September 6, 2012 from Sister Turks Blog

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

A Look at the Leaders...

 Zone Leaders have a huge responsibility.

They are over all the missionaries under them... 

which could be 12 to 24 missionaries... they watch over

their health, their baptisms, their living conditions, their money,

their special assignments, their exchanges, their teaching skills...
their total welfare!

This is a lot of added work to their already full schedules.

But guess what?

We don't hear any of them complaining.

They just get the job done.

They are the best ever!

* denotes new Zone Leaders

 Elders Casanova and Gamboa- Casma Zone

Elders Mendoza and Araneda* Esperanza Zone

Elders Frietz and Saldivia - Central Zone

Elders Mamani and Northcott - Palermo Zone 

Elders Castillo and Marquez - East Zone 

Elders Escobar and Armstrong - Viru Zone

Elders Brian and Hurley - Porvenir Zone

Elders Johnson and Vera - Laureles Zone

Elders Felt* and Contreras - Chimbote Sur Zone

Elders Davila and Pillajo - Primavera Zone

  Elders Herrera* and Yat - Huaraz Zone 

Elders Olivares and DelaFuente - Chimbote Peru Zone

Elders Merida* and Prebe - Casa Grande Zone 

Elders Cornejo and Mecham - Assistants 

Elder Richards Personal Secretary to the President

Elder Cook Financial Secretary

Elder Mieles Secretary over Physical Facilities/Mailman/Supplies

Elder Castillo Secretary of Records

It is a long day of training and they have only just begun.

Now they change their clothes and head out

to do a service project at some of the Chapels.

Then they change their clothes again

and head out to a night filled with lessons...

They are Excellent!

September 10, 2012 Alma 32:37

Dear Family,

This week was really really great. I am way excited for this new change. The scripture of the week is alma 32:37. A seed is such a great example of Faith. Cuz it is the motivation, and the result. Our faith will continue to produce more faith if we nourish it. My new area is centenario in the porvenir zone. Elder Brian is also way cool and we have about the same desires in the mission. He is from kaysville. He wants to be a doctor also which is cool. He sirved in the office of the mission in finances and health for a time which is cool. This last week was really good we worked really hard. There is a lot of pf families here. Which means people who are members but not everyone in the family is a member. There are a lot of these people who are ready to baptized but just cant without permission from their parents. Porvenir is different than trujillo, its like more country like and not city. The mission home is probably like 30 minutes from here. Speaking of trujillo, we went there this week for zone leader council with president. These meetings are always so awesome. We ate kentucky fried chicken. (maybe there is a correlation between the being awesome and having good food) haha. We have one baptismal date. A brother named Jesus. He is an older man but is the head of the family which is awesome. He should be baptized this saturday. so wait, whit and tom are getting married officially now? that´s awesome!!! I kind of got that impression indirectly reading dads letter but is it like official now??? you gotta tell me these things more directly!! haha anyways congrats whit!!! is there a wedding date or something? Thanks for the ideas and updates about dentistry papa. I feel like when I get home I will just talk to everyone haha Ive learned to love meeting people and Im excited to be a dentist and meet so many people. Overall life is good thanks for writing me papa. have the best week of your life. 

Elder Hurley

September 3, 2012 John 6:46

Dear Family,
This week was good. Thanks For writing me. The scripture of this week is john 6 verse 46. Dad thanks for making me laugh with your english class. haha. I face this every day because the latins also have a responsibility to learn english in there missions. So its funny the many confusions that happen. Well Ill just jump right to my transfer (they call them changes here). ive been changed to be over the zone porvenir. which is in trujillo. My companion is elder brian who is a gringo. my area is called centenario (again haha thats the name of my area right now in huaraz) Im excited. I already know elder brian and he is awesome. Im leaving tonight in the night time to go to trujillo. I have some really great relationships with the people here in huaraz so it will be hard to leave. a lot of members and some converts have told me that they are going to wait at the bus station and send me off tonight. I love the huaraz, its more familiar. Im sure Ill get used to the city again in no time though. Our baptismal date maria is doing really great. I can see her change and being more repented and humble. The spirit is strong and I know she´ll be baptized on the 14th. Im not gunna be there though haha. but thats how things are in the mission. mom wanted to know how megan could prepare. tell her to focus on studying chapter 3 of preach my gospel. that is what we talk about every day of our missions and im still studying it even 16 months into my mission. the second counselor of our ward is now fully active. Being able to activate him by the spirit has been just as satisfying as a baptism. he sat on the stand yesterday for the first time I have ever seen. He even bore his testimony. The spirit works miracles. Overall, I love you guys so much. We are so blessed to have the true gospel. There isn´t any other way to eternal life. Im thankful to my parents for bringing me into the world with the gospel so available. And Im grateful to our heavenly father for giving me a testimony of my own of his true church and gospel. an inspiration that I got this week was that the only way we can show jesus christ that we are remembering him is by taking of his body and blood as we take the sacrament. Even praying every day isn´t enough to remember him because we pray to God not to him. I want to invite you all to prepare now to partake of the sacrament worthily this sunday repented, so that you can start the week of totally clean. I know these ordinances are real because I have felt it. Have the best week of your life!
Elder Hurley

