Unto Us a Child is Born, Unto Us a Son is Given

Hello Happy Family

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

I miss you all and everything especially during this time of year. We're still working hard. Lots of things happened this week.

Before I came here as zone leader the sister missionaries had to leave their area. This week a missionary couple, Elder and Hermana Earl entered in our zone. We had district meeting on Tuesday like normal and they came....neither of them speak ANY Spanish so they didn't understand anything. I heard a rumor that President is working on sending them to CCM (mtc in Peru). They were only in the mtc 5 days before they got sent here. They have six kids. 3 married, 3 in missions in Guatemala, Chili, and Philippines. This week Elder Acevedo and I went to their small room to teach them Spanish!!!!hahha, I took pictures with them it's so funny. I haven't seen Gringo adults for a long time..... They're visiting all the members and everything because they really can`t understand anything yet.

Thanks for the packages. I got em from everyone thanks!!!!!! I loved the candy, hot chocolate, the yoyo, pajamas! Today we have the Christmas lunch with President Perez in Chilies.

Soooo, I'll be calling you this Thursday. (WOOHOO, Thursday for 5 minutes and Friday for one hour!)

I was looking at the pictures and everyone's changed a ton. It's kind've weird actually. I'm glad my picture scares everyone.

In almost all my contacts I talk about Christmas. Usually here the most effective contacts are knocking on doors, sincere short contacts asking if we can offer a prayer in their houses and share a short message with them. Yesterday we did a lot of Christmas contacting like this in this time of year we should remember the birth of our Savior and we're sharing a message about Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His Gospel... Just talking about that made several people angry. I contacted 5 members of another Church yesterday I think. One couple told me that Christmas was the Devil and that the God's Kingdom was here or something like that.....

Honestly in those types of contacts it always makes me ponder what Jesus Christ told the young boy Joseph: that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. I testified that Christmas was of God and then we left. Since I was a little boy I've never felt happier than on Christmas day. Maybe the presents had part to do with that, at first....but after time and especially right now none of that could even matter.

Our modern day prophet every year has to remind all of us to not get too caught up in the worldly things during this time of year. I've never felt more love for my Savior. My favorite Christmas scripture describes this time of year perfectly: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God JEHOVA, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. I think President Eyring quoted that this year....

I solemnly testify that Christ is our Savior and Redeemer.

Well, have a happy Christmas. Eric I love you. Curtis I love you. Nana, I love you. Mom and Dad I love you talk to you soon.

BYE BYE,

Elder Layton

The Best White Christmas

Mi Querido Familia,

How are you? This week was full of happy experiences, getting to know new people, and work. Elder Acevedo and I are still working hard. We're are concerned about the Zone here in Independencia. The numbers were low this week but we are trying to think of everything we can do to help them. It's an especially exciting time here in the mission because we're getting close to Christmas, my favorite day ever!!!

We had 4 baptisms this week. We baptized Tania Delcarpio, Ayde Barrera, Josep Pizarro, Gina Alarcon. Josep and Gina are boyfriend girlfriend. He's 22 and she`s 19. It was a spiritual baptism.... kind of. Brisa was going to get baptized...a 9 year old girl, but she freaked out when she got in the water and after 20 minutes she didn't go through with it. It's okay. She needs more time. We have 6 more baptism dates and a lot more people to talk to.

And dad was right. They only gave me a salt shaker. Normally here in Peru they just use salt. Pepper....who wants pepper anyway? I'm sorry to hear that dad's mug died....you can use mine dad. The family of one of my converts made them! And something else..... my package might come back. If it does don't worry and don't feel bad - I won't. It's just that I heard a ton of packages got sent back because the signatures were bad.....but..... who knows maybe mine was good. (We had to sign a paper for our packages). I'll let you know when I get it!!!

And Briana I'm proud of you. I love you. Eric and Curtis, don't be disappointed if you get all clothes for Christmas.

It was funny. Yesterday a man came up to us in the street and asked us. In what year did God create the world? I answered.....year one haha!... then I said I didn't know. Then he changed the subject In what date was Jesus Christ born? I said...hmmm... well, I'm pretty sure it was around April, but traditionally we celebrate it in December! Then he asked me the same question again....like I didn't even answer him the first time. I answered him about the same way, and he asked me again.... but do you know exactly when Jesus Christ was born? I said Look, hermano... it's a good thing to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ? He said... yes. I said, well, it doesn't really matter when and where, if it makes us happy and it's something good. Then he just got mad a little I think and left. Kind of a random experience I think.

