I Felt the Spirit Testify That I Was Here to Serve and Stay Worthy

VOY A SELVA (I'm going to the jungle)!!! Yeah yeah. I'm so stoked you have no idea. I´m going to Pucallpa and my new companion is Elder Paz. I asked everyone about him and they say he´s even shorter than my companion now but he´s a great missionary! I was glad to hear that. My companion Elder Zepeda who was a District leader is now going to be Zone Leader with Elder Little.

It was so good to be companions with Elder Zepeda. He taught me so much, mostly just by his example. It was really a huge growing experience for me this change because he often left for “amonitas” and spent the day with another missionary in our district, so I had to take control and know exactly where to go and what to teach. I love him though, and I'll miss him.

Last week the playa… beach… was so great!!! I took some pics and I´m going to try and make the cd today or tomorrow to send. Paciencia father!!! (Patience father - I have been bugging him about sending pictures, so I consider myself properly rebuked) I'm busy!!! I wanted to do it last week but it took more than an hour to walk there and then walk back. Plus we went caving. The only thing I didn't really care for was all the trash. We were the only people there though. The waves were huge.

Oh yeah, yesterday we saw the old man that beat me with his cane. (see original post of Monday, October 27, 2008) We were visiting our investigators before church and I saw him on the street so I said Buenos Dias and he was way friendly, and I invited him to church. His name´s Segundo. He didn't come but after church I saw him again (I swear he's everywhere) and this time he chucked a water bottle at me. Luckily I'm leaving the area so hopefully the persecution will cease.

(photo taken just after the water bottle event - jk)

So yeah... the investigators are doing great...but I'm leaving now so I pray the next missionaries will pick it right up.

Rosa Pizarro the lady we just baptized last week is awesome. She has a little boy, and maybe I already talked about this I don't know but we went and gave her son a blessing because he´s been having some major health issues. He´s only 2 or 3 years old and when we started giving him the blessing I honestly felt the biggest sense of responsibility to have faith in what I was doing. Really, having the priesthood or the power of God given to man to act in His name really sunk in when we were able to perform the blessing. I felt the spirit testify so strongly that I was here to serve, and to stay worthy to use that power. (Does it really get any better than that? A father's heart is very full right now.)

I want to take this time to thank Elder Brown, wherever he is now, for talking with Rosa Pizarro about the gospel. Rosa said it was just a short conversation a long time ago. It was only a seed then, and we were able to partake in the fruits (lucky us) but really. Thanks. Anyway, thank you everyone for the letters. I have a list of people to write letters to, so yeah.... I'm trying to keep in touch.

Love, Elder Layton

The Worth of Souls Is Great In the Sight of God

(In the last post I referenced a letter about two Elders in Brazil - one was Jacob (Elder Simpson) and the other was Elder Layton's friend and Home Teaching companion at BYU. The reference below has to do with that letter.)

Hola!!!!Coma Esta!? I loved the emails from you guys including papa Rau´s (Elder Nate Rau's father) and the letter from Jacob. Me and Elder Davidson were Home Teaching companions at BYU together and we home taught Andrea, plus we hung out a bunch in the summer.

This week has been very good and not so good at the same time.

I baptized my very first person Saturday. I don't know if I told you, but there's this lady in our ward that´s amazing. She truly knows the purpose of life. She tells everyone about the church and introduces all of her friends to the missionaries. Because of her we are teaching seven different people and four of them have baptismal dates. One of them was the girl I baptized. Her name's Ibis Alessandra Moron Troncos... that was fun to say in the baptismal font. She's great. She has friends in young women's, and reads the scriptures everyday. We always have such a difficult time here helping people keep their commitments, but Ibis went through everything she needed to do to prepare for baptism in two weeks easy. I felt the spirit so strong during the baptism. We were kind've stressed out because we had to wait a while until a priesthood holder come be there to be a witness, but everything turned out great.

Elder Rich was right, one of the hardest things in this mission is the problem with the law of chastity. One of the first things we find out from people is if they're married or not. We've found that mostly people don´t get married because of inconvenience and money, but we found a free marriage on the 6th of December so we tell everyone about it and commit them to get married. There are so many people that believe what we say and the only thing that holds them back is that they don´t want to get married.... dumb.

Last Wednesday Elder Evangelista left to Bolivia, which was his actual mission, he was just waiting to be able to get into the country. So it´s just Elder Zepeda y yo. He´s a hard worker and I love him. It's nice to have a little extra time in the morning for showers.

The not so good part of this week was yesterday. Every week we basically work up until Sunday, because we kind've base if a person is progressing or not if they come to Church, keeping commitment, etc. Sunday morning is the craziest. We get up a half hour earlier and visit as many people as we can that have baptismal dates to try and get them out of bed, and to the capilla (chapel). Yesterday was so discouraging... So many people committed to attend church, our investigators and less actives, but we only had 2 investigators in the Church. I mean, that´s great, it´s just sad when people don´t keep their commitments.

Anyway, it was so good to hear from you. Dad, Mom, Briana, Eric, Curtis....Andrea, I love you guys!

Love, Elder Layton Oh yeah, I got the Halloween package on Wednesday so just in time for Halloween. Oh my freak!!! I didn't know what I was missing. I suddenly realized that I have a huge craving for candy bars, ginger snaps, and parental care.

Be of Good Cheer and Do Not Fear

Hola!!! How is everyone? The misión is great!!!! Last night we finally committed someone to be baptized here in Ventanilla. It was slow up to this point because there wasn't that much to work with when we got here so we've been contacting like crazy and getting to know all the members.

