Wednesday, September 17, 2008

8-15-08


On Saturday we had the baptism of Aracely who we taught all the lessons to and her grandpa baptized her. It was really funny because the zone leaders were supposed to bring the clothes, but they didn't show up. Twenty minutes later we got the clothes from the stake president who just happened to be in the building.

We have four other baptisms scheduled for next week. Artemio is all up for getting baptized and is done with all the lessons. He continues to dig deep into the scriptures everyday and continues to amaze us by what he has learned. I am surprised because we haven't been here that long, but we are already seeing success. I play the piano sometimes. Our pentionista has one and the churches have one, but time is very limited. That is the good side...I shook a guy's hand that I didn't know was drunk. He grasped my hand and was saying some gibberish that I didn't completely understand but knew wasn't good. I loosed of his hand and continued on my way. I know that the lord watches over us and protect us us as servants of the lord.


We are in Lima North which is a really big part of the city of Lima. We do have mountain hills and climb them every day. Recently it has been kind of cold, fifties. Some days it is kind of hot around 70-80 degrees. The air here is horrible for my skin and my clothes because it is sooooo dirty. It is honestly a huge city. I would say it is very poor in some parts and middle class in others.


We have a pentionista...she cooks breakfast and dinner every day, but lunch is in the members houses (which can be interesting). She is a pretty good cook. We actually live in the other part of the house with her family. They are really cool, parents and one kid.




Monday, September 8, 2008

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Taylor while in the Peru MTC

9/8/08


Family and Friends,

The mission is great...
Last week was kind of a hard one. Elder Eguez and I had some cosas (differences) we needed to work out. We had a comp switch for a day and I was with Elder Vigil from Layton Utah. He has been out for quite a while and has some good experiences that he shared. It really taught me some valuable cosas about how to make the best out of every situation. Things changed a little bit..

This week has been good. The members continue to feed us references and help us with our area, it is interesting how big of an area it is. Six investigators showed up to church and we continue to try our best. Artemio has one more lesson to go and is kind nervous about the baptism coming up. He wants it a week or two later. We talked to him about praying to know if it was right for him or not. He agreed and I really think that he will have some great experiences a head. It is awesome because when we try our hardest and continue to work through our hard times things turn out great.

The area is interesting. It is dirty and really poor and the people are humble and I think probably every day I get cat calls. The Spanish is going well and I took a few pictures but will send them in a while. It is so hard to find enough time to email so please help keep everyone updated.

Love,

Elder Griffin

Thursday, September 4, 2008

9/01/08

Yo vive en el Campo ahorra. Vida es bueno..vida es muy differente aqui pero es muy bonita. (translation: I live in the Campo Ahorra. Life is good. Life is very different here but it is very pretty.) I have been here for 4 days and it has been great. we have talked to a lot of people in the area and lots of people are ready to hear the gospel. My companion's name is Elder Egüez he is great. I love to talk to everybody but he is kind of quiet. He came straight from the jungle where he baptized 11 people. He has had alot of sucess while teaching. Hopefully we will have the same sucess here. 
Our barrio y zona es (ward and zone is): Tahuantinsuyo-zona, libertad y habana-barrios

I have jumped out of my comfort level here. We go on buses for long distances that are really packed in with a lot of other people which presents a great oppurtunity to share the gospel. 3 times I have been able to stand up and share a short message and handed out folletos (pamphlets) sobre nuestro religion. So far we have had great success. We have one person who I think will get baptized named Artemio. We met him at church yesterday. He is about 26 and single and he was invited to church by a friend a while back. He has read so much about our church and he already had a Book of Mormon and a couple other church materials. He has read so much and is very interested. We gave him the first lesson with flip charts and other ancient materials because my companion has them and they work great. We commited him to continue reading the BOM and to live the law of Chastity and the word of Wisdom and he gladly agreed to both. He is really amazing and we are meeting again with him on Thursday, He is giving us breakfast because he really wants to.

We have met some great members here and they are really into telling their friends about the gospel...it is great.