pictures

Included is the picture from yesterday's baptism and also Elder Salguero using the last of his Ranch dressing at lunch (there's only one store in Trujillo that sells it, and he likes it a lot).

In Esperanza, you play sand volleyball in the street

Dear Family,

On Wednesday this week, our stake (Esperanza) had its "Dia de Gracia," and a good number of ward members showed up to take part in the work. Starting with a devotional with the Stake and Mission Presidents, 70 missionaries, and a bunch of members, we divided up and went to the ward buildings. From there, Elder Salguero and I divided everyone into groups and assigned them streets in which they would visit every member, focusing on the less active members first. We worked in the sand in the higher parts of Esperanza in the morning - it gets more dangerous as the sun goes down, so we didn't want to bother even being there in the afternoon. We worked all morning, had a quick lunch in the chapel, and went out again in the afternoon until 6. It was a neat experience: we were able to reach nearly every member of the ward, including many less active members. Elder Salguero and I want to do a similar activity (but on a ward scale only) monthly to help activate the several members who don't come to church anymore. It makes all the difference when old friends stop by and invite them to come back.

I had an interesting lesson on Friday: it was a man we had taught once the week before, and we hadn't been able to get very far in the lesson. As we started anew, I asked if he had any questions. He asked about why there was so much death in the world - why good people have to die, and why God doesn't protect them. We answered his question and started teaching the Plan of Salvation, but we couldn't get far: our investigator continued to interrupt and go off on tangents. Patience waned, and we desperately wondered what we could do to help this man see the importance of what we were teaching. In the end, we brought up a few points of the Word of Wisdom, and the man contested that it was fine to drink alcohol, as long as one doesn't get drunk. We talked about homemade wine, grape juice, and similar beverages: the man, still contentious, went to the back room and brought out a Pepsi bottle with his own homemade wine in it. He poured a little bit into a shot glass and handed it to me, claiming it had no alcoholic content. I sniffed it and disovered the too-familiar odor that we often detect in those unwanted conversations with the intoxicated. Needless to say, we declined the invitation and ended the lesson with a few scriptures that supported the point. The investigator eventually admitted that the juice was fermented and that he was just "testing us" - but either way, it makes us a little wary of going back for a while.

Saturday began the meetings for Stake Conference this week. I received a letter from the Stake President asking me to play the piano for every meeting during the conference, so I got to attend every session with my companion. Our conference was presided by Elder Marcus B. Nash, President of the South America West Area (that's Peru and Bolivia). His talks were very uplifting and instructive, and I came away with several treasured pages of notes. Nevertheless, so many hours of meetings, prelude, postlude, choir accompaniment (and the creaky piano bench) - coupled with a long baptismal service - left me with little energy Sunday evening. But we persisted until it was time to go home, and we were able to finish the week strong.

After the general session of conference, we had a baptismal service in the Stake Center for some 10-12 investigators who were being baptized. Two were baptized in our ward: a young woman named Xiomara, and a woman named Alejandrina. Xiomara was baptized by her member friend, Tonio; and I had the privilege of baptizing Alejandrina. They were the first baptisms in our ward in the last 6 months, and from here we're hoping to have a couple every week for the next month or so. There are several wonderful people who are preparing to be baptized in the weeks to come, including other members of the families of Xiomara and Alejandrina. The baptismal service got started late, but I got to see the extraordinary faith of those who were making that covenant to keep the Lord's commandments. It was also a trial to see a few who got discouraged at the last moment and decided not to go through with it. As Elder Nash repeatedly taught this weekend, the Lord wants to bless us; He has blessings ready and waiting for us - but we can't receive them unless we have sufficient faith.

We were informed of transfers this week. Elder Salguero is being transferred to a new area south of Trujillo, and I'm staying here. An Elder Tapia is coming to be my new companion. It's rough to see Elder Salguero go - we accomplished a lot working in Pueblo Libre, and I hope I can keep it going.

Glad to hear all is going well over there! Good work, Tia! Start high and keep improving! I'm glad you were able to do well on all your finals. Justin, I hope those employers get back to you soon! Drew and Michelle, I hope all is well in Provo. Enjoy the Y and good luck in your classes! Mom and Dad, have a safe trip back to Oregon. Thank you for your prayers and letters!

Love,
Elder Withers

pictures

Included are pictures of the "huacos" I mentioned and myself in the act of polishing one. They're pretty inexpensive things, so maybe I can bring one home. There's also a picture of me in the Plaza de Armas. We had some fun in Trujillo this morning.

Love,
Elder Withers

Where's Ammon?

Dear Family,

It was a wonderful week. We're up to our necks with things to do, so sometimes I feel like we don't have enough time to teach all the people I want to. But all the same, we're seeing wonderful things happen.

