Well Hello Everyone!
This week has been full of a lot of ups and some recent downs, but as with any life we keep pressing on.... it is so good to hear from you all and i love reading your letters and emails! i miss you all and i miss the snow like you wouldnt beleive haha when you never feel a chilling sensation for half a year you start to miss it!
Well This week was really interesting because my zone, the zone Tumbes, had a conference with President and Hermana Chipman and it was amazing!!!! we have been studying a lot about the atonement! i love this event, i have learned so so so so much that i never would have thought of before or just didnt take the time to think about or learn! one thing that i love about the atonment is taht we are taught that Christ suffered for each and every single person who has ever lived or will ever live individualmente!!!! haha i dont remember how to say that word in english sorry! he suffered for every sin that i have ever or will comitt and every pain without thinking about anyone else, in this single moment christ paid the ultimate price only for me, and you too!!! i love it! i can study all day every day and never know enough about it!
well this week has been really good for us elders here in zarumilla!!! Elder Castillo and i Had 4 Baptisms this week in 3 different services!!!!!!! we are so happy for the progress we are making here!
our first baptism was with 2 jovenes named William Martin More Chero and his sister Maryuri More Chero! william is 10 and maryuri is 15! from the get go they were really interested and receptive to our lessons and they progressed so fast! from the day we met them we baptised them 2 weeks after! haha it was such a spiritual experience and i know the lord has prepared people like them to listen to our message and who are ready to make these covenants with Dios! My Comp doesnt like to baptize and so i had the privalage to baptize all of our investigators!!!!
next we had the baptism of a young girl whose father was an inactive member and we worked really hard to get him off the booze!!! it was a long process and a lot of work but he finally did it and was worthy to baptize his daughter! when she came up out of the water he started to weep and he told me after that he felt clean himself and he knows that one day he and his daughter will live in the presence of god! it was so so so amazing!!!!
our last baptism from the week was a sister named Karla Tigre, she is 22 and a mother soltera ( i dont know that word in english either) sorry.... anyway she is really shy and really timid and when it came down to it she didnt want to get in the water and we were talking to her and praying with her for 20 minutes while the people in the service were waiting paciently! finally she stepped up and did it! every time we have the opportunity to perform a baptism there is something different about the day! we are on a spiritual high knowing that we helpped one of gods children return to his fold!!!
one of the other amazing miracles i was a part of this week was with a member named Maria Gamboa! she is divorced and works to take care of her 2 hijos! 9 years ago she overcame cancer and was living perfectly, this week she found out that it is back and she is in alot of pain, we went to visit her and something happened to my comp... he froze and didnt say a word the entire time we were there!!! it didnt bother me and i just starting to speak!!! and something amazing happened!!!! when we started to speak, we were speaking in english!!! i heard every word that she was saying and every word i was saying in english and i could express myself freely and with great emotion! while i was talking with her i just started to speak, i didnt have a clue what i was saying or why i was saying it, 2 scriptures came to my mind! juan 16:33 which teaches us, in this world we will have afflictions but confide in christ he has overcome the world! when i shared that she started to cry, and then instantly the story of the lady with the blood sickness in matthew popped into my mind, when she touched the clothing of christ she was healed because of her faith! i talked and she talked and she cried and at the end of it all she we gave her a blessing, i dont remember to this point in time a single word of the blessing i said, but when i said amen, with tears in her eyes she told me she knew all would be ok, because while i was giving her the blessing christ spoke to her!!!! wow so powerful!!!
another thing this week was that our pension... or the hermana in the ward that cooks for us was in the hosptial for 2 days, she is like our mom of the mission and she does everything for us! while she was in the hospital we visited her, the lady next to her crashed and died while we were sitting at her bed side, we got the rare but amazing opportunity to tell this poor lady not to cry not to worry, she too soon would be with god! i dont even know her name and she made such a hug impact on my life!!!! the mission is nothing but unexpewcted experiences!!!
well got to go i love you all!
love elder davis
Monday, January 30, 2012
email from 1/22
Well Hello Everyone!
