Feliz Ano Nuevo

So this week definitely was awesome and super hard too! I was an emotional wreck after talking with you guys cause that was the best time ever! Hope you guys liked my videos! Those of you who didn't see ask my mom for the videos!! 

SO the big news for this week is that Elder Samaniego is a liar!!! He finishes his mission after my training!! So ya AJ was right about him, he was also the Assistant with Elder Bengtzen after im his first companion after that!! So I am his one and only son! So ya sorry I lied to you guys about that but blame elder Samaniego.

Funny story, this week we were walking down the street and we just see this lady start squating... I was like what the, then you could see her push her dress back and ya she started laying an egg.... if you aren't catching my drift, she definitely was just taking a dump in the middle of the field... Ya it was crazy! I am scarred for life1, She didn't even have toilet paper to wipe!!! :O

Another funny story this week was that when talking with Jonny on Christmas he asked if I had had Lomo Saltado, which I hadn't, but the next day for lunch we did!! Its pretty dang good!!

One more funny story for the week! Before we had ward council we were talking with this guy, his name is Carlos and he is a kick boxer, and before we had ward council he was teaching us all these kick boxing moves and how to defend ourselves in certain situations and it was legit!! I don't know how old he is but he's like 50 I think and he is so awesome!! '

Well lets just say that I am super excited for mothers day! Ha that was the greatest thing talking to you guys thanks for all your support and all your prayers, I couldn't do this without you guys! And without the lord! I said some things at the end of my call that I wasn't even planning on saying, so ya I don't know what that means you guys take it how you want! But because its the new year and i know all of you are making your goals so I have a goal for all of you. This is the goal and the scripture of the year to go with it:

Mathew 5:6 and the goal is to STUDY the scriptures every day this year! We need to be hungry and feed ourselves with the word of the Lord. I promise to you guys that if you do this, you will see the blessings of heaven in your life as I have seen here. Your testimony will strengthen or you will gain a testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel. The results of doing this are found in D and C 9:8. I will check up on everyone every week to see how you are doing! I too will accept this challenge! 

I love all of you so much! I miss you so much but don't want to be anywhere else!! Here's some pics of our Christmas day!

Navidad

Holy crap I can't believe that it's Christmas this week!!!!! I am so excited to talk with you guys!!!! this week was definitely a million times better than last week! I have gotten a lot healthier and man things are just going good!! We still haven't had a ton of success like many we had 5 appointments this week but still those were great! We are really trying to get our ward involved because there is a goal to get the number of members assisting to 300 by the end of 2015 in the ward chanu chanu, we are at about 110. So ya its a lot of work but if the members help it will be easy!! Our ward mission leader is a freaking boss! He has helped us so much in creating a mission plan for the ward, and in ward council this week things got a little heated! Just talking about what the ward needs to do because we are all working together, not the missionaries do all the work! So.... in church we had every member the third hour, minus primary, yes every member in a class and Hermano Oscar, the ward mission leader, had this power point that kinda presented and he was running around getting into it just so pumped about everything and it was so awesome!!!

 A funny thing that happened this week was we contacted a guy and like the first thing he said to us was that he was drunk, and catholic. We kept talking to him and told him the Jesus Christ can help him, because of the atonement, he then told us that neither god nor Jesus are perfect, to that I almost chuckled because I have such a firm testimony of this! Then he went on to talk about how the leaders of our church, bishops, stake presidents, etc. take our tithing and use it for there own personal lives, to that I wanted to ask, what about the temples and the chapels, because they are like the nicest buildings down here. And then when we introduced ourselves he as Elders he said but what's your real name, to this we replied for two years it's Elder Ludlow, and samaniego, he then got mad and said that it's super disrespectful to him that we do this and that we won't tell him our first names. Oh drunk people!

This week it has rained like crazy!!!! Totally insane and one night we were walking back and Elder S wanted to stop in the tienda to buy bread, so we stopped and the owners happened to be members, so we said hi and asked if they had bread. They didn't but I saw panaton there. Panaton is a delicacy here, it's like fruit cake but its freaking delicious! So i pointed it out to elder S and 5 seconds after the wife in the back goes here I have something for the elders...... It was Panaton!!!!!! So we walked back in the pouring rain just so happy because the Lord BLESSES those who ask and those who are worthy!!

I love you all and hope to hear from everyone!!! Here's my Christmas card!
(Always reppin one team one dream)

Is it Monday Yet?

