Elder Weston Birtcher

My dearest Family and Friends,

The. Week. Is. Over. For that i am so grateful! Just like it seems to be every week here in the office, we were super busy again. But this week, things are smoothing out (for the most part) and we will have some time to get some work done in our area and do some divisiones with some of the other elders here in arequipa.

Highlights for this last week:

WE FINISHED ALL THE ZONE CONFERENCES!!!!!!!!! YEAH BABY!!!! Oh, i never want to plan those again...in 3 months time (but it looks like i will be able to escape all those and leave the office before we start those up again!!)

Haha, no the zone conferences turned out really well throughout the whole week. We had 3 this last week with the 7 zones here in Arequipa and then traveled outside to a small town called Siguas to visit with those outside zones. I sure have learned a lot from these zone Conferences though...how to teach better by listening to the spirit and hearing what he wants me to say to the certain groups of missionaries. i found that a lot of times things changed due to the needs of those elders and hermanas. but all in all, glad to have those done with :) they can sure tire you out.

I have been kinda upset a little bit this last week about the work that has been happening in our area....1 we really couldnt get out much this last week, but when we could all of our citas (visits) got canceled on us or the people just avoided us or werent home. We tried everything it seemed like and like everything fell through. Even a service project!!! how does that happen???? frustrating.

But even though it has been rough, the lord has blessed us with some new people (that which i haave been praying for all this last week...). So it was actually a really neat story: We were just about to start one of our zone conferences this guy i have never seen before walks into the church looking confused and lost...( i thought he might have been drunk or another crazy-cause those guys always seem to find their way into the church buildings and cause a bunch of problems.) and he walks right up to me and my comp and explains that his mom lives in Lima and she has a friend who is a member of the church. He has moved down here to Arequipa but was really impressed with his moms friend and the church and tells us "Yeah i wouldnt even mind becoming a mormon. what do i need to do to be baptized in your church???" we were shocked and taken a back...so we asked him where he lived first and he says Umacollo-OUR AREA!!!! :) so we are super excited to start teaching him and hope to see him tomorrow at church!! pray for him to understand our teachings and that he can do his part to come unto christ!! his name is roberto.

So the lord is blessing us. We just need to continue faithful in the work and renew our testimonies and really come to understand the voice of the lord and to really know it. if we can do that and always feel the spirit, there will be nothing that we can not accomplish here.

So i am very grateful for all that has happened recently. And especially TODAY!! After a long, busy, and stressful week we got special permission to have a SWEET pday today. In the mission peru arequipa, holds the deepest canyon in the whole world. the canyon of colca. it is deeper than the grand canyon and is know for all the condors flying there. but it is 4 hours away from arequipa and the only people that get to visit it are those who are serving in the tiny village up there in Chivay. But we got permission to get up early and head out there to go and tour the canyon and visit the village of chivay. (it has always been my dream to go and serve there in chivay! maybe that is where i will go when i leave the office to finish my mission up there!!!!!) And it was awesome! it was an adventure, it was gorgeous and it was so much fun!! i need that for sure...a really great pday. and i was blessed with one today :)

i will be sending pictures of our trip and you can see how it went! :)

As for your overview for this upcoming week:

We have some divisions planned for the earlier part of the week and then we have the farewells for the elders who are leaving on thursday, we ship them all off on friday and then we get swampped again by recieving the newbies and training them all over again. it will be a calmer week before we get into the maddness of february (Interviews with the whole mission, mission visit from the area president and meetings and conferences with the leaders......).