Feliz año nuevo!!!!

Feliz año nuevo!!!!

I hope you had a great week.  TARGHEE sounds awesome, and I was super jealous for that for a few minutes...  But I had a great New Year’s here.  I loved it.  A little bit Peruvian-crazy...but it was good.

SO I will just start with Tuesday, and go on from there...

Tuesday, nothing really happened that was too good, jaja...I guess I’ll just move on to Wednesday!

Wednesday.  So we were studying when the AP's called us.  Since we are so close to the mission office, sometimes missionaries stick around with us because our room is so big.  They told us that Elder Ceballos, from Mexico was going to be with us, and since Wednesday, we have been working in a trio. So he has been sticking around with us, and it has been fun to be with him.

Zack with Elder Cortijo and Elder Ceballos

So it’s been a fun week. It’s been super fun to be with my two comps, and we were able to pass the 31 together.  IT WAS SO CRAZY.  So many sketchy fireworks launching off and flying all around.  I sent a picture of what our road looked like the 31 in the night.  Everyone just lit up the streets with shooting homemade 3 cent fireworks and into huge dummies filled with straw!  It. Was. Crazy!

Zack's street with burning dummies stuffed with hay...and fireworks...

Thursday was just a regular fun day.  Went to bed listening to the music from the parties, and woke up listening to the same music.  EVERYONE WAS DRUNK.  We really enjoyed contacting them.  We contacted one guy, and he was telling us that he honors his name “Angel Gabriel”.  He was just soooooo drunk.  We started laughing so hard, and I gave him a Law of Chastity pamphlet because I didn’t have the WOW (Work of Wisdom) pamphlet, which is really what he needed.   He kept on asking us “why are you laughing, why are you laughing!”  It was really funny.  Other people when we started talking with them...would start confessing and asking us for forgiveness...it was really funny.  The whole day was a testimony builder of the WoW. It was good day though.  We also had a killer lesson with Jesus and Vasilica.  The two are basically members because they always attend church and read.  But we had an awesome lesson about goals, repentance, and baptism, using ALma 34:31-35.  Super awesome...and now they are really excited about their marriage date and their baptism....they have a baptismal date for January 31...so we are hoping / praying / working for that.

Friday.  Friday was a good day. Everyone was still drunk,  So we went to Tambo Grande. Where they produce TONS of mangos....not I mango like I’ve tried before...but a mango so sweet it makes you cry.  We went there and did a couple of baptismal interviews of a great family that was baptized Saturday.  It was a great opportunity for me to see a great family like them with so much faith.  But as nice as Friday was...Friday was also a hard day, because it was SOOOOOOO HOT.  I kinda lost my mind.  Its like those Sundays at Lake Powell, where everyone is so groggy, and you just have got to go jump in the lake to wake up.  But here there is no way to cool down.  You are out side, HOT, you go inside, HOT, in the shade HOT, and AC doesn’t really exist here.  HOT HOT HOT.

Saturday we had a service project where we painted a house.  It got a little messy, because everyone cornered me and started painting me.   It was a good time, and we goofed off but we painted the house nicely.

Painting...a house...and friends

Yesterday and Saturday night were just nice, good days, good lessons, good people.  

One more experience,,,

Yesterday (Sunday)... we passed by an investigators house to make an appointment and say hi, and the daughter and her fiancee were there.  The fiancee was onery and started bashing the Book of Mormon.  He had read a fair amount of it, and was really well informed on the points he chose to bash.  He wasn't interested in letting us talk, and we weren't interested in engaging in an argument.  He offended us, and basically said that everything we do is garbage.  At the end, I finally had a little bit of time to talk, and I decided to squeeze in my testimony.  I defended my point, and we invited him to read and pray.  He told me that my testimony wasn't valid and that...really offended me. 

Well, long story short.  Even though he offended me, he did not touch my testimony.  I know without doubt that the BOM of true, and no one or anything can change that.  I know what I am doing is right and wonderful. 

I don't know...it was just a weird experience for me.  

I am doing fine, I just feel  little discouraged and a little bit down after that experience this week.  We have been working, but its just been slow and its just been hard physically and mentally, but I am looking forward to a good week.


It kinda scares me when I think of the many things that can destroy families.  I've seen it happen due to sin, disrespect, and not taking care of oneself.  It seems to be more common in the world...just so many broken families.  It seems like everyone would just want to work together to make it work.  It just makes me so sad.

I love my companion Elder Cortijo, and will be sad to see him go but I’m glad he gets to go home and see his family. He’s a super great guy!  I am excited to see who will be my next comp too! Saturday night I will know!

Love you all! and hope that all goes well!

Elder Bradshaw