Morrope week 7: asistencia: 32 :D

Hey Everyone,

So our little town of Morrope is growing! :D (or at least the kingdom of god in the little town of morrope is growing! haha) This is the first week of the transfer and it was great. I have been really blessed this last week. My new companion is named Elder Chero, he is 21, and from Chimbote, :D here in peru. so he is my first peruvian companion. I am really excited to work with him. he is great missionary and everyone respects him. he has been in the feild for about a year now. ( he hits his year mark this week ) I feel really blessed, I have been praying that i would get a good companion. Morrope needs good missionaries. (so now their only problem is me... haha jk)

we have been working super hard this week. Its been interesting because i thought i would have to drag my companion everywhere the first week because thats usually how it goes, but i showed him i wanted to work and he just took off from there. we have found a lot of neet people this week that i hope and pray we will be able to teach and baptize. (speaking of baptisms we are about ot have the first baptisms in morrope this week! Hermana Juli and Magali are going to be baptized this weekend. we still have a lot to do before that point. I hope they feel confident and confortable. They really are the pioneers here in Morrope). 

Morrope is really interesting because its brand new. My companion has been in family groups before but he says this is different than any other family group he has been in before because its so small and the missionaries have to do about everything. (which isnt true, we have a lot of help from the familia fiestas) i feel bad because i havent written a lot about the familia fiestas. so if you have translated familia fiestas you can see it means "party family" haha and they are just that haha. The parents are named walter and rosa. and they have five kids Royer (10), Maritza (8), Teresa y Angeles (6), and Noemi (4). Royer is a great kid who is super kind and respectful, something i havent seen in a lot of kids here, and like is dad he has a competitive streak haha, Maritza.... the first thing that comes to mind is fancy nancy haha she reminds me so much of Savannah, when i first met here i thought i was in dejavu. haha. she is definately a girly girl and very popular, she is the leader of all the little girls in the neighborhood. Teresa and Angeles are a hoot, although they arent identical you can tell they are twins because they do everything together. Angeles is little bit more like maritza really reserved and girly, but teresa is like my little sister lily haha. she is a tomboy and she has this small deep voice that sounds like she has a cold all the time. and Noemi, (aka Terremoto...or earthquake) many people use the term "terrible twos" but shes not two. haha. Right now, other than the neighborhood dogs, she is one of the loudest thiings to walk the street haha. Hermano walter and Rosa have been working for a while on helping her be reverent in sacrament, and since there is so little of us its kind of hard to pretend like the one being really loud isnt their kid haha. 

speaking of people in the church... We had 32 people in the chruch yesterday!!! our little group is growing!!! its the most people we have ever had in that little church! :D :D it makes me so happy to see the work grow so much here in morrope. especially in the first week of the change. im really happy.

Hermano y Hermana Fiestas and their family have been the greatest. I really feel at home here. their small family reminds me so much of my own, and in a way they have become my family here in peru. Im going to be really sad to leave. 

one of the things we have done this week is we visited one of the little casarios (or little vilages) called Romero about 20 minutes from morrope to find people to teach and we had a lot of sucess almost everyone we talked to let us in to teach. :D

Also, we got some really neat news from our branch president this sunday. there is about 30 aldults in one of the casarios Caracucho who are endowed members of the church and only are less active!!! we ahve a whole branch out there we can reactivate!! im excited to work out ther and find people to teach and reactivate.

Love you all time is short,

always look outward, and keep smiling!!

Elder Bunker

Nuevo Compañero - Morrope

Hey Everyone,

k first. krysta thanks for your letter. sorry im so bad at responding

ok so im just going to jump right into everthing that is happening. sorry i dont have much time.

So Biggest thing that is happening right now is that we have transfers... well my companion has a transfer. So its going to be really interesting these next few months with a new companion. Right now im in an area named morrope. I have already described it a little bit, but this area is different than any other. its small and we dont have many members. Many people have never heard of the church, or if they have heard about it, its only through the ranting of their pastors. When i first arrived we had a hard time entering houses because everyone thought we were theives (due to what their pastors told them). in the last month and a half its been incredible. we have seen the hearts of the people of morrope being softened. People accept us a lot more openly. We have been doing a lot of activities over this last transfer to help people veiw us as servants of the Lord. So it will be interesting to have a new companion because everyone watches what we do here. That and morrope is different than other areas because our focus many times is having activities rather than teaching lesson to stregnthen our members, and change the veiw of the people. So im praying i get a companion who is flexible and obedient, (and who is willing to work HARD haha)

Morrope has progressed a lot though. and I have some big news! we have 2 baptismal dates right now!! Their names are Juli and Magali. They will be the first baptisms in morrope! The church right now here is like the pioneers. The members are SUPER faithful, and they are eager to learn the gospel, and the investigators have to take a large step of faith to make the decision to be baptized. Its hard for many people to beleive that a church they have never heard of in their entire life really is the true church of God, but Juli and Magali have received their answer, and we are really excited. Im sad my companion wont be here to see the fruits of his labor. 

also, its mango season!!!! wooo!!! i have had mangos for the last 4 days haha. everyday someone offers us mangos haha. Im in heaven.

