I'm loving the missionary life and couldn't be happier!

Week #22 2-24-14

Hey Everyone!!!

This week has been awesome!! We managed to complete every single one of our goals this week and we managed to achieve the normas of excelencia!!! We have worked so hard this month and the hard work has paid off! The only thing that makes me a little sad is that i finally have a transfer... I want to leave but its going to be so sad to leave my first area and all the people i have met and all the friends that i have made!!! Transfers are also really stressful because i have to leave photos will all the people with a little thing to remember me and also i have to pack my bags.. That part is really going to stink! I am pretty excited and a little nervous to see where i go! It should be fun! Also something else is that i wasnt feeling to good this morning and i threw up twice but now im feeling a little bit better and since this was my last day in this area my pension made us some ceviche!!

This week we had met all the goals that we needed to meet by saturday and so we were pretty scared going into sunday knowing that we needed to have 12 investigators in the church to meet every single one of our goals! The most that this area has ever had in the chuch was nine so yeah we were a little scared! Sunday came and by the beginning of the meeting we had only 3 investigators in the church and so we started getting pretty nervous. We waited a little bit and when nobody else was coming we sent someone out to bring some investigators to the church and only one of them ended up coming so by this point we had 4 and it wasnt looking to good for us but towards the end of the meeting we had two more people come. We also found out that there were like 5 more invesitgators in the back of the rrom but we just couldnt see them and so by the end of church we ended up having 12 investigators in the church at one time and it was super cool!

This last saturday we also had a baptism which makes three baptisms three weeks in a row! Julio Edgar was baptized and it was really cool to see him get baptized because he was one of the couples that got married so that he could get baptized. We have seen so many changes in his life take place and he was waiting so long to be baptized so it was a very satisfying baptism! Before he used to drink a lot and was hanging out with bad people but now he hasnt drinken and instead of fighting with his wife all the time they are watching church videos as a family and they are asisting all the activities and its so cool to see that!

We had a birthday party for one of our investigators and it was super cool! Her name is Karen and she had a baptismal date but then her mom told her to wait a little bit so were working with that. The youth here have befriended her so fast and so well and it has really touched her mom to see that! She even started to cry tears of joy as she thanked us for being so good to her daughter!! It was so cool to see how well the work progresses when the members help with the missionaries! After that they were all dancing and playing games and she told us afterward that nobody has ever done that for her before and so all in all it was just a really cool thing to see!

Other than that im doing awesome and im loving the missionary life and couldnt be happier! Hope you all have a spectacular week this week and enjoy it! Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Jarman

70 couples getting married all at once!

Week #21 2-17-14

Hey Everyone!!

Wow this week was pretty awesome!!

To start of the week we played soccer and volleyball with the youth in our branch and that was really fun! Then on Wednesday we went to another area to help the other areas in our district and we knocked on lots of doors and only got into 1.. After that we realized that out numbers for the week were pretty low and that we probably weren't going to make our goals so we worked pretty hard the rest of the week. Then on Friday we had something called matrimonios massivos which is a massive marriage where there are like 70 couples getting married all at once and we had two couples getting married in this marriage and so we asked our zone leaders if we could go and they said we could! So on Friday morning we went to the massive marriage and it was a really cool experience! They had some kids do some dances from Peru in their costumes which was really interesting to see! Also everyone that was there stood up and sang the national anthem of Peru and that was cool to hear that even though i was like the only one not singing out of all the people! Then after that the director pronounced some words and then pronounced them married and that was pretty cool. They had some people sing and play some instruments and then all the couples went up and signed their papers and got their gift! After the ceremony we went home with one of the couples, (Joel, Veronica), and had lunch at their house and it was a pretty good lunch even though the meat was super tough! Then after the lunch we went to the chapel and there was a fiesta for the other couple that got married, (Julio, Karina). The fiesta was pretty fun and we were doing magic tricks to the youth and listening to music and eating cake! Then on Saturday we worked our butts of to try to make our goals! Saturday we had a super awesome lesson with one of our investigators named Karen! Shes progressing really well and had a baptismal date for this Saturday but her mom said it was too soon. So we had a lesson with her and now her mom and her brother are listening to us and they all seem really interested! In the lesson she asked me and my companion how we feel about our missions and we both bore our testimonies on that and it was such a cool experience and it also made me realize how many cool experiences Ive had and how much I've been blessed even through the trials we have! We also related it to baptism and she told us that she for sure is going to get baptized she just wants to wait a little bit first! That was the coolest lesson we had this week and then on Sunday we were really hoping that we were going to have a lot of investigators in church and we ended having a good amount but we still need 10 this coming Sunday to reach the normas of excelencia! Other than that were on track to meet our goals after all the hard work we did! Also the Assistants to the president called us today and congratulated us on how hard we've been working and that was pretty cool! Were working hard and were seeing some success and all in all we've been blessed this past month! Everything's good here and i hope you all have a fantastic week!! Love you guys!

Love,
Elder Jarman

President and Sister Risso were at the baptism!

Week #20 2-10-14

Hey Everyone!

Hope you all had a good week last week! I know I did!

We ended the week with a baptism of a girl named Yanella! It went pretty well although we showed up late and president Risso and Sister Risso were there at the baptism! We combined with two other elders who had two baptisms so it wasn't too bad and president is so relaxed that he just said no worries even though Yanella was a hour late! We also had an investigator at the baptisms and she also came to church for the first time too! Her name is Karen and shes 16 years old but shes very mature and acts like shes 23 and yesterday we challenged her to baptism for the 22nd of February and she accepted which is awesome! We also have two couples that are trying to get married the 14th of this month and so if all works out then they will also be able to be baptized the 22nd of February!

