LET'S HAVE A HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN ALICE IN WONDERLAND WITH THE MAD HATTER, AND WHOEVER WANTS TO...

Email 10-21-2013

 

Okay, so as you can tell by the subject title for this email, I may be 20 years old now, but that doesn't change a thing because I will forever be a kid!!!!!! First to start off I want to thank everybody for the awesome birthday wishes you sent me, I feel so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends surrounding me.!!!! I CANT BELIEVE I AM 20 YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IM NOT A TEENAGER!!!!!!!! JAJAJAJAAJAJ!!!!!!!! well as you can tell I am very excited that nobody can call me a teenager now, because I am in my 20´s and yes mom and dad that does mean you guys are old, but I still love you and forever will!!!!!!! Sadly  to say, mom I still haven't got your package, who knows when it will come, I blame the fact that Peru is not a developed country yet, how rude of them!!!! jaja. that's alright, when it comes it comes. I don't really care. So it sounds like you all have had great weeks thats awesome!!!!!! mom those pictures of Annika and Emma in the Disney store are so cute!!! I miss them so much, and I cant belive that Annie is going to turn 5 this week!!! How crazy is that!!!!! When I get home she will be 6!!! Speaking of home, I will be finishing my mission  A YEAR FROM TODAY!!!!!!! just thought I would let you know!!! I am going on the down hill slope!!!! 

So this week has been better than others, our work is starting to pick up a little bit more. We are progressing in finding more investigators. That girl Brenda who I told you about last week who didnt believe in god but received a testimony of him, she is progressing very well, she has a baptismal date for the 9th of November, and she told us when we asked if she had prayed about what we taught she told us that she did but it wasn't neccesssary because she already believes everything that we teach her and she knows it's all true!!!!! How awesome is that!!!!!!! So we taught a couple other people this week, but nothing to exciting yet with them, Brenda is the only one who is progressing so far. 

So everything went good for the week until Saturday when I woke up with a raging migrane to the point where I was stuck in bed all day because when I got up I wanted to rip my head of the pain was so strong. So we stayed in the room all day Saturday. And then Sunday we went to church like normal in the morning, and in the afternoon guess what!!! my comp planned with some members and threw me a small suprise party! so they sang to me, and then like every Peruvian birthday they smashed my face in the cake which was interesting, they got me good!!! it was everywhere!!!! after the cake we ate, and had some fruit salad! and then they blindfolded me and made me break open a SPIDERMAN PIÑATA!!!!!! jaja. It was awesome!!!!! So I cant complain the members here know how to celebrate. The only bad thing is, a member was looking at my camera and accidently erased ALL of my pictures, more than 700 pictures.
So mom, please save all the pictures I have sent home because I don't have anything, the pictures I sent home today I stole from my comps camera!!! but I guess thats life. I can't really be mad these types of things happen. Oh well!!! So that's what happened this past week, tonight we have a noche day hogar, and my comp said they are going to do something for my birthday so we will see. Also a member said that for my birthday, tomorrow night they are going to take us out to dinner. yummy!!!!! The members here always feed us!!! So I can't complain!!!!
So today I think we are going to go to this tourist sight I can't remember what its called. But it should be fun, so I will have to let you know more about it next week!!!!
Well honestly there isn't much to say today. I am just so grateful for the family and friends I have that make my life so aweomse!!!!!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!!!
Have a great week and talk to you all next Monday!!

Con mucho amor
Elder Goaslind

SNOW!!! AGAIN!!!

Email from 10-14-2013

Hey everybody!!! How are things going?

So this week went pretty good. Things are starting to pick back up a little bit after having about 3 weeks of hard work before us without investigators. 

So first off to answer some questions, dad, there really aren’t any trees in Juliaca, and the ones that are here are just pine trees that look like they are dying. We are so high up in the mountains that hardly any plant life grows. Just a lot of dust. Or in this season now, a whole lot of mud. So no I do not get to see the changing colors of leaves which makes me sad. But it’s alright. 

And thank you dad for the story about Captain Moroni, I actually read that story recently in my studies, and you´re right it is a very good story. I love it. I just finished reading the Book of Alma this morning. And I was very sad. Because there are so many things that we can learn from all of the stories and battles that it talks about. But I am anxious to continue reading ahead in the Book of Mormon. I love this book; it is my favorite in the entire world!!!!!! 

So I was thinking about some extremely random things this week. First off having to play the piano in Sacrament Meeting I have decided is like a game to me now. I always just wait and see how many mistakes I will make in every song. And the best part is whenever I make a mistake I always see the bishop just grinning at me, and I always end up laughing in the middle of the song while I keep playing. 

