just tryin' to do what I'm supposed to

Dear Family,

As usual, I'll write this letter by first talking about today and moving backwards until the last time I wrote you. I'm not sure why, but you can ask a psychologist if you want. I just remember the last thing that happened a lot easier than what happened a week ago.

This morning, we had a long service project as a zone. Last Monday, right before I wrote home online, we paid a visit to the local "huaca" (that means "temple" in some ancient language). It's an ancient mud building from the Chimu civilization that flourished from 800-1470 AD. It's not that impressive if you don't know what all the art means and what the building was used for. Turns out it was a temple/food storage place where, supposedly, human and other sacrifices were offered to please the gods in times of trouble. My companion and I quoted some "Road to El Dorado" lines to enjoy it all the more. The guide costs extra, but your initial entry isn't worth anything if you don't know what's going on. Our guide was named Rita. She explained to us the beliefs of the Chimus and why this building was here. We explained why they believed what they believed and told her about the Nephites and the Lamanites. She was intrigued, and we set up a time on Wednesday to meet with her (at the huaca). She used a word.. "trueke" - which means "exchange" in some ancient language, and said that we didn't owe here anything for the tour. That saved us a whopping 15 soles. On Wednesday we explained the Book of Mormon and gave her a copy with our testimonies written in it. In the conversation, we mentioned that on Wednesday morning we had fixed up a member's little garden, cutting the grass and fixing the decorative rock/cement rubble border. We offered to come fix up the gardens around the huaca, so we settled on Monday, since it was a cultural experience. That was today's service from all morning. The whole zone got a free tour and explanation, and then the huaca got a free hedging, rock-bordering, pruning, etc. We cut the grass with machetes. That's how we work in Peru. Lawn mowers are uncommon. Now I've got a handful of blisters (haha) and a lot of aching muscles - but the job isn't finished, so we'll probably come back next week or so to do more. Rita said that the garden hadn't been tended since 2003. Whew. Rita is a fun person. She was going to come to church yesterday, but an unexpected trip to Lima came up, and she had to get things ready. I won't be surprised to see her in Sacrament meeting come a week or two, though. She doesn't live in our area, but she's at the huaca more often than not, so we teach her there (and the huaca is in our area). Plus she's a cool person, and maybe we're just a little too selfish to have other missionaries enjoy the teaching experience.

Gisela was baptized on Saturday. I performed the baptism, and my companion did the confirmation in Sacrament meeting. Gisela is 14 years old, and a little while ago she came to live with her sister, who has been a member for 4 years. She received most of the mission lessons with Roxana at the Bishop's house. They're a handful when you get them together, but she's quite teachable with or without peer distractions.

We had some neat teaching experiences this week. On Thursday, we had a surprise work visit with the Assistants. I went with Elder Salazar, and we were going to proselyte in his area all afternoon, but there was a missionary who was having trouble, so he was doing interviews and I was stuck in the office all afternoon, doing some chores. But I took advantage of the situation and made some reports that my ward had asked for. I also noticed - while I did those reports - the baptismal records of several people I had found and taught in Cajamarca. You might remember Yesenia Chavez? (see letters written to you back in March, April, and May) I got to see her gain a testimony, but her baptism wasn't until her 18th birthday (on that same day), for not-too-conspicuous reasons, in November. That made me happy.

I woke up in the office Elders' apartment and we had a fun meeting with all of the zone leaders at 7am. That lasted until 12pm. We practiced teaching effectively to meet needs. And we practiced and practiced and practiced until we got it, more or less.

Later on that day (this being Friday now), we had a work visit with Elder Johnson, one of our district leaders. He came to our area, and my companion went to his area with his companion, Elder Smith. While I had been at the office, my companion had set up an appointment with Dante and Jesùs, two young men who were referrals from Glenda. Elder Johnson and I found them and had a long-ish lesson, trying to apply the principles I had learned that morning in our training session. It made sense. The Spirit was stronger than all of the Restoration lessons we had taught before. We invited them to be baptized (yes, right after meeting them), and they both accepted. But Dante had a doubt: is it bad to be baptized if I've already been baptized? We invited him to pray about it, because that's the only way he can know if he needs a baptism that counts.

