Park City, Peru

Hey everyone,

 

Well... wont lie this has been a really long week of the mission, and everything that has been happening is really unexpected. The mission is truely a rollercoaster sometimes.

 

first, I said goodbye to morrope this week... i dont think i have ever cried more on the mission. Saying goodbye to the fiestas family was one of the hardest things Ive had to do in the last 10 months. I felt like i was leaving for the mission again. I asked my companion later if it was always going to be that hard to have transfers. He said it gets a little easier with each transfer. I sure hope he is right. I dont know if i can do that again. I hope and pray i will get the chance to come back and see them again.

 

so that was monday, tuesday we had a transfer meeting. this transfer 36 missionaries arrived!!!! about ten of them are waiting for their visas but wow 25 new missionaries!!!! that meant the mission needed to find 25 new trainers!!! wow. the mission is growing.

 

so here is the big news:  "Zona Lambayeque.... Elder Bunker.... leaving Morrope, your new area is Cajamarca, Atahualpa 2.... its a new area and your companion is Elder Molina. Your bus leaves Chiclayo at 2:00pm."

 

so there it is... my new area is a new area, or in other words i am in the mountains opening a new area.... as a senor companion.... wow, this is going to be fun...

 

so really fast about my area... its called atahualpa 2 because we are the second pair of missionaries to be in this ward in other words there are 4 missionaries in our ward. our area is fairly new, there were missionaries before, but there havent been for a long time. we have no investigators yet, which means this whole last week and probably this whole next week we will be contacting....

 

My area is the richest in Peru, im pretty sure. Cajamarca looks just like Park city (with a little old-spanish fling) All the men here work in the local goldmine so everyone is loaded and they have huge houses. i cant beleive it. i feel like im back in the states. It makes contacting really hard, because the people are a lot more "busy" or in other words rich-and-closed-hearted.... (i can only imagine the work in Highlands Ranch... I hope its not so hard) the trick here will be the references from the members. I hope and pray the members will accept us and help us in the work.

 

It rains a ton here because we are in the mountains (is sooooooo beautiful here), but that means we are normally soaked by the end of the day. i left my other shoes in my old area so i hope my  companion sends them through the mission office.

 

My new Companion Elder Molina is great. He is a new missionary with only 6 months in the mission but he already teaches well and we get a long great. he is from Ecuador, and i am teaching him english. Hahaha he already says to all the Elders "You little Cuti-Pie!" clear as a bell, and many other phrases haha. He is really great. I can tell we are going to have a lot of fun. I hope i can be a good senor companion, I dont feel prepared to open an area, and we are so overwelmed somethings. haha so we are walking (as it says in the bible) by faith alone.

 

This is going to be a big learning experience. we still dont have anyone to teach (we have been here 5 days) so please pray for us.

 

I love you all, thank you for your prayers and words of encouragement

 

Always turn outward, and keep smiling,

Love you all

 

Elder Bunker

Pictures 1.10

Leaving Morrope

Hey Everone,

(Elisa, i got your messages, thanks)

(Krysta, i got your birthday card, dont know if i thanked you yet)

Well the end has finally come... Time to say goodbye to Morrope. Wont lie. Im a little bummed, but i knew i would have to leave sometime. 

This last week has been hard but has been my chance to really give everything i have left to Morrope. I wanted to leave on a good note so ive been working hard to help people attend church and learn more there (and build relationships with the members). This week has been a success. We had 44 people in church yesterday which is the most we have ever had there. we have only done that once before...

Church was really good. We were a little worried at first because the district presidency was going to come to see if we are ready to become a branch... we wanted everythign to go well. My companion and I left to go pick up an investigator who wanted to come to church with us, and we got stuck (we couldnt find an open street, someone had blocked off all the streets to her house....) we realized that we might not have time to pick her up and make it to church on time... and we didnt want to be late because we wanted to leave a good impression with the district presidency.... well we sat for a second and prayed silently to ourselves. 

I realized it was much more important to me that a child of god got to attend church that to be one time and make a good impression. Even though my companion disagreed with my decision he followed. we found a way to climb over the barrier in the road and get to the house. We waited for a few minutes for them to finish getting ready (they were waiting for us!!) and headed up to the church. I hope that investigator will be able to progress more in the future. It was her first time at church. she seemed to enjoy it.

This week we also got to head out to caracucho. Mango season is over... all the fruit on the mango trees is gone. haha I feel like that was a little bit of a tender mercy that i was here in time to enjoy my favorite fruit. ;D while we were visiting one of the families they gave us a new fruit i have never seen before. from the outside it looks like a coconut. but the shell is softer. but when you cut it open it has a mangolike meat inside. (but harder) its called Mamey.... YUM... so good. Its super filling and very sweet. I hope i get the chance to try some more in the future.

