(In response to his brother getting his mission call)
WAHOO!!! Thats AWESOME!!!! Finally!!! haha.
Way cool. I cant hardly even write now because I´m so excited.
I need more BFC por favor, its not super urgent or anything but I dont have anymore left.
Oh yeah and I just realized that the mission is planning on sending me home to AZ with President Richardson, and that wouldnt very good lol. Can you send me the new ward/stake info. I need the ward name, bishop´s name, stake name and the stake preisdent´s name. And I need the new home address and the phone number too. Otherwise they will be sending me to good ol´ AZ
Anyways this week for me was fairly interesting we had Zone Leader council where we talked about hope and what that really is. So we will be trying to apply that in the zone. We had a planning session/zone meeting from 9 am to 4 pm (w/out lunch...I almost died, thankfully we were able to find some Doritos). So we didnt work that much this week BUT we did have 4 people at sacrament meeting. 3 of which we brought ourselves. One lady, Julia Huanca loved it! She stayed for the whole 3 hours and really felt the spirit, so much that she commited to bring her 18 and 13 year old kids. YES! I smell some baptisms coming up!
Another guy that we brought is 40 year old bachelor Marcos. He is a pretty rich guy and is covered in tatoos but he really wants to get baptized. We arent sure if he really understands what all it implies, but we will be talking with him quite a bit this week to make sure he gets it.
The other one was a 15 year old kid named Christofer, he is really cool and has a testimony of the church and of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and everything BUT this was the first time we got him to church, stinkin kid, but he came and also stayed for the whole thing but he really liked it a lot. Now we just gotta go get permission and we could dunk him this week.
We went on splits on sunday with the YM president and a kid who is going on the mission soon, I went with the YM president who just got back from the mission and was assitant for 3 months. Anyways long story short we found this 17 year old kid and the kid is soooo excited to baptized that he wants to do it ASAP. So we depending on if his parents are cool or not we´ll get him baptized too.
Love ya all
Elder Patrik Connole
Monday, July 11, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Not Typical
Weeeellllll.....turns out that I only got halfways better...on Tuesday I got sick again so this time I went to a doctor, yeah it was pretty bad. Turns out I had an infection in my intestines that had been a problem for a well, so they games me some pills put me on a very boring diet (chicken and rice with nothing else) for 3 days and now I think I´m good to go.
So today for the 4th of July, President Fernandez has invited all the zone leaders to a soccer game and a barbeque. SWEET! Its gonna be great!
Anyways so since this week my comp and I were both sick we didnt get all that much work done. But we had a couple fun experiences in the little time that we did have. We started visiting a family whose daughter is a new convert and it seems to me like the elders before us thought that they werent married and just living together, BUT after a closer examination they are civily married but not married by the Catholic Church separately. So after finding this out we surprised them by challenging to get baptized on the 9th. They definitely were not expecting that, they thought that maybe in a like 2 years they would get baptized. Anyways they are gonna think and pray about it and hopefully we will be able to get them dunked soon. I really believe so. Their names are Roberto and Lourdes.
Another cool experience that we had was on Saturday. We had contacted a family a few days back and went back to visit them. The mother, Julia, let us in and the basically forced her 18 year old son out of his room to come and listen to us. That is something that very rarely happens her in Peru. Most parentes are not very imposing on their kids after they turn about 12. Anyways grumbling 18 year old Frank came out and told us very flatly that he didnt want to be there and he didnt believe in God or anything. We knew that was a lie but we just started talking to the kid and seeing what he likes to do. Turns out he is a break dancer and so I was able to tell him about Dad and Bub and my comp also dances too. So he really opened up and we were able to commit both of them both to baptism. The mom bawled in her prayer and told God thanks for sending us to bless her.
Love ya
Elder Patrik Connole
So today for the 4th of July, President Fernandez has invited all the zone leaders to a soccer game and a barbeque. SWEET! Its gonna be great!
Anyways so since this week my comp and I were both sick we didnt get all that much work done. But we had a couple fun experiences in the little time that we did have. We started visiting a family whose daughter is a new convert and it seems to me like the elders before us thought that they werent married and just living together, BUT after a closer examination they are civily married but not married by the Catholic Church separately. So after finding this out we surprised them by challenging to get baptized on the 9th. They definitely were not expecting that, they thought that maybe in a like 2 years they would get baptized. Anyways they are gonna think and pray about it and hopefully we will be able to get them dunked soon. I really believe so. Their names are Roberto and Lourdes.
