Happy Birthday, Graci!

Science suggests that birthdays are healthy. The more you have, the longer you live.

 

Quick birthday shout-out to Graci!! I can't believe you're ten years old! You were eight when I left! Holy smokes. I love you with all my heart and I promise to buy you (and Kenna) Slurpees when I get home.

I sent a recording with just about everything. We went to Cusco for leadership training. We go once a month. It's a meeting that lasts about seven hours but it's usually really cool. President and Sister Harbertson talk to us about mission stuff and how to improve and where we need to focus on, etc. We also eat SUPER good food. President's pensionista is an international chef. We had lasagna for lunch and it was probably the best thing I've eaten in Peru. The last time we went we ate stroganoff (however you spell it). We also had cake and ice cream for dessert which was just wonderful. I talked to Elder Yorgeson and he's going to send you the pictures on Dropbox one of these days. He says he can only do like two gigs at a time though so when he sends them you need to download them so he can send more. J got baptized on Saturday!

As far as things I like about Puno more than Juliaca... There's a lot of things. I don't love the sector or the experiences more, just the city haha. I absolutely LOVED Juliaca, but I would never EVER live there. Probably not Puno either, haha, but if I had to choose I would choose Puno. Puno is smaller than Juliaca and there's WAY less people. It's not crowded and full of people like Juliaca. The people here are also generally nicer, too, because it's not a big city atmosphere. It's a lot prettier too. There are more hills and the lake is gorgeous. I have genuinely loved all of my sectors though, and was sad to leave Andahuaylas and Juliaca, and I'm sure I'll be sad to leave Puno. I honestly couldn't pick a favorite sector. Each place has just been full of lessons that I needed to learn, and they have all helped me to grow in different ways. I feel like I haven't really been here for Peru, but that Peru has always been here for me. Peru waited for me for 18 years so that I could learn and grow and become the person that God wants me to be, and I still have so much farther to go. I love my mission.

Love you all! I hope that this week is the best week of your lives!

Loves,

Elder Tate

No longer alone!!!!

What does a duck and  bike have in common? They both have handle bars... except for the duck.

On Thursday my companion FINALLY got here from Cusco with the two new elders that will be living in our house. Elder Pavon (my companion) is from Paraguay. He has one change less than me in the mission field. He started in Andahuaylas when I was with Elder Johanson and we lived in the same house for two changes. He's really cool. I think it'll take a while to get used to each other's personalities but we get along just fine and our styles of doing missionary work and teaching mesh quite nicely. From day one he's been bringing up lots of really good ideas and suggestions. I think he's exactly the companion that I've been praying for. This is going to be a good change for sure.

The other two elders in our house are Elder Zerillo and Elder Reyes. They're both from Lima and they're both really cool. All the new guys are very polite to the pensionistas which I love about them. One of the other missionaries from before was kind of obnoxious and it frustrated me a little bit.

As far as my zone leader job goes, I'm basically a nanny for 18 other missionaries. Whenever someone has a question they ask us, whenever someone gets sick they come to us, whenever someone misbehaves we have to take care of it. Sometimes it gets really stressful and frustrating, but other times it's chill and I actually forget that I'm a zone leader. I think I'm going to be bald by the time I get home though. Oh well.

This week (once Elder Pavon got here. The other days I was staying with elders in another sector) we worked a lot with J, our golden investigator. One day we gave him all of the pamphlets and told him he could read if he felt like it, and left him a reading assignment in the BOM. The next day we had an appointment with him and he had read all six AND written little summaries of each pamphlet AND had read the BOM from the beginning until first Nefi. Pretty darn cool. He has a baptismal date for the fifth of September. Things are great with him. The members are also doing a great job at fellowshipping him.

That's the only news I have for this week. Feel free to take out whatever you want from my package so it's cheaper and I'll just buy what I can here. I found a blender for like 60 soles that's really nice that I'm considering buying to make fruit smoothies and stuff to maybe help with my hunger and just to have a healthier diet in general. I don't want you to feel like you have to spend tons of money on me or send lots of things. Just the things I can't find here. The rest I can just buy so it's cheaper and easier. For real though, don't send tons of food. Just treats and snacks and I'll figure out the rest. If worse comes to worst, I'll just walk it off and be a man.

I love you all and pray for you every day! Don't sweat about school, mom. You'll be great!  No worries! I love you tons! Tell Dad and Trevor and Hilary good luck with starting school too. Love you all tons!

Love,

Elder Tate

Traveling . . . again!

Tate sends us a weekly recording. I have tried to transcribe it each week, but it doesn't always happen. If you are interested in hearing any of his recordings, just email me at scottara@comcast.net and I will send you the link. 

