Families

Hey Everyone,

So sorry agian this is probably really short. This week has been really good. Im super excited for this transfer. I have only a little time left and i want to make the best of it and i feel like the lord is really helping me with that desire.

So my new companion is Elder Lopez from Chimbote!! he is my second peruvian companion. we knew each other back when he started the mission 15 months ago... he has changed a lot since then. Im so excited to be his companion because he is super motivated and i feel like he just rubs off his excitement on everyone including me. Haha this week has been super cool because we have gotten a lot done both in the zone and in our own area.

last week I felt a little down because my other companion went home, and honestly i didnt feel like a missionary becuase we didnt have much time to proselyte. (i honestly love proselyting! haha never realized it before but its one of my favorite things) haha. But this week has been different. We really got ot take a step back and look at everything in the zone and in the area and get everything into better focus. 

Our zone just took a huge step as far as success goes. we have a few new missionaries in the zone and they ahve been a huge help in all of the areas. we have found almost 3 times the amount of new investigators than other weeks.

This week we had a really cool experience. We placed a goal as a zone to teach the families of every investigator that is progressing, and we have been applying it in our area. I LOVE teaching familes. Its so Hard though to get them all together haha. This week we taught Brother Perez... he is a convert of 3 months and has a really cool conversion story. He was an adventist before and he began to see that there was a lot of dotrinal error in the church and so he left the church and began studying in his house. He likes buying books so he went out one day nad found a book store that was selling a few manuals of institute clases. long story shrot he was baptized.

we are now teaching many of his 8 children and 25 grandchildren, and all are very receptiful to the gospel.... I hope we can help them become an eternal family and help them get to the temple. Brother Juan, the son, had lost a child and so instead of starting with Lesson one we started with temples... its been cool

well im out of time

Always turn outward and keep smiling,

Love you all,

Elder Bunker

Killing a companion

Hey Everyone,

First, Thanks mom for the great package. I loved seeing some tradicional candy canes... haha i forgot those existed. I will be sure to share a few haha i havent ever seen those here.

Second, Aunt Brenda and the Chandler family, thanks so much for your letter! i reallly liked reading all the fun notes from the kids. I really miss the time I got to live at the house and spend the weekends with the boys. I couldnt beleive everyone is so much bigger now. haha I almost didnt recognize a few of the kids. all of the boys are way different (especially Rylie holy cow haha). and mason looks a lot more like an adult now... crazy!

Michelle Perry. Thanks for your letter, i will make sure to get the other half back to you. haha.

So pretty much this week has been good. a few headaches here and there but good haha. we havent been able to do much with new years and everything but its good. we have been doing a lot of service. We put up a cement wall the other day. that was fun. Its funny all the little talents you learn on the mission. i got to learn how to mix and work with the cement and if my pride will let me say it I actually got pretty good at it. haha. it was fun, but a super long project.

This week has been kind of crazy as well because my companion is now entering his last week of the mission (week Trunky haha) hence the title of the email is killiing a companion, here in the mission we say we are "killing" someone when we are their last companion in the mission. haha we have to be careful who we use the phrases around because they can be interpeted wrongly. haha.  for example i was telling someone how I had my "kid" here in the mission (or in other words that i had trained a missionary) and the lady sitting next to us asked me how old i was and i said 20 and she asked if everyone in the church had children so early in life... haha that was a funny one to explain... she understood in the end though... haha and i learned my lesson.

This week has been interesting as week because there are a few missionaries in the zone who are having health problems.... for example we had to take a missionary to the hospital yesterday because his stomache has been hurting for 2 weeks now.... and he couldnt work more. I hope he gets better soon, he is a good freind of mine. I did my first airport contact with his help and he has always been such a happy guy. 

so things like that have been interesting.

