6-27-16

times a tickin y tengo que trabajar duro.

I felt a lot better this week. God answers prayers! We opened our mouth a lot this

week and found refuge in some homes to teach the restored gospel.

I just looked over at what my companion Elder Kung Fu Panda was writing and it

made me happy to see that he is focused and dedicated. He was writing to his 

family quotes from Bruce R. McConkie and General Conference. I am blessed.

This week was funny. He is learning a little english and one night we were  walking

along the dusty Panamerican to somewhere and he said to me simply, "Walk is 

love. Walk is life." I just busted up laughing.

I feel the need to be frank and simple in all that I do, especially when teaching.

And writing this letter home. Im thankful for the Atonement and that it does

not simply erase our sins and burdens and weakness but helps us grow and 

master them. As my good friend Justin Moyer wrote to me "We are fighting Satan!"

I still got a ways to go but I love this place and the people. They enrich my life.

I dont have a special story I can recall right now but tonight for a Noche de Hogar

we are going to have a bonfire, its getting chilly here in Peru. We will talk about faith.

Ill send the pictures next week and more stories. I love you all.

Elder Caldwell.

6-20-16

hi

not sure what to say this week. haha. if I could I would take a picture of my face right now

thinking about how this is already my last transfer in the mission. its ridiculous. 

but here I am, and I cannot stop this train. 

elder gavidia was able to push through his foot problems with the miracle of a lot of ibuprofen,

ice, and foot cream to put down the pressure so we are back to working one hunnid percent.

we have been reading a lot about prayer together and in the manual they give us, Preach

my Gospel it honestly just rules at talking about how to get better in our prayers. I think

awhile ago I shared a quote that I liked. Prayer is like sitting before a warm fire. you dont

have to be smart to sit in a fire, or anything. you just sit there and soak in the warmth. 

I felt the impression this week to stop thinking about myself already. stop thinking about

my problems and just focus on others as much as I can. Im going to try to do that in my

prayers and truly pray for those we are teaching and serve them. and for you all back home too.

there isnt any huge memory that sticks out in my mind to talk about today, just we´ve been

working with a lot of less active members here (and believe me there are a ton) and yesterday

I had to direct the hymns in the branch so as I was in front I was able to look at everyone. 

I was able to see a man we have been working with for 3 months now who hadnt come to church

in years. Hanibal. He was happily sitted there with his wife and child and it struck me to see it 

and realize that he truly was making a change in his life. He tried to escape after the 1st hour because he was embarrassed (haha) but we were able to go out to his car and persuade him to 

sit with as another two. He came. grateful for the little things right now. onto another week!

Elder Caldwell

pics:

out in the boonies. found the soccer goal that looks like the scene from Walter Mitty when he plays futbol with the natives.

6-13-16

my friendskis,

we keep truckin along here. haha, its sad but humorous how my companion and I are falling apart all of a sudden. Elder Gavidia twisted his ankle and now walks with crutches so he can heal (or he will have to go home) and i still have some sort job in the bible kind of trial with many things going on with health. we are dealing with it though and learning the virtue of patience and long-suffering. a friend recently wrote me and said something that really rings true right at this moment: "the mission isnt what I expected it to be, but its what I  needed it to be." I can say the same. and Im sure a lot of you can say the same about just life in general.

rough times but just bearing and grinning it seem to be the theme of the lives of our investigators and all the other people we teach as well. I had mentioned Mirella recently I believe who just found out she is pregnant from her boyfriend, and she is utterly alone. now she is having problems with her boyfriend and we were able to sit down with them last night, and the rest of their fam. they live on a farm right by a canal so it was a perfect landscape to teach them and help them visualize the dream of Lehi with the tree of life, and the iron rod. They told us they havent been reading absolutely nothing and so we compared them and put them into this dream. we told them of how easily the vapors of darkness can come and get us lost and how we need to grip the iron rod, or in other words, the scriptures. a spirit of reflection of life and the seriousness of the matter entered into the room and they were pretty quiet after we read that dream with them. they commited however to read the scriptures every day, and I really am praying for them.

im happy for you all and love to hear that you are doing good, thanks for writing me. we are excited to keep pressing on. love you.

Elder Caldwell.

pics:

last pday we went to a castillo (castle) made out of mudbricks straight out of Emperors New Groove. We loved it and took many pictures

5-6-16

herro,

another week in the life. Ive accepted the fact that time is going by faster than I want it, and there isnt much I can do about it. Thanks for all your letters of support and love this day.

