November 29, 2010
Querida familia,Well glad to hear everything is going well in the ward in Maryland.The party with the members from the ward sounds like it was prettycool, and the kids got to play with their friends in that ward. Ijust have one piece of advice for Dad. :) Practice, practice,practice... Or you can just give up. The second is probably thebetter idea. Mario Kart will just frustrate you most of the time. :)The picture of the nativity scene is awesome. I love it. :)I noticed that Dad kind of left Utah State out of the informationabout football. Im assuming that means they won 3 games total thisyear. I`ll just have to hope that they do well in basketball. Keep meposted. I like basketball better anyway. Thanks for the informationabout Elder Bell. I actually have had information here in Peru.Remember when I talked about Hermano Casanova from the CCM? Well ifyou don`t, he is the Elder`s Quorum President in this ward and hehappened to be one of Elder Bell`s teachers in the CCM in La Molina(Lima, Perù). Im glad to hear that he is doing better. Well here in Perù we had thanksgiving, but it was really just all ofthe Latino Elders calling all of the American Elders to wish them ahappy Thanksgiving. We also ate chicken, (but we eat that every day ,so its nothing special.) This week we had a whole bunch of serviceactivities and we had the opportunity to go and see a Peruano Circo(Peruvian Circus). It was way awesome. I also ate something elseother than cow heart that sounds weird and tastes delicious. I hadcow lung on saturday, and it was way good. I guess that anything froma cow is probably good, except liver. Ive heard that that Americansdon`t like it very much. I had another division this week. This time I was with ElderEcheverria. He is from Guatemala and he is awesome. I learned somuch from proselyting with him. He taught me the importance of goodquestions. About the week being weird. (semana extraño) Milagros didn`t haveher baptism on Saturday. Monday we got a call from a member who heardfrom the friend of Milagros that she didn`t want to be baptized.Tuesday we got a text message from her, telling us she didn`t want tobe baptized and didn`t want to be an investigator anymore. Wednesdaywe had what we thought might be the last lesson with her because ofthe text, but she told us she wants to listen, but doesn`t wantbaptism because of a feeling she had leaving the church and a dreamshe had. We taught the restoration over again and committed her toread a few things. Saturday she wanted to baptized again. So we aregoing to have an interview Tuesday and if she passes it, we will behaving her baptism this Saturday. We also had the Children`s Program is sacrament meeting. It wasawesome. We had 6 investigators at church again today. This time itwas Sislet (she doesn`t want to change her life much right now, butcomes to church every week), Angelica (only came because her son wasin the children`s program), and then 4 investigators that areprogressing a little. Milagros, Llery (who still has the goal forbaptism December 11th), Lourdes who we just started teaching lastweek, and Grecia who is nine years old and would be progressing but itis difficult to find time to teach her because her grandma, who is amember, lives in a different part of Lima and only comes to our sectorSundays, and her mom is always working. Lourdes, Milagros, and Lleryare all progressing right now which is great, and we hope to have 3baptism this month and improve on the amount we had before. My scripture this week is Mosiah 18:17. It talks about the new churchduring the time of Alma the Elder (right after the death of Abinadi).It says "And they were called the church of God, or the church ofCHrist, from that time forward..." We again have the church of Christon the earth. What a great blessing! I hope everything continues to go well. I love you all. Have a great week.Tyler

November 22, 2010
Hola mi familia,Im glad to hear that everything is going well and that Mom has anawesome calling in the ward. Sounds like the ward talent show waspretty cool, and that the Rasmussen family helped a whole bunch. Ican`t wait until I get those pictures from you. I do love the glowstick dance talent, and Im glad that Trent got the last laugh in theskit. Im glad that you are having success with baptisms in the ward.Its great to hear about your experiences with missionary work. Dad`sconference in Orlando sounds like it was interesting. We actually hadthe same lesson that Dad taught in High Priests in the Elders Quorumin Barrio Porvenir. Im glad you got the bus receipts and everythingelse. I look for random things I can send a lot of the time becausethere really isn`t a whole lot of things that can be mailed.This week was loaded with great experiences. We`ll start with Monday:Monday started really slow for us, but it finished great. We had aFamily Home Evening with David Robles and his family. They areawesome and are going to be some strong members in the ward. He justgot a calling as the 2nd counselor in the Young Men`s Presidency. Inthis Family Home Evening, his daughter Dhara gave the lesson. She is12 and has been a member for a few years, and her lesson was awesome.She talked about temporal and spiritual blessings in our lives. Shealso talked about a few other small things. She used an awesomescripture, (its one of 2 of the week) which is Moses 6:63. This talksabout the fact that all things bear witness of God, temporal andspiritual. The fact that we can live on this earth is one of them.If the earth was any closer or further from the sun, if