I Feel Very Blessed to Be Here in the Work of the Lord

I don't have much to write today. Everything is going just great. I taught the District yesterday in District Meeting. Today we went to the temple and it was amazing like always although I did get close to falling asleep. We woke up at 4:00. Bueno, from the letters it sounds like everyone's doing really well.

As for the investigators go, we have many. Right now we have 9 baptism dates but there's a lot more to set, especially because we have muchas families to complete. I'm excited for this month especially now that I'm learning about being a district leader and being a papa at the same time. My district is doing really well again. The investigators that had baptism dates came to church.

THANKS!!!! For the Halloween package. It came just in time. Perfecto. I shared with my companion and my Zone leaders and I took pics with my spider man mask. That's about it for my Halloween. Better than last year.

Tell Landon to get married already.

I have a lot of friends in the mission that are getting ready to end. I feel old. Luckily I have a lot of time left to work.

All that I know is that the Lord is blessing us. Were able to have a ton of success because the members are on top of it. Seriously, I ask for references from the members and they spill them out to us. Bishop is seriously talking about splitting the ward almost every week which is kind of funny because we just split last change, so we need some more Priesthood holders. We have a complete family but the dad's in the hospital...but give him 2 weeks. He was set in convincing his whole family to get baptized. This Saturday if everything goes perfect well be baptizing Jose Louis, Italo, Guian Carlos, and Jefferson the next week we have several more.

Bueno, muchas gracias por todas las oraciones de verdad. Me siento muy bendecido poder estar aqui en la obra del Senor. Les quiero a ustedes bastante y estn en mis oraciones cada dia. Se que el Evangelio de Cristo bendice a las familias en todas partes del mundo. Me siento un poco orgulloso a poder compartir el Libro de Mormon cada dia con los lamanitas especialmente cuando veo que realmente eso libro los hacen sentir un espritu familiar como profetiza la misma escritura.

(Well, thank you for all of the prayers, really. I feel very blessed to be here in the work of the Lord. I love you all a lot and you are in my prayers every day. I know that the Gospel of Christ blesses families in all over the world. I feel a little proud to be able to share the Book of Mormon each day with the Lamanites, especially when I see that truthfully this book makes them feel a familiar spirit as prophesied in scripture.)

I love yas bye bye,

Elder Layton

Recent Converts in the Temple

Something I learned this week is numbers don't matter. Because Peru grows so dramatically fast sometimes it´s easy for us as missionaries to get caught up in the excitement of numbers… but…. We WON! Hahahahahhaha. This month the offices tried something new. They put out in our weekly mission news letter that the Zone with the most confirmations gets to go to lunch with President and his wife. I don't know HOW we did it but we had more than the jungle, here in good old Puente Piedra!!!!!

That's not very important though. Almost all of our converts are going to the temple this Saturday. We even have a couple investigators that are going up with the group to be able to see the temple. It's exciting to see the people we baptized on Saturday be able to go. Edith, Shirley, Geosselyn, and Junior were all confirmed on Sunday and had their temple interview after church.

I was able to baptize them all again… which I feel little bad about. The people in their baptism interviews almost always choose the Gringo….and honestly I would LOVE to give my companion more opportunities….but I guess it doesn't really matter that much.

15 Investigators came to church. The ward is growing dramatically because of how much the ward is working. We've done almost nothing! We helped the Mission Leader make up a ward mission plan a few weeks back, and we've been sharing it with all the members.

I still play the organ in church. The mission leader asked Elder Moreira and I to give the gospel doctrine class (Which is overflowing btw) so we taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and then after that I was able to present the mission plan to the adult members of the ward (on the 5th Sunday we teach about the missionary work). I feel thankful to be able to be in this ward. Our Bishop, Bishop Cabellos is inspired and loves the members. We finds time for everyone.

I just wanted to express my love for all of you. If you're reading this go to DearElder.com and write me a letter and tell me what's up, okay? I love hearing from you.

This week I had the experience of being attacked by fleas again. I love Peru and all the fleas….. just to describe the experience, it's worse than a mosquito bite and there are more of em. I'm on garlic pills again so hopefully that helps. The Lord will bless me according to my obedience to the laws of health….AHHH it itches!!! Hahahaha.

Bueno, perdon for the short letter.

Love,

Elder Layton

AYUKITANCA!!!

Ayukitanca!!!

That's "Hola" in Quechua (which is "Hello" in English), the Inca language. I bought a Book of Mormon in Quechua hoy dia so Ill be learning a bit of it now. It's a lot more difficult learning a language like this than Spanish, but there are people in my area that speak it, so I'll give it a good hard go.

I'm writing today Tuesday because we went to the Temple and today's our Pday for today. The temple was great. I love the temple. As far as I'm concerned the Dengue was a blessing that the Lord's given me in the mission, because now I can go all the time.

