Hello!!!  I got special permission to write to you guys on a Tuesday, because yesterday...I was in Lima!

So...I loved reading your letters this week.  I read them real quickly because I didnt have much time, but I loved to see the blessings that you are all recieving as a family.  I felt so much love from you guys and am so happy that all is going well!

So this week was really crazy!  Tons of things have happened.  It really was a week to remember.  So I will just start off from the front!

Tuesday I had the chance to go to Piura for a training, and it was so fun, because I got to spend some great time with some great friends.  I finally saw Michael Smith!!!  I also saw some other friends and had the oportunity to meet some other awesome missionaries.  As a leader, I feel really inadequate but I am really excited to work with the great Elders in my District.  I have got so much to do and our mission is changing a ton right now.  There are so many new changes.  Nothing too big, just different ways to do things and different emphasis on different things.  We are all being stretched and learning lots.  Tuesday was a great day.

Then later this week...Elder Grow, a member of the Seventy came here and we had the oportunity to have two conferences with him.  One for ward counsels, and the other for the missionaries.  We learned tons about goals and so many other things!  Such a cool and funny guy.  He just had such a great spirit with him and when he bore his testimony, it was so strong.  I learned so much and am excited to see the blessings from the application!

The rest of the week was pretty normal, just working hard and trying to help the people here.  Things are changing and the area is progressing, little by little.  They say its a hard area, but that just means there is more to do!  I am falling more and more ‘in love’ with it and am excited to be here working in Querecotillo.  There is a chance that I could get transfered in 3 weeks, but I think I will be here for 9 more, which will round it out in almost August.  Its kinda rare for me (in our mission) to not have been in many areas, but I love it and know that it is right.  I want to leave it a little bit better.

Sooooo...On Sunday night, reeeeeeeally late, like at 11 oclock, the Zone Leaders called us and told me that I was going to go to Lima the next day, and that I needed to be in the bus station at 6 in the morning!  So I hurried and grabbed some things and I got to go to Lima!  We were 20 or more white guys traveling and it was so fun.  I was with some of my best friends and I got to get to know a few more.  We left reeeeeally early monday, and almost all day monday we were in the Peruvian equivalent of a DMV just signing papers and chilling.  Then that night, they took us to a huge mall place, like City Creek, but not...and bought us Pizza!  Let me tell you a little bit about Piura.... There is no such thing as AC, cool weather, pizza, Mcdonalds, or other gringo delights.  But in Lima there are many! It was just so fun to be with some great friends, eating pizza and ice cream and just chilling.  Lima really is a huge and beautiful city. It was strange to see how much I have gotten accustomed to small towns, and dirt roads and everything.  I love where I am and the people I work with, but it was just so weird to see a different kind of life and whole different world.  It is really going to be a culture shock when I come home in a year or so.  I have really ajusted to where I am...and I am just fine with that!

Selfie with the gringos at the Lima Mall getting pizza

Monday night, we just kinda chilled and talked in a good hotel and had a good time.  I didn’t sleep much.  Then the next day, we just basically did the same thing...DMV’ing it up with tons of gringos in suits all day err’day.  Then after that, they took us to the airport, bought us more Pizza. 

But...in the airport...there was dunkin’ donuts and mcdonalds.....Sooooo, I took out some money, and now happily find my self being one of the only donut possesors in the whole northern part of Peru.  Blue ones, white ones, coconut ones....I am just really excited. 

I just barely got back to my area and am happy to have had a good chill day or two.  We spoke lots of English and I felt a little trunky, but I just need to get out and work tomorrow.  jaja.  I am super tired.  Funny thing is...I still don’t have my visa, but in a couple of weeks or months, or sometime...I will be going again to finish it up.  Quite the process!Hola Familia...

It really was quite the week.  I am happy to be where I am, doing what I am doing, and with who I am in general.  I feel like in this transfer, more than the others, I am finally seeing some fruits from hours of studying, practicing, and speaking the language.  I feel efective, yet I feel like there are miles more of improvement needed.  I am happy, and content, just a little bit in “LIMADONUTMCDONALDPIZZA” shock.  But that will pass over soon, I think. 

I know that what I am doing is right.  I know without doubts that Christ lives, and that he speaks through his prophets.  He has given us instructions for a happy life, and wants us to be blessed in every aspect of out life.  I know that the Book of Mormon is true, and I know that Thomas S. Monson is a profeta of God.  I love you all and invite you this week to strengthen your own testimony.  We are always in the fight and must always ask ourselves “what more do we miss”.  Look for those things, and seek to fix them. 

Love you all and know that I am fine!  Here is a picture of my birthday with some of my friends here...

It's so great to know that a sweet mother took care of your son on his birthday!!

See ya next week! (or rather I’ll see your names in my inbox!)

Elder Bradshaw