Another cool experience that we had was on Saturday. We had contacted a family a few days back and went back to visit them. The mother, Julia, let us in and the basically forced her 18 year old son out of his room to come and listen to us. That is something that very rarely happens her in Peru. Most parentes are not very imposing on their kids after they turn about 12. Anyways grumbling 18 year old Frank came out and told us very flatly that he didnt want to be there and he didnt believe in God or anything. We knew that was a lie but we just started talking to the kid and seeing what he likes to do. Turns out he is a break dancer and so I was able to tell him about Dad and Bub and my comp also dances too. So he really opened up and we were able to commit both of them both to baptism. The mom bawled in her prayer and told God thanks for sending us to bless her.
Love ya
Elder Patrik Connole
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Playing 3 Week Catch Up!
June 13
Good for the Mavs, its about time they won a championship, the Heat will be very hungry next season for wins. GO DBACKS!!! That series with the Giants will probably be a very important series in the season possibly a big turning point everyone will be hyped up for the game.
So this week was kind of a tough week because I was a little bit sick. Not fun, but we still got some work done. First of all Richard and Ana are awesome, they have decided to take out a loan so that they can buy their own house, get married and baptized. They werent able to go to church on sunday because of a family commitment but they know the church is true, we just gotta get them the means to get married an baptized.
Sunday was almost extremely disapointing because everyone that had committed to come all started falling one by one until we were singing the sacrament hymn and 21 year old Anni Barrios (who was almost the last person we expected to show up) came in ushered by the other elders from the ward that meets right before us. We have been teaching her for about a week and a half, but she would never (and still hasn´t) read the Book of Mormon, she will always read the pamphlets but not the BoM. She is a non-practicing 7th day adventist but has really enjoyed what we´ve taught her. So she is on track to get baptized if we can just get her to read the BOM.
On sunday we also taught a 17 year old girl named Shirley. When we contacted her we were knocking on her door just when she came up and she looked a little bit surprised and asked us who we were looking for. So as usual we told her "we are looking for you!" which was true but we just didnt know who it was, and so she decided to listen to us, and we told her a little bit about the message and she commented that she usually didnt like to talk to people who bring religious stuff to her door but that she wanted to talk to us. Yesterday we found her again and she told us that she was basically agnostic but her family was all crazy religious which really bugged her. So we just starting explaining that God really did love her and that He wanted her to feel of His love, which is why He sent us. Then we explained most of the message of the restoration of the gospel and we asked her if she would pray about it. We knew that she was starting to gain confidence in us and starting to feel the spirit when she asked us how would she feel after she prayed. We testified to her that she would feel God´s love for her and in that moment we committed her to baptism. It was very cool to see her accept all the invitations that we left her and it will be awesome to see her spiritual journey to God get under way.
We also were able to activate our pensionist´s 21 year old son who had been inactive and hanging out with the wrong crowd for about 4 years. But now he is excited to come to church and wants to prepare himself to serve a mission. We will keep working with him.
We should be getting a visit from Elder Nash this week. He is the Area President for right now but will be getting released at the end of the month. So you´ll get an update from me about that next week.
Love you all!
June 20
Happy Fathers Day!!!!!!!!! Sorry Im writing so late, my companion E. Webb got changed and now I am with E. Sulcaray who came from Ilo, which is like a 5 hour bus ride so he didnt get here until about 4ish. Im sorry you had a lame Father´s Day, hopefully the kids and mom give ya belated Fathers day this week. Anyways I dont have a ton of time but I´ll get in what I can.
We had Stake conference this week and Presidente Fernandez came to it. We brought a 12 year old kid that we should be bapizing this week and the first half was really boring so I let him read my BOM during it. The second half was much better because the Stake President and our Mission President were a lot better speakers. Presidente challenged all the investigators to get baptized this saturday at 4:00 from the pulpit. And the Stake President told a story about how we need to follow the spirit. He worked as a taxi driver for a time and one time he didnt follow a prompting and ended up getting held up and robbed. Oops. It was quite a funny story in retrospect but definitely not in the moment.
