We had our Branch Conference this
week! We’ve been worrying a lot about getting everything set up and
ready for the conference. We wanted it to be really good and uplifting
for the members. On Friday, we had permission to set up a screen and
projector in the main plaza and show the Church’s Bible Videos. We
focused on Jesus Christ and His teachings. A lot of people stuck
around watching the videos. While they were watching, we handed out
invitations to the conference and explained that we were going to
watch more videos and talk about Jesus Christ. The night was freezing
cold, but we got to talk to a lot of people about Jesus Christ and our
Conference.

Also, earlier in the week, we invited a Zone of missionaries to come
and help up contact in the town and hand out flyers. 5 pairs of
missionaries came, and each gave out about 100 invitations, plus the 2
companionships that live here, so about 700 invitations. Then during
the week and before the conference, we handed out 200ish more.

Saturday we were in the church all day (from 10:00 to 9:00) getting
everything ready for the conference. We were cleaning the building,
setting up chairs, putting the name placard on the outside of the
Church, getting all the videos ready that we were going to show, etc.
It took forever, but we got everything done.

Sunday we had the conference. President Zobrist came with his wife. A
choir of missionaries came to sing. We had a few members give talks
and share their testimonies. And we as a presidency spoke. The idea of
the conference was to focus in Jesus Christ and His Atonement in order
to help the members strengthen their testimonies and rely on Christ.
We showed a Bible Video with a projector and then had a talk that
related to the video. At the beginning, there were very few members.
And at the end, there weren’t that many either. We ended with 22
members and 1 investigator. And there were 17 missionaries there,
almost more than the members… It was disappointed that not more
people came, but we felt the Spirit, and the people that did come were
strengthened.

We still don’t know for sure if they’re going to close the branch or
not. If they don’t close it, it sounds like it’ll be open for 6 more
months. The goal is that during that time we can find a new branch
president that can stay there in the branch to help the members.

This morning, we went to Cruz del Condor. One of the most popular
tourist sites here in Colca Canyon. It was neat to see the huge
condors and the amazing Colca Canyon. I have some pictures that I’ll
try to send sometime soon.

I hope everyone has a great week! Everything is going well here in
Chivay. We are progressing little by little. And we haven’t quite
frozen yet!

-Elder Kehoe