2-3-08
Hey Mom and Dad and Family,
I Love you and home everything back in St. George is great. I am doing good in Peru, and only have two weeks left in this place. I am so excited to get out in the field, and start working and teaching and sweating. I love being outside doing anything but sitting in the classroom. This CCM is a really good place but I’m ready for a change. I get tired of it, 12 hours a day, all day everyday! It has been a good week. I have gotten lots of letters and I love them so much! They sustain me through the rest of the week. I can’t tell you enough how much they help.
Thanks so much; G & G Hafen, Ani, Lisha, Tyler, Clint, Dad, Erika, Ricky, Aunt Marcia and Aunt Michelle, Ang and T.J., Bishop, Pres. Wilkinson, Mom, and Kylee girl for all the wonderful days you make with your letters.
Some days are just a bite and then I get a nice carta or cartas and it just uplifts me, and gives me something to look forward to!
This week we got 7 new North Americans on Wed. and lost about 30. We also got about 30 new Latinos. There is only about 60-70 total in the CCM now and we are the old group yeah!!! I got called with my companion to be zone leader in the CCM! –yikes! It was very surprising since he released all the old district leaders and then called me to be zone leader. I will do the best I can our President doesn’t really know a lot and so he told us we will figure it out together. I am excited it’s just crazy, I guess. I handle all the mail. Yeah!!! So I get to see it first. I am so excited for that. We also have to organize all of sacrament meetings, and devotionals. It will be good for me. I just try to stay positive and light. I can’t tell myself I am a zone leader cause I never want to be one of those leaders who no one can stand cause he thinks he is better. I tell everyone hey I am just like you brother. I just need to be a good example mostly. Elders get frustrated sometimes cause this place really is like a prison sometimes, and we all want out!! They have a rule for everything and none of them make sense? But I promise I’ll stay positive.J
It’s just been a regular week nothing too exciting except last Wed, we went for a tour of Lima and that was very awesome. We went down town to the nicer part and saw the big palace, the capital building, and we saw the changing of the guard! It was way cool. I took some way cool pictures of the city, and town square and beach. We also went to the Peru soccer stadium, and I bought two way awesome jerseys. I love soccer jerseys! I took some good pictures of the beach and the sunset at the CCM. The sunsets here are very pretty because the air is so gross and polluted. The sky turns blue, pink, purple and orange. It is very beautiful. On our tour we learned so much about Lima. It is over 500 years old. Lima used to be the capital of all of South America because of the Incas the most powerful Army/culture of its time. There are 28 million people in Peru and 10 million of them live in Lima! That is over 1/3. This is one of the biggest cities. You really could spend your whole mission in an area about the size of inner city St. George because the slums on the hills hold about 300,000+ people…it is nuts!!1 It seems
Like there are no rules for traffic, building or anything. They just do what they can, or the fastest or the cheapest and easiest. It is really nice in some areas; beautiful and clean and then really bad in other areas!!! I have seen some really scary streets.
I have been out 3 times Interpol, temple and tracking. I love going out it is such an adventure and so unreal! I still get to go tracking and to immigration. I get to go out 2 more times into the city before I live in it—yikes!!!
Tell everyone to keep writing and that I will try and write back. I write at least 2 letters a week
I am having fun with the Elder, but I know that it is all going to change real soon, I am going to be thrown out on the streets. I am so scared but excited. Pray for me cause I’ll be days away from going when you get this letter. I could be sent anywhere on the east side of Lima, and I just don’t know what is going to happen! The Lord will protect meJ D & C 84: 80 and 88
80 And any man that shall go and preach this agospel of the kingdom, and fail not to continue bfaithful in all things, shall not be weary in mind, neither darkened, neither in body, limb, nor joint; and a chair of his head shall not fall to the ground unnoticed. And they shall not go hungry, neither athirst.
88 And whoso areceiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go bbefore your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my cSpirit shall be in your hearts, and mine dangels round about you, to bear you up.
Thanks for all your love and support, you are substaining me. I want to know everything. I want to know about girls b-ball. I want to know who is going on missions. Ani how is school? What are your plans for the summer?
