December 2012

December 3, 2012

 The week went really well. Our numbers got better and a few exciting things happened. On Tuesday, an investigator named Teresa told us she was finally feeling ready to be baptized. The ward still wants to help out and we have the training meeting planned for this coming Sunday. It should be a great opportunity to get members motivated and I’m sure we´ll see the fruits in the future. 
Today we went to a city called Pueblo Nuevo as a zone. It’s about 30 minutes away in between the desert and farmlands. We went and hiked up to a cool look out spot with three crosses, then played kickball and soccer on a large grassy field. It was the first time I stepped foot on grass in 14 months and it felt great. I’m excited to get back to BYU-Idaho and play soccer again. 

Anywho, all is well. We are going to keep working hard and work even harder. I miss everyone back home but am very content here in Paita. I´ll be well taken care of on Christmas.  Que el espiritu de navidad esté con ustedes! (May the spirit of Christmas be with you!)

December 10

Vanessa and Jean Pierre are progressing very well.  Keep praying for them! Last night my district held an orientation meeting for all the members from the two branches. We were planning it for two weeks and were excited to be able to motive the members to participate in missionary work and share the gospel. There were about 30 people there and I led the meeting that lasted an hour and a half. It was a big success and we hope to see the fruits of our efforts in coming weeks and in the coming year especially.  I feel busy and useful as District Leader but the big challenge is always managing my time between visiting members, visiting investigators, and also looking for new people to teach. We are now in the last week of the transfer! I can’t believe how fast these last 5 weeks have gone by. Now just 2 weeks until Christmas!

December 17    Navidad! Casi‏ (Christmas! Almost)

Wow, what an amazing package! I tip my hat off to you two for being such awesome parents. You have made several other missionaries very jealous that their parents only sent a few sweets and didn’t include any pictures, socks, etc. You have really outdone yourselves with this one. We went to the zone leader´s room on Saturday to pick up another jug of drinking water and there was my package! A missionary here in the zone had gone to Lima for his identification stuff and was able to bring up a bunch of letters and packages from Piura when he returned. So I opened the package right there with the ZL´s and another companionship that was there. Everyone was so interested in seeing how much stuff was put into a little box. I’m sending a picture of the 6 of us where everyone has an item from the package. So thanks. The pictures were very thoughtful. The basketball game (classic), puzzle that reminded me of Christmas at home, and socks, and chocolate, and stockings, and silly putty (huge classic!), and lots of other awesome stuff. 

Today I put on some knee high Santa socks and played some fulbito with the zone.  They announced the transfers and it turns out that my companion Elder Peralta is moving on. Half of the district is going to new areas - the 4 that have most time here in Paita. Tomorrow at noon my new companion will be arriving along with the others.  After playing soccer we went to lunch and ate some delicious ¨rice with seafood¨. Snails, squid, and shrimp. Mmmmm (see picture). But really, it´s not bad.

It was a good week. Vanesa will be getting baptized on Sunday if all goes according to plan.Everyone here is quite worried about the 21st. The news stations here LOVE to panic everyone and show all sorts of video clips of the end of the world and ¨science¨ evidence. 

But, the mission is great. In one day you can have 5 lows but one almost high that makes it all worth it. It´s tough to think about how many people don´t know and don’t want to know about what we know, you know? Yeah.... But I hope you all have a great week and enjoy your time together.  It’s looking like we´ll be able to skype, now it is just matter of getting a camera, which also is looking possible.    Elder Rychacho

December 25, 2012      T Minus 2 Hours Until Elder Farmer gets to Skype with his Family in Colorado.....

     (Watching Town Christmas Eve Celebrations
      from Rooftop)

 

November 2012

November 5

 

We’re teaching great people but they were found about 3 months ago and progress very slowly. It’s likely that they will get baptized SOMETIME in the future. Only 4 missionaries out of 20 were transferred out of the zone so Elder Peralta and I will have 6 more weeks together.

The only highlight of the week is that on Wednesday we had another painting job. This time is was our pensionista´s house. It was our last day in that pension as well. We started eating in the neighbor’s house (her sister in law) on Thursday. We got to know the family really well in just 5 short weeks. It was nothing but laughter there and they treated us very well. One night they even took us out for Chinese food. They have a little son named Matias who is 3 years old. Enjoy the picture of him sporting the cool green wig that mom and dad sent me.