My other random thought is the difference between a 3rd world country and a 1st world country. So this morning we had to go up to our roof like normal to see how much water we had in the tank to know if we needed to store more water for the day or not. Because the water only comes at certain parts of the day so you have to fill up a tank on the roof that’s attached to all your water sources shower, sink, toilet, etc. My comp made the comment that if we were in the USA we wouldn’t have to worry about this, and we would be calling the water company for a situation like this even if the water was only shut off for 30 minutes. Those are first world problems. You guys have it sooooooo easy!!!!! Haha. 

So this week we had a cool experience teaching. We had a member named Mary Luz. Who told us she wanted to present us to her cousin who is passing through some difficult times. So we went to visit her, and we taught her the Plan of Salvation. And we didn’t even think at the beginning of the lesson to ask if she believes in god because everyone here does. So we taught the whole lesson, and you could feel the sprite so strong. Probably the strongest I have felt it in my mission. And she asked us at the end if she could make a comment. And we told her yes. And she stared at us for a minute and said ¨when you guys first got here I didn’t even know god existed, I didn’t know we had a Heavenly Father¨ then this is where it gets epic!!! She stares at us and got a little bit emotional, and said ¨after listening to you guys, I know that we have a Heavenly Father, and right now I can feel his love for me!¨ I was shocked!!!! And I didn’t know what to say to her, I sat there smiling for a minute. And then we expressed our testimonies and it was such a spiritual experience!!! I love the mission!!!! It is the greatest ever!!!!!! The experiences that I have had here are once in a life time and there is nowhere else that you could experience these things!!!! I love me Padre Celestial. And I love my Savior. I know that with them we can progress in the life. And everything will turn out all right. 

I love all of you guys so much, and I want the best for each and every one of you!!!!

Have a great week!!!

 

Con mucho amor

ELDER GOASLIND

General conference, what do the members need to do now??? Hahahaha.

Email from 10-7-2013

So first off I want to say, happy birthday to some people. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO PAULA, TYLER, KATIE, ASHLYN, AND NICOLE. Sorry if I forgot anybody, my brain is starting to forget a lot of things after being a way for so long. 

So General Conference was amazing!!! I absolutely loved every single minute of it closed in a room in the chapel with 6 others gringos watching on our plasma in English!!! Haha. It was great!!!!! I really love conference time and I am always way sad when it is over because I always feel so uplifted during it, and then when it ends I feel something is missing inside of me, but it helps me to realize all of the things that I need to get better at, I realize that I am in no way perfect, and the talks help me to understand how I can be perfect, while listening to the prophet talk I had a very spiritual experience. I listened to him and I could feel that he was talking from the power of god, and that he really is called of god, and then after his talk listen to the choir sing "we thank thee of god for a prophet" I felt the sprit like I never have before in my life, and it was so strong that I was almost brought to tears and I was just speechless after and I didn’t want to move, it helped me to gain such a stronger testimony of the church and the power of god here on the earth helping us throughout these last days. I love the church, and the priesthood that we have, I love the fact that we can feel the sprit in our lives, and that it can testify to us of the things we need to do, and the truthfulness of the things we need to learn. This church is true and I know it with all of my heart, and the apostles testified of that to us over these past 2 days. I really liked one talked in particular. From Elder M. Russell Ballard, about the member’s duty they have to help the work of the lord move forward. I know you are all rolling your eyes right now because a missionary is about to tell you that as members we all have something to do in the work, but it’s because it’s true, and here in Peru I get frustrated at times because certain members don’t think it is necessary to help us out. SO I DONT WANT YOU GUYS TO BE THOSE MEMBERS!!!! HELP THE MISSIONARIES!!!!! 

I don’t want to be mean about it, I just want to make my message clear. Elder Ballard gave us an invitation, he said from this date, until Christmas we should all PRAY for an opportunity to share the gospel with someone. IF EVERYONE SHARES IT WITH JUST 1 SINGLE PERSON MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WE BE ABLE TO HEAR OF OUR GOSPEL MESSAGE, AND WE WILL HELP THE LORD MOVE HIS WORK FORWARD!!!!!!!! Please take this invitation from an Apostle of Christ to heart and pray for someone so that you can share the gospel with them, present them to the missionaries, bring them to church, or a church activity, AND I PROMISE YOU ALL, YOU WILL SEE MIRACLES AND BLESSINGS IN YOUR OWN LIVES, AND IN THE LIVES OF THOSE YOU LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is no way that we can deny this invitation; if we deny this we basically deny the power of god. 

