I Make Weak Things Become Strong Unto Them

(At left, Elder Layton's apartment in Independencia. Pretty nice, huh? On Mother's Day he had this to say about his apartment." Our apartment is great. There's only 2 things. We have a cement floor and there's no hot water. In the jungle that doesn't matter, but in Lima, it's cold in the mornings. There is no hot or cold water. There's only water. You have to buy it.")

Hola Papas!

(The picture below is another picture of his apartment.)

Como estan? Mama, you asked about my companion. Elder Soto's a funny guy. He's always happy and ready to work too...that's good. Only one Zone at a time goes to the temple.

I received the package. THANKS! I loved the chocolate even though it wasn't enough… we ate it all in a minute. My packages always come good. There's not really that much risk in sending things here.

Everything gets here without damage, etc. Thanks for all the letters and pictures. Briana, Eric, and Curty have all changed a bunch. Crazy! I especially loved the performance gel insoles. "Outrageous Comfort” I'm wearing them right now actually. Also, I sent you a package. It's a little unorganized. I had to take things out at the post office cause it was over weight, but I sent pictures and letters. I hope you like them. I sent copies for the C5. I was thinking maybe you could put a picture in the letters with some things from the blog in their letters.

The area is doing really well. Honestly it's a hard place to be a missionary compared to other places (in Peru), but where's there an easy place in this world? Only 4 of our muchos investigadores came to church yesterday (I'm sure you can understand my spanglish).

I'm really stressing out about finding more families before the change is over. It's really the goal I have to be helping complete families. We do have several individuals that are progressing. Alberto's in the hospital again for complications he had with his foot…. We have to wait for him to leave before we can start visiting him again.

It does feel a little discouraging when people aren't in the house for their appointments, which happens just about every day, but I feel so much hope when people are waiting for us to come to their house (which happens much less often) Most of the adults, including the members here have jobs that run their lives, so we usually find youth and older people in their houses during the day. You can probably imagine that the nights are always crazy cause that's when we can visit families.

A man named Marcos came to church for the second time yesterday, so we're helping him prepare for one of these next Saturdays to be baptized. He hasn't accepted a baptism date but continues progressing so we´ll keep on visiting!

Hmmm… we contacted 145 people this week. Of 145 maybe 15 were really interested. We'll be visiting them through the week and I'll let you know how it goes. I'm sure we'll have success with some of them. We haven't had baptisms for the last couple weeks...so of course I feel like I need to repent and do something better. The question is always where to start. I love the scripture (in Ether 12:27) that's always in my head "y se humillan ante mi, y tienen fe en mi, y hare que las cosas debiles sean fuertes para ellos." That's my job right now.

(Shown below - Elder Layton burns a shirt in recognition of having served for 12 months.)

Today we're going with the whole Zone to watch Ice Age 3 in the Church! Chevere. I haven't seen a movie for a while… and the Elders told me this one has dinosaurs! Peru Lima Norte I love you.

Estoy trabajando, gracias por entender si no les escribo. Despues. (I'm working, thanks for understanding if I don't write. Later.)

Mucho amor,

Elder Sean Ryan Layton

We Can Choose Who We Want To Be

Man, this week has been busy. I was just thinking about everything that's happened in my mission so far and I can't really believe I have 6 months out already. We found out our changes Saturday night. I'm staying here!!! I was definitely elated, if you could call it that, to hear that I wasn't going to move somewhere else like I've been doing every other change. This area is getting better, mejorando.

We have 4 baptism dates set for January and I'm sure we can manage to get more. My new companion's name is Elder Rojas. There are a lot of Elder Rojas but I've met this one in Lima one time.... no more than a handshake but I know who he is. He's from Columbia, and I'm going to work his little tush off. Elder Paz leaves tomorrow, Tuesday, and Elder Rojas comes tomorrow too. So I´ll just be waiting.

Yeah... I've eaten lots of pretty cool stuff. Mostly fish. The turtle an hermana promised us never happened so I was kind've bummed about that. We ate part of a huge fish called Paiche. I didn't have my camera but it was good. We also ate Yahuarachi. I have pictures of that I'll send you in the future. When we ate it, it still had everything there. The eyes, the head, the tail. You'll see. Yeah.... what else.... My favorite fruit of all time is called copoazu. Barely any of the people here even know about it. I ask everyone where I can find it... Nobody knows except one hermana. Mmmmmmm...

We're baptizing a 10 year old boy this Saturday named Cesar. We're trying to get his parents to get married but so far they say no. No, just means we haven't tried hard enough. Haha, no, they're great and they'll be baptized in the future just watch. Also, we have a golden family, familia de oro, that we're baptizing on the 24th. His name is Gonzalo and her name is Luz. They're going to have a baby any day now, she's past her due date, but they've come to church the past two weeks. They're not married, but we're teaching them and committed them to be married the morning of January 24th and to be baptized that night. Marriages are always a pain cause we have to get tons of paperwork, but it's worth it. They are awesome! We have a appointment with them this Wednesday...if Hermana Luz isn't in the hospital that is.

Other than that we have two really great girls, Daisy y Cecilia, ready to get baptized but are scared of their parents. We gave them the permission slips so we'll see what happens. I really want to talk with the parents but they're never at home. Luckily they get a lot of help from a young man in the ward....who happens to be their cousin. I told you about Juan Carlos yeah? Yeah he's great. The assistant to the president right now, Elder Herschi, baptized him. Elder Herschi's basically my model missionary. He´s an example to all of us, and when he came with me and my companion to teach a couple weeks ago I learned a ton!

2 Nefi 2:27-29 – We can choose who we want to be and who we follow. Always choose the right. The Church has all the truth we need in this life. Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and The Book of Mormon was written by prophets other than Joseph Smith. Thomas S. Monson is our living prophet, along with his counselors and the twelve apostles. I know Christ lives.

I love you all, and for the C5 specifically always remember: We live together, we die together, bad boys for life. Tienen un buen dia!

Elder Layton

Arizona's Hot But at Least the People Are Chill

Okay, okay, okay....I really don't have that much time to email today I'm really sorry I've been busy with a lot of things.

Arizona's still hot, the people are still chill ("Arizona's still hot" is a good thing. "People are still chill" is also a good thing. This is not to be confused with Arizona being chill and the people being hot, which, we believe, is also a good thing. We are consulting with the kids and will let you know if we need to change that around...), and of course my companion is doing great. He's helped me a lot over the past couple days. Thanks for the package from all of you, it meant a lot. I loved the letters from everyone it was great.

We had a chance to go to the Mesa temple with some families and of course we've still been doing lessons.

It's really hard for me to give the lessons in spanish for some reason...well, other than not knowing the language, but it just seemed so much straight-forward at the MTC. You know, when they say the language you learn in the MTC isn't what you speak in the field, they're not lying. Remember that? Best Two Years? Yeah.... I'm feeling it.

I'm glad the C5 is doing so well, I would love to hear what's going on with all my guys, and of course the ward back home. We have a feeling we're leaving this week but no se. I love you people. The church is true.