Christmas Phone Call!

Zoinks Skoob!!!

That´s what Shaggy says on Scooby Doo. Mom. I literally don´t have a lots of times to write, but I sure do love you guys. YES! I totally got that calendar for 2012! It is so cool! Thank you! Thanks for all the candy, we totally ate little candy canes one day and it made us even more stoked. I´m 91% jealous that you all went to the forgotten carols, but next year I will just go ahead and join you so don´t worry. This week has been super sweet, we got a family married and baptized. If I have more time next week I will totes send a picture your way. Ok, ok ok. 2 HUGE things! 1. I sent you guys a christmas package!!!!!!!!!! Hahahahahahahahahaha IF it even gets there. I have never sent a more ghetto package in my entire life. I am almost positive it WILL NOT get there hahahahaha. We didn´t have any boxes so I put all the stuff in an old Corn Flakes box, wrapped it up in scotch tape, and put my trust in the peruvian postal service. I am so so so so so so so sorry because I really don´t think it will ever get there, but if it does, it should have a small letter for all of you, a small hand-made peruvian nativity set for you, a memory card with all my pictures up to this point in the mission and a voice recorder so that you can hear my white guy voice. IF it gets there it will get there like right around christmastime I think. I hope. If it doesn´t get there, just act like I never sent anything and you won´t have any reason to be sad hahahaha. HUGE thing number 2. I am going to be calling you on Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don´t even try to tempt me into talking for more than 40 minutes or I will feel bad haha. But that means that I will be calling you TODAY! It´s called a pre-call. I will be calling in like 30 minutes to figure out what time it is in Utah and to talk to you for like 5 minutes. Way cool.
Everything is going good in the ward and with me and my companion. I´m learning so much about the scriptures and missionary work I wish I could just share it all with you and listen to your ideas, but I just don´t have enough time. CALL ME!!!!!!!!!!!! I really do love you all so much. OH yeah, take a picture of the WHOLE family so I can see it and then send it to me cuz I have a family picture, but it´s like 3 babies out-dated.

Love Elder Emett

Met his goal of baptizing someone named Steven!!!

Dear my mother,

I am so stoked that you got to look up Iquitos on the internet and see where I am. It is a HUGE city, but I live on the outskirts haha. The house I live in is actually pretty nice, but the houses in my area aren´t really like houses in Lima. They are just like the happy little jungle huts in Yurimaguas. I was thinking about it and if you had to compare this place with the united states, it would be like the forest swamps in Louisiana. Last night we were crossing over a swamp on this hilarious ghetto bridge made of sticks and big pieces of wood and there were all kinds of bugs and snakes and frogs making all kinds of crazy sounds and there were fireflies and little jungle huts lit by candlelight and I just felt like I was totally in like some swamp-place in Louisiana. The spanish here is different, too. In spain, they speak spanish. In LIma they speak Castellano which is almost the same as spanish, but a little bit different, and in the jungle part of Perú they speak Castellano-Charapa. It´s kind of a joke to them, but it´s like a different dialect of sorts. They don´t really just talk, they kinda sing their words haha. It is really fun to listen to it, learn it, and speak it.
In the mission hand book, it says that we can only call for 40 minutes on christmas and we just got a letter from the president reminding us to follow that rule, so I will only be talking with you for 40 mintues instead of 1 hour on christmas day. We will also be doing a pre-call. I don´t know when, but it won´t be this week, so don´t worry yet. Everything is going very, very good here. We had another baptism on saturday. I kinda had a personal goal before the mission to baptize a man named Steven and I totally achieved that goal on saturday. The man´s name is Estevan Leyba. His wife died about 6 months ago and he came to church one day and asked us how he could make the pain go away and if he would ever see his wife again. He accpeted a baptismal date in the first lesson and has enjoyed every detail of the church. Before he was baptized, he told us that he misses his wife still, but he just can´t feel the pain anymore. He understands the plan of hapiness and he is looking forward to seeing her. He will be going to the temple in 1 year to be sealed to her for time and all eternity. What a stud.
One of the families we are teaching is going to get baptized this saturday and another one is going to get baptized on the 31st. And there are about 4 more who are ready to get married and baptized in January, we just need to get all their papers haha. We feel so blessed in the work right now. My health is good. The ward is doing amazing. And I complete 14 months in the mission tomorrow......... Don´t know how I feel about that haha. It´s better to think of it this way - I still don´t have a year in the field. But I will be home in 10 months. Cupla things. 1. I am totally going to work at best buy when I get home and I am 100% going to get a motorcycle to drive around, everyone here has one and it´s just grown on me. 2. I saw a picture of Paysli that dad sent me and it scared me half to death. She is bigger than Anne! I literally did not recognize her at all. 3. Can we have an Emett Family Fun Time when I get back? I know I didn´t like them before the mission, but I totally miss that haha. And... that´s everything. I love you all a whole bunch. I got both your christmas envelopes that you sent me and if my brothers have different christmas pajamas than me this year I am going to be way sad hahaha. Thanks!!!

