Week 70 "Hello" Jan 2 - Jan 10 (Casa Grande)

We had a bit of a delay to get this week's email.  Apparently on Monday they traveled to Trujillo on Monday and Tuesday to go to the temple.  Sounds like he is getting some of the "fun" knocking on doors experiences.  At least the people of Peru are very friendly and most invite them in to at least have a nice conversation.  If you don't know Spanish you may need to refer to Google Translate to understand some of his letter - haha.

Hey everybody, I'm back again sorry haha. These past weeks have been incredible here with Elder Israel! We've been working really hard and have been seeing really cool people do really cool things. Plus, just today, we went to the temple!!!!! Wow, it had been way too long, it was so wonderful going back, enjoying the air conditioning for a couple hours, and really pondering about how am I doing. Quisiera contarles algunas cosas que nos han pasado en estas semanas...

So we've been teaching this hermano, Hermano Julio Aznaran, and it's just been a wild rollercoaster of emotions. I think I mentioned him before. His sister has been a member for a really long time and his sobrino is almost ready to leave on a mission, but he has never had the desires to listen to the missionaries. Until very recently when we started teaching him about a month ago. He has attended church 2 times and also went to hermana Linda's baptism, which was super great, and he had accepted to be baptized the 14th of January. We had his baptismal interview scheduled, but it turned out that he couldn't go, and he got really desanimado. Last Saturday, he left to Lima, and was not able to attend church, and we've been bothering him on his celular en cada rato. We love Hermano Aznaran so much, and we are so pumped for him, but the enemigo  is always presente, tempting and putting different trials in the way. We will be working with him a lot this week, he gets back from Lima on Wednesday, but we are so excited that he still has at least a little bit of animo to be baptized. So that's been the situation, but we will be praying for him, and we have faith that he will be baptized soon.

Also, this week, we've been able to find several people that after teaching them for the first time, have committed to be baptized in February. It's been really cool to teach a lot of different people and see their faith be put to the test. We've been knocking a lot of doors lately...something that I haven't really done too much on the mission, but it's actually really fun! Sometimes you get rejected super hardcore, and other times they let you in to the house. Most of the time they just say ''somos catolicos, otro dia de repente.'' But it's cool to get to know so many people in so little time. The nice thing is the people here in Casa Grande are, in general, really friendly with us, even if they don't want to listen to us. The great advantage is that I stick out like a sore thumb jaja, GRINGO!! So it makes it easier to talk to people. But yeah, I'm loving every second of the work right now.

Elder Israel is learning english and has already learned a lot in his mission. It's been soooooo funny to hear him put together different phrases and sentences. Sometimes, things in Spanish are a little more crude in English and the same vice versa jajajaj, it's hilarious sometimes. Elder Israel and I are doing great and we're already great friends. I hope that we can stick together an extra cambio or two.

I love you all so so much! If you haven't been to the temple yet this year, GO! Even if there's like 3 feet of snow jaja, it's still worth it. I check the Meridian Temple Construction pictures every now and then, and it looks like it's just about ready ya. SO SWEEEEEETT!! Does someone know the official dedication date? Let me know. I love you all more than snow days and hot chocolate!!!

In a moto, on the way to the bus stop to Trujillo

The Templo!!!