Contacting Beasts!

Well this week we contacted like crazy!! We had a monthly goal, and let’s just say we hadn’t even gotten to the halfway part... so every moment we had we were contacting. I have very mixed feelings about that though. When things go well and people accept you its great. When they deny you.... it sucks!! haha but all in all we met our goal so we are champs!!!!

Monday was good, we didn’t do much. Just a normal p-day.  I went and bought stuff so I could send a package home to the family! 

Tuesday we were back to more service, I think our mission got changed to Tennessee with all the service we have been doing, I feel like Elder Edman!! Love you dude! :) Then we just had appts. fail us, the usual!  Then for dinner we made cookies :) #AmILikeMyMom?

Wednesday we did some contacting, visited some recent converts, and helped some with their family history! #elEspiritudeElias

Thursday we had some more lessons with recent converts and did some planning for the week and some more contacting!!! 

Friday we had a little more success!! I had a meeting with the zone leaders, #wickedness ;) haha! Nah, just with the district leaders to get burned, I mean talk about some things.  Following that we ran to eat lunch cause we had a lesson at 2:00 and the meeting ended like 1:30.  During lunch we get a call from a member who has a reference but can only go at 2:30, so we ate lunch super fast, ran to our appt at 2:00 with crazy Juanita, then went and got the reference at 2:30! Luckily everything was pretty close!! The reference is really nice and hopefully she progresses, but I just didn’t get as good of a feeling. Then a family invited us over for dinner, which was good. Funny story actually. For all the girls please just skip this part . . . .anyway, we were eating dinner, and my stomach was just unsettled, plus we were eating just the driest potatoes, they were good but dry, and I had nothing to drink. Anyway, I had been letting out some gas here and there and it was pretty silent so I felt more coming and was just like ooooh this HAS TO COME OUT!!!! So thinking it would be silent, I just casually let it fly and it wasn’t silent. It was so loud, we were all just dying. The mom thought it was one of the daughters, but when they saw how bad I was laughing they knew. The worst part was I had dry potato in my mouth and couldn’t get it down; I was trying not to throw it up from laughing to hard... But ya, there’s my story of the week #Peru=Gas

Saturday was good! We had a meeting with the ward and Stake Presidency on how to hasten the work, there was about 20 members there so who knows how affective it will be... haha but it was good, then we contacted like crazy!!! We had pretty good success contacting!

Sunday just a normal Sunday, we all gave our testimonies.  It was testimony meeting and our ward mission leader, the hobbit, called us out to go bear ours, so I started and everyone else followed! #followtheleader.  Ten we had some appts with some people and then the family night with our ward mission leader. 

All in all things are going well!! Life is good the gospel is true!! I had a pretty awesome moment this week when in the family night with our ward mission leader Gustavo, my convert made the comment how if just everyone had the gospel they would realize they aren’t an ugly duckling, and that they are a beautiful swan, the ugly duckling and swan were apart of the lesson, he’s not a poet... but I was just so happy because he is the perfect example of that. He was so depressed and sad when we met him and now he is so happy!! The church is true, the gospel blesses lives!!!

Zach and the peanut butter Oreo cookies he and his companion made.

He is a total goofball!

Love Elder Ludlow

Rex, Rex2, and Negrito

Well this was another interesting week you could say. Highlights of the week. Our Baptism!! :) and the following story:

Well it was Tuesday and we were walking down this street to an appt with Ulises and there was just this big street dog following us kinda, so we decided to call it and get it to follow us. So we gave it a little pet and it became our friend. We called him Rex. Then out of the blue, this other dog just walks out of this alley, and starts following us, we didn't say or do anything but he was cool so we called him Rex2. Very loyal, the bad part is that he had some eye boogies. They were gross. Then about 10 seconds later this black dog comes and follows us so we decided to call him... Negrito. They followed us to Ulises' house and even two of them, Rex2 and Negrito, waited for us there. That day we also had some other appts and some service.

Wednesday just a normal day had a couple of lessons, but the cool thing was we found Rex again!! haha and he followed us for a while but then ditched us for the circus. Poor guy.

Thursday, we had a couple of appts, taught Ulises again and he told us that his mom, who lives by Puno, was going to be able to come to his baptism!! I was so happy!! :) then just a couple more appts.

Friday more service, a couple more appts and then we set up for the talent show.

Saturday was the baptism. It was good, but there was a lot of people who said they were going to come, and didn't. Good old Peruvian culture, but wait there's more later. Luckily everyone who was participating was there so it went pretty well. Ulises was happy and so were we! Then later that day we had the ward talent show, that we had set up. The play was going to start at 6:00, and we had told every organization to have an act, they all said yes and even that morning in ward council we confirmed with everyone. So we have the program all ready and no one is showing up. Then we had some people show up but not the acts. So really to sum it up, Elder Barry and I(because the sister missionaries were practicing their act), were in charge. Luckily after about an hour and a half we had enough acts to start. So we just did little skits during acts and they were pretty good, when i get the videos I'll send them to you. So I guess it was a success, but it was funny cause these greengos came and this little girl was dancing and went out and got him to dance with her! It was solid!

Then Sunday was just a normal sunday visitng the normal people and everything was good.

But hey, you guys should go look at the mormon message video Reach out with Love, it's pretty funny and it teaches a good message!! haha I love you all and remember like it says in 2 Cor 5:7 "we walk by faith and not by sight!" 

Have a great week! Peru is awesome!!!

Ulisis' Baptism

Zach is in deep thought . . . .