This week was awesome with the mini misioneros! Almost everyday we have someone who comes with us on our visits and we usually split up too! So it will be me and two youth and my comp and two youth also. We are also doing something that's called a district attack where all the elders in that district go to one area and work there and all the numbers count for that area and this week it was in our area and so we had the 4 missionaries from our district all split up with two or three youth and we all went out and did some contacting and had some lessons and that day we ended up doing 55 contacts and had 8 lessons with a member! Everything is going super well with our goals so far except for two and we cant really control these ones very well so that's why were struggling with these goals. Were struggling getting investigators to church and setting baptismal dates, but with a little bit more time were hoping that these goals raise.

This week we had a missionary night in the chapel and we did something called La Barra de Hierro, or the Iron Rod and in the activity the people were blindfolded and they had to grab on to a hose and walk through the obstacle course that we made without letting go when there were people telling you that you finished and there were people screaming and yelling and spraying water and overall it was really fun and we turned it into a lesson at the end too! The only thing that wasn't too fun was cleaning the chapel the next day. There was still water in the hose and so it got the chapel all wet and also since its all dirt where we live it turned into mud in the chapel and that was not very fun at all to clean up! Other than that nothings really new. I'm still in the desert in Chiclayo but i think that i will get changed on the 24th of this month. Time is seriously going by so fast this transfer, I cant believe its already been 5 months!!

Hope you guys have a great week and that all goes well! Try to share the gospel with someone this week! I'm sure that would make God happy!! Love you and Miss you all!

Elder Jarman

It feels so rewarding to work so hard!

Week #19 2-3-14

Hey Everyone!!!

This has been one heck of a week!! We worked our butts of this week and we met all our goals which means were on track to reach the standards of excellence of the mission!!

This week on Tuesday we were working from 10 in the morning till when we ate lunch at 1 and then we went back out till like 9 at night when we had dinner! We walked so much but it was so worth it and it feels so rewarding to work so hard! When we got back to our room after that day and we saw how much work we had done it really helped push us to continue working hard this week! On Wednesday we did whats called a district attack which is where the whole district goes to an area and all the numbers achieved that day go towards the elders in that area. So on Wednesday me and my companion went to 9 de octubre and we helped the two elders in that area that day which was pretty cool. We did a lot of knocking on doors which was pretty interesting because you always see some weird things and you always get lied to. The people always say that they are busy and then when your persistent and you get to enter the house you see that they completely lied to you! But yeah it teaches you how to be persistent! Then Thursday and Friday and Saturday were normal. Then on Sunday we had stake conference which was good, except for the fact that we had to wear our suits and it was burning hot!! When i stood up after conference my back was all wet with sweat and same with my pants! After we got back from stake conference we went and ate with some of our investigators and we had a really good lesson with them! They accepted to be baptized but they need to get married first so i don't think ill get to see Nixon and Diana are their names, get baptized which is a bummer because i have really seen a big change in them which is so awesome to see as a missionary! Then after that lesson we were supposed to have a training meeting for all the mini missionaries but only one of them showed up so we called all of them and overall only 4 were able to come and so me and my companion went on splits with those 4 youth and we went contacting to show them how to contact and how to teach a first lesson. Our goals for yesterday were really high and we weren't going to finish them so we started scrambling around trying to contact people and to get into peoples houses, it was crazy!! We had to do 24 more contacts and teach 11 lesson yesterday to complete our goals and we wouldn't have done it without the mini missionaries. They helped us so much and they just got back from efy in trujillo so their batteries to share the gospel are fully charged!! It was so cool to see them helping us out and sharing the gospel in preparation for their missions! We split up yesterday and we did some contacts and taught some lessons and then we had to go back to the room to receive the reports from the other elders in our district but they weren't in their room so we decided to run out for another 30 minutes to try to meet the rest of our goals and so we were running around and we got into 5 more houses and we met our goals!! Yesterday in total we did 33 contacts and had 11 lessons and it was so awesome!! Not only did we meet our goals but we had lessons this week that were awesome too and that were totally guided by the spirit! I really like working with Elder Gamboa and i think we make a good team!
 

Today we played soccer on a small turf field and it was super fun but since it was on the turf it was also super hot! All of the elders in our zone are really good at soccer and so it was fun to play with people who are good! I actually didn't do that bad for being the only gringo that played with all Latinos! I also played with a sombrero so that i would get sunburnt and it was pretty funny!

Thats all for this week! My companion and i are hoping to do even better this week because we will have all the mini misioneros to help us out! Hope you all have a fantastic week and that all goes well! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Jarman

 House of their pension, painting a room.

 My agenda

 Throwing water balloons off the roof of their house.

 Four of us from our district eating at a restaurant called El Boom

 A kitten we rescued from dogs

  Me standing in front of a a church and on the side it says the scripture John 3:16 in Spanish

 My comp and I in what we wore to play soccer today

Hey mom!

Really I'm doing great! Theres always going to be some little things that bug me and that are uncomfortable but all in all im fine and i love being on the mission especially now that im really getting the hang of the language! I can basically understand anything now except for the slang words, but other than that the spanish is coming along really well! The thing thats probably the most dificult for me is the food. Sometimes i would just rather not eat and sometimes i dread going to meals but i think with time it will get better! My pension is really nice and cool though because she knows that i dont really like a lot of rice because it get hard to eat after the first three bites and so she makes us fruit a lot. My companion likes having fruit to so it all works out just fine. Really thats the only thing thats hard for me right now is the food, but i think that will pass! Oh and its also always really really hot during the day especially when your inside peoples houses teaching lessons! But yeah im doing great and i love it here although i miss having luxuries and now have a greater appreciation for what we have! Love you! Miss you! Thanks for your love and support! Also a scripture that i found that i really like is Moroni 8:3. Always put your faith in the lord!! Love you!

Love,

Elder Jarman