More Cacti and the Dentist!‏

Hello everyone! I dont have much time to write, this morning we went to the IRU and played soccer and basketball with Callao and Maranga. It was fun and really great to see Elders Tasker, Aguirre, and Gonzalez. They were able to tell me all about everything that`s going on back in barrio Heros and all. When we were on our way back and hour and a half ago, the bus was so crowded that we couldnt get off at our stop and we had to wait a while for the next one (which we think took us outside the mission for a bit). We got a little lost and had to take another bus back. We have appointments at 6 and 7 so we dont have much time to write!

Yep, I went to the dentist, her name is Doctor Ursula. I dont know if I was more afraid of going to a dentist in Peru or going to one named Ursula. Haha! Just a joke. It all went well and she said I didnt have any cavities. She cleaned my teeth and explained something to me like we have several teeth where the roots are close to the surface and if we are not used to all the soda or other sugary things here it can make it hurt a little. She gave me some special toothpaste and told me to use it from now on. Oh yea. and I finally dug the cactus point out of my finger. I think it was starting to get infected but now its better.

Speaking of cactus, we went back the other day to Hermana Zubiate`s house/jungle with a member from another ward named Alex ( he plays basketball with us in the mornings). We bagged up all of the cactus parts and other branches that we had cut up last week. We kicked over an old tree stump and an army of huge red cockroaches ran out. Elder Galindo has a video of me chopping them up with the machete we were using. We had a lot of fun! I will get it from him and try to send it next week.

Elder Galindo and I had a lot of success this week. Right now we have four people with baptismal dates. Two of them are new fron this week. We had a realy good lesson with Hermana Rosa Montes. Her daughter got baptized a while ago and she likes the church and believes in everything, but would not get baptized. She had a practice baptismal interview with the zone leaders a month ago and passed it. Even President Borg came one time to try and convince her to get baptized, butr she wouldnt do it. But this week Elder Galindo and I had a really good lesson with her and she accepted a baptismal date for the 30th of May. She always accepts baptismal invitations and says "one day," but until now has never accepted a baptismal date! Also we had a super good lesson with Cintia. Her son and ex heusband are both active in the church but she was never very interested. She was always kind of worldy. Recently we have started teaching her again and at first was hesitant to get baptized and always said "one day" like Rosa, but Friday we had a super spiritual lesson with her. Probably one of the best I have had. She had told us that she feels like she is constantly carrying a heavy burden and really wants to let it go. We talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and focused on repentance. She was so focused on every word we said because it was exactly what her soul was hungering for. She says everytime we come she feels good. We invited her to baptism and she accepted for the 23rd of May!

Thank Elizabeth for her package and I got dad`s as well. Thank you. 

Sorry I dont have as much time as usual! Love you all! 

Elder Kevin Torgersen

Magdalena! Cactus Massacre!‏

 Dinner, mmhh....

 We were contacting (knocking doors), and found this door that was literally only like 1 foot wide. We thought it was pretty funny.

Hello family, I`m glad to hear about your week and all the fun things you guys did. I got the Easter package this week, thanks for all of the candy! We are going to the dentist today too, so its perfect, haha! But I love American candy! I`m happy that you love familyhistory so much. Yesterday, we were fed lunch by an older couple who are also "obsessed" with family history. They told us that in both of their patriarchal blessings it says that they are blessed with the spirit of Elijah. Maybe yours does too? I thought that was pretty cool. 

I just remembered tthat I forgot to tell you what Hermana Brake told me before I left Callao. She told me that I have really good parents who raised me really well. She said that the attributes and character that I have arent things that you can buy in the street, but come from being raised in a good family.I wanted to let you know about her compliment to you guys, She also said that she is going to pray alot so that I can find the perfect wife to take to the temple, haha, but that´s in the future!

You wanted to hear about the pensionista, so here goes. She is Hna Arce, and she is the Primary President. She and her husband have three kids who are 11, 8, and 8 (twins). They are fun. Hna Arce feeds us lunch Tuesday through Friday. Weekends are assigned to member families to feed us lunch and dinner, but throughout the week we dont have dinner and breakfast is always on our own. There is another sister who washes all of our clothes. We dont live with them but they live relatively close. in Avenida Venezuela. We live in Jr. Jorge Chavez block 0 in front of the big "U" soccer stadium. I dont remember what number, but all you would be able to see is the door to the street cause we live far in the back where there are a whole bunch of rooms for rent. Our room is really small. I am used to our entire house in Callao. We are looking for a new place to move into. Oh yea, and the bunkbed is missing pieces so we pull my matress off the bed everynight and I just sleep on the mattress on the floor. We need to order new pieces too.

It`s great learning from Elder Galindo. I have learned a lot about leadership and what district leaders do, but the rest of our district is sister missionaries so we cant really do intercambios. Maybe one day with the zone leaders.

