Week 46 - "Helloooo mundo!!" July 18 - July 24 (Trujillo)

So glad that Jonah has a new camera and is sending pictures again.  At the end of this post are all of the photos that he sent this week.  Not sure how to explain all of them as no explanation was sent with the pictures.  Just glad to see his happy face!

Hello everybody, this past week has been quite interesting. I learned a lot about what it really means to be a personal representative of Jesus Christ. What it really means to act, say, and do what Jesus Christ would do if he personally was here doing the same work as us. It was a week of huge growth spiritually, and I've really felt the prayers of everyone this past week. It's really special to know that in 150 operating temples in the world with several sessions every day are each praying specifically for the missionaries in every part of this earth. You can really feel it sometimes. But yeah, this last week ha sido excelentacho. Plusssss,, I felt my first earthquake in my life!!!! That was pretty wild. Jaja, it was pretty minor, maybe like a 3.5 or a 4. It shook the whole building that we were in so we all exited out the door just to be safe. It was like a roller coaster!!! Sweetness bro.

But yeah, in this last week, Elder Reyes and I have been working super hard in the area and have been finding new people that are just SOOO prepared to receive the gospel. We found a joven named Jhon Zuluelta (hilarious how they spell John like that jaja), and he is just the best. He's come to church 3 times now, but recien we just taught him. I felt, and knew, in that moment, that we had known each other before this life. That I had promised him, with Elder Reyes, that we would come and teach him. Jhon and another sweet old lady named Luz, will be baptized on the 6th of August. I love Jhon and Luz so muchhhhh!!! 

Soooo....I might've forgotten a very important date last week....but mas probable que I didn't.... I'm so sorry Gabanator!!! I love you Gabe!!!!! Happy 15th Birthday!!!!!!!! Dude you are ripped what the flip happened lol jaja!!! I told Elder Reyes that you're gonna eat me when I get back jaja. But hey buddy I love you. Compórtate bien okay?

Alright, well sorry for being super vague, but I love you all so much!! I'm doing super great!!! I love this work demasiado!! I finally finished Alma so that's cool! Have a wonderful week, and enjoy your Peruvian Independence Day this 28th!!! Chau!

Love to all and also peace

Week 45 - "Hello!" July 11 - July 17 (Trujillo)

Birthday week for Jonah!  Happy 19th.  Thanks to the Marshall Family we were able to get a birthday package to Jonah.  They also brought him a big bag of American Candy.  One other fun thing is that they handed him a voice recorder and had him record a message to us.  It was great to hear his voice.  He finally bought a new camera right after he sent this latest email and should have some pictures for next week!

Hello all creatures of our God and King! This week has been splendid!! There have been a ton of changes and it has been a completely different experience. As always, it has been wild. I'm trying to say the same things at the start just so that Dad doesn't mock me jaja how rude. But really this past week has been incredible. We have been seeing some incredible miracles in the area and also in the stake/zone.

This last Saturday, Sebastian got baptized!! He's so great!!! So funny, definitely a great friend of mine. He's 26 years old and basically mi patasa. He's had some incredible changes in his life and a wonderful conversion. It's too bad he can't serve a mission for his age, but he will make a wonderful leader in the church. It was really funny too because we witnessed his first sin walking back from church the next day. He kind of knows English, but not really. Just the super basic stuff. But you always see stuff on the Internet so he asked me what the ''s'' word meant. Jajajajaj!!!  I was dying laughing and we all told him that it was his first sin after being baptized and that he has to repent! He was so embarrassed jaja but it was so funny!

We also have had several interesting experiences with the Marshall family this week. They are so great. Such loving people. They came down here to pick up Elder Marshall, but they spent all their time proselyting and visiting people. They are on the Lord's errand. A few times, we had the chance to visit people with them, which was a blast. They were also present for Sebastian's baptism and confirmation on Sunday. We love you Marshall Family!! Have fun in Machu Picchu!!

