Fabulous Pictures

Loves Peru!

Dear Jill,

Haha Mom!!! You are such a worrier! Everything is fine here! Yes, I have permission to play the guitar even though I hardly have time to play it (like 2 or 3 times a week in the night just before I go to bed). And I´m sorry I don´t write a whole whole whole bunch to you guys. It´s not because I´m disobedient, it´s not because I´m not doing anything, its just cuz I am suuuuper busy all week then I get to the computer and my brain just shuts down. I never know what to say. SORRY! I will do whaahahhahay better today.

So I´m in a ward right now called Buenos Aires, it´s like an hour bus ride from the offices. Technically we are still in Lima, but it´s like a different city called San Juan de Lurigancho. It´s basically Lima haha. The ward members are good! We had to kind of straighten them out and get them all stoked, but we did it and now we are progressing like champions. The Bishop´s name is Bishop Calderón. He is a really nice guy, but he has been Bishop for a while and is just kind of tired now haha. We went to lunch with him like a week ago to this chicken restaurant called Norky´s and we ate so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Two full chickens, a bunch of other meats, three serving of french fries, two salads and dessert!!! The meal ended up costing like 140 soles for 5 people! That´s like 50 bucks. It was so funny. He really trusts us as missionaries and is giving us referrals to his friends and he is re-stoked about missionary work. Our pensionist is the best. We eat breakfast there every morning at 7 thirty. We usually eat yogurt and granola (even though they had no idea what gronola was until we told them haha... it´s just not typical peruvian food.) It is a big happy family named the Lopez family. We celebrated my birthday there and it was so cool! We had cake and empenadas and a piñata and jello and inca kola. It is so easy to feel the spirit in their house.

We are teaching a lot of amazing people right now, Including 5 different families, 2 of which who want to be baptized and the others steadily progressing. One really cool story is that our area is tiny! We almost know everyone and we have knocked every single door! So we have had a hard time finding people, but we are still trying! One night, we were walking to an appointment and this car was coming towards us and it stopped and this guy yelled ¨hey elders, come here!¨ He then explained to us that he is a member of the church, but he is inactive. He served a mission in northern peru like 25 years ago then moved to venezuela. He came back to Peru (to our area) and has been living there for like six months. He is living with a lady right now named Deysi and she has a daughter named Eymi, they were both born catholics and have never heard of the church. So the guy (Jimmy) basically told us that he wants to talk to the bishop, put his life in order, get married, baptize his family, and start coming to church!!!! How crazy!!!! So we have been working with him for a week and he will get married in September and the family (including Deysi´s brother) will all get baptized the saturday after the marriage. How cool is that!?

I hope that gives you all a little bit clearer view fo what´s going on here in Peru! Mom, I love this gospel so much. I love the church, and I love being a missionary. Prayer works and God really does have a plan for us. He wants ALL of us to return to live with him and there is a way for EVERYONE to achieve that. Dont worry about me mom. I am doing just great and totally stoked to be here. I am finally more comfortable in Peru than I can remember being in the States. This is just my home now haha. I love you all and I will write you more next week!!!

Love Elder Emett

P.s. just because i love you, i am sending you a picture of me in this place called Chorrillos. It´s like an hour away from where we are. We went there on my birthday! Just behind us, there is this huge statue of Jesus just like the one in Brazil, but this one is just a small dinky one compared to that one. Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!

And.... another foto of my companion Elder Castillo cutting my hair in Yurimaguas haha. He was such a funny guy! And it actually turned out pretty good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And.... We got our changes today. My companion is leaving. Pretty sad. We will get some pictures together to send to you next week. I will be staying in my same area so don´t even worry!

Beautiful Peru

I LOVE PERU!!!!!

WoahoawT-t-t-t-t-Thams

Moday. August 15th 2011. Lima, Peru. San Juan de Lurigancho. Small internet shop. Elder Anderson is officially flying into Utah tonight. I didn´t get to see him before he left. Joining him will be my good friend Elder Schreyer. I haven´t told you guys a ton about him, but he is going home today, too. He (was) in my zone here in Lima and he is way cool like Elder Anderson. I did get to say bye to him this morning. Big deal. I only have 23 months left!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, we figured out yesterday that our ward is really kinda falling apart. We are starting a rescue plan to get all the less actives to go back to church and we are going to start working with the ward members every day to strengthen them and get more than 30 people to go to church on sunday.

You are all just going to hate me, but I don´t have much to write haha. BUT I am going to try to send you all a few pictures right now (we will see how that works out). One huge favor, could you send me a few bags of sunflower seeds? Everyone here loves them, but there aren´t any. That would be ballin. I just want to thank you again for all the emails that you sent me last week haha, I still haven´t read them all!!!! Question. Is Kjirsten pregnant? How many Emetts are there? And is ben really sending in his papers in 2 months? That´s off the chain. ew. I just had to itch my eye with dirty keyboard fingers. It´s all good, I swear I´m immune to anything by now. We ate cow stomach and cow intestines for lunch on sunday. I LOVE PERU!!!!! But I´m not sure if I will miss the food too bad. Call me.

