My Dearest Family and Friends:

We just had the best week ever. it was crazy it was so busy but what a wonderful time we had here down in the old moquegua. 

so lets start from monday:

Monday was the last pday of teh change so we obviously did something crazy! We  hiked as a zone to this waterfall which was gorgeous! i have never seen it so pretty. it was a great hike, a great time to spend time together and build zone unity. Afterwards we all came over to the house and had a zone fire with the hot dogs and smores. It was a farewell to 2 of our missionaries who ended their missions this last week. but it was really fun. 

For the middle days of the week: we were practicing for our big event yesterday night which i will in just a second talk about it. we were busy trying to contact new people and get some lessons in. 

on saturday....we were busy getting things together for the muscial programa. and elder chipman and i were asked to help the stake out with the young mens and womens activity that night as well. we got to play a specail musical number savior redeemer of my soul and it turned out really great. we got many comments on it and a ton of people are now asking for violin lessons. :)

other big news....WE ARE FAMOUS!!!

This last week...Elder Birtcher, Elder Chipman, Hna. Romney, and Hna. Aurich went live on the radio!! haha we went and talked on 4 radio stations about the muscial and invited all of moquegua to come and participate with us. I was asked to play the violin on the air and we even got a calll in aobut the event. we had a great time talking to the radio broadcasters and we had fun talking to moquegua!! some of the guys dig into us for answers....not aobut the activity but about the church in general and it was a good oportunity to have a little lesson on the air as well. i got to bear my testimony to everyone!!! :) haha i just hope everyone was listening when we were talking. but we did get a lot of calls from members afterwards thanking us and telling us we did a great job offically representing the church!! 

and for our Activity: Recital Muscial. Sunday 21 September at 5 pm.

WENT AWESOME!!!!!

Ended up having over 400  perople in the chapel. We filled it!! not a seat was empty and tehy had to open up the overflow in the very back! i got to play a solo piece on the violin and i got to accompany the chior on another. We sang in total 9 special muscial nubmers and what a spirit you could feel. We couldnt have done this activity any better nor in any other zone...seeings how presdient zobrist put 3 violinsts in the zone along with 2 great pianists and great singers!! we were a choir of 36 missionaries. the stake presdiency did a great job supporting us and it brought a ton of investigators in. i think over 30-40!! President Zobrist and his wife also came down from Arequipa to attend the programa and he couldnt stop hugging us nor giving us complements all night long. elder chipman and i were thanked publicly for all our hard work and it was just the best feeling ever!! on our last song we sang called to serve and we asked that all the rms stand with us and sing with the congregation the last verse.....WHAT A SPIRIT! people were crying, and smiling and it was so cool.  we took a ton of pictures afterwards and the members are so excited now to help us. President zobrist told me that we are going to do this if we can at least once a month somewhere in the mission and that i will go and play the violin! i couldnt be more happy!

What a  blessing it is to have music. it brings the spirit. i know that. 

things are going great here in moquegua. i hope to start seeing some great results with the zone. we do have many changes though and a lot of my best friends will be leaving....which i am very sad about. i think i might not see them again until i get back to the states. but we will be recievign many new gringos and newbies here in the zone. 6 companionships in total will be training and we will be opening up a new area which increases our missionary number here to 20 missionaries in the zone. i am happy. newbies bring such an excitement to the zone. and we will be having 6! 

as for other good news....president is taking us all out to lunch here in just a second and i found out that an 18 year old girl that i was working with in tacna way back when....will be getting baptized this weekend! :) no effort goes in vain!

i love you all. i love the mission. congrats to tiffany for getting engaged to my best friends brother, and to kacie as always....great things happening to us in both worlds. love you all. 

hope to hear from you all next week!

Elder Birtcher

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      Elder Birtcher

Perú - Arequipa Mission