I love this gospel and I want other people to love it too. These are the last days that we are in and we must help EVERYONE be prepared for their personal interview after this life. Conference helps us to know what we need to get better at and obviously as a church of god; this is something we need to get better at. 

So a little bit more from this week, so VERONICA GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!! It was so special; you could tell this is something she wants in her life. but as I was baptizing her, she didn’t really understand the concept of plugging her nose, she just kind of face palmed herself, and then she didn’t want to go backwards into the water, she just kind of tried sitting down in the water, it was kind of interesting but she got baptized that’s the important part!!!!!!!! Not much else happened this week other than the stuff I told you on Wednesday. But guess what I did this morning. Our pension who we live in the same house, brought home an entire dead pig today and put it on the kitchen table, and said she is going to prepare it to it, but she was having troubles cutting off the head, so she asked me to do it, so I got to cut a pigs head off today, IT WAS AWESOME!!!!  I also gave it a kiss on the forehead haha. I know you are all disgusted by that, but welcome to the life in Peru!!!!! 

So I am sorry that nothing else happened but that’s because I just emailed you on Wednesday. So I don’t have much to say. Haha. But I love you all, and I hope you all continue studying the conference talks when they become availed.

 

Con mucho amor

ELDER GOASLIND

 

Ps. This week was transfers and I will be staying in Juliaca with Elder Bentson for one change more. And guess what there are so many missionaries now, they are dividing our zone!!! It’s awesome the work is growing!!!! 

Pss... Also it’s awesome that there are more than 15,000,000 members of the church now and 80.000 missionaries!!!!!! 

SORRY FOR THE LATE EMAIL!!!

Email from 10-2-2013

 

Hey how are things going?

So first off I’m sure you want to know why I didn’t email on Monday, and the reason for why I am emailing today, so this week Presidente Harbertson was here in Juliaca and we were with him the entire time!!!!

so on Monday we had interviews with him, from 10:00  in the morning until about 4:30 in the afternoon, so they told us we couldn’t email, that we would have to wait because there postponed pday until today, then on Tuesday we had our zone conference with Presidente where he spoke to us also his wife, and it was really good, but IT WAS SO LONG, we sat in the chapel listening to him from 10:00 in the morning until 5:30 in the afternoon!!!!! It was so freaking long, but it was so inspiring!!! I honestly learn so much from Presidente, he spoke to us about temples and the importance of them and showed us a ton of scriptures that explains why we do certain things in the temples, and then he talked to us about the blessing we will have if we are diligent in our work to receive a temple in Cusco!!! I hope they announce one soon that would be such a huge blessing for the people here in Peru, to have a temple in Cusco, the members there are awesome and they deserve something like that. Also during all these trainings the assistants were there, so I got to see Elder Neff which was really good, I can’t believe how much time he has in the mission it’s ridiculous!!!! 

So also Presidente told us of a new site we can use in our mission to send pictures home, it’s called DROPBOX.COM so you should set up an account and next Monday be on the site at like 10:30 or 11 in the morning so I can send pictures faster to you, but you have to be taking them off the site as I send them through. But I guess that would be 10:30 my time so like 9:30 your time. That will help a ton to back up my pictures so they don’t get lost. 

So about the tiger head from last week, it was a gift to me that my pension gave me, the lady who cooks for us. I am not quite sure why but I have no clue what I am going to do with it because it is ceramic, and it weighs a ton!!!!!!! 

I think I said this last week, but congrats on Karsons blessings, it really is such a blessing to have the priesthood in our family. And I know that god blessings us for living his gospel, and keeping worthy of his blessings, I have seen so many miracles in my life from the priesthood, and I know god gives it to us because that’s the way we can return to his presence. President also talked about being sealed together as families in the temples. And that is because we have the priesthood keys to do it. This gospel would be nothing without the priesthood, and we should remember it always, something I have seen in my mission is the members here really rely on the priesthood because they don’t have good medical treatment here, and they trust in god all the time asking for blessings, and that is something we would do well to remember is that the priesthood is stronger than anything here on the earth, and if we want to receive the fullness of its blessings in our lives and for our families, if we want to see that things work well in our lives, we need to live worthy, read our scriptures, pray, ATTEND CHURCH AND PARTAKE OF THE SACRAMENT, and do all they things that god has taught us to do. These are the only ways that we can receive blessings from god. 