Love Elder Emett

Happy Birthday Kolby!

Family!!!!

So I opened up my email today and I had 15 messages from the family!!!!!!!!! thank you all so much!! It was so awesome to read about how everyone is doing. I just love you all so much. Wow, I spent all my time reading all your letters, and now i just dont have a lot of time to write you but i did want to say a couple of thingss! I love you all so much! T hanks for al lthe support and birthday wishes! As I am writing this, I am still nineteen, but I will be 20 in 22 minutes! How crazy! I wont have time today (or ever) to write you all back and tell you how cool the mission is or tell you how much you mean to me and the whole family, so just accept this as a family letter. Matt was wondering what kind of letter he could send me. Tell h im to ask josh what he did and do the same thing! Josh, that letter helped so much. You have no idea. Thank you for writing me in spanish, too haha. it makes me feel more normal. There were a few mistakes, but I knew what you were trying to say. Tell baylie congrats on her baptism!!! That is so cool. I didnt really understand baptism too well before the mission, but i understand a little better now and it really is someting so spec ial. Sorry im writing so bad, t his keyboard has seen better days. Yes. I got your birthday package adn yes, my companion and I thoroughly enjoyed eating poptarts adn brownies. That was so awesome. WE found two new families to teach this week and we are STOKED because they are STOKED! We had 8 investigators in church and we set up two more baptismal dates! All is going well and we are truly starting to see gods hand in everythign we do. Spanish is coming along good. Everyone tells me right when i start talking spanish with them that i talk really well. One lady told me she had never heard a white person sound so much like a peruvian haha. Im just stoked that they can actually understand me. it surprises me at times. Wow, just thank josh again for that letter, it changed my view on things, and i know you are all going to read this so, THANK YOU SO MUCH FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVED ALL YOUR EMAILS!!!! it means the world to me to have such a big, loving, supportive, family. I put a family picture of us all on my agenda that I carry around all day and I show it to everyone haha. I wish I had an updated picture tho! We got one family picture done, updated with evetryone right before i left and then l ike 3 days later michelle had a baby. but an updated picture of you all would be way cool! I love you all so much! Its so weird to not be a teenager anymore. Tonight we are going to have a small birthday party in the pensions house adn i am pretty stoked about it. I love you all so much. Call me.

Love Elder Emett

Last letter from my teenager!!

Tcheheyhammies,

This has been an iteresting week... We were walking in front of an Israelite church and some old guy with a big robe on called us over to talk to him so we talked to him for a minute, then he started attacking our church (which is fine with me, I´m not here to fight), but my companion wasn´t too stoked to get talked down on by some crazy old peruvian so he completely burned him, using his own bible haha. Then we invited him to church and started to walk away and he starting yelling at us and told us that somebody needs to talk to us so we went back and the whole entire congregation was just staring at us, including their weird pastor guy up front with his burning incense and his way cool-er robes. They invited us up to their pulpit (I stayed down on the front row) and my companion went right up to the pastor and starting questioning him. Long story short, my companion burned their pastor too hahaha. The poor Israelite guys had no idea what to say. So we invited them all to church and left. It was rad.

This sunday, we had 8 investigators in church! Including a family! We have 4 baptismal dates set up in august now and we are going to set up four more this week with the family we are teaching! The work is going really good right now and we are all stoked. My stomach doesn´t hurt at all and the cold is starting to go away. And wow, yes i did think about it one time. I only have 1 more week to be a teenager. That was fast. I´m really hoping it´s a super slow week so I can enjoy immaturity just a little bit longer. I don´t want to grow up yet. Big deal.

So, what is ben up to? Remember my best friend James? Is he still in St. George? I hope so cuz we are moving in together when i get back and if he is gone, I am going to have to leave the house right when I get back hahaha how sad. How is Brady Johnson doing in the states? Tell him every single person (including the missionaries at times) wants to be in the United States right now. You guys don´t even realize what a privilege that is. When does Paco go to Germany? When does Chaddy-cakes go to Guatemala? My companion is from Guatemala. Mala means bad in spanish haha. OH! My companion´s cousin is serving in the St. George mission!!!!! His name is Elder Paiz (the same as my companion). I don´t know how big the S.G. mission is or if it would be possible to see him, but if you do, tell him that his cousin is your son´s companion down in Peru! How crazy!!!

Guess what we´re going to do today!!! We are going to buy a guitar and learn how to play it in our free time. Cool huh? We are pretty stoked about it. And we are going to play soccer against another zone right now. I hope I don´t tear my ACL again. That would be a bummer. Not much else to say. Everything is going just perfectly great. I love you all and I will email you when I´m 20.

Elder Emett