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

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

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

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

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

Mom is the Best (Mom couldn't resist that title. hee hee)

Thanks mom, you're the best! I´ll print it off just in case. BTW I got a package from you a little while ago but I dont think I ever told you....oops.

Just found out that one of my best friends from BYU got sent home from the mission due to chronic depression. Kind of a shocker so I hope that the fam can give a little prayer for him. Im once again rememinded of how lucky I am to be here with good health and that I havent had many huge trials to overcome.

This week started off with me losing my camera...which really sucks...but thankfully I´ve sent off all the important pictures to you guys already. And we ended it happy because we had 2 baptisms of a part member family. The mom and dad are members but they have been inacative for over 8 years. The two kids were great, the older kid is 14 named Hostin (pronounced like Austeen) and his younger 11 year old brother is Daniel. We were very happey for them and now we hope that the family will be spurred into action and go get sealed in the temple a year from now.

We had our Zone Conference on Thursday and it was a quite enlightening, this month we didnt improve in baptisms as a zone nor as a mission but we did do alright. We are very excited for the possibilities we have in May and we will work hard to accomplish our goals.

Yesterday one of our investigator families (the Toledo family) opened up a snack bar and they invited us to come over and be present. We only made a brief appearance because we knew that there would be a party afterwards. Anyways we showed up and they gave us some free food, (always nice) and my companion and I presented ourselves to the 20 or so people there and gave a prayer to bless the business. It was a pretty fun expierence

sorry its short this week but Ill talk to you on SUNDAY!!

Elder Patrik Connole

Shrimp Soup Anyone?

Haha, I´ve kinda gotten known for being bold around here. A few weeks ago a couple elders were having troubles with a couple who are both RMs but they wouldnt let their 9 year old kid get baptized. Actually the mom was cool with it but the Dad would not do it at all. He just kept on saying that his kid was too young to make the decision. So I went on splits with E. Petersen and talked to the guy and just basically told him that he knew that what he was doing was not right and that the sin would fall on his head. Lol this guy wasnt even going to church ever. Long story short, the kid got baptized 2 weeks later and the man thanked me for calling him out to repentance.


Anyways you asked what we did for easter, well basically the same as usual, go out and preach haha. but our pensionist did make us a special dinner (its called chupe de camarrones or in english shrimp chowder) SO GOOD!!: haha. pictures are included for your enjoyment.


My comp was kinda sick all week so we didnt get much done during the week because we were running to and from the clinic. (actually more like taking a taxi here and there but yeah) But he got to feeling better on saturday so we went out to work praying hard that we could find some people that the Lord had been preparing all week just so that we could go visit them. And the Lord always provides. We found a 23 year old kid who had been going to church a few years back but never got baptized. But now he wants to do it. But he wasnt gonna be able to come to church the next day because he had a ton of work to get done. (he is a carpenter) anyways we came back later that night and helped him finish up what he needed to do and he came to church on sunday and felt the spirit really strong. So we are verrry excited for him.


On Sunday we had an awesome day. We decided to go on spilts all day with the members and just contact and make up for what we didnt do all week. We had nearly 200 contacts that day and the members really felt the spirit of missionary work strongly. In fact the two of them told us that they will call us during the week because they want to feel that same spirit once again. It made me realize how lucky I am and sometimes I dont even recognize it because we as missionaries do have an extra portion of the spirit with us. Now we just have to help non members recognize that and act on their feelings. The people who are Latter Day Saints, I honestly believe have a better comprehension and sensibility to the Spirit. Thats why any Saint is a member because at on point in their lives they have felt the Spirit testify that the BOM is true and that this is the only true church on the face of the planet. That is really the only reason that anybody would join this church. We were talking with the 2nd counselors wife who was a member of the Missionary World Movement church before she joined and she just told us that really the only way she knew the church is true is because she followed Moroni´s promise.


I am so glad that I have also done that in my life and that I have felt that impression in my mind that this is the truth. Anyone can do it and if they´ve already done it once and perhaps have just lost that feeling they can do it again and they will receive the same answer and as we follow the spirit we will be happy


Love you all


Elder Patrik Connole