So just like you guys were saying, I am WAY EXCITED!!! Because GENERAL CONFERENCE IS THIS WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think I get more excited for general conference now then I would get for Christmas as a child. I absolutely love being able to listen to the prophet of god, and to his apostles, because they really do receive revelation to help us in our lives, and if we listen to them we will know the things we should do to receive gods help. something we should do before conference is pray and write in a notebook or something questions or concerns that we have, and then remember these things during conference and we will be able to receive more answers than ever before because we will have something specific that we want to learn. I challenge you all to watch conference with something in mind because you will see how he can answer!!!!! And holy crap, that’s weird that you can watch conference in your house now!!!!!! But don’t do it. It would be better to go to the stake center because like dad told me, it’s something more special that you can feel!!!!! But that’s cool!!!! The way we watch conference here, is everybody goes to the stake center and they broadcast it, and sometimes they have a separate room for the gringos to go to Para mirarlo en ingles. So I hope we watch in ingles it more powerful. But either way it’s good!!!!! But I think we have a good chance there are 7 gringos in our zone. 

So dad had asked me how we work normally here, really what we are doing now is the church doesn’t want us to be working without a member, so we are starting to get accustomed to that, it will help a ton I feel. Also they are put that half of our time working is dedicated now to less actives, the sheep who have strayed. we have 500 members in our ward here, but only 95 attend every week, the average attendance rate for the mission is 25%, it really low, so they changed a ton of stuff like the numbers we have to report to Presidente every week, they don’t even asked us a ton, mainly lessons taught with member present, lessons taught to less actives, and a couple others, but not much, so the work is changing now, tracting here is frowned upon by our Presidente because it doesn’t help with anything!!! So we are trying to get accustomed now. But I know that it will be good!!!! 

So everything is being set up for the baptism of Veronica on Friday. I think it will be good but because it’s general conference she won’t be confirmed until the next Sunday, because all coverts have to be confirmed in the sacrament meetings. But she is very excited we finished teaching her everything last night, and we got rid of all the little tiny doubts and questions she had. So her interview is set up for tomorrow, and I think everything will go good!!!! But other than that there still isn’t anybody, we have a member who has given a couple references, so we are starting to work with them, but not much yet. 

So that’s basically what’s happening here in Juliaca!!! Wahoo!!!

Also I thought you might want to know that all the members here have started telling me that I have gotten a lot fatter than what I was when I got to Juliaca, and they were looking at some of my pictures from early in the mission, and now they are telling me that I look old like an adult, so apparently now I am old and fat, which I don’t see but oh well, you gotta love Peruvians they are very blunt about everything!!!! Haha. 

Well I love you all so much, and I hope you enjoy conference this weekend!!!! Also that is awesome about Carly and Rex's farewell!! It’s a little weird to think, but its way cool!!!!!!!!!! And congratulations to Lauryn on her mission call!!!!!

I love you all and I can’t wait to hear from you next week!!!!!! 

 

Con Mucho Amor

ELDER GOASLIND

CRACKDOWN IN THE MISSION!!

 

Email from 9-23-2013

Hey everybody!!!

So as always it´s good to hear from you guys, it sounds like everything was going well this week, first off I want to say congratulations on blessing Karson, I wish I could have been there, but that’s way awesome, and I know that Karson is going to receive the help from this blessing, and that it is something necessary that we do for the children, because as Christ always says, let the little children come unto me, and by giving them a name and a blessing, we are helping them come unto Christ. 

That was a cool story about Ethan Cash; I know that he will be an awesome mission, when you see him wish him the best of luck from me! I know he is going to be able to help a lot of people come unto Christ, and to receive the fullness of this gospel!!! 

So dad to answer one of your questions about when the next transfers are, they are the 8th of October, and honestly my comp and I have no clue what is going to happen because there are a lot of people who have been in this zone for like 6 to 7 months, and it’s time that they have a change, so we think the two of us might stay here for one change more. But it will be interesting because there has been a crackdown in the rules, and now we won’t have transfer meetings, we will just get a call the Sunday night before telling us if we have a change, where we are going, and who is our comp. so it’s not going to be the same, and there were a bunch of other things that President Harbertson is cracking down on, even the clothes that we are allowed to wear on pday. But as you know I told you before this mission were pretty bad at following rules and so this will be good and help us a lot to receive more of the spirit, and to be more obedient to the missionary manual, or white bible, to preach my gospel, and everything. So I am not upset about the rule enforcement, and I am excited to see in what ways it is going to help us. But we will have to see. 