Love Elder Emett

Yes, it is hot down here!!

yes mom, it´s hot here,

It is really hot. always. Except for when it rains. Then it is
just.... fresh haha. I wish I were a better person who took more
pictures, but I´m simply not a picture taker. I have 0 pictures to
send you, but I think i will send you a small package tomorrow with my
2 gig memory card full of pictures and the voice recorder with all
kinds of stuff for you to listen to and the small, hand-made peruvian
nativity that a lady in my lady ward gave to me. yes, dad, i got your
email. no, i will not be getting any letters or anything else for
quuuuuuiiiite a while haha. No, i do not live on the shore of the
amazon river, i live about 5 miles away. There are more bugs here than
I care to count. I am so used to bugs and spiders that i hold them in
my hands now and i play with them instead of being scared and killing
them. Iquitos is a big city, but we live in the ¨outskirts¨ of town.
98% of the roads are dirt and sand. The closer you get to the river,
the more beautiful everything is, all the sand is white. In the city,
there is one big store where we buy all our food for the week. it´s
called piramide and it´s about 1/3 the size of albertson´s. Everything
is going good with the ward and the investigators and my companion.
Today we are going to a small zoo place called Quistococha and I will
try and take some pictures haha. I am going to be eating a huge, white
grub that is a common jungle food here, but I´m going to eat it alive.
I will take a video so you can all laugh with me. There is absolutely
no more time left to write, I´m soooo sorry. I´m such a failure! But I
love you.

Love Elder Emett

Living by the Amazon River

TSCHIAMMMYY!!!!!!!!!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I´m such a failure! I had zero of time to write to you last week. I just felt like a meanie-pants the whole week cuz I didn´t write my family. Please try to forgive me. Ok, ok ok, I am in Iquitos, Perù right now. Have you ever heard of the Amazon River? That´s just right next to my house. I´m not kidding, it´s so cool here. Just get on the computer and look up Iquitos, Perù. It will be way way cool. Sometimes we have lots of baptisms. We are helping out all the elders in the zone and we are pretty sure that December 17th will be the best day ever. There is a ¨massive marriage¨ that day, and about 8 families in three of our areas are going to get marred, then baptized in our chapel that night. 8 families. Together. 1 night. It is going to be so cool. Two of the families will be families that we are teaching right now and one of them have a kid on the mission right now and another kid who leaves in january and they aren´t even members hahahaha, but they will be soon.
My companion is Elder Lazo. He has 22 months in the mission and he is a very dedicated missionary. He is kind of serious, but he likes to joke around with me too. I think I will be with him until he finishes his mission. We live in a house with 4 missionaries haha. There are only 2 places in the entire mission where missionaries live together and I have lived in both of those places hahahaha. It´s a little bit different here. We don´t have a pension. We buy all our own food and we cook breakfast and dinner in the house. We have a fridge, an electric stove, and a sink. I basically just eat tons of sandwiches. I found a place here that sells peanut butter and I bought a jar of it and I have literally been living off peanut butter sandwiches for a week and a half hahaha. It´s so much better than having a pension, I always wanted to cook for myself. It is blazing hot here. It is way hotter than Yurimaguas. I remember one day I was in my room studying spanish and I wasn´t really paying attention to how hot it was and like five minutes later it looked like I had just jumped into a swimming pool I was sweating so bad. So gnarly.
I will definitely get to call you on christmas day, but I can never understand what you guys are saying to me so I am kind of embarrassed to call. I am sorry to say I will not be getting the packages until a little after christmas, but it´s ok. It takes a while to get stuff here, but don´t worry, we will buy some chocolates or something to eat on christmas day. I didn´t even know that it was thanksgiving this past week. I woke up friday morning and the other north american misisonary, Elder Walker, was like ¨dude, I think yesterday was thanksgiving¨, and then we both just laughed because neither of us realized it was thanksgiving. Oh well.
Sorry, there really isn´t time to write, we have tons of good stuff to do so I gotta get going. I love you all. Thank you for writing me and keeping me updated. I will try and write you every week and let you know what´s happening in the amazon rainforest. call me.

Elder Emett

Headed to the jungle

Hasta Ver Buenos Aires................

This week has been possibly the best week of my entire mission. I had an interview with president and we got talking and I got to know him a lot better. He is such an amazing man. As we all know, there are changes this week... Usually we aren´t supposed to know until right now, but President told me on wednesday. I will be going to Iquitos. It´s a jungle-island. Jungle because it´s in the middle of the amazon rainforest and island because it is completely surrounded by three huge rivers that flow right from the amazon river. It is the farthest away zone in the entire mission, and I will be going there this wednesday. Cool eh? I am pretty stoked about it, it will be another good adventure. The stake where I am going is called Neuve De Octubre. I am going to be in a ward called Secada. The zone where I am going is called Secada which includes the ward Secada and three small branches- Santa Clara, Los Delfines, and Nauta. I will be in Secada, but I will travel to all the branches almost every week. President told me that I will probably be there for about 9 months haha. I am basically going to finish the mission there. Totally stoked. So, that´s the big news around here. It is going to be so hard to leave this ward. I am just sick about it. I dont know how to tell the Lopez family. I am going to miss them all so bad. I told a few people last night that I am going to be changing areas and all we could do is cry. This is one of the toughest parts of the entire mission, but things like this are necessary.

