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

Led by the Spirit!

Week #18 1-27-14

Hey Everyone,

I'm going to apologize in advance but i haven't really had the opportunity to take pictures this week but for sure next week there will be lots of pictures!

This week we have had some pretty cool experiences! The first one was that we had set up a family hove evening at someones house for 6, and when we were on our way to the house we realized that we had forgotten the video that we were going to show to them so we ran back to the room really fast and grabbed the video then we rushed to pick up someone who was going to accompany us for the lesson and by that time it was already like 6:30. So then we walked to the house and the family was sitting outside their house and it turned out that their little girl shantal had locked them out of the house so they had to call their son to bring them another key but they didn't know how long it was going to take for their son to get there so while we were waiting we went into the house of her daughter who lives right next door and we started talking to their kids, Diego and Daniel, and then we started doing some magic tricks to them and then their mom, Julisa, joined us and she is inactive so we decided to watch the video in her house while we waited for the key to the other house and so we watched the video of the restoration. When the video had about 10 minutes left the dad of the house, Ivan, who is not a member walked in and he looked pretty angry that we were there but he sat at the table far away from everyone else watching the video, In the video it shared a scripture in Matthew and when the video was over i had the feeling to talk about that scripture in Matthew 7:7-11 which talks about the love of god but my companion who was sitting like 10 feet away from me started talking and then he shared that scripture and asked who wants to read it and nobody said anything but then the dad who was sitting at the table said that he would read the scripture! After he read the scripture and we explained it a little bit he then told us that he was having problems with his family and that he would like it if we could start giving them the lesson!! He went from looking angry to asking us to come back! After the lesson me and my companion realized that that whole lesson and the way that everything worked out was perfectly led by the spirit and it was so cool!! We now have a baptismal goal for his kids and were hoping that he can get baptized too and that his wife will become active again in the church!

Another cool lesson we had was with Yanela. We went to her house and her sister and her sisters boyfriend who is a return missionary, and her mom, and her aunt were there with us. So we started the lesson and we set her baptismal date for the 8th of February but she didn't want to tell her mom so she had us tell her mom and then her mom started to say that she wasn't ready for this and then all of the sudden everybody was talking all at once and it turned into an argument and so me and my comp thought that we were going to lose the date but then towards then end of the lesson the people in the room had calmed down a little and we started to talk again and her aunt was saying things about the church and by the end of the lesson her mom was actually defending the church from her aunt and she said that the prayer at the end was beautiful! So i think that after all that Yanela will get permission from her mom to get baptized which is awesome!!

Those are the two stories that stand out this week. Other that we are stoked with out new goals even though they are insane and we are going to have to work our butts off this month to reach them! We have some good ideas on how to reach our goals too which will help us a lot!! We have an idea called mini misioneros de verano, or basically that because all the kids are on summer vacation from school and aren't doing anything me and my companion are going to make companionships with the kids and go on splits with them to help achieve our goals and to help them get ready for their missions!! Its going to be awesome i just hope it works out the way we hope!!

That's all for now! Sorry again for the pictures but i will be sure to take lots of pictures this week!! Hope you all have a great week! Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Jarman

We've worked hard and we've enjoyed it too!

Week #17  1-20-14

Hey everyone!

My new companion is Elder Gamboa from Tacna Peru!! This first week with him has been pretty cool! We've worked hard and we've enjoyed it too!

My new companion is really cool! He's a really good teacher in the gospel and he also likes to have fun too! He knows quite a bit of magic tricks and so hes been teaching me some of his magic tricks while I'm teaching him how to do the Rubiks cube!! Hes a really happy guy and always has a good attitude! I feel like this transfer is going to be a good one for us!

We have 6 investigators that we would like to baptize this transfer. The first one is Yanela. Her sister is a member of the church and her sisters boyfriend just got home from his mission and so she's been hearing things from them and has decided to take the missionary discussions. She says that she wants to get baptized which is awesome. We are also going to work with her mom who is Edit too because she said she was interested in the church also! The next ones are Isain and Alonso who have been taking the discussions for a while and accepted a baptismal date but then they went on vacation so we just need to help them replace a baptismal date! The next one is Julio Cesar who most likely is going to get married for valentines day and if all goes well, then hes ready to be baptized. Hes just been waiting to get married for a little while so he can get baptized and he says he wants to get married before I leave so that I can baptize him which is pretty cool! Hope all goes well with the marriage. The last 2 are Diego and Daniel. Their grandma, Benny, just become an active member again and their cousins Noemi and Shantal just got baptized to so were hoping that they can see that changes in the lives of their family members ans they will have the desire to get baptized too! These are our goals for this change!

