Week 17 "Almost done with training wut-wut :)" December 28 - January 3, 2016 (Cajamarca)

It's 2016 and apparently the Peruvians know how to ring in the new year.  Jonah said that the Peruvians like to have a lot of fun on New Years Eve (or so he hears, the missionaries need to be in their apartments by 9:00pm)  He said the fireworks woke them up at midnight and went on for 30 minutes non-stop.  President and Sister Marler came to visit the missionaries last week in Cajamarca and there were some great teaching moments and he also enjoyed a good old American burger.  It looks like he may be saying goodbye to Elder Salinas as his training will be coming to a close soon.  He has been a great companion and friend for Jonah, he will be missed.

Hey everybody! This past week was super way cool! We had the way awesome experience of having Presidente, su esposa, y los Asistentes in Cajamarca with us! They are just so fantastic :) Oh yeah, also apparently it was New Years or something, jaja we had to be in our rooms at 9 o´clock so yeah pretty much normal :) But yeah it was a great week.

On PDay we got to go the mall, which strangely resembles the Boise Mall jaja. Everything is American Brands, and it's way cleaner than everything else, and they have American Restaurants. The most important part :) So we went to Longhorns as a District. And I got the ''Americana''....it was beautiful. I'm actually quite surprised that I didn't cry jaja. It was a huge burger with lettuce, tomato, fries, bacon, pepperjack cheese, and good ol' american grease. And I had a rootbeer with it :) That was a great day jaja.

On New Years Day, we had our zone training with the whole zone, Presidente and Sister Marler, and the Assistants. We learned about rocks in our shoes, what is keeping us from really running. We can all kind of think about this in our own lives, what is holding us back from really living happily or progressing (spiritually or temporally). It can be anything, from exercising or going on a diet, or learning to forgive someone that has done you wrong. We literally put rocks in our shoes during the training though to kind of put it into literal terms. But yeah the training was like 4 hours so it got pretty uncomfortable by the end of the time (my rocks were stinkin huge lol), but when we took them out of our shoes, it was literally the best feeling of relief and comfort in my life jaaj. But we can feel something equal or maybe even better with our literal rocks in our shoes. So this is my challenge for all of you this new year: to feel around in your shoes, realize that we all really do have some rocks in there, and then do something to take them out. Whatever that might be for you, just try it. Don't let some dumb rocks in your shoes hold you back from your potential. Let's all run without rocks this year :)

I love you all so much!! Well next, week is cambios, so I'm not sure who my companion is going to be as of right now. It's pretty exciting, especially since I'll be done with my training yeahhhhh :) So until next week I guess! Chau-chau! Viva Perù!

Some Peruvian homes and big clouds

Christmas in Peru

His favorite Picture!

Even though he hasn't seen Star Wars - he still has the force.

Week 16 "Wh-wh-wh-whaaaaatt???" December 21 - December 27 - (Cajamarca)

It was a wonderful Christmas for Elder Babbel and the Babbel family.  What fun it was to have a Skype conversation with him.  He told us about eating cuy (Guinea Pig - a Peruvian delicacy).  If you follow the link you will see what you have been missing.  He said it tastes like very soft chicken but just looks really gross. We were able to see a little bit of the neighborhood he lives in.  We were also able to visit with his companion Elder Salinas.  It was great to see how excited he is and also how happy he is.  It was very hard to end that Skype session and there were a few tears... but we did get an email a few days later and here it is

Hey everybody! :) So this past week was super great! I got to see my mama :) And we also had the opportunity to teach a less-active family to the point that they aren't less-active anymore! Super awesome! They are all coming to church on their own now (apart from the father in the family), and they are just so fantastic :)