Yesterday, we had a similar experience. We taught Gisela and Jenny, two women who were invited to the Relief Society volleyball game and who were introduced to us while we were there on Tuesday. The teaching was different in terms of the words, but the message was the same. I suppose that's the root of adapting the teaching to meet the needs of our investigators. All of the Restoration seemed to apply to them. When we invited them to pray to know if it was true, Gisela said, "It's true." We identified the feelings they had and invited them to pray anyways, and not just take our word for it. Teaching like this takes a lot more effort, mentally and spiritually. We have to fight our way through the Great Apostasy until everyone understands that the next thing the Lord would have to do is call another prophet and restore the Gospel and its necessary authority. But it works. That's why I like Preach My Gospel.

Whew. I've got a minute and 10 seconds left (sorry, don't know if I mentioned, but our internet time is limited to 45 minutes now). I'd send pictures, but it looks like it's a little late for that. I hope a thousand words is worth a picture.

Thanks for your love, prayers, letters, thoughts, and smiles (well, I can't see them, but I know they're on your faces).

Love,
Elder Withers

people

Dear Family,

It rained more this week than in the last 5 years in Trujillo, I think. But the last 4 days have been dry, though partly cloudy. Maybe the "el niño" rumors were unfounded. We'll see.

I don't have much time to write all this, but I'd like to talk about all the people we've been teaching this week.

Glenda (16) and Juliett (13) are sisters - they play with the young women on their volleyball team. Glenda is impatient, loud, and - as they say it here - has a strong character. She insists on being baptized. Her mother, Lorena, doesn't want to give her permission quite yet. For being strong in character, she makes and keeps commitments. She reads her Book of Mormon more than anybody else and wants to learn more. Now. We're trying to strengthen her relationship with her mom so that they can compromise. Juliett is a little more quiet, but has the same desire to be baptized. Lately, they have been spending lots of time with Nataly (17) and Rosa (14), who are members of the Church. We usually teach them in their home. Their mom, Flor, is one of the counselors in the young womens' presidency.

Paola (16) also plays on the volleyball team, but she doesn't seem as interested in listening to the missionary lessons (you might say she's bordering on the flirtatious side of things). Nevertheless, she keeps commitments and comes to church (sometimes). Her mother doesn't really want to talk to us at all. The time will come, I suppose.

Norma (13) lives two doors down from Paola. She's part of the volleyball group, too, and probably the most mature out of all of them. She started reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning without being invited to. She also wants to be baptized, but her parents are out of town till the end of the month. Her grandparents are in charge right now, but it seems like a better idea to work with parents.

Well, I've got a minute left, so I'll check out. Thanks for your letters and prayers. I got a little package from Carly Chambers this week. Sweet pillowcase! Thanks!

Love,
Elder Withers

new shoes

Dear Family,

Whispers are going around of "el niño" coming again this summer. (And by the way, using an "ñ" down here is a piece of cake - they stuck that button in right where the semicolon is supposed to be: I'm never going to be able to type normal again!) I'm not really up-to-date on the meteorology of this phenomenon, but what I gather is that Oregon weather just slides several thousand miles down the coast and dumps buckets on Peru. My companion and I reasoned that because of water use in baptisms every week, Heavenly Father sends us more water to keep things from drying up. Yesterday, it began to rain while we were in church, and it kept going until we went to bed. We helped sweep water off the roof (well, it's actually the same level as our floor - we sort of live in a room on the roof) last night when we got back for dinner. The big, flat cement rooves here aren't made to handle water. Gravity takes it down into the house any way it can if there's enough rain. There was water coming in through the church roof on Saturday night after the baptismal service, too. We mopped up the wet spot and set a bucket underneath it before informing someone who could do something about it. It reminded me of The Sword and the Stone, when Merlin is in that high top tower with several umbrellas and all his pots being filled with water. A rainbow showed up right before the baptismal service and it seemed to stretch across the entire evening sky. The second counselor's wife, Nelly, said it was the first time in her life that she had seen one. We were happy to sing, "When I Am Baptized" (the one that starts "I love to look for rainbows...") in both English and Spanish all day long. It seemed fitting.