We've been working, working, working.... and one day we were walking down the street on the border of our area when someone ran by. His arm was all bloody. Somebody was throwing rocks at him and his friend from behind us so we were in the middle of the fight....but I pulled my companion into a side street really quick so we waited until everything settled down. The crazy thing is that the guy with the wounded arm came back looking for his attackers with a handmade gun on his motorcycle in the same minute. It was crazy but we ran to a safe place out of harms way.

We've started finding a bunch of good families to teach. Thomas the really old guy has been having problems understanding everything. They didn't come to church... even though they said they would. The good thing though is that a bunch of new people we've never met came, and so we'll be teaching them during the week.

I know the mission to me feels normal now, but maybe you'd like to know how it all is. I hate being in the street. That's how we find people sometimes but it's not effective nor the best way to spend our time. I like to have lessons every hour. If plan A fails, we have plan B. Every night I look up the directions (direcciones is really a "false friend" in English - it means "address" - he's just writing a bit of "Spaenglish") of investigators, future investigators, members, etc. to visit. It might seem a like a waste of time to some people, but I like to put plan C's too. That way we have a lesson every hour, in a perfect world, and we're in the houses more that the streets. Even the house of a member is better. We pump 'em up, be their friends, wash the dishes, and tell them that we're not going to stop washing until they give us a reference. I find it usually works cause they always hate when I wash the dishes. Every day at lunch we eat with the members of the Church. I'll tell them something like this: Hermano, do you like games? We're going to play a game. I'm going to write 5 names here in my agenda of people you know who aren't members. They hesitate, because usually they think I'm asking to visit 5 people. Then I explain, no it's part of the game. Then they give me five names. Then I say: Okay gracias hermano, now we're going to pray and we'd like you to pray for which one of these we can visit. It works every time.

I love the scriptures. My new favorite scripture is 3 Nephi 5:13. HE AQUI, SOY DISCIPULO DE JESUCRISTO, EL HIJO DE DIOS. HE SIDO LLAMADO POR EL PARA DECLARAR SU PALABRA ENTRE LOS DE SU PUBLO, A FIN DE QUE ALCANCEN LAVIDA ETERNA.

I can't even begin to describe how that one verse has impacted the misión that I'm serving in right now. It is who I have to be. I've been extremely blessed in ways I can't even describe. I honestly feel sorry for the people that reject what we have to say, but then again I have a lot of work to do, because either they rejected the message or we failed to do our part. One or the other.

I understand most everyone that reads the Blog are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints... but I also heard not everyone. For those who AREN'T members of the Church:

"God is our Heavenly Father. We are His children. He weeps with us when we suffer and rejoices when we do what is right. He wants to communicate with us, and we can communicate with Him through sincere prayer. He has given us this experience on the earth so we can learn and grow. We can show our love for Him through our choices and our obedience to His commandments." (Preach My Gospel, pp. 1)

Padres, gracias por sus emails. Creo que voy a recibir mi paquete esta semana. De verdad estoy muy feliz y les quiero bastante. Tambien voy a enviarles un paquete hoy dia con cartas y fotos!?

Elder Layton

A Long Distance Prompting

(To preface this week's post, Elder Layton has a good friend in the hospital right now. Gabe West, shown at left a couple of years ago with Elder Layton's sister, Briana, has been confined to a wheelchair since birth. He was recently called to serve a mission in the Portland, Oregon temple along with his parents. Over the weekend he developed an infection. Things do not look promising. We informed Elder Layton by email last night, and he received it a short time ago.)

Hi Everyone,

Hi Mom and Dad... I'm really sad to hear about Gabe. I didn't email yesterday because today is our pday. When the missionaries go to the temple once a change in Lima the pday changes to the same day. So yes, I just got out of the temple.... and now I just read the email about Gabe.

Interesting enough about 30 minutes ago I felt prompted to put his name in the prayer list at the temple. I knew that he was doing his best on his mission. I wanted the Lord to help him out....but now I understand a little better. I have a letter to him too that I wrote a week ago and I'm waiting to send home with some others.

For anyone reading this and doesn't know Gabe West, let me give you a little background info. Gabe is one of the most loving sincere people I know and one of my best friends. He's been in a wheel chair his whole life and always has a good attitude about it. He's always doing great things. If I can just say one thing to Gabers, I'd like to tell him I love him and to keep serving God.

Well, yeah.... I'm happy Grandma Chiechi's doing better. I prayed hard for that one.

I can't really think of anything cool that happened this week... OTHER than the baptism! I got to baptize a girl named Gianela (I think I spelled Ganela last week). It was great. One of the best things that bappened was that her parents who aren´t members came. We have a cita with them. The mission's cool. We didn't have a great turnout in the Church again so I was sad all Sunday but hey, we commited several people to baptism yesterday.