Soooo..as you may know.. Christmas happened. ¡Wut wut! And it was just an awesome time to experience it here in Cajamarca. Seriously, it was just crazy. So I don't know how it works with everyone back there in the states, but here, everyone stays up till like 5 in the morning on Christmas Eve into Christmas. It's locaso jaja. But yeah, they all eat dinner at 12am and then party it up afterwards....but being missionaries we had to be in our rooms by 9:30 jaja. But we had a big party with just the missionaries in our zone, and it was way cool :) We ate turkey and salad and mashed potatoes and it felt like home. Then we had a secret santa, and I got this way sweet tie! One tag says it's from Italy and the other says China. I'm going with Italy :) Oh yeah! I also tried cuy for the first time and it was way good! Look that up if you don't know what it is jaja. Super fun Christmas Eve. Then I got to skype the fam which was probably the most bitter sweet moment of my life.. Super hard to hang up after only an hour. But yeah, back to work :)

Also, more about the family. So this is the family that we promised the mother that if she came to church, she would find work, and then a week after she came to church, she found work :) They (everyone except the father) have come to church 5 weeks in a row now, and so now they're active members again! We are still working with the father, and he is so cool. He's seriously such a stellar guy, and wants to come back to church, but is just having some problems right now, but are definitely not losing hope. The thing that everything needs to do to be truly converted to Christ, is recognize the Spirit. Recognize that you're feeling something pure and heaven-sent, and then act on it. The gospel is so simple, and that's why it's so great. So that's my challenge..learn how to recognize the Spirit and then figure out what you need to do to feel it again. (Here's a helfpul hint Galatians 5:22-23 :)

I love you all! ¡Feliz Navidad! And a Happy New Year (Prospero Año en Felizidad jaja)

Elder Salinas, Elder Garside, Elder Babbel and Elder Hunt

Christmas Turkey not Cuy

Christmas morning with Elder Salinas

Celebrating Elder Salinas' Birthday 

Week 15 "Box Brand jaja" December 13 - December 20 - (Cajamarca and Trujillo)

A great week with a Christmas program in Trujillo and a visit to the Trujillo temple. The Christmas program took place in the Trujillo Plaza de Armas a famous central square in Trujillo (one of the first places Peru declared their freedom from Spain).  After the two nights of concerts they collected about 900 names of people who would like to hear more about the church.  Every word is filled with excitement and we are looking forward to a Skype call from Jonah on Christmas afternoon!

So this last week was full of a ton of stuff. Like a lot. It was super awesome! So as you may remember, we traveled to Trujillo on Thursday of last week. We left at about 10 in the morning and got there at around 6 at night...all on a big sweaty bus with no air conditioning. It was awesome! Really, I could be doing anything with my zone in the mission and still have a good time. Well almost anything jaja. Anyway, we found out when we got there that we weren't going to be staying in other missionaries rooms. We had something way cooler for us jaja. We stayed in the Mission Temple Hotel!!! We were the first missionaries to be able to, and lemme tell ya. It was nice. First of all, it's like 30 seconds walking distance from the temple, and then the rooms are killer nice :) Best shower of my whole mission, and it'll probably stay that way unless we go there again jaja. Anyway, Thursday night, we had show de talentos in the casa de mision and it was way fun! I played the piano which was pretty lame, but there were some hilarious skits! Plus, Presidente Marler, is like super way good at playing the guitar. And singing. And both at the same time. But yeah, that was an awesome day :)

Then, on Friday, we went to the Temple for the 7:00 session and it was amazing. The temple is actually pretty big! It had a room that fit all of the missionaries from 3 zones, Presidente y su esposa y el presidente de templo y su esposa (50ish people). Then later, we had a 3 hour practice for our show that night..jaja which was way too long but whatevs. Then we had the show in the main plaza de armas en el centro de Trujillo! And like 400 people came! I got the play accompaniment for an Hermana that was singing, which was pretty fun :) But serioulsy there is soooooooo much talent in our mission. There's an Elder, Elder Manly, that before the mission was in a band as a guitarist and lead singer. And right before he turned in his papers, he got an offer from MTV (something like $100,000) to play for them, but he turned it down to go on his mission. And he sang and played! It was tear jerking jaja :) But yeah that was an incredible day. But because I accompanied someone, I had the opportunity to stay for an extra day in Trujillo for the concert the following day which was way cool!

