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

It Was One of the Best Baptisms Ever

HOLA!!!

We had a busy week. We live in a small house that's divided into two parts. Mariela, Alan, Oscar, and Patricia live on the other side of the wall. I think I told you a little about them. Hermana Mariela always invites us to eat something after the lessons… she's like our mom. We've been teaching them almost the entire time I've been here and we had the chance to baptize them on Saturday. Well, Hermano Alan passed his interview and went to the baptism but didn't want to get baptized. We're going to challenge him for this Saturday and if all goes well, we'll be able to complete the happy family.

The baptism was great. Our Mission Leader planned and did everything. That was a first for me…. And I consider myself blessed. It was one of the best baptisms ever. Yesterday we helped enroll Oscar and Patricia in Seminary and got permission to accompany them at 4:30 this morning. They're great and ready to start a new life. This week we helped them sand all the paint off in their living room. I almost died.

Last Monday we went to a place called Quistococha.. It's a Zoo. Elder Ridge and I were witnesses to a family of monkeys escaping for their cage. Cool… there was a dolphin and a bunch of other stuff. I'll send you the picture of the snake I got to hold for 30 cents.

Bueno…yesterday I gave a talk… on the Atonement. I can't help talking about it. It's really the center of everything we teach. I never really understood that before.



Good news, I'm not as skinny as before. I'm not going to say I'm anywhere near being fat, but I'm growing. Hope that makes you happy mom. Today we're going to the big stadium to play soccer with the two zones here in Iquitos. Fun fun.

Easter here was great. Everyone was in the house watching movies about Jeramias, or Moses, or Jesus. Something else I observed this week is that the kids here have the same obsession with High School Musical 3 in English as the kids in United States.

Oye. I feel bad for not sending letters for a while. Every Monday we've had service projects and no time for anything else. If someone can pass these messages on, it'd be great!

Nathan - I love you man and I hope you're doing well in Argentina, having tons of success. I miss all the good times and everything but I know these experiences that we're having right now are the best we've ever had. I love my mission more than anything. The people are amazing. Peru is probably better than Argentina, but I have respect for every Child of God. Thank you for working hard and loving the people.

Andrea – Thanks for everything. My Mission Leader is sending a letter for you and my parents today. I hope everything's just great and you're doing well in school. Keep doing your best, I always love to hear from you.

Briana – Beautiful Sister, I know you're doing well. I just was thinking about you today and wanted to say you should keep up with soccer and everything…. And good luck in school. I don't really know what´s going on with you, but I hope you got the easter egg with the 5 dollars.

Eric – You're the best. Always work the very hardest you can with everything you got! I know video games are cool….but, really, they're not that cool. Stay in school. Read the scriptures and pray everyday. That´s something we can all do better on. The scriptures will help you with everything.

Curtis – Thank you for finding and being a friend to a member of the Church. That's great. You should talk to all your friends about the church. Tell them that they can go with you and mom or dad will pick them up. I know it's kind of crazy, but it´s the right thing to do. Don't be afraid about choosing the right.

Listo. Everyone else I love you guys. Keep sending the letters. I'm always grateful for everything. Especially candy and ties.

Love, Elder Layton

We Have to Know That He Really Suffered and Lived For Us

Dearest Everyone,

Iquitos is the place to be. Right now I'm sitting next to Elder Ridge. Tambien my papa (trainer), Elder Acevedo's here and I here Elder Griffin's in my Zone. The airplane ride to Iquitos wasn't too exciting. We had some unexpected turbulence and Elder Hyde and I were victims of the scalding hot coffee behind us. Elder Hyde got the worst of it I think.

Iquitos is great. It's sand instead of the dirt in Pucallpa so no more dust in our eyes. I think that was the only real downside of my last change.

Our ward mission leader's the best. His wife's our pension and he has a particularly big interest in the work of the Lord.

