More Pics 6.28.11

Downtown Lima, Peru

Lima housing on the hill

City Center Lima

Anyone for a little ping pong?

Lyrics to Christopher's Song from the last chapter of John

This song was inspired by a talk we saw by Elder Holland.
It is based off of the last chapter in John.
Ya´ll should read it.
Basically christ left, and peter´s like "Well now what, we were fishers before, lets go fish!". And then Christ comes and tells him to "Feed his sheep".
I think this is when peter really GETS It. now we need to get it too.

Feed My Sheep

Verse 1

Do you love me? was the question posed.

Yes Lord I love thee, of this you know.

Do you love me, more than these fish you seek?

Yes of course lord I do

Then feed my sheep



Chorus

I will leave this boat, I will leave this net,

I will leave it all, and never forget

The purpose I am here, or the things you´ve done.

Lord without you I am none.



V2

Do you love me? The question still rings.

You know I love thee, thou knowest all things.

Lovest thou me? More than these new movies?

Yes of course Lord I do.

Then feed my Sheep

Chorus

I will leave my love, and the internet

I will leave it all, and never forget,

the purpose I am here or the things you´ve done,

Lord without you I am none

Bridge

I will feed thy sheep forever, and never turn away from thee.

I will follow thee wherever, and do all you ask of me.

It isn´t easy but with you I can do all things

So I´ll feed they sheep.

6/28/2011

Elders on the Edge
Sightseeing at the Ocean

Beautiful Peru

The Big Brown Temple Thing

Hey beautiful family.
This week was crazy awesome. Our p day is today tuesday instead of tomorrow, which is prob why I don´t have any emails from ya´ll. but its all good. Last wednesday all the latinos left and the americans got to go on a tour. It was pretty sweet. I sent some pictures I took. I bought some stuff, everything is pretty cheap here. We also saw this old ancient temple thing. My guess is it´s where christ appeared in the america´s, but that´s just me. :) It was funny, huge group of americans in the middle of a busy place. people were randomly taking pictures of us and stuff. I sent something today for dad. It cost me way more to send it than it did to buy it so I prob won´t do much package sending. Speaking of money, Dad could you check your wells fargo account, and check my account from there to make sure my card worked well. I withdrew 150 soles from an atm, with a 10 sole fee. so it should have taken out like 55-60 bucks maybe. also something I need is US postage stamps. If possible please send them to Trujillo mission home. ( I´ll give the address if you don´t have) But yeah i send my mail just like I regularly would in the US, the church takes the letters to the US and they go from there. Thanks I think that´s all. I also got my new companion this week. His name is elder Muñoz and he is from columbia bogota. He is really shy. Which will make his mission hard. But he is an awesome dude and I love him to death. My old companion always wanted to play every time we could, like ping pong or whatever, but with this companion I can actually study extra, which is awesome to get more done. I am learning a lot. I have really grown to love studying. Especially the Bible. I have read the book of mormon 4 times but growing up I never focused too much on the bible. But the bible has it all too. Its crazy awesome I don´t know why so many people have a hard time with our church when it´s all in the bible! haha. So right now I´m working on reading the book of mormon in spanish, and the new testament in english. Started in acts, and will get the four gospels later, but acts is cool because it talks about paul and preaching the gospel. I am also loving more and more to teach. Instead of dreading TRC I am getting kind of anxious to teach. My spanish is best when I am teaching haha. Today got to go to the temple. Which was awesome. and afterwords I really had to use my spanish, to take a cab to the place to ship the package, to ship the package, to make a copy of my id, and to take a taxi back to the ccm. Just me and my comp, which my comp didn´t help too much due to his shyness. But it was cool feeling real. haha. The ccm here is good. I think one kid is wanting to go home, which stinks. and another kid got a parasite bug or something somehow, but antibiotics and bam he´s doing better too. prob shouldn´t have said that, mom, but don´t worry about me I will be fine. I´m careful. But mostly I am just glad I know why I am here and don´t have any doubts that I need to serve a mission, and going home is not an option. (unless I die) haha jk. . mom. anyways, I wrote a song this week, I will send the lyrics in another email. I love all of you guys so so much. I am excited to hear from you next week. I hope you are all happy. Oh yeah, something that I learned is that when you pray, you need to pray with specific questions. I fasted and prayed that I could remember things in my mind more easily, and I have seriously felt that already just the past two days. Love you guys so much.

June 22, 2011

Beautiful Peru MTC and Soccer Field

North American District and Teacher

Elders, Friends, Roomates, Comps.

