September 8, 2014

Mi querida Familia,

Mom guess where im writing you this letter!?! from an internet cafe in Peru (So Fancy!!! :) ) technology...its so crazy behind!!! :)

But that picture is Gorgeous! i love it! that is zion for sure. send me more pics from that new smart phone! I want one when i get home. 

for the info on the week....it wasnt a very pleasant week lets just say that. started out in arequipa for consejo de los lideres and it went well. it was great to see all the buds in the mission again. had to say goodbye to some of my best firends going home....but no worries, we will see them up at byu. 

and we had to give the zone a huge training meeting which i was stressing out for a while but the lord sure helped but in my mouth the words that they needed to hear. elder andersons visit here has sure taught us a bunch about the atonement and how we must teach it better and apply it better in our lives more. we talked about 1st we must understand it better to even be able to apply it in our lives. and 2nd we must live it! each and everyday. there is a sister here who always says, "how did you apply the atonement in your live today?" doesent necessarily mean just repenting....(an interesting question :)) and  3rd we must testify of it with power and conviction. but if dont even understand it nor live it....we will not be able to teach about it with power. so i have been trying to do better on all that. 

i was able to do divisions with a new elder here in teh mission which turned out pretty well. got a lot of doors slammed in our faces and some "nice words were said" :) haha welcome to the mission elder. but he did great and is improving on the spanish each and everyday. 

as for the area. not doing so hot. we have nobody progressing. we cant find anyone new. nobody came to church...again. i am very frustrated. i am very annoyed i guess you could say. but the lord has my trust. we will continue to contact everyone we see as we did this whole last week. i have the faith that the lord will allow us to touch someones heart this weeek and help us have success. we are sure learning a lot. our fast yesterday was dedicated to just that. helping us find the lords chosen and helping us teach the atonement better so that those who we are instructing will feel of the spirit and understand what exactly christ did for them so that they will change their lives. he will help us. i know it. so we press on. 

my companion and i are doing great. we ahd our sunday night fire yesterday night which we enjoyed and he says hi to you all. he really is a great guy. i thank the lord for a great comp. if i didnt have a good one and the area was as it is....i think id go crazy. so count your many blessings. 

we are still planning this musical fireside program. it is for the 21st of september. we will be doing about 10 musical numbers. a vary of the spirit of god, praise to the man, if you could high to kolob, efy medley, if the savior stood beside me, and a bunch of others. i will be playing the violin with my comp elder chipman for various ones. the stake presidency has really been helping us out doing all this and they got it to be broadcasted all over moquegua. elder chipman and i will be going down to the radio station to "go live" and invite all of moquegua to come. so that will be fun!!  the stake was also trying to get a huge banner that spans the street and i think they will be putting that up!! it will be sweet! and i think thats way cool that elder grow was talking about me and stuff. elder gedoy of the area 70 also knows about this event and was invited to attend...so who knows :) it will be a program of about an 1hour and a half. We are looking forward to it. 

other than that. i am in good health. i love the mission. i love the lord. 

and i love you of course!!!! 

hope you all have a wonderful week.

Elder Birtcher

1-4-3

Hi All,

It was a great last week. I think the highlight of it all was the visit and mission conference that we had with elder anderson of the 12. he was accompained by bishop davis and elder c. scott grow of the 70 along with their wives. i was again able to play the violin for them in a special muscial number that we performed with another violinist and chior. 

but let me start from the beginning of the crazy week. monday we had a combined zone pday with ilo again. and we had a huge soccer game, of the which we destroyed them. and then we got to practicing for our muscial program fireside thing coming up this 14th and 21st of september. i think i had mentioned this earlier...it is just like what we did in arequipa about 3 months ago. so we have been busy praciticing all those new specail muscial numbers with the choir and others that my comp and i will be performing on the violin and piano. tuesday we had our district meeting as usual and afterwards we were summoned unto the land of arequipa to go and prepare for this special musical number for elder anderson. so we headed tuesday night and got into arequipa late. it was pretty cool because elder chipman and i were the only missionaires outside of arequipa to be asked to participate in this music number. so we stayed at the mission home and had fun times talking with president. haha he even asked to set up justin with his 27 year old daughter! :) thought id pass that info on. on wednesday we were busy practicing for the number and it was great to see a bunch of my good old buddies from all around the mission. in the afternoon i did have some time to go back and visit some old converts and my old pention and other members really quick. how special that was for me! i loved going back into my former area and seeing them and their reactions of surprise and they ran out and gave me hugs! i love them so much! had dinner with the office and with my old comp elder priebe who is now the asistente. and on thursday we got up early. president had cooked us up some french toast for the specail day and we headed down to the stake center where the meeting was to be held. after practicing a couple of times, we got all ready and the general authorities all walked in. it was a very special feeling and you couldnt feel a stronger spirit. the number went SO good. the chior sounded great and my solo parts went well and it was just really a cool feeling. haha good times reliving the elder nelson special muscial number! after we had played. anderson asked me to sit behind him on the stand for the whole meeting!!! it was so cool and his security guard gave me a piece of candy :) my comp and i sure felt really special as he once the meeting was done came up and shook our hands one last time  before leaving (my comp played the piano for the meeting so he was sitting up there by me as well). they talked a lot about hte atonement and how we need to able it more into our teaching and making sure that the people really understand what is the atonement and making them have many spiritual experiences with the atonement. they also talked a lot about honesty in all things and being patient with our testimonies. 