My new companion es la muerte!!! Jajaja, Elder Reyes is the best, I love him so much. He is from Lima and a convert of 4 years. He has 20 months in the mission, and will probably be going home after this area as he only has 3 transfers left. He's gained 20 kilos in the mission so now he's got quite the gut and it's all from gaseosa jajaja. He is HILARIOUS!!! Always making jokes and being crazy. But that's what people love. He loves the people so much. And he has such an incredible conversion. It's more personal so I won't share it, but let's just say that thanks to the Church, he is a new person, born in Christ.

I love this work! I can't get enough of it! It brings conversion. Conversion is such a cool word such an incredible concept. Conversion is daily. Conversion brings salvation. I love you all so much!!! Be more converted to Christ every day. Study conversion in the Book of Mormon Index this week, and I promise you all that you'll love it!

I love you all demasiado!! Have a converting week!! 

Elder Babbel and Elder Marshall

Final Farewell with Elder Marshall

Week 44 - "What a week diga?" July 4 - July 10 (Trujillo)

Cambios again.  Jonah said farewell to Elder Marshall and is getting a new Companion.  His new companion will be Elder Reyes.  He is from Lima Peru.  Elder Reyes will be a new zone leader so Jonah will be training him.  Jonah's first camera broke and he hasn't had a chance to buy a new camera.  I found an old picture from Elder Farnsworth's blog and am posting it.  Hey - Just received new pictures from the Marshall's and they gave a hug to Jonah!

Wowzers. This week has been a flash. It's flown by so dang fast. Time is the enemy in the mission. I hate time, it's the worst! So anyway, this past week has been kinda wild, with a lot of stuff going on. Elder Dykstra and Elder Marshall just finished their missions today, and have been doing a lot of stuff with that this past week. Elder Marshall's parents are here picking him up, and will be going around his areas during this week. I'll be meeting them on Miércoles which is crazy exciting!! I can't wait to get to know them. With a son that incredible, they probably would have to be incredible as well right?

So....if your companion goes home, that kind of implies that you're getting a new companion jaja. My new companion is ELDER REYES!!!! He's so great!!!! I love him so much...well I don't really know him and I've never seen him, but I love him so much!! We will be meeting each other tomorrow in the morning and will sit down and plan some stuff out. I'm pretty sure he's from Lima, Peru and that he is a convert to the church. He was a District Leader back in Porvenir, a different zone that's here in Trujillo, and so I will be training him as a new Zone Leader! I'm so stinking nervous it's crazy!! I can't believe it's already been 3 months here in Trujillo, I feel I just got here recién. These past 2 transfers have blown by, proving once again, that time is the worst and nobody likes it. But yeah, in the past, there were 3 gringos in our room with 1 latino. But now there's 3 latinos and 1 gringo... So I think the spanish might improve a lot in these next transfers! I'm so excited to be immersed in Spanish again! It's such a blessing. And we're all from different countries now! Elder Linares is from Bolivia, Elder Cogollo is from Colombia, Elder Reyes is from Peru, and I'm from the US! Such a cool and diverse room if I might say so myself jaja.

Well....so this last week has been great! Incredible! Super exciting, and full of twists and turns. Maria and Fernanado, the couple that we have been fasting and praying that they will get married.......are not getting married. They say they need some more time to think about it, but I say that they should just do it, no? So they won't be getting baptized for a little while, but that's okay. Everything has it's own time and place. But we have a different investigator that is going to be baptized this Saturday! His name is Sebastian and I love him so much! He is seriously the best, and is so ready. He's 26 and an odontòlogo. Forgot what that word is in English jaja. But yeah, he got up in 3rd hour this past week and announced his own baptism! That was hilarious! He just raised his hand at the principio, stood up, and then said that he was getting baptized that Saturday at 7pm. Super cool.

So I'm really sad to see Elder Marshall go, he has been so incredible. He's made huge changes to our area, and I've learned A TON from him. I love him so much. He changed my life. Love you buddy!

