Hello family. How is everyone doing in the united states. Well things in Peru are really good. On Saturday I had a baptism. Bebeto Estrada was baptised by his older brother Romario. Both of these guys are awesome. Romario was baptised a month before I got to the area. He has been working really hard to keep the commandment and to stay worthy of the priesthood. He is now preparing to serve a mission and is now more excited because he got to use his priesthood and baptize somebody. His little brother Bebeto is just as good as him. Always after the baptism, the people who are baptised give their testimonies about the church and their decision to be baptized. When he gave his testimony you could really feel the spirit strongly. He was truly converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and for the missionaries this is the happiest days of there lives. I am always spiritual uplifted when I have a baptism. That alone has made this a good week. But now we will work to get Bebeto the priesthood and he and his brother together will help them both stay strong in the gospel. When I watched Romario baptize his little brother, I could feel the love that they had for one another. It was a very special moment for me and them.
Well this week we have also found some new people to teach which are very good. I even found a family that the parents are married. So now we have to work hard with them to get them progressing. I am hoping and praying that we can also find more families that can progress. But I cant do it alone. We are trying to get the members excited with the missionary work but so far it's not working very well. If you have any ideas of how I can help them. Let me know.
Well the pictures are of the baptism. With me my companion, Bebeto the shorter kid and Romario the taller one. Cool Kids. The other is a car hauling leaves and branches that they use for the roofs here in the jungle. These leaves help it to be a little bit cooler. The other is of me and in a straw dress and straw wrist band. The stake here is preparing a culture dance and the young men and women of my branch will use that as they are dancing. I thought it was cool so I put it on. All the little girls that were there laughed at me and told me that I am funny. I had a good laugh to.
Well this week was the San Juan festival. It is celebrated the district of San Juan and of John the baptist. They prepare a special food here called juanes. In English it would be John´s. Its rice meat olives and a bunch of seasonings. All wrapped up in a special leaf that grows in the jungle. They wrap it into a ball and say that it represents the head of John the baptist. So I thought that was pretty cool. The members say that it use to be a very religious time and date but now all the people just want to eat drink and be merry because tomorrow they will die. Ha ha. But the members try to keep it religious by reading the scriptures and being with the family. I spent the day which was Friday, with about 6 different families. I ate so much that I haven't wanted to eat since. But it was a really great day.
Well i am doing great and I hope everything is going well for all of you. I love you and will write you next week. I love you all !
Elder Clouse
Hello everybody how is everyone doing? Well I am doing great still here in Iquitios wanting to die from the heat. But other than that I am doing great. The heat here is really hot and humid and I don't have airconditioning so its a little harder to deal with. But other than that life is good. This week we have had a conference with President Blunck. I always feel so much better when I get to learn more things about how to be a missionary. It was really spiritual and feel like I can keep on working hard. Well this week we had a little bit of success. I am trying to turn the members around to help with the missionary work. It's a little bit difficult because the branch is small and a lot of the people dedicate a lot of time to the lords work. But we had a meeting this week putting a mission plan for the branch. In the meeting the members were giving ideas of how we could do missionary work, and quickly they realized how easy it is to do the work. All we have to do is open our mouths and we are doing it. And so I am hoping with this plan we can get the work rolling this week.
Well I want to tell you about an older couple that I am teaching. They are 84 and 79 years old. There names are Irme and Baldominio. That are really funny. They both are like grandma Clouse. They have a quick wit and a really funny personality. They are not married and so we are teaching about the importance of marriage. And the old man who is 84 years old said, well I guess after 52 years of living together, 10 children, and while were still alive, we should get married. HA ha ha. I laughed so hard and immediately thought of Grandma Clouse. It was hilarious. Also we talked about baptism and he said " wel,l after 80 Years of sinning I guess I should baptize me to be clean. But we need to do it fast because I don't plan on living on earth forever. Ha ha. This guy is hilarious. And so I will be helping them with marriage and baptism.