Tate is currently serving in Puno. He was transferred there 5 weeks ago and is now a Zone Leader. He has had to spend a lot of time traveling during this transfer - hence the subject of this week's email!  He said on his recording that he has logged about 50 hours in travel over the past 4-5 weeks.

He just passed his ONE YEAR MARK!  Yippee!!  He is doing great!
 
-Tara 

********


What did George Washington say to his men before they got on their horses?

"Men, get on your horses."

I figured since I hit a year I would start doing lame jokes instead of movie quotes.

I sent a recording with pretty much everything on it from the week. We had to travel to Cusco again. Elder Cando was supposed to go to Machu Picchu tomorrow but the company they work with has completely changed everything so they had to do it all different. Now he's going to go on Saturday. Woot! That means he'll leave on Friday and never come back because he'll go home right after that. Crazy stuff. I'm going to stay with the other two elders in my house to do the last week of the change and then figure the rest out from there. There's a guy in my ward named Harold who's getting ready to turn in his mission papers and he wants to be my companion for a few days, so I think I'll jhave Harold come get me and work with me for as long as he can during the day and then just stay with some other companionship until dinner time. We'll see how it goes. Harold is a super stud so I'm kind of excited to work with him and teach him a little bit about missionary work. He's like 22 years old, and he just recently hit his one year mark of being a convert to the church. 

I love you all. Hope this week is the best week of your lives. Keep strong, study the scriptures. We never know the affect we can have on other peoples' lives if we just put in a little effort and study. We shouldn't read the BOM to just read, we should read it to learn and be spiritually edified every single time.

 

Our stake president, Pres. Soto talked a lot yesterday (talking to the stake leaders) about teaching DOCTRINE, not just our own opinions or experiences. We need to teach people the DOCTRINE of the gospel, which means we teach them eternal truths. If we study the scriptures, we will learn the eternal truths that will impact the hearts of other people. I've also been trying to get better at asking "inspired questions." Questions that come from heaven rather than from me. I truly feel that asking inspired questions is the only way to get to some people's hearts and allow them to have and feel a true conversion.  Peace and blessings.

Loves,

Elder Tate

Puno is the Shiz

Watch out for the yellow ones, they don't stop!

Well it's been another fun week in Puno. We haven't had tons of time to teach because we've been planning the next multi-zone conference that we have on Wednesday with an Area 70. The conference we had with President Harbertson went really well. We did it at a beach in a place called Charkas. It's pretty cool to be able to say that I've been to a zone conference on the shores of lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. Anyways, it started out really well. We had all of the district leaders give short trainings,  spiritual thoughts really because they cut our time down but it was still good, and then Elder Cando and I and the other zone leaders from Juli did an activity with a training. Elder Cando and I talked about unity and how we need to help each other as missionaries because we all have the same goal. We tried to do an activity where they had to walk a trail with candles and they couldn't let their flames go out, but then a ferocious wind came in and we couldn't even get them lit, so that was kind of a bust but we ended up getting the same message out of it. President Harbertson talked a lot about the different roles that men and women have in the priesthood, and how it doesn't work without both, and sister Harbertson talked about how sins  bring burdens into our lives. It was a great conference. It ended up getting really cold towards the end though and we had to finish in the tour bus that we rented haha. It was still fun though.

As far as my duties as a zone leader go, I'm basically just a babysitter for other missionaries. We have to deal with any sort of tomfoolery that the other missionaries pull. Luckily, our zone is awesome and we don't have to deal with much.  We also have to plan things like multi zone conferences, travel plans for any missionary that get to travel, and stuff like that. We get a zone fund every month that we have to keep track of very meticulously or we end up losing money and have to pay out of our pockets. We also get to travel to Cusco once a month for leadership conferences and then conduct a zone conference afterward to give all the other missionaries the information that we received from president, do trainings, practices, etc. It's fun I suppose. I like being in a position where I can help other missionaries. I don't LOVE it but I won't complain any more than that. I suppose that God has a reason for calling me to this position, so I'll do it. I find myself being about twice as tired as I've ever been though. We're up late a lot because we have to be doing something, making phone calls, passing numbers, etc. It's great.

As far as Puno goes, so far I'm loving it. It's super cold but super cool. It's very pretty, and the people are a lot nicer than in Juliaca, haha. The members here are excited to help us with the work. I haven't really met any of our investigators yet though, just the Ofelia lady I mentioned last week. Elder Cando is the bomb. We get along great. He told me the other day, "I've enjoyed my entire mission like crazy, but this change I've been enjoying it even more." He told me that it was because of me, because I'm cool. That made me feel good inside. He's probably one of my favorite companions as well.