Ok, well, last Monday we went to Larcomar.... again! We rode bikes up to the statue in Chorrillos again too. I think this was my third or fourth time. The mission is so small that there are only so many things that we can go and do every week. It was fun though. Most of the zone and even some of the hermanas went with us.

This week went really well. I have never had so many appointments. Almost every hour of every day is filled with appointments. It`s great and means that there is a lot of work to do, but we have been super busy. One time one of our appointments fell through so we went to visit an old inactive lady who hadnt come to church in a long time. She is sick and cant walk very well, but it was kind of funny because she was telling us how Joseph Smith was always watching over her and she always prayed to him. It was kind of funny. First we talked about prophets and explained to her that nowadays our living prophet is Thomas S. Monson. She told us that now he would pray to him and he would watch over her too. So we had to explain that we dont pray to anyone except God and we do it in the name of Jesus Christ. She finally understood. Wierd stuff like this always happens when people stop coming to church and they forget everything.

One afternoon we were walking down Avenida Venezuela and a man stopped me and asked me for a Book of Mormon. We talked to him for a while and he told us that the missionaries visited and taught him a few times years ago but he didnt really pay much attention at the time, but now he remembers what they taught him and he wants to get baptized. It was really cool and it really strengthened my testimony about laying seeds. We work and work and work, but sometimes there arent results until weeks, months, or years later. You never know who is ready to accept the restored gospel!

This week we went to do a service project for a less active sister named Hna Zubiate. She is such a complicated person to work with I could write a whole email trying to explain her. Anyway, she asked us for help in her garden. She has like a little jungle in front of her house and she needed help clearing a lot of it so that it would be safer. She has a lot of huge cactuses that grow a lot here and she gave us a machete to cut everything down. We massacred those cacti! It was a great stress relief and a lot of fun! The only bad thing is that I got stuck by a spike which still has its tip in my finger, and we forgot to take pictures! We gained a lot of confidence with Hna Zubiate though. She used to be super cold and rude but now she is changing!

Well, we`ve have a lot of spiritual experiences and lessons, but those happen all the time that we sometimes take them for granted. It`s great being here with Elder Galindo. We get along great. I hope you all get along as well!

Love, 

Elder Kevin Torgersen

More Machete with Alex and Elder Galindo.

Transfered!‏

The Jehovah`s Witnesses travel in packs!

Wow, It sounds like you had fun in Ogden! I love the pictures. 

Well it finally happened. I got transfered! I´m now in Zona Magdalena. It´s one of the nicer and more pituco zones here in the mission. My new companion is Elder Galindo, from Texas. He has 14 months and this is his third sector in the mission. He speaks both Spanish and English perfectly just like Elder Gonzalez, but 95% of the time we spaek Spanish to each other. Wow, everything here is so different! Our ward is called barrio Venezuela. Yesterday we had 180ish members in attendance, which is way different from the usual 70ish we had in Callao. The ward here is focused on missionary work and they support us a lot. There are actually ward missionaries and I had my third missionary correlation meeting in my whole mision on Friday. It is so nice! We are the only two missionaries in the ward. Two months ago there were four, but the other sector got closed. Now we have the entire ward to roam, and our sector is HUGE! I am used to my old 4 block x 6 block sector in Heros, but now I feel like my sector is half of Lima! It is more or less 20 x 20 blocks! I have never done so much walking in one day in my whole mission! I´m fine though, it`s good for me and I dont need anything sent. Elder Galindo is the Disrict Leader. Its pretty cool because I knew him back in Callao. When I got there he was in La Punta and he trained Elder Pettit, so we already know each other. We are the only elders in our district, the rest of the missionaries are hermanas. Half of the 24 missionaries here in Magdalena are hermanas! It is so wierd. I am not used to being around them. It was way too dangerous for hermanas to be in Callao and I was there 6 months, so now I`ll have to get used to it! It`s kind of fun though. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday we go play basketball with the hermanas and some members at 6 in the morning. Oh yea, we have a pensionista too. The family is really fun!

This Saturday we had a baptism. Elder Galindo baptized an awesome lady named Carmen. I got to confirm her in Sacrament Meeting. I haven´t known her too long, but I can tell that she was really prepared to recieve the restored gospel.

We had a cool experience with a service project this week that I want to share. We got a call a few days ago from a recently returned missionary named Renzo, who told us that his neighbors needed some help Friday at 8 in the morning with some stuff for their house. We got to their house with him and saw that it was a  half finished 6-floor building! They needed help moving a bunch of poles and boards from the 5th to the 6th floor, and it was a bunch of wood. There werent stairs up to the 6th floor yet so Galindo and I climbed up a ladder and Renzo and the others handed us the poles one-by-one through a hole in the roof. We finished in exactly one hour and afterwards the mom of the family invited us to a small breakfast to thank us. She was super impressed with us and how we worked. She liked that we just showed up and worked hard without complaining until the job was done. We made an appointment to go back and share something about Jesus the next day. We went back and shared L1, "The Restoration" with them. Then we invited them to be baptized and they accepted! It was such a cool spiritual lesson and experience, and it all came from a simple early morning service project.