Elder Anderson is the greatest. Elder Flores called me and told me he was going to get married and I could hardly believe it. He was such a good, focused missionary, and I know he will have the coolest family ever. He is still my absolute hero from my entire mission. If you ever get to see him or talk to his mom or something, tell him that I love him and I am super proud of him and I will see him and his wife in 11 months hahahaha.

It sounds like the whole family is doing well. It makes me so happy to hear from you all and to know that you are all happy and healthy. Michele wrote me an email, too! I am so stoked to meet Addi, but she is so big already! I missed out on a ton, but I´m sure we will be best friends ever when I get back. We´re gonna eat some tortillas together and she (and all my other nieces) will be the only girls I flirt with ahahahahaha.

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting about Nefi´s experience with following the spirit. Nefi is such a good example of how to find solutions to problems and to not complain about anything. He, along with 3 older brothers, are commanded to return to Jerusalem to get the plates from the evil king Laban. Laman, Nephi´s older brother, is chosen between them to enter first, so he goes in and asks Laban for the plates and Laban gets mad and calls him a robber and chases him out. Laman returns to his brothers outside the city gates and tells them what happened and they all want just give up and go back, but Nephi says no chance! he says that they will not go back to their father in the wilderness until they have finished what he sent them to do. So they go back into the city with a plan to get all of their gold and precious things that they left behind before and give them to Laban in exchange for the plates. (pretty good plan for a couple teenage boys). So they go and offer him all their good stuff and Laban gets jealous and takes their stuff and tries to kill them! So they flee outside the city walls and hide in the cavity of a rock and Laman and Lemuel get mad and start beating Nephi and Sam with a rod and while that is going on, an angel appears and asks them what in the world they´re doing, Nephi was chosen to be their leader and they are beating him? The angel then commands them to go back into Jerusalem and they would have success. So Nephi goes back into the city WITHOUT KNOWING BEFOREHAND WHAT HE SHOULD DO. He has no clue what he has to do, he just has faith. The commandment was to get the plates, and if we all remember the story well, Nephi followed the spirit and did exactly what God wanted him to do and he left the city walls late that night with not only the plates, but Laban´s sword, servant, and his clothes!!!!!!!!!!!!! And we can keep reading in the book of mormon and see the importance that Laban´s servant, Zoram, and Laban´s sword had for years and years to come. I´ve said it so many times before, and I will say it again. I know the book of mormon is true. I know we´re in the true church and that the fulness of the everlasting gospel is here and available to everyone. I love you all so much. Thank you for all the support, love, and letters. Next time I email you I will be in the middle of the Amazon rainforest hahahahaha.

Love Elder Emett

Why I love the Book of Mormon so much!!!

Dear My Mom.

Last night was one of my investigator´s birthday and he gave us so much cake. I don´t even want any more cake. Thanks for all the great news!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything is going good here in San Juan de Lurigancho, just lots of dust and fun things and tons of investigators that are progressing and getting whay ready to be baptized. I was trying to come up with a logical reason in my mind this morning as to why I love the book of mormon so much, cuz, I mean, there has to be some logical reason. I came to the conclusion that in my mission, I have been able to experience a lot of what the book of mormon prophets experienced. I can imagine how Nephi must have felt when he was the only person who dared stand up for what´s right and set his older brothers right. I have stood in Abinadi´s shoes when he had to speak the truth of the scriptures to a room full of learned men who had all the intention of confusing him in his words, and I´ve had a glimpse of what it´s like to enter into an area or a city like Ammon and not find one single person who wants to listen to God´s message. I have been able to relate the book of mormon to my mission and my life so much. I have so many heroes in that book, but my all-time hero and example is Jesus Christ. The first chapter of the book of mormon testifies of the Messiah and the rest of the book is full of his teachings, his love and his example. I have been able to draw closer to Christ just from reading that book, and I understand now why I have so much faith and interest in it. I don´t even try to answer my investigator´s questions with my own thoughts or ideas, I just direct them to a book of mormon scripture and they realize that it´s a book full of answers and instead of asking me questions, they are showing me how the book of mormon gave them answers when I wasn´t even in their house. It´s an amazing book, and it´s amazing because it testifies of Jesus Christ.

This has been a good week. We are trying to focus more in finding families and talking to more people in the street. There is a part in Preach My Gospel that says that we should trust that God will put the people that he wants us to teach in our path, it is our job to simply contact everyone in our path and we will find everyone who God wants us to teach. Nike hit it right one when they came up with ¨just do it¨. We don´t need to be perfect, heck, we don´t even need to be good. We just have to be worthy and willing, then ¨just do it¨.

You guys are all gonna hate me, but I´m still not taking pictures. My memory is full now and I am just waiting to put together a christmas package that I will be sending this month to the house and I will send my camera´s memory with it. I don´t have tons more to say, nor do I have much time left haha, I have to write some... informes. I don´t know how to say that in english. But I love you all a WHOLE BUNCH I love all the letters that Dad and Riley send me and I am totally stoked to call you guys in two months my very last christmas in the mission!

Love Elder Emett

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