February 21, 2010
Hey family,
Im glad to hear that the blue and gold banquet went really well. I think I may need to repent of the pride I felt when I saw the pictures that you sent me. Im gonna have to say that the wall you made is pretty awesome, but my pride was that the tunic I made for my 9th grade English class is still being used. Although, with it next to the dress that Megan made for the same class, I feel pretty beaten, but thats okay! Im gonna have to say though, it sounds like a few people put on a few pounds in the Blue and Gold. Its good that you threw some carrot sticks and apple slices in there to make it look healthy. Needless to say, I want some brownies. My mouth was watering when you told me that. I have everything else on that list here, (And they really like hot dogs here. I still don`t.) I just would really like some brownies. You can add that to the list of things I want to eat when I get home.
Glad to hear that the sports are going well. Everyone needs to always remember that winning is less important than having fun... Although, winning helps. Im also glad to hear that Utah State beat St. Mary`s. St. Mary`s beat us last year in the Spectrum and I was pretty bitter, so Im glad to hear they won. Im glad that ESPN wants to give them a 9 seed too, which would be awesome! They just need to win out to do it.
About Perù...

This last week had its ups and downs. for the most part it was good, but our work slowed down for a few things. My companion was a little sick on Saturday which was rough, but Saturday finished awesome!!! Ruby`s baptism went great. She has a really strong testimony. We also set a baptismal date in stone por este Sàbado, 26 Febrero. (He he, spanish) We also have lots of plans to set baptismal dates this week with a few investigators. Its cool to see that we are getting more baptismal dates, although Ill probably be leaving before most of them happen.

This Saturday we had a really cool activity. We had Free Car Wash. It was really cool. We had a bunch of missionaries and the 16 missionaries in my Zone and we washed cars for whatever person that wanted to have their car washed. It was really cool, because... When we were washing their cars we had a group of 8 missionaries teaching them. We got about 35 references for missionaries. Its cool, because, we are washing their cars for free and for about 10 minutes they are just standing there waiting. Its not like they are going to say no to a brief message. We are washing their car for free. There were lots of good experiences that people had.

Thanks for all the help you have given me, and thanks for the recipes (i like dad`s versions the most), although Im not sure if I have everything I will need for pancakes, but french toast will be fun.

The church is true, I love you all. I hope you can find times to share the gospel. Its an amazing feeling to bring someone to Christ. My scripture of the week is actually in the Liahona from conference. Its the talk by Russell M. Nelson from the Priesthood Sesson. Its called, Be an Example of the Believers. Its awesome. Keep the faith, and remember when life gets tough that Jesus Christ will help you with any problem you have.

Tyler

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

February 7,2011

Hey family,
Well, this week was pretty slow. We didn`t find any of our
investigators at home. We had some lessons with a few inactive
families and a few ouf our converts here, but other than that not much
happened. Betty`s husband continues to drink more and more which is
making it a little hard to find time to teach her, and Kevin and
Miguel are moving so we won`t be able to teach them anymore. We also
have lost a lot of contact with Lourdes. She is never home and when
we called her and set up another appointment, she wasn`t there for
that appointment either. We also are having a hard time with the
three women who need to get married before they can be baptized.
We did have a few highlights this week. Laura came to church. She is
a new investigator for us who has a son who is a member in our ward.
We are going to start teaching her this week, and I hope she will be
able to progress pretty rapidly. We also found Silvana again which is
great, and hopefully when we have a lesson with her this week, she
will decide that she wants to go to church again and wants to be
involved. As of right now, I think she had a disagreement or
something with her friend thats a member. I hope it doesn`t change
the way she looks at the church, although I am not terribly worried
because she was friendly with us and she told us that we could come
back and talk to her.
This week is going to be a tough week for us. We have to work really
hard so that we can have some baptisms this month. We have lots of
people who are close. They are just missing one little thing. We
hope to have 4 or 5 or 6 baptismal dates set by the end of this week.
The hardest thing right now is getting people to come to church. But
Julia and her son Enrique are close, they just need a little bit more
desire. Betty as well is a ray of hope. She wants to learn more, she
wants to progress, but right now, her husband is holding her back.
The last time we talked to him, he was really, really, really drunk...
I hope that the Spirit can touch his heart so that he will find the
need to stop drinking and change his life.

