched golden hair it was great. The people here are so nice about everything and they barely have anything. I always compare it to home because we have so much in the States and we're still asking for more even when we have a ton. It's great because the people are so receptive to what you have to hear even if they don't believe in the same things you do, they always try to find a similarity and it's awesome.

 I'm finally being over terrible sick, at the beginning of this week I got super sick and I think it's cause it's freezing and I've never lived in cold my whole life so maybe that's a reason. We teach an owner of the only Pizzeria now so it's like the best reason ever to get pizza and man is it good pizza. 

Saturday Night we had a mini apocalypse in Yunguyo, we were walking home at night from our pensionista and every single light in the entire city turned off, like imagine closing your eyes it was so dark, and of course my companion grabs me to find me so I flip out haha, every little kid was screaming in the city too so yah it wasn't a good time. luckily I had a flashlight in my bag, I had no idea why but I was prepared, it was kind of a lame flashlight so everytime we'd see a car or some kind of light we'd just start running towards it I honestly don't know how we got home. I wish they told us before we started flipping living here so we were prepared but I guess everytime a thunderstorm is about to pass over, they turn off all the lights. Like wow wish I'd known that. So that whole night we just sat in our room with candles with an insane amount of rain and lightning it was super cool. Heavenly Father definitely protected me that day cause if I didn't have that flashlight we'd have to just sit still it was that dark. I have pics of my city finally haha. We also went on splits with the zone leaders so I got to learn the ways of Puno a bit more but honestly I don't like it as much as Yunguyo, Puno is like LA and Yunguyo is like Santa Clarita. But yah I hope all of you had an awesome week and remember to always carry a flashlight it helps.

 Ether 12:27--"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness.  I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

¡Estoy Aqui!

Okay so these past weeks have been just full of traveling and sooo much excitement and Cusco is awesome. But first Ill get the important stuff out of the way. 

My companion is Elder Cubillas, he's from Peru and will be my trainer for 12 weeks until he goes home. He can speak English which made me so happy and he's a really good missionary so I'm excited to work with him. So I fell in love with Cusco when I stayed there for days to meet the mission President and do a bunch of paperwork stuff. The weather is perfect and everything's gorgeous and I got to meet a bunch of members and I loved it so much. Buttttt, my first area is like the furthest area away from Cusco haha. I don't have pictures of it yet but I will next week. It's called Yunguyo. It's basically on the border of Bolivia and Peru and on Lake Titicaca. It's freezing and sketchy but I love it. We took a 13 hour bus ride to get there from Cusco. It's an extremely poor town, our bathroom is on the roof so I mean you get a nice view but everyone can see you right back. 

Leaving the CCM was really hard because made so many lifelong friends there. It was like leaving home again I hated it. But It's exciting. Our area only has like 28 members going to church so our main focus is strenghtening the members, we probably won't have a lot of crazy baptism stories or anything like that, we're only focused on visiting members everyday which I think is a great idea. The district of Yunguyo is just me and my companion. We had to conduct, bless, pass the sacrament, and give a talk on Sunday. It's really sad so wqe're going to work so hard to get members coming. But yah! Im loving it! Oh and of course we get there and no one speaks Spanish, they all speak Quechua and some other old inca language so I have no idea how we're gonna do that cause I dont even know Spanish yet, but its an awesome challenge and everyone here loves Americans, all the old ladies with the colorful backpack things just love talking to me it's hilarious. Just google Yunguyo for now because Ive been very busy and haven't gotten pictures, it's nothing too exciting but I have love for the city.

 Hope everyone had an awsesome past 2 weeks! Happy Thanksgiving!


 (He did take a picture of Yunguyo--this is the view from his bedroom window.)

Dear Parents,

As you can see in the attached photo, your son has arrived safely to the Peru Cusco Mission! We are thrilled to have him here! He looks great, a bit tired from the travel, but ready to go! Thank you for allowing us to watch over him for the next two years. He has promised that he will be a missionary we can trust, and we have now given him that trust. As well, you can trust that we will do everything that we can to care for him and to help him to become a successful missionary.

Con Gran Amor,

Presidente y Hermana Herrera

5th week / CUSCO IN 6 DAYS

This week was so productive and awesome. I love this place so much but I'm so excited to get out in a couple days. Being a zone leader is so busy but such a blast.

We watched a video for a devotional on Sunday night about John Mowry. He worked as a stone cutter for the Salt Lake Temple but lived like 20 miles away from the temple site. He would wake up every morning at 2 and walk all the way to the temple site to do his work for the whole day and walk all the way back. At this point I was like okay well I need to do better when it comes to waking up and being excited for the day, but then Mowry lost one of his legs. But yet he made himself a wooden leg and continued to walk those miles every single morning. That's huge motivation to me because I need to be grateful for everything I have and the fact that I only wake up at 6 haha.

I'm scared to get out into the field because I'm not confident in my Spanish at all but then I have to realize I have only been here for 5 weeks. It's crazy how fast time flies it's actually kind of scary cause I don't want it to end too fast. Lima is so awesome and everyone I've met is so nice and the people here have the best sense of humor. My favorite part of the week is going to the temple and just talking to everyone on the temple grounds, everyone there loves missionaries so it's so much fun.

I made a goal to memorize 18 irregular verbs and almost every single one of their conjugations and I did it! I don't know how much it'll help me but so far when I speak to the Latinos it's been awesome. I can now teach all the lessons in Spanish without a need for a plan or preparation which is super nice, I'm a lazy person so I really didn't like writing every single thing out I was going to say. Memorizing is a huge part of teaching in another language because after awhile it just becomes so natural and you'll learn every single word in that phrase.

