Well, I had my first transfer this
week. Saturday night, my leaders called me to tell me that I had been
assigned to work in Chivay, Peru. I packed everything up Sunday night
and this morning at 8:40, I left Arequipa to make the 3 hour drive to
Chivay.

I’m up here in the mountains, living in Colca Canyon. It’s nice and
cold, a little bit rainy, and super green. There’s only 4 missionaries
here, my companion and me, and 1 other companionship. 1 of the other
Elders was with me in the CCM, so that’s cool. There’s no ward here,
just a branch. And it turns out that my companion is the Branch
President. That makes me 1st Counselor in the Branch Presidency, and
the other 2 Elders the 2nd Counselor and Secretary. It’ll be a very
different type of work we do here. And the other Elders told me that
when my companion leaves in the next transfer, I’ll be the new Branch
President.

That leaves me 6 weeks to learn how to run a branch of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the mountains of Peru. Wish me
luck. We also make our own food, wash our clothes, and baptize in a
river. All new for me here in the mission. There’s also 1 more new
thing that the Elders recently informed me of: I’m the new District
Leader here. There’s only us 4 here in the District, because everyone
else in the Zone lives 2 1/2 – 3 hours away, but it’s a new
responsibility for me. We see the other Elders every month during our
Zone Conference in Arequipa, but that’s about it. Lots of new things
going on here.

The internet is slow and sketchy, so I don’t know how often I’ll be
able to upload pictures while I’m here. I have some from the
waterfalls we went to last week and will be taking some here in my new
area. I might be able to send them next Monday.

The mission life that I’ve been living for the last 8 months is going
to change a lot, due to many things: 12000 foot altitude, being in a
Branch instead of a Ward, being in a Branch Presidency, being a
District Leader, being 3 hours away from my leaders, cooking myself,
washing clothes (supposedly by hand), and much more. However, I know
that the Lord called me here to this area for a reason. The area
baptized 3 during all of 2014, and they haven’t had any baptisms yet
this year. There are a couple planned for May, but we want to get even
more. I know that with the help of the Lord, we can acheive that goal.
He didn’t call us here to fail. He called us here to bring more of His
sons and daughters back to Him.

Thank you for your prayers and support. I expect to write again next
week, but I’m pretty sure the internet just goes out at times here, so
we’ll see. Bye! Love you all!

-Elder Kehoe