This week has been a busy one for us here in the Mission Peru Piura! We had transfers this week and i finished training with Elder Ipaz! we had a lot of ups and downs in our companionship but the lord knew that i needed him as a comp and i did learn a lot from him. i have learned over the past few months how short our time in this life really is, the smallest little things used to bother me and i would get so so frustrated over nothing! if we stop and think about our life on this earth and the fact that the lord has promised us Eternal Life! these small things dont matter!!! i learned to relax and let the little things in life go and just focus on other things that are more important!
well my new companion is elder castillo he is from Lima Peru!!! HE is such an amazing elder i am so suprised! he is a recent convert of a year and a half and his family told him that when he joined the church that they would disown him for good. since the day of his baptism his family doesnt communicate much with him and didnt even know he was on a mission till 3 months after he was in the mission feild!!! wow! but his testimony is so so so so so so powerful! and we are super super strict on the rules! he is teaching me a lot! there are rules i didnt even know existed, well idk still if they are real but i follow them anyway! haha cant hurt to be even more careful huh!
this week we have been working really really hard! we have a ton of investigators with baptism dates and thats great because we ahve been really trying to focus in baptism recently! this week we have 4 different baptisms and they are all investigators that i have been teaching from before and now with elder castillo he is helpping me so so much! i learn so much from him! everyday i learn more than 10 ways to better myself i love it! well we are praying and fasting really fervently for all of these baptisms! we have had a lot of success here and in this transfer we have 11 investigators with dates so we are all really excited for that!
Well the language is coming along, i havent seen another person who speaks english in a long time!!!! haha so im forced to communicate in spanish and now im even thinking and dreaming in spanish! haha its quite the experience! i tried to pray the other day in english and i couldnt! i cant remember the words so i just said it in spanish! ots really interesting that you can learn another language and be an effective missionary in such a little amount of time!
well i love you all so so so much and hope you are all doing amazing!
love elder davis
This week has been a busy one for us here in the Mission Peru Piura! We had transfers this week and i finished training with Elder Ipaz! we had a lot of ups and downs in our companionship but the lord knew that i needed him as a comp and i did learn a lot from him. i have learned over the past few months how short our time in this life really is, the smallest little things used to bother me and i would get so so frustrated over nothing! if we stop and think about our life on this earth and the fact that the lord has promised us Eternal Life! these small things dont matter!!! i learned to relax and let the little things in life go and just focus on other things that are more important!
well my new companion is elder castillo he is from Lima Peru!!! HE is such an amazing elder i am so suprised! he is a recent convert of a year and a half and his family told him that when he joined the church that they would disown him for good. since the day of his baptism his family doesnt communicate much with him and didnt even know he was on a mission till 3 months after he was in the mission feild!!! wow! but his testimony is so so so so so so powerful! and we are super super strict on the rules! he is teaching me a lot! there are rules i didnt even know existed, well idk still if they are real but i follow them anyway! haha cant hurt to be even more careful huh!
this week we have been working really really hard! we have a ton of investigators with baptism dates and thats great because we ahve been really trying to focus in baptism recently! this week we have 4 different baptisms and they are all investigators that i have been teaching from before and now with elder castillo he is helpping me so so much! i learn so much from him! everyday i learn more than 10 ways to better myself i love it! well we are praying and fasting really fervently for all of these baptisms! we have had a lot of success here and in this transfer we have 11 investigators with dates so we are all really excited for that!
Well the language is coming along, i havent seen another person who speaks english in a long time!!!! haha so im forced to communicate in spanish and now im even thinking and dreaming in spanish! haha its quite the experience! i tried to pray the other day in english and i couldnt! i cant remember the words so i just said it in spanish! ots really interesting that you can learn another language and be an effective missionary in such a little amount of time!
well i love you all so so so much and hope you are all doing amazing!
love elder davis
Monday, January 16, 2012
email from 1-16-2012
Hello Everyone!
well its good to hear from all of you this week and im glad to hear that everyone is doing so well during this time of the year!
well update on the good ole spider bite, i was bit on the face by some kind of spider and we do not know what type it was but due to the poison i had a bad reaction, hence the lock jaw effect, but i went to the doctor in Piura and got on some medicine that helped me over come that and now i am healing as i should, it was quite the site to see though. After the doctors visit i was released to return to work in my area with instructions and medicine i received there, the doctor told me that it a few days that the bite would grow and get really big and white and then that would be the time to pop the thing! and he was right! haha i forgot to take pictures because it was so gross i didnt even want to remember it!!! haha but it grew and i popped it and all the elders in my zone got quite the kick out of it! right now there is just a small whole where all the hardened poison and stuff left and im puting medicine on it and taking care of it so i can get it all healed and taken care of like it should. im doing great and no one needs to worry, everything is going just fine and i will be better soon!