So the work is going good, we are teaching somebody named Veronica, her family abandoned her, and now she is living with her aunt and cousin who are members, and we are teaching her, she actually has a baptismal date for the 4th of October, and she is very excited for it. Everything is going good with her, she is 18 years old, and she really has a desire to accept these things in her life. 

We contacted a family the other day, but we are only teaching 3 of them, Yessyca, Candy & Leonardo. They are really cool, and they really like to visit with us, every time we teach something new, they get all excited and have a billion questions about it. When we left them a Book of Mormon Yessyca jumped out of her seat because she was so excited about it and couldn’t wait to start reading it, as she told us. So we are hoping a lot for them, they didn’t have the chance to attend yesterday but we are going to keep working to get them there. 

Also, one of the investigators that we have had for a lot a time wasn’t really progressing much because as he put it, he wants to do these things because he feels it, he doesn’t want to commit just because we are asking him too. So we kept working with him, and then yesterday in church he came like the last hour, and I was a little busy helping out with some things in the ward, so my comp and another elder ended up teaching him because he didn’t want to enter in to priesthood. And when my comp came to me after he said they had challenged him to baptism for the 12th of October and that he said he know it was important, and that he would pray that night to find out if that date is right for him, and so we have an appointment with him on Thursday, and we are going to see how his praying went, and I have a ton of hope for him, he is one of those people ready, but he just has a lot of doubts and questions for us, so we just keep helping him in every way possible, and he is actually best friends with Katia who was baptized a couple weeks ago. And from his personality and the things he does, as my comp described him, he is already Mormon; he just faults the baptism part. And it’s so true, but I will keep you informed about how he is progressing, keep praying for all of them it will help!!!! 

So my comp and I have been trying to find new people to teach and it’s not working really well so yesterday we got 25 members split them up, and sent them out contacting and visiting less active members, and it went really well!!! This week we are going to be in the process of contacting all the people they met and helping them out. The work really does progress when we have the help of the members!!!!!! 

But not much else happened this week, we just keep moving along and getting the things done!!!!

Honestly being a missionary is such a blessing, and being able to help people every day all day, I would not trade my mission for anything in the world!!! I feel like I have grown so much in the mission with maturity, as a member of the church, and everything!!! Every aspect of my life has changed, and I am learning the things that I know I am going to need for the rest of my life!!!!! The mission changes you and helps you understand the person that you need to be, the person that the lord needs you to become!!!  I have felt the hand of the lord in these months here in Peru, and I know that I am here for a reason, and that my job is to help other people first and then myself, but I help myself as I help others!!!!! I am so grateful for a loving family and loving friends who support me in my decisions, and helped me get to this point!!! You are all great, and I thank you so much for your influence in my life!!!! Now that you have helped me, HELP OTHER PEOPLE!!!!!!

You will feel the love of the Savior in your life as you learn to serve others; don’t be scared to do it because the lord will raise you up as you put in your part!!! I love you so much and I can’t wait to hear from you all next week!!!!!

Con mucho amor

ELDER GOASLIND

GLADY'S GOT BAPTIZED

Email from 9-16-2013

 

Hey everybody,

Sounds like everything is going good. To start off answering some questions you all had, the finger is all healed up, so I am doing good with that now, also about COKE!!! haha, so it is a leaf that comes from a cocaine plant, and they use it here a ton for medical reasons, a lot of people just chew it for fun, but our pension gave it to us mixed in a drink so that was interesting, but don’t worry I haven’t had anymore, I ask the pension everyday what’s in our drink because I did not like the effect that the coke left in my body that day, I was way out of it. But yes it is the illegal drug of the USA, haha, now I can say that I have tried drugs!!!!! And honestly I wouldn’t recommend it, it’s horrible!!!!!! 

So I am sorry to hear that Karson was still sick, I hope that he is doing a little better now, I keep praying for him and for all of you, keep me updated on him, also about Brent and Lisa’s trailer, that must be hard, but the lord puts these challenges in our lives, it could be health, financial, or whatever, but we have challenges to learn and to grow, and in these times we must learn how to rely on the lord, that is the most important thing we can do. As we rely on the lord he will help us "restore the things that are lost" I guess we could say. But just keep moving forward and you will see the blessings that will come through your faith and your diligence. 

