I was looking at the calendar
today and some how somebody changed it to make it look like it’s
August 10. I went to another calendar and saw the same thing. So
either somebody is really good at switching around calendars in all of
Chivay or I’m dreaming. All I know is that it hasn’t actually been a
year since I’ve left home. There’s no way I’ve been in Peru for a
whole year already.

Anyways. We had another busy week.

Monday: We made pizzas here in Chivay. They turned out just like they
did back in Arequipa, so for some reason the altitude wasn’t a
problem, which was nice. Then we watched Wreck it, Ralph, and visited
some people at night.

Tuesday: We visited a few people. Then we had to travel to Arequipa
again for our monthly Zone Council. We went in a bus and got there
fine. We bought some popsicle sticks then went to the mission home. My
companion wants to make a popsicle stick temple of Lima so that the
members can see their goal. We’re going to leave some gaps in it, and
we’re going to fill them in with popsicle sticks that the members have
written names of their ancestors on. We’ll see if it works like we’re
imagining it. In the mission home, we ate dinner and got some dough
ready to make cinnamon rolls in the morning.

Wednesday: We made the cinnamon rolls. I don’t think we put enough
yeast in the dough because the bread didn’t rise at all, but the
cinnamon rolls still tasted good. We went to our Zone Council meeting
then went to a nice Italian restaurant to eat lunch. Then we went to
the Mission Office. I got the package that the ward sent. (Thanks
Carnegie!) And an Elder had me try to fix his terabyte external hard
drive. I didn’t have time to finish because we had to go to the bus
station to get back home. We went in a minivan again, but this time I
had a real seat. It was so much better.

Thursday: It was a pretty normal day. We found a couple of new
investigators. I was a little bit sad talking to one of our
investigators because she was telling us that she was afraid of death,
didn’t like thinking about it, didn’t know what was going to happen to
us or our bodies, etc. She works in a little store and I found a Plan
of Salvation pamphlet from some other Elders on her shelf. She hadn’t
read it. So we explained to her what happens after death. That we’re
going to rest, that we’ll see our family, that we’ll all live again,
etc. She felt a little bit better after that. And that’s one of the
many things I like about the Gospel. No matter what you’re going
through. No matter what you’re feeling or afraid of. The Gospel has an
answer. It gives us hope and understanding and a purpose in life.

Friday: We found 2 new investigators today. One of them is really
promising. Her daughter is already baptized and her son wants to be
baptized, too. We have a family home evening planned with them for
tonight. We had our Presidency Meeting to assign talks and stuff for
Sunday. Then we had our English Class. We taught them how to make
pancakes and a little bit of English. And some guy from Arequipa came
to bug spray the Church building today. That was nice because it’s
always full of really big spiders.

Saturday: We cleaned the Church today for Sunday. We taught Seminary
and 3 kids came instead of 2! We also ran into an LDS family in the
street. They told us that they were touring Peru and invited us out to
lunch. We ate at a nice buffet with them. One of their sons had just
gotten home from his mission recently, and 2 of their kids are
studying at BYU. It was fun to run into them and get to talk to people
in English for a bit.

Sunday: This week 21 people came to Church. It was a little sad after
having 31 last week, but the meetings went well. I taught priesthood
class, but there was only 1 person there. And nobody came to mission
prep. But at night, we went and visited a family who have been
investigating the Church for a long time. They haven’t been baptized
because they couldn’t find their birth certificate to get married. But
they finally got their birth certificate, so they’re going to finally
be married and baptized!

The work is progressing here in Chivay. Thank you everyone for your
prayers! I know this Church is true. It’s changing my life and I’m
helping others to change their lives with it. Have a great week!

-Elder Kehoe