Im glad to hear that everything is going well at home. Glad to hear
that the Aggies keep winning. I really hope that they will be able to
push forward and win a few games. Sounds like the winter is hitting
pretty hard there. We had a family with a son in Utah tell us that
the winter in Utah is a lot bigger than it has been in the past.
Which is sad. Because I want a really big winter. :)

Congrats to Megan for deciding to go to Bridgerland for school this
next year. In the small amount of time I have spent in Bridgerland
with friends and in Jared`s apartment, from what Ive seen, Bridgerland
is awesome! And since thats where Im going to live when I get back, we
might wind up being in the same ward!!! And I can spend all the time
in the world doing the dorky things I do to embarass my younger
sister! :)

Glad to hear that Dad and Mom actually had the opportunity to go on a
date. :) That´s pretty cool. I bet its been a really long time since
that has happened. And the temple is always a good idea. I love
going to the temple in every opportunity that I have. And I am
definately going to take advantage of the opportunity when I get back
to Logan and live really close to the temple.

This week started what are called Carnavales in Perù. In Lima this
means that every Sunday, everyone gets wet and gets every random
person in the street wet as well, which means that the work slows down
on Sunday. Yesterday we tried to find our investigators, but this is
hard when we are avoiding certain areas to avoid getting drenched, but
we did find a few people. We also had two water balloons thrown at
us in the street. They weren`t very good aims and they missed. Im
not sure if thats good or bad. As a missionary its probably best if I
am not really wet, but at the same time... It was really hot...
Needless to say, I am not too excited for February 27th. On this day
they bring out paint and shoe polish and dirty water and dirt, and
needless to say, I may have an interesting picture to send.

I hope everything continues to go well at home, and that you can all
have a good week, and hopefully you can find someone new to talk about
the gospel to this week. I love you all, and hope you can always
remember that the Church is true, Jesus Christ is our Savior and our
Redeemer and he loves each and every one of us individually.

