Tres Mil Papas (Three Thousand Potatoes): Week 82 - "Services" Mar 25

Jonah gives some great examples of types of "service(s)". I love his example of serving others and when more is asked to happily work harder and serve even more people. We are glad he and the other missionaries are safe and watched over and that they are able to help some of the people that have been affected by the flooding and at the same time having success in bringing the message of the Gospel to families like Kenia's.

This week has and will continue to be a week of services!! We have been going out in our service clothes for long periods of time and have been using a lot of our time to do clean up. If you have seen or heard of anything here in Peru, there have been a lot of crazy things going on, but it seems to be all calming down, at least in Trujillo. All missionaries are safe and accounted for here in the mission, and we have placed all missionaries in secure places where they will not be cut off from the rest of the mission. It's been kind of a mess coordinating all of that, but luckily the situation is getting a lot better, and we should be getting back to a state of normality.

So.....in this week, we have been really busy coordinating, but also doing service! We have been able to do a lot of cleaning, shoveling, repairing homes, handing out donations, and plenty of other cool things. Yesterday and the day before, we were helping in a pre-school that was completely flooded with mud, and so we had to take out all of the dried mud and put it into big piles. While we were doing that, a neighbor of the preschool asked her to help in her home. Her roof was completely blown off and her house was filled with at least a foot of mud up to three feet of mud in some places. We had all of the Elders from Casa Grande there so we were able to make a ton of progress on the house, and loaded a ton of the dried mud out into a pile. When people saw us working there, we had several more people ask for help from us, and so now we are keeping extremely busy with helping the neighborhood. It's so much fun serving and getting a little dirty every once in a while, you really feel like you're helping a little more personally.

Also, just today, we started the General Conference services and they have been so great so far! We are just about to start watching the Priesthood session, and then we have a full day of conference tomorrow. If you're interested, you can watch it live tomorrow at www.lds.org and you just click the ''watch conference'' button. Elder Gary Sabin also Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave wonderful talks that will become available really soon...maybe already? I'm not sure haha, but it's on the same website.

The last service for this week will be tomorrow, and it's a baptismal service!! Hermana Kenia is going to be baptized tomorrow right after the last session of conference, and it's going to be so great! I talked about her last week, and had mentioned that she was going to try to get her son to church. And on Sunday she came her son Ariel!! And not only her son, but also her nephew Sebastian!!! She has been inviting several people to come to her baptism and she is hoping that her sister and brother-and-law will come tomorrow afternoon. She already loves sharing the gospel and only does it because it makes her happy and knows that it will make her loved ones happy too. That's why I'm out here on a mission! The things you love should be shared.

Not a lot of details, but not a lot of time either, but that was basically the week! Also a big shout out to my little bro Seth who turns 15 today!!!! One more year and he's date-able ladies! Love you buddy!!!

I hope you all have a great week and can enjoy or discover the rest of General Conference. It's gonna be great! Don't forget to do the little things, because it can really add up. Love you all!