My Birthday! + other stuff

¡Hola a todos!

¡Esta semana ha sido una locura! Fue muy interesante y bueno y todo eso.

So, I didn´t get much of a chance to write last week because I was busy for all of it. But I did get a moment, so I was able to write. But this week I have more time, the normal to be exact, so I´ll write.

Cool happenings, I got a haircut, from Elder Valenzuela, the same missionary who cut my hair before I went to Puerto Maldonado. He did a good job like the last time.

It was my birthday. That was cool. They egged me again but I was prepared with my rain jacket, so I only had to wash that and my head. It worked out good. President and Sister Herrera threw me a small birthday party in the office on Saturday before my birthday since they were going to be with Elder Uceda during my birthday in Puerto Maldonado. There was cake and ham sandwiches and some Tampico to drink. (to anyone who may have been to space camp with me reading this, Tampico! Drink it it´s the best!)

I also ate some of my cake with chopsticks, the sisters in my district gave me candies for my birthday, steak and potatoes for lunch, cake, popcorn and egg sandwiches for dinner. And we played with President´s daughters on Saturday for a little bit. (our p-day)

Also, Elder Yangali took me out to eat at Papachos the other night for my birthday, basically it´s a fancy tourist burger joint, but really good. I got the chaufa burger. It was really good. Elder Bever gave me some of his onion rings, so good! Long time since I´ve had onion rings. Let alone good ones.

And in the spiritual category this week, the conference with Elder Uceda was awesome! District meeting went really good as well. We talked about how people need to use the Atonement of Christ to fix bad decisions they´ve made in their lives. Because the natural man doesn´t want to change, and can´t either. Once a natural man is presented with a new situation, he makes a decision and that´s it for the rest of their life! They cannot change, they don´t have the power to do so, we may think they can because we change everyday, but if you look at the roots of it all, it´s because of Christ and His Atonement that we can change, because He can help us change for good, left to ourselves, we´d be nothing, we´d quickly deteriorate and become a horrible person- Because without Christ, we could not do good, we would choose evil and badness because there would be nothing else.

So, when you decided as a kid that you didn´t want to wash the plates, you would never do it unless you used Christ´s Atonement through His power and decided AGAIN, made the same decision over again and decided anew to wash the plates. The same thing applies to every other decision you´ve made in your life. Without Christ, we could not and would not be good or choose good. So go and choose to be good, have Christ work in your life to be able to make more of yourself than you ever could.

(I don´t have scriptures to back this up right now, but I feel that it´s true, study it out yourself and ask God to help you understand what you need to know)

--

Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher

Elder Uceda

Hola,

Well, this has been another crazy week.

We finally got everyone shipped off to their news sectors after the changes and strikes coordinated por fin.

And, Monday we had an amazing conference with Elder Uceda from the Seventy.

He talked a lot about obedience and about how to be better teachers.

I´ll try to write more next week, but I´m out of time.

Photos (ice cream sundae from an office meeting a while back, Hermana Herrera knows how to do those! Elder White looks like Tom Cruise, my pants finally ended. And I had a lot of purchase evidences (I don´t know how to spell receipt) and got a lot of money for them.

Take care everyone and have a great week!

--

Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher

Changes; crazy

Hola a todos,

Corto! Yay!

Ok, so I don´t even know, this week was crazy, cool, fun and long.

Elder Lewis became my new companion and we went to Salkantay on P-day. (a super cool mountain lagoon place.

Also, I took Elder Huallparuca to his old ward, he said  bye to people. And I took everyone to the airport this week. Yay!

Be good. Live good. Desire to do God´s will. That way you´ll all be blessed. It´s super cool that way!

Chou!

--

Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher

Machu Picchu and Transfers

¡Hola a todos!

¿Qué tal? ¿Como están?

Buena semana, muchas cosas que han pasado, muchas cosas muy, muy interesantes.

So, last week there was a trip to Machu Picchu, and there are professors going on strike everywhere here in Peru, so they detained the train they were supposed to go on, because they took the rails off the track.

But they went this week! It was a very big headache last week, but they went!!!!!!!!! They might have problems getting back, but they went. (and it should be good, they´ll get back)

Other stuff, hmmm...

Well, I have two companions now!

Now I have Elder Chango for 2 weeks more and now I´ll have Elder Lewis for the rest of the time I´ll be here! (almost guarantied)

I´m excited!

I´m doing my best to help and love Elder Chango, but Elder Lewis is going to be awesome!

I don´t know what else to say, that´s all that comes to mind.

Life is good.

Trials help us grow, they´re God´s way to help us grow. So, decide to grow and be better, learn and become all that God intends you to be.

Oh yeah, we did service too. And I ended up in possession of at least one bill of all the bills they have here in Perú.