August 27, 2012 2 Corinthians 7:8-10

Dear Family this week was grood. The scripture of the week is 2 corinthians 7 verses 8 through 10. This week was good. we finished off the month with 12 baptisms in the zone. Our ward went to the temple and 4 of my converts here in huaraz went to do baptisms for the dead which was cool. We returned to that orphanage aldea to help more. we are pick axing and shoveling around their wall so they can paint it. today we went to some ruins that are close by huaraz. that was cool. they were closed so we couldn`t go in them but we got some good pictures from outside. This sunday are transfers. Im almost positive that im going to be changed. Ive been in huaraz for 6 months. I love it here but its cool to know other places. We talked in church yesterday which was good. Spanish is so normal for me now and english is what is foreign. Today on our way back from these ruins there was some tourists from australia. They couldn`t even understand us speaking spanish and I spoke to them in english but it was kind of hard haha. We also went to a place called caraz to do some baptismal interviews twice this week. We have to travel a lot. want to talk about the people im working with. A sister named maria accepted to be baptized on the 14th of september. She has been investigating the church for about 15 years. we had a lesson where the spirit was so strong and she has been coming to church every week now. We talked to her husband hector, who was baptized in january or so. Ive never seen him in church my whole time here. But we talked to him about repentence and priesthood and that he if he wanted to could baptize his wife. He came to church yesterday and didn`t want to leave the building. Hes such a great guy, I could see his repentence in his eyes. He also talked with our bishop to make goals to receive the preisthood and baptize his wife. Way cool. WE also found a reference named wagner who came to church the past week but yesterday no. but he attended a lot of times before he came to huaraz. The last time we talked with him he accepted a date for the saturday, its still possible but going to be hard cuz he didn`t attend yesterday. But we are helping him. He is in huaraz working on become police. Overall Im happy. THanks so much for sending me pics. The remodeled house looks amazing. The office today called and said they found my package. apparently whoever sent it here put the mission address wrong, and it was sitting in some bus place for like 2 weeks haha. just to make sure you guys know the address is 
Elder Hurley
Mision peru trujillo
Avenida Larco 849
3 piso
Urb. La merced
Trujillo-La Libertad
Perù 
 Got a letter from dayton this week which is cool cuz I wrote him a letter last week that I am going to send today. People do have shoes. Everyone has like soccer shoes. We walked to this place far from my area with this old lady who is a member, and she wore like these athletic soccer shoes haha. it was funny and cool. Well love you guys have a great week!
Elder Hurley

August 20, 2012 D&C 68:33-34

Dear family,
This week was fantabulous. The scripture of the week is doctrine and convenants 68:33-34. Well this week was really great. last wednesday did a companion exchange with elder cottle who is from utah. a member took us to a little town that is in my area called jinua. we didn´t know about this place but there are quite a few members that are inactive there. the mostly speak quechua and not spanish so it was kinda hard, but the member that was with us did a little translated. My pensionista is always teaching us quechua but I don´t know it enough to have a conversation. mostly just to say  "im full" cuz i am never hungry with my pensionista haha. We also did a service project with our was at an orphanage that is called aldea. We played games with the kids there and taught them all a missionary lesson. We also did service for them shoveling and picaxing so that the ground was more level and so they could paint. we have been working a lot more with the members which is helping all of our other fases of the work. especially finding new investigators and having more people in church. We also have been working with our 2nd counselor of the bishopric in our ward who is inactive. he attended church yesterday with all his family for the first time in probably a year. Overall I am happy and hoping to see a miracle this week. two quotes I wanted to share with you all is something dad told me in the letter he wrote me my first day in the MTC. "The only regrets in this life are when we don´t do our best." and " It is easy to accept our failures if we know we worked our hardest" Dads council is amazing and I love the support of all of you guys. Have a great week!!!
Elder Hurley

President's visit to Huaraz and Caraz August 12, 2012

The President and Mama Yuyu

 At the base of the Huascaran Mountain lies a little town named Caraz.

It is about an hour and a half drive from Huaraz.

This city has about 20,000 people living there,

and two of them are our missionaries...

Elder Cottle and Elder Mendoza.

It is a very traditional mountain town in Perú...

with the traditional clothing and way of life.

But the most famous resident in Caraz is Mama Yuyu.

She is one of our pensionistas

to our missionaries.

And she is known all over the Church here in Perú.