How is Y.M. coming Clint? That is so awesome that you are Y.M. Pres. Make sure you tell me all about it. Make sure you put your index finger about 3 inches away from there face and say!!! “ Will you commit to me that you will be to flags Monday Morning at 6:00!” Just like Pres. Wilkinson. Tell him thanks for everything that I learned. I learned so much from him!!! I know I would not be as good a missionary if it wasn’t for him.
Tell me about sports and the Super Bowl. ---Dad---Clint
I got a haircut this week and it was brutal! The barber comes once a week for new missionaries and Oh my land! The clippers just ripped the hair out! I have been parting my hair like a plig trying to dodge the Latino hair Nazi, but he got me and like a lamb to the sheers I went. I look like a doof! But oh well! I should be good until JuneJ
I went to the temple last week but I could not go to a session. I had some problems.( diarrhea) It is no bueno. I sat out in the hall in the Lima Temple while everyone else went in it was no fun! I am supposed to get to go to more times so that will be good. I did not want to do a session because I would make it a 3-hour session cause I was going every hour on the hour! L Sorry--- I thought I would share some of the joys of being a missionary! It was a bad day!
I watched a really good movie last Sunday—the Restoration. It really pumped me up for my mission. I want to work hard and fight for the church all I can cause I owe it to all those who sacrificed so much. Joseph Smith is my hero. He was so brave and optimistic and that movie just really helped.
Two years is a short time to work and get a taste of what some did and sacrificed there whole life to. I am also reading “ Our Heritage” It is such a good book. It tells all about the pioneers and their stories, and miracles and trials and all they went through with the early years of the church. Did you know that 6,000 or so people were endowed in Nauvoo before leaving to come to Utah? They left for Utah as eternal families.
I love the Latinos, the other day the janitor was talking to me and wanted to get words to the song I sang with him, “More than Words” He went home and found them on the Internet and made me a copy. I saw him the next morning and he slipped me a folded piece of paper and smiled , hehe ---we are buds. Every time I see him he says, “lets sing.” One day in the laundry room I sang with him, it was fun I got something with every Latino I see. One guy always says, “what’s up home boy! Cause that is the only phrase he knows! So I say nada nada Limonada!
The Latino’s ask us where we are from, and we say Utah and then they say…..oh the factory. They call Utah the factory for Missionaries.
We got a bunch more Latinos yesterday going to Lima East and they all say its muy frio! Cold. The weird thing is they live here in Lima and they serve in Lima.
That would be like me getting my call to Veyo or Bloomington and speaking English and then going to the Stake Center to train for 3 weeks. Isn’t that weird!
One kid jumped the wall the other day and just went home. His companion told me he didn’t want to be on his mission anymore. So he just left while we were playing soccer.
I play soccer every day except this last 3-4 days. I kicked some Elder and lost my toenail. I took some pictures. It stood my big toenail straight up.
I love taking long showers. I get up at 6a.m. every morning and shower until about 6:30. I just relax and pray and think and sing, and it’s my time. You have to be careful here in Peru because the water goes from hot to really got to ice every min. I have a pretty good system going. I eat a canola bar, shave, wash my hair, floss, brush my teeth, wash my body, pray, change all in the shower. So it is like a 5 for one for me! Mostly I pray it is so relaxing!
My teacher is 25 and a bishop of a local ward. He is cool and bears his testimony all the time on how the church is responsible for everything good in his life especially his wife and kids. He tells us to work hard and you will be blessed. I really enjoy that!
I will continue to be optimistic and work hard. I still cannot believe I am in Peru.
Everyday has its struggles. It is something else down here.
I know there will be hard lonely times ahead, but I know the Lord is with me. I am trying to be totally obedient. I know if I do this, the Lord will bless me in the long run even if it seems it is not a big deal---the rules.
Alma 57:21
21 Yea, and they did aobey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; yea, and even according to their faith it was done unto them; and I did remember the words which they said unto me that their bmothers had taught them
We got to watch the Pres. Hinckley funeral yesterday--- it was so good. He did so much for this church and was so positive! My teachers down here are living proof of the perpetual education fund. 5 years ago these mem were in the slums in plywood houses, then the missionaries found them and baptized them, then they went on missions, then they came back and got a job at the CCM. Now they are married and going to school, what a miracle!!!
I know the church is true. I love being a missionary and I love all of you at home.
Here I am serving my mission soon to be who knows where in the mountains of Peru!
