Tres Mil Papas (Three Thousand Potatoes): Week 83 - "Woohoo!!!" April 1

It looks like the flooding is finally beginning to calm down in Peru. There is a lot of clean up to do and Jonah and the missionaries have been involved heavily in this. He mentions in his letter that they have been cleaning up sewage mud - he reassured us that "we are really well taken care of so we have masks, gloves, boots, pennies, and nice showers, so don't worry about us". Good to see he is able to provide service and still find people to teach!

Hey so we had a super fantastic week!!! I had mentioned the General Conference from last week, and that there were some awesome talks, and they just kept getting better. We had such a great Priesthood Session this year! I loved both Eyring's and Uchtdorf's talks, they were so special. The next day, we had two more wonderful sessions, an announcement of the new Pocatello Idaho Temple (YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!), and then, right after the last session, Kenia had her baptism!!! It was SOOOOO great!! Wow, seriously, it was a great baptismal service, it was spirit-packed. We had been kind of rushed with all of the details with conference, and trainings, and mud-slides, so we didn't have the chance to explain Kenia's part about her testimony; we just briefly mentioned it to her. Luckily, she had been paying close attention the week before during the fast and testimony meeting, and learned perfectly how to do so. After she was baptized, she had her chance to shine with the testimony, and said something along these lines, ''I am so grateful to be here today, I'm grateful for all the love and support that I have received from all of you. I come from Huanuco (a long ways from here, up in the mountains) and for many years, I have gone from church to church, looking for something that fills me. I'm give thanks to God that He let me find His church, and I know it is the true church. I know that I'm on the right path, and God has filled me.'' She said it with such conviction and such faith, it just filled the room completely with the sweetest spirit. We're so happy for Hermana Kenia! She has already started to share mormon messages on her Facebook, and we gave her some cards with Jesus Christ and has been inviting people to church with these cards. She is so excited to share the Gospel and will give a great new light to the ward. Hermana Kenia is the best!!!

So then later in the week, we have been able to do a whole bunch of service with the clean up. It's pretty crazy, in some places, the mud came up to the second floor, completely covering the first floors of several houses. Luckily, no one has been seriously hurt, and no missionary either. This week, we have been helping this lady named Hermana Juana. She's a single mother with 5 kids all under the age of 16, and her house was filled with waist-high sewage mud. Elder Nuñez and I, and a couple other missionaries a few times have been able to take out all of the mud, and now we just need to fix her roof. It was really cool because she has been so grateful for the service and many others have seen us and have asked for more help. It made inviting them to church very easy and we've planned to pass by their house to pick up the whole family on Sunday. We also have been up to some of the more affected areas like in the high part of Trujillo to take out more mud and get dirtied up a little bit. We have some fotos of us and the Porvenir Zone and also us in Hermana Juana's house attached.

We also had an interchange on Thursday and Friday, and were with Elder Garrison and Elder Turner. It was such a great day! We have several people progressing and have been able to find several new people that have ''real intent'' to follow Christ and to make changes in their lives. We are finally getting back into the swing of things and are now ready to start leave everyday to teach and calming down with all of the organizing and administrating....thank goodness haha. Next week, we have multi-zone conferences, so we'll be seeing almost all of the missionaries (minus the Cajamarca zone) within 3 days, so that'll be super fun.

Anyway, we are keeping BUSY here, and we are having a ton of fun. Here's one of the mormon messages that came out for Easter mormon.org it's so cool! Lot's of people are looking for peace right now, and He is the only way to find the real kind. I love you all so much! Get out and serve, be willing to get dirty a little haha, it's fun, enjoy it. I love you, have a great week!