She has been feeding missionaries for 30 years in October...

that was when she was baptized.

That is as long as President Turk and I have been married.

The most amazing thing is that she remembers all of the missionaries

and where they are from and everything about them.

She is not married and her children live in Lima.

The missionaries are her life.

President Turk had the opportunity while we were in Huaraz

to drive to Caraz and meet her.

She was so surprised and excited to see him.

She is so interesting to talk to.  She has great stories.

She knows all about Yungay, the city right next to Caraz

that was destroyed by the earthquake in 1970.

A huge mudslide covered the whole town of Yungay

and killed about 20,000 people.

There were only 99 that survived.

And she was there at that time and knows the survivors and the stories.

I need to do a whole blogpost on Yungay.

It is an interesting place. We have Elders there too

One of Mama Yuyu's favorite Elders was the one that she called King Baby

"Rey Bebé"

And that was Elder Retamal that has just returned home to Chile

She has sweet nicknames for all her Elders.

She loves and adores each one.

She really treats them as her own children.

All of our missionaries want to be transferred to Caraz 

to be with Mama Yuyu.

We are forever grateful for Mama Yuyu and her dedication

and love for the missionaries and the missionary work.

Thank you is just not enough... We love you Mama Yuyu!

PS - While I was reading up on Caraz on the internet, I found out that

her Sister City Internationally is Mesa, Arizona,

 where I am from...  Now I have even more of a love

for Caraz Perú!

SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 2012

Road Trip to Huaraz...

We are on the road to Huaraz...

and this truck is the first thing I see.

It reminded me of home.

 I had to put this picture up because my daughter Molly 

told me that the name 'Molly' is the number one 

dog name in the nation...

Well, maybe it is in the world!

Molly, this is a beautiful dog though... right?

Speak Molly,  Speak!

Huaraz is up in the beautiful mountains 

where many of the people still wear tradition 

Peruvian mountain clothing.

It is made of bright colors and big hats

and always a bundle of something on your back...  

But the best thing about Huaraz are the missionaries.

I love to see them.

We had two interview sessions, one with each District.

We also had a Zone Conference.

There were some fantastic special musical numbers.

Elder Vera is a fixture on the piano... He is talented. 

Here are a few photos of one of the districts doing some practices

with each other in companionships.

More music...

 Zone Leaders had them bring their mirrors from their rooms

so that they could practice looking at themselves as they were teaching.

The missionaries said that this was eye opening.

They are going to work on being a little more animated

and happy as they teach.

They are also going to clean their mirrors -  I hope.

The trip is always fast and furious.... and a little difficult for me 

because right when I finally get acclimated

it's time to go home.

I was dizzy for most the time I was there.

 This Zone Includes:

Elders: Fernandez, Shaw, Cruz, Fackrell, Ureta, Cottle, Mendoza,

Ramirez,  Beazer and Hoyos   Hermanas: Bell and Pillco

Zone Leaders below are 

Elder Yat and Elder Hurley

Huaraz Zone is under great leadership.

 We are always so happy to be with the Stake President and his wife

President and Hermana Zavaleta.

Thank you for your time and love with our missionaries.

We are out of here... Goodbye Huaraz!

August 13, 2012 Romans 8:28

hello family!!
This week was great. good hearing from yall. The scripture of the week is Romans 8 verse 28. This past was great, sounds like it was good for grandpa hurley also. air conditioning I don´t think exists here. But it is really cold in the night time here cuz im in the mountains. like you know president came to Huaraz this week which was awesome. Lots of work that we had to do so that everything turned out well. We had to teach in the three meetings that there were. It turned out well. President invited us to eat breakfast with him in the hotel on friday which was cool also. sister turk always brings lots of games to play for prizes which is fun. My packet hasn´t arrived yet. Well it probably has arrived but serpost is not giving it to us yet. haha. maybe this week. we taught about being animated and having more energy as you teach. We thought of the idea of teaching in front of a mirror to see yourself how you are really teaching. It was cool and president loved it. Today we went to a lagoon llanganuco. that was one of the first places we went to when I got here but we can do a trip like that every month. I sent some pics. This time we went in this small little van thing to save money haha so it was not too comfortable. But it was fun with the zone. one of our really ancient investigators maria came to church this week. Her husband got baptized a while back before I got here and she has been investigating the church for like over 10 years. she seems more animated and we are going to have a family home evening with them tonight. Overall the time is flying in my mission. its really sad to me. I don´t ever want to leave. especially as zone leader im always so busy packed with all sorts of things that the time really just flys. thanks for sending me pictures!!!! I always love to see pictures of you guys. thanks for making me laugh papa. sounds like mama is the traveling lady now haha. But thats cool she can visit so many places. I love you guys a ton and hope you are happy!!  Have the best week of your life!

Elder Hurley