There are a lot of things that went well this week. We had a really stellar one, working with members and my kid Elder Gavidia is learning to teach better and better. Its all a process. Things were really looking up and after a sweet training I was feeling a lot more motivated and happy. Haha, then yesterday happened and I had some sort of stomach bug and it all went downhill, had to stay in the room all day but thats ok, what matters is that its over and I am becoming the more refined and better for it.

I know I mentioned this yeah awhile ago, about a mormon message I really like about the will of god. I couldnt stop thinking about it yesterday battling sickness and some discouraging thoughts and how God sometimes cuts us down like how sometimes we trim our grass or gardens. Its so we can grow to be better and bloom. An experience we had I think 2 weeks ago that I wanted to mention but I forgot kind of illustrated that with a Less active man we are teaching, Antonio. We hadnt planned to visit him that night but everything dropped and I thought, well lets go see him. We got there and let us in immediately really happy to see us. That doesnt happen often in missionary work haha. But he sat us down and we read a scripture with him about the importance of going to church. He broke down and told us how things were going so bad in his marriage and that his daughter was sick and he was blaming it on himself and he told us that this was the thing he needed to hear, to go back to church and try it out again. He then told us that he had been praying for days now so that he could find us so that we could give his daughter a blessing of health because he didnt feel worthy to do it. We did and he was so grateful. I was grateful for him, and that he was so sincere. I know God had cut him down in that moment, and he is in the process of growing into something much better. He came to church on Sunday. Im rooting for you, Antonio. If any thing can be changed, it is due to applying the teachings of Jesus in our lives.

Im thankful for the experience of the mission to teach me my weakness and to convert them into my strengths. And to help others on the way. Im still in the process on a lot of things, but I know that there is hope and happiness ahead if we just turn to Him. 

Only got a few weeks left. Its go time.

Elder Caldwell.

pics

forgot to take pictures again. But here is one with our lider misional. He is a swell guy.

5-30-16

yokefellows,

thats a scriptural term. Love you guys! I´m doing a lot better this new monday. 

there are a lot of tender mercies in life that we dont realize sometimes. I got a call

the other night from the doctor of the whole area, Elder Aysie I think and he gave me a lot of comfort. He basically talked me through a lot of nerves I was having and told me Im good and healthy (though still skinny) haha. Recieving that call from a complete stranger that I never talked to before and him talking to me and giving me words of comfort with a kind voice really helped me. I know that he had an impression or something to do that because in all ways he really had no reason to call me. Sometimes all we need to feel better is to be heard and to listen by others and to others. 

Last night Elder Gavidia and I had recieved the news that a very less active woman in our area, Julia, had heard recently that she had cancer, and that an operation was soon for that reason. We had been teaching her here and there, not with much frequency. We felt to go and give her a blessing yesterday. We went, and right before we went, we got a call from a woman in our branch. Asking us where we were going and if she could accompany us to Julia. We said sure! She came, and we met Julia. She was looking obviously a little nervous and unsure of her future. We tried to comfort her the best we could with our words. Then all of a sudden we heard a knock on the door and there was priesthood holders from our branch also there to give comfort to the hermana Julia as well. They sat down and we laughed at the coincidence that we were all there. Then another knock. The relief society president and her counselors were there also for hermana Julia. Now it was serious. they shared their feeling with her and there was a beautiful spirit in the room because we were all there just for her, to help out. The two men gave her a priesthood blessing and soon after we left. But it impacted me to see how many people cared. That even though she wasnt the most well known person in our branch or even the neighborhood, somehow the spirit had impacted us all so much to go and visit her that day.

Helping others and giving them comfort when comfort is needed helps and comforts us at the same time. Im thankful for the mission for trials and learning to get past them, and serving others. 

Love you guys! We will keep working.

Elder Caldwell. 

pics:

forgot to take pictures so I told Elder Gavidia take a quick picture while I eat some icecream today.

5-25-16 crazy fast life

hey there skips.

its good to see your emails and feel the love. we are writing late today because we went to the templo de trujillo. it was a different experience for me, i really loved it. It was good to have Elder Gavidia there too, his first time in the trujillo temple. he´s doing great. still eating like a horse and sweating like one too. haha.