Well Monday is finally here and it's been an eternity. I can definitely say this was one of the hardest weeks of my life. Tuesday I was so sick, pretty sure I had strep throat. I felt like garbage all day, and thought, "How can I make it through this for two years?" I talked to Elder Bentson and he said his first week he was super sick to so and that he had to take a day of rest, I woke up Wednesday and he looks at me and goes, 'Elder don't even think about work today, just rest it will help," It definitely helped and by Thursday I felt so much better. Well that's not all that has been hard this week, I have been super stressed, Yes dad i have read out of the green book, and it has helped but still super stressed. I love my companion but he does things that get on my nerves, he is not punctual at all, which I've learned is just a Latino thing, but its so frustrating cause the lord wont bless us if we aren't on time. Just little things are really getting to me this week and I'm trying to just ignore them. We have had about as much success as i have had solid poop since being out here, (maybe one or two times). So ya that's how my week went. We had our Christmas dinner this Friday and that was actually pretty fun. We also had a dog follow us around for about an hour or two yesterday as we went to our appointments. It was pretty funny.
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> a couple random things, Sister Harbertson, her name is Vicki, totally reminds me of Mrs, Houmand. And the fact they have the same name seals it! Its pretty awesome, and during our conference this week she was teaching English to the Latinos, and it was like I was back in Kindergarten. It was so funny!
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> We watched the Christmas devotional last night and that was cool, but totally reminded me of home... Which was hard! and it was in Spanish so that kinda sucked! haha
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> another thing which was one of our few successes, after We had gone to an appointment and the family wasn't there, we just kinda waited for a little, I sat down and I prayed, just asking heavenly father for something, and I kid you not five seconds after saying Amen, an old man was walking up the street pushing his bike cart thing. I instantly said "Vamos"and we went. Apparently this guy is the uncle of a member so he knew about the church. SO we set an appt up for the next day, as we went to his house a kid answered the door we asked if the guy was there and he wasn't. but he was the Nephew of this same guy. The kid didn't even know this guy. Which is weird cause they were all family. Who knows if this is true, but i wouldn't doubt for a minute that that man was an angel, that heavenly father sent just to say, Hey I'm still here don't worry. It was an incredible experience.
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> One thing I found out that Grandma and Grandpa Ludlow love dad more than my parents love me. i decided this because of a scripture i read. DC 11:7. "Behold he that hath Eternal life is rich." well dad you are really lucky! I know what i am naming my son! I love you all so much keep praying for me! Talk to you all soon!!
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> LOVE ELDER LUDLOW

La primera semana‏

Well this week has been a roller coaster of emotions to say the least. We arrived in Cusco and the first day was nice cause we took a little tour of the city then after we went to the mission home and just kinda relaxed. I talked to elder bengtzen a ton and that was super nice because i was super nervous and he really calmed me down!

Well my first sector is Puno Central Chanu Chanu. It's freezing cold here. I don't actually no the weather but i am like always cold. That could be because i have been sick all week. After arriving in puno i got sick. I have had a fever headache and just haven't felt good. Its been rough but thank goodness for ibuprofen! Its really hard for me to breathe. and Puno has a lot of hills and so walking up these hills not being able to breathe kinda sucks! but oh well hopefully i will get used to it! my companion is elder samaniego and he is so awesome! He is Latino from Paraguay but speaks pretty good English! Which he has learned all on his mission! He is super cool and we get a long great!

We try to contact families in the street that's our goal. we contacted a lot this week and set up appointments and all of them fell through this week so that is awful. But in a lesson i had with a less active member, as i go to explain a scripture i get a bloody nose... it was awful!! I've been getting more now here, i think it's cause it's really dry. 

Also another funny thing that happened is we were walking to an appointment but were super lost cause elder samaniego or i know nothing about this area,but we asked this guy a question and he recognized us being missionaries and started telling us he was catholic. Well this guy was straight wasted, he was holding a bag with 6 or7 beer bottles in it. so elder samaniego gave him a picture of Jesus and he puts in his bag with all the beer bottles.. we just kinda chuckled and tried to stop him but ya we couldn't.

 

The last few things is the binding on my English scriptures broke so that sucks so bad. i don't know what to do..... also our bathroom is about the size of our downstairs shower.... except in this bathroom it has shower toilet and sink not just shower... Elder bentson, one of our zone leaders, who lives with us is from riverton and knows brittny and camee, and also kendra. or so he says!

Well I love you all so much! Keep praying for me and i will do the same! Thanks for everything! love you and miss you

elder LUDLOW