March 28, 2016

Hola Familia,

It sounds like you had a pretty great week. I can't believe that Easter already passed. I can't believe that it is almost April too. The time is flying by. Today I start my last 12 weeks. Transfers are today and I enter my second to last change. It has gone by so fast. I can't waste one minute. That is cool that Kyle got to meet an apostle. He probably sounded like an idiot. ´´I know you´´... He is just an apostle. I also heard about the bombings. That is really sad. Someone showed me an article in a newspaper here that talked about the missionaries that were in the bombings. I am glad they were alright.

Now for the good part. Fatima and Felipe and their 3 kids got baptized this week. It was a great baptism. This family has changed so much. They went from always yelling and fighting to finding solucions and compromising. It is amazing. While Elder Nielson has been here, he has married and baptized 10 families. That is unheard of. They all have different conversion stories. They all had different problems in their lives. The best part is that the Gospel in universal. It doesn't matter what problem or challenge you may be facing the Gospel always has a solucion.

Miguel and Linda are all set to be married and baptized on Thursday. We have had a lot of success in the zone this month also. We had put a goal of 22 baptisms but we will probably finish with 23. That is really good. The best is that these are not just numbers. They are people that have changed their lives and made a covenant with God. I love being a zone leader because I get to know every single one of these people.

We just found out that Elder Nielson has a change. I am really sad. We got along really well and we have had a lot of success together. We had made a lot of plans and were really excited for next change. I am going to be in a Trio this change. I will be with Elder Page from Colorado and Elder Parra from Chili. They are both new zone leaders so I will have to train them how to be a zone leader. It is going to be a fun change and we hope to have a lot of success. I feel like I will be even more tired though because we will be doing at least 7 work visits a week.

We are working hard to get set up for April. We have a few investigators progressing. We are trying to find some new families that we can marry and baptize. Even though Elder Nielson won't be here we are still going to marry and baptize families. The goal is to make the ward so strong so that it can split in just two years. It is definately possible.

Hope you have a great week,
Elder Isaacson

March 21, 2016

Hola Familia,

I know you were trying to not say anything trunky. I got my trunky papers though. When I saw the flight plans it made me feel really trunky. I think I might print them off and hang them over my bed so I can see them everyday. Also, another thing I just realized, is that if I go home on the 21st, and today is the 21st, I just have 3 months left. Time has flown by. I would be up to go fishing and camping that first week. I think it would be fun to do some family trip at the end of July too. I have a lot of things to see and do when I get home.

Your week sounds like it was pretty busy. March Madness sounds like it is pretty good. Too bad that the Utah teams are already out. I wanted them to win it all. An elder told me that supposedly next year part of the tournament is going to be in Utah. That would be fun to go to all the games.

People yelling at each other in the middle of the street doens't sound too strange to me. It doesn't happen a lot, but when you live in a big city it happens more than it does when you are in Taylor, Utah.

Now, for the great news of the week. Felipe and Fatima got married. The wedding service was really nice. It was in the biggest park that there is here in San Juan de Lurigauncho. Close to 60 couples got married. The district put the marriage on so as missionaries, we made the best of it and used their marriage instead of organizing our own marriage. It was nice and they were really happy. They have had some hard problems and aren't very nice to each other. They are almost always insulting one another when we are there. I think for the first time since I met them, I didn't here them insult each other. It was great. I sent some pictures of their marriage. I hope you get them. The next day they were at church with all their kids. This Saturday they will be baptized, Felipe and Fatima and three of their kids. It will be great.

Also, everything is going great with Miguel and Linda. They came to church this week and brought Linda's mom. Her mom was a wanted to come but couldn't because she had to stay to take care of Linda's grandma. Her grandma is in a wheelchair and can't walk. That doesn't stop us. We carried her down the stairs from the fourth floor so they could all go to church. We might baptize her mom when Miguel and Linda get baptized on the 31st. The wedding will be in the morning, then there will be the baptism, and then the confirmation(it is conference weekend) and then the reception. It will be a crazy day but will be really memorable.

I keep working really hard. I am so busy with my own area, trainings, or work visits that I don't have any free time. It would be nice to be able to rest, but I will be able to do that in just a few months. Like President Erickson says, ''Leave it all on the field'' That is what I am going to do. I won't give up or slack off. I will keep working until the end.

Gracias por todo,
Elder Isaacson

P.S. Thanks for signing me up for a room with Mitch. That will be super fun.

March 14, 2016

Hola Familia,

I am sorry I am writing this really late. I will explain in a little bit why I am writing late, but first off, Mom, You Are SO TRUNKY! I had no idea I had less than 100 days left. Thanks for telling me. You are keeping track and I am not. You should be more like me.

The NCAA tournament sounds like it is going to be great. If you fill out a bracket for me, send Weber State all the way. I bet they win with Utah in second place. I am excited that for the next march madness I will be home. I will also be home for the Copa America. Peru, USA, and other teams will be playing in the tournament this June. It will be hosted in the States. A lot of people keep mentioning it to me and that maybe I will be able to go to some of the games. I don't think there is anything special that I would like you to send me.

Now, the reason why I am writing so late. Instead of having Pday, I went to go write our last family in for the masivo marriage. As we got there, everything was going great. We were going to be back before noon, when the lady that was helping us realized there was a problem with the birth certificate(bc) The bc and ID didn't match up. This caused us a huge problem where they could not get signed in for the masivo marriage. The good thing is, is that a small problem like that doesn't hold us missionaries back. Instead of giving in and waiting for next month, we are going to do a private marriage. It is a little more expensive, which my comp and I will be paying for, you will notice that I took some money off my account today. I didn't use all of it on the marriage though, only about half. We ended up running around all of Lima today getting the paperwork ready so they could get married in a different district. Peru makes it a pain in the you know where to marry someone. I think they prefer that the people just live in sin and don't get married. In the end though, we got everything worked out when we talked to some of our friends and connections. We might not have done everything completely legally, but the marriage will be legal. After leaving at 7 this morning, I finally got back at 9 at night. It has been a long day without pday, but when they get married it will be worth it.

Actually this whole week has been pretty long. We had to help every family get signed in to the marriage. I went to the town center(?) or the place where you sign people into get married almost everyday. We went Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and now Monday. It was super stressfull and tiring but everyone got written into the marriage.

Fatima and Felipe's marriage is all set. They will be getting married in the masivo on Saturday. They then will be baptized the next week. Miguel and Linda, was a little more stressfull but they will be getting married on the 31st.

We also had a special conference on Thursday in the afternoon by Elder Lynn G. Robbins of the presidency of the seventy. It wasn't what everyone expected but it was still really good. Instead of sharing some special thing on how we should be or how we should teach, he just talked about how we should live our lives during and after the mission. It was inspiring and filled us with the spirit so we could go out and teach with it.

That is how my week went, Gracias por todo,
Elder Isaacson

March 7, 2016

Hola Familia,

Sorry I am writing this letter a little later than usual. We had a lot of forms to fill out this morning and we didn't have time to write anybody. It is good to hear that everybody is staying busy back home. I am really glad you were able to put us in for the deer hunt. I am super pumped to go. It will be so nice to get out of the city and get into the wild. I can't believe MLS soccer is starting again and that March Madness is next week. U of U sounds like every sports team is good. The presidential elections sound horrible. I can't believe that Hillary and Donald are leading. Our country is done for. Maybe I will just stay and live here in Peru. haha.

My area is pretty safe. You don't have to worry about anything Mom. Nothing bad will happen to us. It even seems a little more calm than my other areas.

We haven't been able to talk to Estellas dad at all. We haven't even talked to Estella. We have lost all form of contact. We had a long hard week. We worked really hard and a lot of our lessons just fell through. A lot of times we found ourselves in the street without lessons or without places to go. We just kept contacting and searching though. It payed off in the end though because we were really blessed. We ended up getting 7 investigators to church with two families. A few of our converts brought two new investigators to church that we met and will be able to teach. One doesn't live in our area so we are going to pass the reference off.

