July 5, 2011

Elder Hurley last week in Peru MTC

7/5/11

Elder Pateo, Elder Jensen, Elder Munoz, & Me

7/4/11

Elder Munoz & Elder Hurley

Elder Jensen & Elder Patino

Me and Elder Jensen

Hey familia badilia.
I love reading your letters and wish I could spend more time just reading them rather than zooming through them quickly in under ten minutes so i can email in twenty. Sounds like you guys are doing well and having a blast without me. I´m sure california was way fun. I thought of you guys on the fourth here, thinking what I would be doing if I were home. But my fourth here was good. I´ll get to that later. But first talk about my week. My week was really good. I leave to Trujillo 1 week from today. So today is my last P day in the MTC. Crazy i´ll be in the field in a week. sorry my p day was a day early again. they change it and then tell us two days before. haha. Thank you all so much for the letters, i love them. I feel like i´m ready to get out of the mtc and get to the field. I still have a ton to learn. But I think I will learn faster in the field at this point. My language skills are getting better every day, I understand almost everything said to me usually. On Saturday we prosylited instead of tracting, to go to less active members homes. This is always hard cuz they are usually not home. but the first house was this young man who was 18 who got baptized about 7 months before. We talked to him about the priesthood, since he didn´t have it yet. He seemed to know very little about the church and couldn´t even remember much bout Joseph Smith. I told him the Joseph Smith story and gave the first vision. I testified so much in this lesson and I know he felt the spirit. The teacher we were with was pretty quiet, and so was my companion. So I got to teach quite a bit in this lesson. I felt like it was the first time I was teaching from my heart and saying what I wanted to rather than what I could in spanish haha. But he commited to reading the BOM 10-15 minutes each night. So thats awesome. We continued trying to find, a little girl just started talking to us randomly, I love the little kids here. We gave her a pamphlet to bring home to her parentals haha. and we would prosylite when we could too. We found another family who had a funny little 8 year girl. who kept hiding from me and was just being cute. Her ma wanted her baptized, So I taught this little girl about Joseph Smith as simply as I could. Hard to teach it simply in spanish when I have only practiced it regularly haha. But it was a good experience. Sundays are pretty chill here and are always good. Fourth of July was Awesome! For lunch they attempted to give us american food, and they had red white and blue balloons. all the american elders wore blue pants, white shirt, red tie. haha. it was pretty cool though. We had chicken pot pie, (more like a keesh as usual but they tried) and fried chicken which was good. and ice cream. I´ve gained some weight here, but I´m being careful and can´t wait to be physically exerted every day in the field .Its hard here cuz we just sit all day and you have to eat everything you are given or its rude. but back to my awesome day. beat the hardest teacher in ping pong. so that was good. My district sang the american patriotic hymns all day which was way awesome. and we had a huge soccer game for gym time, United States v. Latinos. It was a way intense game and we figured we would get creamed cuz they are all so good. at one point we were up by 2 and I made a goal too, eventually we were tied toward the end, and our goalie kicked it hard toward there goal, and somehow their goaly got out of position trying to get the ball, and elder armstrong tapped it in. right after that the teacher yelled it was time to go. we beat them! miracle but awesome. way too competitive for missionaries. . . its best to not even keep score. but it was an awesome day. Overall I learned this week to make sure your investigators know what they are getting into cuz I only want to baptize people if I believe they will endure to the end always. and help them. i also translated my song into spanish and made it rhyme, good experience for me, hard, but cool. you can show antonio or somethin haha. I hope ya´ll are doing well. I love all of you. Oh yeah. a missionary that was a good friend of mine went home this week. That was way sad cuz he was the man. I am glad that I am focused on this work (even if it doesn´t seem like it emailing about futbol games) haha but I really am. I know that it is true all of it. No doubt in my mind. The Book of Mormon is amazing. I´ve been reading the Bible, which makes the Book of Mormon stand out when I read it. Feel free to send stuff to trujillo, next time I write ya I will be in the field!
-Elder Hurley

Here is my song about the last chapter in John translated in Spanish:

APACIENTA MIS OVEJAS

¿Me amas? Es que pregunto.

Si Señor tu sabes que te amo.

¿Me amas más que estos peces?

Si Señor. Apacienta mis ovejas.

chorus

Dejaré el bote. Dejaré la red.

Dejaré todo y nunca olvidaré

Por que estoy aquí por lo que has hecho.

Señor sin ti soy ninguno.

V2

¿Me amas? Es aún la pregunta.

Si Señor. Tu sabes todas las cosas.

¿Me amas mas que estás películas?

Si Señor. Apacienta mis ovejas.

chorus

Dejaré mi amor. Dejaré mi juego.

Dejaré todo y nunca olvido.

Porque estoy aquí por lo que has hecho.

Señor sin ti soy ninguno.

Bridge

Las apacentaré por siempre y nunca me desviaré

Te seguiré y haré lo que tu me mandares.

No es facil, pero contigo puedo todo hacer.

Entonces.. apacentaré tus ovejas.

chorus

Dejaré el bote. Dejaré la red.

Dejaré todo y nunca olvidaré

Por que estoy aquí por lo que has hecho.

Señor sin ti soy ninguno.