I'm way excited to get this place moving. It's kind've been hard to start out cause my compi, Elder Hernandez and I (He's Columbian) are opening an area. Basically we do a lot more contacting and working with all the members… not just the less actives. It's great though!! We have two wards so little time on Sunday to work a lot but it's good.

Iquitos is very clean. Compared to Pucallpa the people here are more accepting to the missionaries. I think if we just keep being obedient and diligent we'll be able to have success. It's amazing to be here. I don't miss Pucallpa that much cause I know I'm supposed to be here, but I do miss the people. They were my family. In April Elder Rojas is going to baptize our family of 8…we baptized two already. Yeah, that's about it for the news.

There's more jungle here and we're next to a big river. Oh yeah….my area is 9 de Octubre and Internacional.

I'm reading Jesus the Christ right now. It's an amazing book, like everyone says. Everyone, I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior. I don't know why in the world we lose sight of that sometimes. We have to know that he really suffered and lived for us. His example was amazing! Every single temptation he overcame. He completed everything his Father sent him to accomplish. We can do the same.

Something I learned in the mission is that we can't do the work of the Lord if we aren't obedient. Maybe it seems impossible to be 100% obedient? It's not. It's hard no mas (It's not hard now). If you want spiritual experiences go out and get them. The Lord wants us to see miracles. The Lord wants us to be closer to his presence. I think that if we completely understood that and only had faith more of us would be progressing a lot faster.

Happy Birthday to Andrea, Nathan, Gabe, ….and all the other March birthdays I can't remember right now! (Elder Layton's birthday was on March 6th)

I love you guys and pray for all of you. Pray for my investigators!

Elder Layton

The Story (And Baptism) of Zulma Llerena Llerena

(Briana just showed us this picture that Andrea had posted on facebook. What we can't get over is...well, is this really the same kid that went to the Doctor's office and the Nurse asked, "Is he always this pale?")

This week went great. We had one baptism. Remember Zulma? We baptized her son a while back. Well, she finally committed to having an interview on Friday, and I had the chance to baptize her on Saturday and Sunday. (So does that count as two baptisms? We're thinking he baptized her Saturday and confirmed her on Sunday.)

The first time I visited Zulma was with Elder Paz. We visited her because she was in the old investigators section and her daughter was inactive. Ever since then we've been working with them.

The missionaries have visited her for about a year now, so she knows her stuff. She has a huge testimony, but when we committed her to be baptized she turned it down every time, even though she told us she knew the church was true. About a month ago we had a interview with her and she didn't show......so we set a goal for 28 de Feb and didn't visit her for almost a month. After that we came back, asked if she was ready to get baptized, and there we go. The story of Zulma Llerena Llerena. She's a super mom cause she has two kids and her husband left, and she's going to make a great member.

Her baptism was funny..... we had it with another ward that had four baptisms. We were just about to start and the lights went out. YEAH! So I had a flashlight handy and we found a couple candles. Luckily for us we continued with the baptism by candlelight, and everything was perfect and of course right after the closing prayer the lights went back on....

Yeah, I knew Chelsea was getting married! I received a normal letter from her but she signed it – Chelsea Brynn or something like that. Haha, I was like- is that her middle name or is she engaged? Most the BYU girls fall fast haha, congrats Chels! ;) I have letters from Nathan and Jacob, and I've written one but I'm waiting to write more so I can send them home in one big package cause I have so many people to write.

Everyone, I want to leave a thought with you. I think I've talked about this before but it's something I've been working on for my investigators. Every great person in history started with one thing super important...their thoughts. If we think we can do something, good or bad, we can do it. The Lord wants His children to put all of their mind into his work. Even if we have distractions in our lives. Of course there aren't many distractions in the mission, but outside there are tons. I would invite everyone to put their thoughts in our real purpose. In finding happiness and in what we can accomplish. Like my AP Elder Herschi always says, "Impossible is nothing".

I love you alls!!!

Elder Layton