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)

Cambios... Me Voy...

Hey all.

So... This week we have transfers, and its mine turn to leave... wow. This has to be one of the hardest parts of the mission. I have been in Latina for 4 months and two days now. And even though it doesnt seem like a whole lot of time this place has really become my home. the ward has become a family for me, my companion is my best freind, and the converts have become my brothers. For some weird reason it feels like im at the point of being dropped off at the MTC again, there is a huge void ahead, and im not sure what it holds, all i know is im going to charge into at full speed like i did before and trust the lord is on the other side.

In Latina I have grown so much. Some say that the Mission is Life and if that is so I have grown from 10 years old to 20 years old here in Latina, Its here I was a ´teenager´ in the mission and learned how to speak, how to walk, how to conduct myself. I cant beleive that i have already had 6 months in the mission... 1/4 of ´Life´ has already passed right before my eyes.

this week has been a week of wrapping up everything. we had more lessons this week than in all the other weeks of my whole mission. and we challenged more people to baptism this last month that all 5 months before put together. Right when i feel like we are going to change the world the world has changed on me haha. Part of me would like to feel like its not fair but the other part knows that its more than fair, and that the Lord is in charge.

Somethings that have really brought me comfort this week. On my mission plaque I asked that they put the scripture D&C 6:32-37 the lord explains in this scripture that what one sews he will reap and that one should not have fear to do good. This has definately been the case here. I think i can leave this area and honestly say that i have done everything that i have been able to do. even though i wont be able to see the results or the people get baptized i feel confident i did my part.

the other thing that has really brought a lot of comfort is talking to our ward mission leader. He said that this área has really changed in the time that i have been here. that before i came it was closed and a few other missionaries had opened the area with only a few baptisms, and that Elder Larson and I have been able to prepare it even more and that we are going ot see many more baptisms.

Im sad to leave and i will be praying for the people here. But i know the Lord is calling me to another place and im anxious to see what experiences lie ahead.

I sent a letter home about goal setting this last month, and i want to share the results of our labor. Our zone had set a really high goal of baptisms this month and we had prayed fervently to know if we should set a goal as high as we did. We felt impressed that it was the right thing to do. We have worked as a zone really hard together to realize our goal, and to be honest, we didnt make it. some might look at our zone and think we had failed this month because we didnt make our goal, BUT this last month we led the mission in baptisms. We had the highest baptism amount that we have ever had before.

The power of goals is great and the power of goals with inspiration from god is greater.

I love the quote that ´two men can acomplish ANYTHING together, as long as one of those men is god´

I know this is true, i feel like all too often we forget god is all powerful and sometimes the only that is lacking in miracles is our faith. (we must remember that all things will be accomplished according the will of god as well)

this week we found a man that has been inactive for two years. well... i shouldnt say we found him, he found us. we were walking in the street one day and this man came up to us on a bike and began speaking to us in broken english, he told us he was baptized in our church and he would like for us to come to his house to talk to him more. we tried to go to his house the following sunday but we were swamped with appointments, we finally had time this sunday to go visit him and what he told us broke my heart.

He told us that he was a convert to the church and explained how his freind introduced him the missionaries. The missionary who baptized him is named Elder Scott from California, Im assuming he has already returned home. He told us that elder Scott had become his best friend and they shared a lot of good times together. He said elder scott went to his house every week and they would teach the gospel in english and spanish and Genaro (thats his name) would help them with their spanish and read the book of mormon with them. He would often tease elder scott and tell him that he should marry a girl from peru and live here in Latina.

After his baptism Genaro went on a trip and Elder scott was assigned to a new area, but before he left we tried to contact Genaro and when he couldnt find him he ended up leaving a note.

Genaro pulled out an old sticky note with a message written on it. it said that elder scott was glad to have genaro as a freind and that he needed to continue in the faith.

Genaro told us that he tried to talk to Elder scott but he had lost contact. Genaro looked as if he was about to cry, i think i have only begun to realize the importance of the missionaries to the converts.

Genaro told us that he was afraid that we had forgotten about him. and he was waiting all day on sunday to talk to us and when we didnt come he was really sad.But he was glad we came this sunday.

I hope and pray that the people i have taught here will never feel forgotten

Love you all

Always turn outward and keep smiling

The Lord is in charge.

Love Elder Bunker

Sewing for others to Reap

Hey everyone,

Im going to apologize in advanced if this is really short.

First, Happy thanksgiving to all, i almost forgot until i read the email from my mom. we dont celebrate thanksgiving here so i wont be doing anything different besides the normal. I dont know maybe my companion and i will offer a prayer of thanksgiving but we wont have time to do anything other than that. 

This week has been really good. something suprising has been happening in our area. we have been finding more and more people who are ready for baptism. there are only a few... road blocks. I have been here for almost 4 months now and I have really grown to love Latina. Im scared that im going to be sent to a new area. i feel like things have just started to get good. I feel like if my companion and i could just stay a little bit longer we could change this area. I have heard it is a lot harder than a lot of areas but then again, i feel like this is the best area i could of hoped for. we have cambios (changes) this next week so we will see what happens.