Roxana Valdiviezo and Manuel Cabanillas were both baptized on Saturday night. They are 12 and 13, respectively, and they're both the bishop's neighbors. Roxana had decided that she wanted to be baptized a while ago (and so had been coming to church already for a time), and thanks to the help from the bishop and his wife, her parents gave permission for her to be baptized. My companion performed the ordinances for them, and they both bore their testimony afterwards. It was emotional for them both - and I'm happy for them. Elder Johnson, the district leader who interviewed Roxana, told us a funny story from the interview. He said that as he was going over the law of chastity, he shared a scripture about adultery. He told us that Roxana asked, "Have you committed adultery?" That's exactly the way she is.

As I may have mentioned last week, the summer youth sports activities have provided us with lots of work. We're teaching a group (very tempting to say "gaggle") of young women who have joined in the volleyball fun. We stopped by the stake center, where the games were going on, to support our ward and our investigators on Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately, the organization was poor, and our team lost by just one point. (You may find it difficult to lose by one point if you actually know volleyball rules... I'm doubting if they actually know them all..) Some of the girls were angry, they were all upset, and they seemed to stamp their feet as they marched into the stake center to cool off with some Pepsi. You might have seen me smirk for a minute, but even so I offered the Young Women's president and the volleyball coach to give them a pep talk. (Having investigators play in church ball is playing with fire, I think. Nevertheless, I'm seeing some good fruits from it, so I'll live with it.) Mom, I understand why you didn't stay coaching the high school girls at Sunset for long back in the day. In fact, I distinctly remember some grumbling about girls and drama and gossip, and so forth. I grumble with you! "Verily, I say unto you, this is not my doctrine. Behold, this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away." (3 Nephi 11) Anyway, I just tried to apply coaching principles from every sportsmanship authority I could think of - namely Mom, John Wooden, Dad, etc. I think I even quoted Uncle Paul in one of his e-mail subject lines (one of those e-mails that I didn't get to read..): the robbed that smiles steals something from the thief. They seemed to like that. It's even easier to say in Spanish.

Anyhow, I can't really go on about all the things that are involved in that mess. My companion and I are deciding just to not get involved. We just teach. Though as missionaries, we're planning to play volleyball today in the afternoon.

About a week ago, as we were walking down Girardot Street, we were swarmed by a group (again, gaggle) of little girls. They asked us who we were, if we spoke English, and things like that. We told our names, and the 2-year-old screamed for joy and went running off down the street. We invited them to "something really exciting,"
holding the suspense to the last moment, telling them about Sacrament Meeting this Sunday. I understand why the Savior said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." As soon as the words "sacrament meeting" left my lips, the girls shouted for joy, with their hands in the air, and celebrated. "Sunday at 10am!" we told them as we walked away. Then, Friday morning, we were walking on Girardot again, the same little girls running around in the street, when all of our appointments had failed us. The excited two-year-old from before pointed to her house, and we talked to an older lady (turns out to be her grandma) through the window. She invited us in! We talked a little about the Restoration, and my companion felt inspired to leave her a Book of Mormon. Her name is Lucila. She said she felt so much better after we had talked to her, telling us that she was feeling really down before we arrived. The next day, we shared all of the Restoration message. Lucila had read 3 Nephi 11 and prayed about it. Her favorite part was when Jesus gave Nephi authority to baptize and then explained how we are to be baptized. I said many silent prayers of awe and gratitude. The Lord is so good to us. Lucila came to church yesterday and stayed for all three hours. What a sweet lady.

Whew. I want to write so much more, but time is running out. Just be content to know that I'm as happy as can be and the only thing that could possibly make me happier is maybe a letter or two every now and then.

Love,
Elder Withers

p.s. I also got some new shoes last Monday. They're a little big. I didn't like them before I bought them, but now I like them a lot. The subject line not only has to do with this, but is a metaphor for the change of heart and attitude (hopefully) reflected above.

something there that wasn't there before

Dear Family,

I am happy. The transfer hasn't been a difficult adjustment. I still haven't had the same companion for more than one transfer since my trainer. I've found that I get bored easily sometimes (it's like ADD but slower). Change refreshes me. I'm in a smaller zone - only seven companionships (as compared with the eleven we had in Chimbote), none of whom are sisters (as compared with the two companionships in Chimbote). Esperanza is too dangerous for sisters (but it's just fine for two big white guys like us).

