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

Well...hello again. 
I know i wrote you guys Thursday so nothing much has changed since 
then. but we have seen great progress in our search for new 
investigators and especially working with the less actives. President 
Zobrist is really hammering us on that. and the area....and the 
prophet...so it must be pretty important. we do have the promise that 
if we rescue those menos activos then we will baptize more 
investigators. so we will be focusing on that these next few weeks. 
Elder Priebe and i are doing very well. We are happy working together 
and we have enjoyed feeling the spirit as we teach and are able to 
watch these people change as they come closer to their savior. i just 
love teaching and people able to share the gospel. i really do. 
as for me. i am very happy. the area is great, the zone is working 
hard, and we are becoming more unified each day together. we have been 
trying to plan out those activities to help build the trust and unity 
in the zone and we have seen great results. we did a service project 
as a zone this last saturday and got to clean up this ladys backyard 
of all the stuff she has been storing for the last century. peruvians 
are such pack rats. but i love them!! 
Funny story about the service project: 
haha so we were cleaning up everything and had finished this one side 
of the yard. the lady has a ton of chickens and roosters there just 
running around and as we were all working on the other side of the 
yard....the wall on the side that we had finished comes crashing down! 
and it crashed on top of a chicken and a rooster!!! the whole zone was 
like...woah, those things are goners.... and the lady was freaking out 
saying save my chickens!!!! so me and this other elder run over there 
to start clearing out rocks to uncover the smashed chickens. well the 
chicken runs out a few seconds later and is squaking like crazy! so 
one saved, one dead....we thought. so we uncover a TON of rocks and 
underneath we find the rooster. not moving. we touched it and were 
like its dead. the lady was in disbelief and was frantic and then we 
move this rock off its head and POP. the head pops up and the thing 
jumps out and runs away!!!!! IT LIVED!!! couldnt believe it! so i did 
my good turn for the day :) the lady kept saying..you saved my 
rooster, thank you, thank you, thank you so much! haha she bought me 
Inca Kola and cooked the whole zone lunch. haha but we saved a life 
that day. :) 
 
sunday was ward conference and we had a huge turnout in the ward! 
160!!! we were so happy! great stuff. and we had a meeting with the 
stake president and are excited to get to be working with him. in the 
past he has hated the missionaries and there ahve been a ton of 
problems so elder priebe and i are trying to sort all that out and end 
those problems or the work here in moquegua will stop. and we are 
seeing some great results. excited about that. 
we have found 3 new investigators and have 3 others progressing 
towards their baptismal dates and the end of this month and for the 
first week in august. 
But it is my testimony that god lives. this is his work! i love being 
apart of it and serving him everyday. 
i loved the pictures that you sent me. dad, fantastic job on the shed. 
it looks awesome! you have always been an inspiration to me in 
buildiing and constructing things. great job! 
faith....what happened to your hair?? no se but HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN! 
YOU ARE SO OLD!!!! and this week would be the big birthday of big 
jake!!!!! awesome man!!! love you so mucho. 
 
well i shall talk to you guys real soon. hasta lunes. 
love you all so much. 
 
Elder Birtcher 
1-4-3 
oh and please send a ton of fotos from the family reunion. i want to 
see them so bad!!! 
mom have fun getting ready for girls camp!! dont stress over it too 
much....you always do a great job!! 
 
-- 
*      Elder Birtcher* 
*Perú - Arequipa Mission* 

Hi guys!

Well i dont have any time. we are so busy around here doing everything. i am so tired. so it might just turn into a bullet point letter. but i am so jealous aobut the family reunion! sounded liked you guys had a BLAST!! i wish i couldve been there with you guys. 

but que dice la vida aqui. well. moquegua is great. i really really like it. my comp is great. the lord has blessed us with investigators that both have accepted baptismal dates for the end of the month and we are just running around all of moquegua doing things for hte zone. but i am happy and well. 

We did go back to arequipa this last monday for the meeting with president and teh leaders of the mission which turned out really great. learned a lot of great stuff and got to see a bunch of my good friends again in the mission. a lot of them will be leaving these next ocuple of changes which is sad. love those guys. 

we were informed that elder neil anderson of the 12 will be coming along with bishop davis and elder grow of the 70 at the end of august to have a mission conference wiht us! that should be aweomse!! i am super excfited. 

today we just got done having a whole zone conference as well and i got to teach for about 45 mins. turned out really well. i was sure relying on the spirit and he put the words in that needed to be said. 

i sure love hte zone here. great missionaries and sisters. we have 6 sister missionaries here and 12 other elders. so its fun. 

i hope all had a great 4th of july. we celebrated here (well just the gringos...) by making peach cobbler, browines, bought icecream and made shephards pie. JUST LIKE HOME IT WAS!!!! IT WAS AWESOME!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA. we did sing the nation anthem and i played it on the violin. how truely blessed we are to live in the US. too bad we lost in the world cup. haha i really love soccer now. the skills are improving and we sure love playing. 

but thats about it. wish i could right more but....dont got the time. 

have an awesome week!

Weston

ps. happy birthday to faith!!! jakes is just around the corner!!!

and congrats dad on the shed. send me pics! 

love you all mucho. 

--

      Elder Birtcher

Perú - Arequipa Mission