Things are good here in Puno. The food is great. I'm always hungry now, too, for some reason. I think it's a combination of stress, walking a ton, and the cold. I like my area and my zone. I love you all and hope you have a great time in the wilderness. Sometimes it scares me that I'm in a position of authority and that God is really putting all this trust on my shoulders, but I know that he'll always be here to help me every step of the way. God is real. Jesus Christ lives. They love us and always know what's best for us. Until next time!

Loves,

Elder Tate

June 22, 2015 (transcript of Tate's weekly recording)

Today is June 22, 2015. This week was pretty good; it was a little bit slow again. I have a few other things that I am going to send in an email, but I am going to try to talk about some fun things, I suppose. We got to participate in a temple dedication. The Peru, Trujillo temple was dedicated yesterday and on Saturday was the cultural celebration, so the Stake broadcasted it to the Stake Center and we brought investigators and got to watch the broadcast of the cultural celebration. 

 (Just so you all know, this music in the background is from a Comvee that I am in with a bunch of other missionaries coming back from a ruin called Sillustani.)  Hopefully I will be able to send some pictures, but I feel like God doesn’t want me to send pictures home because it never works.

The cultural celebration was really cool. It was just a bunch of really cool traditional Peruvian Dances. Pres. Uchtdorf and Elder Bednar came to see it and do the dedication. It was really neat. We got to see it. There weren’t any other church meetings afterward. 

So, I have mentioned our investigators J&C and their sons. They are progressing like crazy. The first time we went to visit them we gave them the introduction of the Book of Mormon to read and asked them to pray every day as a family and they read the introduction and prayed every day as a family. The second time we went we asked them to start reading the Book of Mormon for 15 minutes as a family every day, and so they did it and they are still doing it. They have come to church twice – in a row, and they have come to a bunch of activities and they are doing awesome.  So this week we gave them a baptismal date for August 8. We put it so far back because they aren’t married yet. We are trying to set that goal with them right now. We have an appointment with them tomorrow, so we are going to talk to them about marriage and help them set that goal. We aren’t going to set a wedding date for them, but they have already accepted a baptismal date, so we are going to challenge them to be married before that date. It was really cool – we challenged them to be baptized and at first they asked if there was a date a little further back than August 8 and when we asked them why, they said they weren’t ready. We told them if they keep doing everything we ask them to, then they will be ready. They said, “If the two of you believe that we can be ready by then, we will be baptized on August 8^th.” That was pretty neat. They are a good family. 

The other couple that we have been working with is still going to go talk to her parents in July about them getting married. I think it is kind of silly because they are like in their 40s and they have 2 kids; they might as well send them a fax that says, “Hey, we got married.” But, it is cool, I guess. They do not want to change it, so we are going to work really hard with them to make sure they actually do it. They are starting to come to activities, so we are hoping to kind of get them rolling again. We had a good lesson with them yesterday about eternal marriage and temples and sealings, and they seemed to really enjoy it. So we are going to be focusing more on that and help them realize that as long as they aren’t married they are missing out on blessings. We kind of told them that last night. We told them that we love them so much that we don’t want them to lose those blessings; that is why we always talk about it. They took it really well and they said that we have helped them realize things and helped them put everything into perspective. They are so good. We asked them if they were nervous or worried about getting married, and they said no, that they were still planning on going to talk to her family in July. 

Those are the big things for the week. It was a little bit slower week. There were a lot of appointments that fell through and it was kind of a rough week, but it’s okay. We have talked about what we can do better to improve our work and our companionship and everything and we are hoping that this next week will be really good. 

We went on splits this week and my companion had an appointment with Chanel and he said that he has prayed and felt like he wasn’t ready for baptism. He didn’t come to church and hasn’t been reading his scriptures, so that is probably wise. The next time we meet with him I am going to help him realize why he is not ready – it is because he isn’t keeping his commitments and he didn’t come to church last Sunday and he probably is not reading the BoM everyday and doing the things we have asked him to day. If he isn’t doing those things when he prays for an answer he isn’t going to get an answer. We are going to try to help him put that into perspective and get a new baptismal date. We aren’t going to have any baptisms for this change, but it’s okay because we have a few that look really promising for next change. 

We found some new investigators this week that seem pretty promising. We have gotten our ward missionaries to start picking things up again. We had a few good meetings with them, then it kind of fell, and now it is starting to pick up again. We have been able to have mission correlation a couple of times. We had a our Noche Alborada and it was really good. J & C came and L & M came. They brought their kids as well. We had some less actives there. Elder Wimmer bought some piñatas and filled them with candy. We gave a little lesson. It ended up to be a lot of fun. We had three pinatas – after the first piñata broke, they all went crazy to get the candy, even the adults. They all just rushed to get the candy each time. 

