7-13-15

Me encanta este escritura. "yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever." - alma 37.36. its the little things.

wow, this week though. I bet I say every week how great the week was, how it was the best week yet, but this week I really mean it! This week was just straight work. Elder Lloyd's already going home, and I have a new companion. His name is Elder Mollo! I hear he is from Lima. I'm ready for a fresh start and to have a native companion. Full spanish! 

and may I add full chamba! I can't even describe how much joy this week gave me. It seemed like the Lord wanted to help out my companion, and me, and give us motivation. Elder Lloyd for home, and me still for working in the field. Let me start with an amazing experience we had with the spirit. We were in a big street, knocking on a door to visit an investigator, but they ended up not being there. We were kinda just paused on the street, looking at our planners, thinking of where to go next. I looked up, and there was a mother and son chasing around their dog that had escaped from their house. It was kind of a typical scene here, so I didn't think much. My companion noticed it too. We hesitated, searched our feelings and decided together to go try to help this mother get her dog back inside. We succeeded, and the dogs name was boby. haha! We started talking to her, and she just started talking about her life. Everything she said, EVERYTHING she said was just chalked full of things we could relate to the gospel, and every problem she told us about could be resolved with living the gospel. The spirit prompted me to share my testimony and how Christ could help us overcome such obstacles, we just need to ask him and strive to act. She responded positively by saying, "I believe that. we need to put in our part to recieve answers" we were blown away. our thoughts were that she was straight gold! Then, out of nowhere, came her husband (theyre married!) and he told us about the contact he had had with the missionaries years ago. He dug out a dusty book of mormon and told us he read half of it. He told us he loved how clear it was, and also the testimony of Joseph Smith. We were on the verge of tears, it was such a miracle to find this family. Their names are Jenny and Edwin Soto Cueva. We invited them to be baptized on the 1st of August, and also sealed the next year. Elder Mollo and I are going to be working with them a lot, I pray that they can achieve their goals and feel the spirit blessing their lives personally and as a family. Man.

such greatness!!! love my life as a missionary. also, the other families we are teaching are progressing great. Yolanda and her grandchildren are going to get baptized next saturday. They want me to baptize all 3 of them. I'm a little nervous for that! But also so grateful to take part of that step of their lives. they read the book of mormon everyday! Yolanda, the grandma, has to read it with her giant magnifying glass because her eyes arent too great, but she takes a lot of time to read each day. What patience and diligence she has. The people of Peru are truly amazing, and I know there are people like this all over the world. The Lord prepares the way for these people, and we have to prepare ourselves to help them and reach this goal of eternal life. 

Well, I send my love to all of you this Monday Morning. I'm still waiting around for my companion Elder Mollo. I hear he is serious and likes to work out. Fine by me haha. Love you all so much!!

Elder Caldwell.

pics: elder passey my homeboy from good old mesa az. he ends his mission soon.

rooftop gazing with the other elders

7-6-15

Hola dear loved ones,

The division is done! I'm officially in a new mission, the south. Elder Lloyd, my comp, got a shocking call last week. His mission is ending 2 weeks earlier, due to the mission split and travel changes. Next week I'll be saying who my new companion is! How crazy. I'm excited and nervous for change, but I'll miss Elder Lloyd for sure. He has a great passion to be a missionary. But off he goes to see his family again.

Speaking of families - our week is all focused on them! And we can see the gospel touching their lives. In our area we've never seen such success on finding families and having them as our main investigators. The Lord is woking behind the scenes 24/7. As such, we have a lot of baptisms coming at the end of the month. I'll tell a little about these wonderful brady bunches. Rafael and his two boys - our ex-convict investigator! He's come to church 4 times now and is ready for the change in his life with baptism. Yolanda Chavez, her mom, and her 2 daughters. She is the inactive mom we found through the temple - who is now completely active in the church and is reading the Book of Mormon daily. We also bought some books of Mormon in like drawn out pictures and stories easy to understand for her kids, for her daughters. They are a prized possesion to them. And also our new family, Giovanni and Harumy. the couple that randomly got interested in listening to us. they are very sincere. we're going to try to get them married before anything.

I wish I could take more time and write all of my feelings and details of the week, but this will have to do! I'm feeling the joy of the work and of the families.

With the passing of President Packer and Elder Perry, I noticed something - they both bore fervent final testimonies about the family and the importance and happiness entailed within. "Family is the center of life and is the key to eternal happiness." - Elder L. Tom Perry.

I love my fam bam, and though we aren't perfect in no way, and no family really is, through living the basic principles of the gospel, all will be made right.

Love you guys! hasta el proximo.

Elder Caldwell.

