Las Lomas and the Best Time Of My Life

Dear Family,

I can't tell you how good I feel about this week. It was so good. If you can believe it not only did we reach our goals but we (I can't think of the right word) overcame? our goals for chapel and new investigators. I feel on fire right now.  The ward has changed a ton since I got here, for the better. It actually feels like a ward now. When I first got here I think I complained about the low attendance but yesterday we had over 100. Wish I could take credit for it but I don't know what changed. I also used to complain about how all my recent converts were all young men and young women, then I realized that these are the future missionaries.

You know you are going to have a good companionship when you ask your companion what he likes to do and he says "clean" (fist pump) its incredible how much he can find to clean. So I am proud to announce that we have passed our first week together without any fights. "Chill" feels like an informal word that a missionary probably shouldn't use too much but my companion is just really chill. But not everything is all rainbows and butterflies turns out he doesn't like pizza... and even worse Star Wars. Pray for me.

This week we had a really good district meeting, don't tell the Elders but it was a repeat from a district meeting I lead in Pamplona. I wanted to explain the difficulty of teaching how to recognize the spirit. To jog your memory I gave a sweet snack to the elders and asked them to describe how it tasted without using the word "sweet". It turned out better than the first time as we made the connection to feeling and describing the spirit without using words "well its the spirit" and tasting an Oreo without saying "its sweet".

I don't know how many times I have mentioned that I have wanted to a Family Home Evening with the youth in the ward or maybe this is the first time but this Wednesday that dream will become a reality. I really wanted to focus really hard on the significance and worth of a testimony. I figured that if there was an age that was more prone to hearing negative comments about the church it would be the youth, and most of them are recent converts of a year or so. One thing our Elder's Quorum President always says when he accompanies us to visit the youth is "make sure that whatever doubt you have right now, just ask one of your leaders or the elders just to get it out of the way so it doesn't fester or canker into a cause for inactivity and give yourself more time to feel the love that comes from pure true doctrine." Roughly translated and adding some of my own words ha ha. I will let you know how it goes I think it'll be a good turn out.

Again, Ï am super happy and super content about what we were able to do this week. But I am afraid we might not be able to keep it up. We found 7 new investigators last week and most were just miracle references we got from members.

I have a strong testimony and a love for the truthfulness of this gospel. I am so humbled to be out here and so grateful God has given me this time.

Love you all,

Que tengan una buena semana.

Elder Kreyton

Transfers

Dear Family,

TRANSFERS

I am writing on Tuesday so that means that we are at the start of a new transfer. My companion Elder Streber went to Brillantes in the stake from my last area, San Gabriel and my new companion is Elder Bustillo from Honduras. Again, this is our second day together so I can't say too much. He is 23 years old, a convert to the church for 4 years. Other than that not a lot of news as far as transfers go. I'm still district leader. A lot of good elders that I knew ended their missions but that also means a lot of new ones came. In some ways the mission feels different than it was 3 months ago but in a lot of ways it is the same.

BAPTISM

This Saturday Angely got baptized, it was up in the air whether or not it would be this week because we had yet to talk about when her parents could come. On Wednesday we went and talked with her mom and we decided to do it early at 10 in the morning. 10.40 the parents never showed up which was rough for Angely but she had a lot of support from the young men and young women so it turned out to be a good experience. She decided that her friend's dad, the second counselor in the bishopric, would baptize her.

FAMILY HOME EVENING

Yesterday was the FHE again and my companion and I taught the Atonement. My companion used a visual aid that was pretty cool and super simple. He put water on a plate and said it represented sin then he ripped a little piece of a banana in the middle of it and said it was us then he explained that we need the 5 principles of the gospel and put 5 matches in the banana and then lit them. He then said that as we live the gospel we accept the Savior and put a glass cup over it which represented Jesus. The lack of oxygen for the fire caused the cup to suck all the water from the plate. Maybe I wasn't too goo at explaining it but it was simple. Then we had everyone share their testimonies about the 5 principles faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost and endure to the end.

I love my mission and every opportunity I have to learn and adapt and be better. It is so fun and it is the best decision of my life.

I know this church is true. Read your Book of Mormon.

Love you all,

Elder Craythorne

Los Lomas

Dear Family,

We had a good week this week. Finally got to have our first interviews with President Richey and his wife. One thing I noticed is that they are trying super hard to learn the language. One thing president is focusing on right now is the principle of refining. So we talked a little bit about me as a district leader or as a missionary in general, he asked how I feel about the mission right now and I said "well, there are always things we can work on" to which he responded "I know what you mean by that. I've only been here 4 weeks and I already have a big stack of 'wish I had done that better's but that is the idea". I think we get caught up a lot of the time in trying to do everything perfect the first time when in reality it would take 2 or 3 or 4 or 20 tries.

We also did a TON of service this week. Helped the elder's quorum president move and re did the roof on a sister's house.

I love my mission, I know I always say that and it might sound redundant but I really do. I know every day I can wake up and work for the Lord.

Love you all,

Elder Craythorne

Los Lomas and the one with the monkey

Dear Family and Friends,

To quickly explain my subject there is a recent convert here and she found a monkey and was keeping it as a pet but then she returned it to its owner..

To celebrate the 24th of July a little bit I went outside and cleaned the windows of our apartment. Only a few of you will understand that reference.

I mentioned a while ago about Angely who is the sister of a recent convert. It is basically like teaching a member she is super good and already has a really good testimony. We are going to try and get her baptized the next week, it was going to be this week but there is a huge ward activity so we had to push it back.  