Elder Hepworth is on the younger end of zone leaders in the mission - it's his fourth transfer in the field, putting him right around 7 months in his mission. I traveled alone from Chimbote to Trujillo and took a taxi all by myself to the transfer meeting. That was strange. The taxi driver seemed interested in the Gospel, but he didn't give me his address. He charged extra because it was New Year's Eve. Since no buses traveled after 2pm that day, most of the missionaries being transferred out of Trujillo passed New Years in the city. Elder Hepworth's old companion, Elder Cozza, as well as a brand-new missionary, Elder Hernandez (from Colombia) joined us in Esperanza for the festivities. We barbecued steaks and hamburgers, with pop and chips on the side. We had some expensive ground beef from a fancy grocery store (it was like in the States, except when we went to check out, a guy took our cart and put it away - then, when we paid, another guy took our bags and carried them out to our taxi; what service!), and my cheeseburgers were enormous. We watched a movie (Game Plan), burned a dummy (that's the tradition), and watched the sky fill with smoke from fireworks and burning dummies before going to sleep on scattered matresses.

Elder Hepworth and I started off the transfer with many blessings. On Friday night, the Stake inaugurated its newly modified (they added another half of the building) stake center with the opening ceremonies for their volleyball and soccer competitions. It's church ball, just with soccer instead of basketball. Very intense. Several nonmembers came by their own curiosity, and others were invited. A group of four came up to us and asked what they had to do to become members of the church. I suppose that's every missionary's dream. We invited them to the baptismal service that would be held the following evening. During Friday's proceedings, Vanessa was interviewed for baptism. She's a 17-year-old who has been investigating the church for a couple months. I didn't get to know her much, but she was very excited to be baptized.

Saturday was the big day. We helped out the Bishop of another ward (one that has no missionaries in it) by sharing a couple of messages at his daughter's baptism on Saturday morning. He had invited several of his nonmember family members, so it was our pleasure to teach some basics on faith, repentance and baptism. There was a man outside watering the beautiful, green (yet in need of mowing) lawn. Come 7:30pm (our baptism was planned for 8), there was a good 14 inches of water in the baptismal font and no water flow in the church. Water systems in Peru are a little different. Water is available during the morning hours - from 7am to 9am - or something along those lines. The common procedure is the ownership of a big tank, which automatically fills each morning and uses some skullduggery of fluid mechanics to automatically not overflow when it's full (you may rememeber the last time I was in Esperanza that the little buoy was broken and the tank often overflowed - resulting in either too much water or days without showering: awful). The church has an even bigger tank, underground, with an electric pump, normal for a building of its size and necessity. (Our house in Chimbote had a pump, too. What a blessing!) However, the morning baptism plus the man watering the lawn (they say he watered it twice...) used up all of the water in the tank.

The young man who was also going to be baptized, Bryan, showed up and said he wanted to be baptized either way. We hauled water in buckets from anywhere we could, and we raised the water level nearly 3 inches from all our efforts. I did some quick math and estimated that it would take 10 liters of water to raise the font 1cm. But we were satisfied with what we had. Vanessa was baptized first by a returned missionary who had helped in the teaching process. The shallow font wasn't a problem at all. Bryan was then baptized by an older man, one who also helped in the teaching process; he took two tries, but they worked it out and it was a beautiful baptism. They both bore their testimonies after the ordinances and were confirmed on Sunday.

On Sunday, there were around twelve nonmembers visiting us. Several came for the first time (including those mentioned who asked us how to be members of the church). Our Gospel Principles class had more than 20 people in it. There was no room! We were so blessed. I love it.

Well, I'm gonna use the 5 minutes that remain to attach some pictures. Happy New Year! 2009 won't know what hit it.

Love,
Elder Withers

p.s. I've included a picture of the dog that lives downstairs. He's a very friendly pit bull named Venom. I made the pictures smaller and less quality so that they'd be easier to send.