March 10, 2014 - Carnival

Hello family!

This week was pretty hard and slow because it was carnival for the whole week here in Peru. They would have these huge parties in a different part of the city every night where people would get super drunk. We didn't have many lessons or appointments because everyone was gone and when we did have an appointment they would never be there. It was a little discouraging but we still tried to work as hard as we could. We are a lot more hopeful for this week though now that it’s over. Sometimes it can be hard with people because you work as hard as you can with them and you want so badly for them to listen to your message but then we meet with them once and they don’t talk to us for a few weeks. There is this one less active, though, who we are working really hard with to reactivate because he wants to repent of what he’s done because he was a huge drunk. Anyway we are slowly re-teaching him the lessons trying to get his testimony back. We asked him why he thinks our church is important and he just told us that it was the church he was baptized in and that was it. However after teaching him a bit he started to realize more of the church’s real importance. Anyway he’s come to church these past 2 weeks on his own and I think he’s started meeting with the branch president, too. There are also a few investigators who we are moving along with pretty well and one we asked if she thought baptism is important and explained Jesus’s example and his commandment. Anyway we asked if after she got an answer to if this church is true if she would be baptized and she said she would. We are still working hard with the members because if we want people to come back and stay active, the leaders need to start doing more of their job. Yesterday the young woman presidency had a meeting on their own which is like the first time in a long time that they have done that. My companion was also teaching a class in priesthood and was teaching about the oath and covenant with the priesthood and was teaching doctrine and bearing his testimony about it. One of the men said that what he was teaching was really harsh and he said it’s only harsh to those who aren't doing it. We see this same thing in the Book of Mormon all the time when the prophets teach clear doctrine and all the people think the prophets are speaking harsh to them but the prophets just tell them that they are only teaching clearly.

Anyway, something cool we did on Saturday was have an activity with the branch where we had lunch and then had a water and foam spray fight. It was really fun and it was a good way for us to build our relationship with the members. Something that they do here for carnival is spray everyone with foam and throw water balloons from their roofs. So you could imagine everyone wanted to peg a pair of gringos. In the morning though there was a parade in the plaza in Pucara and the other elders’ home looks out on to the plaza and church and so we filled up a ton of water balloons and completely soaked everyone below. We weren't able to hike that mountain though last week because of the weather and the other district couldn't make it so instead we just played some basketball. We are gonna try to do it today instead though. Anyway that’s pretty much how my weeks been. I love you guys.

Elder Halverson