Have a great week and live the Gospel! Rely on Christ to help through your trials! God loves you!

--

Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher

Baptisms, saunas and ruins

Hola a todos!

Ustedes son mis amigos. Espero que sepan cual especiales son para mí y aun bastante más para nuestro Padre Celestial. Él les ama a todos ustedes y quiere su felicidad. Para cada uno. ¡Sí! Aun a usted que está fallando en esa pequeña cosa. Él le ama.

This week, good. Crazy. Eventful. Happy. Sad. Disappointing. Exciting. Lots of different emotions and all that kind of stuff.

To start out with, we cleaned our house really well. I think I´ve mentioned this before, but really. It is clean! And the Sister Leaders cleaned it up after all the 14 sister slept in it who had been there. I like it´s cleanliness. Pictures:

Then, on Saturday the Sister Leaders (Hermana Barrientos and Hermana Soto {yes, the same one who had been in Sicuani with me in the district}) had a baptism! I had the great honor to baptize Hermana Mileni whom the Sisters are teaching. It was really special and the Spirit was strong at the baptism.

Now, the title is a bit confusing, only the last one should be plural, but it sounds better all plural, so yeah.

Now, sauna. Hmm.... So, we had a baptism on Saturday night in the ward (Mileni) and then Sunday morning we had a sauna. Or, in other words. No one had emptied the font and no one had turned off the heater for the water. So, it boiled. The baptismal font boiled. I can´t tell you how it looked, because the Bishop got to the chapel first and found that out. Fixed it up too. But we cleaned it up though and now all 4 of us missionaries knows how to work the stuff so it´ll never happen again. The Bishop wasn´t happy to say the least, but by the end of it all, we were all laughing at it and just happy that everything was alright.

Today we went and visited some other ruins by Tipon. I don´t know the name, but they were cool. It looked like an actual settlement.

Besides that all I´ve been dealing today with the first known group of missionaries who haven´t been able to go to Machu Picchu because of teacher strikes. So yeah, that´s crazy, but I think it´s done. The good thing is that people are taking it well, they´ll go next week instead.

God is good. Sometimes we don´t know why something is happening; but He does, and that´s what´s important. Someone in church yesterday compared it to an embroidery. Which for a child from beneath makes no sense, just a bunch of threads in a random conglomerate. But once it´s done, and we rise up to see the other side of things, it all makes sense. We can see the whole picture and that there was a great picture in design the whole time.

So, let us be patient in our afflictions. Let us be more sincere in our love and relationships with others. Let us lift and cheer one another. And then we can be content knowing that we´re doing good. And we´ll keep going until we get to the other side and we can see in the end what the whole picture is. It is grander than we can even imagine here.

--

Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher

P.S. I got permission to write late since I had to do office stuff. :D

We cleaned the house!

Hola a todos!

Estaba pensando, y creo que sería bien chevere a hacer una palabra de la semana en cada correo, así que comienzo con este que se ve abajo. ↓

Word of the week: orto; vegetable garden (in Italian)

I accidentally put that in the subject line of an email I wrote to Hermana Herrera. Instead of otro; other. Oops. But oh well. Live and let die.

In otro news, we´ve cleaned our house! It looks really, really nice. The Johnsons moved recently and we´ve inherited a couple nice leather love seats. They really spice up the room from what it´s been. So we had a major overhaul as well. It´s nice.

In related news, the reason we´ve cleaned our house so well is because sister missionaries are going to be sleeping there this week. NOT with us, we´re going to live with the assistants and zone leaders in Inti Raymi.

But there´s going to be a conference with all the sisters in the whole mission. Hermana Herrera wants to have it, so they´re doing it. I got to make a PowerPoint for it and I really like how it turned out. But it´s in Spanish, so you guys wouldn´t all understand it. Plus, I haven´t been able to upload it successfully, it´s just been from my USB that it plays correctly.

Other news, I´ve been very busy with office stuff and was able to have a couple citas this week that were really good. Also, the sister leaders in Inti Raymi are having a baptism this week! Hermana Mileni, she´s really cool, I was able to interview her the other day and she´s quite amazing. The work goes on.

Tramites in Migraciones also continue, getting close to done.

All in all, the gospel is true. I´ll share the little bit of my testimony I shared in fast and testimony meeting this week:

Scripture study is important, if we aren´t reading everyday, the differences will show forth quickly. We´ll get more frustrated, more tired, less happy and just discouraged. I know because I didn´t study too well a couple days for so much office stuff I was doing.

But, happily, repentance exists! And works! It works miracles even! We need to do it for reals and not just pray that our problems will go away, we need to act. But if we do, and when we do, God puts His hand in our lives to lift us up and help us along the way.