Tyler

January 31, 2011

Hey everybody!!!Well we finally had a change in my sector. Elder Kasat wastransferred to Zona Condavia... which is in Lima... like all of thezones in my mission. The interesting thing is that he started in thatZone so he his headed back to the Zone he came from, which is prettyfunny because about 2 days before transfers we talked about how hewould like to spend some time in as many zones as possible. (Thereare 10 in the mission). So his number of different zones in themission is still only 2. :)Well as you know, I am starting my fourth transfer here in Porvenir.And the best news is, I´m still junior companion! :) Well, sort-of.My new companion obviously doesn`t know anything about my sector so Iam pretty much in charge of the area right now as far as what we do.My companion´s name is Elder Linares. He is from Tacna, Perù. If youlook for tacna on a map all you have to do is look where Perù turnsinto Chile and thats about it. Lots of people here joke about howTacna is as much Chile as Perù, and Elder Linares lived in Chile for15 years of his life, so I have another (partly) Chilean companion.He is awesome and has been in the mission for 20 months now. Heactually started his mission in the Perù Lima East mission, and whenthe missions divided and changed a little bit he changed missions tomy mission in Perù Lima Central. He is awesome and wants to do a lothere in the ward. Its really cool because we have a goal for Februaryof 5 baptisms, and really there is no doubt in my mind we could haveas much as 8. :) About home,Sounds like everything is going pretty well in Washington D.C. even ifthe earth is a little frozen there. (Better than really hot.) That`ssomething Ive decided. As a missionary cold has got to be better thanhot. You can always put on more layers. You can never lose the tieand the dress pants. Needless to say it feels really hot here.I like the fact that everyone is doing well in basketball. Soundslike the ward teams are pretty good. Keep trying hard, and rememberthat sportsmanship is more important than winning. I wish I hadlearned that a little better a little earlier.Im super excited to hear that Utah State is still undefeated in theWAC, even if its not incredibly impressive. Hopefully they can keepit up in order to get a seed better than 13. :) Although unlessHawaii is a whole lot better than they have been in the past, I am notterribly impressed with the Aggies´ 2ot win.Im glad to hear that you have been getting the opportunities to sharethe gospel with people in the communities and in dads work. These arethe people who progress the most. The one`s who know people in thegospel and can see the effect it has on their lives. Biggest news about Perù:I FINALLY FOUND A USE FOR VALENTINE`S DAY!This one use is that it convinces people in Perù to get married. Herein Perù they have what are called Matrimonios Massivos, whichbasically is a really cheap way for a lot of people to get married allat once, and we happen to have about 6 people that need to get marriedbefore they can get baptized. 3 of them are Sandra, Elizabeth, andSislet. Sandra is ready and is currently gathering information.Elizabeth, I`m not sure, but I think it will happen, and for Sislet,if there is one in La Victoria her husband has agreed to get married.Which means 3 marraiges, closely followed by three baptisms, and 1year later Sandra and Elizabeth can be sealed in the temple. It`ssomething really special. We are also teaching Julia and Enrique, amother and son, who have progressed quite a bit. We are teaching Bettyand halfway teaching her husband, Joel. We are still teachingLourdes, although lately she has been a little difficult to find. Wealso found two teenage cousins, Kevin and Miguel, who could becomereally good.The list goes on, which is something awesome here in Perù, but theseare the people I am most excited about. We are planning lots ofactivities to get members involved and this should be an awesome monthand an awesome transfer. Its probably my last transfer here whichmakes it even better.I don`t have pictures this week, but I do have a scripture to share.My scripture is in Helaman 10:4-5 which talks about Nephi who wasgiven the promise of anything he said would be bound on earth and inheaven because his will was the same as God`s will. He was given tonsof power and tons of promises. And if we follow his example theblessings will come. They will quickly and they will be many.I love you all, and hope that everything will continue to go well at home. Tyler

January 24, 2011

Querida familia mia,Well we have had an eventful week this week. As far as proselytinggoes, we didn`t do a whole bunch of it. Elder Kasat, as DistrictLeader, had to do a bunch of interviews for our district who had 4baptisms planned for Saturday. We had to go to the mission office sothat one of our investigators could be interviewed by President Tyler,and we helped the Tenorio Family move on Tuesday to an area outside ofour mission. (Don`t worry, we had permission to leave) They moved toanother part of Lima called San Juan de Lurigancho. About how the baptisms went... Lourdes decided not to have her baptismthis week. She decided that she wanted to be sure that this was theright thing to do, and she just wasn`t sure yet, but yesterday atchurch she told everyone in the investigators class that she was goingto get baptized, so its gonna happen. When is the only question. Wehope to move her further along by the end of this week.Angelica`s baptism was awesome!!! She got baptized on Friday and thespirit was really strong. She also brought a bunch of her family whoaren`t members. She bore her testimony and it was really short, butreally powerful. She also promised to start coming to more of church.She has a few problems with a few of the members in the ward, and itheld her up for a long time, and then about a month ago she startedcoming, but only to Sacrament Meeting. Sunday she came to TheInvestigators class as well which was awesome. Hermana Gibson taughtanother awesome lesson. Angelica is an example of how having amissionary in the family blesses all of the family. Her son Diego isserving a mission in the Perù Trujillo mission right now, and becauseof this is why she got baptized. It was great for them as well. Shehad her interview with President Tyler on Thursday, and withouttelling her, President Tyler called the Mission President for theTrujillo mission to ask for permission for Diego to call his mom forher baptism, so she got the happy surprise of a 5 to 10 minuteconversation with her son. She also brought a few of her non-memberrelatives to church with her Sunday. It was awesome.Enrique came to church Sunday without his mom, which was awesome. Hismom (Julia) had come to church the week before and brought him withher, and when she couldn`t come Sunday I thought he wouldn`t comeeither, but he was there, and he seemed to like it.O ya, I almost forgot... Transfers... Well Elder Kasat is beingtransferred on Tuesday, so I am going to have a new companion. Idon`t know who it is yet... I´ll find out tomorrow, but it willdefinitely be a great transfer. Our goal (well, for now, my goal) isto have 4 baptisms in the month of February, and it is something thatis very possible. I´m glad that everything is going well, and that the sports are goingwell for everyone. :) I hope that moms ankle keeps healing and thatbasketball continues to go well, and that you have lots of fun withall of the snow and the cold while I am here roasting in my tie andlong pants. Please keep me posted and keep up the good work in the ward and at home. I love you all,Tyler

January, 17,2011
Hey family!Its crazy, I am finishing my third change in the mission, and itsinteresting. We were certain that Elder Kasat was going to be leavingat the end of this change, but we have been hearing rumors that he isstaying one more and Ill be leaving. So now we don`t really knowanything.Glad to hear that you are still staying involved with the baptisms inthe ward and that Trevor is using his awesome piano playing ability.Im also glad to hear that Trent learned a little more about playingbasketball from Mom, and that Dad got to play ref in one of the manybasketball games of the weekend. Im also glad to hear that Utah Stateis 16 - 2. Hopefully they will get past the first round of the NCAAtournament this year. Hopefully BYU does well as well in thetournament. I always like to see the teams from Utah beating up onthe other teams in the country. Curious? Did Utah State and BYU playthis year? Please keep me updated.I hope mom`s ankle gets to healing fast so that she can go about herlife normally again. Injurys and sickness are terrible. Im alsoglad to see that Alex has taken care of his Mario egg. This week was a little different. We didn`t have a whole lot ofsuccess finding new people to teach, but we had quite a bit of successgiving out Books of Mormon and teaching our investigators that we havenow. Monday we finally got a baptismal date with Angelica. She isgetting baptized this Friday and we have another baptismal date thisSaturday for Lourdes.On Friday I finished the Doctrine and Covenants in English and Ilearned a ton. It was really great. I also loved Wilford Woodruffsaddresses with Declaration 1. It was a good experience to readDoctrine and Covenants because so much of it is about missionary work.Sunday we had a little trouble because Elder Kasat was sick the wholeday. But we did have 5 investigators come to church which is morethan double what we have been having lately. I learned a couplethings from church as well. The first was that candy works for adultsand children. IN church Sunday we had Hermana Gibson, one of themembers of the ward, teaching the investigators class. She broughtcandy and the lesson went really well. I know that the candy isn`tthe reason, but I do like to imagine. I also learned more about being100 percent obedient all of the time for my protection and for mysuccess.We had a really spiritual experience today. I was really sick allnight. I spent the whole night vomiting, and had only about an hourof sleep. In the morning Elder Kasat and a member gave me a blessing.I spent a couple hours sleeping and now I am feeling a whole lotbetter. Im still not a hundred percent, but thats to be expected whenyou are a sick as I was. It was another great testimony for me of thepower of the priesthood and of priesthood blessings.My scriptures of the week are at the end of Doctrine and Covenantswhen Wilford Woodruff says that the Lord will never let a prophet leadthe church astray, and Oliver Cowdery`s testimony at the end of JosephSmith - History. I loved reading these and I learned a lot throughreading them.I know that the church is true, and what a blessing it is to have awhole bunch of priesthood holders in the family. I know that the Bookof Mormon is true and it can bless all of our lives. I hopeeverything goes well this week, and you can find a spiritualexperience every day. I love you all. Tyler

These photos are of our baptisms. I can`t find mine of Anibal`s baptism, but the others are. David Robles October 23rd, Carmen Lopez November 6th, Llery Ushiñahua December 19th


January 10, 2011
Hey family,Im glad to hear that everything is going well and that Adam is awesomein basketball! Sounds like he will be one of the better players on histeam again, although he won`t have the luxury of the teams he had inUtah that were ridiculously good. Im glad that basketball isn`tleaving the family, and that everyone is getting involved with churchball and recreational ball.Im really glad that you are getting really involved in the church. Ihaven`t realized how much having a calling can be a blessing. And Iwish I had the luxury here of having really strong wards. We have apretty strong ward, but there is a major problem here with inactivity.For example, our ward directory is 7 pages long (and its one of thesmaller lists in the stake) and probably only 25 percent of thesepeople come to church. Keep striving to be a strong family in theward, and remember that we do have trials of our faith and we onlyreceive the witness, after the trial. (Ether 12:6) We have an interesting change in our mission that we didn`t havebefore. President Tyler has decided to put more emphasis on givingout Books of Mormon. We have a new key indicator (what we use for ourgoals) that is how many Books of Mormon we gave out during the week.The church always gives the mission Presidents direction that they canadd one key indicator. We have a spot in our daily planners for theindicator as well. We were given three reasons about why we need tobe giving out the Book of Mormon at every opportunity. They explainedthat the book needs to be to all the world, this is the time to bedoing the work, and that the Book of Mormon should be in everyhousehold. You could kind of say we want to flood Perú with the Bookof Mormon. This is something that I personally have wanted all of mylife. For me if every household has a Book of Mormon than there is agreater chance they will read it. Even if they don`t when it is givento them, I personally don`t know anyone who would throw away a freebook. And when it is in their home, the Holy Ghost can work on themso that in a free moment they will decide to start reading and theycan gain their own testimony. We also talked about how the Book ofMormon convinces people that Jesus is the Christ the very son of God.And we discussed why it says convinces and doesn`t say converts. Wedecided because it is the Holy Ghost that converts. And I saidsomething that is definitely quote worthy, (which was weird), and Iknow it wasn`t me, because it shocked me when I said it. I said "ElLibro de Mormòn va a convencer, y el Espìritu Santo va a testificar."This translates to The Book of Mormon will convince and the Holy Ghostwill testify. We have to work through the Holy Ghost as missionaries. This week we worked a ton. We taught 20 lessons to investigators and4 to inactives and recent converts during the week. It was a littlehard because after all this work only 2 investigators came to church,and one of them wasn`t even someone we invited. For me this is one ofmy trials of faith. We commited 15 people to come to church this weekand 1 of the 15 came. This was a little hard for me, but I know thatwith more faith and work, more of them will come in the future. This week we had another one-day transfer so that Elder Kasat couldsee the work of Elder Echeverria and Elder Mitchell, so I was withElder Mitchell again in our sector. Elder Mitchell is becoming one ofmy best friends, and I am so happy to have the opportunity to workwith him for the rest of my misison, (We will finish at the sametime). He actually said that I need to convince you to come pick meup and we can go to lunch or something with his family. (Food for thethought no?) We also had some AWESOME news on Sunday. Remember David Robles? Hegot baptized on October 23rd. Well now he`s the 2nd counselor in theBishopric. Needless to say, he is one of the coolest people in theworld. His faith is incredible and he is always trying to betterhimself and better his family. He has a testimony that is incredible,and he is always telling us how bad he feels when he doesn`t take thetime during the day to read the scriptures. Isn`t that an attitude weshould all have? We should be reading out of the Book of Mormon everyday and learning from the other books in the standard works as well.We can learn something every time we read if we learn with the spirit.Sunday we also learned how fasting helps us control our passions andour apetites. One member pointed out that fasting helps us learn howto say "no". This week few of our investigators progressed. Lourdes still has herbaptism date on the 22nd, but we need to get her to church again. Shehas been sick and has had problems with her legs, but she is alwaystrying to come and help. My scripture of the week is Doctrine and Covenants 107. In thissection there are 8 verses that say specifically that people will beblessed if they are faithful. We need to strive to be faithful.107:79 also talks about the importance of Diligence and Humility. I know that the church is true and that fasting works, and that if westrive to follow our Savior, Jesus Christ, we can have the blessingsof heaven. Through the scriptures and prayer we can find Christ, andhe will guide us in our lives. I love you all and hope that your goals for the year 2011 will be a success. Tyler