we had adifferent mixture of elements in the atmosphere, and even in the moonwasn`t where it is, the earth would have drastic differences andpossibly be uninhabitable. Tuesday we had a one day split so that Elder Kasat could view the areaof the other missionaries in our district. (Elder Kasat is DistrictLeader, I don`t remember if I told you). Becuase of this I had ElderRichins in my sector. He is from California and doesn`t talk a wholebunch, and because we were in my area, I had to lead all thediscussions and I did almost all of the talking. I had to trust inthe spirit more and it was a great opportunity for me to learn totrust in the spirit more. Milagros also accepted a baptismal date forthe 27th and she promised that she would cancel anything else thatcame up so she could go to church. This week throughout the week, Junior also became willing to marryElizabeth so that she can get baptized in the church and their familycan progress in the gospel. We have one hold-up in this. There is alarge marraige service this Saturday but we are not sure if they willbe allowed to participate because you have to call in a little inadvance, and it may be too late to call in. We also had anotherlesson with Milagros. We also gained a new investigator Llery who hasbeen coming to church and she accepted a baptismal challenge forDecember 11th. Sunday was awesome. We had 6 investigators at church. Elizabeth,Milagros, and Llery all came as well as Grecia who is a 9 year-old weare working with. We also gained a reference of a member in the wardduring church and we hope to be able to visit her a little bit. Hername is Mayra and she wants to learn, but she is only available onSundays so it is hard. We met with a returned missionary in the wardfor dinner and he taught me a few things about missionary work. My other scripture of the week is Mosiah 14:7 which talks about JesusChrist refusing to talk and respond to attackers when He was beingscourged and judged before He was crucified. It reminded me ofsomething I read in Jesus the Christ about Pilot and his amazement atthe quiet dignity of Christ. His submissive yet majestic manner.(Jesus the Christ page 633-634 if you want to look at it. ) :) JesusChrist would not respond to incriminating and false accusations of theJews. I think this is so important, because Christ suffered for eachof us and when being judged falsely did not defend himself, but stoodin submissive majesty because this was part of why He came to earth.We all need to submit ourselves to Him and The Father. This is oneway we can be humble in this life. I love you all and hope everything continues to go well. The Churchis true and Jesus Christ is our Savior, Redeemer, and perfect examplein this life. Good luck with this week and keep working hardeveryone. Tyler

November 15, 2010
Hey family,Glad to hear that everything is still going reasonably well inMaryland, and that Mom is getting a break from driving everyone allover Maryland for their different activities. Im glad to hear thatthe Stake Conference was good and that you got a great experience outof it. And Im glad that Dad at least stayed awake while Mom was atthe pulpit. Sounds like you had another experience of the "Who arethese weird people buying all the food in the store?" Isn`t foodstorage great? By the way, I got the pictures that you sent. Thanks. Its good tohave a real picture of all my siblings and not just papers. Peoplelike seeing pictures of our family here, and its great because for alot of people in Perù, families are really important. This week was pretty slow work-wise and pretty fast time-wise, westill don`t have any investigators progressing, but this week wefocused on getting new investigators and got 6 new investigators thispast week and have appointments with six more people this coming weekwho could be new investigators. Of our 6 new investigators only 1seems like she will progress pretty rapidly. Her name is Charo. Itwas great because when we contacted her at her house she respondedwith the phrase I hear everyday... "Soy Catolica", meaning... "I`mCatholic" which usually means we won`t get anywhere, but when we cameback and taught the first lesson she was really interested and when wetalked about the Great Apostacy and the need for a restoration sheagreed and then when we talked about Joseph Smith she was interested.Charo was also interesting because someone else told her we didn`tbelieve in the virgen Mary. And when we explained we do believe shewas the mother of Christ and an incredible person but we don`t worshipher because we only worship God and Jesus Christ, Charo was a lot moreopen to us. Our other interesting new investigator is Antonio. He is more than 80years old and kind of... strange... For example, when we contactedhim, he said that we needed to come back in the morning, because itsbetter to talk about Jesus Christ in the morning, and he also said weneeded to learn to say thank you in more languages and that Spanishand English aren`t pretty enough. He said we needed Russian andGerman and French. He also thinks Portuguese isn`t pretty enough. :)But he listens and although it will be slow we think he mightprogress. About the title...We got a call from President Tyler Saturday night and he told us thathe and Hermana Tyler were coming to visit our ward on Sunday...Needless to say we were worried about having investigators there.Especially because we had been told by Milagros, Leidy, and a fewothers that they couldn`t come... However,Sunday was awesome! We had 7 investigators in the church... Granted,only 2 are our