Fatima and Felipe also came to church along with their kids. They have one kid who will be able to get baptized. We made a lot of progress with them this week. We got their DNI's (ID) so we could start the marriage papers. We use the DNI's to find their birth Certificates. It can be hard to find the birth certificates but we found them right off the bat. We are going to go sign them up for the marriage this week. After that, they will be all set to get baptized.

I believe, because of our diligence, we had a huge miracle. When I was out on the street the other day, a young mother came up and asked us what time church was because her cousin was staying at their house and wanted to go. I told her the schedule and decided to take a lesson out with her. We normal don't contact or take lessons out with just ladies because we are focusing a lot on families, but I decided to do it anyway. We went to their house on Sunday morning and taught them the restoration. It went really well. They then came to church in the afternoon, and at night we went back to visit them. We had a really strong and spiritual lesson with them. We committed them to getting married and baptized. They gave us their DNI's and we searched for the birth certificates. Miracously, we found them and they should get here in a few days. Hopefully they get here quickly because the sign ins for the marriage end on Friday. Meeting a family and convincing them to get married is usually a 2 week process. We managed to do it in 1 day. It was a miracle. Hopefully everything keeps working out so they can get married and baptized this month.

Even though the week started out slow, it ended on a very high note. In the zone we are going to marry 6 or 7 families. We are really busy taking care of all the paperwork and working with the families so they stay motivated for their marriage and baptism. It is kind of stressfull but a good type of stress.

Love you lots,
Elder Isaacson

February 29, 2016

Hola Familia,

First off, to answer your question, I am sure I am going home on June 21st. Today I just got my ''trunky paper''. It is the paper the mission asks for with all our information so they can buy us our plane ticket. They asked for my whole name, your phone numbers, your email, and which airport I want to fly into. Talk about trunky. It doesn't seem like the time has gone by so fast. I am glad I get to stay here longer in the mission then my friends but I am also a little jeolous that they get to have a longer summer.

I can't believe you are going to go on a cruise for a senior trip. I never got to do that. I feel like just because Kenzie is the youngest you are letting her get and do a lot more things. That is not fair.

We didn't have that great of a week. Any bad thing that could've happened, did. First off, on Monday we got Estala's permission slip signed. Everything was good to go. Then on Thursday, her dad came out yelling at us saying we couldn't visit her. He changed his mind really fast. We think he was mad because his son moved away to live in another house. His son got married and baptized with his wife a few months ago. We think he thinks its the churches fault he moved away. He is taking out all his wrath on his daughter. He won't let her do anything. I feel really bad for her.

Next off, we had a great lesson Thursday night with Fatima and Felipe. They accepted to get married and baptized. It was the best. That same night, they got robbed. Felipe works in a taxi and parks it in front of his house. At about 3 in the morning they heard something. They tried to go outside but the thieves had tied their door shut. They saw that they were coming and ran off. They stripped his car. They took the cars computer and took the whole top half of the engine. If they had had more time, they would have taken the whole car apart and taken it in pieces. They were really upset. We were really nervous that they wouldn't want to get married anymore because it costs about 120 soles. We went saturday and they were still excited to get married. The bad part was that Felipe rented a taxi and went to work and didn't go to church. That is a little setback but we had a good lesson with them yesterday and he said he will go to church next week.

Saul and Jose Luis are doing good. Jose Luis had a small problem this week with a commandment but he came to church and we got everything worked out.

Our other family didnj't go to church either. They went to Johana's mom's house. It was sad that they didn't go. We are going to hunt them down this week and get them to start progressing. We need to find a lot new investigators. We are searching a lot right now.

We have a goal in the mission to keep 60 percent of converts active. A lot of people go inactive. The church is still pretty new here in Peru so the people don't work as well in retaining the converts. We work a lot with the members and ward council so they can get better and work on their own without our help.

I feel completely safe with a gringo companion. The only problem is that we get a lot of girls staring at us or yell some smart aleck comment.

Also that is really cool about Aunt Janet and Uncle Dick and Aunt Jill and Uncle Delbert. I am really excited for them.

Elder Isaacson