truely our savior lives and suffered for us. he is not just some distant person or picture we look at all the time. he is with us at all times and he loves us so much! 

friday and saturday were some work days. we were asked to go to one of our sisters baptisms to help protect the service because there were a ton of people against her being baptized and threatened to come and storm the chapel and stop the meeting. so we as the zone leaders were busy making sure everything was okay and safe for the whole deal. because we go forward. we do not fear man more than god. and she got baptized. and the lord answered our prayers and we in the end had no problems even though the head protestor came and left to go get all her people. but nothing happened and it was a spiritual baptism service. 

sunday we did a special muscial number with a guy in our ward and the ward just loved it and now we are being asked to do all sorts of special muscial numbers. so dont worry about that violin. it is getting plenty of use!!!! we have also been asked by the stake presidency to play special musical numbers for stake activities and we are trying to swing another one for our stake conference coming up in october. so craziness. but we love it and are happy! the zone is doing great and we are seeing results here in the pueblo of moquegua. 

right now i am again here in arequipa for today and tomorrow as we are here for leadership meetings with all the zone leadrs and with president. we have a huge soccer game planned that we need to get prepared for and then the meetings start later tongiht. 

but i love the mission. i love you guys. congrats to kc once again. so happy for all that is going on back home!

till next week.

Weston

1-4-3  

--

      Elder Birtcher

Perú - Arequipa Mission

To My Family and Friends:

I am so happy right now! I just recieved letters from some of my converts in Arequipa and 3 of them went to the temple in Lima and participated in baptisms for the dead. They sent me a bunch of pictures as well and i cant even describe to you the joy that i feel for them right now. That is the goal. not to just get them baptized, but to get them to the temple!!! and they did it!!! they all have written me and have told me that they had amazing experiences and absolutely loved being in the house of the lord and that they are doing wonderful in attending church and preparing for missions.

It just made my day :)

 

As for me....i guess i am finally breathing okay now. this last week has been a hecktic one again as they always are. the zone got changed up a little bit with some of the elders finishing up and new ones coming in. but it is a great bunch here in the grand city of moquegua and we are excited to get to working really hard here this next change. we were able to go and attend one companionships baptism this last week and their baptism asked that i confirm her so that was really a neat opportunity to do that. 

One of our investigators named doris just accepted to be baptized this 30 of agosto so we are preparing for that and we are trying to help out another one of our investigators named diego get int eh water as well. just need to get permission from the padres. so pray for us!!! we need that help! 

Elder Chipman and i are doing great though. he was one of my good buddys  before so it is great serving with him. the great times continue. as well as megan and gart have been inducted into the pinchy winchy game....elder chipman has been inducted into the weekly fire tradicion. he loves it!! haha we are having a great time here. our goals are to start getting to know the members a lot more and we have been looking for service project to do all this last week. it is amazing what service can do. we got to just find random service oportunidades this last week and we found 4 new great investigators that are going to progress really really well. the blessings through serivce!!! so i encourage you all to look for some great oportuindades to do so!! change the lives of everyone around you. :)

we did also have some training meetings in ilo with presidente this last weekend and so we were busy traveling and helping out the zone on a bunch of things. 

but great stuff. i am happy. :) i really am. i love getting to study the scriputres and getting to preach teh gospel each and everyday. there is no greater work. 

 i love everyone 

back home as well. 

till next week....

Weston

1-4-3

--

      Elder Birtcher

Perú - Arequipa Mission

Hey Guys!