One girl that's getting baptized is named Mabel. She's awesome. It's almost the same situaton of Gianela. Her parents aren't members but the difference is that they don't want anything to do with the Church. I was extremely impressed by her testimony though. Elder Chan, my Guatamalan companion asked her "what do you want most for you family?" She responded "All I want is that my family goes to Church and reads the scriptures." Haha. I love it. I felt extremely grateful to have a family that always went to Church, and helped me get out of bed on Sundays (thank you mom)... and very ungrateful that I had taken it for granted.

I think we might take a trip to McDonalds today. Maybe. American food how I love you! Rice is great, but not everyday. I'm used to it though, and thankful for all the food my mom ever made me. I would even eat your meatloaf everynight mom...even though I hate it. Gringos don't have the right to be picky!!!

Well....I'm sorry I have to leave early from writing.... my whole zone has officially determined McDonalds and got excited so we have to go....hahaha. Well I love you all. Keep working hard. I know the Church of Jesus Christ is the only true and living church on the earth led by the Lord and living profets.

Peace,

Elder Layton

More of the Same from Provo, Utah

How is everything back home? I just got back from the temple, and it was great.

After the temple we always eat the temple food because it's so amazing, compared to our normal stuff anyway. What I'm looking forward to most is the Peruvian food though. Grandma said that a Peruvian family sacrificed their household dog for the missionary's down there. I'm hoping they'll be as gracious for us.

The spanish is coming along very well. There's no way we'd be learning this much without the help of the Lord. It's like having all the spanish I had in middle school and high school compacted into one week.

Most of our Zone left this week to Mexico because the country's finally letting them in. Most of them had been here 13 weeks, and now we're the second oldest district in our zone. Also I found out the Elder Rau will be flying through Peru on his way to Argentina. I don't know how I feel about him visiting my country before me... I think I'm just ready to be in Peru already as I've been held back four weeks already. It's all good though.

They told us we find out on the 28th of this month where we're going, but we've actually heard a rumor about the 20th so who knows. I say "where we're going" because there's a chance we could be reassigned for six weeks just until they figure out what's up with the visa's, but I don't think that'll happen. We've been praying. We may just stay in the MTC a couple weeks longer if they know the visa'a are on their way.

...On the Bright Side of Things...

I just got back from the temple. The MTC has been great even though we were delayed. It's happened to a ton of Peruvian Elders.

I'm still learning so much. Dad, you're right. The teachers here are amazing. We have 2 teachers for our district which is down to 7 people. We get more Elders today that are a little more advanced in Spanish to begin with, so we'll see how that goes. I've gotten really close with one of my teachers, Brother Hardy #2 (They're both named Brother Hardy, no relation). He's only been home 3 months and he loves our district so much. I'm doing great. It's so hard, but I'm having a ton of fun.

Note: Elders shown from left to right are: Elder Bradin (sp?), Elder Griffin (1st companion), Elder Munk, (unknown - writing was blurred -and if any of you missionary moms can identify, that would be great!), Elder Layton, Elder Briggs, Elder Harris, Elder Ridge (current companion).

Picture at right shows Elder Layton with his close friend, Elder Nathan Rau. Elder Rau is in the MTC right now, and is preparing to leave for Argentina in a few weeks.

Recently Elder Rau wrote to us and said this: I did not really get to see him much while he was here (Elder Rau thinks Elder Layton has already left for Peru), but I did see him enough to know that he is enjoying himself and his Spanish is coming along well, and that he loves the Gospel and this work.

As for me, I love it too. For some reason, I am just beginning to realize how much sense the Gospel makes! I'm so excited to take it to the people of Argentina.

We love Elder Rau! He's our adopted son. Argentina is about to get a great missionary.

Note that several more pictures have been posted, including the ones at the right. Click the link at the far right to access them.

The Temple

As part of his preparation to serve the Lord on a full time mission, Sean went through the temple in Portland, Oregon on May 10th, 2008. He was prepared and it was great. The temple is the place where certain covenants and blessings are made and received that are eternal and magnificent. So of course it was a great day.


What made it even better was that we had family and friends there to share this event. Grandma and Grandpa Chiechi, Grandma and Grandpa Layton, Priesthood leaders, including the President Rau and Bishop Gardemann, and several good friends and ward members all attended. Unfortunately Grandpa Chiechi became very ill the morning of the endowment and was forced to spend a good part of the day in the hotel room. But we knew of his full support and love for Sean.


The temple has been the highlight of his preparation, but other things have been going on as well. There are Visas and Passports to obtain, medical checkups and shots, clothing to buy and a host of things to do to get ready. Sean's been busy. We've been busy. But this is an exciting and unforgettable time for Sean and for all of our family and friends. We are deeply grateful for the support and love that have been offered. It is a rich time in our lives.

Sean has also been called and is serving as a Ward Missionary. It is perfect preparation for him.

In about one month, we'll be leaving to return Sean to Provo...to a place only about two blocks from where he has been living for the past year. It is completely surreal. Our hearts are full.