investigators right now but the members are workinghard too. David Robles brought his 2 children from his first marraigeand another person brought his neice. David`s children don`t live inmy mission, but they were pretty interested too. Fernando andElizabeth came on Sunday as well. They were our 2 investigators.Neither can progress... Elizabeth needs to be married and her "pareja"(person she isn`t married to, but lives with and has had a child with)doesn`t want to be married so we are still working on him. Fernandoneeds permission from his parents before he can be baptized. Itstough but Im glad to see they are coming to church. It shows theirdesire for progression even if those around them are making itdifficult.Its a little sad because we have to move Milagros` baptism backanother week, but we are going to work on her more this week and tryand help her come to church. She has a class from 9 to 1 on Sundayswhich is making it difficult for us. My scripture of the week is Luke 5:12-13... This scripture is about aleper who when asking to be healed and said to Christ: "Lord, ifthough wilt, thou canst make me clean." This man had no doubt thatJesus Christ could heal him. His question wasn`t "Can you?" hisquestion was "Will you?" He knew that Christ could heal him, but heknew it had to be the will of Christ to heal him. This was anincredible show of faith, and humility. He was submitting himself tothe will of Christ. All of us need this same humility. I hope everything continues to go well at home and you are succesfulin work and school. I love you all. The church is true. Keepstudying the scriptures and learning the gospel.Love,Tyler

November 8, 2010
Dear family,
First thing, to clear up my error. I meant Alma 26:12 last week formy scripture of the week so if you were a little confused, it was myfault.Second about the title. Crazy thing here... Stores have alreadystarted setting things up for Christmas. And its weird for me,because the closer we get to Christmas, the warmer it is getting. Itprobably won`t warm up a whole lot more, but it is pretty nice to haveit a little warmer.Sounds like this last week was pretty good at home. Its good to hearthat Dad is finally getting to the end of his busy season. Id say 80hours of work is pretty close to a lot. :) Sounds like the soccerseason was pretty good overall and sounds like Adam had a prettydominant team. Kind of like Team San Luis in the Lima Centralmission. ha ha Im glad to hear that Dad got an opportunity to teachthe High Priests in the ward. Sounds like the garden will be a littlebetter next year. I just have one request... PLANT MORESTRAWBERRIES!!! If you think you have too many, plant more. :) Illjust tell you now that when I get back from my mission I am going towant them every day. :) We are not allowed to eat strawberries herebecause they are hard to clean and they will make us sick, so I reallymiss strawberries and raspberries (which they don´t have) a lot.This week had a few highs and more lows...Lets start with the lows, then we can finish happy. :) None of ourinvestigators are progressing (with the exception of Carmen). Wehaven`t been able to find Jeffrey at home and his family says he hasbeen drinking, which is sad for us. I don`t know how much Ive saidabout Jeffrey, but Jeffrey has had an incredibly difficult life andhas a lot of mistakes in his past, but he wants to change. Its just aslow process that we wish would go a little faster. Milagros didn`tcome to church yesterday so we have to move her baptism back a week tothe 20th so that she can attend church. She has been having problemswith her brother. We aren`t sure about the details, but it makes itdifficult for her to attend church. We hope to show her theimportance of it this week. Other problem is that none of ourinvestigators are coming to church, and we aren`t sure what to doabout it. We call some Sunday morning and they say they are coming,and don`t. We look for some and they don`t answer the door. We arekind of at a difficult spot with this. Because of this we don`t haveany investigators that are really progressing. (Milagros kind of is,and kind of isn`t, we`ll see how this week goes.) If you have anyideas for how we can motivate for church, please let me know. Now the highs!!!First of the world. Funny, interesting, scary tidbits.Interesting first. There is a KPMG office in my mission, really closeto my mission office. When we were going to our Reunion de Cambios(Transfer Meeting) we passed it. Its tall green and has a big KPMGsign at the top. (Hence the knowledge about the building.) I plan ontaking a picture eventually. I don`t have one now though.Funny and slightly scary... I almost died... Well I almost dieeverytime I get in a bus or taxi, because traffic here in Lima isinsane... but this story tops the rest... (until another one comes).We were doing some service for our pensionista (The sister who we payto feed us). And we were taking a quick taxi across our sector. Weneeded to be one street over to the right, but the road coming up wasa one way road travelling to our left. So our taxi driver decided todrive in REVERSE... We drove backwards into oncoming traffic for anentire block. I was in the back seat and watched as more and moreheadlights came towards us. Obviously, we survived, but it was prettyfrightening.Other awesome thing, I ate something weird this week and it wasdelicious... Its called anticucho... and its a kind of meat from theheart of a cow... So I ate cow heart... And it was probably one ofthe best things Ive had since I got here. cool huh? This week we had the