Also this weekend is the celebration of the 3 kings (another catholic Apostasia), they have parades and bands and a carnival all in the name of religion. haha its funny because here the catholic church is the party church. it was really fun to see yesterday, it reminded me a little bit of the fourth of july but they are celebrating the coming of the three wisemen. 

sorry its so short,

Love you all
Always turn outward and keep smiling.

Elder Bunker

Happy New Year!!!

Hey Everyone,

So first off... HAPPY NEW YEAR!! its crazy we are now in 2013! The way they celebrate new year here in Peru is they make life size figurines of people and burn them. its been interesting for the last little bit to see a whole bunch of manequins lining the street. Also they  do a ton of fireworks here. 

I got to spend the new years eve with the other missionaries in Lambayeque. Lots of fun. :)

oh and other Thing!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I didnt get to email last week due to christmas and the fact i got to call home instead. and HOLLY COW everyone is growing so fast i cant beleive it. Im going to get back home and the world will have fastfowarded in time haha. It was really neat to see everyone. 

It sounds like there is a lot going on at home and Im really happy with all the great news im getting from everyone about missions and school and awards and things like that. Its clear to me the Lord is blessing my family, and he is taking care of my friends. 

First I hope this isnt too weird to say in an email to everyone, but WOW, CONGRATS EVERYONE ON THE MISSION CALLS!! Im soooo happy to hear about so many people leaving on missions. I often wonder what it would sound like if someone was to write about how times in terms of Book of Mormon writing. haha. Im sure it would sound like this.

"And it came to pass that the Lord prepared many of his sons and daughters to preach the everlasting gospel to the world, and yea, they left in great numbers, yea, in this time so great of numbers to cover the face of the earth and preach the gospel to every people, language, and toungue, as was foreseen by the profets of old. 

And they became a deleightsome people, yea, a people of everlasting Joy, and they cried in one voice the Song of eternal salvacion, and repentance that all might participate of the same everlasting Joy, yea, even with their bretheren that had never heard of Jesus the Christ."

(Elder Bunker 1:1-2) haha, but seriously, I cant express my excitement for what is happening. I am praying for all of you as you prepare. it is the best experience i have had up into this point of my life.

So I know Michelle Perry is going to California, and Natalie Cameron is going to Paris, and I just heard from Raelene Oler that she is going to BRAZIL!! but i still havent heard from Stephanie Horan and a few others. So please! if you havent told me where you are going let me know! (Im sorry if im terrible at replying. its hard to find time to write hand written letters in the mission).

Oh and another thing. if someone could do me a favor and get me the address of Dallin Eliason, and Tanner Browning and fill me in on how they are doing, I would love to hear from them.

So this week has been intersting with christmas and to be honest we had a hard time finding ways to teach people because they were all traveling, BUT we were really blessed and we broke a record this week, in one day we taught 9 (effective) lessons. the normal day here is 3 or 4. but we taught the whole day! and were really blessed to find great people to teach. 

Funny thing as well. A few weeks ago we just got a new zone leader. His name is Elder Fabri, he is from Argentina, and he looks like michael from the office. but whats even funnier is his companion Elder Kettering (from Arizona) looks like Dwight... so our zone leaders are now Dwight and Michael from the office. I wont lie its made a few of the zone meetings a little hard to take seriously now. Heaven forgive me for thinking of such worldly things, but i thought i would share haha. 

other random thing from these last few weeks thats made my day is the stars. In morrope sometimes the lights go out and we can see the stars really clearly at night. I was really sad when i left because i thought i would have to say goodbye to the stars i know. but it turns out many of them show up here as well due to the fact im up north. 

I love the constalation called Orion. and it turns out we can see it year round here! (where as in the united states you can only see it in the winter) I know its strange but it really seems like a tender mercy to me. 

Well thats about all but I want to share one experience really fast. 

we have 2 investigators progressing in our area named Juli and Magali, and they are really awesome (i think they will be the first baptisms in morrope) we have been teaching them for about 3 weeks now. (a little less these last few weeks due to christmas) But they read almost everything we leave with them and they come every week to church. They both have felt the holy ghost and feel like the church is true, we just have a little bit more of helping them take the step of baptism. we were teaching them this last sunday about the plan of salvation, but it a different way than we normally teach it. we explained that we each need to repent and and be baptized otherwise we cant progress or enter the kingdom of god. they seemed to understand, but we could tell they were just listening instead of applying what were teaching to them. we were there for 30 min and we normally  wrap up a lesson around that time. so i was about to ask our member freind who was with us to give the closing praying, but i felt hesitant in doing that. 