This week we also had the privilige of having Elder Nash come and speak to all the missionaries. Wow it is always awesome to feel the spirit that a 70 brings to the room. He talked more than anything about making the atonement our objective. In order for us to really get all the benefit of the atonement we need to live the gospel to the fullest. In every respect. We must prepare ourselves every week to partake of the sacrament and be an example of the believers. As missionaries we must represent Christ better and remember that everything that we do is to be obedient in order to help another gain sufficient faith to be able to repent, be baptized, recieve the gift of the holy ghost and endure to the end. Everything from getting up at 6:30 to eating breakfast to contacting to whatever we do. Christ always helped others to live the gospel and bring them those blessings. We have been called to represent Christ and do what he would do here.
E. Nash also got us to remember that the ONLY way to recieve a full remission of their sins is by living the restored gospel to its fullest. We must bring this knowledge to all others. Every single child of God must be baptized by the priesthood authority of God and recieve the Holy Ghost by that same authority or it is impossible for that person to enter into God´s kingdom because he or she we ill not be able to benifit from the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In fact those who simply do not live the commandments as they should makes them have to pay the price for their own sins, and makes Christ´s suffering in vain.
He also talked to us a lot about D&C 84:106 (I think) where it says something along the lines of whoever is strong in the spirit take along with you he that is weak so that he may be strengthed as well. This we apply to the investigators because their testimony is weak still so we must be there by their side to help them until they are sufficiently strong to do it for themselves and then they will do it by themselves all their life.
We also learned about the importance of study (and you all know how much I dont like studying), but really the study is to help us be strong and convert us more and more to the gospel. I am grateful that E. Nash came and helped us out. I understand now how essencial daily gospel study.
Love you all!
Elder Patrik Connole
June 27
Hola fam, so I have this elder in my zone that doesnt believe that I was a cheerleader, because he claims to have known them all, and so he wants photo evidence haha, could you take some photos off of my facebook or something and send it over for me?
So yeah this week was awesome even though my comp E. Webb got changed. My new comp E. Sulcaray and I had 3 baptisms! a 12 year old named Alex who is the nephew of the Relief Society President. The other 2, Luis and Stephani, are the nephews of the Primary President. Luis is 13 and Stephani 11. We actually really were not expecting to baptize Luis and definitely not Stephani.
Alex we actually met my first week here and finally after a lot of encouragement and just building this kid up we were able to help him decide to get baptized. Luis we got to know last Tuesday, we were actually really surprised that he wanted to listen but after the 2nd lesson (a Friday) he told us that he felt like he should get baptized the upcoming saturday. Then we were worried about getting permission from his parents but it turned out to be quite the opposite, not only did they give permission they went and bought him a suit! wow! Stephani we actually didnt even meet until last week on monday. We had an apt scheduled with Luis at like 630 but he wasnt there and she answered the door. We asked her where Luis was and she told us he just hadnt gotten home yet but not to worry because he was still very excited about his baptism. Then we asked her and what about you? When do you want to get baptized? after thinking it over for about 3 seconds she responded "Can I do it on saturday with my brother?" ........we were stunned for a second and then we replied "well we think so but we are gonna ask our mission president first." So we came back a little bit later, taught the kids about the restoration and ran home to call Presidente Fernandez. He gave us the OK and we taught both the kids all the rest in the next 3 days. way cool experience.
I was sick most of the week so I wasnt able to work as hard as I wanted but I am back to mission normal now. This week we will be working hard and trying to keep finding people to baptize this week. Actually I try to do that every week but we gotta make up for last week lol.
Love ya, thanks to mom for the fam pics
Elder Patrik COnnole
Good for the Mavs, its about time they won a championship, the Heat will be very hungry next season for wins. GO DBACKS!!! That series with the Giants will probably be a very important series in the season possibly a big turning point everyone will be hyped up for the game.
So this week was kind of a tough week because I was a little bit sick. Not fun, but we still got some work done. First of all Richard and Ana are awesome, they have decided to take out a loan so that they can buy their own house, get married and baptized. They werent able to go to church on sunday because of a family commitment but they know the church is true, we just gotta get them the means to get married an baptized.
Sunday was almost extremely disapointing because everyone that had committed to come all started falling one by one until we were singing the sacrament hymn and 21 year old Anni Barrios (who was almost the last person we expected to show up) came in ushered by the other elders from the ward that meets right before us. We have been teaching her for about a week and a half, but she would never (and still hasn´t) read the Book of Mormon, she will always read the pamphlets but not the BoM. She is a non-practicing 7th day adventist but has really enjoyed what we´ve taught her. So she is on track to get baptized if we can just get her to read the BOM.
