July 25, 2011

My First Area

Milluachaqui, a farm up in the mountains, literally farmers on the mountain. Just me and my comp, its more or less part of our assignment... they have a family group.

Hey there my favorite family!

Thanks so much for your letters. I love them. I wish I had more time to just take them in. but i don´t haha. Sounds like you guys are doing good. I love hearing from you guys because you always focus on the things that really matter. I hope courts is doing good. She is such an amazing girl. Sorry bout halli the dog, I am glad i wasn´t too attached. Love you whit and tom. Speaking of dogs, they are everywhere here. but they are easy to deal with, and i am not scared of getting bit or anything like all the stories you hear. if they get aggressive all you have to do is pretend like you are picking up a rock from the ground and they are smart enough to leave you alone haha. lots of animals around, cats, donkeys, sheep, chickens, bulls, cows, all types of animals. I saw a pregnant cat yesterday. speaking of.. hows crystin? haha. i´m sure she is big bellied by now, ya´ll better send pictures ya hear? haha. i hope you are putting that grand piano to use. love you guys so much. Matt i loved your letter, and have been reading jesus the christ this week when i have had the time. (not much) speakin of piano, moms dream came true and I played for sacrament yesterday while on my mission. haha. only one problem, no one told me I would have to adjust the songs in order to fit the needs of a congregation that cannot keep a rhythm or hold tune. haha sounds harsh but its true. but i think i gained some brownie points with the few members we have just by playing, which is good. some house keeping.. The zone leaders came this week, and they brought me a load of letters. woot. So you guys keep askin bout rache´s letters, and yep i got em! don´t know if its all of them, but it was good to hear from her. she said she´s comin to utah the end of july.
make her play some music for ya or something. the zone leaders said it was there first time ever to otuzco haha so i don´t know how often i will get letters, but we go to Trujillo once a month i thinking where i can send out letters and get from zone leaders. (next week) also got all those stamps papa john thanks. not too sure how the pouch works now, i think we can only use that once a month here too, so i may end up sending some stamps back, since there are so many. anyways some general info: no one in this country can pronounce

hurley correctly. they say oohrlay. or different variations, but its fun, a lot of kids want me to speak English to them. and I am actually going to start teaching English once a week, which will help in finding more people to teach i think, and my spanish too. My spanish is getting better every day. I understand a lot. We stay pretty busy, and have appointments like every hour usually during our prosyliting time. I sometimes feel like my trainer could work harder. and me. I remember dad said he felt that way then later realized how great his trainer was haha. so maybe that will happen to me. he´s still the man, he´s sick today though. It´s way beautiful here, CLOUDS. oh yeah. This whole month is like a holiday here. haha. there is a tradition of having marches, which seems strange haha but its cool to be surrounded by the culture. I really do love it here in Otuzco, and want to bring you all here some day. In general people see us as good, and see us as words of god. one issue didn´t expect was the sabath day. many people don´t believe that sunday is the day of rest in this era. (which it wasn´t originally) so that is a difficulty. many adventista´s here. we are teaching quite a few of them. I think if we can convert a few of them, we can convert them all. we taught this one family Marleni, they have so so much faith its awesome. they are adventist too but i can see them being members. it was awesome during the lesson, every member of the family had their own bible. In general, me and my companion are teaching more equally and i can say more what i want. Its definetely hard at times. especially when i think bout you guys. Speaking of you guys, i hope you had a good 24 of july! i did absolutely nothing, i miss all that, especially enterprise and the races. I attached some photos, not of Otuzco, maybe next week, but of Milluachaque, the place i described last week, that is far away just a family group. oh yeah something cool, in my mission we can watch the pixar movies, so i will be watching cars 2 today maybe for p day ( pirated copy of course!) I love you guys, sorry this letter is so scattered. I am learning how important it is to be organized in life. for reals. Love you guys. we went to this one part of our area this week i hadn´t been to before, called Machigon, its like 45 minute hike to get there. we taught 1 lesson, then came home. Hopefully i get the package next week, i think we meet up with the zone leaders next monday, and i can send out letters too. time to write pres. i love the pres. he called me personally this week, which was cool.

love you guys, choose the right

July 18, 2011

Familia!

