Week 51

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 51 (5/25/15)

Well there goes another week here in Perú and another week of having the Open House for the Trujillo, Perú Temple.

We had some really great experiences this week and a whole bunch of miracles with the temple. The temple has made our work a lot easier in the past few weeks. We are constantly having people that we contact that were literally just planning on going to the temple, we have people that come to us asking about the temple, and we are constantly receiving referrals of people that have already gone through the temple and want the missionaries to visit them. It's amazing!

This week we were able to go to the temple with a really special family, the Esteves family. A few months ago (before I was in Primavera) Andy (the person directly to the left of me) got baptized. He had permission from his parents, but they didn't want to learn more about the church. Until recently... We tried to teach them and do family home evenings with them but they were all really talkative and it was hard to stay on the subject. So we committed them with a day that we could all go to the temple, so we did!

We all went to the temple together on Saturday and it was a really spiritual experience for everything. The dad, Alejandro, after going through told us that everything he had seen in the temple, all of the rooms and paintings, he had already seen in a dream. Wow. It is really amazing to see the miracles that occur in the House of the Lord. We are now working with them so that the parents can get married (publicly) so they can be baptized!

Well that's about all I got for this week, but we are working really hard to get everyone to the Open House for the LAST WEEK! and then preparing for the dedication. I will write back soon!!

Elder Terry

Week 50

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 50 (5/18/15)

Well there goes week number 50 of being here on the mission! Almost at a year!

Well this week went really well for us here in Primavera. The Temple Open Doors continue and we continue bringing people to the temple. This week we were able to go another 3 times, with investigators, recent converts and less-actives. Here is the evidence:
The Saturday that we went to the temple, they counted almost ten thousand people that went through! (Find Elder Passey)

Some nice birds hanging out on Moroni

The temple with a cloudy sunset

Our convert Ernesto with our rescue Rosa María (I might have bought glasses)

Beautiful shrubbery

Open lens of Moroni

El Templo de Trujillo, Perú

I'm not left with too much time today, but here is something that I thought was pretty funny. I guess this is what you have to do when you don't have sprinklers:

I also managed to find a little distraction cube at a great price:

Well the work keeps progressing here in Trujillo, and we keep on working with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength.

Elder Terry

Week 49

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 49 (5/11/15)

Well this week, we started the Temple Open House!!!

It started on Friday and we were able to go with some recent converts on Friday and Saturday. I had a lot of fun taking a whole bunch of pictures:

Just to the left of the temple is one of the biggest cemeteries in all of Trujillo, and on Mother's Day there were thousands of people going to visit their parents in this cemetery. So, some one had the great idea that we could go in front of the temple and invite every one to the Open House that is going on. So we stood in front of the temple and started inviting every one to the temple and that day, we received hundreds of referrals for people to teach.

Well everything is super exciting right now in the mission, and we are finding a lot of success as we talk more about the temple and the blessings we can receive from this magnificent construction.

It was also great to be able to call home yesterday (Mother's Day) and to receive the encouragement to keep on working hard in the mission. Thanks for all of your support!

Elder Terry

Week 48

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 48 (5/4/15)

First of all, I would like to apologize for not being able to send my weekly letter last week. But this week is going to make up for it!

So officially this week, the Temple Open House starts on May 8th! So we are completely focused on inviting and getting every one ready for this amazing event.

In the spirit of getting prepared for the temple, our stake had an activity last Saturday morning where they invited all of the priesthood leaders from each of the wards and all of the missionaries in the stake.

To start off the activity, they talked about the importance of unity in each ward, and that the missionaries shouldn't be doing all of the work in the ward. To teach us how to work in a team, they had us build mini temples. They gave us all of the materials and the dimensions and we got to work.

It turned out really well, and learned that we had to have some one to direct us to make it more efficient.

Afterward, we all traveled to the Temple, and we were able to (for the first time) enter the Temple Grounds. I literally took more than 70 pictures of the temple that day, but here are a few of the best ones:

Walking around the temple helped me realize the actuality that we are going to have a temple in Trujillo! There is an amazing Spirit with this building that helps me remember the feelings that I had going through the temple for the first time.

In every moment we have to talk and teach the people here, we always mention the temple. And every time we do talk about it, every one tells us of their desires to go inside. Maybe it's just out of curiosity, but learning more about the eternal blessings that can be recieved there will help every one understand their real purpose in this life.

Well, that's about all I got for this week, and I will make sure to write back the next!

Elder Terry

Week 47

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 47 (4/27/15)

I'm Alive. No time. Sorry

Instead, enjoy an entry from the mission presidents blog: http://kurtandkathymarler.blogspot.com/2015/04/elders-service-day-at-temple.html

Week 46

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 46 (4/20/15)

Another great week here in the Perú Trujillo Mission!

Well this has been a pretty hard week for us, with having to leave a few investigators because they won't use their agency to progress and having some hard times in our daily planning figuring out which people we should look for and visit.

But this week had plenty of great moments.

On Saturday morning we were able to take some more people to visit the temple. We took a less-active couple to go feel the special Spirit that this building has and shared a lesson about the work of salvation that we are able to do inside.

I still haven't fully realized how blessed we are to have a temple dedicated in Trujillo and all of the ordenances of salvation that will be produced from the worthy members here.

Well, we only have 18 days until the Open House of the temple, from May 8th to May 30th. All of the sister missionaries have the opportunity to be the guides for the tours, and we can take our investigators and less-actives to go through the tour of the temple.

On Thursday we were able to have another missionary activity: a sports night. We all did some sports on the field right next to the church building, because all of the churches in the US have indoor basketball courts, all of the churches here have a soccer field outside. We started out all playing soccer, but then we had an activity where everyone could participate. We played water balloon volleyball with towels!
A lovely couple getting ready to catch a purple balloon:

Launching a green water balloon high above the net:

My companion and a YSA representative showing their skills with the towel:

It was a really great activity and everyone had fun.

So the saxophone is great! I didn't get to play it too much for the show because they had already planned all of the numbers by the time that I got it, but I did get to play it with the choir.

We watched conference in the stake center, also known as our ward's building and they broadcasted it in Spanish, but they had a special room for the missionaries where they had it in English. It is waaay better in English, but when they had the Spanish speakers, we put it on Spanish.

That's all I got for this week, and the work presses forward here in Primavera.

Elder Terry

Week 45

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 45 (4/13/15)

Well I spent most of my time this morning trying to fix some camera memory problems and getting the pictures for this email that I am only left with 4 minutes to write this email so here goes!

P-day, we were able to go to the Huaca de la Luna, an ancient pyramid/temple ruin:

The era of these people that left these ruins goes from about 100 AD - 600 AD, just about the time of the Nephites and Lamanites in the end of the Book of Mormon and the beginning of the Great Apostasy. It's really interesting to see all of this stuff with the small knowledge of the people who actually lived there.

Later this week, we were able to have a missionary night, where we got to watch the new move, "Efraim's Rescue." We had to leave only after 30 minutes of the move because of another appointment we had, but it seems to be a really good movie.

Also, on Saturday my brother from the house I live in got baptized!

His dad got to baptize him, and Elder Passey also showed up unexpectedly, which was really great for everyone.

There you go, I finally got a picture with my companion!

Well it was a really nice week that we had here, and there is more to come! It is great to see the changes that have occurred in the people that we are teaching and their desires to come unto Christ.

Well, until the next week!

Elder Terry