So school started up did it? Excited or not? haha.

A lot has been happening over here this last past week. We did recieve changes and my comp elder priebe left. he is now the new asistent of the mission!!! and my comp is now the former asistent. his name is elder Chipman. and he is great. he is from california from a family of 4. the only guy amongst the bunch!! but he is a great guy. we got ot know each other at many leadership conferences beforehand so we are already best buds. and we are excited to get to work together. it was sure sad to see elder priebe go. he was one of my best friends and one of my favorite companions. the lord sure knew that i needed elder priebe to be my companion to boost me and to get me jsut fired up for the work. 

i am happy right now. the zone did get changed up a bunch and of the ward that i was in (consisting of 4 elders)...3 of them got changed. i am the only one to stay from the group but it is all good. i have just a fire to go a teach and to preach and to find those who dont ahve the gospel or who ahve fallen away from it. i love this work.

this next 6 weeks we have planned a bunch of things. we have talked with the local leadership counsels of the city and have planned to do service projects with the helping hands yellow shirts on. and the leaders of the city took us around to local sites to see what we want to do. so we are going to be focusing on a bunch of service projects to help the work of the lord. 

we have talked to the stake presdient as well to plan many stake activities and we are all just ready to go down here in moquegua. 

i love you all so much and will talk to you all really soon.

con mucho amor,

Weston 

1-4-3

 

JULY 28th LETTER!!

 

 

A Happy 28th of July to everyone!! Today is Peru´s Independence Day!!!!

How is everyone doing? I sure hope everyone is well in health and that everything is going great!

It was an interesting week. It was a week full of stress and fun in some parts. But let me try and get you will all the details that i can.

So last monday we got permission to go to ilo, its another part of the mission to have a combined zone activity with the missionaries there. and it turned out to be really fun and we played a huge game of soccer that was way fun! soccer is so awesome now. i have a huge goal to get good at soccer now. its way fun.

we were full of meetings as well and president came into town to have interviews with the zone and to have some meetings with us and the stake president. he took us out to eat with the asistents afterwards to a pizza palor here (like the only one in moquegua). it was soooooooooooooooooo good. i love pizza. dont get to eat enough of it. :) Last thursday was also pioneer day, so the hermanas here from utah obviously wanted to celebrate it so we got permission to watch 17 miracles and make pancakes for the whole zone and then got to talk about the pioneers and the sacrifices that they made and how we can learn from them and strengthen our testimonies from their stories. I must say i have never felt such a strong spirit. it was so powerful and so real. i am so grateful for such a heritage for the faith that they had to cross those plains and to put their trust in the lord in everything that they did. as gordon b. hinckly stated. we must read and reread their stoires that we may be edified and strengthened in our own times of need and when we have dificulties. it really brought back a lot of memories of the trek to me and i can testify as well that angeles did help us, that we all came closer to knowing the lord more and we all had spiritual experiences. i love the trek, i wish i could go and do it again.

This last friday we had 2 wonderful baptisms. where? IN THE RIVER :) her name is agripina and her son jorge. they were references from a lady in the ward and when we first got to teaching them about the restoration, we didnt challenge her to baptism. we just asked her...hermana if these things are true, what do you need to do?....and she responded...IM GOING TO PREACH IT TO THE WHOLE WORLD!!!....haha we laughed for a sec...and then she added...Then im going to get baptized.....so we began to explain the importance of baptism and she was totally up for it. BUT...the way christ did it. we explain that we baptized in the font in the church but she said that she wouldnt be baptized in any font or pool but in a river as christ did. so elder priebe and i went look for a river and we found just the spot! we had to go there a couple of times this last week to cut and clean the brush and make pathways and such and then the water wasnt too high...so we had to get in and make a dam which turned out PERFECT!! and it raised that water level from my knees to over my waist. it was a beautful service as well. perfect weather. i was sure praying that the sun wasnt going to scorch us as it usually does here in moquegua. and the lord blessed us. a wonderful breezy day with cloud cover. we had 2 special musical numbers from the help of our zone and i got to play the violin along iwht another sister here in the zone who also plays!!! turned out really great! and i sure felt the spirit. one of the most special baptisms that ive gotten to participate in. :) we then got to confirm them members of the church yesterday in our sacrament meeting. 