6-29-15

"O God, Aaaron hath told me that there is a God, and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day. And now when the king had said these words, he was struck as if he were dead." - alma 22:18. kind of the theme of my week. Prayers have power, and I have tried to really just improve my personal prayers, and my connection with our Heavenly Father. Even the simplest of prayers, like this one, can change so much. Even it converted this king and the whole lamanite nation in the end. 

This week was a good one to us. We worked hard, didn't see to much results number wise but I felt so much of the spirit, and that's what truly counts. I was so grateful to have this abundance of the spirit, and we can owe it to our prayers, the temple, and just doing to simple things like living the commandments. 

I felt the spirit in one home. The door to this family and home is usually closed to us, but the spirit had worked on the mother of the home, and she let us in. We were casually trying to see if a convert was in this giant apartment building he lives in, and he wasn't. but they're neighbors were, the whole family. The sister, Harumy, looked at us for a second and told us to come in. We sat down with the entire family and taught a short lesson about prayer and our purpose as missionaries. Usually these people have never had interest in us before, and it was a shock to be able to enter into their home so freely. Since then we have visited the one more time, and we continued to feel the spirit guiding us as we testified of the Restoration. These are precious moments!

We said goodbye to my first mission president and his wife, Pres. and Hna. Marler. They have helped so much this last year, and I feel so close to them. They will be presiding over the Trujillo North Mission, and I will be in the Trujillo South Mission under the guidance of Pres. Rios. He will be great to have though, and I'm excited to have a new president and recieve so many more experiences. I'll be having to speak a lot more spanish!

I remember when I used to go on splits with the Elder's back home. The spirit with them was so strong, and everytime I went home after only have been one hour with them really touched me. Sometimes I feel like as a missionary this is just kind of my job. But these past few weeks, I have really felt more of the love for the work, and the desires to just keep progressing and moving the work forward. This is a huge answer to prayers for me! To have such great role models, like those elders, my friends on their missions, my parents, and of course our Savior, is helping me and I feel all of their examples as I apply what I've learned from them. I know we can all feel this, and feel the love for others and feel the love for God as we strive to do the little things everyday.

Thanks for everything, the best of weeks this week!

Love, Elder Caldwell

6-22-15

"Normal life is temple life." - Dieter F. Uchtdorf at the temple dedication.

Yesterday, we had the time of our lives. some elders waited for this their whole mission, I waited almost a year. but wow, how great it was. We were able to participate in the temple dedication and watch as President Uchtdorf came down to Trujillo along with David A. Bednar and other authorities here. The spirit poured out on us in our stake building with other faithful members, along some of our converts and people recently reactivated. Now the real work starts, getting people to go to the temple itself and do the work for their dead. Woo!

For that reason, the week went super quickity quick. We also got the privilege to have with us 2 elder's who are going to end their missiontomorrow, stay with us the whole week and proselyte with us. They used to be our zone leaders, Elder Zacarias and Elder Winterton, and boy it was a learning experience to be with them. It was also really funny too. Our house is a mess now. 

One experience I'd like to share from this week occurred in the middle of the week as I was our proselyting with Elder Winterton. We were out in the morning, the sun beating down on us and we were trying to find just someone to teach! like always. Everything fell through and we were without a plan basically. Right as we got rejected at a door, I looked down the empty street to see a member of the ward on his bike pedal to us. He is a super quiet guy, we never have talked to him much, but he stopped by us to see how it was going. We told him what was going on, and he mentioned a reference he had for us, in fact in his house. This angelic man took us to his house and we met the caretaker of his 2 old parents, Rosemeri. She's from a small village in the mountains, close to where I last served in Otuzco, and has had little education. We are now having a marvellous time teaching this small, honest woman principle by principle the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have to explain everything as if it were to a child, but there is a sort of beauty teaching like that, and learning like that. That was a great tender mercy we witnessed in a difficult week.

We keep chugging along here, doing what we can do. I pray for you all, and hope this week is especially good. We are super blessed as a church and as a people to have such wonderful leaders and prophets who guide us in a hard world. They have what we need to survive. 

loveee,

Elder Caldwell.

(sorry no pictures my computer is a little lame today)

6-15-15

Welllp, looks like I'm sticking to the south here for the winter. Mission Peru Trujillo South! Transfers came and went, and nothing really happened. I'm still with my companion Elder Lloyd, and by the end of this transfer we'll have been companions for 6 months! And then he'll end his mission there. How crazy time flies.