So as you can see, Gladys got baptized on Saturday. It honestly was a very special experience. I was able to feel the spirit very strong, and able to see how ready she was to do these promises with the lord!!! So we met Gladys through a less active member who works with her, and while activating the member we taught Gladys, and it was cool because my comp and I were able to see her full progression, we contacted her, and we baptized her. And I have been able to see so many blessings come into her life during this time, and I know she has been able to see them too. She is one of those people that the lord NEEDS in his church, she has such a special spirit about her, and I know she will be an instrument in the hands of the lord throughout her whole life, because she has received a testimony about everything. I love being a missionary and seeing these changes in people’s lives. It was probably one of the more special baptisms in my whole mission. They are all special but this one was way special for me. 

So this weekend we had stake conference, and it was for all of the stakes and districts in all of Peru!!!! It was a transmission in satellite, and we heard from Carlos Godoy from the Seventy, Sister Reeves from the Relief Society, and from DAVID A. BEDNAR, and RICHARD G. SCOTT!!!!! I love hearing from the apostles, because I can always feel that what they are saying is what the people need to hear in their lives. But I have to admit David Bednar looks OLD!!!!!! So Elder Bednar talked about repentance, and honestly that is something everyone needs, I have met so many people in the mission who don’t think that they need it, but I love the things he was saying, talking not only about how we need the atonement for sins, but to have Christ’s help all the time in our lives, and how he can take away pains and problems that we have. Elder Scott, talked about respecting women and treating them like goddesses, but that is definitely something they need to hear in Peru, because they do not treat the women here like they should, they disrespect them, and make them feel like crap, and we need to learn that they are daughters of God, and we have to do everything for them respect them, love them, serve them, and something Elder Scott said is to worship them because without them we are nothing, and it is so true, and something every man should apply in his life!!!!!!

So it was a very uplifting weekend, and I was able to learn a ton!!!!

Yesterday, a family invited us to eat and we had lamb which I have absolutely learned to love here in Peru, and between my comp and I the family made us drink 4 liters of INCA COLA!!!!! But that’s alright I love Inca cola!!!! So not much else happened this week, it was a little slow in the work, and we don’t have anybody progressing because nobody comes to church, so I will update you next week on the investigators and I have faith that we will get some progressing!!!

I love you all and I hope the best for you!!! Keep relying on the lord, and don’t forget that when things are tough we have him to help us out!!! And the priesthood!!

I love you all and hope to hear from you next week!!!

 

Con Mucho Amor

ELDER GOASLIND

DRUGS...... i was given coke.....

Email 9-9-2013

 

HELLO GRINGOS FROM THE USA!!!!!

 

So first off I want you all to know the finger is doing good, it’s getting better with the cream I’m using. So it still looks gross but the cream dries it out to help it heal. So don’t worry, everything is fine, and don’t worry it wasn’t the jungle disease like they thought, they think it was just some fungus I contracted, but it’s getting better, so you don’t have to worry about it. Just stay happy. So here they use the drug coke for medicine reasons and the mission allows us to take it when we are sick with certain things, so my comp was sick again this week so the mission told him to take this drug that is illegal in the use, I told our pension, and she gave it to him, then as I was eating dinner she told me she mixed some in my drink and food also to help with my finger. Needless to say I was bouncing off the walls like the entire night it was bad, I have so much energy going through my body it was ridiculous and I never want to take that drug again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mom my shoes have 4 eyelets to help you out. That’s way cool that BJ is using Facebook in his mission, we all want it here but I don't think that will come for a while, I mean they haven’t even given us cell phones yet so how are they going to allow Facebook.. 

Mercedes congratulations on graduating that’s awesome!!!!  Ummmmm so Karson is HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stop feeding him!!!! Haha but he is absolutely so cute!! 

So this week has been really good, we have everything all set up for Gladys baptism this Saturday and she is way excited for it also!!!!! So I really hope everything goes well, we just have to get her baptism interview done, but she is definitely one of those people prepared for the lord!!!!!

This week we have been challenging a ton of people to baptism but we are waiting to see what their needs are before counting them as something with a date, we are also applying a ton of things from the training with Elder Grow and its helping us a ton!!!!! 

Yes we are still teaching piano and English, and usually we have about 10 people there every week in each class. So it’s going good, but it will be interesting to see what happens when I leave because nobody else plays piano. 

So Katia was sustained as young women’s president yesterday and it was awesome to see her in there and have all the young women who just love her and help her to know what she needs to do!!!! 

This week we talked with this guy Edward about the Book of Mormon, and we decided to go by the next day to see if he had read, and he was honest and told us he hadn’t so we had a prayer with him and encouraged him to read, about 30 minutes later we walked by his store and he was sitting out front reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 and it was awesome!!!! He is one of those people that accepts everything but he works on Sundays and we are trying to help him come up with a solution to attend church, so I hope we can help him!!!!! Other than that there isn’t really much to inform you on because we are having to leave a lot of investigators who aren’t progressing so we will be finding new ones, I always hate leaving people when they don’t progress! But it’s necessary to keep working! 