those were really the highlights. other than that, it was kinda a rough week. basically ALL (and im not exagerating) our lesson fell through and in trying to find new people....nada! we were pretty frustrated. and then we had one of the worst turn outs in sacrament meeting as a whole and had ninguna investigator there with us and then one of our most awesome investigators left hte area because her husband is on drugs and there were a ton of problems and then we find these wonderful references but they all live outside the area. and then get to teach this WONDERFUL, i mean AMAZING investigator who is so sincere and ready to here us and to come to church....well she goes back to arequipa tomorrow for studies. elder priebe and i are kinda bummed at that. one cause we want to work, we want to help and serve but nobody wants to listen. the teaching pool gets smaller and smaller and we just cant find anyone new. and if we do...we have to pass them along to other missionaries. i wonder if the lord is trying to teach us something. no se. but the lord is with us. he will bless us with those children who are ready and willing to listen. we just have to be patient and work even harder this week. 

this next monday we will be heading back to arequipa for leadership counsel with president so we will be busy doing informes and papers and just getting ready for that. its sure a busy time. so much to do. but i am happy and ready to give the lord more of me and serve mas. i love him. i truely do. Brents question of are you truley converted? aply it to your life. if there are things we need to correct. get on it. we dont have any time to waste in preparing ourselves for the second coming. 

oh and one more announcement. so i think i told you that Elder Anderson of the 12 is coming here to the mission at the end of august along with bishop davis of the bishopric of the church and elder grow of the 70 and other leaders of the church....and president has asked me to get prepared to go and play the violin again for them. i am excited and nervous.... :) 

and that sums up the week i guess.

i love you all so much. 

see you all in a year! :)

con mucho amor,

Weston 

--

      Elder Birtcher

Perú - Arequipa Mission

Hello Family!!!

 

this week has been a roller coaster seriously. We have been trying to visit a ton of menos activos and try to find new investigators but really no luck. the ward is literally falling asleep on us and are not helping us at all. its been rough.

but we have had some very spiritual experiences. 

the one of which i will tell you takes place yesterday (by the way HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG CHIEF AND DANILYNN!!!! - love you guys both a ton!!)

so we went to church and had no investigators again. our baptism from saturday didnt show up for her confirmation and we were both just bummed. we didnt get any references (not that we do anyways...havent gotten one in about a month) and we went home and just got on the knees and prayed. our fast yesterday was dedicated to the area and to help us find new people. we sat there and discussed where we should go and what to do. and we really didnt feel anything or recieve any crazy reveleations but we went out with faith that the lord would help us. and we knock a ton of doors with no luck. after a couple hours we did find some old investigators but nothing great. and then we decide to knock this last door before quiting and trying something else. and this girl answers the door. she is talking on her cell phone and we were expecting her to say...im busy come later...like we always get but she lets us in. and we got to teach her about the restoration...she was glued the whole time listening to us. asked for the book of mormon so that she could read it and just was amazing in her questions and everyting! we even asked her if teh missionaries had already taught her and she said no. but her last question to us after the lesson was....is it bad if i switch religions?? the lord answered our prayers. he is so aware of our circumstances and knows who is ready and who isnt for his gospel. but what a testimony builder of ether 12:6. we do not recieve any testimony until after we have the trial of our faith. that is when we prove to god that we are serious about helping his kids that we love him enough to forget ourselves and go to work for others. 

i loved it and it gave us such a huge boost to go work like crazy this week. 

this last we for the year mark we had a fire of course :) and we have 2 elders finishing up their missions here so we had the whole zone over for a farewell party. turned out really great and we are going to be sad when there are changes in the zone. 

but thats all i have time for. i love you all so much

Weston

1-4-3

Hi familia!!!

i love you all so much. i loved reading your letters this week. sounds like everything is going just so well. 

congrats to dan and to everyone for their callings and for your service to the lord. he will bless you in numerous ways. 

as for this last week really fast.....cause i just have about 5 mins today. it was a really fast week with all the things that we were doing. last pday was glorious as we made tacos :) and it was awesome!!! we have found some wonderful people to teach as well and had a huge turn out in the reunion sacramental. we share the ward with 2 other elders and between us both we had 10 investigators in the meeting. we were sure happy!!!! we got a bunch of references as well and life is just going great! i love my comp. elder priebe and i get along soooooooo well. i hope we are together until he ends his mission in november!!!! this week we will be having 2 great baptisms in a very special place!! (its a suprise...so i will get you the details next monday!!!) 

but know that i love you all so much.

till next week...muy pronto!!

Weston

--

      Elder Birtcher

Perú - Arequipa Mission