It Was Great and a Very Spiritual Experience For Me

This week has been the best! I'm grateful for my new comp. He's Columbiano, se llama Elder Rojas, and he's great. He's an awesome missionary. Before the mission he had long hair and played in a metal band. He's a hard worker and teaches well too.

(Above - The City of Pucallpa from the air, a city of about 250,000)

So before I tell you about all my investigators I'll talk about the Peru experience yeah? Well, I ate another fish which is HUGE called Doncella. Two dogs bit me this week... they just came out of nowhere. The river by Pucallpa is called the Ucayali. It's big. We have some investigators by the river so we'll be going back. We also went down there the other day and found some less active members we never knew existed. Haha, then we had an appointment with an hermana called Leyla but we couldn't get to her house. It took us forever to get into the area, climbing on whatever floats, but they haven't built bridges yet and the water's not deep enough for canoes. I don´t know if we'll be able to go in the canoes but there's always the puentes.

(The Ucayali River at Pucallpa)

One thing that I've found out that's key for the mission is that you have to love the people, yeah. But you have to take that love and turn it into diligence. It talks about diligence all over the Book of Mormon. I still haven't totally figured it out but I know I can work harder.

So my new Zone is cool. Elder Nathan Stewart is in my Zone. Ha. I was stoked for that. We were friends at BYU and he's from the Bolivia misison. My District leader's Elder Garnica, and it just so happens that his brother, Elder Garnica, is in our district. Haha, weird huh?

When Elder Stewart came he brought my letters from Lima, bless his soul. I want to thank the following: Mis Padres, Grandpadres, the Rau's, Elder Rau, and the Greene girls for great letters!!! Everyone else, I would love to hear from you. Oh and yes i got Bryan´s letter, I still haven't written back. I'll work on that today...

Okay I had the oportunity to baptize Cesar Jr. on Saturday and be part of the confirmation yesterday . He's a great kid, and he want to become a missionary just like me. When we were changing on Saturday I told him a lot of the same stuff Dad told me when I was about to be baptized. It was great and a very spiritual experience for me. His parents want to be married now for sure so we're going to get 'em married and baptized. One big Mormon family.

Also we have the best families. Gonzalo y Luz are getting married. Luz was a little discouraged yesterday because they don't have enough to be able to get married. We explained that they needed to pray with all their faith, and do everything possible. Of course they will. They always pray and always read their scriptures. We talked to Bishop and the ward is going to have an activity to raise some funds for them this week, so they can get married, and get wet on the 24th. We're hoping and praying everything can work out. Please pray for the investigators that need marriages here. It's a huge sacrifice for them, and prayers do make a difference. (Mosiah 27!!!)

I love all of you.

Elder Layton