Also my companion and I gave talks in Sacrament yesterday. I talked about Zion in the ward and home, and my companion talked about references.

I just looked right now....10 days until I get to talk with you!!!! I'll be calling on the 24th for 5 minutes to figure out everything and we'll talk on the 25th for mucho tiempo! On Christmas Eve we have permission to stay out until 11. We're going to the Bishop's house....

Christmas is a little different than the states here.... it's more like new years. Bishop's going to have a ton of fireworks!! Yes!!! Then Bishop`s going to take us back to our room and we're going to go up on the roof (we live in the 3rd story) and we're going to watch the huge firework show at 12. It's a lot bigger than the stuff in the states because there's not really any rules....hahahaha.

We've been teaching Jordan....the boyfriend of Sonia a recent convert from Ermitao when I was there. Sonia is the daughter of Consuelo. Consuelo is the sister in law of Bishop here in Pinos. Basically I told you that because I was really close with the family of Consuelo back in Ermitao! I ate lunch in their house every Saturday. Now I've gotten to know ALL their family. Jordan has to travel for 1 or 2 weeks but when he gets back he wants to get baptized. He assisted Ermitao several times when I was there but lives here in Los Pinos. The challenge is that all his family doesn't want him to get baptized. They're Catholic. He's 19 so he's doesn`t exactly need permission...but he wants their consent at least. Last night we shared with him the story of the tree of life.... we related the people in the grand and spacious building to people that would impede us to make a decision extremely important in our lives. He knows the church is true. I know he'll make the right choice.


That's about it.

I love you very much.....MMMMERRRYYY CHRISTMASSSS!!!!!

LOVE,

ELDER LAYTON

A Conviction That Leads Us to Love Our Heavenly Father and Others

Hahaha, thanks mom and dad for the letters. My aunts are so funny.... sending you a life size Elder Layton haha. It'd be cool to have a life size cardboard cutout of my family!!! I miss you all lots.

This morning we had to send reports to the offices with the numbers of the zone and about how the zone's doing. We do that every week, as with other things, but nothing really hard. Just work. Also this week we went to a Zone Leader conference where President and the Assistants taught us about our responsibilites, and after we ate pizza. Mmmm pizza.

This week has been crazy. I saw a ton of members from Ermitao. Several times in the street and also last night in the Christmas devotional, which was AMAZING by the way. My ward's a lot bigger now in Los Pinos. More people come than in Mt. Bachelor... well, I haven't been there for a while, but more than when I was there. We have several baptism dates for this Saturday.

I finally sent out my clothes.... I don't think I told you, but recently the people in the mission that washed our clothes was layed off so there was a ton of confusion in the changes and I just ended up washing by hand last week. The thing is... my companion helped me put em all out on the lines outside to dry and it turned out that that line wasn't clean.... so basically everything was dirty again. I'm good now I didn't die. Tomorrow I get clean clothes again.

The zone is doing good. We don't have very many baptism dates as a zone but they've put goals and we're going to have success. Elder Acevedo`s helping me a ton. He's been Zone Leader for a while now and he's been here in this area for a couple transfers so he knows what we have to do. I'm learning a ton from him, and trying to help as much as I can. Today we went and flew kites on top of a huge butte with the zone. YES!!!! It was so fun I just have to say. Also, an abandoned puppy on top of the butte pooped on one of the missionaries in the zone.....

I'd like to share with you something I've learned from my mission. It's conviction. When we believe in something or we want to acheive something before we can do anything....we have to believe we can do it. It's doesn't matter what it is. It's something I've learned from the Gospel too. Especially in repentance. During all the time in my mission I've had to change tons of things but what was the most important to me was that I had conviction to do it. I know the Lord doesn't only want us doing the motions for commitment. We have to have a conviction that leads us to love our Heavenly Father and others. Especially in Christmas, just like the brethren talked about last night, we should remember the pure love of Christ in every thing we do.

Mom, Dad, Nana, Eric, Curtis, hopefully you like the presents I sent home for you. It's extremely creative watch out.

I still haven't met the Bishop. They introduced my on Sunday and I went up and bore my testimony like normal. Bishop is traveling I guess. I did eat lunch in his house today. I've actually eaten there before about 5 months ago.