Our Mission President has started coordinating some new activities, one of which is called "Dìa de Gracia". On Saturday morning, every zone in the city of Trujillo (some 72 missionaries in total) went to the stake of Porvenir. We went to the wards of Laredo and Progreso - we traveled in a little bus (one elder of us 17 sat on the floor) and arrived a little before 8am. We changed into service clothes and half of us headed to a member's home where we were directed to "move the earth" (that is, use shovels and pickaxes to break up the soil in the back yard so that they could plant crops). The other half of the missionaries began sweeping the street. We finished moving the earth in 2 hours, and the woman rewarded us with "agua mineral con gas" (yuck!) before we headed back to the chapel. We still had two hours until lunch, and the other elders were sill sweeping the street. A couple other missionaries (including my companion) went inside to rest, but Elder Tacachira (another Bolivian elder in my zone) and I went across the street to seek more service opportunities.

We saw a man painting his house and asked if he wanted help: he told us he was just finishing, but directed us inside where his brother-in-law invited us to clean the large concrete floor. We were delighted and swept the whole thing clean. I'm not accustomed to Peruvian floor-cleaning procedure, so I was a little surprised when the man and my (temporary) companion started filling buckets with water and dumping them all over the floor, creating what appeared to me as an indoor flood. The man - whose name was Constante - opened a bag of laundry detergent and emptied its contents all over the floor. I grabbed a brush and began scrubbing. It was fun service, and as we talked with Constante, he told us that he was an "unbeliever". Elder Tacachira took the lead in sharing our purpose as missionaries, and I was left to clean the floor alone as they talked. But I paused every few moments and gave my two cents.

I finished rinsing and sweeping all the bubbles into the back yard, and we both were able to share the Gospel message with Constante. We testified of the hope the Gospel brings and the power of the Atonement in our lives - we taught that with a little bit of faith, great things can come to pass. Constante told us that he wanted to change, but he had tried so many times and never could. He began to cry when he told us how he had prayed and prayed and never gained the hope he sought. The Spirit filled our mouths as we shared with him the hope that every person needs to hear: that God lives and loves him, that his prayers are heard, that he need not fear, "but be believing". We invited him to come to church on Sunday, and having finished our service in his home, we returned to the church. It filled my soul with joy to see the amazing effects of service, and I offered a silent prayer of gratitude that we had been able to continue serving and change the course of a person's life because of it.

I couldn't stop helping after that. We changed into proselyting clothes and were directed to various homes to eat lunch. I couldn't sit still and let the members serve us, so I started carrying plates from the kitchen to the missionaries waiting at the table. Elder Tacachira stood up and helped, too. When the elders finished their soup, I started washing the dishes. It just felt like the right thing to do.

In the afternoon, we accompanied members of the ward to visit various less-active members and a few of their friends who aren't members of the church. We gave a blessing of health to an elderly (nonmember) woman in a wheelchair, then sang a hymn before leaving her home. She wouldn't accept our message, but we left her smiling. I felt like a whole different person: my mouth was filled with words to comfort and bless, my eyes were changed to see every person as a child of God who I could help.

It was one of the most special days of my mission, mostly because I had the opportunity to be the kind of person I want to be. Service is an amazing influence, and that's what we did all day - although part of it was of a more temporal nature, it was all spiritual for me. We got home (around 8pm) more exhausted than ever. I've heard it called celestial fatigue, and it surely was.

This coming week is Stake Conference, and Elder Marcus B. Nash, the Area President, is coming to speak. There are activities all week long, so it's difficult to coordinate appointments. The biggest difficulty is that we can't teach investigators when they're going to Stake activities! But I suppose that's a difficulty I can appreciate, not really a problem.

Summer is upon us, and the days are getting hot. The little kids have started their "carnavales," which are basically water-fights, but anybody in the vicinity is vulnerable. So far, it looks like they respect most adults and the missionaries - but it's so hot that we want them to drench us anyways. We'll see if they go that far.

I'm healthy and happy, and I love being here. I'm glad to hear that everyone is doing well. Thank you for your prayers! You are all in mine as well.

Love,
Elder Withers

we're missionaries, man - not glamor boys!

Dear Family,

We spent much of the week inviting investigators and members to our Missionary Night that took place on Friday night. We asked a member from another ward to loan us his 20-seater van (they call it a convi, and rightly so, I suppose), and we drove around for an hour picking up all sorts of people to take them to the member's home where the event was to take place. It got started a little late, but the attendance rivaled some Sacrament Meetings I've been to. The investigators in attendance felt very welcomed.

The earthquake happened later that night: we were in the middle of our companionship prayer when the room started to shake. It only lasted some 4 or 5 seconds, however. Apparently it was nothing harmful - just a little tremor. Maybe a 2 or 3 on the Richter scale (better off asking a seismologist, however).

This week, we were asked several times to give blessings of health. The Lord poured out his Spirit as we exercised His Priesthood power to bless the lives of others. It's a sacred feeling to realize how much we represent the Master in our work: my hands are His hands. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve others in that capacity.