November 12

This week went well. We actually started having a bit more of success in finding new people to teach. Two that we began teaching were Edgar´s brother and sister. They are just like Edgar... very sincere and interested. We’ll see how they can progress.

Today is Elder Peralta´s 21st birthday. At the zone activity we smashed eggs on his head and gave him and nice flour shower.

Nothing more to report. The work keeps going and I keep learning. We hope to have the baptism of Ronald Venegas this transfer. He has been receiving lessons since June and has made big changes in his life. He has a baptismal date for December 2 but is still struggling a bit with the word of wisdom. Please pray for him in particular. Also Vanessa and Jean Pierre.

November 19, 2012

Hola Familia

Tengo ganas de escribir en español pero haré lo justo y escribir para que todos puedan entender.

(I have wanted to write in Spanish but will do the right thing and write so that everyone can understand)

It was an interesting week. We taught Jean Pierre and his sister again and put them on a baptismal date for December 16. Today we had a fun zone activity and are getting a lot closer. I´ve learned some sweet games to teach back in the states when I return.

Thanks for sending me emails family. Have a great thanksgiving. I am thankful for all of you and all the support you have given me thus far. Every Monday I get a little stronger. Sometimes a little trunkier too but it’s alright. Also, I have really come to appreciate the gospel that we know and live. What an incredible blessing to know that God reopened the heavens and called prophets once again and that WE are part of that work. Sound cheesy? I know. But it’s true.

Love you all

Elder Farmer

November 26, 2012

This was a great week. We are seeing some great things and have high hopes for the future. The branch is super alive and willing to help out. They have woken up and we have set a lot of goals to go on visits with the different organizations and presidencies. As a district we are working hard at getting the members interested and active in missionary work. We are going to hold a training meeting for both branches on December 9th where we`ll talk about ways to invite friends, family, and neighbors to come to church and ways to participate in missionary work. We need to get people more excited about sharing the gospel. We have seen a lot of progress in Vanessa and all is going according to plan. There are a few other people that could possibly be baptized in this transfer or coming transfers. But, the important thing is that we are working hard to strengthen the branch in any way we can. We´ve brought back a few less active families to church and are getting the young men excited about the missions.

The Peru Piura Mission

Castilla

Peru - Awesome!

October 2012

Estoy por el mar‏

October 1, 2012   Estoy muy feliz! I´ve been sent to Paita, a cool city on the coast - just a straight shot west of Piura about an hours drive. My companion is Elder Peralta from Bolivia. He speaks quite a bit of English so that makes things interesting and has just about 8 months in the mission. His last companion was Elder Sims (who I lived with in Lopez Albujar for 3 months) so we hit it off great from the start. The work here is going really well. There are several investigators progressing and that are interested in getting baptized. As far as being district leader goes, all is well. There are 4 elders and 4 sisters in the district (the only sisters in the zone) and we all go to church in the same building - 4 missionaries in each branch. Oh, that{s another thing. Paita hasn´t been organized into a stake yet. It’s almost there, but not quite ready. So there are only branches here. Paita has 3 churches in total and 20 missionaries, more or less. My area is called Pescador 1 (Fisherman). The branch is awesome though and very willing to help out - go with us on visits, introduce us to neighbors, etc. There is a family of 4 that has been listening to missionaries for 4 months now and our main goal is to get them baptized.

It was tough to say goodbye to Ramon Castilla but I feel like the mission has started up again. I´m back in the same zone as a bunch of people that were in the MTC with me and we were together when we got trained so it´s great. Also a bunch of other people that were in Castilla are here. There is a great energy here between friendships and the desire to get to work. Today we went down to what is known as Bajo Paita where downtown is. It´s like the Peru version of Hollywood... the beach, a cool little city, surrounded by hills that have houses on them... just a lot poorer and a lot more of reality.

My soccer skills have improved quite a bit, or should i say, fulbito skills (soccer but on a little court).

Oct. 8, 2012

What a great weekend. General conference was a great experience I and loved the talks on Saturday. In 40 years I´ll tell my grandkids about where i was when the historic age change was announced. ´´ Gather round kids.... gather round... Now, when President Monson announced the new age limits, I was in the mission field in a city called Paita. The two district counselors that were in charge of setting up the satellite went to Piura for the day and abandoned their responsibility, so at the last minute we had to call some others and they got it set up just in time to hear the announcement, but they forgot to tell us it was up and running until AFTER it was announced and about 10 of us were sitting in another room twiddling our thumbs when they came in and told us the news.  I thought it was a big lie and didn’t believe it until Elder nelson mentioned it again in his talk.´´ Haha. I would have liked to hear it live – I’m sure we all would have gone nuts - but it was still big news. So what does this mean for BYU schools now?  It´ll be interesting to see the impact this will have on the studies of many LDS kids.