On sunday we also taught a 17 year old girl named Shirley. When we contacted her we were knocking on her door just when she came up and she looked a little bit surprised and asked us who we were looking for. So as usual we told her "we are looking for you!" which was true but we just didnt know who it was, and so she decided to listen to us, and we told her a little bit about the message and she commented that she usually didnt like to talk to people who bring religious stuff to her door but that she wanted to talk to us. Yesterday we found her again and she told us that she was basically agnostic but her family was all crazy religious which really bugged her. So we just starting explaining that God really did love her and that He wanted her to feel of His love, which is why He sent us. Then we explained most of the message of the restoration of the gospel and we asked her if she would pray about it. We knew that she was starting to gain confidence in us and starting to feel the spirit when she asked us how would she feel after she prayed. We testified to her that she would feel God´s love for her and in that moment we committed her to baptism. It was very cool to see her accept all the invitations that we left her and it will be awesome to see her spiritual journey to God get under way.
We also were able to activate our pensionist´s 21 year old son who had been inactive and hanging out with the wrong crowd for about 4 years. But now he is excited to come to church and wants to prepare himself to serve a mission. We will keep working with him.
We should be getting a visit from Elder Nash this week. He is the Area President for right now but will be getting released at the end of the month. So you´ll get an update from me about that next week.
Love you all!
June 20
Happy Fathers Day!!!!!!!!! Sorry Im writing so late, my companion E. Webb got changed and now I am with E. Sulcaray who came from Ilo, which is like a 5 hour bus ride so he didnt get here until about 4ish. Im sorry you had a lame Father´s Day, hopefully the kids and mom give ya belated Fathers day this week. Anyways I dont have a ton of time but I´ll get in what I can.
We had Stake conference this week and Presidente Fernandez came to it. We brought a 12 year old kid that we should be bapizing this week and the first half was really boring so I let him read my BOM during it. The second half was much better because the Stake President and our Mission President were a lot better speakers. Presidente challenged all the investigators to get baptized this saturday at 4:00 from the pulpit. And the Stake President told a story about how we need to follow the spirit. He worked as a taxi driver for a time and one time he didnt follow a prompting and ended up getting held up and robbed. Oops. It was quite a funny story in retrospect but definitely not in the moment.
This week we also had the privilige of having Elder Nash come and speak to all the missionaries. Wow it is always awesome to feel the spirit that a 70 brings to the room. He talked more than anything about making the atonement our objective. In order for us to really get all the benefit of the atonement we need to live the gospel to the fullest. In every respect. We must prepare ourselves every week to partake of the sacrament and be an example of the believers. As missionaries we must represent Christ better and remember that everything that we do is to be obedient in order to help another gain sufficient faith to be able to repent, be baptized, recieve the gift of the holy ghost and endure to the end. Everything from getting up at 6:30 to eating breakfast to contacting to whatever we do. Christ always helped others to live the gospel and bring them those blessings. We have been called to represent Christ and do what he would do here.
E. Nash also got us to remember that the ONLY way to recieve a full remission of their sins is by living the restored gospel to its fullest. We must bring this knowledge to all others. Every single child of God must be baptized by the priesthood authority of God and recieve the Holy Ghost by that same authority or it is impossible for that person to enter into God´s kingdom because he or she we ill not be able to benifit from the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In fact those who simply do not live the commandments as they should makes them have to pay the price for their own sins, and makes Christ´s suffering in vain.
He also talked to us a lot about D&C 84:106 (I think) where it says something along the lines of whoever is strong in the spirit take along with you he that is weak so that he may be strengthed as well. This we apply to the investigators because their testimony is weak still so we must be there by their side to help them until they are sufficiently strong to do it for themselves and then they will do it by themselves all their life.
We also learned about the importance of study (and you all know how much I dont like studying), but really the study is to help us be strong and convert us more and more to the gospel. I am grateful that E. Nash came and helped us out. I understand now how essencial daily gospel study.
Love you all!
Elder Patrik Connole
June 27
Hola fam, so I have this elder in my zone that doesnt believe that I was a cheerleader, because he claims to have known them all, and so he wants photo evidence haha, could you take some photos off of my facebook or something and send it over for me?
