No Halloween in Peru!

mammy. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Perú will not be celebrating halloween this year because nobody knows what it is. They all think it is the devil´s birthday. Silly peruvians. I am actually doing amazingly good right now. My health is good, my companion is good, the investigators are good, the ward is good, and you guys are good. Everything is just going great right now. I love hearing all the great news from the house. Tell Beckham congrats on her swim meet and tell Branson that the corner is his until October 2012. I am sitting at a computer in a little internet shop looking at a big, amazing package full of american candy that you all sent me and a big letter full of love that says HAPPY HALLOWEEN. You will never understand how much the things like that mean to me. I know I am so bad at writing you all and sending pictures and all that, but I really do love you all so much. I wish I had more time to write you and think about you, and I will try to do better than I´ve been doing, but the mission is just too short. I know you understand.

You silly heads never even told me that Chase Jensen had a mission call. Where is he going? I guess I will just figure that all out when I get home hahahaha.

We found a really cool family this week. There are these huge hills in Lima that are just filled to the brim with houses. Every square inch of the hill has a house on it and the houses are ridiculously small, none of them have water, and all the people are extremely humble. We only have one hill in my area and we went up there on saturday in the morning and we found a family that said we could go back and teach them, so we went back yesterday and met the dad and his three older kids and taught them the message of the restoration. We were sitting on their beds in the room where all four of them live (about half the size of the piano room), without light or anything fancy and we just let the spirit explain the importance of the gospel to this family. A lot of times we are trying to explain things to people and they just don´t understand, but this family understood so well. The oldest son, Elias, was the most attentive. At the end of the lesson we invited him to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and he said he would pray, then we asked him why it was important to him that Joseph Smith was a prophet. He stopped and thougt for a minute, then said, ¨because if Joseph Smith was a prophet, then the church that you two represent is the true church.¨ Then we asked him, if the church that we represent really is the true church, why would it be important for him in his life to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized and he told us that that´s exactly what he needed. The rest of his family accepted to be baptized, too. On Tuesday, we found another family, the Pizarro family and it was a similar situation. The mom told us that she felt like she needed to start going to church, but because there were a lot of churches, she didn´t know where to go. We shared Joseph Smith´s experience with her and invited the entire family to pray about it, come to church, and get baptized, and they all accpeted too! These experiences have helped me strengthen my testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and the power of the message of the restoration. Both of those families we found were just contacts we made knocking on doors. I know without a doubt that we are led by God. Not just us, but every missionary in the world. He has people prepared in every area where he has put his missionaries and in much more places, too. I have been learning a lot this week about the conversion process and about God´s elect. There are so many people here who are ready to receive this message, we just have to find them, and give it to them. I really do love this work so much.

I have some advice for Ben who will also be serving in a spanish speaking mission. DON´T BUY A BUNCH OF STUFF IN ENGLISH. You will use your english scriptures and your english preach my gospel and your english hymn book during your time in the MTC, but after that, everything is in spanish. Don´t be worried, you will learn the language just fine, but you don´t need to bring a bunch of english pass along cards and stuff like that with you in the mission. In the bookstore in the MTC, you will be able to buy a spanish hymn book and other fun things, but they will give you a bible and a triple combination and preach my gospel in spanish when you get there.

I am still in the same area and I actually have quite a bit of time here. It has gone so fast. normally, the missionaries are only here 2 or 3 changes and I will be completing my third change the 15 of november. I´m not sure if I will be changing areas, but something tells me that it might be a possibility. I kinda hope I stay here longer, this has been a very good area for me, but I will be just as happy if God wants me in a different place.

Today we are totally going to go play frisbee, then go to a supermarket place and buy some halloween candies to give all the little kids that we are teaching. I really do love you all so much. Thank you, dad for all the letters and all the support and love. See you tomorrow.

Love Elder Emett