Something changed this week. You probably won't understand because it was so small but I think it changed the whole course of my mission maybe even my life. I said in my group email last week that now we have to have 10 names in the back of our planner at the end of every day. I can say that 5 days in a row I have completed it but holy cow is it difficult. I think we have talked to 60 or 70 people maybe 80. I can feel I am on the brink of something big here in this area, I think this was the change we needed, but certainly one that I needed personally. I can't say we found an extraordinary number of new people this week because when you plant a tree the fruits don't come immediately but I feel really good. I found a new definition to "giving it my all" this week.

This week I got sun burnt! For the first time in months where I have seen the sun and it just so happens that it happened on the day to do service. Every other day is cold and cloudy. I have only got one picture today and it is nothing special but it is a good representation of the average street here in Peru, well at least where I am serving and have served.

I am learning a lot out here and I can't believe time has gone by as fast as it actually has. I still have a lot to learn before I become the missionary I know I can be. In a lot of ways I am improving but mainly my testimony is one that has been solidified and pounded into what it is now.

I love being a missionary, you have no idea how happy it makes me nor how blessed it makes me feel neither how humbled I am by my calling. I feel like I have a lot of expectations for myself that still are unattended but I like feeling like I can be better.

I love all you guys and I can assure you I am happy.

Elder Craythorne

The outside world

Ceviche de Pollo

Las Lomas and OK Food

Family,

I guess my subject is more a reference because this week our pensionista (our cook) made ceviche but with chicken when you usually make it with raw fish. It was not my favorite. We also get served food that is called "Hamburgers" but its just fish mashed up and made in the shape of a patty. Crabby patties ha ha. Other than that she is a good cook.

This week went by really fast and nothing too special happened.

For my district meeting I wanted to try and help my district be better teachers but that was hard and I am not sure I succeeded. We went through the Christlike attributes because that is who we have to follow to be the best teachers. I have also been studying out of the manual that is called "Teaching in the Savior's way".

This coming week we really need to hit it hard with finding new investigators, I need to start thinking outside the box. I have noticed that what I did in my other areas will not guarantee success here.

We are working really hard with Less Actives and trying to teach their families, when we try to get them to go to church mostly they don't come because we start at 8 in the madrugada. But good news, that will change come next week we will start at 8 30.

I am excited because next week I will be able to have my first interview with President Richey I am excited to get to know him.

I love and pray for all you guys.   Time is going by too fast.  Sorry no pictures this week.

Elder Craythorne

Independence Day

Ola Family,

I am not sure if this will make sense or not but every other week you will get a good solid letter. Since the rule is we can't be on computers at the same time, every other week I am on the computer first then while my companion is writing I can use this Alpha Smart thank goodness to get some thoughts down.

This would be one of those weeks.

That is something that will be weird and different for me because the first time I was district leader I didn't have to do a single baptismal interview but looking at it now it sounds like by the end of this week I will have done 3! Wish me luck.

End of the week.

Well I got one of those interviews done ha ha it was really fun and the investigator was super prepared. He has fought through battle after battle with addictions but it was cool for me to hear how strong his testimony was because of it.

In my voice message I talked a little bit about what we are learning and here I will mostly talk about what we are doing or trying to do.

We found quite a bit of new people this week. On Wednesday we had divisions with the Elders from Floresta so that was useful to us. I think the idea of divisions is different here it sounds like in other missions they just trade off areas and an elder but here all 4 elders are in the same area. An accomplishment we achieved was teaching Angeli, the sister of one of the recent converts here. It was too easy because she has already gone to the church a bunch and she participates in the Young Women's and everything, but the reason I call it an accomplishment because she is super shy and she is super scared to talk to us. I don't know why!! We are nice people! Who wouldn't want a tall gringo and Argentinian in your house teaching you the gospel. Anyway, long story short we taught lesson 1 and after committing her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon we asked her what she would be willing to do if she receives an answer and she thought for .5 seconds "um get baptized". Like taking candy from a baby, literally because she is 13 years old. Her mom was the really good investigator we taught a couple of weeks ago who really likes our church but has no time to go.

We also had quite a few at church yesterday so that was good. Also, yesterday we did open chapel in the stake center and it was super successful so many people went. Elder Streber and I were in charge of the baptismal font and teaching that while we were dressed in all white. Everyone said we looked like angels.

That is all I have for this week.  I hope you enjoy the voice message and my companion and I had some p-day fun trying to learn how to juggle. Some people could call it good companionship unity.

I love you all I still pray for you and I feel your prayers.

Elder Craythorne

Las Lomas and the Beach

Dear Family and Friends,

We had quite the week this week. I had my first District Meeting which I thought went pretty well. I was sort of taking the Vince Lambardi (spelling?) route and talking about the basics of missionary work. Everyone knows how, as a coach, he would sit his players down and teach him saying "this is a football" so on and so forth. I tried to do that same thing with the Book of Mormon, prayer, going to church and baptism. I am excited for the district we have a lot of good elders but of course there are always problems. Last week mom sent me the list of 7 Habits of Highly Successful People and I started tying that to missionary work.

We shared scriptures of the importance of opening your mouth. Nothing happens in the missionary work until someone decides to open there mouth. It is interesting to think that Satan's tactic to try and prevent Joseph Smith from receiving the revelation was to bound his tongue so he could not speak. JSH 1.15. One thing I am seeing is that we have to be contacting WAY MORE than how we are contacting right now.

Highlight of this week was on Friday the visit from Elder Carlos Godoy the area president. He is such a good speaker and teacher and I learned a lot from him. My last chance to see ex President McGinn, yesterday President Richie arrived and Wednesday (Independence Day) will be our first multizone conference with him. I am so excited.

As you will be able to tell from the pictures we went to the beach again today. Different beach relatively same pictures. Which brings me to achieving a grand milestone in my life. Today was the first time a bird has ever bombed me (refer to the picture). 

This next week I will try my best to get a voice message on here again.

I am so lucky to be a missionary.

Elder Craythorne