Oh, so just to let you all know because the vans brought it up, I still suck at playing soccer, and that’s because honestly I haven’t played a ton in Juliaca because that’s the only thing to do on pday and everyone is getting sick of it so we have been playing cards a lot! But I am better than I was before that’s the good things!!!! 

So I love you all so much, and I hope everything goes well this week!!!! You are all amazing people!!! And you much always remember your potential!!! 

I LOVE YOU!!! 

CON MUCHO AMOR

YOU’RE PERUVIAN SON, BROTHER, FRIEND, COUSIN, ETC...

ELDER GOASLIND!!!!! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Oh wait wha=??

Email from 9-2-2013

Hey everybody!!! 

So I am sure you are all wondering why I put merry Christmas as the title today that would be because it snowed here this week!!!!!!! I saw snow for the first time in forever!!!!!!!! And it made me to think about the TV show Adam talked about here in Peru, if they are mining in one of the cold parts that would be horrible!!!!! But it was so cool; the sad part was that it killed thousands of llamas and alpacas which is really sad, because that is like the animal of Peru!!!! So first off I want to congratulate all of my wonderful brothers for their job promotions! That’s absolutely awesome!!!!   Mercedes because you are going to be graduating!!! That’s awesome!!! I remember at the beginning of my mission talking about how much time Mercedes had left to study and it seemed like so much, but it flew by!!!!!! FELICITACIONES A TODOS!!!!!!! So some more news from here in Peru! We got a new assistant to the president in the mission and guess who it is! ELDER NEFF!  Its way cool, also I forgot to tell you about my camera, it cost around 140 to 145 dollars is what I could figure out converting it from soles. And it’s a way nice camera it’s the NIKON COOLPIX S6300.  Yes I got the package finally mom, after one month it arrived here in Juliaca today and the zone leaders gave it to me.  About the birthday package, I really want some new ties I am bored with mine, some paisley, and bright colors please!!!!! also new shoelaces for my Sunday shoes because the laces are breaking, and some whitening strips for my teeth, that’s all I can think of, I will leave the rest up to you guys, and about the music thing, it wouldn’t really matter putting my music on my iPod because I actually lost my iPod a couple months ago in Puerto I just didn’t want to tell you, haha. 

So here the work is going good, this week was a little bit slow for the transfers and everything, and also, we had a special conference with ELDER SCOTT GROW a member of the seventy!!!!!!! It was awesome, we all got to introduce ourselves to him, and guess what the first thing he said to me was....do you know Jack Goaslind??? Ha-ha, yupp I do, so then him and his wife went on to talk about how great he his, and how they were at his funeral also. And all this stuff, it was cool. The conference was really good, I learned a ton, but they are changing a ton of rules in the mission!!! All the missionaries are having kind of a hard time with it because we are all so use to the other way, but I know that it will be better applying these rules! It so easy to see that President Harbertson is called of god to lead us and teach us the things we need to know. So the conference with Elder Grow was 7 hours long and we had to travel to Puno for it, so we missed out on the entire day of working!!! But we are applying the things we learned and this week will be good. 

So about investigators, we don’t have like anyone right now that is progressing, just Gladys, she is a friend of a member we are activating, and she is awesome!!! she attends the church every Sunday, and always reads he book of Mormon, and never has doubts with the things we teach, her baptism date is for the 14th of September, which by the way is this month!!! Holy crap!!!! But that’s about all that is happening with investigators right now I will try to keep you updated!!! 

There isn’t anything else very exciting happening, yes Katia was called as young women’s president and she seems quite nervous about it because she only has one week as a member, but I know she will do a good job, she has a lot of support from the members.

Oh dad about the shower head there aren’t water heaters, nor heat in the houses here, so to shower with hot water you have these giant shower heads that heat up the water as it comes out, and yes if you touch it while its going it gives you a pretty good shock, so you have to be careful, I've been shocked a couple of times in the mission, its quite entertaining!!! 

So like always I loved hearing from you guys!!! And I can’t wait to hear from you again!!!

You are the best people and family in the entire world!!!! Please keep all of my investigators in your prayers so that we can help them progress!!! I love and miss you all so much!!! You’re the greatest!!! If there is anything I can do for you let me know!!! But I got to write a couple other emails now. Have a great week!!!

