Well..... This week I've got a few announcements and some bad news...

First off, the good.

Cythia will be reactivated this week! She's been coming to the church, and ward activities, and now, after about 8 years of inactivity she's coming back to church! So our next goal will be working with her husband so he can get baptized, and they can work towards the temple! I'm so excited to work with them!

Also, Ysaac, Sonia's son, came to church this week, and he's also coming to the ward activites, he's always happy to see us, and is working towards getting reactivated and going on a mission. That's been another change that's been awesome to see! Their whole family is working towards their reactivation now. It's really an incredible thing to see!!!

Plus, Lupe and Andrea recieved their callings! Andrea is second councelor in the young womens presidency, and Lupe is the secretary of the Relief society presidency!!!!! It's amazing to see both of them go from investigators, to recommend holding members with callings!

Also.....Fausto, and Cynthia's sister just moved......one to Cuzco...and the other to uhh.....absolutely no idea......and both of them just kind of told us one day "Hey, I'm moving tomorrow, and I don't know my new address, so I hope that works out....bye!!!......which really is just a terrible way to say goodbye.....hahaha but it's alright, I'm sure they'll both look for the missionaries wherever they are, or, if not, the missionaries will find them!

I love you guys so much!!!! I'm doing great and loving the work!!!!

Stay safe!

-Elder Winn

 

Dave and Elder Slade on a P-day

                                                                      Just being Dave

 

                                       No idea what he's got going on here, just being Dave!!

Well. As you may have guessed from the subject line.....I really don't have a ton to say this week......

I suppose first off I should tell you that Javiers baptism fell through. It's going to be for this next Saturday, there just wasn't time to get everything prepared, and his wife is still a little cold to the whole baptism idea, but she'll get there.....

Other than that, it's been business as usual, teaching and walking!

Although now that I think about it, we did find one new person this week!

This week we met Nelsy. She's about 35 years old and works in the bread store beneath our apartment. Awhile ago we saw a book of mormon laying by her cash register, so we asked her about it, she told us that some other elders had given it to her, and she would like it if we could come by and teach her about it......anyway, long story short, we went by about a million times (really not that big of an exaggeration...) and she was never there, and then this week she randomly popped up again and told us we should teach her......after talking with her for about 5 minutes we learned that she has been taught sporadically over the course of 2 years, but still didn't know exactly what the missionaries did......after a few more minutes of talking we found out that the elders hadn't even invited her to the church, or to baptism ( 2 problems we fixed pretty quickly). Hahaha it was a pretty cool experience!

Other than that, about 20 minutes ago we taught Armando for the first time. He's another guy we've known for about 3 months, but haven't really ever taught, but it went really well, and he's also excited for his baptism........

I guess it was a pretty good week after all!!!

Hahaha, I'm doing great, and I love you all!

-Elder Winn

Javier, Isaac, Cynthia

Well, as you can probably see by the header.....I really only wanted to talk about three incredible people, and what has happened to them this week.

First off; Javier. This week we had interchanges with the zone leaders for a few hours, and when I came back to my sector, I was surprised to find out that him and his two sons had accepted a date for their baptisms! This Saturday! Hahaha I had always been a little afraid to invite them to baptism (he likes drinking......a lot) until they were more prepared, but Elder Carmona extended the invitation, and they readily accepted. There's always some way you can learn and improve. I've definitely learned to have less fear while extending invitations!!!

Second would be Isaac, he's Sonia's son (The crazy lady (who's not that crazy)). He celebrated his 19th birthday last night, and we were some of the only people he invited (which is really surprising considering he's a pretty popular kid, and has only known us for all of 2 weeks). He told us that we had been great examples to him in the short time that we'd known him, and that he too, would like to start coming back to church. It was amazing! He now likes to leave with us to visit investigators, and is really helpful!!! Always remember to reach out to those in need.

Finally; (and personally my favorite) Cynthia. Cynthia moved here from Cuzco about 8 years ago, and has not gone to church here. She has had a lot of marital problems and isn't sure where she can turn to for help. Anyway....we've taught her for about 3 months, and a couple of weeks ago she told us she wanted to come to church again, then just like that, she disappeared, then out of the blue this Sunday, for the first time in 8 years, she showed up to church!!! It was the best!!! She plans and becoming active again and bringing her kids to church with her! Persistence is key!!!

Also, her Sister said that she would like to start receiving the lessons, so we got a new investigator right there too!

I love you guys so much! I'm happy and doing great!!!

Elder Winn

Hey guys! I hope you're all doing great! I'm doing fantastic! Things are going great, and the change is just wrapping up! This change has gone greatly!

First off; I hope you all enjoyed the privilege (I don't remember how to spell that....) of watching conference! I was able to watch it( In English)! In our small stake center. It was fantastic. My favorite talk was by far that by Elder Holland. I hope you all were able to watch it, and if not, then I strongly encourage you to read it. I absolutely loved it.

I hope you all realize how big of a blessing it truly is to watch general conference. We are the only group of people in the world that can claim to have a living, authoritative, prophet. I hope you can all appreciate that every 6 months, through his prophets; god speaks to every one of us individually.

Speaking of conference, we had an amazing experience with Javier and his family. His wife (Who had not been too fond of us) grudgingly came along with him and his two children to conference on Sunday. She had told us before that she was skeptical about a prophet and apostles but that she would come to ONE session........at the end of the third session (Her first) she said that she regrettably could not stay. She said that she had to take care of a family problem in a different part of town, but that she had tried several times to rearrange the time, just so she could watch even 15 minutes of the next session....she said that she had felt something different about the way they talked, as if she needed to hear more. We happily informed her that she could watch all the talks online, or read them all, next month, she then left, happy as could be with the rest of her family.

They're awesome. They're totally gonna get baptized. Hahaha really though, it's amazing to see how the spirit affects people. It's truly a miracle.

Also; I'll leave you with an odd experience we had the other night.

As Elder Slade and I were walking home after a day of proselyting we heard a lot of loud footsteps.....the kind of footsteps you hear when someone's running as fast as they can, we turn to see a kid about our age run by......just as we turn to each other to ask what had just happened, we see two people dressed completely in tiger and bunny costumes (complete with oversized heads) sprinting after him.......so naturally we run after them, completely confused......they ended up catching up to the kid, tackling him to the ground, and then punch/kick/tickle him......seeing as the kid was laughing, we didn't really do anything about it.......but it was probably one of the weirdest things I've seen out here......anyway......

Thanks for all your support! I'm doing great! I'll be staying in Rimac another 6 weeks......Oh and also our mission got 141 baptisms this month, and 141 reactivations. It was incredible; we just keep blowing our numbers out of the water!!!

Love you all! Doing Great!

Elder Winn