Almost forgot to mention!!! so church went really good. (my convert, Jose, gave the class in preisthood! he is goign to be such a great preisthood holder, he will be receiveing the Higher Preisthood this next month in april!!! ) the district presidency came to preisthood with us and talked for a bit. They announced that Morrope is in the process of becoming a branch and when we get to a level of 80 people attendign church for a year they will build a chapel here! I think that really motivated the members. Our less actives from Morrope are now More active, and progressing very well. I think they are now even more eager to participate in everything that is happining. In april we will have 8 preisthood holders.

I feel like i have done everything i could have done here in Morrope, and the Lord has forgiven me for my short commings. Even though im sad to leave, im happy to know morrope is growing, I hope i get to come back someday to see morrope as a strong branch in the Kingdom of the Lord. (maybe with a building and everything)

Im excited to go to a new area and meet even more people to love. we will see where the lord sends me tommorrow.

Love you all!

Always turn outward, and keep smiling

Love

Elder Bunker

Thanks Everyone-- zombie week

Hey Everyone,

so this has been the most....  how can i say it... unproductive week i have had in the mission so far. or at least i havent been able to  see the results yet and i feel like im treading   water. 

Wait, Before i continue thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. I had a great pday birthday. or in otherwords i got to rest for my birthday because it landed one our weekly preparation day. we went and had lunch, watched church movies and then proselyted. not to bad, oh and then missionary sleep over with the zone leaders because we had multizone conference the next day. fun stuff. (elisa i did get your email)

 this week however has been the hotest week we have had in the mission, or at least it seems that way its been around  38 - 40 degrees celcieus (i dont know what that is in faraheit but yea). its been a little warmer, haha, so we asked the office to help  us out. they reallly came through this week with some new electric fans for out cement home. they saved us this sunday when we had our meetings. 

this week we started our third hour in church. we didnt have a third hour before becasue we didnt have the people to do it before.  so a lot of our week has been geared towards that goal. this week only 25 people showed up... the meetings went  great but i have no idea why we lost half our family group. i have been so excited these last few weeks because i have beginning to see a change the lives of the people we are helping... but there is oposicion in all things. we have a baptism planned for the end of this week, of a girl from a family that is reactivating. they are great people and they have come to chruch every week, but somethign happened yesterday. i hope all goes well this weekend.

  at the same time, with all of the training and traveling we have been doing, both on our part and on behalf of the members we havent had a whole lot of time to teach. i feel like we have reallly lost contact with a lot of our investigators. we have a few people who are progressing fantasticallly, but others that i feel like we have failed them this week.

my companion, at the same time, has been in zombie mode. not quite sure how to wake him out of it and get the work moving again. I only have 2 weeks left in morrope and i cant leave without  feeling that i left them in good hands. he is a great companion but he is old in terms of the mission. i would like to leave morrope with the highest asistance that they have had.  i will need your prayers this week. we have hit a low this week, but that means we are about to hit a high here soon. that is usually how things work.

we have done a lot i guess, just it doesnt show in our reports, nor in any of the goals we set. and i havent seen any of the fruits yet.

so this week, (despite being relatively unproductive ) we have had a few spiritual experiences. one of wich i would like to share breifly.

we are teaching a woman named santos. she was a contact i had while traveling with my comp. we hopped on a combi (its like a 15 pasenger van, but for public transport), and took a seat in the back. as we were walking to the back i noticed her watching us. when the combi starting going my companion fell asleep and left me to sit and think on my own. an impresion came to mind to talk to this woman, because i had set the goal to improve in talking to everyone. i wasnt  sure how  to start  the conversation, but  came to my mind the scripture in D&C about  opening your mouth and having it filled. i asked her where she was heading, that was a really dumb  question.... she was goign to the same place i was... morrope, but she smiled and responded morrope of course. I asked her if she lived there or was jsut traveling.... and from there we started our conversation, eventually she asked us what we do as missionaries, i responded that we share a message about christ, and she then INVITED us to her house  to share our message. i asked her for her address (which i wrote down completely wrong, but we found the house anyways) and later that week  visited her in her house.

this week we gave her a book of mormon, i  dont think i have ever seen anyone so happy to receive a book of mormon and accept the challenge to read  it. we will be visiting her tuesday this week... tomorrow... to see if she has read.

so  this week  hasnt been terrible, our numbers are low, but i know the lord is hellping us. we have been rejected many times but the work is still going forth.

im out of time. love you all

Always turn outward and keep smiling,

Love,

Elder Bunker

Last Week

Hey  Everyone,

first, krysta thompson, i got your letter with the little boat and such. thanks for that. i really enjoyed the letter.

So this week has been good, a little better than the last.

Its been raining a ton here in lambayeque, or at least a lot more that normal, (which is nothing). for about 3 days in a row now everything has been soaked in the morning from the nightime rain - all the streets here are made out of dirt so everything is muddy. - and then it dries (kind of) by 6 in the afternoon. it makes walking a little harder because we have to avoid mini rivers in the streets and such. and sometimes the mototaxis get stuck. The rain has come late this year.