I had a really cool experience this last week i want to share. Even though my companion is ending and he seems to get a little distracted everytime he hears an airplane (we live near the airport.... so not uncommon... at least 3 times a day) I really look up to him. I really admire his patience and calmness and his love for the missionaries, even though he seems rough with them he really loves them. So i began thinking about that and i started looking for ways that i could be more loving and feel more love for the missionaries. And this week we had a testimony meeting for a zone training that we had. Everyone got to share their feelings about the last year, the upcoming year and their feelings about the gospel... holy cow... missionaries are my  superheros!! haha....  I almost couldnt beleive what i heard from the mouth of some of the missionaries in my zone. They seemed like normal missionaries with normal goals and everything, but hearing their testimonies i see them soooo much differently.  I really found that i DO love the missionaries that I am serving and I feel like i really do want their success and happiness here in the mission. It was interesting because it was a love so natural and it wasnt hard to get around any barriers. I really do feel like love is an attribute of christ we have to pray for. 

like it says in the Book of mormon,

45 And ^acharity suffereth long, and is ^bkind, and ^cenvieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily ^dprovoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

 46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—

 47 But ^acharity is the pure ^blove of Christ, and it endureth^cforever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

 48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, ^apray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true ^bfollowers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall ^cbe like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be ^dpurified even as he is pure. Amen.

I am sooo grateful for the gift of charity, if i could define the feelings that i have had this last year i would say charity. Charity for all men. Living and Dead, Righteous and Injust, Freind and Foe. I am not perfect at all in this, but i do feel an increase in my life. Especially for my own family. funny how that works.

I really hope that in this new year the lord can hastening his work and i can be a part of it. Im learning that being a leader means learning to love.

I love you all,

Always turn outward and keep smiling

Elder Bunker

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Hey Everyone,

So im going to try to write more details this time haha. Mom let me know at christmas that there are still people who are reading my emails haha.

So to start. I just wanted to thank the Slade Family for their package. haha. The only Pistachios that I have seen in the last 19 months are the ones the Slades have sent me haha I dont think they exist here. So thanks for that, I really enjoyed getting that package.

Mom I havent gotten the package you have sent me yet, but im sure i will see it soon. It takes a little longer with the boxes.

So, Details of this week... I had my first White Christmas in the mission haha... and what I mean by that is that we got to baptize for Christmas!! hahaha How cool is that right? I feel super blessed because Hermano Pedro was ready. He is an investigator that the missionaries have been teaching for years. The whole family has been baptized in the last 2 years and he is the last one to take the step. (Now we just have to send them to the temple!! haha) I was talking to his wife and she said that after she was baptized her husband changed a lot, and one morning he woke up and looked at her and said, "I want to be baptized" haha. And he started taking the small steps alone. The reason why it took him so long to be baptized is because he is always traveling. He drives a large trailer to transport goods from one end of peru to the other and he has never been here long enough to set a date to be baptized. But we found out he was going to get a break for christmas so we taught him monday and went over all the baptismal questions, he had his interveiw tuesday, and got baptized on the 24th!! 

I love this area.

Im sorry my time is up but i just want to say Happy New year!!

I found a neat quote in the Liahona, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the second best time is now" haha how great

goals are a sign of True Faith

Love you 

Always turn outward and keep smiling, 

Elder Bunker

Feliz Navidad

Hey Everyone,

Sorry if this is so short. I have been trying to send a lot of pictures but the internet is slow today haha. so maybe another time

So pretty much this week has been good. I have been learning lots and lots haha i feel like its been full of mistakes and learning experiences as well. haha. My companion placed me incharge of all of the zone funds this week haha and its been a little stressing to be carrying around so much money and having to keep track of everything. But thats how we learn i guess.

This week has been super focused on the 3 people getting baptized. Only william and Alvina got baptized this week. Carmen did not. Its really interesting how much opposition gets placed in the way. Even though i have only known each of them for only 2 weeks i have really grown to love each of them and it really made me sad that carmen couldnt get baptized.

