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

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.