Elder Hurley in front of Peru MTC

Templo De Lima Peru & Elder Hurley

Hey family!
Happy birthday Dad! it sounds like you had quite the experience this week. I was thinking a lot about you this week, being fathers day, your birthday, and knowing you had kidney stones. I love you so much Dad you have always been such a great example to me. Thank you so much for your letter. I am glad the kidney stone passed. have a great birthday! Thanks for the emails mom and Matt. I can´t take pictures of the things i am doing, we can only take pictures on p day and all the other days is the days i am doing stuff. haha so i will do my best, but the work is more important than a good blog. as for my address, i sent two letters (physical) that should have my address. plus under my facebook under ¨notes¨I put all my addresses before I left. but I will email it too. Love you so much mom. Loved your letter matt. lucky you havea baby grand! always wanted one haha. I got to play piano quite a bit this week. Love piano. I started writing a song too based on the last chapter of John, I´ll send the lyics next week. today we are going on a ¨tour¨ so I get to really see peru, and I can bring my camera so look forward to that next week. All the latinos are only here three weeks, so they all left yesterday. Its basically like 22 americans here at the ccm right now haha. 2 latinos who had travel problems are still here too. but I get a new compañero tomorrow. This past week was soo good. The temple last week was amazing, I really felt the spirit so strong in there. I have been thinking a lot about our family and how blessed I have been to be raised in the gospel. Our family has been so blessed by the gospel, and especially teaching that the gospel blesses families has helped me realize this. Tell courtney to watch out, cuz for physical activity i have been playin volleyball lately and have gotten pretty good :) yesterday we all played soccer though, (since the latinos were all gone and its actually fun for us americans haha) and it was way fun. I got to go contacting again on saturday, which was awesome as usual. The area we knocked was a little bit nicer than the last area (nothing too great, they just actually had a roof over there heads) But I instantly saw the coorelation of how much stuff you have and your humility. these people had just a little bit more money and there hearts were harder and not as receptive to the gospel. Some people wouldn´t even talk to us, just waving there finger at us haha. But me and my companion went with another missionary who´s area it was, so that was cool. He had one appointment, we taught the first lesson, i mostly just testified but it was so good, we talked about baptism at the end and he even agreed to be baptized and has a date. so awesome! to see this first hand. Lots of dogs, I´m sure I´ll get bit a couple times, but its part of the mish haha. After lunch me and my companion got to tract alone. since the other missionaries weren´t back yet. it was cool, we ran into the missionaries we were supposed to be with and split up one and one. this missionary only had 2 months left. I thought he would be at the top of his game, but really was pretty lazy, he even told me this, and many things he did I just couldn´t believe, but it just gave me so much incentive to press forward till the end and be the best missionary I can. We had a couple more lessons. I even ran into a guys that spoke english, and he said he wanted to come to our church. He wouldn´t set up a time to be taught but just wanted to come on sunday. haha so thats cool. it was weird hearing english randomly on the streets. there was another lady that let us in her house, she was way catholic though, which is always hard. We got a bunch of second visits and this work is the greatest thing ever. The gospel is the most important of our lives, I really believe that. Yesterday I was called as Zone Leader. really surprising because he kept saying they try to involve as many different people in leadership as they can. I was the only one that stayed a leader from last group, and now in the new group really weird, even more responsibilities now, but I am learning a lot about being a leader. Dad told me in the first letter before I left that he believed I was meant to be a leader. I haven´t felt like I am best leader, but I think it is something the lord has in store for me to lead, and I am learning so much. I hope you are all doing awesome. Love you all -elder Hurley

June 15, 2011

Picnic area Peru MTC

Elders @ Bedtime Peru MTC

Peru MTC Companion

June 15, 2011

hey everyone!