So on Saturday, we basically did the same thing, but with the other zones that weren't there the day before. But because it was Saturday, there were about 150 more people that came to watch! It was so crowded :) Also, I finally got to see Elder Wynn, Elder Herde, and Elder Mead!!! My hometown brotha! It was just another incredible day. But yeah, we stayed in the Asistentes room that night, and had a way fun time. Then we came home on Sunday on another big sweaty bus with no air conditioning, and right now I'm completely wiped. Hopefully I'll catch up on some sleep this week.

Well that was my week! I'm so pumped for Christmas and the all of the joy that we can experience celebrating the birth of Christ! It'll be super awesome to be able to share the words of Christ on the day centered in Christ. I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas! From the bottom of my heart! Y una Feliz Navidad! Y prospero año en Felizidad!   Great song by the way :)   ¡Viva Perú!

One of the families Jonah is teaching had a calendar of Idaho! 

At President Marler's House

President Marler "shreddin' it"

Trujillo, Peru Temple

Reunion with Elder Mead

Can you Find Jonah?

Some of his old Missionary District from Banos del Inca

Christmas concert in Plaza de Armas, Trujillo

One more Concert Picture

 Elder Quiroz, Elder Rareba and Elder Babbel good to see all of the missionaries together.

Week 14 "ay está" December 7 - December 13 - (Cajamarca)

Jonah had another incredible week.  His letters are so inspiring, they make us want to do good things, be better people - Thank you Elder Babbel.  He seems very happy in his emails that he sends.  He says being a missionary is the greatest thing he has ever done in his life.  He enjoys it more than anything (except maybe running and eating good food).  He is looking forward to Skype with us on Christmas afternoon (I would venture to guess that we are looking forward to it even more).  We have figured out that his letters are transitioning from the interjection "haha" to "jaja" - which mean the same thing.  Factoids - Jonah says that Cajamarca (the city he is in) translates to "Box Brand" and the area he is in is one of the few that has a waterfall (picture below)

So this past week was a week of miracles! It was super incredible to see the fruits of our labors this past week in church. As you may recall, or may not jaja, the asistencia in Baños Del Inca is slightly below par as of right now. We were usually getting around 80 to 90 people at church every week, which is almost enough to take us from a ward to branch. But anyway, this past week, we worked our buns off. And in church we had 114 people show up! It was pretty jaw-dropping jaja. So yeah, I guess work does work :)

This past week, we also saw one of the coolest things ever happen. So about a week ago, we taught about the Sabbath Day to one of our Menos Activas. She has been struggling a lot and hasn't been able to find work for a long time. But when we did teach her, we gave her a promise. That if she would come to church and sanctificar el Dia de Reposo, she would find work. It was a super spiritual lesson, and I really felt like she was going to come to church. And she did! And then this week, she found work! It was super sweet! We've been learning a lot about having confidence in our callings, and part of that was having faith in our promises that we give to people. The mission has made me have more confindence in this every day. Jaja, I'm believing less in casualidad every day too :)

Also, our fellow missionaries in our ward had a baptism, which was super cool! I'll send pictues of them in just a sec.

Oh yeah! And on Thursday, we all travel to Trujillo for a 4 day Christmas program! All of the mission! It's gonna be out the hood and off the chain :)

Yeah that's all folks. Love ya bunches! Besitas! ¡Viva Perú!

One of the few waterfalls in his area

Always the goofy one!

Jonah's district of missionaries on the waterfall outing

Behind the Waterfall

Another baptism - and no those Elders are not super tall.

Because they were running late getting to Church, Jonah thought it would be quicker to give this youngster a lift!

Week 13 "Spiders, Baptisms, and Spider baptisms :)" November 30 - December 6 - (Cajamarca)

During the last week Jonah had quite an experience with playing the piano (you can read about it below) so the moral of the story is, In Peru if you let people know that you play the piano be prepared to play frequently and with little notice and if you are not 100% confident in your skills a faithful prayer will go a long way!  Jonah tells us about the difficult situations and poverty that face many of the people that he meets and says that he is constantly humbled by their meager ways of living.  He is so happy to help and serve the people of Cajamarca, Peru.