My time here has been so much fun and I feel so prepared but I'm also terrified at the same time;) Other than that it was a very normal week it's just a lot of work and study, when I get out into the field I'm sure these emails will be so much better haha. Im so excited to go preach the gospel to the people of Cusco, this Monday night/Tuesday we will all be going our seperate ways to our missions. I hope you all had a fantastic week!  

Fourth Week

I hope you all had a great Halloween!! They don't celebrate it here
but a lot of us Americans just shared candy around that night. This
week went by so fast it was crazy.

We went proselyting! It was terrifying because with three weeks of Spanish under my belt it was
kind of difficult, Peruvians mumble like crazy, so it's hard enough to
understand Spanish but then when they mumble it's just impossible. I
didn't get any cool teaching experiences because we went to the rich
part of Lima East so all of them are very Catholic and didn't even
just want to have a normal conversation. There were dogs everywhere,
outside of the richer neighborhoods, all of the people were so happy
and fun, we talked to two old ladies who were sitting on a park bench
and they kept complimenting our clothes it was so cute. So ya it was
nice to actually go outside and talk to people and see how everythings
done. It was a very good experience, and it was very humbling for all
of us. It also made me realize how bad my Spanish is and how hard I
need to keep working. 

They fed us hamburgers and pizza this week! I
cannot explain how sick I am of rice already. I know its only been 4
weeks but my goodness it was nice to have some burgers. I mixed mayo
and ketchup and put it on my burger so I could have In N Out in Peru.


We've had a couple more eathquakes, one of them in the middle of the
night that was the biggest one I've ever been in, we had a couple
stuff fall from our closets and stuff but it wasn't big enough to make
me get out of bed haha. Other than that the weather has been perfect
every single day. I feel like when I get to Cusco I'm going to be sooo
cold.

 We're doing very well with our practice investigators. I can
recite the first vision in Spanish now and am trying to memorize
Spanish things everyday. I am so close with my district now, it's
going to be so hard when we all have to go to our seperate missions.
Being Zone Leader is a blast. Elder Wells and I basically run the
whole MTC now along with 2 other Elders. It's so much fun meeting all
these missionaries from around the world. It's a lot of work on top of
being a normal busy missionary but it's so worth it. One more email
after this one and I'm off to Cusco! "The glory we seek is in
glorifying others"---David A. Bednar  Hope you all had a fantastic
week.

Week Three!

A lot of stuff happened this week so hopefully I remember it all. I was called to be 1 of 4 zone leaders in the MTC two days ago. Its crazy but I am super excited to perform this assignment. All the older missionaries left yesterday so it was really sad to see them all go, they were missionaries I looked up too and helped us out in our first few weeks. Im passing along that kindness to the new missionaries. My companion and I woke up at around 3 AM last night to welcome all those who were settling in. I remember how I felt the first day and how stressful it was so we went to everyones room and greeted them and gave them advice. It feels strange because Im like super young and I feel like Im giving missionaries who are wiser than me advice and guidance. Hopefully I can grow as a better leader these next three weeks. Its so much fun meeting new people from all over the world. The new Latinos are awesome as well. Its been super busy here but I feel like I accomplish so much in one day, Ive gained 8 pounds which is awesome haha. We work out a lot but its annoying because the MTC workers keep telling us that their grandmas can do more pull ups than us with just their tongue.  We went to the Lima temple last week and are going again later today. Its a really small temple but man its gorgeous, we went through in Spanish which was interesting. It hit me that Im actually a missionary when we were at the temple and a bunch of little kids pointed at us and said Misioneros!!! I cant really explain how it feels to be on the other side haha. Earlier in the week we had a missionary go home which was really depressing as a district leader but it brought us closer as a district. I gave away a lot of my ties to the Latinos who are now in the field. Theyre so happy with how much they have and I loved getting to know all of them.

We had an Earthquake! It wasnt very big but soo many people have never been in an earthquake before that came from the U.S it was funny. We are all learning how to cut hair so a lot of the nights we have a barber shop going in the bathroom so thats a lot of fun. We teach a LOT now. Im at the point now where I can answer questions they have about the gospel in Spanish but its still very difficult to know every single gospel spanish word, but Elder Wells and I have discovered that we are not there to teach lessons, we are there to teach people. 80% of the time we just throw our lesson plan out the window and teach about what they want to know and off our knowledge of the gospel and Spanish. We had one investigator start crying about how her parents were dead and how she doesnt think God is real because of the trials shes going through. Its crazy how real it feels and how good of actors they are, but its really good for us and very eye-opening. Our room wakes up early to study Spanish and just get a head start on the day, its really nice because its so quiet and you get to actually just sit there and think with no distractions. Theres barely anyone in this MTC but it feels like theres a lot because its so small.

In the pictures Im with Elder Moreno holding a flag from Colombia, with Elder Snyder- He was zone leader before me and he is from Oceanside California which is where I was born so it was nice to have a fellow Californian among us haha. And then my companion and I in front of the Lima temple. Alright well I hope all of you had a great week  and if someone isnt on this list I really hope this gets forwarded to whoever wants it. Have a Happy Halloween!!!!

Alma 53 20-21      Sorry for my grammer this Spanish keyboard is ridiculous and I cant find anything.