Family History

So, I had one of those weeks this week where nothing really stuck out to me, it all just seemed kinda like all the other weeks, which sounds bad, but that's just how it is sometimes...

This week we had a special training with President Gomez and he taught us about the importance of family history work, which is weird because we really have never done anything with family history work at all.  So now, were going to use a book called My Family that is for getting you started with family history work, but we're supposed to be using that with everyone.  It was really interesting in all honesty, how we’re going to be using it and how relevant it really is to everything.  It makes me grateful and a little sad at the same time--grateful to have a family that has already done so much and a little sad because I probably won't even be able to do much because mom will already have all of it done for me which is really a good thing [oh, believe me, still much to be done!] But yeah, so mom if you could send me pictures of you, dad, grandparents and great-grandparents, I need to make my book.  I already have the names and dates and everything, I just have to put it in the book.  

Also, this week, I was with my District Leader (even zone leaders have district leaders!!) to take him to go and get one of our investigators (J*) for an interview  He wasn't at home.  The guy doesn't have a phone, but really hardly ever leaves his house if he's not working.  So I was surprised to not find him and I had no idea where he could possibly be.  So, I decided to just go and look for another family to teach and come back a little bit later.  We went to the other family and they weren’t there and out of nowhere, I felt like we should go to Isaac’s house (the member in the wheelchair).  So we just went over there.  He has this little room that’s always open on the front of his house (see the picture where we had cake with him) and it was closed which usually means that he's not there, so I thought that was weird.  But, as we get closer, we see that there are a few people there talking in front of his house, and there was J*  I had never seen the guy at Isaac’s house before.  It was pretty crazy.  I know that in that moment I was guided by the Spirit and it is always a great feeling to be just see it so clearly that the Spirit is guiding me.  I love this work.

Love you guys, hope you all have a great week.  Just one week left in this change...we'll see how this goes next week and I'll be sure to let you all know!

Elder Peacock

Alma 26:12

[Random notes from other emails from Tyler…] I make smoothies every morning with fresh fruit.  Fruit is pretty cheap here, even if its not too varied, I'm still making some sick smoothies also with this protein powder we have here.  The advertisement has a guy with a 6-pack on it so I’m pretty excited about that.

General Authorities, a Fake Future Stake President & Building Houses

This week was pretty awesome.  It was my first time ever meeting a General Authority [a member of Church Leadership]  and I got to train in front of him.  

We started the training at 8 and we all got to greet him and talk to Elder and Sister Grow for a minute, and take a picture (I don´t have that picture because they didn’t let me use my camera so maybe next week I'll have it) and then we started the training.  President and Hermana Gomez [mission president and his wife] spoke to us and then Elder and Sister Grow spoke, which was then followed by a training by the other zone leaders--who took forever.  According to the program, we were supposed to train before lunch, but then Elder Grow got up and took us all the way up until lunch.  At that point, I thought we weren't even going to train, and I didn't know how I felt about that. We had spent a lot of time preparing it, but I was nervous to do it.

We went to lunch in the cultural hall [the multi-use area typically found in the middle of LDS church buildings—often containing a basketball court] and Elder Grow calls me over and tells me that we are still going to train, but he’d like us to change it a little to do what he had just trained on.  In my head, I’m thinking:  Umm alright, so I guess I'll just get up there and try to follow up a General Authority’s training on the very same thing he just trained on--with like no preparation.  It actually went really well, surprisingly!  We talked about the importance setting and completing goals and doing it the Lord’s way.  It wasn’t exactly like how Elder Grow did it, which I think is ok, but it was the same idea.  He told me good job as we were finishing and sitting down.  

Elder Grow taught about goals, planning and working with the Spirit.   He talked a lot about the work of salvation and a program that we have here in this area (Elder Grow is part of the Area Presidency).  He also taught about the importance of the Book of Mormon in conversion.  A couple of people shared their conversion experiences and a majority of them were centered around the Book of Mormon.  It was pretty cool.  That night, Elder Grow trained the whole stake [a geographic organization of several wards, or local congregations]  on how to have a ward council [a meeting of local leadership] which was really cool.  He also told us about his goal on his mission to baptize a stake president [a Stake President is the leader of a stake.  He is a volunteer, called of God, and typically serves for a period of about 10 years.  It is a tremendous amount of responsibility and so a Stake President must have a strong testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and provide a good example to the members of the Stake].  So I decided that was a really cool goal, which leads me to my next story....