Hey everybody! So this week was super great! And full of tons of changes! And super duper stressful! But it was awesome! This week, I've really learned to rely on prayer this week. My own strength is not going to carry me through the mission, and definitely not the rest of my life. Turn to God! He'll help ya out :)

So first, the area closing. The Hermanas always said that they had a tiny area with almost no people to teach. But, as I've learned, the Hermanas can exaggerate sometimes hahaha broma. But anyway, their area is huge! And there's tons of houses. And it's been a ton of work to get to know all of the people they were teaching. And it's even harder because all of them were in love with the Hermanas, so when they found out that they were gone, it was heartwrenching for a lot of them. But we're gonna get them to love us just as much haha. But yeah, now our area is flippin ginormous. We can literally walk for 2 hours in a straight line and still be in our own area. We've got a lot of work to do!

Also, this week, we had our ''5 Semana'' training! In week 7 hahahah! But yeah it was super fantastic. It was just in Cajamarca, rather than in Trujillo which was kind nice cuz we just had to travel 30 minutes instead of 7 hours. So anyway, we had one on one training with the Asistentes and Presidente. Just about mission stuff, but it was so incredibly spiritual. I love the presidency here, they're phenomenal. It was super good to have that. Por fin jaja.

Alsoooo.. we had a stake wide fireside on Saturday with Presidente Marler, and our whole zone (now 30 missionaries instead of 14). It was awesome! And super stressful! Here's the back story. So on Monday of this week, I was asked to play a solo for it. Not a problem, already had something prepared. Then on Wednesday, I was asked to accompany an Hermana on her violin. Not a problem, I can handle this with a couple days of rehearsing together. Then on Friday morning, I was asked to accompany a singing duet. Little nervous at this point. Saturday morning of, I was asked to accompany another singing duet. At this point, I was pretty stressed out. I had never even seen the two new songs until the afternoon of the event, and all three accompanies were pretty tough. So we get to the rehearsal on Saturday late afternoon, and I'm asked to accompany the choir. 3 more songs. And I am just sweating freaking bullets haha. 2 hours to practice my 7 songs, and then showtime haha. But this is where I turned to prayer. Sometimes, it'll seem like the smallest, most insignificant things in the grand scheme of things, but our Heavenly Father is going to listen. And he WILL answer. Everytime. Listen and look for the answer, and it'll be there. Everything went nice and smooth that night. I was tan cochino by the end of the night from all of the sweating, but everything was a-okay and everything was according to plan.

I love this gospel. I love it so much it's crazy haha. We have a Heavenly Father! Literally! A Father in Heaven. And he loves us so much, that despite all of the wars, contentions, presidential elections, and really huge important things, He will take the time to listen to your prayer. And answer it. Even if it's just a couple of dumb songs in a fireside. Talk to him. He'll listen. I love you all! Stay beautiful :) ¡Viva Perú!

Baptism of Nicolas - His family and other Church members

Nicolas his family and Elder Salinas

Some sights around Cajamarca

Hailstorm!

Jonah says the area around Cajamarca reminds him of Idaho

Week 12 "Woahhhhh yeah" November 23 - November 29 (Cajamarca)

Jonah did not end up traveling to Trujillo last week.  They had a conference in another part of Cajamarca so he only traveled 30 minutes.  He will be going to Trujillo for a Christmas program.  They may actually have some kind of a broadcast concert but we are not sure.  He also said that he may have the opportunity to start teaching piano lessons as a means to meet more people and find investigators.