So yeah this week was awesome even though my comp E. Webb got changed. My new comp E. Sulcaray and I had 3 baptisms! a 12 year old named Alex who is the nephew of the Relief Society President. The other 2, Luis and Stephani, are the nephews of the Primary President. Luis is 13 and Stephani 11. We actually really were not expecting to baptize Luis and definitely not Stephani.
Alex we actually met my first week here and finally after a lot of encouragement and just building this kid up we were able to help him decide to get baptized. Luis we got to know last Tuesday, we were actually really surprised that he wanted to listen but after the 2nd lesson (a Friday) he told us that he felt like he should get baptized the upcoming saturday. Then we were worried about getting permission from his parents but it turned out to be quite the opposite, not only did they give permission they went and bought him a suit! wow! Stephani we actually didnt even meet until last week on monday. We had an apt scheduled with Luis at like 630 but he wasnt there and she answered the door. We asked her where Luis was and she told us he just hadnt gotten home yet but not to worry because he was still very excited about his baptism. Then we asked her and what about you? When do you want to get baptized? after thinking it over for about 3 seconds she responded "Can I do it on saturday with my brother?" ........we were stunned for a second and then we replied "well we think so but we are gonna ask our mission president first." So we came back a little bit later, taught the kids about the restoration and ran home to call Presidente Fernandez. He gave us the OK and we taught both the kids all the rest in the next 3 days. way cool experience.
I was sick most of the week so I wasnt able to work as hard as I wanted but I am back to mission normal now. This week we will be working hard and trying to keep finding people to baptize this week. Actually I try to do that every week but we gotta make up for last week lol.
Love ya, thanks to mom for the fam pics
Elder Patrik COnnole
Monday, June 6, 2011
God Guides Us to Where We Need to Be!
Anyway as for me this week was full of amazing spirtual experiences and I´m pretty sure I wont be able to tell you all of them. Let it be known that God does guide us to the places and people where we need to be even when we dont have any idea what He has in mind.
So last night we went out to work (we didnt work all morning and most of the afternoon because there was elections again and so therefore its illegal to go out and proselyte) and we were finding lots of people that just wanted to talk with us but they refused to recognize the spirt that they were feeling. So we felt like we were wasting time for about and hour and a half. Finally after all that we were feeling discouraged but we felt the need to be diligent and to knock on one last door. I had an impression that this was the house that the Lord had prepared people to listen to us. So we knocked and this 20 year old girl comes out and my comp E. Webb says "We are representatives of Jesus Christ and we are here to baptize you like Jesus was". Her answer was "Really? I know I need that in my life". She invited us in and we taught her and her Dad about baptism and they both commited for the 25th of June. Wow so cool.
Saturday morning we had an apt every half hour from 10 until 12:30 and every single one of them fell through. And we just had one person left to see if she was there but it was only 10:30 and we had told her at 12:00. But we decided to go there anyways. Knocked on the door and she was waiting for us and when we asked if we could go in and teach her and her husband we were able to do so. We were able to commit them to be baptized but we have to get them married first. They were awesome.
We also went and taught Richard and Anna on Friday night. They have been progressing extremely fast and came to church last week. They are living together and so we taught them about the atonement and the law of chastity. They understood it extremely well and they had told us a few nights ago that they wanted to get baptized. So the spirit was there so strong and we just asked Richard "So when do you really feel like you should get baptized". "Well for me I want to do it tomorrow. what is it that I have to do to get baptized?"..."Um...you either gotta not live together and live in separate houses or get married." and so he turns to his "wife" and says " you know what you are gonna go live with your parents until we can get married." Wow. that was so aweosme. Now they are still talking about what they are gonna do and the elections kinda screwed up everything but i´ll get you more info as we keep teaching them this week. PRAY FOR THEM!!!!
Love you and I coulda written a whole lot more but there is no time.
Elder Patrik Connole
So last night we went out to work (we didnt work all morning and most of the afternoon because there was elections again and so therefore its illegal to go out and proselyte) and we were finding lots of people that just wanted to talk with us but they refused to recognize the spirt that they were feeling. So we felt like we were wasting time for about and hour and a half. Finally after all that we were feeling discouraged but we felt the need to be diligent and to knock on one last door. I had an impression that this was the house that the Lord had prepared people to listen to us. So we knocked and this 20 year old girl comes out and my comp E. Webb says "We are representatives of Jesus Christ and we are here to baptize you like Jesus was". Her answer was "Really? I know I need that in my life". She invited us in and we taught her and her Dad about baptism and they both commited for the 25th of June. Wow so cool.