I love you Mom and Dad and Fam and everyone else. Love Your Son
Hey Mom and Dad and Family,
I Love you and home everything back in St. George is great. I am doing good in Peru, and only have two weeks left in this place. I am so excited to get out in the field, and start working and teaching and sweating. I love being outside doing anything but sitting in the classroom. This CCM is a really good place but I’m ready for a change. I get tired of it, 12 hours a day, all day everyday! It has been a good week. I have gotten lots of letters and I love them so much! They sustain me through the rest of the week. I can’t tell you enough how much they help.
Thanks so much; G & G Hafen, Ani, Lisha, Tyler, Clint, Dad, Erika, Ricky, Aunt Marcia and Aunt Michelle, Ang and T.J., Bishop, Pres. Wilkinson, Mom, and Kylee girl for all the wonderful days you make with your letters.
Some days are just a bite and then I get a nice carta or cartas and it just uplifts me, and gives me something to look forward to!
This week we got 7 new North Americans on Wed. and lost about 30. We also got about 30 new Latinos. There is only about 60-70 total in the CCM now and we are the old group yeah!!! I got called with my companion to be zone leader in the CCM! –yikes! It was very surprising since he released all the old district leaders and then called me to be zone leader. I will do the best I can our President doesn’t really know a lot and so he told us we will figure it out together. I am excited it’s just crazy, I guess. I handle all the mail. Yeah!!! So I get to see it first. I am so excited for that. We also have to organize all of sacrament meetings, and devotionals. It will be good for me. I just try to stay positive and light. I can’t tell myself I am a zone leader cause I never want to be one of those leaders who no one can stand cause he thinks he is better. I tell everyone hey I am just like you brother. I just need to be a good example mostly. Elders get frustrated sometimes cause this place really is like a prison sometimes, and we all want out!! They have a rule for everything and none of them make sense? But I promise I’ll stay positive.J
It’s just been a regular week nothing too exciting except last Wed, we went for a tour of Lima and that was very awesome. We went down town to the nicer part and saw the big palace, the capital building, and we saw the changing of the guard! It was way cool. I took some way cool pictures of the city, and town square and beach. We also went to the Peru soccer stadium, and I bought two way awesome jerseys. I love soccer jerseys! I took some good pictures of the beach and the sunset at the CCM. The sunsets here are very pretty because the air is so gross and polluted. The sky turns blue, pink, purple and orange. It is very beautiful. On our tour we learned so much about Lima. It is over 500 years old. Lima used to be the capital of all of South America because of the Incas the most powerful Army/culture of its time. There are 28 million people in Peru and 10 million of them live in Lima! That is over 1/3. This is one of the biggest cities. You really could spend your whole mission in an area about the size of inner city St. George because the slums on the hills hold about 300,000+ people…it is nuts!!1 It seems
Like there are no rules for traffic, building or anything. They just do what they can, or the fastest or the cheapest and easiest. It is really nice in some areas; beautiful and clean and then really bad in other areas!!! I have seen some really scary streets.
I have been out 3 times Interpol, temple and tracking. I love going out it is such an adventure and so unreal! I still get to go tracking and to immigration. I get to go out 2 more times into the city before I live in it—yikes!!!
Tell everyone to keep writing and that I will try and write back. I write at least 2 letters a week
I am having fun with the Elder, but I know that it is all going to change real soon, I am going to be thrown out on the streets. I am so scared but excited. Pray for me cause I’ll be days away from going when you get this letter. I could be sent anywhere on the east side of Lima, and I just don’t know what is going to happen! The Lord will protect meJ D & C 84: 80 and 88
80 And any man that shall go and preach this agospel of the kingdom, and fail not to continue bfaithful in all things, shall not be weary in mind, neither darkened, neither in body, limb, nor joint; and a chair of his head shall not fall to the ground unnoticed. And they shall not go hungry, neither athirst.
88 And whoso areceiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go bbefore your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my cSpirit shall be in your hearts, and mine dangels round about you, to bear you up.
Thanks for all your love and support, you are substaining me. I want to know everything. I want to know about girls b-ball. I want to know who is going on missions. Ani how is school? What are your plans for the summer?
