I Have Been Called of Him to Declare His Word

Buenos Dias,

How's everything going? Thank you mom for letting me know what's going on. Things have changed a lot by the sound of things. It's just weird that almost everybody's moving on to bigger and better things. Enjoy it now.

I'm doing great mom. Everything is going amazingly. If you want to know a little more about me, let me tell you. I've gained a lot of weight. I'm just about 200 pounds now but as skinny as ever. Hopefully I don't keep up the same rate our I'll come home fat.

What else… I'm learning to be more diligent every day. President gave me a good scripture to study in the interviews this week... 3 Nephi 5:13 . I looked up all the scriptures pertaining to "disciple" and "called" to understand the scripture better. I realized that a major problem in the mission is fear. Fear to give up our lives for the work of the Lord. Fear to follow the word that we've received. I've found that the only way to get rid of fear is to get rid of yourself…or lose yourself. Become a disciple of Christ, just like Jesus was a disciple of His Father.

I baptized Juan Carlos this weekend. He was seriously happy to be baptized, but he's even more excited to go on a mission. Juan Carlos' family is still progressing but have a couple challenges that we'll help them overcome to receive baptism. Baptisms are the greatest.

Also the mission asked us to find a new family this week. We found one! Tomas, Juana, Evelyn, and Kimberly. It's kind of an odd family. Thomas and his wife are well along in years. Thomas is 95. Their daughter Evelyn has a daughter named Kimberly. We invited them to church. They came! We visited them after church and they accepted to be baptized in July. Hopefully everything goes perfectly. We have to SHOUT THE LESSONS BECAUSE THOMAS CAN'T HEAR ALMOST ANYTHING. But it's cool.

Last week we made a title of liberty as a zone and the sisters in our zone took it home. Of course when it came back it was completely changed and pretty looking but that`s what you'd expect from sisters. Today for pday we're going to climb the highest mountain/hill nearby (which is really high) and take a picture with it. All the Zones are doing it for a surprise for President Perez.

Well, I'm still being happy. My friends send me candy. Like chocolate, and gummy worms, and the most creative things. I know I haven't been that good about sending things to you guys…but I'm busy. Just know I know who loves me…haha.

Gracias amigos, les amo,

Elder Layton

It Was Another Amazing Experience

Dear Familia,

Okay… I have to get into my English writing mode. Man, I'm so glad to hear Gabe's doing good. And… let's just say I'm grateful my apartment is on the 4th floor and is relatively safe from getting robbed. Nathan, if you find out who stole your stuff give them a punch in the face for me. Good luck with everything. (Elder Layton's friend, serving a mission in Argentina, was robbed twice recently.)

Honestly it's the weirdest thing for me that Lauren got married… I'm still a kid! My seminary class can't be getting married already… I'm not back yet to eat the food at the receptions!

There's really not much news this week. It was a little discouraging not finding many new people this week. I baptized Mabel on Saturday. It was a another amazing experience. She got up to give her testimony and started bawling. She has a firm testimony that the Gospel is true. Milagros didn't show up to her baptism… ikes!... but it was because her mom didn't want her going out at night. She came to Church yesterday and brought her Cousin Gino who also has a baptism date and was sorry for not being able to go to her baptism. She's preparing for this next Saturday, along with Alexandra and Juan Carlos.

Gainela's (the girl we baptized a week ago) parents are getting married this week on Saturday. They didn't come to Church but we're going to visit them to see how everything's going. Back to Juan Carlos…. He's a gold investigator. He always comes to church. The Jehovah Witnesses have been teaching him for a few months but we challenged him to baptism on our first visit and he accepted. He knows that it is true and is helping all his older brothers, sisters, and cousins come to Church. Cool.

Oh yeah, we found out our changes 20 minutes ago. I'm staying here, in good old Independencia! Elder Chan is going to my same area in Iquitos (9 de Octubre). My new companion´s named Elder Soto! He was in my same Zone in Pucallpa so I already know him good. He's a big round Costa Riccan haha!! (probably the Elder at the far left, and incorrectly labled as "Elder Soio") President Rau probably baptized his family ;), I'll ask him about it. He knows English and Portugese too, so I'll have him teach me a little Brazilero so I can talk with Bryan when he comes back.

Well, I'm making a plan already in my head how we can overcome the challenges of the area for this change. I plan on having big results going into my one year mark. It only makes me feel a little sad, a little old, and a little like I'm running out of time.

Nana, congrats on graduating. Hope it was fun with the girls at our house. I know you'll miss them.

Eric, have fun at EFY.

Curtis, be an Eagle Scout.

Sincerely - Your Missionary,

Elder 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