Saturday morning we had an apt every half hour from 10 until 12:30 and every single one of them fell through. And we just had one person left to see if she was there but it was only 10:30 and we had told her at 12:00. But we decided to go there anyways. Knocked on the door and she was waiting for us and when we asked if we could go in and teach her and her husband we were able to do so. We were able to commit them to be baptized but we have to get them married first. They were awesome.
We also went and taught Richard and Anna on Friday night. They have been progressing extremely fast and came to church last week. They are living together and so we taught them about the atonement and the law of chastity. They understood it extremely well and they had told us a few nights ago that they wanted to get baptized. So the spirit was there so strong and we just asked Richard "So when do you really feel like you should get baptized". "Well for me I want to do it tomorrow. what is it that I have to do to get baptized?"..."Um...you either gotta not live together and live in separate houses or get married." and so he turns to his "wife" and says " you know what you are gonna go live with your parents until we can get married." Wow. that was so aweosme. Now they are still talking about what they are gonna do and the elections kinda screwed up everything but i´ll get you more info as we keep teaching them this week. PRAY FOR THEM!!!!
Love you and I coulda written a whole lot more but there is no time.
Elder Patrik Connole
Monday, May 23, 2011
EMERGENCY TRANSFERS!!!!!
First off hows g-ma? I´ve been praying for her.
Alright so yeah some of the scripture clues were pretty good some of them I still cant figure out. haha. I´ll let you know next week which ones. That is if I find them...because guess what EMERGENCY TRANSFERS!!!!!
Ugh. not fun. So on Wed. morning E. Stewart and I were planning like normal...and at about 9:45 the assistents call me and they told me I had an emergency change and that I was going to Hunter as ZL. My first though was...This has to be a joke. But unfortunately it was the truth...So yeah I am now in Zona Hunter, its still in Arequipa but on the other side. like 45 to an hour away. And to make it even better the took out both of the old ZLs and put me in with one of the elders who was a DL here. Oh man wow. So yeah, I have no idea why the change was made. In fact all I know is that I´m here for a reason and I just gotta work like a crazy man and do the Lords will not mine.
This new stake is struggling quite a bit, as well as my ward, so we have our work cut out for us but Im always up for a challenge. We started working in the area and found some really cool people. One guy and his wife told us straight up that we were an answer to their prayers. We gotta get them married (not an unusual thing) and then we had a baptism on Sunday that the elders who were here left us. It was a 9 year old kid, named Douglas (prounounce DOO-glaas) who comes from a less active family. We are trying to convince the Mom and Dad that they now have to go to church every week and we are having some success but they need a lot of help that we cant give so we are depending a lot more on the Ward Council.
But yeah other than than that we haven´t been doing much other than getting to know the area and trying to find people to teach and baptize. I cant believe its my birthday tomorrrow, its come up so fast I guess we´ll see if my pensionist does anything special for my bday.
So I love you all and you´ll get a better email next week as the crazines (hopefully) dies down.
Tell Grandma my thoughts and prayers are with her.
Elder Patrik Connole
Alright so yeah some of the scripture clues were pretty good some of them I still cant figure out. haha. I´ll let you know next week which ones. That is if I find them...because guess what EMERGENCY TRANSFERS!!!!!
Ugh. not fun. So on Wed. morning E. Stewart and I were planning like normal...and at about 9:45 the assistents call me and they told me I had an emergency change and that I was going to Hunter as ZL. My first though was...This has to be a joke. But unfortunately it was the truth...So yeah I am now in Zona Hunter, its still in Arequipa but on the other side. like 45 to an hour away. And to make it even better the took out both of the old ZLs and put me in with one of the elders who was a DL here. Oh man wow. So yeah, I have no idea why the change was made. In fact all I know is that I´m here for a reason and I just gotta work like a crazy man and do the Lords will not mine.