How is Y.M. coming Clint? That is so awesome that you are Y.M. Pres. Make sure you tell me all about it. Make sure you put your index finger about 3 inches away from there face and say!!! “ Will you commit to me that you will be to flags Monday Morning at 6:00!” Just like Pres. Wilkinson. Tell him thanks for everything that I learned. I learned so much from him!!! I know I would not be as good a missionary if it wasn’t for him.
Tell me about sports and the Super Bowl. ---Dad---Clint
I got a haircut this week and it was brutal! The barber comes once a week for new missionaries and Oh my land! The clippers just ripped the hair out! I have been parting my hair like a plig trying to dodge the Latino hair Nazi, but he got me and like a lamb to the sheers I went. I look like a doof! But oh well! I should be good until JuneJ
I went to the temple last week but I could not go to a session. I had some problems.( diarrhea) It is no bueno. I sat out in the hall in the Lima Temple while everyone else went in it was no fun! I am supposed to get to go to more times so that will be good. I did not want to do a session because I would make it a 3-hour session cause I was going every hour on the hour! L Sorry--- I thought I would share some of the joys of being a missionary! It was a bad day!
I watched a really good movie last Sunday—the Restoration. It really pumped me up for my mission. I want to work hard and fight for the church all I can cause I owe it to all those who sacrificed so much. Joseph Smith is my hero. He was so brave and optimistic and that movie just really helped.
Two years is a short time to work and get a taste of what some did and sacrificed there whole life to. I am also reading “ Our Heritage” It is such a good book. It tells all about the pioneers and their stories, and miracles and trials and all they went through with the early years of the church. Did you know that 6,000 or so people were endowed in Nauvoo before leaving to come to Utah? They left for Utah as eternal families.
I love the Latinos, the other day the janitor was talking to me and wanted to get words to the song I sang with him, “More than Words” He went home and found them on the Internet and made me a copy. I saw him the next morning and he slipped me a folded piece of paper and smiled , hehe ---we are buds. Every time I see him he says, “lets sing.” One day in the laundry room I sang with him, it was fun I got something with every Latino I see. One guy always says, “what’s up home boy! Cause that is the only phrase he knows! So I say nada nada Limonada!
The Latino’s ask us where we are from, and we say Utah and then they say…..oh the factory. They call Utah the factory for Missionaries.
We got a bunch more Latinos yesterday going to Lima East and they all say its muy frio! Cold. The weird thing is they live here in Lima and they serve in Lima.
That would be like me getting my call to Veyo or Bloomington and speaking English and then going to the Stake Center to train for 3 weeks. Isn’t that weird!
One kid jumped the wall the other day and just went home. His companion told me he didn’t want to be on his mission anymore. So he just left while we were playing soccer.
I play soccer every day except this last 3-4 days. I kicked some Elder and lost my toenail. I took some pictures. It stood my big toenail straight up.
I love taking long showers. I get up at 6a.m. every morning and shower until about 6:30. I just relax and pray and think and sing, and it’s my time. You have to be careful here in Peru because the water goes from hot to really got to ice every min. I have a pretty good system going. I eat a canola bar, shave, wash my hair, floss, brush my teeth, wash my body, pray, change all in the shower. So it is like a 5 for one for me! Mostly I pray it is so relaxing!
My teacher is 25 and a bishop of a local ward. He is cool and bears his testimony all the time on how the church is responsible for everything good in his life especially his wife and kids. He tells us to work hard and you will be blessed. I really enjoy that!
I will continue to be optimistic and work hard. I still cannot believe I am in Peru.
Everyday has its struggles. It is something else down here.
I know there will be hard lonely times ahead, but I know the Lord is with me. I am trying to be totally obedient. I know if I do this, the Lord will bless me in the long run even if it seems it is not a big deal---the rules.
Alma 57:21
21 Yea, and they did aobey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; yea, and even according to their faith it was done unto them; and I did remember the words which they said unto me that their bmothers had taught them
We got to watch the Pres. Hinckley funeral yesterday--- it was so good. He did so much for this church and was so positive! My teachers down here are living proof of the perpetual education fund. 5 years ago these mem were in the slums in plywood houses, then the missionaries found them and baptized them, then they went on missions, then they came back and got a job at the CCM. Now they are married and going to school, what a miracle!!!
I know the church is true. I love being a missionary and I love all of you at home.
Here I am serving my mission soon to be who knows where in the mountains of Peru!
I love you Mom and Dad and Fam and everyone else. Love Your Son