All the farmers are happy for the rain, because it really helps with their crops, but its horrible in the cities because everything gets so dirty and trafic is terrible. (this last week the trash-picker-upers went on strike so not only  was there a ton of mud but it was mixed with all the wet garbage as welll. it smelt for a bit in lambayeque)

I was talking with someone the other day about the rain and they said that this next year we should be due for a peruvian weather phenonminon called "el niño". If you get a chance to look it up on internet im sure you will find some neat things about it. but "el niño" is when it rains HARD here in peru for about a week straight. a few hundreds of years ago it distroyed an entire civilazation of the señor de sipan. we will see if it really happens this next year.

the rain causes some problems for us though (other than the fact that everything turns to mud) and that is that people cant travel to attend church, so our asistence has been a little down this week. Also, there are many people who dont live under solid roofs here in Morrope. So many people get sick, and their things are all wet. (it also brings in mosquitos... misionary nightmare haha) it should pass soon though. 

So this is my last week in morrope. I really dont know for sure, but we are pretty positive because i have been here for 4 1/2 to 5 months now which is normally the time the missionaries get assigned to a new area. im really sad, but i want to leave morrope on a good note, so this week is going to be another week of hard work. 

Another interesting thing that happened this week. A few of the other missionaries are teaching a girl who works for a TV station, and she was looking for someone to do a Cabri cooking oil interveiw for their channel that week. and their missionaries offered our cook to do the job. Even though we cant be filmed as missionaries it was fun to watch the camerman come in and do an interveiw where we eat and everything. our cook was really funny, she had no idea what to say.

so thats about all i can write this week. Hope all is going well in the states! :D

Turn Outward, Look Upward, Walk Forward,

(Dont turn in, Dont look down, Dont go Back)

Love

Elder Bunker

Pictures 1.9

Jose - futuro sacerdocio

Hey everyone, 

k first just to remind everyone the address of the office has changed. it is now:

Elder Bunker

Misión Perú Chiclayo

Los Alamos 128, Urb. Santa Victoria, 

Chiclayo 

Peru.

second. we had a great weekend this week. :D XD

it was great for a few reasons. first, we had our third baptism here in morrope. José got baptized and he will soon be a preisthood holder here in our family group. he is great haha. he always shows up to the activities on time (sometimes 1/2 hour early) haha and is always the first to offer to clean (even though all the members are willing) :D

we are excited for what is going on here in morrope. even though the progress is slow, there is progress and its amazing to see. 

José brought his neice Melissa to the baptism. She seemed pretty interested, so we will see what happens. we have a appointement with here and José this weekend...

other interesting experience is that one night we were walking back to the house and we passed through the center of town, and for the first time ever in morrope we saw police... it made me kind of sad to see that... morrope has always been so calm and quiet. Many people have told us that what happens is that outsiders from other cities come to the small villages and introduce drugs and crime, and it ruins these small peaceful places...

I was talking to my companion one night about all this, and i told him i would love to be here in morrope my whole mission. haha he looked at me like i had gone crazy and asked my why. i explained to him that i thought i would be able to have more of an influence that way. I have been pondering a lot about the missionaries in the book of mormon and how they had so many miracles happen in their work. Ive often wondered why it is that we dont baptize thousands of people like they did in the days of the book of mormon. I realized that Alma and the sons of mosiah were missionaries for a long time (i think it was about 15 years that alma the younger served as a missionary) and i figured that the miracles take time and i would love to have more time in morrope to see those miracles happen. 

My companion then said something that has caused me to think a little. He asked me if i didn think that José´s baptism wasnt a miracle... I have to admit, it was a miracle and we have seen a lot of other miracles here in morrope as well. i have already seen the hand of the lord in the work and seen the fruits of our labor. 

I feel so blessed to be here in morrope. I often think about Heritage Tours here, when we visited Palmayra, and Navoo and Misouri, because these people are REAL pioneers. the experiences here in morrope and parrallel a lot of times to what the early saints had experienced. we have A LOT of opposition here. Many, if not all, of the other churches teach people to reject us as missionaries and spread rumors about us. Many people are afraid of us because i am clearly a foreigner and they are afraid that we are theives of some sort. But what has been milagroso in all of this is that the hearts of many people have been changed and they are a lot more receptive now.

one last experience, yesterday we found a man through a reference who belongs to a different faith and is very devoted to his beleifs. he is really different because he is well educated in the bible and has read the bible 3 different times (this is really rare to  find in a small mining-fishing village) He knew a little about the book of mormon and asked us about the golden plates. we explained that joseph smith traslated the book of mormon from these golden plates. he then asked about where the golden plates are today (as if he was expecting that would stump us) we explained that they were with moroni, and he explained its hard to beleive in somethign that just one man has said. 

we then explained about the 3 and 8 witnesses and that god has always provided more evidence as well as answer our prayers. 

he then admited he didnt know much about the churchand wanted to learn more.

shoot, out of time, love you all.

Love you all,

Always turn outward and keep smiling,

Elder Bunker