This new stake is struggling quite a bit, as well as my ward, so we have our work cut out for us but Im always up for a challenge. We started working in the area and found some really cool people. One guy and his wife told us straight up that we were an answer to their prayers. We gotta get them married (not an unusual thing) and then we had a baptism on Sunday that the elders who were here left us. It was a 9 year old kid, named Douglas (prounounce DOO-glaas) who comes from a less active family. We are trying to convince the Mom and Dad that they now have to go to church every week and we are having some success but they need a lot of help that we cant give so we are depending a lot more on the Ward Council.
But yeah other than than that we haven´t been doing much other than getting to know the area and trying to find people to teach and baptize. I cant believe its my birthday tomorrrow, its come up so fast I guess we´ll see if my pensionist does anything special for my bday.
So I love you all and you´ll get a better email next week as the crazines (hopefully) dies down.
Tell Grandma my thoughts and prayers are with her.
Elder Patrik Connole
Monday, May 16, 2011
Getting Married is Difficult!
Wow, more craziness! With all that ward moving. I just got a package of letters from the YW of Orange Glen Ward, which I guess no longer exists lol. And I got packages from you and from mormor. I figured out most of the scripture hunt but there were a few that stumped me and my gringo comp.
This week was very sleepless because we had to go do some late night checks on missionaries and baptismal interviews that went until late. But even though we were dead tired we went out and worked hard, and more effeciently. On friday I was on splits with E. Garcia and in the morning we went ot go look for our plan A and B but neither of them were home. So we decided to go contacting. Very first door we knocked on Pedro answers the door, and after about 2 min of talking to him in the door he just let us in and let us teach him. As we were teaching him his cousin came in and the look on her face when she saw that we were in there was...AWESOME her whole face lit up and she just stopped what she was doing to listen to us. They both accepted a baptismal date for the 28th and they really love everything.
On saturday we had another way cool experience, we were heading over to an apt with a family (which didnt go well) and this guy starts yelling at us from the top of the roof and indicating that when we were done we should go visit him...alright that is an obivious yes! So we went up after talking to that family we headed over to him. Turns out to be a family of 3 who also want to get baptized. They could be on the 28th as well but we´ll see. They were also very very cool
We also have another family who the missionaries have been working with since January. But they arent married and here in Peru it is SOOOOOOOOOO hard to get married here. You have to have your original birth certificate which you can only get at the place where you were born. so basically, if you come from some remote place in the jungle or some little town in the middle of nowhere its pretty much impossible to get married with out making a huge trip that costs a lot. And most of those people dont have the money to go get it. and not only that you have to do a whole bunch of stuff in the city to get it all done. BUT they have everything ready and are going today to get everything finished and they will be married NEXT WEEK! so cool! they are very excited
Love you
Elder Patrik Connole
This week was very sleepless because we had to go do some late night checks on missionaries and baptismal interviews that went until late. But even though we were dead tired we went out and worked hard, and more effeciently. On friday I was on splits with E. Garcia and in the morning we went ot go look for our plan A and B but neither of them were home. So we decided to go contacting. Very first door we knocked on Pedro answers the door, and after about 2 min of talking to him in the door he just let us in and let us teach him. As we were teaching him his cousin came in and the look on her face when she saw that we were in there was...AWESOME her whole face lit up and she just stopped what she was doing to listen to us. They both accepted a baptismal date for the 28th and they really love everything.
On saturday we had another way cool experience, we were heading over to an apt with a family (which didnt go well) and this guy starts yelling at us from the top of the roof and indicating that when we were done we should go visit him...alright that is an obivious yes! So we went up after talking to that family we headed over to him. Turns out to be a family of 3 who also want to get baptized. They could be on the 28th as well but we´ll see. They were also very very cool
We also have another family who the missionaries have been working with since January. But they arent married and here in Peru it is SOOOOOOOOOO hard to get married here. You have to have your original birth certificate which you can only get at the place where you were born. so basically, if you come from some remote place in the jungle or some little town in the middle of nowhere its pretty much impossible to get married with out making a huge trip that costs a lot. And most of those people dont have the money to go get it. and not only that you have to do a whole bunch of stuff in the city to get it all done. BUT they have everything ready and are going today to get everything finished and they will be married NEXT WEEK! so cool! they are very excited
Love you
Elder Patrik Connole
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
After the Mother's Day Phone Call...
