Hey family!Ill just say now that this will be a pretty short letter. Not a wholelot has happened since Saturday, and this week was pretty slow becauseof the holidays. Sounds like everything is going well, and Im glad that you liked thebracelets I sent you. I do like those really cheap gifts. It wasgreat to hear how everything is going right now. I remember a fewthings I wanted to say to each of the kids so in the next group ofletters I send there will be one for each of the kids and a few othersI need you to send on, please. As I said this week was really slow, and we didn`t have a lot oflessons, but we did work with Joel and his wife Betty a little bit,and yesterday was pretty cool. We talked to their son yesterday andhe wants to listen, and in passing we mentioned the word of wisdom andthat we don`t drink Alcohol, coffee or tea, and we don`t smoke andBetty responded with something similar to, "You don`t drink coffee?!?Really? I drink a ton of coffee" so I was worried for a minute, butshe followed with "but, if you say I shouldn`t be drinking it Ill quitdrinking it." Awesome no? I honestly think the Holy Ghost guidedElder Kasat to mention the word of wisdom. It was great. Llery also had her confirmation yesterday which was awesome. I was soglad that it went well, especially since yesterday we didn`t have anyother investigators at church. (Joel and Betty were visiting familyin the morning.) Well thats about all I have. We get to go to the temple on Wednesday,which is awesome! And I was finally successful with my goal of havingmembers baptize the investigators. (Llery was baptized by her friendwho introduced her to the church.) My scripture of the week is actually a talk from general conference...We finally got our Liahonas for November!!... Its by Elder Claudio R.M. Costa (I finally understand why he has four names!)... It talksabout obedience to prophets and some principles that Elder Ezra TaftBenson taught. It was in the Saturday morning session. I also likedPresident Uchtdorfs talk in the Priesthood session. Im going to send some pictures in another e-mail. And I forwardedsome pictures of our mission Christmas card. I love you all. Merry New Year, and Happy Christmas! Tyler

December 20, 2010
Hey family,
I hope that everything is going well at home still. Sounds like you
are staying busy in the church right now, and that everyone still has
something to do.
Trevor, Im a little dissapointed that you tricked me into thinking you
are really tall. But that`s okay.
Great job Trent in recruiting Brett to cub scouts. Sounds like they
can have all the more fun together now. And Im glad that Mom and Dad
were able to cook your 24 loaves of bread in one day. Can you send me
1… or 3… or 10? Just kidding. 
First the great news!!! Llery had her baptism! And a member baptized
her!!! All the better. The baptism was great and the spirit was
really strong. She bore her testimony at the end and it was simple
but powerful. And because the baptism had to be on Sunday we had a
ton of members there. It was awesome!!! The week was a little slow
because we had the Transfer Meeting on Tuesday, but the week was good.
We found a new investigator this week. His name is Joel and he is
really interested in listening.
I have a little sad news. Lourdes isn`t home right now. She has a
problem with her legs so she is living with her sister outside our
sector so that her sister can help her with the problems with her legs
and so that she isn`t living in her 4 story house. (Its not that big,
it just sounds big. Mostly just lots of stairs. Kind of like a
townhouse) We will teach her a little more when she gets back…
My scripture of the week this week is John 3:16-17 which talks about
the love of God in sending his son to the earth for us. We have used
the movie Joy to The World quite a bit lately. And I love that movie
and it talks about the perfect gift from our God and our Savior, Jesus
Christ.
I love you all, the church is true and the work will continue to progress.
Tyler