We have also been working with the Branch. When La Pradera first became a branch everything was going really well and everyone was doing their part but now everyone has relaxed a little bit and the attendance is dropping and were losing active members. So in ward council we have been talking to them to help them set their goals and get their vision straight!

We just had an activity as a ward called a kinkana and it was really fun! A lot of members showed up and we played a bunch of games and played with some water balloons. I got really sun burned even though i had sun screen on so that was kind of a bummer but at the end i popped two water balloons on our branch president and then me and my comp took off running and that was pretty funny! Now he says hes out to get me so im kind of scared that i might get wet sometime soon, especially because during the time of January 20 to February 20th is called carnival and people walk around with waters balloons and paint and everyone gets each other wet so pretty soon were probably going to get some water balloons thrown at us!! That should be an adventure!

Nothing else more to share! Hope you all have a great week! Love you all!!

Love,

Elder Jarman

It was something she needed to do...

Week #16 1-15-14

Hey Everyone!

Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the new year!

So on Saturday we had a baptism for Graciela!! She was waiting on permission from her husband but she didn't end up getting permission but she decided that it was something she needed to do so she went ahead and got baptized anyways! The baptismal service was pretty good! We combined with two other elders and they baptized one sister too! 

Then on Sunday it was my comps last day and we went to the pensions house of the other elders in our district and the pension made us these really good tacos with guac and some really spicy hot sauce! Then we hung out there for a while and when we came back we found out that the members in our ward were going to do a surprise goodbye for my companion and so there were like 25 members that went to the church and waited for us to come back but we didn't come back until like an hour later then they thought so they all left and they were all really worried for us. I told my comp to tell the pension that we weren't going to be there but he didn't and so they all waited for him but he never showed up.

This morning we went to the mission office at like 9 and my companion had his interview with the mission president and then a bunch of other elders showed up to say goodbye to the elders that were going home and so we al hung out in the office for a couple of hours and now im staying the night with my zone leader because his comp and my comp left today at like 5. After that we went to pick up some other people that came to Chiclayo from cajamarca that have changes and they are going to stay the night with us. Then we have transfers tomorrow at like 9 30 and i will find out who my new comp is! So ill be La Pradera at least until like the 24th of January and then i might get  changed to my new area. One of the good things of sending a companion home is that you get all of the stuff that e doesn't want so he left me some cool books and some other cool things.

Nothing else to report here! All is well! Have a great week!

Chau,
Elder Jarman

The best food I have ever had!

1-6-14 Week #15

Hey All

Hope you all had a fantastic new year. Sorry i cant use exclamation marks because part of the keyboard doesnt work, something is always wrong with the keyboards. 

New years here was the bomb. On new years eve we went to the pensions house of the other elders in our district and spent the night there. The pensions made us some really good food again just like christmas. We had pork and pollo a la brasa again. When it got to be like  11 45 people started to light off fireworks so we went up to the roof and got ready to light the fireworks that the pension had bought for us. At 12 there were seriously fireworks everywhere. There wasnt a place in the sky that you looked and there wasnt fireworks. The big thing here is to burn muñecos or in other words burn a scarecrow thats full of fireworks. Everybody makes there muñeco and sets it on fire at 12 and so theres fireworks going off like crazy. We lit off our own fireworks too and it was super awesome. Theres was also a ton of smoke in the air and it was actually kind of hard to breath. After that we went downstaris and theres a tradition here to eat 12 grapes at 12, one for each month. So we ate the grapes and talked for anopther little while and there was another trdition where you fill your coin pouch with lentejas or like little bean things for good luck and wealth. After that we went to be at like 2:30 and woke up at like 8 and ate breakfast. Then two more elders came over to the house and we played uno for like an hour and then we came back to our area and slept the rest of the day because we cant go out because of all the drunk people. So yeah that was our new years.

