Los Lomas to Ica

Dear Family,

Let me start off with an apology, I was planning on doing a voice recording because of the mass content of things I wanted to go over but I left it back at the house. (cara palma)

For those of you who have it marked on your calendars you will know that this week was transfers, that's why I'm writing on Tuesday. Sad to say I am no longer in Las Lomas Pachacamac. I have left Elder Bustillo and the ward and the elders and all my friends and the entire Lima zone and am now in the south. My new area is La Angostura in Ica. After traveling from 6 am to 4.30 pm I was greeted by my new companion, Elder Jennings from Phoenix Arizona. If you look on google for Ica (which I already know my mom is) you will see a lot of sand dunes and little towns in the midst of them and the most touristy spot is the Huacachina which is a literal guess of how you spell that, but the Huacachina is an Oasis in the middle of this blubbery sweaty blistering hot desert. The air here is dryer but not like it is in Utah but not near as humid as Lima. Good to get a change of scenery. On the long bus ride here I was with a Sister Legaspi from the Philippines (never did learn how to spell that) and she is going to Nazca, which is still 3 to 4 hours south of where I am. Still technically in my zone just because Nazca doesn't have enough missionaries to be a zone of its own. I will be here as district leader.

AND even crazier news is that the new assistant to the president is Elder Limao, my trainer! I was so excited to hear that he will do such a good job.

BUT no matter how crazy and exciting the transfers were it still has no where near the joy of baptizing Javier on Saturday. The baptismal service was probably one of the best and most attended. The YSA put it all together and invited everyone and it was very spiritual.

Love you all,

Elder Craythorne

Transfer Day

Dear Dad,

So I am sure you want to know everything I can tell you about my new transfer. My new companion is Elder Jennings from Phoenix, he is 20, just barely got out of training doesn't know that much Español but we will work out that. I didn't think I would ever get a gringo comp again because of something President Richey said about learning Spanish so there should always be a gringo with a Latino, (bee movie) "but that's life".

My new area is in Ica, far far away from Lima, it was a 6 hour transit. From 6:00 to 10:00 am  I was going through all of Lima picking up and dropping off Elders to different areas. Ica is hot. Super hot. And summer hasn't even started yet... We are surrounded by sand dunes which is pretty sick actually. I will try to learn a little bit more about it for next week because this is only my second day. Just Google it and you'll get a pretty good idea, it was pretty weird to see a few more gringos down here as tourists.

One thing I am excited about is to meet the Bishop, someone told me his son is serving a mission in Ogden, today after P Day I will go talk to him and find out a little more.

I didn't spend a lot of time writing on the keyboard this week for transfers but I do have a lot of pictures

Love you,

Elder Craythorne

Las Lomas and Happy 94th Birthday to Pres. Nelson

Dear Family,

As you will see from the pictures, we went to the temple again. It was really good as always, we are leaving the cold season so it was getting a little warmer. And of course we had to go to Subway after and you can bet your best dollar I got that chicken bacon ranch melt, AND I remembered to take a picture.

The day before while we were walking in the street I found 10 soles, so I decided to buy my companion his first Subway. No regrets there.

Something funny happened this week, well I thought it was funny but there are two parts to the back story. The Elders in my district had 5 baptism interviews I needed to do this week. The other part is that it is really common here when I am in the street we can pass by a group of people and they can be drunk or sober but the girls in the group will start calling "gringo!" they might whistle or whatever but I just have to keep walking. They say this because people aren't used to blonde and blue eyes guys. Anyways, so I am in the interview with the 11 year old of the family and in the middle of no where she blurts out "can you baptize me?" caught me off guard and I said that whoever she wanted could baptize her, so she said "yeah I want you to do it". Then I am talking with the 18 year old daughter and at the end of it all she asks "When do I decided who baptizes me?" I said whenever but soon and she goes "I think I want you to baptize me". Then we get to the mom and I asked her "who do you want to baptize you?" and she says "well I guess whoever baptizes my daughters". So I could have 3 baptisms this week but we won't have time because the baptism for Javier is at the exact same time. Ha ha just because I'm gringo. 

On Friday we had intercambios with the zone leaders in their area which was super green might I add, but at night we had planned another Family Home Evening with the youth, not a ton of people came but it was well populated and we had good participation. We taught about the affects of becoming used to sin. We used to thing where you have to put your hands in freezing cold water for a minute and then try to pick up rice, because of the numbness of their hands it made it very difficult. The same goes with people who are so used to their sinful lives that even if they are baptized it makes it hard for them to feel the spirit. Then to top it all off we played the charades app on their smart phones.

This week will be good as we will be able to baptize Javier, his progression has been unbelievable and he is so ready.

I love and pray for all of you thanks for everything.

Elder Craythorne

Las Lomas

Dear Family,

This week went by really fast and we worked really hard, all that work will pay off in a couple weeks with some baptisms and this week we will be able to go to the temple again. Always a good experience.

For those who may have forgotten I am still district leader and this week we had exchanges with the elders from Floresta, those are always fun. We have really good companionship's in our district nothing to worry me too much. I also got the idea to minister a little bit so I bought stuff to make pancakes and we woke up at 5:30 to go wake them up early and make pancakes.

I will probably have another overload of pictures next week from the trip to the temple on Thursday. 

This week I listened to the BYU Speech from Liz Wizeman called "The Power of Not Knowing" and it is so good. I have noticed that people with a lot of knowledge are not necessarily wise. Actually in most cases if someone has a lot of knowledge and they don't know how to use it they just end up sounding arrogant. Don't forget to pray and read the scriptures.

Love you all,

Elder Craythorne