Carmen is a single mom that lives with her parents. she really has the desire to change her life and she loves what the missionaries before us were teaching. The problem that arose was that after we had left in our last visit Carmen mentioned to her parents that she wanted to be baptized and that was not going to fly with them. they were ok with her listening but being baptized was not part of the plan. They told her that she would not be welcomed in the house if she got baptized because they couldnt accept someone in the family belonging to another religion. (they are catholic by tradition) We explained to Carmen that we couldnt make the decision to be baptized for her and we were going to help her in anyway we could. she said she will try to baptized farther down the road.... I really hope we didnt just lose her. She went to Olmos (about an hour away) for the weekend to get away from her parents... we will see what happens farther along....

The baptism went really well, both the mothers of Alvina and william came to the baptism and i feel like it really opened their hearts to our message. I hope we will have the chance to share the gospel with them soon. we are looking for an oppertunity to help families. (haha alvina said she wants to teach with us soon, she really is converted)

Im really loving my new area. The members are really nice and respectful and that makes it so much easier to love them. haha. now to put them to work.... hahahaha. just kidding. i think we will have a good christmas here with the ward. It really is nice when the members want you over for christmas as a missionary. haha

One thing that has been on my mind so much lately has been about the work for the dead. When elder Nelson came to talk to us he and his wife talked a lot about connecting both sides of the veil. I have been thinking a lot about how to help our investigators and converts get to the temple to do the work for the dead. I feel like the work is being hastened on BOTH sides fo the veil. I was thinking about all this and then we went to the bishops office and we started talkign with him about the work and he pulled out a new pamflet that just came from church headquarters just for helping the converts do temple work. it was a nice answer from heaven that that was direction i needed to go.

sorry so scrambled

love you all!!

Always turn Outward and keep smiling!

Elder Bunker

Imperio...

Hey everyone,

So.... haha there is a lot to comment and little time but i will do my best.

so first, thanks lisy so much for your package! and mom too. I really loved seeing some old candy favorites haha. i shared a few with my comp and other missionaries and they really liked the selection as well hahaha.

so pretty much what everyone told me would happen happened. This week i got my transfer and i am now in the area imperio. My new comp is Elder osorio. He is going to be ending his mission this transfer so I will  be his last comp in the feild... haha and he is a zone leader so... im a zone leader now as well haha.

It hasnt been as bad as i thought. I was worried cause i really enjoy the work and i thought that being a zone leader would pull me away from the teaching scene, but it hasnt been like that. If anything we have more of a responsibility to teach now because they have combined two areas (due to the shortage of missionaries for christmas) and we are incharge of both. haha so we are doing a lot of fast walking now haha. I like it though because part of having the two areas means that we have all the investigatores that where there before. I was happy to find that the area has 3 people that we are preparing for baptism this saturday. I have been able to work with each of them enough to connect with them and its amazing how fast and easy it is to love these people.

We have Carmen, Alvina, and William. I can see in each of them that they HAVE gone through the proses of repentance and faith and they ARE ready to be baptized. Im super excited for this saturday.

The zone i got asigned to is AMAZING they are all missionaries i havent worked with before but in this last week i have been amazed at how well they work and listen. I wont be suprised if we have a very successful transfer in these next few months.

I was asked to give a talk about repentance in the new ward this sunday. It was five minutes long, but it was long enough that it gave me the opertunity to get to know a lot of the members afterwards. I can tell the ward is really cool, we just need to get things moving a little bit faster. Im stoked.

One of the reasons i know the ward is so good is because all the leaders went to a ward council training we had at the multistake level wich was directed by an area seventy. It was EXACTLY what we needed and it worked out well because it went well with what we trained the missionaries on this last zone training. Im hoping that everyone keeps the energy that they have right now and keeps working.

the work is progressing and im loving every moment haha. my comp has started his going home countdown. I will have to try to help him forget he is going home haha.

Thanks for everything

Love you all

Always turn outward and keep smiling!

Elder Bunker`