And then, the Sacrament, that´s what gives us the eventual remission of our sins. Because that´s a promise included in baptism, that our sins will be washed away. And the Sacrament is the renewal of that covenant.

Or to try and say it simply, when we get baptized, we get washed clean from all the mud and gunk that we´ve gotten on us through sinning. Then when we repent we climb out of the mud-holes we sometimes fall into after baptism and as we partake of the Sacrament we become clean by being washed again. A ¨mini-baptism¨ to say it as such. And we do that each week when we worthily partake of the Sacrament, we become clean to be able to return to live with our Father in Heaven after this life. And that´s made possible through Temples and the eternal blessings that await us there when we enter worthily.

Have a great week!

--

Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher

P.S. Come sono i orto?

Saksaywaman (say wa´man?)

Hola a todos,

Bienvenidos a mis amigos aquí que están leyendo esto. A veces tengo que ser más original, pero me escape a veces también. Pero espero que ustedes esteén bien.

This week, it´s been busy. I have been doing a lot of stuff with tramites and other things I have as the executive secretary, but we were still able to have a family home evening and do a couple contacts. There was a new investigator in the family home evening too, so that was cool. We also had a ward activity on Saturday, it went really well, sports, some games we organized and lunch. There were some non-members that came and lots of members were there too.

Question:

Speaking of Sacrament meeting, where do you attend?

We meet at the chapel that is quite a few blocks down the street. In the 7th bus stop. For reference, the office is in bus stop ¨Santa Ursula¨ which is one more block down from the 1st bus stop. We take a bus to get there each Sunday and whenever we go to work in our sector. It´s like 5-10 minutes in bus with an average of 7ish. Normally I´m standing, but I´m wanting to talk to people more. I haven´t yet, but we´ll see what happens.

Biggest things on my mind right now, seeing as how they´re the most recently done, are. I went to Saksaywaman with Elder Fawcett and more or less Elder Bever and Elder Yangali.

It was interesting. First, we had to do a couple things, (pick up Elder Yangali´s ID card and send a letter to Lima) and I forgot the papers that say that Elder Fawcett and I are Cusco citizens. (because people from Cusco go to many, many places here free!) So we had to go back for those and the others just went since they had theirs. Then we go and get there.

We check in at the gate, the person looks at our foreign ID cards (carnés de extranjería) and we show him the papers too that say we´re Cusco citizens. Says that everything is in order and to go ahead and pass on in. (now, to imagine, it´s like a Utah trail or just a trailhead. You pass the gate and walk in, then it´s really open and you can go on this path or that path or even that other one) And we get to a big fork in the road that joins a couple outside paths to a couple inside paths (more than one gate). And as we start walking towards where we see Elder Bever and Elder Yangali at, this guy stops us (he works there, badge and all) and asks which path we´re going to take. ¨This one we´re walking towards.¨ ¨Where´s your ticket?¨ Then I remember, oh yeah, just give him your carné because you´re a citizen here and you just need to verify that with the guy, then go on. He proceeds to look at it and says it´s not good, because it says it needs to say Cusco on it, but mine says Lima. (Because that´s where I got it) I say, oh yeah, that´s what this paper here says that I have, that I´m legal here in Cusco. He insists that it doesn´t say it on my carné, so I can´t pass. I try to explain that the paper is what says I´m a Cusco person. He refuses and since Elder Fawett had just kept walking on as he was talking to me, he called the police on his walkie-talkie. I get Elder Fawcett to stop and come back with me and we go to the gate we came in at, explain the situation, and they told us to go around another way and that they´d talk with the guy.

We then enjoyed ourselves and got some awesome pictures with llamas and really big stone walls that the Incas made. It was great.

I wish I could have this turn into a story of forgiveness for the guy that was stubborn, but as of yet, I´m still working on removing those bad feelings.

But I think I can turn it into a story of ¨Missionaries aren´t perfect either, so don´t sweat it, just do your best¨ or something similar. As well as that sometimes you need to take time to heal, I´ve already decided that I want to forgive him, and that´s the first step I think, but I´m human too. We all make mistakes and we´re all not perfect. I imagine now that he´s probably in the same thing as I am, having to heal a couple wounds that people have made to him. Especially seeing as Saturday there was a HUGE festival in the place we went to, and people probably didn´t make it easy on him. So he just got all crusty from them and has yet to put the healing balm on his wounds, or they´ve just been so bad that it takes a long time.

So yeah, I´m not perfect, you´re not perfect, he´s not perfect, we´re all not perfect! Only Christ is, and He´s told us to forgive one another, because He knows that´s how it needs to be.

So let´s all be more forgiving and understanding of one another.

Have a great week!

--

Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher