Pamplona and Las Lomas

Dear Family,

On Thursday we had a conference with Elder Montoya from the 70 and it was so good. The majority of his talk was centered on mission goals, weekly, yearly and after your mission. If we don't measure ourselves how are we ever going to know how we can improve. But he also touched on topics like the Atonement and being worthy priesthood holders. It was very spiritual and I learned a lot, Elder Montoya is a really good teacher and a good speaker. I will talk more about that later.

I have already mentioned this before but ever since the financial crisis in Venezuela the people have left to just about every country they can trying to live. So there is a large amount here in Peru and especially Lima. If I remember right then I emailed awhile ago about Wilmer who we found and now we found a new family, they actually came to the food activity. Their two sons are what you could consider to be nuts, but that is good news for me.

This morning we went hiking again, yes that same place we went 2 months ago. Its about the only thing we have here. So what I lack in words this week I will make up with the quality of pictures.

Again, I learned so much from Elder Montoya he is so easy to listen to (even in Spanish) and the whole room was silent waiting for what he had to say next. The spirit was so strong. Like I said he talked about goals, he also talked about traps we can fall into as missionaries and to stay away from any possible harm, or anything that could get in the way of our goals.

Super sorry this is a short one but enjoy the pics. I hope you all the best week and I hope you know I love you all.

Love,

Elder Craythorne

Pictures in no order:

Cactus and Elder Craythorne

Inca Head

"The Pioneers used to ride these babies for miles"

Two more points for Heaven

Dear Family,

This last Saturday we baptized Santiago and Jorge, and the service was good, not exactly because of what happened or what was said or done but the people or better said the souls who made it.

Jorge Yactayo was a baptism long in the making an investigator who started about 20 months ago. He got married on Friday, which is a miracle all on its own. His new wife is a member and they have been living together for some time now because they were waiting for papers to get married and it took a long time because he is from a little town in the jungle that almost nobody knows anything about. I have mentioned before that it is very hard to get married here in Peru as far as paperwork and blood samples go so I don't need to get into those details. So for his baptism I can't say we did much other than put together the service, he acts like a member and already knows a lot.

Santiago on the other hand means a little more to me, sure the worth of souls is great in the sight of God and no one is better than anyone else but 3 months ago it was super hot in the afternoon and we were planning to go up a little higher on the hill to contact and it was there I knocked on any old door and out walked Santiago with a big old smile "What can I help you with?" he said and here we are. He has an amazing testimony and a firm value of being early to things which made it really easy to get him to go to church. This last time when we went to the temple we decided to buy him a hymn book so he could sing along. I am so grateful I was able to help these 2 men make this eternal covenant.

I have mentioned before Diomedez and his family and all of their problems but it is really cool to teach them. They trust us a lot and we joke around a lot but they are just sort of a different type of people than ones you would see in church. And I know we are supposed to picture each of our investigators in the temple but for them it was just so weird to think about for me. They laugh a lot and are always making jokes one to another. Anyway, flash forward to yesterday and they came to church! It was a miracle! Little by little we are getting to that vision where they can one day be baptized, even though that is far off because they have to get married.

Well for my birthday, the zone will bring a cake on Wednesday to district meeting and I will bring the decorations there to celebrate. We also went to Papa Johns so it was a really good birthday week.

The elder who came in to replace Elder Macgregor, the other companionship here in Pamplona, is Elder Hatch from Arizona and he is just a salt of the earth type of guy.  He is super tall and played basketball in high school and very humble. Anyway, we get a long very well.

I just wanted to share my testimony of the small and simple things. Here we teach the acronym OLA orar leer y asister or pray read and attend. And I really know how important those 3 very small things have an impact. This week we were teaching a lesson and I needed to pull up a scripture but I have never been a wiz at that. I was trying to explain baptisms for the dead and I just thought to myself "Well I am pretty sure that's somewhere in Peter" and bam I opened right to it. STUDY YOUR SCRIPTURES.

Love,

Elder Kreyton (how they say and spell my name here)

Speechless

Dear Family and Friends,

I was going to put Pamplona and the Priesthood as my title but that was obviously before hearing of the newly announced temples. Layton, Utah. Wow I am speechless and I will not be able to express anywhere near how I actually feel and I am excited to hear your comments and similar feelings, not forgetting the other temples in remote parts of the world like Russia and India. To those who want to hear an attempt of how I felt refer to my voice recording. The work is moving along, and with great velocity.

Then to my fellow priesthood holders, if you did not participate in the session Saturday you missed out. Again, I will not be able to adequately express the spirit that was there when we shouted in song, Rise Up oh Men of God. He really is the prophet and you can feel it.

My companion caught the flu this week, or in other words I should be getting sick any day now.

I just wanted to share a certain experience before I elaborate more on General conference. This week with Santiago. Towards the beginning of the lesson we verified how he felt about his baptism, the 7th of April, and to be honest I was doubting a little bit just because a lot of time passes between our lessons, sometimes we are lucky to get one a week. These last couple of lessons we have been trying to finish the lessons and on Wednesday we planned to teach tithing. So after some hesitation I finally asked him if he felt sufficiently prepared and still wanted to be baptized and he started in explaining how he could not wait he is ecstatic about his baptism. He said "I know I have to be baptized and I want to do it and this is the church I need to be baptized in." I can't explain it well enough or translate exactly what he said but it just gave me so much peace I couldn't help but let out a giant sigh of relief and smile. When we were doing the pre interview and we asked if he believed in God he appeared to be almost offended he said "that's not even a question". Again, I don't know what we did to deserve this miracle.

I feel packed with spiritual ammunition after this weekend. And with the new calling of Elder Suarez and Elder Gong, I know the will and hand of Lord was behind all of it. I finally learned what it means to be meek with 4 amazing examples. I learned for Elder Robins the necessity of failure and that "success is going from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm".

I loved this week and that weekend definitely helped. I hope you enjoy the voice recording.

Love,

Elder Craythorne

Pamplona and Recreation

Dear Family,

To give some background to this story about 2 years ago my companion tore his ACL or something like that and they just barely operated on it this last December. He walks fine and he doesn't complain about the pain but he has got one of those things you slip around your knee and he proselytes like that. I am not sure what he feels but his shoes probably aren't helping at all just because they are dress shoes and not so much walking shoes so it was decided that we buy him black tennis slash running shoes to proselyte in. Let's just say that this week we were scraping the bottom of the bucket financially waiting for our reimbursement. Don't worry mom, miracles still happen with our without money (like members buying us pizza haha).

After walking home from English class with Luis his dad basically told us "not yet" as far as baptism and that includes Luis' baptism. We are still going to continue teaching him and I am sure he will be baptized just not now.

We also decided that it would be a million times better that Jordan gets baptized with his mom and dad, which is just around the corner because they have plans to get married in May. Everybody wins because Jordan will still be able to go to boys camp. They have been taking lessons since last July! 

What is even better is that an investigator who has been taking lessons for more than 2 years waiting for his papers to get married will finally get married the 6th of April. That is a free baptism that we did little to deserve.

My one and only invitation to the reader of this email is to watch General Conference this week. I don't care who you are or if you're just reading this to clear it off your inbox WATCH GENERAL CONFERENCE. It will be the best decision of this week and I promise you won't regret it. Any primary kid can tell you to follow the prophet but that will be pretty hard to do if you don't know what he is saying.

I personally testify that there are prophets who walk on this earth today. Modern day Peter, James and John exist, their names just might appear to be Russell, Dallin and Henry but the office is the same. I love that there is a God who is so caring that he sends us these messengers. You will know that God speaks, yes I mean the present verb. I love this church and I know its true. I am also really excited to see who the new apostles will be, my money is on Elder Clayton and slash or Elder Pingree but that might only be something interesting to a missionary. 

Have the best week don't forget to read the Book of Mormon.

Love you all,

Elder Craythorne

Pamplona City

Family and Friends,

I don't know where all these miracles are coming from. The presidents wife just told me that we can work hard and not get anything done or we can work hard and "get lucky" you could say but the key is to keep working hard. To recap this week I will just talk about our baptisms and Santiago.

It was a long process but we finished off the week with two baptisms, Alexander and Alfredo. 2 points for heaven someone give me a high five. Two very good men who are a lot better now.

Santiago is the most humble man and not because he is obligated to be but because he chose to be. He actually has a pretty good job but he gives all that he makes to his family to their houses and studies, his own house is very simple. The gospel and the Book of Mormon are things that he decisively made a part of his life and he is happier because of it.

Today is only half a P-day because on Friday we are going to the temple woo hoo so that will be more of a full P-day. The temple is great and I can't wait to eat at Subway again ha ha. Also, my companion has had problems with his meniscus in the past so president wants us to buy new "proselyting" shoes but they are just all black Nike running shoes to help out with walking all day everyday. Then it will be back to the grind.

Something that is normal here but I had to get used to was that every so often at random they will just shut off the water or electricity, that's what happened last week so we had to drive 30 minutes to find another Internet cafe.

Last P day we watched the movie Coco and I am not going to lie I think it was better in Spanish than in English. And boy does that movie tug a few chords and make you want to remember a little more. Of course everybody ties this into temple work and family history.

I read something in the Liahona this week that I really liked. It was by Elder Cook called something like "When the bad seems good and the good seems bad" it reminded me a lot of the quote shared by Elder Holland that "somehow Satan has made covenants and commandments feel more like condemnation". Growing up and especially in High School I felt like that was very true in certain cases, fortunately I wasn't exposed to many major things but one thing that stared me in the face wanting to fight was language. It didn't matter who, if I heard garbage I would offer a word they could have said instead and often times it happened when I was good friends with someone in class and then they would cuss suddenly I felt like I was the one who looked ridiculous because I wouldn't say things like that. If you haven't read it already I would encourage you to, it talks about all the commandments or values of the church that the world doesn't agree with like modesty, chastity, Word of Wisdom, and families.

Our mission started a study of the Book of Mormon from the start to the end marking with 4 colors all the names of Christ, His attributes, His teachings and the prophesies completed in the Book of Mormon. We will read 20 minutes everyday or 6 to 7 pages to be able to finish in 3 months or so. I started in English but apparently that was cheating so I started over in Spanish. I don't know where you all are in your own studies but for those of you who haven't read in awhile I fervently invite you to do the same.

I love all you guys have the best week, don't forget to read your scriptures.

Love,

Elder Craythorne

Pamlona and Pure Miracles

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, let me tell you about last Monday. For lunch we went to the mall and another zone was there all together and so as the caption hints we had a family reunion. Elder Halliday, Elder Limao, Elder Me, and Elder Huanca. What is crazier is that Elder Halliday's trainer is still in the mission so we have 5 generations. That was really fun pics below. We also went shopping and I was in a good mood so I bought Elder Huanca and I some Star Wars shirts, pics also below.

We aren't even to the good part yet. While proselyting at night we were in the house of one of our ,as the kids say, "eternal investigators" but really we are just waiting so they can get married so they can be as the kids say "an eternal family" which will probably happen in June, they already act like members though but you know, you gotta live the commandments. Anyway, so we were teaching them and we are sort of running out of ideas of what to do because they have already listened to every lesson more than 100 times, let me remind you they started investigating last June. Well there we were in the middle of the lesson and the mom stopped us and asked how easy it would be for her kid to be a member of the church so he could go to boys camp. It about threw me out of my chair I just assumed they wanted to get baptized all together. Long confusing story short Jordan, the 12 year old, is going to get baptized here shortly. Along with Alexander and Alfredo who will be baptized this week.