Anywho.... We watched all the sessions on Saturday. My favorite was by Elder Uchtdorf in the morning and made me realize how much I love the mission and how I need to enjoy every moment of it. We went to the pensionista and all she had to fry up was calimary. Mmmmmm. I think that’s squid right? Anyways, it wasnt bad. Just very rubbery.  In other news, last Monday we went down to Bajo Paita again to take advantage of a festival that was going on. Dozens of venders from Cusco came up to sell their beanies, gloves and cool traditional jackets with the soft fuzzy fabric. I bought a cool jacket and a hat.

October 15, 2012

This was a very successful week. We were able to find many people this week and had several lessons. We are improving a lot and really focusing on the purpose of missionary work which is to BAPTIZE CONVERTS. Sometimes as missioneries we lose sight of that and get too caught up in other numbers and make other numbers the main priority. But we are sure to teach simply and directly to the people that we meet that the church is true and they should be a part of it. We should be having a baptism this coming Sunday of a 17 year old kid who is super prepared and has been progressing great. There is a special feeling about this area and this transfer. Maybe it is the new assignment, the time and experience I now have, or the people around me but I am very happy to be here.

Bautizo (como dicen los catolicos)

October 22

This week was very slow but ended well, with a baptism! Woo. After a month and a half we got another one. Edgar was a reference from a young man in the ward and we started teaching him right when i got here. He had a few challenges but quickly found an answer to his prayers and progressed very fast. No one knew that he was an investigator because he went to church in a white shirt and tie already. He was already to go and on Wednesday we went to his house to get him ready for his interview. He told us that he had an argument with his Dad when he told him he was going to get baptized and preferred to just wait until he turned 18 to not cause problems. His mom was okay with it but his dad no. After about 10 minutes, his Dad got home from work early and we asked him if we could talk. We just asked him to sit down to be able to explain and were able to clear up his doubts to the point where he was actually willing to pray and ask if it was true. It was a great experience to see how God provided the way for us to be instruments in his hands and when we were talking, I wasn´t even mad or annoyed, but tried to see the love that this man has for his son and how he only wanted to protect him. We spoke directly but with the spirit and all went well. We asked him if he would support his son in this decision and he said yes it was fine. It was just like Alma 22, just without swords.

Espero que todo vaya bien con todos.

October 31, 2012     Happy Halloween

This week went alright. We still haven’t been able to find Edgar´s dad for a second time, but Edgar was confirmed and ordained a priest yesterday. We have plans to talk to his younger sister when we go by on Wednesday and so we´ll see if we can get another family member to accept the gospel. I’m sure the opportunity will come soon enough. The other investigators are progressing but all with require time. Time. Time. Which is not always the easiest thing to give as a missionary because we just want them to convert and be baptized before we leave the area, but that´s not what it´s about anymore. This is the last week of the transfer and we´ll see what can happen in November and December. Time is going by fast.

We had a district service project on Wednesday and had to strip all the paint off of 4 walls and then paint it. As you can probably tell by now, practically every service project has to do with painting a house.

Life out here is rough. They don’t have running water but instead have to fill buckets of water and carry them a block or two to their house. They only receive 28 20-liter buckets per week and we always see 8 months pregnant women carrying two buckets of water and just dying.

Oh and on Friday I officially completed one year in the mission field.

September 2012

Sept 3, 2012

We had Alejandra and Hunberto ready to go for their baptisms on Sunday. Both had passed their interviews and were very excited to take this leap of faith. The ward was also very ready to support us. We had Stake conference in the morning, and then at 4 the baptism. The majority came at 4:30 and Hunberto never came. We still aren’t sure what happened but I called him on Saturday night and he said he was ready to go and would see us at conference. So we´re not sure, but we did have the baptism for Alejandra. Clara Torres has been keeping her participation in the church a secret from her husband and was planning on just getting baptized without him knowing, but that is not allowed. She is a bit nervous to tell him about her desire to get baptized but that is the only thing keeping her back.  We now only have 3 weeks left. Time here in Ramon Castilla has flown by and I have gotten to know all of the members very well. These next 3 weeks will be enjoyable as we look for more investigators and Elder Pereyra´s future converts.