So this last week was kind of a roller coaster.. A lot of good and some mas o menos too. But everything turned out okay, and in the end, there's two more children of God that have entered into the fold of Christ :)
So on Friday, we found out that the Hermanas in our area were leaving. But not only that, they weren't being replaced..their area was closing. I think it was because of the low asistencia in church. It was really tough because they bring a different spirit to the ward that the Elders just can't bring. Plus my Idahomie left :( But then later that day, Nicolas (our 8 year old investigador) and Haime (the Hermana's 60 year old investigador) had baptismal interviews and they both passed! So that meant that they were going to be baptized the very next day! So Saturday came, and we had to clean the baptismal font and fill it (which took 3 hours to figure out..) It was actually kinda fun ''baptizing the spiders in it''. Then I had the opportunity to baptize Nicolas! And the Elder Wirthlin (in our ward) baptized Hermano Haime. Super fantastic day. It was so incredible to see both of them all dressed in white. And their clothing wasn't the most pure thing about them. They have a clear countenance, and pure spirit now that they have been baptized. It was so incredible to see the changes in them because there was literally a difference in them. They were both beaming ear to ear :) Oh yeah.. haha so the water in the font isn't heated like it is in other places. So it was freazing cold. And Hermano Haime about died when he got in. After he was completely soaked head to toe and was leaving the font, he yelled ''¡FRIASO!'' before we could close the doors. It was hilarious! Everybody was dying laughing haha.
So yeah, that was my week! We had a tough time saying bye to the Hermanas, but they have been called elsewhere for a reason. Just trust in the voluntad de Dios y todo serán perfecto! I love you all! ¡Viva Perú!

Not sure where these were taken? 

Some kind of tunnel

There are some ruins nearby

Looking down at Cajamarca

Another view of Cajamarca

Feeling Good

I think he may be imitating a photo that David took on his mission?

That's right! 1989 - Sao Paulo, Brasil!

Cajamarca Missionaries 

Pizza Peruvian style

Clean Baptismal font and no Spiders

Week 11 "Olo" November 16 - November 22 (Cajamarca)

Another fantastic week for Jonah.  He is so excited about the Vasquez family that they are teaching.  Apparently he did have a hamstring injury a few weeks ago while doing a 400 meter race (he says that he did win).  He is all healed up now.  He will be traveling to Trujillo this week for a training meeting of all missionaries that have been out for 5 weeks.  He is not looking forward to the 7 hour bus ride - each way!  Since he was going to be traveling on Thanksgiving he was able to celebrate Thanksgiving the week before and had mashed potatoes and turkey.

So this last week was super fantastic! We had some really great experiences, that will probably lead to some baptisms this upcoming Saturday! Which includes a family of 3! It was just a fantastic week in general :) 

So it started out with the family getting married about 3 weeks early which was incredible news. (by the way it's a thing that they families have to be married before baptism) Anyway, they talked to us and said that they think they are ready, but they need to have a stronger testimony of the Libro de Mormón, which is suepr essential. So later in the week, we had a testimony meeting specfically for them with the obispo y sus consejos y el presidente del estaca! It was super great, and I think that they are going to be ready to literally walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Later in the week, Nicolas (tiene 8 años), decided, out of nowhere really, that he wanted to baptized like his mom :) It was super cool and it really unanticipated haha. Elder Salinas and I both kinda looked at each other with our jaws to the floor because it's a big decision for anybody, especially an 8 year old. But yeah, It's possible that there are 5 baptisms in our ward this coming Saturday! And this is huge because our ward right hasn't had baptisms in over 2 months. I'm so excited to help all of these people progress closer to Christ, And baptism isn't the goal. The Vasquez familia could possibly be sealed in the temple this upcoming year. That means that they can literally live with each other in happiness for all of the eternities to come. It's difficult to comprehend eternity, especially when that eternity is one of bliss. I'm so excited that they can change their perspective to the eternities, and experience the joy that my family has right now. I love this work so much! And I love all of you so much too! ¡Viva Perú!

2nd Nefi 3:7-8
Mosiah 3:9
Romanos 1:162nd Nefi 9:5
1st Nefi 1:12

Jonah apparently likes the warm barley beverage

There are lots of stray dogs in Peru and Jonah apparently likes to take pictures of them.

Not sure if this is the turkey they ate for Thanksgiving