Alright, I'm shorter-ish on time, so I'll go ahead an finish up. I love you all so much!!! I hope you all have a wonderful week, and that everything goes great for you all. This past week, I read Alma 37 and Mosiah 3. They are wonderful chapters and I highly recommend them. Love you all!!! Besitos xx

Thumbs Up!

Elder Babbel and Elder Marshall

The old Cajamarca Zone

Week 43 - "Hello! Surprise! Happy 4th of July!!" June 27 - July 3 (Trujillo)

So the new Mission Presidents have arrived.  President and Sister Marble.  Sister Marble is one of Grandpa Gary's cousins.  She said she may try to give Jonah a hug for us.  Jonah was able to meet them and is pretty excited to start working with them too.  His camera is broken (but he will soon have a new one) so we are going to give the photo credits to his companion Elder Marshall.

Hello Americans of the World!!! Happy Independence Day!!! Contrary to popular belief, they DO celebrate 4th of July here....when all the mormon gringos are together!! Today we're having an American barbecue and the whole zone will be wearing American stuff! It's gonna be so great!! I can't wait. I'll have to send pictures next week of it....hopefully with a new camera jaja.

So yeah! This week was great!! Like super great. We had a super week. We met President Marble!!! That was crazy!! He is so wonderful..wow. We're super excited to get to work with them and I still can't believe that he will be my mission president for a longer time than President Marler. Sister Marble says hi to Grandpa and Mom! They are so wonderful, and have been doing great with Spanish so far! Sister Marble has just learned it these past 4 months, and it will be her 3rd language after English and German. It's going to be a wonderful 14 next months with them.

This week was so great! We have been teaching a lot of people and a lot of missionaries. We did a zone training this past Tuesday and it was lo máximo! We talked a lot about breaking mirrors and forgetting about ourselves. We bought everybody mirrors, and then told them to write the things that they want to get better with on to their mirrors (focusing on selflessness). Today, we're bringing our mirrors to the barbecue and we're gonna break them all on the ground! It's gonna be great. I'm so excited for this barbecue it's crazy. By the way, there's a lady here that buys american ingredients and makes american food in a restaurant called Gringo Loco and she's a member. And we bought Texas Burgers from her. I'm gonna go crazy jajaja.

Anyway, more about the week, we started teaching a couple on Saturday night and they are great! Alex and Gladys se llaman. Alex has a really bad leg and has a hard time walking anywhere so it was going to be hard for him to walk to church. But we taught him on that night and promised him that he could walk to church if he had faith and a Priesthood blessing. And he walked to church! It was such a cool miracle. He really struggled, but he made it, and even went up a flight of stairs. Such a cool experience. Also, we had a family baptism on Saturday! Aidee (76), Stephany (11) and Luis (8) all got baptized. It is a grandma and her two grandkids that have been waiting to get baptized for a while. We are now working with the parents of Stephany and Luis, and they will be baptized soon. They seem very excited for their kids and have a matrimonio coming up soon.

Alright sorry, I got distracted like a thousand times during writing today so I don't know if what I wrote makes sense jaja. I love you all so much! Fireworks wuju!! Have a great 4th of July! Love you more than barbecues!!!

Week 42 - "That was Quick" June 20 - June 26 (Trujillo)

Jonah is about to have a change in Mission Presidents. He will truly miss President and Sister Marler. He was able to spend a few days with the Marlers during their final week. They had a couple conferences and went to the temple a few times. They have been a great inspiration to him. We will miss Sis. Marler's blog where we were able to see additional pictures of Jonah.  

Well...another week came and went. This past week has been incredible, full of miracles and also work. We've had some incredible blessings in this last week that I would've loved to have taken pictures of but my camera has been acting up jaja. I think it's from when I fell at the beach and the sand got in it. I'm gonna fix it though, don't worry Mom. (Sorry, I love you!) Anyway, it's been an awesome week.