Sept. 10, 2012     Bueno...
Neither Humberto or Clara were baptized this week. We met up with Humberto on Friday.  He started out by thanking us for all that we had done in helping out with his faith and for the patience that we had, but he feels that he should stay in the catholic religion for now. He´s going to keep reading The Book of Mormon cause he knows it’s true, and knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but he did a lot of praying and he just doesn´t feel right getting baptized. He claims he can’t get baptized because he fears that he would ONLY be doing it for the blessings that are promised and that that is not the right attitude to have. Which is true, but we know he would also be doing it for the testimony he has. We could only bare our testimony and invite him to read and pray.  This kid is so prepared to live the gospel but there is always something that holds him back from taking that important step.

Clara still has a lot of interest in getting baptized but went to Chiclayo (3 hours south) to visit her family for the week and will probably getting baptized either the 16 or 23. She passed her interview and everything and now just needs to make the decision and also talk to her husband. She too is super prepared and has shared with us some powerful testimony on how she was able to start to believe in our message as she applied our invitation to pray and she felt a huge difference. She was facing some big challenges when we arrived and we, in some ways, saved her life.
The family of Alejandra, Fernando, and Brandon is progressing wonderfully. They are now all confirmed members and Alejandras boyfriend Miguel is also preparing to be baptized on October 2nd. I´ll likely be out of the area by then.
Sept. 17, 2012     Cartita de Elder Farmer

‏

We now are just one week away from transfers and I feel that my time here is slowly running out. We have worked super hard this week to find new investigators so that the next missionary that comes can get to work with Elder Pereyra and the baptisms can continue. We have yet to see Clara since she got back from her trip to Chiclayo. We´ll probably see her later in the evening and we hope that she is still excited to be baptized and that this week she can do so. Out of all the doors we knocked this week we were able to make an appointment to come back with 31. Of those 31 we taught just 6.

Today we went to a members house in the Catecaus ward. They live tucked into the green pastures of rice and sugar fields on the outskirts of Catecaus. They cooked us all lunch in the typical Peruvian coast method - digging a hole, putting a huge ceramic pot inside and then coals, then placing chicken and other stuff inside, covering it and letting it sit for 3 hours. While it cooked, we walked through the fields to go to a little touristy museum that had some old ruins and information about the ancient people that once lived there and their culture.

The tour was given by two little 7 year old cousins. The gate keeper let us in and then said ¨begin!¨ and the two little kids began their 20 minute memorized tour telling us about every pot, bone, or other artifact. Cute kids, but sad to see that their parents send them up to work so that they can try and get by with food and water, etc. It was a cool zone activity and the food was good. Then my companion and I went to visit Brother Neyra, the legend. He got baptized 30 years ago and has had several callings in the church in his time in the church. He always talks about his experiences and the miracles of his life with work, missionaries, etc. He´s got property by the river where he keeps the construction materials that he distributes and he showed us it today

September 24,   TRANSFERS!

On Saturday the zone leaders called me and told me that I had to call President Rowley on Sunday evening at 7:15. So after reporting our weekly numbers I called him and he told me that I would be receiving a new assignment as District Leader. He couldn´t tell me where, of course, but gave me the heads up of my new responsibility. Today I complete 13 months in the mission and definitely feel ready for this new phase of the mission that was bound to come sooner or later. It´ll be a challenging experience and I’m sure to learn a great deal, but I think I’m ready for it. It´ll be interesting to see who is in my district though, and where, especially considering I have only ever been in Piura and Castilla - two zones ridiculously close to one another. I could be sent to Paita or Talara, two areas by the ocean, or way up north to Tumbes where the mosquitos are huge and it’s even hotter, or a few other places. It feels like I’m receiving another mission call because I´ve been in this area for so long it seems like home.

 Saying good-bye!

The big highlight of the week was on Friday when we had a multi zone conference with Elder Waddell from the seventy. He spoke in a general conference recently and I recognized him right away. He is a super charismatic guy (as are all general authorities) and knows so much about the scriptures and teaches super well.  One point he made is that sometimes we like the gift more than we love he who gives us the gift.  Are we serving missions to receive blessings, or are we serving because we love God and then as an extra we receive blessings. You can apply that to every other aspect of our lives.