I looked at my companion to see if had something to say, but he sat silent. we sat in silence for a moment, and he looked up and said, (translation) "i dont think we have said everything we needed to say" 

He then looked at both of them and said that they, in their state right now, cannot be saved. (pretty straight foward) that they need to REPENT and be BAPTIZED or all is in vain. if that is not calling repentance i dont know what is. we spent the next 45 min explaining why its so important to be baptized and repent and the spirit filled the room.

our lesson lasted 1:30 but wow. 

Love you all out of time

Always turn outward and keep smiling!

Elder Bunker

Nola :D

Everyone.

Wow. its been a great week. 

I have a story.

We have an investigator who is getting ready for baptism. and we are so excited. his name is orlando and his wife is named  eli. Eli is a member but is less active. 

Eli is a very strong woman, but very quiet. Her and Orlando are the poorest family i have seen here in peru. they live with only 4 walls of straw adn have a floor of sand. Eli this last week told us she needed a blessing of health adn so we gave her a blessing and afterwords she told us that she and orlando  had been talking. Elli is really sick and she said the doctors said she needed surgery but she told orlando that they had no money and they needed to trust in the lord. so they made some decisions. Her and Orlando have decided to turn their lives around. they are going to get married, attend church, and pay tithing (even though they have nothing) and orlando decided he wants to be baptized. We are estatic. We are hoping to see the Lords hand in their lives.

I know this story is breif. but i wanted to share it because it is such an example of faith to me. this young couple have nothing but they have decided to give everything to the lord. I wish i show everyone one in the world what miracles are taking place here in the mission feild. 

Im sorry this is so breif but i have one other experience to share.

This week we had our english class. and we have decided as a companionship that we want to strive to teach a gosple principle as well as english every time we have our class. but we want to do it in way not to scare people away.

This week we learned christmas words.

As we were teaching i was struck with an idea. We were approaching the end of the lesson and i told everyone i wanted to share a neat thing about the english language. I explained that the english language is a combination of many different languages.

I then wrote the word "Christmas" on the board and explained that there were two parts to the word. the first "Christ" and the second "mas": "mas" is a spanish word that means in english "more". 

I then began to explain that when one says Christmas in english, they are really saying More of Christ. And that whats Navidad (or Christmas) really is: it is to have more of the spirit of christ in our lives. The room grew silent and the spirit entered. and i could tell what i was saying was begining to sink in.

I hope we all can remember this christmas what christmas really means. More of the spirit of christ.

I love you all

Always turn outward and keep smiling

Elder Bunker

ps i have a new baby sister!! Nola sadie! cant share all the details right now. but heidi can explain more. :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

New Area

Hey Everyone!!

K, First. Grandma and mom. Thanks for the packages. Mom, i got package number 5 today. The one with the hello kitty card from molly haha. Made me a little sad at first. I hope she remembers me when i get home. And Grandma Schellenberg, I died laughing when i got your letter. Im so happy for you and grandpa that you got to come back to peru to visit. I hope i get that chance in the future. I know what you mean about peru becoming a home. its going to be weird to leave. I will be happy to see my family again but it will be weird. but i can forget about that for now. i still have 18 months! :D What made me laugh so hard though was your comment about the ´white lamanites´ in Cajamarca. I have met a lot of people from Cajamarca and i always think they are from the united states haha. The joke here in the mission for all the people from the united states is when we can speak well enough to tell everyone we are from cajamarca. I have only been able to do that a few times. My accent still gives me away haha.

This week we had a conference with Elder Camargo. He is a newly called 70 from this last general conference i beleive. (speaking of general conference i still havent seen that magazine... I might have a photo in it... not sure yet though). It was a great conference and he said a lot of things i really needed and really motivated me to work harder and get to know the scriptures better. Im finding more and more the scriptures really are my best freind.

So big news from Morrope!! we are growing!! Morrope is a small fishing town and its kind of the forgotten village of peru so its an area completely different than any other. But its been so amazing to see the work take off in only the two weeks i have been here. This week we broke records. We had the highest asistence we have ever had this week of 31 people in the house -church (we still dont have a building because we dont have enough people) but we almost ran out of seats and hymn books this week!! We have to ask the mission to send more supplies so we can help even more people.