Cookie Thief

Well another week down, it's crazy how time goes by...

So here's the rundown, 

Monday, for dinner we made some cookies and let's just say that my mom knows how to cook way better, but for the tools I had they were pretty good. We didn't have the right size pan, and the oven we used we couldn't set the temp, it was just random so that was kinda crappy, nevertheless they were still delicious!! :)  So funny story about the cookies. . . we cook them Monday night, eat a couple with our pensions family, but still more than half the pan remained. So Tuesday we had a couple for breakfast and then at night, we were still left with a huge piece, probably 1/3 of the cookies left still.  We go put the cookies back, get up in the morning and go to grab some for breakfast and they were GONE. No where to be found.. I was so sad, we have no idea where they went or who ate them, but it was a sad day, haha! 

Tuesday, all our appts failed us so we spent a lot of time contacting people, super duper fun!! But the good thing is we can just talk and have a good time so that makes things easier.  We also had to take this lady to the hospital cause none of her family could, and the members here don't call like their relief society or elders quorum president, they call the elders. So we went and took her.

Wednesday we had a couple of appts., went back to the hospital with that lady and ya, it was a little frustrating though because she had family that could have taken her, she just said no the elders will, but oh well. Following that we had an appt with our inv. with a baptismal date and then a family night that he came to.

Thursday just full of appts, we were teaching Ulises, our inv. with a date, the commandments and he just understands everything so well!! Its so cool!! We had a couple more appts, and then our ward misison leader took us out to papa johns for pizza!! They gave us bbq sauce with our pizza, i was in heaven!!

Friday, we had to finish teaching Ulises cause he had his interview, we taught him about tithing and the sabbath day and well he knew everything before we even taught him!! #gold!!!!  he had his interview and passed it!! He will be baptized on the 19th!! We are so excited for him!!!

Saturday the sister missionaries in our ward had a baptism that we went and got everything ready, cause I'm the best district leader eve.  The baptism was awesome and I got to baptize her which was awesome!! She is super awesome and super prepared!! It was a spiritual day. Then after we went and ate waffles to celebrate!! It was the first time I'd had waffles for like a year. Delicious!!

Sunday, just a normal day we had a lot of appts fail us, but we did have a family night and after we played a little game that was questions without answers, where you have to respond to all questions with a question, someone asked me if i read the bible. My answer,  "Noooooo?" I don't know why i responded no, oh well haha.

Well I love and miss you guys so much!! I came across a solid scripture this week in 1 John 4.7-9. It's awesome i really like it!! Well I love you guys have a great week!!!!

Zach wanted to make sure everyone knew he was doing his drill team pose.

Zach baptizing a girl the sisters missionaries had been working with, he never told us her name though.

Zach had been dying for Cookies & Cream Blondies so in his last package I sent  him recipe and ingredients and here they are . . . . 

Too bad they somehow dissappeared and he and his comp never got to finish them off . . . lucky cookie thief whoever he/she was!

Wait, It's September?

Well I can't believe that we are already in September, I didn't even get my summer break!!! Haha, well just another solid week that we had.

Monday we went and got pizza for lunch. But not peruvian pizza, Papa John's pizza.. It was soooooo goood!!! Our ward mission leader is going to take us out there on Thursday as well!! yay :)

Tuesday. Tuesday I was with Elder Arias doing divisions. I missed my son so much, but it was a solid day. We helped this guy start to move from the fourth floor of one building to the fourth of another. It was a pain. Plus the staircases here are super small and you have to maneuver things in the craziest ways so they fit.

Wednesday was just a normal day. We went and helped that guy finish moving. Which sucked cause all that was left were the big heavy things lol. Had a couple lessons, but we had a kinda cool experience. There was this drunk walking towards us, usually they almost always try to stop us, so usually you just kinda ignore them or walk as far away say hi and go, but we didn't do that and we just felt we should talk to him. So we did. The guy supposedly (we aren't sure if this is true cause he was drunk), is a returned missionary. So we made an appt with him. I just have the biggest desire to help this man and hopefully we can.

Thursday I think I gained 10 pounds. A member invited us to eat fuegos. It's a restaurant that has this super big burger, but we weren't able to go because it's out of our sector, but she brought it back to her work and we were able to eat it there. There is a photo attached. It was so delicious, the picture doesn't do it justice for how big it was, then also there was a huge bag of fries. So we ate that and we were so full, then we go to a lesson with investigators and they give us pollipapa. Which is a piece of fried chicken, which french fries, noodles and fried rice. We saw it and started crying, but had to eat it cause we can't turn down food. 

Friday put a baptismal date with our investigator for the 19th of this month. He was super happy and it was a great lesson!!

Saturday we had ward council in the morning and Elder Barry forgot to wear a tie!!! haha we were dying!! Then in the afternooon I had to give my first baptismal interview. It was a little scary at first, but it was super cool and a really awesome spiritual experience. The person I interviewed is really prepared and really ready for her baptism, she even chose me to baptize her!! #blessed

Sunday was solid, just the normal day. The girl I interviewed actually got up and bore her testimony so that was awesome!! Then we were up in the hills again visiting people.

All in all it was a solid week!!! I love this work! Love being out here, and especially love the area I am in!! The ward is great and i just love it!! I never wanna leave this sector it's so great!! haha I love you all the church is true!!! I promise!! :) Have a great week all of you!!

pic 1 the burger,

pic 2 USA USA

pic 3 papa johns pizza

Oh and by the way the states beat Peru in soccer!! Everyone was talking to us about it!! haha