I'll tell you more about the experiences I'm having in sharing the gospel this week. I really still haven't gotten to know that much yet. All I know is that we have really awesome investigators and it's way to close to Christmas....not really let it snow let it snow let it snow. I think I saw it snow.... oh no, that's dust. Cool. Family, friends I love you soo much. Write me and I'll really try to write you back.

Love,

Elder Layton

(Brenda and I had lunch today with Seth Hurd today. Seth was just released from the Peru Lima North Mission and lives about 30 minutes away from us. He knows Sean very well. He related several amazing experiences and comments about the kind of missionary Sean is. I'll share one of those.

Elder Hurd was in Sean's first area when Sean arrived. Some of the Elders were getting fleas and flea bites. So they were given a spray that would take care of the problem. The thing was, it never made it to Elder Layton, who had been sleeping on the floor. He didn't complain too much and the spray didn't make it his way for 2 weeks.

By the time the Mission President's wife realized that something was wrong, Sean had over 700 flea bites on his body (I'm not sure how they knew that unless someone actually counted).

Seth shared a few other things with us that helped us to understand that Elder Layton is serving an honorable mission for the Lord.

It was good to be able to meet with Seth and to talk with someone who had just come back from Sean's mission and who had just been with him on Monday. Between that and the life-sized Sean cutout sent by his crazy aunts, we almost feel that he's home for Christmas this year. And we get the December 25th phone call too!)

He Answered Our Prayers

Queridos Familias y Amigos Mios,

It was so great to hear from my family!!!!! I hope you know I was sick when I called so that's maybe why I didn't sound my best. Actually my companion was sick all Christmas day. Pretty much Christmas was just great though!

Thanks for everything!!!
Right now we're getting close to some new baptisms which I'm very excited about. We had 6 investigators come to church again and 3 of our investigators have dates set for January. It shouldn't be very hard if we just keep doing what we're supposed to be doing.

President mildy rebuked us in his Christmas letter and really told us that the lack of baptisms in the month of December (honestly I don't know how they went, but we didn't have any) was because of the small things we need to overcome like obedience with exactness, trusting the Lord, teaching effectively. We can always do better as missionaries every day.

One of the kids we're baptizing is named Cesar Jr. He's ten. His sister is a member and his parents can't be baptized yet because we're helping them get married. We just got a permission slip from him on Saturday and he has more than 6 asistencias (he's attended Church more than 6 times) so he's set. I was so grateful on Saturday when we taught him. Always when we tried to teach him before he honestly couldn't concentrate, and told his parents he didn't want to be baptized. But then for some reason he completely changed. He sat there, understood, listened, and told us that he was ready to be baptized. YES! Really, the Lord answered our prayers. It´s been hard for me to go through this entire month without helping someone make their first covenant.

The monkey's doing good. A rat bit it's tail while he was sleeping so he has rabies but no worries, our pensions daughter is its mom and she took Andy in right away to get all its vaccs. Haha. It has an official vaccination tag with his name on it and everything.

Today we're playing futbol. Too bad I waste all the Natives. No, just kidding. They're all way good cause it's the thing to do down here. My companion's really awesome. He's quiet and doesn't like to pay for stuff but hey, I'm sure it´s hard to live with a gringo. I'm his first gringo companion so he's holding out really well. When he bears his testimony I can feel the spirit. That's what's most important to me. He has a great conversion story too from a strong Catholic family so that definitely helps out cause I'd say 50% of our investigators are Catholic.

Honestly I don't want to leave this area. Just saying that is probably going to get me sent off somewhere different, but whatever. We find out next Monday our change. There's nothing better than the mission. Thanks for all the love this Christmas, really, from everyone. It felt like home. Man... I really need to write everyone. I think I'm going to wait until I'm out of the jungle because it's so expensive.

(It costs a significant portion of his entire monthly budget just to get one letter out of the jungle. He's mentioned several times how he feels terrible about ignoring everyone. So if you've written him and haven't heard back - that's why. He'll get to you - thanks for the letters and understanding.)

Padre, usted puede enviar sus cartas a mi en espanol, debido a porque estoy fluido en esta idioma. Yo quiero ver como esta su espanol, para que puedo ver quien es major en en el espanol. No se precupe. No voy a rub it in your face. Probalamente usted es major. Gracias padre por todas sus cartas espirituales. Me encantan esas mas que todas. Estoy leyendo del Libro de Mormon en Espanol en voz alta.