This week we revisited Sara who was an old investigator from Elder Infante and his old companion. She had been taught everything and actually had a baptismal interview but the week leading up to her baptism she saw anti Mormon propaganda and lost it all. She became cold and began contending with us very quickly. We stopped passing by a while ago but we always awkwardly walked by her massage salon because it is on one of the busier streets in our area. This last Wednesday she sought us out said she wanted to talk. Long spiritual story short she said that while she was listening to the missionaries she felt happiness and peace but while she was looking stuff up on the Internet she felt sick, irritable, and miserable. We started from 0 with her with the very basics of prayer and we will go from there.

Yesterday we had a very powerful lesson. We were teaching a man who had assisted a church before but had left it because he stopped believing in God after the death of his 23 year old son. He asked us "In your church do you guys believe in miracles?" we replied of course we do, then he said "I cannot tell you how hard I prayed for my son to live. I had spent hours praying. Why did he die?" Obviously a very delicate and scary situation and he was already in tears before we the account in Alma when the women and children are suffering. Even though we have the spirit with us as we teach doesn't mean we will be able to have an answer to every question and I couldn't tell this man exactly why his son died, but I could tell him that God did know and that God loves him. I left his house feeling pretty good.

I guess one thing I don't talk about a lot but I should is the food here. I eat really good food here and the Peruvians really like to talk about their food, they have all got weird names like Lomo Saltado, Papa la Huancaina, Arroz con pollo (flashback to my farewell) they eat that a lot, they have a dish called noodles with 7 sauces. Let's just say there are a lot of condiments on everything so I wouldn't say I eat the healthiest of things but they are very flavorful. Personally, my favorite would be either Lomo Saltado or Green Noodles. Ok now the negative part about the food, they have something that has a nickname Matagringo (Gringo Killer) it is an olive which I know doesn't sound menacing but it is so different and it doesn't get along with my taste buds at all but the pensionista here gives it to us all the time because she knows we don't like it and wants to teach us to like it. So yes I do willfully eat it and I don't complain even though everyone knows that on the inside I'd rather eat a snail again. So compared to that the tomatoes and onions which I didn't liked before, now don't seem anyway near as bad.

Those of you who read this and remember the cookies that Adrian Porras used to bring to school we also eat those a lot. As far as deserts go I would say my favorite is a simple sweet bread with Manjar Blanco on the inside.

Well now that I think about it I probably should have started out talking about the food and ending off with the spiritual stuff but oh well.  Hope you all have a great week.  

Love,

Elder Craythorne

Pamplona (Rogue) One

Dear Family and Friends,

I hear a good quote this week where the stake president was in a meeting with the area 70 and other general authorities and the area 70 said "we have all been called out of the mercy of God because if it were out of justice we would not be here". I have been called as a missionary out of God's mercy.

I hope you guys had as good a week as we had. Working hard and progressing is sweeter than any tres leches cake I have been offered (that's a lie but you catch the analogy I am trying to make). This week we had a lesson with Santiago who is 57 years old and is so excited to be baptized. He lives alone with his son in a very humble house and the rest of his family lives in another city but he visits them often. He told us that he liked the folletos so much that he started teaching his family the things we were teaching him. He lives at the top of the hill but he is 10 minutes early to church every week. I can't explain how fun it is to teach him.

I cannot tell you exactly the number about how many baptisms come from member references but its a lot more than that of regular tracting. Members know who is ready for the gospel more than we do the only problem is that it costs an arm and a leg to get a referral out of the members but I can't say too much because I was never generous either before my mission. If every member gave referrals the world would be a better place, in an ideal world.

The service we do here is so fun, well not fun but I like it a lot. I think I have already explained a little of what we do but I will go into a little more detail. Juan Leon is the father of one of recent converts and he is such a good guy. He has his own humble little workshop where he makes shopping carts but not the kind you are thinking of. So we help bending iron, making measurements and drilling holes, smoothing off the poles with something that makes a lot of sparks. The end result is a lot of noise and grease slash grime. I would try take pictures but everyone's hands are dirty. 

I am going to buy a new suit today. Cross your fingers everything goes smoothly. 

I know this church is true I love sharing it.

Elder Craythorne

Pictures

Last week I had the best hamburger and milkshake that I have ever had in my mission.

Our zone leaders bought us pizza.