Wake the Sleeping Dragon

Good morning to you all!! 

I am writing so terribly early today, they allowed my companion and I to start P-day early because I have to travel to Piura for a District Leader Training, I leave at 3. And starting at 10:30 we have a zone activity to go to Aguas Verdes (we went last week as a district! haha) so they can check it out. We have an awesome zone.

We had zone conference this week and WOAH our Zone leaders ROCK. They are Elder Bradshaw from Alpine Utah and Elder Romero from Las Vegas Nevada. They hammered us, this zone of 7 companionships hasn't had a baptism for the last 3 transfers (18 weeks) and that is not acceptable. They told us the story about Pearl Harbor. The Japanese said that the United States was the sleeping dragon of World War 2 until Pearl Harbor woke them up. So we are "dropping a bomb" on Puyango to wake up the sleeping dragon of the Peru Piura Mission. We now have the goal of baptisms every week starting now. And so we are off to work!! But I left that conference so pumped, and now Elder Corpona and I are really getting our heads back on straight and talking to everyone. We need to be better with contacting, and really what our district needs is new investigators. So we gotta work hard and we will wake the sleeping dragon!

We've got some super awesome stuff going on here in Zarumilla 1. We have a young couple working on getting married so they can get baptized. They are S and S. The problem with them is finances, it will take a good deal to figure out the money it seems. But also in September, Zarumilla has a holiday for the foundation of Zarumilla or something like that, where matrimony is free! You just gotta get all the paperwork, and that costs a bit. So we are working hard with them!

Then we've got H. Seriously he is one of the investigators with the most sincere heart that I have ever taught. He started out not even believing in God, but now through the power of prayer he believes and feels peace!! We taught the Restoration and we told him if he would read the Book of Mormon and pray, and if he found it to be true he said he would be baptized! He is a investigator that takes it step by step, he still won't accept coming to church, but his testimony is growing step by step and it is so cool to see!! His wife and daughter are less actives and he has always supported them going to church and is always urging them to get active again.

Yes, I will explain that, the culture here about church attendance: With the Catholic background everyone has, church is something you attend every once and a while. Here it is very very common to have a recent convert that falls away after 6 months. When people become active again it is sometimes just for a month or 2. We are fighting culture in so many ways here. We had the 1st councilor from the Miraflores stake in Piura (happens by chance he attended Tambo Grande my last week there) and gave amazing talks about giving our focus to God. So with church attendance commitments, that is what we are working with.

Another great investigator we have is J. He and his wife have been accepting our visits and accept everything. They come to church, pray, read, said they will be baptized, awesome! The thing is his wife left for Cajamarca for a time since her mother is sick. We don't know when she will be getting back, so that is something we will have to see how it goes.

But things are going well!! A super fun district!

OH!! And yes, I did receive the packages!!! The 1st one I even received my first day in Zarumilla!! So don't worry, THANK YOU!!! I actually already opened them.... My district was SO THRILLED to eat Reeses.

Love you all!

Elder Collin Russell

A trip to the border...