Ive been honestly having a lot of difficulties out here on a personal level. I wont go into details but it has to do with health and anxiety. Going to the temple though and searching the scriptures for alivio has helped me too. in our area of chanquin we are still fighting the battle. hard time to see people progress but we are trying our best with patience and love. we have been visiting a certain family ever since I got here to the area, and they started from basically ground zero on a relationship level. the parents are members, active, but all their kids had fallen away due to some hard times in the family and misunderstanding. one of their boys, who is only 19, had been living with his girlfriend in the house and now she is expecting a baby. they are so young. they are my age. we have been teaching them, so much. at first jon wanted nothing to do with us, but after visiting his parents and his girlfriend so many times, and inviting him to listen. he began listening to us. then the rest of his brothers, and his sister. now we are having family nights with the whole family, playing games, teaching small gospel messages, and seeing their ashes of their faith incite again. it has been a tender mercy for me to see this small but slow progress. the parents now are planning to get sealed. we hung up a family proclamation in their house, and now they are so excited to see and converse with us. Jon and his girlfriend now have plans to get married before the baby is born and we are happy for that plan. i know that keeping the commandments of God helps us to be happy, even though they are not popular to do so and sometimes a little begrudging. 

to end I wanted to share a quote from a talk i read last night that helped me. 

[In the Bible we read of Christ’s visit to the home of Simon the Pharisee.

Outwardly, Simon seemed to be a good and upright man. He regularly checked off his to-do list of religious obligations: he kept the law, paid his tithing, observed the Sabbath, prayed daily, and went to the synagogue.

But while Jesus was with Simon, a woman approached, washed the Savior’s feet with her tears, and anointed His feet with fine oil.

Simon was not pleased with this display of worship, for he knew that this woman was a sinner. Simon thought that if Jesus didn’t know this, He must not be a prophet or He would not have let the woman touch him.

Perceiving his thoughts, Jesus turned to Simon and asked a question. “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: … one owed five hundred pence, … the other fifty.

“And when they [both] had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?”

Simon answered that it was the one who was forgiven the most.

Then Jesus taught a profound lesson: “Seest thou this woman? … Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”²⁴

Which of these two people are we most like?

Are we like Simon? Are we confident and comfortable in our good deeds, trusting in our own righteousness? Are we perhaps a little impatient with those who are not living up to our standards? Are we on autopilot, going through the motions, attending our meetings, yawning through Gospel Doctrine class, and perhaps checking our cell phones during sacrament service?

Or are we like this woman, who thought she was completely and hopelessly lost because of sin?

Do we love much?

Do we understand our indebtedness to Heavenly Father and plead with all our souls for the grace of God?

When we kneel to pray, is it to replay the greatest hits of our own righteousness, or is it to confess our faults, plead for God’s mercy, and shed tears of gratitude for the amazing plan of redemption?^25¨)

^{love you guys. have a great week. im thinking of you.}

^{elder caldwell}

^{pics: temple, sunset as always, and the family i was talking about. la familia castillo rojas.}

5-16-16 going and doing no más

hi,

week 1 of training. it has been glorious. I met my new companion about a week ago and he

came really prepared, I am very blessed to have him. He is from the jungle called Pucallpa,

Peru and his name is Elder Gavidia. He is so humble. Quick story with him. The first few

days I think caught him by surprise by how fast I walk. He walked pretty slow, and I dont blame

him because he is just starting his service. So I told him "Goal number one: Walk with

dedication and work with dedication. Walk at my speed. Its hard work but we need to show

God we want to work." It was slow at first, but day by day he started catching up and now

is walking like a pro. He always asked me "Am I walking better? Am I teaching the people better?

What can I do better?" His humility made me want to straight cry because he is so willing.

We truly faced a lot of opposition this week unfortunately but they are lessons learned. I honestly

feel so lucky because my companion never complains, it is a dream come true. Yesterday

was a crazy experience for him and I. We met some very, VERY devote evangelicals and we

decided to sit down with them and try to teach them. They resisted though and actually started

shouting at us and insulting us, trying to force us to listen to them and they were very dramatic.

I told them straight up, we are out of here my friends. This is enough. The crazy guy (not in his mind) actually tried to like hug me and put me back into my seat but I forced myself out of that

place haha. It was nuts, my companion was half traumatized but now we just laugh about it because we learned to be better. Im thankful to laugh about past failures and to move on from them

to be a better person.

Wish I could say more, its hard. so many things going on in my brain. Ill say more next week

about the adventures of Elder Gavidia and I. We are putting our all into it and im thankful for

him and his willingness to do so. 

Love,

Elder Caldwell.

pics: walking zion

chacra selfie

the night i met the next dragon warrior