I hope dad is doing ok, that is terrible about the kidney stones. I´ll pray for him. I attached some pictures, hopefully they worked, this will be easier than sending the sd card. i´ll try to send like 5 or 6 each week. (thats all they let us) and we can only send paper in the mail anyways here. These week was one of the best weeks ever. First off, thanks for all of your letters, I love love love hearing from all of you and i wish I had thirty minutes to just read your letters, rather than read them all fast AND write my letter. My companion is awesome, he grew up in the church. This week was cool, I was reading in our heritage and I came across a paragraph about Zera Pulsipher, I was like that is my great great great great grandpa! It was cool it talked about him going on a mission and stuff. At the MTC we teach a bunch, which is really good practice. We teach 2 to 3 times every day. I went to interpol this week, the driving here is way crazy haha, the cab driver was playing the radio and it was all american stuff. Sundays are always good. I really felt the spirit, Especially in priesthood. We need to just pray when we have a problem about anything or making hard decisions, and rely on the spirit in what you should do. I always do so much on sundays, I think my face is easily approachable or something because I´m always asked to do something. I taught again in sunday school, just at the end (even though I taught the week before too haha) but it is all really good because I´m sure the load will triple in the field. Ok, now for the exciting stuff, on Saturday I got to be a real missionary. Ha but for reals, they take everyone to go contacting and tracting. It was just me and my companion and a teacher that came along, we just had an assigned area and went out. I knocked my first door in peru! These houses are so tiny, I think everyone just home makes their house. but my room at home is probably bigger than there whole house. The whole day was a very humbling experience. The first house we knocked let us in, they turned off their radio, called everyone in, and prepared to listen to our message. It was amazing, these people are so ready for the gospel. We gave them the lesson on the restoration, and I told the Joseph Smith story. They could feel this to good. The grandpa of the home kept saying ¨This is GOOD¨ We committed them to pray about our message and to attend church. Really awesome! They even gave us a referal. Afterwards they offered us some Inca Kola. I swear this family had nothing, and inca kola was the nicest thing they had, and yet they offered it to us. So humble. They didn´t even have a way of communication, cell phone or nothing. but we got there address, after this visit we hand them off to the missionaries in this area. One man answered through the window, didn´t have a shirt on, i think he was sleeping, we asked if we could come back in thirty min. he said we could, but when we did he didn´t answer haha. We committed 3 other families to pray about our message and to attend church. Everyone says they are catholic, but most are not really serious, more of just like a tradition. One guy was literrally driving away when we were at his door (the only car I saw in the whole neighborhood, and it was because it was his job as a taxi driver.) but he parked his car, let us in his house, and let us teach him. I´m so blessed to be called here and I know it´s where I´m supposed to be. The language get´s really frustrating some times, but I would rather be somewhere where people are willing to listen and have to learn a language, then the other way around. After lunch we vistited less'active members. The first lady we talked to was SOO nice. I had a hard time understanding everything, but I shared my favorite scripture and bore testimony. She showed us where other people on our list lived. No one was home though. This time it was just me my companion and another member. They build there houses on the mountain here, like literally all the way up the mountains. We spent like 3 hours walking and hiking trying to find the less active members homes. The organization of houses and address is really crazy hard. We never found another who was actually home, but we ran into some other missionaries that were talking to a lady who´s husband was the member or something like that, but she said she didn´t like the church and she was catholic. but she let us all in here house and we sang and bore our testimonies. Was a really great day. Only have a couple minutes left, but I love all of you. yesterday they let us do TRC (teaching practice to investigators) in english. I didn´t get to teach, but it was SO funny. Because no ones really understands english anyways, but the investigators (teachers) tried to pretend that they understood. but it was funny. There are some people that speak english, but not that I get to talk to. the president is latino but he speaks english. and my branch president speaks both as well, but all the meetings are still in spanish. They try to give us a translater, but I think I could do a better job them him haha. Overall I learned the language is my biggest barrier, I know the gospel, and how to relate to people, just need to do it in spanish. Haha. I love you guys, 20 seconds left. kiss dad and max for me.

Elder hurley

June 8th, 2011 To My Family I love

hey everyone, only thirty minutes to write and i just used ten of them reading emails so i will do my best to get across everything thats going on. (we can´t print email here). I loved reading all your letters and hearing from all of you. It is so great to hear how you all are doing. I´m excited to see dad to be a bean pole like in high school when i get back. I hope he keeps it up! Everyone got haircuts when we first got here, no matter what, haha which is funny cuz the other mtc gives you one before you leave. but here it is much shorter, so my hair is like a buzz, shortest i{ve ever had it. The food here is way different but way good. They have a lot of different types of potatoes and those are served each meal. There is also a soup, but they use a plate looking type thing rather than a bowl. They eat a lot of keeche (not sure how to spell) which surprised me, never been a big fan of keesh, but i try it every time haha and its always different. They also have chicken every meal it seems. Always whole chicken with the bones though. yesterday it was kind of boneless which was new, but it always is cooked bones in all and served that way (even in the soup). Also we drink every kind of juice for our drink. today was piña which is my favorite. but they have like watermelon, cantelope (both allergic haha) tangerine, and a whole bunch of apple juices. the apple juice is way different, its like a thin apple sauce rather than what we have in the states, and there is seeds in it. but its all way good. and I love the Bread here. MOM HAPPY BIRTHDAY !! (in a couple days) I hope you have an excellent birthday, here are some hugs and kisses , XOXOXOXOXOXOXxoxoxoxoxo. You´ve always been awesome to me. Thanks for updating me on grandpa, that is good to hear. It´s cool to hear all of your stories. The MTC here is beautiful, we have a way nice futbol field. The latinos cream us in futbol, and we cream them in basketball haha. no its more even than i thought it would be both ways but its so fun. I love the Latino people. They have so much soul and emotion. I could really feel it in testimony meeting on sunday. The spirit is real, I could feel him even when i didn´t understand the words completely. Me elder armstrong and another elder bore were the only americans who bore there testimonies, the rest were latinos, but I really do love it here. Volleyball, ping pong, and foosball are all here too. It´s funny some of the latinos call football (american) soccer americana. haha. Oh yeah, they made me District Leader for my District. Just means I have some more responsibilities mostly. We have TRC every day here. )once a week in the provo mtc) These are teachers pretending to be investigators, but not everyone teaches each day. We also teach other missionaries and such. My teachers are awesome too. They hardly speak any english but it is good. My companion is so awesome. My spanish is getting better each day and we communicate well. He has a great testimony. Music is allowed here (not in provo) which is awesome i´ve been loving to listen to some mo tab and others. Mostly I just need to learn the language. Ive we could combined the teaching skills of the north americans with the spanish skills of the latinos we would be set. haha. It is really good. Today was an awesome day. Got to go to the temple. First time really just walking the streets of peru. The bus driving was crazy but aweseme. our big bus cut off another big bus. haha. the temple was so beautiful. Got to do some shopping after and got some piña soda. overall things are doing very well and wish I could tell more but I only have 4 minutes left. The temple was awesome. I did the whole session in spanish. we could get headsets but the spanish was good. couple things, tell LIZ WRIGHT thank you so much for the cupcakes and that I did love the food at MTC and that I don´t really have the time to write her back and i´m sorry but I love her. I am doing well and I love all of you. Be safe and stay close to the Lord. Elder Hurley