Later in the week we were looking for families to teach.  We were in a part of the area we rarely go, and where there are no current members of the Church.  We were knocking a few doors (I don't do that very often anymore) and we see this guy get up and start talking to what appeared to be his children and said "now we’re going to read the Bible".  The thought instantly came into my mind that he just needs the Restoration and this guy will be a Stake President.  We asked if we could join them and they invited us in.  We were there for a few minutes talking with them and we soon figured out that he was not the father of the family, nor was it even a family.  He had invited children from off the street to listen to him and then he was about to pull out an envelope to collect offerings.  We decided that it was better that we left at that point....it was probably one of the most awkward moments I've been a part of on my mission!  I have revised my initial impression:  I don’t think that guy will be a stake president very soon.  Maybe it was a “had to be there” moment?

Also, this week we got to build a house in this swamp-like place...it was pretty cool.  In the morning, we had called our ward misison leader [the local member of the Church with the responsibility to coordinate missionary efforts within the ward/congregation’s boundaries] to ask him for a hammer and a saw and he asked us what we were doing and then instantly offered to go and help us—remember, this is the guy in a wheelchair--that guy is just the best!  It was the second house that I've helped build down here and I will just say that I love American made nails, they don't bend when you hit them with a hammer!

Love you guys and hope that everything is well!!!

Elder Peacock

P.S. I was telling Tyler that a mom of one of the sisters in his zone had contacted me this week, so I could see him in a few of her pictures on her blog, which was fun.  He responded, “did you know that half of the new missionaries already know me and ask about my blog when they start the mission?”  I don’t know if he considers that a benefit or a detriment, especially since he’s never even seen his own blog!

Trainings and Paperwork

So this week was really cool.  I just didn’t get a lot of time to proselyte.  We had a day of trainings with President and another 2 half days doing marriage paperwork.  The training is cool, but I am not a huge fan of doing marriage papers--and by not a huge fan, I mean I actually do not like doing them at all and they just take forever sometimes...

This week we had a baptism! his name is J* and he's the best.  What I really saw with him is that he really moved from the darkness to the light.  His former life was terrible and when we taught him it was really like someone just turned a spotlight on in his eyes and that was just all that he wanted to do.  I also saw that to be able to leave from that style of life is difficult.  Satan really just doesn’t want to let someone like that go and I don’t know if I've seen anyone have so many trials and obstacles to change his life.  I literally don't think I could possibly describe all of the things that he has been through in these last few weeks and even less, this weekend.  All I can really say is that it was crazy.  He basically got jumped on Saturday night after his baptism--that's really a simplified version of it, but that's all I can really describe.  He's ok and everything, but it's just like Satan does not want to let people change that is for sure.  

This week that is coming up is going to be crazy.  We have Elder Grow (from the 1st Quorum of the Seventy) coming out this week so we have to organize a lunch, a meeting with the missionaries, a meeting with the stake, Elder Limon and I have to train in front of him, our Zone has a special musical number, and we have to make him a fruit basket.  A fruit basket!  That's not even a joke.  But yeah, it's a lot for right now.  Wednesday is going to be stressful.  Oh, also, we have to keep teaching the gospel, which has now become the stress relieving part of being a missionary, which is pretty cool.

I love you guys and I hope all is going well!!!!

Elder Peacock

Alma 26:12  "Con sus fuerzas, puedo hacer todas las cosas" [Translation:  In His strength I can do all things]

PS  In response to his dad’s letter, Tyler wrote:

It's been really wet down here too, seeing as its the rainy season here, which is good because if it's not raining here, it's just an oven...glad to be with the rain!!

The 2nd suitcase doesn’t even matter, I probably wouldn’t use any of that stuff anyways.  It's just an extra expense to send a 2nd suitcase out here.

I Have No Hair!

[Email dated 2.24.14]

This may have been one of the most stressful weeks of my life and I'm fairly certain that I have pulled out quite a bit of my hair.  Let's just say that it is really hard to get birth certificates here and that’s a very necessary thing to be able to get people married.   And, of course, everyone has to be from some little town on the river that doesn't have a phone number.  Sometimes it’s a little frustrating....  That and there were just a whole lot of other problems and we had quite a few marriages that fell through after spending many hours this week doing paperwork.  Well, at least now we have all of the paperwork ready, right?

