Oldest Baptism...​. La Hermana Paquita

Hey everyone,

Wow so this week has been super crazy. Im sorry i probably dont have a bunch of time to write. but i wanted to write a few things.

So this week hermana paquita got baptized!!! we were super excited and it was super awesome. I have never felt so confidente baptizing anyone before. she was so ready! It was hard getting everything planned because our ward missionary leader disappeared and we had to help out in all the baptisms of the zone and in other zones as well running baptismal clothes around etc. 

But the baptism turned out really well... all the family came and watched and many of them made the decision to be baptized as well. we will be having a baptismal service the 8th for everyone else who is ready :D we are super excited for the perez family! ive said it before but i will say it again i really fell like we have received a lot of help from the other side of the veil as well i fell like everything is moving along better than we had thought. Im sure they have (i know they have) someone needing help on the other side of the veil. 

It hasnt been easy though. There is a lot of opposition too. We are not quite sure where the source of it is yet, but its holding some of the members back from making the small necesary decisions. For example we were teaching Juan the oldest son last week and we had a really good spiritual lesson one night, and we felt so good about everything, but the next day he showed up to his brother´s house as we were teaching him and joined us for the lesson and then began throwing a lot of doubt and random pointless questions in in such a way it caused a lot of doubt in both of them and they are failing in coming to church. its hard to get the WHOLE family to progress at the same time, but the lord knows when they will be baptized. I guess we just have to be patient. (Elder Uchtdorf gave a really good talk on that a few years ago in a gerneral conference)

sorry so short, love you all,

Always turn outward and keep smiling!!

Elder Bunker

ps the mission is so so so awesome!

Go Broncos!

Hey family,

Hey.... well the title of the email has nothing to do with what i wanted to say... haha i just wanted to cheer my home team on a little. haha

This week.... wow... was a very interesting week. haha i say that because its been hard this week balancing between the zone and the work.... The week before last we realized that we had neglected the zone a little bit. (president risso got after me a little) more than anything because we were so excited with the perez family.... haha. so im still learning how to balance everything out. i really just want to work without distractions... but thats the mission.

The FHE we had planned didnt work out as well as we had hoped. haha only a few of the family members came but we had a really good lesson. I would like to think that it opened a few doors. even though the whole family didnt come they heard about it and they want to see what it was all about. so at least it sparked some more interest haha.

This last week we had a really cool experience. Brother Perez´s (Victor Auturo) wife Paquita (the grandma) has been listening to us and we had began to talk a little about the book of mormon and we come to find out she already has a testimony of the book of mormon and joseph smith and the church!!! she knows its all true!!! haha we were soooo excited haha we literally were bouncing out of our seat to invite her to baptism haha. she said yes! she would be baptized but she would not accept a date. She still feels bad for leaving her church because she is one of the only people who keeps it running. That kind of put us in a hard spot. She NEEDS to be baptized but she doesnt want the people she would leave behind to go astray. she is such a sweet lady. She really has a heart of gold and a lot of patience. we explained to her that the best thing she can do for the people she loves is to show them an example just as christ showed us HIS example by being baptized. she didnt seem sure, but she is close!!!

Also Brother Perez´s son Fernando has started listening to us! He is soooooooooooo  coool i cant even explain the feeling i get when i think in fernando and his family. Its fernando, his wife carmen, his son diego (20) and his son daniel (5). Diego is awesome. we havent taught him formally yet but we will get there. He likes the church. But fernando, wow, i havent ever seen anyone with a more sincere desire to follow god. He has so much faith i can feel MY faith grow when i talk to him. He told us this week that even though he attends a church he has stopped feeling what he has felt before and he doesnt feel like he can progress more, but when we hears us speak he feels that conversion he had earlier grow. He says he knows that he needs to listen to us and he is willing to pray and ask god what he needs to do, and if he should be baptized (thats his biggest doubt i guess... hes not sure if he should be baptized again) I hope he prays this week. we have a lesson with him wedsenday. Seriously, i dont know why but i just feel so happy and excited when i think about fernando. He and Carmen are ready

we are also teaching Juan another one of the sons. Juan is awesome but i feel like we have hit some problems... he hasnt really taken the time to read quite yet and its stunting his progress. His faith is there, he knows what he needs to do, but all of his doubts are due to the fact that he hasnt read and prayed yet. I dont know how, but for some reason its so hard for people to ask god what they should do and trust in His answer (Im probably included in "those people" haha) His wife and daughter listen to us as well, but they will only progress as far as the Juan does. If he takes the first steps they will follow. 

Im super excited for this family, but sometimes i dont feel capable of helping them... i feel like they deserve a better missionary who can teach them more effectively, but at the same time i know god called me to this area for a reason and in part i feel like its helping this family progress. 

The ward is awesome!! i wish i was better organized to be able to work with all the members here. We really need more missionaries!! i hope they asign two more here with us.

The work is much but laborers are few. 

I know this is the work of the Lord and i love his work.

Love you all

Always turn outward and keep smiling!

Elder Bunker

Familia Perez

Hey Everyone,

So this is going to be super short. sorry there really is no time to do everything.

So i just want to explain whats going on in general really fast. So me and my companion have been picking up a little more the pace in our work in the last two weeks and we have really seen a lot of blessings. The zone is doing well, we have a few struggles with missionaries who are getting sick and cant work much, Im not sure what to do quite yet, but we will see.

But apart from the zone struggles we have been doing really good as a companionship. Our ward is awesome!!! the references just apear out of no where and the members are super willing and excited to help us. The struggle is trying to balance our zone activities with our own proselyting... We love proyselyting but there is a lot of things to do in the zone as well....

Right now we are teaching the perez family. i have to explain a little bit more about them. Victor Perez is the grandpa of the family and he and his daughter and his two granddaughters are the only members right now.... Victor has an amazing conversion story. He and his whole family have been adventists for about 15 years now and several  years ago his daughter got baptized. He was super against and he became a large roadblock between her and the church and eventually caused her to go inactive. 

Years later he goes to a book store (he loves reading books) and finds a few institute manuals  and starts reading and he really felt the spirit as he read and he recognized everything he read as true. so he wanted to know what church was publishing the books and he found out it was the mormon church that he had been opposed to for so many years. He felt bad and he told his daughter to go back to church, secretly looking for a way to join himself because he knew it was true. Long story short the misionaries got their house and gave him a book of mormon which he read in less than a month and was baptized. 

Tonight we have a Family home evening with the majority of his 8 kids and 26 grandkids. Im super nervous. the missionaries have been able to talk to each of the families but this will be the first time we do something with the whole family. I feel like they are super prepared. Many of them have had kids pass away and are very afficted by the tragic events of the last few years. I really feel like they need to know about temples (mom i shared your thoughts about greif, it really helped and it was exactly what this sister needed thanks) I almost feel like im teaching abraham and his family because there are so many and if we can help them I feel like we are really converting hundreds of people. I feel such a desire to help this family. Please pray for us!

I know this church is true, and i know its true in part because we have the full gospel which includes the sealing ordinances for families.

sorry so short. 

Love you all,

Always turn outward and keep smiling!

Elder Bunker

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