Oh yeah, before I forget.... my favorite scripture is Doctrine and Covenants 68: 6 (Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come.) Since I've been out I think D&C 84 is my favorite but that one is the best. And my all time favorite song is Abide With Me, Tis Eventide. I played that in Sacrament yesterday.

One of my companions, Elder Zepeda is from Guatemala, and my other companion Elder Evangelista is from Peru. (Note from dad - I just realized that this brings the mission companions up to 7, which equals the total that I had for my entire mission.)

I know I shouldn´t be all worried about my extended family but i just love them. Its hard to do anything on pdays like writing because I'm with my zone all day.

I've finally started eating some really weird foods. Of course I have rice, chicken and potataoes every day.... but we went to a members house that fed us this stuff called pataska.... inside it has mondongo and mote.... which is something like stomach lining. I had stomach in Arizona...but this was weird...and it tasted weird. We also had pachamanka which is a dish with chicken and orange potatoes with a weird taste. They told me that the way they get the orange color is that they put a special rock over the ground the potatoes are growing on. Cool huh? Oh yeah i also like the yuka thing...its like a long potato.

My testimony´s growing a lot. This week has been the hardest week of the mission so far, but that only makes me have to trust the Lord and pray for the people so much more. I feel like I'm finally beginning to understand the Spirit. It was so hard for me before to pinpoint when I was, when I wasn´t. Sometimes I'll get little promptings or thoughts to do something and it turns out thats exactly what I needed to do.

I played piano for the primary yesterday and Sacrament of course. I´m helping another lady here learn music. She conducts in Sacrament and she didn't really know how to lead haha.... but she´s a leading fiend now.

The girl that is getting baptized came over to her house last night and that's where we taught the message of the Restoration. She said she believed everything. My companions almost always let me do the Joseph Smith story which I love. I feel the truth of the restoration evry time I start saying the first vision.

Love,

Elder Layton

Ps I´m good friends with my Zone leader Elder Andrew Little. I think he may have a blog. (which can be seen here - http://servinginperu.blogspot.com/ ) We´re going to hang after the mission.

Transferred to a sandy, "Small Window" (Ventanilla)

We didn't receive our regular Monday email, and suspected that Elder Layton had been transferred. This morning we did have one, confirming our suspicions. However, I checked "Google Earth" and it appears he's only a few miles from Puente Piedra. He's also only a few miles North of the mission home (which can also be seen in this image, about 2/3 the way down).

I guess I'll start about talking about my new area. Its called Ventanilla and it´s different than Puente Piedra. It´s full of enormous sandy hills... sortve like sand dunes but buttes and the houses are built up to the tops. The only way i can describe it is San Fransisco with sandy roads ( that are impossible to walk up by the way). A few days in we hiked to the top to find some refrences, and I turned around to see the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean! Nobody told me I was going to the beach. I think were going to check it out in an upcoming pday.

In Ventanilla I got my first real taste of open meat markets. I know what the insides of animals look like now.

Something missionaries might want to know before coming to Peru is that you shouldn´t look into the dogs eyes. I don´t know. Maybe that´s crazy but I´ve learned from personal experience if you just ignore them they leave you alone, but when your eyes meet theirs they start growling and get all territorial on you.... and you might have to end up kicking a dog in the face.

What else.... there´s english music everywhere and nobody but me knows what it´s saying! Most of the time they´re songs i know so it helps with homesickness. I´m not that homesick.

Okay enough about the area... it takes about 1 to 2 weeks for me to get a Dear Elder, 3 to 4 to get most letters. And 2 and a half months to get some letters, like I found out with a letter from Andrea that she wrote on July 23rd. I just got my first bunch of letters on Saturday. I got a few before but that´s when I got most of them. I feel so bad for not being able to write everyone. I will try to write everyone back eventually...but it might take a long time. It´s really expensive. If i wrote everyone back today it would take half my personal money for the month sooo.... I'll say a few words for the extended family:

Grandparents... I love you. I'm sorry I haven´t written, I hope you understand. But you guys rock.

I hope Luke and Kara are okay!!! I prayed for them...even though i already knew they made it out of the crash safely.

Christie... good for you, holding in there during those storms i love the sticky notes. I haven´t eaten little pigs not yet anyway.

Ricky... You´ll be the best missionary. I sent a letter for you in one of Andrea´s letters, so yeah.

Kelsey.... you rock.

To the rest of my awesome cousins – uncles – aunts ... I love you all and I loved everything you´ve sent me. Check my blog to see what´s going on and I´ll try to write you when I can.

It´s so busy here.

If I forgot anyone, lo siento (I'm sorry)!!!!

My companions are the best! I´m in another trio again but I´m kind´ve a papa cause my Companion Elder Zepeda is a district leader. We help him out a lot. He´s amazing because he knows how to listen to the Spirit. If there´s one thing I've learned from being here its that you shouldn't have a strategy of exactly how things need to be done. The most powerful thing is your testimony. Everything else comes after that. If anything, i would say just have a strategy of learning the gospel.

Okay I'm running out of time. I love you all and hope to hear from you. I´m working harder and learning more here than ever before. We taught a family last night that had 7 kids. The mom was a member but she´s been living with a boyfriend and hasn´t been to church in years. We don´t even know if they have the records in the ward. We´ll see. They were very receptive. The kids knew the gospel already, and knew more than the adults. I absolutely love the kids here. They pretty much just laugh at me because i´m white. Anyway... chao!

(Thanks to Andrea for sending this picture of Elder Layton, taken in our home just before he left for the MTC.)

By the way, if anyone wants to be notified of these posts as they are made, if you don't subsribe to the posts, simply let me know (include name and email address), and I'll add you to the mailing list.