well today is transfers! my companion elder ipaz is being transfered and i have been assigned a new comp who will come here in a day or two, we added anopther area to Zarumilla and we are hoping that we continue to ahve more and more success this transfer here... i have 7 baptisms lined up for these next few weeks and im praying really really hard that they all follow through and they are all baptised! we had the baptism of an investigator yesterday! his name is Jose Marcos Curai Peña! he is an 80 year old farmer here and is one of my favortie people who we have ever come in contact with! he is so loving and such an amazing person! when he came up out of the water he began to cry... we asked him what was wrong and if he was ok! he told us that the moment that he left the water he felt something warm fall all around him as if the lord and savior himself were hugging him!!!!! wow what an amazing experience it was!!! i am so glad that i got to be a part of this change in his life!
we began the raining season here!!! since ive been here everyone has been telling me to wait till the rain comes because its going to be the biggest suprise and adventure that i will experience and oh boy were they right! it was such a suprise!!! haha the other night we were in an appointment with an investigator about 3 or 4 minutes away from our apartment! all the sudden out of no where and all at once began this storm of rain! im not kidding rain drops the size of coins!!!! i took pictures and videos so you guys can see! but we had to walk home in the rain! it took us 3 minutes running in the rain and by the time we got to the door of the apartment everything we were wearing was soaked! you could see right through our shirts and our shoes were full of water! haha it was such a fun experience, we were so wet that my comps scriptures were wet through his backpack!!! haha
the next morning we had to get up and leave early to go to the houses of our investigators to bring them to church with us!!! the problem with this was that we couldnt walk down the streets because they were all flowwing like rivers and only certain streets here are paved or have sidewalks. most of them are just dirt and so we had to take off our shoes and roll up our pants and get a little dirty!!! haha we were carrying our shoes and just drudging through this muddy river type of stuff and i bet we looked like quite the site to the locals, the missionaries with clean white shirts ties and suit pants with no shoes in the mud! haha i loved it but the future few weeks are going to be a little more messy i have a feeling!
well when iwas returning to zarumilla from piura our good ole bus driver hit a car and a donkey!!! haha in 2 different occasions!!!
we were all trying to sleep because the bus leaves in the middle of the night and you try to get some sleep before the work the next day and all the sudden i feel this thud and the bus driover swerves and we almost hit a building! haha i was in the pack of the bus with my DL and we look out the window and there was a destroyed donkey or burro in the middle of the road and tons of people running to see whatwas going on! haha and like any good peruvian the driver tossed his info out the window and kept going! hahah it trashed the front of the bus and i have good pictures to show you all!
well im out of time and need to go! i love you all and miss oyu all!!!
love!!!
elder davis
well its good to hear from all of you this week and im glad to hear that everyone is doing so well during this time of the year!
well update on the good ole spider bite, i was bit on the face by some kind of spider and we do not know what type it was but due to the poison i had a bad reaction, hence the lock jaw effect, but i went to the doctor in Piura and got on some medicine that helped me over come that and now i am healing as i should, it was quite the site to see though. After the doctors visit i was released to return to work in my area with instructions and medicine i received there, the doctor told me that it a few days that the bite would grow and get really big and white and then that would be the time to pop the thing! and he was right! haha i forgot to take pictures because it was so gross i didnt even want to remember it!!! haha but it grew and i popped it and all the elders in my zone got quite the kick out of it! right now there is just a small whole where all the hardened poison and stuff left and im puting medicine on it and taking care of it so i can get it all healed and taken care of like it should. im doing great and no one needs to worry, everything is going just fine and i will be better soon!
well today is transfers! my companion elder ipaz is being transfered and i have been assigned a new comp who will come here in a day or two, we added anopther area to Zarumilla and we are hoping that we continue to ahve more and more success this transfer here... i have 7 baptisms lined up for these next few weeks and im praying really really hard that they all follow through and they are all baptised! we had the baptism of an investigator yesterday! his name is Jose Marcos Curai Peña! he is an 80 year old farmer here and is one of my favortie people who we have ever come in contact with! he is so loving and such an amazing person! when he came up out of the water he began to cry... we asked him what was wrong and if he was ok! he told us that the moment that he left the water he felt something warm fall all around him as if the lord and savior himself were hugging him!!!!! wow what an amazing experience it was!!! i am so glad that i got to be a part of this change in his life!