I will explain the pictures now. Last week we made a whole lot of hamburgers. If you see that plate we had another plateful that we made. It was a whole lot of food and we all felt a little sick after we ate four or five. I won. I ate six. But I paid for it an hour latter. Ha ha. Also, last week we went to my area, and in my area there is a zoo and a recreational site to swim, fish, take boat rides, and play sports. The picture is of the beach and of the lake where we played soccer and dreamt about swimming. Also we saw all of the animals. The other picture is of crocodiles that you would find in the Amazon river. We are only about 30 miles from where the Amazon starts so it was cool to see those.
Well that's about it for this week. Life is good and Iam healthy and having a great mission. I love you all and will write next week. Love Elder Clouse
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Hello family and friends! This week has gone by really fast. Not much has really gone on this week again. I will first tell you about the work and how it is going. I have a lot of people that could be progressing but once again the people not being married has struck again. I have found four families that want to be baptized but they can't because they are not married and of course they don't have the money or the papers to even get married. So the work is kind of stuck until we get people married. We have other people that are preparing for baptism and that are completing all of the commitments that we have given them. They are really gaining a testimony of the things that we are teaching. As a mission right now we are trying to work more with the members. I have re done the mission plan for our ward. It focuses on the members going, getting the investigators , us teaching more with the members and how we can keep the new converts active in the church. It is a really good plan but now I have another problem. I need to get the members fired up about actually doing the plan. The members in my branch are used to all of the elders doing all of the work. But according to my mission president. The members should be doing 70 % of the missionary work and the elders should be there to teach and help the investigators grow. So we are trying to get this new plan going. One thing in my branch is that everyone is sick; my entire branch presidency and other leaders of the church. So at church we have been doing a lot of the teaching and preparing for the Sunday services. Its been a little crazy and tiring. But the lord is helping us work hard and to do the work as good as we can.
Well now I will explain the pictures. The two young men playing the piano are Julio and Globber. They are my ward or branch missionaries. They are really cool kids and are trying to prepare for missions. The other is me just in case you forgot what I looked like. The other one is a half of a snake; His tail. We were teaching a lesson and were actually feeling the spirit really strongly when I saw the snake crawling up to us. The father grabbed a machete' and chopped it in half. I thought it was cool so I took a picture of the other half. But then the other half started crawling away. And it got into grass and the couldn't see it. He cut it literally in half but he father says that he will grow all of it back. But we got its tail and it was cool.
Well everything is going great in Iquitos and me and my companion are working hard. Today we are going to a zoo and a natural park to see jungle animals and a lake that they have there, so it should be cool. Well everything is great and I will keep on working hard. Well I love you all and will write again soon. I love you all Love Elder Clouse
Hello everybody. How is it going this week. Well things are going normal for me. Well this week we didn't have church. It was the second round of the elections to see who will be the president and the voting takes place on Sunday. The law says that every church has to be closed so everyone can vote. So it was a sad day yesterday without church. But we had to go out and teach and try to find people that have already have voted. It looked like a ghost town. There wasn't anybody in the streets or in their houses. We walked around for hours without talking to anybody. So we ending up going and talking to some members that were home. After dinner we went out again, because everyone was home. But this time everyone was drinking or drunk. So we didn't talk to anybody anyway. So the Sabbath day was very fun yesterday.
Well the other days were normal and we had some success in the work. We have some people that we are working with to be baptised and we are hoping and praying that they can make it into the water. Well This week also, my pensionista or the lady who makes my food was tearing down her house and building a new one. Every day this week we have been helping her tear down her house and building a new one. There is a picture about that when I am talking so her husband and my branch president and the elders quorum president. Well the other picture is is a fruit tree. If you can see the long green fruit. That is called guaba. It has a white inside that you eat and is really good. Its one of my favorite fruits. Also the other picture is of me taking my frustrations out on a punching bag. I found that in my area last week and thought it was really cool.
Well I am really sorry there really isn't much more to say. There wasn't really a big thing that happened this week. Well I love you all and will work hard to find some thing to write about this next week. I love you all and hope things are going great. Love you all Elder Clouse
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