December 13, 2010

Hey family,Glad to hear you finally got snow... Even if it didn`t last. A fewdays ago I caught myself singing "Let It Snow". Im just going to giveup on getting snow for Christmas. It just isn`t going to happen. Imglad to hear that the concerts went well for the most part, even ifthe guitar players were a problem. (It always seems to be the guitarplayers). Happy birthday to Alex. :) I can`t believe that he is14, but I had better just get used to it. Sounds like the music inthe home is getting better and better. Glad to hear about Dad`sopportunity to share the gospel with his co-worker. This is soimportant. We have found here in Porvenir that the work is a wholelot more successful when the members are involved. The work is soimportant and the members are an incredibly important part in this. To Megan: Congrats on Utah State!!! I remember the I´m In! paper.Thats so awesome. My advice for you is study hard and play hard.Meaning, study as hard as you can, and when you have an oppurtunityto have some fun, make it really fun. Other note: Megan`s hair is really long... Just sayin´ Other note: Has Trevor grown a ton? or is he just standing onsomething to look almost as tall as Dad in the picture? Needless tosay, Im a little scared of him now. :) Im glad to see that everything is going well, and that you are allhaving some fun. Thanks for sending the padded envelope, I got ittoday. (Ill wait to open it until Christmas, don`t worry), I alsogot the package from Grandma Gee today. About Perù... You won`t be hearing about Milagros for a while. She decided shedoesn`t want to get baptized. I still don`t know what happened, andshe was really closed up so I don`t think I`ll ever know. But lifegoes on. We have changes tomorrow, and I have some interesting news... My Zone isn`t changing! There are 16 missionaries in our Zone andonly 2 are leaving the Zone. Elder Pompilla who is finishing hismission and going home to Cusco, and Hermana Gardner who is alsofinishing her mission and going home to St. George. The other 14missionaries are all going to be in the same Zone until the end ofJanuary. Its pretty crazy. This means that Elder Kasat and I will betogether for one more change and when we finish Ill have been here for4.5 months and Elder Kasat will have been here for 6. I am kind ofready for something to change here, but we have a lot of plans forthis next transfer, so we`ll see. About invaciones...These are actually done by the Stake here together with themissionaries. Lots of the Priesthood Leaders, Returned Missionaries,Priests planning for missions, Ward Missionaries, and the full-timemissionaries. We did it for one of the wards, and visited over 20inactive families and gave the missionaries 56 references to contact.It was really cool. We will actually be doing it in every ward in thestake. We do them every other week. They are pretty cool. A little more about Elder Mitchell and I last week. We had anincredible spiritual experience. We visited a few people, and eventhough it was two American missionaries with no more than 4 months intheir missions, we were able to teach with power, which was awesome.It was a huge lift for me after a few hard weeks with not much. Thehighlight of this was when we visited Lourdes. Elder Mitchell and Itaught Lesson 3 from the missionary lessons and challenged her for abaptismal date for December 18th and she accepted. The spirit wasincredible and I learned a ton from Elder Mitchell. Lourdes didn`t come to church last Sunday because she couldn`t. Shehas had some problems with her legs and it is difficult for her towalk sometimes. We are still planning her baptism for this Saturdaybecause she has the desire to attend and participate in the church.We need to have her interview, but after that we can make finalpreparations and have her baptism. She also gave us references forher sister and her mom, so we hope to be able to go somewhere withthose. Other great news: Llery passed her baptismal interview!!! We aregoing to be having her baptism this Saturday, which is awesome. Shehas such a great testimony and I can`t wait for the baptism. Thelessons with her were so good because she listened and wanted tolearn. We also have a new investigator. Silvana. Silvana has a friend in adifferent stake whose name is Hermana Ramos. Hermana Ramos has beenworking with Silvana for 4 years to teach her a little bit about thegospel of Jesus Christ. Silvana has great faith, and our first lessonwith her was awesome. We hope to be able to progress with Silvanapretty rapidly. This week was kind of slow other than Llery and Silvana. We didn'thave a whole lot of lessons, and I felt pretty bad for most of theweek. But it should be gettng better as we start a new transfer. SoI will definitely be in Porvenir until January 25, 2011, and I willvery possibly be here until the middle of March. My scripture of the week is in Doctrine and Covenants. There are two.Doctrine and Covenants 88:80-81 which talks about the calling for allmissionaries in the world. 81 talks about the responsibility that allpeople have to warn their neighbors. It is about the importance ofmember missionary work.Doctrine and Covenants 88:118 talks about how we can gain more faithand more wisdom by seek the best books. Both of these scriptures helped me during the week and I hope they canhelp you too. Always remember who you are and why we are here in the earth.Remember your potential. In reality all of us have the potential tobecome like God. Not just live with Him again, but to have His powerand His glory. Remember that Jesus Christ loves each and every one ofyou and He wants you to be happy in your life. Be happy and Keep the Faith. I love you all. Good luck with preparations for Christmas, and don'tforget the true meaning of Christmas.Tyler

December 6, 2010
Hola familia!Im glad to hear that everything is going well in Maryland right now.Glad to hear that Megan finally passed the test of death. Im justgoing to say that I am really glad I got my driver´s license in Utah,because Maryland´s driving test is crazy. Glad to hear that the boyswere able to have a piano recital this year. I think that recitalsare a great opportunity to learn how to play songs a lot better. Whyisn´t Trevor taking from the same teacher? Is he taking lessons from amore advanced teacher? That would be awesome, because I still expecthim to have written 10 songs by the time I get back. Sounds likebasketball is going to be pretty fun this year, and Im glad that Adamhas a good coach. I hope he can learn sportsmanship a little betterthan I did. About here in Peru.Lets start with the unhappy, so we can finish happy of course!!! :)Milagros didn't have her baptism again, and this time she gave us lesstime to cancel the baptism for the people in the ward. We passed byher house Saturday in the morning to talk to her because she wastravelling that night, and so we were going to have to have herconfirmation the following Sunday. And she was okay with that. So westarted the water for the baptismal font and went to our serviceactivity that we had planned. We returned had lunch (directly after,we were running around all day) and went to get the keys to the churchfrom the members cleaning the church at about 3:00. At about 3:00, wereceived a call from Milagros. She said she didn't want to bebaptized, didn't give us a reason or a day we could come by again andtalk to her, and she hung up. Her baptism was scheduled for 4:00, sowe ran to our apartment, changed and ran back to the church to sit inthe church until 5 and tell people that we weren't actually having abaptism that day. We couldn't spread the word the normal way so wehad to wait at the church. And on top of that Lourdes (one of ourawesome investigators) came during the time we weren't at the church,so she got news of the non-baptism from a member. Lourdes then didn'tcome to church Sunday and we aren't sure why? Needless to say,Saturday was a pretty miserable day. GOOD NEWS: Im not worried about Lourdes. She is awesome and we have anappointment Tuesday that we can talk to her. OTHER NEWS: We had two exchanges and an "invación" this week. It made it a littletough to work because I was with other people 3 different days thisweek.Tuesday I was with Elder Becerra in his sector because our Zone had anawesome day where all of the missionaries in the Zone go with adifferent missionary. I learned a lot from Elder Becerra. He is amissionary of the same group as me. (We both started July 21, 2010)It was a great day. On Sunday we had an "invación" (I think that translates to invasion.Im not sure. I understand what it means in terms of missionary work,but Im not sure the translation. We gave one companionship 56references. On Friday I was with Elder Mitchell who is from my group. It was anawesome experience with two Americans with 4 months in the mission.I learned a ton from him, and our day was the best I have had with thebest lessons in my mission so far.Sorry about the short parts, but Im out of time.My scripture of the week is 3 Nephi 27:13-16. I love you all. Have a great week. Tyler

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