This week was just chalked full of some happy times we had here in our area. The temple still proves to be doing miracles for us. We discovered a really inactive lady, named Yolanda who was baptized about 10 years ago and decided to go to the temple a few weeks back. We found her in house, and her entire family! We talked to her about her desires, and she firmly declared to us that, "I feel it is time to come back to the church." Me and my companion left her house jumping for joy, so pumped for her righteous decision. And she kept her promise, she came to church yesterday with her entire family. Her daughters are talking to her about baptism now, so we are going to have some full chamba to do this last transfer here with Elder Lloyd. We are stoked. To see that miracle unwrap, when we really needed it the most, built my testimony that the Lord truly is preparing people for us, always, even in the smallest areas. 

Rafael is always progressing, and we are focused on the 4th of July to be his baptism. True American. Freedom!!!! Spiritual freedom that is. He told us a little about his life of crime that he lived before he went to prison, which was quite the shocker to us. I'm not gonna say much about that, just to not scare my mom, but his gang name used to be, "the horse." He is so sick and so prepared! 

Things are off the charts down here, so many elders are going home after their 2 years, the mission is splitting, new mission president. I'm going to miss all these friends I've made but I'm also really excited to keep going on. Just trying to take it all in before my time is done too! pucha. 

I love you all, thanks for all your encouragement and letters. they are the best. 

love,

Elder Caldwell

pics: me with my zone leader who's leaving the mish, elder winterton.

we held a cute little baptism for an 8 year this week too, she was super excited to have my comp baptize her. Her name is Genesis.

6-8-15

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust.

This week we held Ruth's Baptism! It was beautiful. We worked hard to have her prepared and it was gratifying to watch as her adopted father, Segundo baptize her. haha, she had to be baptized 5 times over, the water was a little low, but she didn't seem to care as she was just beaming and crying as everyone rushed over to hug and congratulate her after she changed her clothes. She has amazing support in the home and the ward. It was amazing to see the response of the ward, as some of the members spoke at her baptism, about how much baptism has changed their lives. That is exactly what she needed to hear, because that was one of the first things she told us when she was first meeting with us, "I just want to change how I live, and forget the past." 

This past week I had the privelige to see many spiritual giants as well. I went on a work change with Elder Going here in my district (found out he is related to Sid Going, a rugby legend), as we were walking and teaching around in his area, we decided to go visit a member to ask for a reference. We climbed up to a second story and entered kind of a poor scence, with the floors dirty and many animals in the room. But as I looked on I saw something that lit up the room. A middle aged woman was sitting at a desk, reading and marking the book of mormon. We talked with her, and she told us of how she had just sent one of her sons on a mission a month ago. She cried to us as she recounted to us the many blessings she has recieved from his service, and how grateful she was for the gospel. Just listening to her strengthened our testimonies.

We also worked with the man we are focusing a lot on, Rafael. He is the best, and also a spiritual giant in my eyes. We walked back on a dirt roady to his sort of shabby hut, to see another scene that made me happy. Him reading the book of mormon while he lied on his bed. Sometimes people in the poorer circumstances, spiritually and or physically are so much closer to God.

I love you all, gotta head now but hope the week is a good one. 

LOVE YOU GUYS!!

6/1/15

que tal mis amigos. 

I miss you guys, hope all is well in the big blue sky state of AZ, and other parts of the world. this week we finished up the open house of the beautiful temple here, and the miracles keep flowing. we are recieving stacks of references to go contact from it, and the people we took and the people who went on their own are just ahead of the game. they all know what the feeling of the spirit is now, a huge advantage. love the spirit.

a blessing my companion got, was this week he was kissed on the cheek by an 80 year old woman named beatrice who we contacted on a busy street. hahaha sorry elder lloyd. 

we were able to have an investigator we've been helping out, Ruth, have her baptismal interview. She passed! and will be baptized this saturday, fingers crossed. We have a good long week to help her prepare. she's 13 and apart of a recently reactivated family, shes adopted. she's had a hard life, and still continues to have hard times adjusting to everything new that's going on in her life. being more determined to follow Christ through baptism is going to help her out big time, especially as she has some good strong parents and grows in the gospel. the gospel straightens out all the kinks.

our ward here is pretty great. We all headed to the temple as a ward, and some brought their friends who aren't members. the temple was pacccckkked, over all 80 thousand people came, which is a bunch! didnt dream of that number. thats 80 thousand people exposed to the spirit of the Lord. woof.

Well, we are winding down here with the transfer. big changes are going to happen I feel, so we'll see what happens. for now we're just going to bear down and do out best and finish strong. the dedication and the mission split is coming up! 

Also I'm sad about Elder Perry. but I bet he's pretty happy in heaven. so its all good

keep the week good, and keep God in your life!

love, 

Elder Caldwell