One of the things that has made me the most excited for this area is the families that we are teaching. We have been teaching two girls for a little while now, Paola and Mirely. who are 16 and 18 and they have been progressing really well, but its hard to find them durning the week. they had a baptismal date for the end of this week (we had to change it, they are not quite ready yet), but the miracle with them is during one of lessons their older sister Karla came in to listen. She is attending a catholic church and is studying medicine. we had left 3 nephi 11 with paola and mirelli to read before the lesson and when we arrived they had a few questions about baptism and how it works. we explained we are baptized the same way jesus christ was baptized and asked they beleived if it was important to be baptized in the way jesus christ taught. They all afirmed that they beleived this was the way we should be baptized. we were able to later in the week challenge karla to baptism. so the three sisters have a goal to be baptized the 15 of december. and their little brother is going to start listening to us too. their mom is a member, the only hard person to teach will be their dad i think, but i shouldnt judge the situation yet. I havent been able to talk to him too much. So we have a whole family to teach!!!!! im so excited. (and sad becaus i might not be here to see them all be baptized.)

(Karla is an investigator of gold, she reminds me so much of junior, she has a really tender heart and we have had some really great lessons with her. every time we teach her we can feel the power of the spirit. she knows what the spirit feels like, and that is the most powerful tool anyone can have as they look for answers)

somehting else interesting has been taking place here too. There have been a lot of trials in the lives of the people who we are teaching but it seems to be opening up the hearts of their families and the members of the ward.

I wont be able to share a whole lot because a few of the situations are a little delicate and i dont want to be throwing personal information everywhere. but i will share what i can.

Junior´s family has been passing through some hard times. His sister had her baby, but there has been complications. The family is really heart broken and humble right now. I have taught this family the whole time i have been here in latina and its been hard to help them progress. they are a wonderful family and they keep their commitments and listen to us and invite us in their home, but their hearts havent been always open. They arent hard hearted, they just havent seen why our message is so important. We had the opertunity to go to the hospital (its nothing like a hospital in the united states, healthcare is REALLY different here) and give a blessing to natalies baby. ( long story short, i know these little ones are straight from heaven because of the spirit in that room ) and the ward members have been stopping by their house to offer help to the family. we have really seen a change in the family. their hearts are more open and i know its been an answer to our prayers. I hope we can continue to help them. 

The other miracle is with a man we are teaching named franko, franko has had a really crazy past. I wont go into everything, but he hasnt always been a church going guy. he really wants to change his life and we are so excited to teach him. he loves when we visit and he never wants us to leave and he loves to go to the church. the only problem is his wife is super catholic. she sometimes doesnt let him leave. this last week she had an accident. she got burned really bad by boiling water so franko has been taking care of her. we stopped by to visit franko and she was there. she has always been nice to us, but has never wanted to talk much with us. we started talking to her and asked if we could help her in anyway.  i think it softened her heart.

she let franko go to church this week

I love you all

always turn outward adn keep smiling :D :D :D

Sincerly Elder Bunker

Desafios

Hey everyone,

Before I begin i want to say "Happy Birthday" to Jean (my brother-in-law). I hope its a good one,

So... this week... wont lie, its been hard and good and full of new experiences. The mission is a rollercoaster. 

This week all of our baptisms fell through. None of the people with a baptism goal showed up to church, and we dont have much time before their baptismal date. Nobody said missionary work was easy. Please be praying for the people who are listening to the missionaries right now. they need all the help they can get. And if you have missionaries in your area offer them your time and prayers, they also need all the help they can get.

I am starting to understand how much missionary work really is the front lines of the battle we are fighting in this world against the advesary, the comforting thing is that we know who in the end will turn out the victor.

I wanted to share something cool that i got to see this last p-day. I havent had a chance to send a picture, but maybe for those who are reading this if you have time you can look up. Its called the Árbol Milenario or in other words the Melenial tree. it is a tree that is incredibley old. it is in the polmac forest near chiclayo. this tree has split in half and fallen over, but it has a unique ablility to turn its branches into roots and for that reason it is still living. i was looking at this tree and i noticed how the branches dissapeared underground and reamerged as smaller tree a small distance away from the origional trunk. and how no matter what obstacles it encountered it continued to grow. 

I wont take the time to make the connection, but i want to invited everyone to ponder this idea. that faith is like a seed, and sometimes we are expecting our testimony to grow tall and perfectly straight with symetrical braches and the whole 9 yards, but life isnt that way, we face obstacles, we are subject to sin, and we have trials in this life. Although this tree in the forest has grown in the most unorthodox way it is by far one of the most magnificent trees i have seen.

I wish i could share more of a mission experience but im out of time

Thanks for your letters (Brandy Mayo i just got yours this week, Im excited for you and all the decisions ahead!!)

Always turn outward and Keep smiling!!

Love you all 

Elder Bunker

ps its mango season!! seriously the best!! haha I have had mango like 3 times this week. (it also means its the begining of the rainy season... haha wish i had photos of what happens in our house when it rains...one of our hallways doesnt have a roof...)

pps we are also due for El Niño this year. (giant flood) should be fun. only happens every seven years from what i hear. 

ppps im still learning the customs here. I learned this week never to turn down food even if you are full... they get really offended here if you dont accept food. they usually understand when we tell them we cant drink coffee, but to turn down a plate of chicken... wow. that, and i learned that brushing your teeth in the kitchen is not ok.