LOVE ELDER GOASLIND

 

 

BAPTISM!!!

Email from 8-26-2013

 

Hey everybody, so I loved getting your emails today, and you will have to excuse me for last week that I did not have the chance to write all the little emails to everybody, I ran out of time, and I am trying to be more obedient in the mission now, so I logged off right as my time ran out. But I hope that this week I will have a little bit more time to write. So mom and dad, first off I am glad that you got my letters, and that you were able to enjoy them so much! It was nice writing them and reflecting back on some of those things.

About the license papers that I sent with the letters, were you able to get those taken to the DMV, or are you going to get that done this week. Just keep me updated because a license is going to be essential to leave the country because right now it’s pretty hard to get in the country, and once you’re in, it´s hard to get out. 

Dad thanks for the story about the Greenacre family, I am going to try and apply that during this week because I feel like it was something inspired. And mom thanks you for your thoughts, and loved to hear them, and I will remember them.

So I can’t believe that Carly, Rex and Jackson all have their mission calls!!!! That’s awesome!!! And they are all leaving so soon!! And Carly and Jackson will all be in the MTC together!! How awesome is that!!!! Just keep going forward! So about the transfers, I am still with my comp. and we are working well. I will be finishing his training this transfer. And you can tell we are working well, because we had our 2nd baptism together on Saturday. Katia was baptized and confirmed on Sunday! And it was an amazing experience! She shared her testimony in the baptism service, and it sounded like she had been a member for years!! And the bishop is actually going to interview her this week to be president of young women’s! How awesome is that!!! 

So this week was just a little bit crazy, on Friday night we had to help cut up 45 chickens and wash over 300 potatoes for an activity that our convert Ana Maria was having to raise money for her daughter’s health conditions. But the activity went well, and the food tasted amazing!!!!! So after that activity, on Saturday we basically lived in the chapel from 6:00 in the morning until 9:30 at night. Because the ward had a ton of activities and we were a part of them all, but they all went good!!!! 

So I think I told you about how our electric shower broke a couple weeks ago and we have been showering with cold water, well we finally bought a new shower head, and guess who got to install it! ME!!!! It was quite the experience; let’s just say I love Peru and the way they do their electric wiring its quite hilarious! But the shower now works, unless in the morning all the water stored in the tank for the house is frozen because it’s so cold here. Just like this morning was all frozen. Oh well! 

So some sad news, I don’t know if you guys heard about a girl climbing in Zion’s or somewhere down south, and she fell climbing and passed away. Well it just happens that, that person is my comps cousin. Last Monday night we got a call from President Harbertson, to inform my comp that his cousin had passed away in a repelling accident of 120 feet down south. So this week was pretty hard on him, but he has been such a good example to me and how his just kept pushing forward helping out the other people here. I can’t even imagine what that would be like to have something like that happen while out on the mission, especially in your first transfer in the field. So keep his family in your prayers through this time of sadness and grieving, and I know they will be able to get through it. 

So we had an event filled week!!!

Oh so mom no I haven’t got the package yet, but about the birthday package, I am not quite sure what to have you send, in next week’s emails can you give me some ideas, because in the mission there isn’t a whole lot of stuff that we use, just different ties everyday haha. So give some ideas. 

So it sounds like everything is going good with the family, and that everyone is content with life, I hope it stays that way! But I have a question, I haven’t seen a single pregnancy picture or ultrasound of Kristen’s baby, when should I be expecting that!!!!! Haha just a thought. 

Oh and dad I have to ask what food you got at the Peruvian restaurante, so I can tell you if I have eaten it or not!!!!! Let me know!!!! 

Oh and dad you also asked about my district, well its just 2 companionships, and 3 of the 4 people are gringos, but one of them is going to return to his house this week, because he is finishing his mission  on Wednesday we will find out who the new person is, and we are also waiting to find out who the new district leader is going to be. So I will keep you updated on that, but I will be the oldest person in the district because the other elder is going to be training he has to go to Cusco tonight to pick up his son. So that will be interesting being the oldest! but that’s about it for this week, I am going to keep working hard because I am in the service of the lord and he needs missionaries who are willing to give everything for him, that’s why we are called. Maybe all of you could read Doctrine and Covenants, section 4 to get inspired about missionary work, because everybody is a part of it whether you have a missionary name tag or not!!!! 

I want you all to know how much I love each and every one of you, and the influence you have been in my life!!! You are the best people ever!!! Keep working hard, and being happy!!! I love and miss you, and I will talk to you next week!!!!!!!

 

LOVE ELDER GOASLIND