I am here. haha the last email wasn{t me really just a copy and paste thing. Loved your emails. my time is still short, i get 45 minutes but I also have to write the president in that time. The reason the american stamps work here is because its pouch, the church brings them to salt lake and sends them out. i hope I can figure out how to do that here in the mission. the reason i skipped the 4 gospels is because I have read them before mostly and wanted to focus on pages of the bible i haven{t read haha but i am going to read the 4 gospel seperate once i finish.

My new companion is elder contreras and my area is OTUZCO. It is a small town community, with just a small branch that is not even part of a stake but the mission, got my work cut out for me. just 4 of us in this district. (my comp and 2 others.) we live in the same place that the church is haha, which is interesting, but cool. I think you guys were caught up with the blog, had interviews that day too and played games. They do pension here so I have a mom person who cooks and does our laundry, they are trained to only give us safe food. I am up in the mountains, cold at times but overall nice weather. but because its so rural farm like here, i can´t send out letters from here. (sorry Rachel´these emails will have to do) but i think every once in a while we get to go to trujillo and i can send there.

The language is the hardest part. It´s hard cuz i want to do more than I can. but I am progressing each day. I only receive letters or packages or whatever when the zone leaders bring them, which is probably every 6 weeks or something, don´t know, not too worried about letters though, cuz i got work to do. I love the people here. Especially the kids, they are so cute and they love us. we teach some kids too, which I thought was weird at first, but its crazy how much smarter they are than adults haha when it comes to the gospel. Elder contreras is awesome, he´s really pacient with me , doesnt speak english but its good. he is super friendly too everyone which helps the work, he seems to know everyone in our area. I´m confused at times but I´m catching on more each day haha. on saturday we went to this place called Milluachaqui, farm ness up in the mountains, literally farmers on the mountain. just me and my comp, its more or less part of our assignment.. they have a family group. (one step down from a branch) (stake ,ward ,branch ,family group) really small, but we hiked (literally) for like 30 minutes to get to a house and taught, then hiked to another house) lots of excercise now which makes me happy, I will be skinny and toned in no time haha. while at one of the houses in milluachaqui, the family brought us to a big thing of cactus, and we picked off bulb things, and ate it, it was fruit, and it was actually good, (though allergic more or less)

Teaching is good, have appointments every day, I am getting more involved in the teaching. Just need to learn spanish already. haha. yesterday we had a baptism, (the other elders in our district) that was cool I got to experience that this first week. I got to be one of the witnesses to make sure they said the prayer correctly and were immerssed properly. some of our investigators, ( don´t have the time to tell you all my experience in these past couple weeks)

Ramido

His whole family are members, but have been less active, we have had lessons with them, he has a problem with word of wisdom, but yesterday committed to living it, hope he does. he has a baptismal date august 5th. his family is more active already.

Celestina , juana y jorge.

First taught them this week, new investigators, jorge is only 8 but i think he knew the most about the gospel, others feel it is good, want to get baptize , but won´t get a date yet and want to learn more, teaching them.

Elkin and Leydi,

Pretty much should be baptized already, have testimony and everything, only thing they need to do is officially get married legally, in order to keep the law of chastity which they plan to do. not much time for others. i´ll try to send pics. no time. lots more investigators but thats all for now. love you all so so so much. thought of you last night when we taught a less active family, i was reminded of the night before I left and we were all sharing testimony and crying haha. love you guys.

Elder HUrley

7/12/11 Elder Hurley 1st Area East Zone, Otuzco 1

Can you find Elder Hurley and his trainer Elder Contreras East Zone, Otuzco 1

7/12/11 Now in Trujillo

Christopher and his new group at the Trujillo Temple Site

(3rd from the left)

I am here in Trujillo. We got here at about 9:00pm yesterday, all is well. Last night the missionaries, and President and Sister Turk picked us up from the Airport. Then we had dinner and rested in the hotel, today we have a bunch of trainings and I will meet my trainer later this afternoon. I am tired, but fantastic!!!

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.