Flight to Peru 6/2/12

Dear Familia,

I made it to peru!! It is very different here but it is AWESOME. I still only have a thirty minute max and trying to get used to this new keyboard. haha. but I will do my best. My last week was good. an *investigator* we had, miguel, is gettin baptized. It was really a cool experience. My teacher shared the real story of what happened with him and him not being able to read. He promised him he would be able to read if his son read to him every night and by the time he was done he would be able to read. He was fluently reading by Alma 7 or something. Really cool. My other teacher also told us her conversion story. She has been a hard investigator because she is extremely catholic, but we finally got her to read from the book of mormon and pray. I had arranged a really cool arrangement of Creo en Cristo [I believe in Christ] for sacrament because they asked elder armstrong and i to do a musical number. We had it awesome but apparently you cant play and sing at the same time during sacrament [which makes sense] But we ended up just having sister mortenson play how its written, and sang unison, and split into parts like we practiced. It turned out probably better, because the spirit was really there. Which is always the best. I also played piano in priesthood and they will prob have me here in peru also. Love music. yesterday was pretty crazy, waking up at 2 and traveling all day long. I had bought a spanish and english BOM the night before just in case I could share some gospel with people on the way. I felt like I should write my testimony in it as we flew so I did. We ended up having a delayed flight for like an hour in miami (sorry dad I could have talked to you longer would I have known.) But on that flight I was already getting a taste of not being able to speak english haha. But The man that sat by me spoke english and was going a mission trip for his baptist organization, just to visit with people and do service. I decided I wouldn´t bring up our church until the end of the flight. But we talked religion at the begining a little too and about Christ. He doesn´t really have a religion but just considers himself a christian. He seemed really spiritual. Finally about mid way through the flight he asked me what we thought of the BOM. I told him about Joseph smith and how it came to be and a lot of what we believe. He was set on the fact that the bible has everything we need. This is true, but the BOM just presents it so much more clearly. Anyways I taught him on the plane, and told him what the book of mormon was about. What it all came down to was I told him he would only know if it is the word of God if he read it and prayed about it. At first he didn´t accept the book, but i told him i really wanted him to have it and I wrote some chapters I thought would be good to read and he committed to reading and praying about it. I told him to do it all with sincerity, especially when praying about it and no matter what answer he gets, to follow that answer. He also told me about his beliefs, and everything he was saying was true, All religions have some truth, we just have the full truth. I was surprised how similar his belief was to ours. We talked about the spirit and he has definitely felt the spirit. He admitted it was the spirit that prompted him to ask me about the book of mormon. I thought that was really cool. I wish i would have asked him why the spirit did that. I know it is because the spirit testifies of truth and wanted him to receive it. But I am worried he thought it was to try and prove me wrong or something haha. I´m not sure. But I really believe he is going to read and pray about it and research more about the church. I gave him lds.org and mormon.org so he could get our doctrine rather than others speculations. We were pretty much friends by the end of the flight and I really wanted the best for him. It turns out the woman on the other side of me was a missionary for the catholic church. So interesting how that all worked out haha. 3 missionaries and 3 different churches all sitting by each other. Today has been a really chill day in Peru. The MTC here is nicer than I expected. My companion doesn´t speak hardly any english. Which is way good for me. He seems cool though. Rachels email is like zitterdoodle at Gmail.com or something, check my email for it. I only have 3 minutes left, but I miss you all and loved hearing your voices last night. Tell max I love him too. Have a great week! Elder Hurley