I love you all. They told me that all of the letters and packages you sent got to Callao Wednesday, so it should get here to me in two days. I can get ties here, but if you picked out some special ones I would love to have them. Stay safe and have a fun week!

Love, Elder Kevin Torgersen

Goodbyes

 This is Teresa and her man. They have been coming for 3 1/2 years but cant get baptized until they get married which finally should happen this month!

 Said goodbye to the investigator, Evelyn and her husband

 Last night w/ Gonzalez

Goodbye to bishop‏

Carmen´s Baptism

Chicken Feet! A Conference to Remember!‏

Chicken Feet in the soup!!!

I actually asked for it this time ´cause I like it now and I wanted to take pictures to show you all!

My Spanish is great. I´m pretty much fluent, but I keep studying. There is always more to learn. The mission sends us Liahonas so we should be good, but thanks for worrying. Say "hi" to the coaches for me! I love you a lot, dad!

Wow, it´s been a long time since we caught any bullfrog ones though! Good job!

Good morning everyone and Happy Easter. Here in Spanish, Easter is "Pascua." I hope you all had a good Easter Sunday and that you were able to learn more about our Savior´s Atonement and Resurrection. As Latter-Day Saints, one interesting thing that we dont do that most christian do do is that we don´t wear crosses, although He died for us and we should always remember that, even more important is the knowledge that He lives! I love sharing that with people. He lives!

I like your determination getting out of that mud Trevor! Good job and i´m glad you learned a lesson from it. It is good to make gospel connections to our daily lives. It is one way that we can learn and grow and strengthen out testimonies. Elizabeth looks like a model, very cute, and the funny things she says! Don´t scratch anyone with those sharp claws though.

I hope you all had a memorable conference, mine definitely was. First I´ll start with the spiritual highlights, and then the other crazy stuff that happened. I really enjoyed the conference this year. We watched all but the last session in Spanish. My Spanish is really good and I understand everything. I really liked how pretty much the entire first session was focused on the family, temples, and marriage. It was exactly what the people here needed to hear. There are so many people here living together who are not married. We consider ourselves lucky if we find people to teach who are actually married! But I really liked the focus that the church is taking on temple work and strengthening the families against Satan´s bombardment. Ever talk was really good, but one that really stood out to me was given by one of the Seventy, I think, I cant remember his name. Anyway, he was sharing an experience that a missionary had on his mission. He had just got a new companion who was inexperienced, immature, and unmotivated to work. He talked about how hard it was for him and how they did not get along. Then one day they were riding bikes down a street qand he noticed that his companion had stopped a ways back. He got super frustrated and started to ask why he was paired up with him. Then the thought came to him that in God´s eyes he wasn´t very different from his companion. To God they were both imperfect, they both made mistakes. It changed his entire attitude about his companion and his mission. I really liked that story and I think it helped me a lot.

Now for the crazy stuff... This was the first year that Conference was broadcasted to our chapel and not just the stake center so it took the technicians a while to figure it all out. We didnt have any sound until after President Eyring´s first talk. We all just sat there in silence and tried to read his lips or something, we could feel the spirit I guess. The first session went well, but people kept leaving the doors open and these stray dogs kept sneaking in to the chapel and sleeping under the benches. We kept chasing them out and then closed all the doors, but people kept getting up to go to the bathroom and they would leave the doors open and the dogs would sneak back into the church and go right back to the chapel. I think they liked all the cool air from the fans that were on, and they wanted to listen to conference too! Every once in a while the broadcast would just freeze and we would lose several moments of conference. It got really bad during the priesthood session. That´s why we went to the stake center for the final session, and besides most of the zone was there listening to it in English in another room. Don´t worry though, the mission orders us Liahona´s every month and they usually come in English for the General Conference session so we will get to read it all. Other than that Conference was great!

Last night we had a Noche de Hogar at Hermana Vilma´s house and afterwards the ward had a little goodbye party for me in case I get transfered tomorrow (it´s like a 95% chance). We went around and everyone there shared some experience or testimony about us. it was really neat. There were some tears. It is going to be really hard to leave them. These people are like my second family and I have been here soo long! When Jeremy was talking he started crying and couldn´t finish. He really doesn´t want me to go. It is so hard! I wish I could take him with me to my next sector. My biggest desire right now is that he can stay active and worthy so that he can serve a mission in 5 years. He really wants to, but I hope that the ward can support him enough without Elder Ango and I.

So yea, I´m pretty sure I´m getting transfered. I even started packing my bags the other day. Be prepared, right. I really wanted to leave, but after last night I realized that it is going to be really hard!

Today we are going to the offices to pick up some packages and letters from you guys that they have in the mission office. They should tell us all the cambios early when we get there. Then we are going to do some shopping and exploring in the center of Lima. I love you all and hope you have a good week.

Love, Elder Kevin Torgersen