we began the raining season here!!! since ive been here everyone has been telling me to wait till the rain comes because its going to be the biggest suprise and adventure that i will experience and oh boy were they right! it was such a suprise!!! haha the other night we were in an appointment with an investigator about 3 or 4 minutes away from our apartment! all the sudden out of no where and all at once began this storm of rain! im not kidding rain drops the size of coins!!!! i took pictures and videos so you guys can see! but we had to walk home in the rain! it took us 3 minutes running in the rain and by the time we got to the door of the apartment everything we were wearing was soaked! you could see right through our shirts and our shoes were full of water! haha it was such a fun experience, we were so wet that my comps scriptures were wet through his backpack!!! haha
the next morning we had to get up and leave early to go to the houses of our investigators to bring them to church with us!!! the problem with this was that we couldnt walk down the streets because they were all flowwing like rivers and only certain streets here are paved or have sidewalks. most of them are just dirt and so we had to take off our shoes and roll up our pants and get a little dirty!!! haha we were carrying our shoes and just drudging through this muddy river type of stuff and i bet we looked like quite the site to the locals, the missionaries with clean white shirts ties and suit pants with no shoes in the mud! haha i loved it but the future few weeks are going to be a little more messy i have a feeling!
well when iwas returning to zarumilla from piura our good ole bus driver hit a car and a donkey!!! haha in 2 different occasions!!!
we were all trying to sleep because the bus leaves in the middle of the night and you try to get some sleep before the work the next day and all the sudden i feel this thud and the bus driover swerves and we almost hit a building! haha i was in the pack of the bus with my DL and we look out the window and there was a destroyed donkey or burro in the middle of the road and tons of people running to see whatwas going on! haha and like any good peruvian the driver tossed his info out the window and kept going! hahah it trashed the front of the bus and i have good pictures to show you all!
well im out of time and need to go! i love you all and miss oyu all!!!
love!!!
elder davis
email from 1-9-2012
Hello Everyone!
Well first off we are working our hardest here to get the missionary work together in full force with our members who have been struggling to help us and also for themselves... We here in Zarumilla have approx. 47 attending members! wow when i think about it thats nothing compared to back home! but we have been working really really hard to invite people to come to church! we have been working really hard with the less actives to reactivate them so that they can enjoy thegospel once again in their lives! well this week we had over 200 attending members and investigators and it was the first time that i have seen the chaple filled since i have been here and the bishop was just beeming with happiness! haha finally we are getting the dead little town of Zarumilla back on its feet so that the Chruch can grow and prosper here! that was one of the best feeling in being here we quadrupled that attendance in Zarumilla.
Well we also have been trying our hardest to do service for our members and investigators and boy have we had all the oppertunites in the world! haha first off we got to destroy a house and rebuild a new one!!! a whole house! haha since i am from the states the whole day the family was callling me ty penninton or whats that guys name from extereme ghome makeover! haha they loved it and thought it was the funniest thing ever! but i took good pictures and hope soon you can all see them!
also we are helping move one of our investigators from one house to another and we have been clearing brush and weeds and things in this plot of land so that he can move there and thats been really fun, we are all getting really really dark because the sun is really strong here and so one of these days im going to look peruvian, well apart from my asainess! haha
the other day we had a 6 hour service project, well ok it was just me and my comp that came, but we built an entire roof for this house!!! it was really good physical labor and reminded me of working in the oil feild! good times!!! well this family is the family of the twins that we just baptised and their dad hasnt been really open to us at all to listen to the message or really even be near us, but when he found out that we could help him make this roof he was thrilled! and six hours and a few incidents later we finally gained his confidence and he is open to listening to us now!
we have transfers this week and i dont know if i am going to be training here in zarumila or if i am going to be being transfered to another area!!! well we have transfers the 16th of this month and i hope Manuel is open to the missionaries now that we gaind his confidence if we are transfered out of here!
There is a young man named Javier Reyes! he lives here in zarumilla but was serving inmexico for his mission, he came home this week due to some complications and wont be retrning for a while and it is very sad to see but he is taking all the right steps as he should and getting to once again prepare to serve the lord. this is one of the greatest if not the greatest life ever and it is hard to see it taken form someone but we are helpping him get back on his feet and return when the time comes!
well today i got a letter form elder holtby i havent had the time yet to read it but i will let you all know what it says in the next week!