On Wednesday, we had our multi-zone meeting! They are always so great. You get to enter into President's vision for just a few moments and really see what he wants for the whole mission. We talked a lot about the temple during that meeting....which we then followed up with a temple trip! The best part about temple trips here in the Central Zone is that it only takes 7 minutes to get there. I love the temple!!! The Trujillo temple here is just incredible. So beautiful. But inside, there's something super special. To me, even more than the temples back at home. I think it might be because I understand a little better now what it means to go to the temple and what a blessing it is to have one so close. I understand the blessings we receive by going inside and making promises with God. The gospel is the best thing that will ever happen to us, and the temple is the fullness of the gospel, wrapped up into a building 7 minutes from our room. I love life a lot right now jaja. Here's a fun little page that tells more information about temples: http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/

Anyway, two days later, we had our mission-wide leader training called Concilio. It was kinda sad, but super great, just because President and Sister Marler are heading out really soon ya. It's kind of weird to think about because President Marble, our new mission president, will be my president for a longer time than President Marler. I'm sad to see President Marler go, but I'm so grateful for what they've done for me. They've literally changed my life. I'm not coming back home the same way I was before. I'm still in a huge process of changing, but I really feel different. President Marble is going to be so great. We're so excited to welcome them here, and start getting to work. It's gonna be A LOT of work, but that's the fun part. But yeah, in this meeting, we got to go to the temple again!!! That's where I took that picture with President, there's also another one though with President and Sister Marler both, I'll try to send it today. The temple is the bomb, just check out the page.

So that was basically my week, going to the temple a bunch and teaching the gente about Jesucristo. You couldn't really ask for more di? Jaja alright, I love you all a bunch, and I hope you have a wonderful week. It'll be an even better week if you go to the temple! I love you all more than Fruity Pebbles!!

Elder Babbel and Elder Marshall

Central Zone

At a Meeting

Piano lessons paid off!

With President Marler

 

Week 41 - "Divine Placement" June 13 - June 19 (Trujillo)

Another super duper week for Jonah. He did have a little Peruvian cultural experience. In Peru, nursing mothers feed their niños whenever they want (during lessons, church, meetings or lunch) He said only the gringos get embarrassed.  He has another inspirational story below. We love this kid!

Hey, so this last week has been a week of miracles. A really super great week. We've been learning a lot about something we like to call divine placement. It's a really interesting concept and it's super true. I've seen it a load of times here on the mission, and I'm convinced that it happens for our entire lives here. Divine placement means a lot of things and it requires a lot things as well. It requires a knowledge of the truth. It requires charity and compassion. It requires obedience. And it requires faith. This last week, Elder Marshall and I have been divinely placed into the paths of other people on several occasions. And it's just been so incredible. 

This last week, we were talking to a lady that was in the church (13th of June), and she happened to be an old investiagator that had been taught all of the lessons, and had attended church for about 6 months.Her name is Yolanda :]She sat right next to us in our 2nd hour class, and then we find out that she's just the most wonderful person ever. We set up an appointment to visit them on that Wednesday thinking that it would be a great lesson. We got to the lesson, find out that she has been waiting to be baptized for several months, but nobody would talk to her about it. So we invited her to be baptized that same Saturday (2 days ago) and she said yes. This last week we had a baptism with a person that we had almost never met, but is just an incredible person. She had been patiently waiting the blessings of God for a long time, and was divinely placed into the seat next to us last Sunday. Now, she has started the journey towards eternal life. That was super cool.

Later on last week, we were looking through a list of references of people and happened to see a name that was on the same street that we were on. We both felt moved to visit the person, and we did. She was sitting outside of her house, and so we began talking to her. She had just happened to have been robbed years of savings that same day only 5 hours before. We told her we were messangers of God and that He had placed us there to help her and bring her a message of peace. She invited us into her house and only had time to sing Señor te necesito and say a prayer, but it was one of the most spiritual moments of my mission. She started to cry and was really moved by everything. She understood that we really are messangers of God, and that she needs to listen to us. It was another awesome moment.

