~ Cambios ~ Changes ~

Zone Ilo

Hola Familia,

Well I am in Ilo for another 6 weeks now.  I will be with Elder Cluff some more and it will be awesome.  Overall this week was great and we were able to have some awesome experiences and some good success.

A cool experience that I had was with our recent convert, Hermana Basilia.  We went to go and visit her this week because she has been in Lima for a marriage.  While we were walking to her house, we came around the corner because she has a little store and she was reading her Book of Mormon (Spanish version).  She cannot read that well, but it was amazing to see her have the desire to read.  Then we were able to come and help her read and explain the book to her.  Then she shared with us her desire to convert her friends and to share this gospel.  She was telling us how her body was really hurting and that she had been having troubles with diabetes.  But listen to this ha ha, she said that after she got baptized she doesn’t hurt anymore and she doesn’t have so many troubles with blood sugar levels; it is amazing.  I can testify that she was healed through her faith (Spanish version) and her desire to change her life and follow Jesus Christ.  It was just incredible.

Then we were able to go and help out a less active member that we are just teaching.  Their entire family is members and are all less active.  After talking to them some more we were able to figure out that because the parents separated the whole family was destroyed.  It was so sad to hear that just because the parents lost the faith and endurance to push through the hard times, everyone was lost.  I know that the parents are the anchors in the family and if they are doing the right things their children will follow and vice versa.  Parents need to show the way, live to a higher standard, and be the example that they always wanted in their life.

Family,

Thank you so much.  I know that I am who I am because how I was raised and the examples that I have had.  Just remember that God is always there and that we just need to find him and he will help us out.  Thank you all so much. 

I love you all. Les amo.

Elder Cooley 

Questions:

1. Favorite scripture?

2 Timothy 3:12 (Spanish version)

2. What is your favorite weather down there?

When it is a little hotter because our shower would be hotter ha ha.

3. How long does it take you to get from Ilo to Arequipa?

It takes about 4.5 hours or so.

Baptism

Lucas

Baptism

Interview

Converts: Joel, Mirian, Fabian

Hola Familia,

Wow this week has been so cool.  It has been a good time to be able to learn and find the best out of each day.  We were able to have some awesome family home evenings.  I want to invite all of you to do your family home evenings (Spanish version) every single week.  I know that this simple thing will help your family and strengthen them.  Then we were able to have a sweet lesson with Juan Pool.

Juan Pool was a contact a few weeks ago and so we went back and had another lesson with him.  While we were teaching him he told us that he went and got his own bible to read and to start searching for God (Spanish version).  He is 14 years old and a great kid.  We just need to work with him a ton and help out his family to all be strong members.

This week we had the amazing opportunity to be able to have the visit of Elder Uceda (Spanish version) from the Quorum of the Seventy (Spanish version).  He is in charge of the South America area and is just awesome.  We were able to go to Tanca with our Zone to have a conference with him.  It was amazing and you can tell that he is called of God.  Then on Sunday we had another meeting with him, just the Zone Leaders in the mission.  This meeting was amazing.  We got to go to church in Arequipa on Sunday and I went back to my old ward.  It was fantastic to see all the people that I taught.  Then we went to the meeting with Elder Uceda.  We learned a ton.  It was very awesome to see how he teaches.  I have so much respect for him.  At the end of the meeting Presidente Zobrist got up and was like Elder Uceda is going to do four interviews and the following individuals will be interviewed: Hermana “something”, Elder “something”, Hermana “something”, and Elder Cooley.  About a billion things were going through my head at this moment.

So then it was my turn to have an interview with a member of the Quorum of the Seventy.  So I went in and started talking to him and just told him about the family and then a bunch of other questions were asked.  All I can say is that I know that I am supposed to be here on the mission.  I have a lot to learn and I know that what I am doing is good.  I know that my prayers have been answered, I know the voice of God, I know how he talks and how is answers my prayers.  Just to end, he told me a bunch of things that are awesome ha ha.

Les amo,

Elder Cooley

Questions:

1. Favorite scripture?

Romans 8:24-25 (Spanish version)

2. Do your feet hang off of your bed?

They are just a perfect fit ha ha.

3. When does your Pensionista cook for you?

She cooks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

4. Have you seen anymore of those weird hairless dogs?

They are all over, it is a plague.

5. What is the most common pet that Peruvians have down there?

It has to be dogs.

6. Have you been on anymore hiking adventures?

I have not been hiking here yet ha ha.  There are not too many places to go here.

7. Is Ilo more urban or rural?

Where we are at it is urban and some other areas are rural.

8. Have you ever ridden on one of those motorcycle taxis?

Yeah in Ilo I have but not in any other areas.

9. Do you miss driving?

I do miss going on long drives and everything.

10. What hymn do you like best in Spanish?

I love the hymn Spirit of God.

I don't know what this is

Plaza de Armas

Knocking on Doors

Hola Familia,

The last couple of days have been really great.  Overall everything has gone really well and we had a great time and a ton of awesome experiences.  Late Tuesday night we got back from Arequipa.  We only had a couple days to get our lessons in for the week, so we worked super hard.  We were able to find a bunch of people.  The work is doing great.  As it always happens in life; you have times when you get to enjoy the fruits of your labors and then others when you just work ha ha.  As a Zone we are working right now and all we have to do is to keep pushing forward and keep figuring out everything.  We just need to keep pushing forward.  For a couple nights and just knocked doors ha ha.

Knocking on doors ha ha.  You get people that will talk because they listen to everyone and then you get people that will lie to you and say they are busy or send there child to answer and lie for them (ha ha) or you get people that don’t care and just shut the door quite hard and then the people that are ready to hear you.  It is a fun time and super interesting to see how everything works out.  But, I love it.  I love seeing and feeling the Spirit (Spanish version) telling us where we need to go and what we need to do and how we can talk to a person.  Then we had a sweet lesson with this investigator and his brother, whose a member.

We were finally able to talk to the both of them.  They are doing great and it was so cool to see how everything is going and how we can have the older one help the younger one come to church.  We are going to work hard to help them be better.

This week was awesome.  We were able to see miracles (Spanish version) and have answers to our prayers (Spanish version).  I learned something that really impacted me was, we were in a lesson with a family and they were talking about marriage (Spanish version) and the wife was like the thing for a happy marriage is to really know who you are going to marry, know their cons and their pros and if you can live and have a family with all the cons then marry him and if not don’t do it.

I love you all so much,

Elder Cooley

Questions:

1. Favorite scripture?

John 4:8 (Spanish version)

2. When you teach family home evening do you teach one family or do you invite a lot of families from the ward?

We try and invite a bunch of families because it is a lot cooler ha ha.

3. Do you ever eat fish (is that even allowed)?

Yeah we eat fish; like fried fish and stuff like that.  But not too much, one of my favorite dishes is fish.

4. Do you attend one Ward each week or do you work with different wards?

We attend the ward that we are working in.

5.  Are you working more to reactivate and strengthen the existing members or are you trying to find new members?

We are doing both ha ha.  We are trying to strengthen members and find people to baptize.

6. Are you any good at soccer (futbol)?

I am getting better ha ha.

7. Do you every play baseball down there?  Does anybody even know what baseball is?

I have played baseball a whole handful of times ha ha.

8. Are there any volcanos by where you live?

There are no volcanos too close.  The closest one is like an hour away.

BBQ

Monday's Lunch