Aside from that, there were just some people with problems this week which resulted in quite a bit of time on the phone and a few hours in the clinic.  In all, it was a very busy week on top of teaching and normal missionary responsibilities....probably one of the most tiring weeks as a missionary that I've had up until this point.  But it was still a good week!  I'm still definitely very happy and all is good for me so don't be worried about that, it's just a lot of stuff and I'm definitely figuring out how to organize myself and keep things in order because if it weren't so, I would probably actually go crazy...(I won't though, I promise!)  [This is a good thing!  I’m actually pretty excited for him to learn organization as a life skill.  For all of his intelligence, I have failed miserably to teach him organization, which is a topic I, myself, usually feel quite competent at.]

So If you guys remember last year, I wrote about a holiday called Carnaval where everyone danced around those weird tree things and got each other wet.  Well, this year, it was a lot different.  In Iquitos, it was basically just for kids to play around while the parents watched, but here everyone was just in a huge party and there was a lot of music and alcohol consumption and everyone was outside....it was basically impossible to teach anyone because nobody was home and even if they were, there was no way we'd have been able to hear them or talk to them at all.  So that was a few hours of walking around and not getting much done.  I'm not a fan of holidays here, it's just a lot of noise.  We kept working and all we just didn't get much out of it. 

Here in Pucallpa, there is a stake [geographic organization of congregations] with 8 wards [congregations] and a branch [small congregation].  7 of the wards have 2 companionships and are pretty big.  Our ward is the only one with one companionship and it's tiny.  A lot of people moved a couple of months ago.  It was also closed down to missionaries for like a year with nobody here until October, so the ward needs to be revived out here, especially because of the lack of missionaries for so much time.  The ward just got smaller, so now we’re still trying to get it back to where it was before because it used to be the strongest ward in the stake.  The stake is actually really strong out here though.

Everything is good for me out here and I'm loving life.  The good and the bad is all a part of it and I love it all.  There is nowhere in the world that I would rather be right now. Love you guys!

Elder Peacock

PS Pictures next week!

Note.  So we were a little, um, put out with the lack of detail and/or length from Tyler’s recent emails.  So we might have mentioned that in our letters.  All of them (Jeff, Lisa, Justin).  I think he got the point.  Jeff took a more direct approach by asking specific questions in his email, with Tyler’s responses (Jeff in gray, Tyler in black and Lisa in red):

I think your Mom and I have decided we need to ask more questions to enable us to learn details about your life.   So here goes the standing list of things we’d like to know: 

1. Tell us about your apartment.  My apartment is 2 big rooms-- one with desks, the other with beds and a bathroom.  On the second floor and there is another family with us that I do not know. [I have no idea what he means in the last sentence.   Is it a duplex, their apartment on the bottom and another on the top?  Or, is there a 2nd floor IN his apartment and there is a random family that lives there?  AND.  They’re missionaries!  How come they don’t know them?  Even answers bring questions…]
2. The Branch?  How big?  What do the members do in Pullcapa for employment?  We’re in a ward where the attendance is between 60 and 90 and has the smallest area in the stake.  The members are good but were missing a lot of key callings.  I'm thinking about talking to the stake president to get the boundaries changed a little bit to give us a new part of the area to work in (it`s tiny).  [Wards are organized by geographic boundaries.  There is no paid ministry in the Church so adult members do various jobs, or “callings” to help the Church function.  It’s one of my very favorite aspects of the Church because you get to stretch and grow to fill jobs you’re called to do.  The majority of callings rotate regularly as needed].
3. Elder Limon--Wildcat or Sundevil?  [If you’re from Arizona, you’ll know what this means] Devil
4. How are your clothes/shoes/socks holding up?  Anything you need?  All good.  I've decided my shirt sleeves are too long on my long sleeve white shirt so I’m thinking about getting a new one that fits better and the majority of my white shirts have some kind of stain that won’t come out but nothing huge....
5. Do you have all your suitcases with you now?  I have one suitcase but I’m fine.  [He left with 2, I don’t think he’s had both with him at any one time since he got to Peru…]
6. Are you catching up in your mission journal (since you got all your packages…) I have not gotten around to the journal yet.
7. Any follow-up thoughts and/or discussions about M&D coming to Peru?  Oct/Dec determination yet?.  And the food:  Any different where you are now?  What are you eating these days? I don't know when I'll get home.  Prez doesn't write me back about it and I really had stopped thinking about you guys coming down to get me.  What would our itinerary be like?
8. And the food:  Any different where you are now?  What are you eating these days?  RICE

Another Week Gone By

[Email dated 2.17.14]

So,

This week was really busy and full of stuff that happened but I don't know that any of it is actually interesting for you guys.  We had transfers which means a couple of days of sending off missionaries and receiving them. We got one sister in the zone (coming from my first area) who showed up without her suitcase.  That was a bit of a hassle getting the suitcase from Iquitos out here, causing a whole lot of confusion.  She finally got her suitcase two days later.  I felt bad but there was nothing we could really do.  Then our phone broke (it just stopped working...we didn’t do anything) and our phone is somewhat important so we had to find a phone to use in the mean time.  It wasn't really all that much stuff this week and not really any stories to tell you about.  I have like a completely new zone just because they changed the division of the zone so it's all just new people to me that are in the same spot.  It’s been a little confusing but even that is somewhat boring...