We're working hard to help the families that we're teaching progress to baptism. One woman, Alejandrina, and her daughter, Leslie, are excited for their baptism (programmed for the 26th). The father of the family is returning from his trip to Argentina to watch the baptism, and we're hoping that he'll be willing to take those steps of faith, too. We taught Alejandrina and Leslie about temple work and eternal families, so I brought along my family picture (that Mom recently sent me) and a photo of the Portland Temple (courtesy of Brother Bigelow and Skyshots). The "show and tell" method of teaching was effective, and it helped me teach with much more sincerity and a lot more testimony. That was my favorite teaching appointment from this week.

Thank you all for your prayers and your support. I love serving the Lord as a missionary. Thanks to His Spirit and all the prayers on our behalf, we really can do more than we think possible. Sometimes it feels like we're doing so little- when the results of our efforts are so great that there's no way we did it alone. ("We are not two men: we are ten men!") This Sunday, more investigators came to Sacrament Meeting than I have ever seen before. It was a very special meeting. Our bishopric, in the middle of the meeting, extended a welcome to each of them by name and invited the members to welcome them as well. There's a missionary force at work in the hearts of the members here, and for all we can do, I'm stunned at how much the Lord is blessing us.

Love,
Elder Withers

fluid mechanics

Dear Family,

Christmas and New Years here were more like Independence Day than anything else. An enjoyable Peruvian tradition is the creating and burning of human-sized dolls on New Years. We went out in the street, and there seemed to be one large, flaming doll for every few houses all the way down the street and throughout the neighborhood. Apparently you can buy some that are decorated like politicians, actors, etc., but they're expensive and apparently not worth the cost. I nearly got hit by a few young'ns mishandling their roman candles, but in the end, nobody I know of got hurt.

On Thursday this week, our district leader did a work visit with my companion, so I went to his area and spent the day with his companion. His companion is Elder Johnson, who just entered the mission field about two weeks ago. It was an interesting experience being with another north american. I think Elder Johnson was glad to have someone to talk to in English. The experience went well all day, and we had a "noche misional" (or "mission night") in the newly built chapel. At the end of it all, we were in the bathroom when the Branch President locked the door. (And when you lock the door here, that means it doesn't open from the inside or the outside.) When we left the bathroom and found the lights off, we ran to the door and started banging on it and making lots of noise - the Branch President was nearly to the outer gate, about to lock that one, too. Luckily he heard us (and his wife hadn't seen us leave, either) and came and let us out. That's the closest I've come to spending the night in the chapel.

I'm ready for the holidays to be over - we can't proselyte on those days (the conditions not being very appropriate for receiving the Gospel), so we had to stay inside or meet up with the zone to play soccer instead of teaching anybody. We also had interviews with President Mora this week, which was an amazing experience all over again. The Lord calls and qualifies His servants. That took up all afternoon on Friday, leaving us with only a couple full days of working this week. We have been spending much of our time encouraging people and arranging transportation to help our investigators come to church on Sunday morning. The most effective teaching we do is when investigators can see the Gospel in action in the lives of others and in their own lives.

On Saturday, we went to the home of a man named Luiz Vera, an investigator who supports his family by making clay replicas of ancient Peruvian handiwork. He showed us the whole process (that he runs inside his home) and invited us to take part. His wife showed us how to polish the rough surface of the uncooked clay "huacos" (or maybe "wacos", since the word is quechua for something like "sculpture" and I think they might use the "w" in that language), and we helped clean a few of them before our service time expired.

The strongest spiritual experience came later that night, when we returned to the home of Luiz, where he was waiting with his wife, mother-in-law, aunt, and co-worker to listen to the missionaries. Since his relatives had some questions, we taught about the Restoration once again, using the Bible (because his mother-in-law loves hearing the words of the Bible, though she can't read) to show how the Church of Jesus Christ, though lost, has been restored anew. The Spirit brought the lesson to their hearts, and Luiz and his wife were both convinced of the truth of what we taught. My heart was filled with gratitude for the simplicity of the Gospel and the beauty of its principles. Those who seek the truth will find it.

I learned to appreciate warm showers when I had to go a few days with only cold water. This week, I learned to appreciate cold showers when we had to go a couple days without running water in our apartment. The term "running water" here is actually a bit of a farse - there is water available at certain hours throughout the day, and if you're lucky, you have a tank on your roof that fills itself daily (using a little floating plug that shuts off the running water when it's full). We have such a tank, but the plug doesn't work - so the owners of the house have to manually turn the water off and on every now and then to keep the tank full. But the tank ran out, and we were without water for two days. A cold shower is infinitely better than no shower. It's phenomenal how the Lord can help us count our blessings, no matter how small they may be.

I received a handful of Christmas letters and cards this week: thank you to everyone who sent those! It was a wonderful p-day morning, reading all those messages of love for me. "Out of small things proceedeth that which is great" - you might not know how much one little card inspires a missionary to keep working hard.

Thank you for the wedding pictures, the e-mails, and all of your prayers and love for me. I'm grateful to have such support from my family and friends and testify that (as it says in Romans 8) time, distance, and earthly powers can't separate us from the love of Christ, from the love of our families, and from the blessings we call down from heaven through our prayers.

Love,
Elder Withers