So that's my spiritual thought of the day. When you're doing the right things and you're called of God, chance doesn't exist. Everyone is placed where they need to be when they need to be there.

This last week has been a blast! We are working super hard here and also having a great time. We just went to a beautiful beach this morning with President and Sister Marler and it was soooo great! I'll send pictures in a sec. I love you all so much!! Have a great week! Read your scriptures and say your prayers everyday or we can't be friends. Just kidding, we can still be friends. But you should still do those things. They're good for you. Okay yeah love ya bye

Week 40 - "Super bacan" June 6 - June 12 (Trujillo)

I don't think Jonah ever thought he would be involved in weddings while in Peru.   Apparently it is very expensive to get married and in order to be baptized a couple must first be married.  Jonah says that this makes it difficult for families to join the church.  So now he is helping to organize "matrimonios masivos"(massive weddings).  Many couples can be married civilly at the same time and this makes it much cheaper.  Also "super bacan" means super awesome not super bacon.

Hey so sorry dudes and dudettes last week we had a lot to do so I didn't get an email off like normal, but I'm here now and things are a little less crazy! Wujuuu! So these last two weeks have been incredible. I can't believe it's already been two weeks with Elder Marshall, time is just flying by. Way too fast. We've been keeping ourselves super duper busy and we've had a lot of things to do in the zone. It's possible that in these last two weeks, I've learned more about life and how to live and love better and just be happier, than in any other time in my life. I feel like I probably say that every time I write, but every week is just more and more incredible. In these past days I've been able to really forget about myself. That's probably the greatest thing about serving a mission. The only stress you will or at least should ever have, is the spiritual and temporal well-being of other people. That's just the greatest feeling ever. Not to even worry about what's going to happen to you, just what's going to happen to the people you love and serve. Plus, we don't have to do homework. I hate homework jaja.

But anyway, we've had some great experiences these past two weeks. There's a couple that we've been teaching, Maria and Fernando, and they've been investigating the church for quite a while now, probably about 5 or 6 months. They've been working on getting married this whole time and it's been just kinda tough to get them excited about marriage. But thanks to my grandparents, who are celebrating their 50th year anniversary together, we were able to animate them! They are going to be married on the 16th of July and possibly will be baptized that same night. It should be a wonderful day! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Also, this last week we were walking down the street and saw this guy selling some cuy food. He has this bike with a trailer in the back filled with alfalfa and he just rides around to the people that need to feed their cuyes. So anyway, he has this shirt on with a picture of tater-tots..which was kinda interesting because tater-tots don't exist here....it's really sad I know. But we talk to him for a sec, and we asked him if we could see his shirt...and it turned out to be a NAPOLEAN DYNAMITE SHIRT!!!!!!11!!11 It was so sweet! It said, ''gimme your tots, I'm freakin starving''. Definitely a highlight of the week. Too bad we couldn't teach the dude, but hey, he made my day so that's what counts.

We've also had a bunch of cool lessons throughout the week, including one that we had to do spanish charades because she's deaf, and they were all really great. We've been playing a bunch of futbol and basketball lately, and more often with the investigadores as well. I'm so happy! Loving life! Plus, Peru beat Brazil so the whole country is going insane. We only know because everyone was screaming their heads off last night and clapping and just volviendo locos. So yeah, in your face Dad, Brazil stinks jaja. Peruuuuuuu1!!!!!!

Okeydokey, I love you guys a bunch. Look for the pictures! Do great things with your lives! Read your scriptures and say your prayers every day! I love you!!!! 

Jonah fell asleep during lunch!

Zone Activity

Matching Ties - Unity

Breakfast Burrito and Oreo Banana Milkshakes - Old El Paso in Peru 

There's this lady named Hermana Paty in our ward and she is incredible!!!! She's 35, 2 and half feet tall, and has the biggest heart you could ever imagine. And she painted these!! She's incredible! My new best friend