Haha Im glad that it went well, sorry I got on so late, I was running from internet place to internet place and finally we remembered that one of the members had it so we went there and he was happy to help out. thanks for the pics
So Idk what we can do with the camera, no I didnt find it, went back and looked but its gone. long gone. I had taken a few pictures that werent baptisms but there werent very many. So yeah I could definitely buy one here but idk how much it would be. I could look around but im assuming itd be about the same price. I think i just lost a few pics of my comps and what not but ill have them on facebook, no biggie.
Anyways I pretty much told you everything that went on for my week. Today at about 1 am the assistents called up to tell me about transfers and what not so im like reallly tired. I had people calling me from about 1 to 2 or 2:30 with questions and stuff and then again all morning long. Man its tough flying solo as a ZL but I thnk i got most everything figured out and should be good to go until tomorrow. hopefully haha.
My new companion is Elder Stewart also form Arizona, also has 8 siblings but he isnt the oldest. I guess he has like 12 nieces/nephews a few of which have been born recently so kinda similiar to what im expierencing right now. I think we will be able to work really well together.
Yesterday I was with the bishop (obispo) most of the day and it really amazes me at how sensistive he was to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. We were able to really work well together and help out a couple people to be understand more about the gospel and be more excited about getting baptized.
It was tough to get anyone to come to church because it was Mothers day and all. Arequipa is SUCH a party city. Like any tiny little thing that they can celebrate the make a huge drinking fest out of it. With tons of really bad music haha. But its even worse on big holidays like mothers day or christmas. So yeah I spent a lot of the day keeping away from large groups of drunk people. Thankfully nothing happened and we could work. I really cant understand how people can just do that, but I guess thats just because I´ve been born and raised in the gospel and most of my friends are good members as well. Im so grateful for that blessing in my life.
The president decided to re-open an area here in the zone which means that the biggest zone in Arequipa just got bigger. 15 COMPANIONSHIPS! Wow. 2 companships are the asistents so we dont have to worry about them very much haha. Except for when they call me right after sacrament meeting with some sort of request for baptismal clothes or interview or both haha. But its all good as missionaries we will do anything just to get a baptism. Any sacrifice is worth it to help someone else make an eternal baptismal covenant with our Heavenly Father.
Anyways love you guys and ill talk to you next week!
Elder Patrik Connole
So Idk what we can do with the camera, no I didnt find it, went back and looked but its gone. long gone. I had taken a few pictures that werent baptisms but there werent very many. So yeah I could definitely buy one here but idk how much it would be. I could look around but im assuming itd be about the same price. I think i just lost a few pics of my comps and what not but ill have them on facebook, no biggie.
Anyways I pretty much told you everything that went on for my week. Today at about 1 am the assistents called up to tell me about transfers and what not so im like reallly tired. I had people calling me from about 1 to 2 or 2:30 with questions and stuff and then again all morning long. Man its tough flying solo as a ZL but I thnk i got most everything figured out and should be good to go until tomorrow. hopefully haha.
My new companion is Elder Stewart also form Arizona, also has 8 siblings but he isnt the oldest. I guess he has like 12 nieces/nephews a few of which have been born recently so kinda similiar to what im expierencing right now. I think we will be able to work really well together.
Yesterday I was with the bishop (obispo) most of the day and it really amazes me at how sensistive he was to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. We were able to really work well together and help out a couple people to be understand more about the gospel and be more excited about getting baptized.
It was tough to get anyone to come to church because it was Mothers day and all. Arequipa is SUCH a party city. Like any tiny little thing that they can celebrate the make a huge drinking fest out of it. With tons of really bad music haha. But its even worse on big holidays like mothers day or christmas. So yeah I spent a lot of the day keeping away from large groups of drunk people. Thankfully nothing happened and we could work. I really cant understand how people can just do that, but I guess thats just because I´ve been born and raised in the gospel and most of my friends are good members as well. Im so grateful for that blessing in my life.
The president decided to re-open an area here in the zone which means that the biggest zone in Arequipa just got bigger. 15 COMPANIONSHIPS! Wow. 2 companships are the asistents so we dont have to worry about them very much haha. Except for when they call me right after sacrament meeting with some sort of request for baptismal clothes or interview or both haha. But its all good as missionaries we will do anything just to get a baptism. Any sacrifice is worth it to help someone else make an eternal baptismal covenant with our Heavenly Father.
Anyways love you guys and ill talk to you next week!
Elder Patrik Connole
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