And its all because we had a few great activities this week in which the Lord blessed us to have success. This week we had an activity of vollyball which was really fun. we played in the street and we set up the net between two light posts. it was almost like beach volleyball because the street is just dirt and sand haha. And we had a few new investigators show up there. We also started a english class this last week... and guess who is the teacher.... haha. yep! im teaching english now haha. it was alot of fun and we are starting to see the area really open up more. One of the hardest things we have to deal with is other churches teaching their members to turn us away. a rumor was spread before i got here that we are actually theives and we steal things from people during lessons... im pretty sure thats never happened. (im only the fourth missionary here and the other missionaries i know are good missionaries) so its been really interesting to work with that. The Lord has really blessed us with a lot of oppertunities to serve this week. We have been helping people all over town. We helped the wife of one of the investigators the other day pull water out of a well and set up a time to teach her and her family later that afternoon, and as we were heading to our next activity we ran into a guy who was tryign to load a dresser into his motortaxi so we helped him with that, and then we ended up offering another service immediately after that. It was amaizng to see that only within half an hour we were able to serve 3 different families and change their perspective of us. I love the mission for that reason. We get to serve ALL the time. I hope we find more oppertunities this next week.

We have a goal of setting up three baptismal dates this week! i hope they workout. They will be the first 3 baptisms of Morrope Chiclayo Peru Mission!!

I love you all

Always look outward, and Keep smiling!!

Elder Bunker

Pictues 1.5

Morope The Edge of the Vinyard

Hey Everyone!

First before all, Michelle Perry I just got your letter this last tuesday!!!!

Natalie Cameron congrats on your call!!!!!!!!!!!! holy cow im so excited for you!!!

And michelle i havent had time to write back yet, but I am expecting to hear the big news from you, not from my family haha. so DONT FORGET TO WRITE ME! haha Im waiting for that letter about your call!!! 

Wow so i have a lot to write haha. This last transfer has been crazy. I am in a place I never expected to be. I have been sent to Morope, its a small village about 20 min from Labayeque and about 40 min from Chiclayo and about 20 min off the coast of Perú!

This area is going to be really different. Morope is a small fishing-farming village. Everyone owns animals or Chakra wich pretty much means feilds of crops. There has only been four missionaries here, and i am the fourth. The people here are very poor, but still reject us a lot. I guess this is known to be one of the harder areas of the mission. there hasnt been a baptism here for at least 5 transfers which is 30 weeks. but just in this last week we have seen a lot of progress. I cant beleive it my new room is now a 3 story house haha. (mostly because we live in the church) there is only 4 families in our family group (there is no ward or branch out here) so i guess i will be giving a talk every sunday for a few months now haha. 

We are pretty much the pioneers out here. there isnt much to work with but we have had progress. I like to joke around that the lord has sent us to the edge of his vineyard haha.

 Our area is actually pretty big because we have our small town morope, but we are also assigned to all the little casarías in the area. (or small small villages around us) we got to visit one of them this last saturday. The village is called Caracucho. HOLY COW i have never seen anything more beautiful. we have two families out there and one of the owns one of the most beautiful chakras i have ever seen. and the best part... its FULL of mango trees haha. Mango has become my favorite fruit in peru. We will hit mango season in January or Februrary from what I hear and I will be here for it! :D We have already had a lot of mangos. 

So thats my new area, my new companion on the other hand is just as awesome. His name is Elder Cordero, He is from Chile and he is my first Latino companion and I am his first Gringo companion. So he has been helping me a lot with spanish and I have been helping him a lot with English. He is a really layed back guy. He likes to play soccer and he has 2 brothers. From the first day we have been laughing. He is funny guy and its fun to joke around with him. I will probably only have him as a companion for one transfer, and so im kind of bummed but its fun for now. 

This last week we have been teaching like crazy. Even though the people in general are rough, we have been really blessed to be able to find people to teach. 

we are teaching a couple named José y Deisy (yes its spelled like that). And they are awesome. I think they are going to be the first baptism in Morope! but first we have to help them get married... we are praying we can do it this month. the river next to their house has been full lately so we have been joking around that we need to get them married and baptized before the river dries haha. 

we had an interesting experience with José this week. we were teaching them one night and after the lesson José asked if we could help him understand something, and of course we said yes. He went on to explain that the night before he had a dream about us (the missionaries) he said that we came to help him finish his house (he doesnt have a roof and a few walls still, because he needs to earn more money) and we started digging a trench around his house and at first he didnt understand why, but then he saw that the river started to overflow and started distroying all of the other houses but when it got to his house it didnt pass the trench we dug. he said he took it as a sign to keep listening to us. 

One reason why they love listening to us is because we stop to talk. they said they can see a difference in the missionaries. that we dont just stop by to hand out pamplets but really were here to help.

well its time,

Love you all

Always turn outward, and keep smiling.

Elder Bunker

ps... i think this is the first time a lot of people have seen a gringo. (They all think its so funny i have arm hair haha)