Funny - I knew this day would come. I just didn't think it would be this soon. He's basically challenging me to write to him in Spanish so he can see who's Spanish is better - his or mine. I don't think he'll have too much difficulty winning that battle six months from now, but I think I've still got him. He does say (in half English, half Spanish) not to worry - he's not going to rub it in my face. He also says that he's been reading the Book of Mormon out loud.

Your Missionary,

Elder Layton

AT LEAST HE LEFT THE MONKEY WITH THE PENSION!!!

HEYYYYY!!!!! Merry Christmas!!!

So before I forget dad, I live on the street Saenz Pena and my wards name is Saenz Pena tambien (also). I´ll be calling you on the 24th to set up a time to talk on the 25th. I can only talk for 3 minutes on the 24th.

(Saenz Pena Street, Pucallpa, Peru)

Soooo, before I tell about my week I just have to say THANK YOU!!!! I love my family. On the 19th, President came with all our letters and packages. All I know is that I definitely received the most love in my zone.... which isn't something I was proud of. (Sean has a few overzealous uncles and aunts - sorry guys, you know it's true.) Actually it just made me feel bad, but I split everything with my compi. He was excited about that. Oh yeah.... so mom, you'll probably be mad but I opened the plan of salvation thing. (A very cool missionary gift from a good family friend, John Lewandowski) I left the others don't worry I couldn't help it. It's not the same. I should have more patience yeah? Haha.

We don't really have anything special to do on Christmas other than share the gospel, but we do have permission to be out until 10. I loved the packages from my family and my extended family those were the BEST!!! Thanks you guys. Hahaha, in particular the story of Brea eating those hotdogs with her sharp teeth made me laugh. Me gusta.

Also, just to let you know I bought a monkey (try to picture my expression right now - just try). It lives at my pension's house so Elder Hyde has fun with it too. Don´t worry you'd probably freak if you knew how little I bought it for. Almost nothing. We had an extra hour on pday! Don't worry it's not being disobedient either. (Which I interpret to mean that he checked in the "White Bible", "Preach My Gospel", AND the scriptures and he couldn't find any clear directions against a missionary purchasing a pet monkey if said monkey doesn't cost too much and lives with the pension. Curtis, our 10 year old, upon hearing of the missionary monkey, said, "A pet monkey??? That's AWESOME!! I wish he could send it home!! Dad, can I have a pet monkey?) It hangs out with us at breakfast and dinner and that´s all we see of it but whatever. I named it Andy of course.

We didn't have a baptism this week...... I'm really bummed about that. Really we had an okay week. (Of course he had an okay week even without baptisms - he has a pet monkey.) We got the members to have a fast for the missionary work on Saturday and we had 4 investigators in the Church. So many are waiting for a wedding and want to be baptized but there are barely ever weddings and the government here makes it almost impossible for the people if they don't have the right papers, and money.

I've really found though that working with the less active and recent converts is key. Really. As soon as we started doing that we had new investigators open up. Last night we gave a blessing to a man se llama Agosto. Todo su familia are members. Hopefully his health gets better so we can teach him.. (I think it's great to see him write when he's in a hurry - how he gets his English and Spanish all mixed up together. He said they gave a blessing to a man named Agosto. All of his family are members.)

Since I've been reading in the Book of Mormon in Spanish I've learned a lot since I have to read a lot slower and take my time to translate words I don't know.

Basically the mission is all about making a plan and trusting the Lord. Seriously sometimes I think our lesson went so well, and for sure our investigators will come to Church. But then they don't and I wonder why? Really there are two options. Either they rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ, or I failed. That's why it's so important to follow the Lord. We have to do EVERYTHING we can. Then we pray and hope for the best. I have so much to learn....

Well, today we brought all our mattresses to the Church. We're going to fight on them, and then I think we're watching a movie. President gives us permission to watch one movie as a Zone once every change that is approved by the offices. I think we´re going to watch Narnia 2!!!! YEAH!

Christmas in Pucallpa is about the same. Everyone has little Christmas trees. The houses don't really have lights but everyone's in the same spirit so that's cool. We really just have a normal day on Christmas, but that's good for me. I love it here.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! WE LOVE YOU ALL!!!