so that was all the ups for the week and here is the down! right now i am in the mission office in Piura becausei was emergency sent here due to some medical dificulties! haha in other more simpler words, the other day i was bit by a spider while i was sleeping on my right cheek and its SUPER infected and really gross! Aside from the infection and pain and what not the problem is that it is taking a strange toll on my body. for the past 3 days i have had LOCK JAW really bad and cant seem to overcome the problem, so this morning Hna. Chipman the Presidents wife, told me i had to be sent here to Piura to get medical treatment. i just got done seeing a doctor but im in good ole peru, so the only way to fix it he told me was to take medicine and wait! haha he told me that if the infection worsened with the medicine and i continued to have the problems with my jaw i would return and then they would look into surgury!!! haha sweet! getting facial work done by a little peruvian doctor! haha well in all seriousness i got a blessing and am hoping that in a few days this will pass and that i can return to my area and finish my time there! but i will keep you all updated with that when the time comes! dont stress about it though we have good medics here and we always have the lord on our side so im not all that worried. just want it to be over with it isnt pleasant!!!
well i love you all and miss oyu all!
until next time!
elder davis
Well first off we are working our hardest here to get the missionary work together in full force with our members who have been struggling to help us and also for themselves... We here in Zarumilla have approx. 47 attending members! wow when i think about it thats nothing compared to back home! but we have been working really really hard to invite people to come to church! we have been working really hard with the less actives to reactivate them so that they can enjoy thegospel once again in their lives! well this week we had over 200 attending members and investigators and it was the first time that i have seen the chaple filled since i have been here and the bishop was just beeming with happiness! haha finally we are getting the dead little town of Zarumilla back on its feet so that the Chruch can grow and prosper here! that was one of the best feeling in being here we quadrupled that attendance in Zarumilla.
Well we also have been trying our hardest to do service for our members and investigators and boy have we had all the oppertunites in the world! haha first off we got to destroy a house and rebuild a new one!!! a whole house! haha since i am from the states the whole day the family was callling me ty penninton or whats that guys name from extereme ghome makeover! haha they loved it and thought it was the funniest thing ever! but i took good pictures and hope soon you can all see them!
also we are helping move one of our investigators from one house to another and we have been clearing brush and weeds and things in this plot of land so that he can move there and thats been really fun, we are all getting really really dark because the sun is really strong here and so one of these days im going to look peruvian, well apart from my asainess! haha
the other day we had a 6 hour service project, well ok it was just me and my comp that came, but we built an entire roof for this house!!! it was really good physical labor and reminded me of working in the oil feild! good times!!! well this family is the family of the twins that we just baptised and their dad hasnt been really open to us at all to listen to the message or really even be near us, but when he found out that we could help him make this roof he was thrilled! and six hours and a few incidents later we finally gained his confidence and he is open to listening to us now!
we have transfers this week and i dont know if i am going to be training here in zarumila or if i am going to be being transfered to another area!!! well we have transfers the 16th of this month and i hope Manuel is open to the missionaries now that we gaind his confidence if we are transfered out of here!
There is a young man named Javier Reyes! he lives here in zarumilla but was serving inmexico for his mission, he came home this week due to some complications and wont be retrning for a while and it is very sad to see but he is taking all the right steps as he should and getting to once again prepare to serve the lord. this is one of the greatest if not the greatest life ever and it is hard to see it taken form someone but we are helpping him get back on his feet and return when the time comes!
well today i got a letter form elder holtby i havent had the time yet to read it but i will let you all know what it says in the next week!
so that was all the ups for the week and here is the down! right now i am in the mission office in Piura becausei was emergency sent here due to some medical dificulties! haha in other more simpler words, the other day i was bit by a spider while i was sleeping on my right cheek and its SUPER infected and really gross! Aside from the infection and pain and what not the problem is that it is taking a strange toll on my body. for the past 3 days i have had LOCK JAW really bad and cant seem to overcome the problem, so this morning Hna. Chipman the Presidents wife, told me i had to be sent here to Piura to get medical treatment. i just got done seeing a doctor but im in good ole peru, so the only way to fix it he told me was to take medicine and wait! haha he told me that if the infection worsened with the medicine and i continued to have the problems with my jaw i would return and then they would look into surgury!!! haha sweet! getting facial work done by a little peruvian doctor! haha well in all seriousness i got a blessing and am hoping that in a few days this will pass and that i can return to my area and finish my time there! but i will keep you all updated with that when the time comes! dont stress about it though we have good medics here and we always have the lord on our side so im not all that worried. just want it to be over with it isnt pleasant!!!
well i love you all and miss oyu all!
until next time!
elder davis
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