February 14, 2011
Hey family!
Glad to hear that everything is going well, even if it is really cold.
Glad to hear that Adam is getting better at basketball and is doing
well. Just remember, everything will come, don`t get frustrated. And
remember, when there are really big kids on the other team... They
just grew early and in 2 years you will be way taller than them. :)
That`s what happened to me... Then there is Trevor who will never be
tall. ha ha. Just kidding.
Hopefully for all the effort that Mom and Dad have put in, the blue
and gold banquet will be awesome. I have found that when we put a
lot of our effort into something that we really care about, God helps
us with all of the rest. It has happened here in my mission. For
example, this month we started with a goal of 5 baptisms, with names.
3 of them told us they aren`t ready to be baptized, and the other 2
didn`t get married, but we worked our hardest with our faith and now
we have the opportunity to possibly baptize 3 or 4 completely
different people in February. More on that later.

This week has been pretty much, the best week of my mission up until
now. On Monday they cut the power in part of Lima to try and fix the
power, and where we live happened to lose power, which in Perù means
that we showered with frigid water in the morning. That wasn`t the
cool part, and actually, that was pretty terrible, but it was all made
up for after. On Tuesday we had an amazing day when we found people
to teach, we taught our investigators and we committed Ruby to
baptism. She is going to be getting baptized this Saturday, which is
awesome. We also received 14 references from members throughout the
week. These came through a sport activity that brought lots of youth,
and a Missionary Night that we had on Friday. We also had a Multi
Zone Conference on Thursday. I learned a ton. Elder Asqui, one of
the two President`s Assistants taught about true sacrifice. He taught
that true sacrifice isn`t giving something up, it`s doing something.
He gave some scriptures and quotes from people, and he taught with the
spirit. For example. Giving up work on Sunday isn`t the sacrifice
of an investigator. Giving up work on Sunday to go to church is the
sacrifice. Its the going to church part that completes the sacrifice.
Giving up work is just the method to get there. This week we also
gained 2 new investigators who have both been to church a few times.
Laura is about 50 years old and she really has a desire to listen. We
want to challenge her to get baptized on February 26th. She is
awesome. We will see what happens. We also can start teaching
Jonathan. He is one of the children of David Robles from a previous
marraige. He is 16 and he is awesome. He has been coming to church
and church activities, and we weren`t teaching him because we thought
he was just visiting. He had been living with his mom in a different
part of Lima and so we sent a reference there, but he is going to be
living here for a while so we are also going to challenge him to
baptism this week for the 26th.

I learned a lot about faith in Christ and how we can become better
every day. I have learned how I can be a better missionary and I have
begun to have more confidence in myself.

In the Book of Mormon I have been reading in Alma about the missionary
experiences of Alma, Ammon and Aaron. You can learn so much about how
to teach from them. I love Alma 26. It is loaded with scriptures I
love. It talks about what we should do if we get discouraged and it
talks about the incredible joy we can feel through the work of the
Savior. We can feel such a joy through the work of the Lord.
Because really, this is the Savior`s work. It isn`t the prophets
work, it isn`t the church`s work, it isn`t my work. It is his work.

I love the gospel, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be here
in Perù sharing the gospel with people who need it.

I love you all, and hope this next week will be a great one with a few
missionary opportunities.

Elder Tyler Rasmussen