We did find out that Elder Grow from the Seventy is going to come out to visit the mission and the stakes and everything out here.  He will also supposedly be in quite a few meetings with us and conduct training—it’s pretty exciting and I might actually get some time to talk to him as a zone leader which would be really interesting and a little scary....

That's about it for this week.

I love you guys and hopefully I’ll have something exciting for next week.

Elder Peacock

P.S.  I always just love those days where I'm in charge of everything and it’s chaos but everyone else is completely oblivious...

He Speaks English!

hey everyone!

As a Zone Leader,  I already know the changes and I know that I'm staying here with Elder Limon.  My Zone, however, just got completely changed, including the boundaries.  I'll have a whole lot of people and areas to get to know so this should be interesting.  It should be a good change, though.

This week was good and we had another baptism, a guy named T*.  The guy is really awesome and probably one of the most prepared people I've ever taught because he was just ready to accept everything and really just wanted to change his life.  Also, he lived in Washington DC for 10 years so he speaks English fluently.  A lot of times I just talk to him in English.  We actually taught him once in English which was pretty weird.  It does not feel natural to do that.  At the baptism we met his son, also named T*, who then went to church the next day and he wants to get baptized too.  It'll be cool because his dad will be able to baptize him at that point.  It'll be really awesome.  

Things are going really well here and I'm excited to be here and keep working!

Love you guys!

Elder Peacock

P.S.  I got my packages, don't worry:   the 2 from Christmas and the
one you sent on the 22nd.  Getting packages is a perk of being a ZL.  I just get it ASAP and don’t  have to worry about it getting stuck anywhere. [Only of course, he JUST got that Christmas package that was sent 3 months ago, but who’s counting?]

P.P.S.  Why does Bryce have my helmet?

[this is in response to this picture of his brother gearing up for broomball last weekend…]

Mom:  Wow! Good eye! His helmet is being recertified... He was wishing he had had little helmets for his knees tho, cuz they got hammered

Elder Peacock:  did he mess up my helmet?  I’d recognize that thing from a mile away

Mom:  What could he possibly do to it that you didn't already do to it on the field!? Haha

Elder Peacock:  well I don’t know....i just love that thing....

[If I time it “just right” we can have a mini conversation while he’s online.  You know, for important things like this.]

Rollin’

Hey everyone!
This week was like the exact opposite of the last week.  Last week we were just so busy doing busy work that we barely had any time to do missionary work and then this week we were basically working the entire week like normal and it was awesome!  Then, this coming week we lose like 3 days going to Iquitos for a meeting with all of the Zone Leaders.  So I guess it's just like always going to be like this.  It's alright, it makes for some more adventures right?

Today I want to tell you guys about like my favorite member ever.  His name is Isaac and he is in a wheelchair.  He has no function in his legs, nor has he ever.  He is the Ward Mission Leader  here and he is the best.  [A Ward Mission Leader is a member of the local congregation and he helps coordinate missionary efforts between the congregation which is organized geographically and the assigned missionaries.]  He always goes around with us to teach, always has referrals for us and is just always willing to help us, we just have to wheel him around, which is fun anyways. 

A few weeks ago, he told us that he would hit his 3 years as a member mark on the 29th and I told him that we were going to get him a cake for that day and he just laughed it off.  Well, we showed up that night with a cake for him!  He is really a great example.  He has had one of the hardest lives of anyone I've ever met and for a long time he was just bitter with the world.  Then everything changed when he joined the church.  He is now probably one of the happiest people that I know.  He has the strongest testimony and drive to do good of anyone that I know.  It really makes me think of the story in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah 24.  Especially verse 14. 

14 And I will also ease the ^aburdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as ^bwitnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their ^cafflictions.

We pass through hard times so that we can know that God will help us.  He is really just a great example for me and I especially love going on splits [when a member of the Church goes with a missionary to a teaching appointment] with him.  Just rolling around the neighborhood with Isaac (his nickname is "chucky" hahahha.

I love you guys and hope you have a great week!!

Elder Peacock