baptism of Carmen Lopez, and it was awesome. Thespirit was strong and it was the third family we have completed thatcan now prepare to visit the temple. Her husband Anibal, who wasbaptized in my first week here, bore a really strong testimony that Ididn`t expect from him. He doesn`t talk very much in our lessons, soI didn`t think he would say much, but his testimony was great. Carmenalso bore her testimony and talked about how her heart was opened tothe church. Its interesting, because Carmen was the first one themissionaries talked to, but she wasn`t really interested. First herdaughter Pamela was baptized about 8 months ago and then here husbandwas baptized 6 weeks ago, and now all of their family is baptized...This gave me strength this week, because we had such a hard time withMilagros and Jeffrey. Other highlight is Lourdes. We actuallyhaven`t taught her yet, but we think she is going to be great. Wewere looking for an old investigator and one of our contacts and theyweren`t home so we were going to our next appointment and Lourdesyelled to us in the street and was really excited to talk to us... Inother words, she found us. And we planned to visit her another timebecause she was busy at that moment and we weren`t at her home, so wegot her phone number. We were walking down another street later andpassed a quinta (basically an alley with 10 to 20 small homes in it)and to our surprise, we found Lourdes again. This time in front ofher house. She proceeded to show us which house was hers and she isreally excited to hear about the gospel from us. We plan on visitingher this week, so we will see how it goes.Our Zone meeting was good today too... President Tyler came to observeand wound up teaching us about why Africans couldn`t have thepriesthood until the revelation in the 70s to President Kimball. Ilearned a ton, and now understand a little more about Cain and thecurses that were upon his seed.My scripture of the week is Mosiah 5:15... This ones correct. :) Thisis about enduring to the end and I think it is a great scripture forall members to know. I love you all. I hope that everything continuesto go well. Remember that the church is true, and that we can do allthings through faith in Jesus Christ.Tyler

November 1, 2010

Hola familia,Glad to hear that everything is going pretty well in Maryland and thatthe kids are staying busy and having fun. Jazz band sounds prettyawesome for everyone and I have no doubt that Adam can handle Jazzband, especially if he practices hard. Soccer sounds like its goingpretty well for everyone. Sounds like the piano is going well forAdam and Trevor still. And I still expect Trevor to have written afew songs by the time I get back. :) The ward sounds great. And itsounds like everyone is going to get all of their service hours prettyeasily.This week was kind of rough for us again. I have been getting alittle frustrated with my companion lately. I feel like we justaren`t working as hard as we can and we could have a lot moreopportunities to teach people if we worked harder, but its tough forme to do anything about it. We were able to talk to Jeffrey andMilagros a little bit, but not much else investigator-wise happenedthis week. I spent most of the week a little frustrated because notmuch was happening, but on Sunday I got a great uplifting experience.We had Stake Conference this past Sunday and we had the opportunity tohave Elder Rafael E. Pino of the Seventy come and talk in our stakeconference. Milagros and Carmen both came to the conference which wasgreat, and a little uplifting since we had only had one investigatorcome to church the past few weeks. Every little improvement is great.President Tyler and Hermana Tyler came to the Stake Conference aswell, and this was probably my favorite part of the day... We had theopportunity to introduce Hermana Tyler to Milagros and Carmen and shetalked to them for a couple minutes. We also got to introduce DavidRobles and his family to Hermana Tyler and we took a pictureafterwards. After the picture everyone was excessively happy. Ithink its impossible to be sad when Hermana Tyler is around. Shealways is so happy. This is when Hermana Tyler turned to me and saidsomething. I can`t even remember what she said exactly, but thespirit behind it was incredible. It was something along the lines of,Doesn`t this bring you joy... The opportunity this family has to havean eternal family? This made me think a lot. This is why Im here.To help people have eternal families and eternal life. Even when itis just one person I baptize, Milagros for example. Milagros is 23and after her baptism will have started the process for her to have aneternal family. She can marry someone in the temple and their familycan be together forever. We also have the people like David who arethe final member of their family with baptism and now their family canbe eternal. It was awesome.We have transfers tomorrow, but they don`t affect Elder Kasat and I.We are both staying in Porvenir for 6 more weeks, and then after thatwe are pretty certain Elder Kasat will receive a change at least.President Tyler makes a lot of changes every transfer and we weresurprised Elder Kasat didn`t get a transfer this time. I was ElderKasat`s fourth companion in four transfers and he has already been intwo areas. So he was pretty excited not to make it 5 companions in 5transfers.I hope everything is going well. My scripture of the week is Alma12:26 which is a great scripture about trust in God. And power inGod. Its Ammon talking and its great....I love you all. Have a great week.Tyler