Since my companion goes home this coming Monday we have been saying goodbye to his ares and the past two days we have gone to different areas. On Sunday we went to Pomalca and visited some people out there and they were super awesome and they took us out to lunch at a place called casa madera which reminded me a lot of the places we used to eat at in Mexico. It wasn't very nice looking but the food was sooo good. Me and my companion got ceviche de tollo and carne seca. It was seriously some of the best food that Ive ever had. After we ate we went back to there house and talked for a while and it was almost impossible for me to understand them because they were all talking at the same time but instead of talking they yell and so they were all yelling and laughing and so i just sat on a couch and watched them talk for like an hour and then after that someone brought Bingo and we played bingo for a while. Instead of using chips for bingo we were using grains of rice and corn and the people always play for money. So when someone won then all the people started throwing their rice and corn at each other and it was a mini food fight in the house and that was pretty funny. When it was time to go my comp was pretty sad because he had to say goodbye to them. We were talking about having to say goodbye and its like saying goodbye to your second family and how that really hard. After that we came back to our area. Today we went to Ferreñafe other wise know as the land of the two faiths because in the name it says fe twice which means faith in spanish. Our branch president, presidente Dayvy drove us out there and hung out with us today. It was like 20 minutes away in car. Once we got there my comp talked to the pension for a while and then she took us out to eat too and whats funny is that we went and we got the same thing as the day before. We got ceviche de tollo with crab and carne seca which is dried meat so its like beef jerky. It was sooo good also. Then we came back to the house and talked for a while and now were back in our area and tomorrow were going to play some volleyball with some of our investigators. 

Nothing else to report. Hope you all have a wonderful week and try to share the gospel with a friend, neighbor, coworker, or anyone of the many people you come in contact with. Love you all.

Love,

Elder Jarman

New Years Day Email 2014

 Hey Everyone.. again!

There hasn't been much that has happened in the last 24 hours. 

Today im going to share about some of the people here, like our investigators and recent converts and so on and so forth. We have has 8 baptisms in the past 2ish months so we kind of lost a lot of our investigators but now there recent converts which is awesome. The people we have baptized in the past couple of months have been Alex and Jahir who are brothers who live with their grandma who is a member. They are 9 and 11 and they're doing good and coming to church and are still active! Then we baptized Livia, Tathiana, and Jonathon. Livia has heard the missionaries for a while but hadnt really accepted them and then her husband passed away recently and she heard all the lessons over again from us and she accepted to be baptized! She has since traveled to Lima and im not sure how shes doing for now. Tathiana is 19 and she was hearing the discussions for about a month and wasnt really accepting them and then a couple of weeks passed and Elder Bunker and I went to visit her and from then she started to be more accepting of the lessons! She had so many questions it was ridiculous!! Every time we went there to teach here wer would start the lesson and would almost never finish the lesson because she had so many questions. She prayed and me and my comp could tell that she had gotten and answer and she knew it was true and that she needed to get baptized but she kept saying she didn't want to get baptized because she thought she was going to fail at keeping all the commandments and so on and so forth and so i shared with her 1 nephi 3:7 and she said after she got baptized that that scripture helped a lot in making the decision to get baptized and so that was cool for me to know that i helped to be able to overcome her fears. Since she got baptized she has traveled to Jaen where she cant go to church because she lives where the church isnt established yet but she calls every once in a while and we keep in touch with her and shes going to come back to church when she comes back to study in March so shes doing well. Jonathon is 9 and his mom and sister are baptized and he wanted to get baptized when we met him and so he heard all the lessons from us and then got baptized! We are in the process of helping his mom (Carina) and his dad (Julio) get married so that his dad can get baptized and complete the family and then hopefully go to the temple! Julio had a marriage and baptismal date but then they got into a fight and i think he almost kicked his wife out of the house but then he didn't and we still haven't had the chance to visit them yet but hopefully the hope inst lost with them. Then we baptized Noemi, and Shantal who live with their grandma because their parents passed away and their grandma is a less active member but shes coming back to church and now her grand kids are members so they all come to church and are active now! The we had to baptize David again because the church doesnt have a record of his baptism. So he was baptized two years ago but they lost his record or something like that so we had to baptize him again which was pretty interesting! After all those baptisms we have very few investigators left. Palma has been an investigator for about 5 years now and is basically a member but i think hes waiting for his son to get back from his mission to get baptized so there's nothing we can really do there. Graciela had a baptismal date before but her daughters talked her out of getting baptized but now she wants to get baptized again but her husband isn't giving her permission so hopefully we can help her husband in some way so that she can get baptized! Isain and Alonso accepted to be baptized but they wanted a little bit more time to learn a little bit more and then they went on vacation so when they come back on the 20th of January were going to talk to them about baptism and hopefully they still have the desire when they come back. Other than that we have Aurora who needs to get married and then she can get baptized and we have Veronica who needs to get married and then she can get baptized. Thats about it for investigators until we find some more in these next weeks! 

Hope you all have a wonderful New Year and enjoy the fireworks!

Love,

Elder Jarman