We planned that one ourselves because the ward missionaries didn’t come, but we had ward correlation yesterday and we were able to get assignments out for the one this Thursday. People said they will bring friends and investigators, and that will be good. They also rearranged our ward boundaries so now we go to church at 10:00 instead of 2:00, so that will be way nicer than before. We are looking forward to that. 

 

Not a lot of other things happened this week, unfortunately. I feel bad because I keep saying in these recordings that things aren’t happening. It probably makes me sound lazy or like I am not working, but I promise we are doing everything we can. We reevaluate every day to see what we can do better. Lots of things have fallen through this week, but we are trying to build it back up. I am just hoping to be able to lift it back up. It’s the last week of the change here and I am hoping to leave the ward stronger than when I got here, or have one more change so that I can fix things here. 

That is my week. To finish I just want to send a big ol’ huge HAPPY FATHER’S DAY, Feliz dia papa to my sweet daddy. Happy Father’s day, Dad, yesterday, hope it was good, love your buns, you are my hero, and I want to be just like you in every way. 

Also, I want to send a birthday shout out to Hilary and to her baby boy, Legend, this week. Hope they were good and that there was lots of candy. Give Legend a whole bunch of candy and soda and stuff that he isn’t supposed to have and tell him it is from me because I am the cool uncle.

That’s about it. I love you all. Hope all is going well.

Until next time . . .

6-22-2015 (email)

I sent a recording with pretty much everything from this week. It's been a hard week for sure. One of the worst so far to be honest. Everything seems to have kind of fallen apart. Chanel's not getting baptized, we've lost less actives and it seems that all of our appointments just fall through and we spend the whole day walking.

This Saturday was probably the saddest day of my entire mission so far. I think I've mentioned before a less active named V. Well, this week we stopped by to talk to her and tell her that we weren't going to come back as often unless she started keeping her commitments, but ended up getting the same thing from her. She's moving out of Alborada boundaries and we won't be able to visit her anymore. She seemed like she'd finally hit the bottom. She hasn't been keeping her commitments and even told us that she doesn't feel any remorse for her sins anymore and doesn't feel the spirit. She only reads/prays/whatever when we do it with her, and the next time she does anything is when we come back. It seemed that any light she had has been taken away. I told her that she's not happy, and she agreed. I told her with tears in my eyes that for five months now we've told her the things that will make her happy and they will never change. She's never done any of them. Elder Wimmer and I both cried during that lesson because we knew that when she left she wasn't going to do those things. It was so heartbreaking to see her just reject so many blessings that were within her reach. It also seemed like she didn't care about us anymore. She used to tell us that we were the best missionaries ever and that she had no idea what she was going to do when we were gone, and on Saturday she didn't even act like she was going to miss us, and even tried to "correct" our missionary work. It was so sad. My heart just hurts for her. Seeing her reject those blessings and knowing that she might be lost was worse than being homesick, physically sick, having a companion that won't talk to me, or whatever else. I know that I did what I could and that she has agency, but I still feel a sense of failure. I feel like on top of that I've let Alborada down. I don't want to get a change knowing that things are how they are. This is the last week. I'll find out on Monday if I'm staying or not.

That's about all for this week. The rest is on the recording. Even though this week was very trying, in a strange way it was a huge testimony builder for me, because I know what she's losing. It's sad, but it helped me know that the things that I'm doing are right, and that if I do what I'M supposed to, I'll be saved. The Church is true, I know it with all my heart. I love you all. READ THE SCRIPTURES!

Love,

Elder Tate

6-15-2015

I've been forgetting my weekly movie quote. I've really dropped the ball on that one.

I got your package today mom, and all I can say is WOW. You spoil me too much. I'm going to try really hard not to eat all the treats in one week. Thank you so much!

I'm sorry if I sounded down last week. I've had a few trying experiences that brought me kind of low but I'm fighting my way back up and nothing will stop me. I'm not the same whiney little bum that I was when I started in Andahuaylas. I know how to trust God and be patient. Just like that quote you sent me, bad days end, God comes through, he never hasn't. 

I don't usually say much about President H. because I don't hear from him too often. Just at multi-zone conferences and interviews every other change. He and Sister H. really are the coolest. They are both so smart and seem to almost command the spirit. I love hearing them speak in zone conferences. They know very well when to be hard to get us to fix things and when to be loving to motivate us. In the last conference we had a few months back President brought up a lot of issues in the mission and then said, "If the shoe fits, wear it. If not, don't worry about it." I especially love the comments that Sister Harbertson has. She is so darn smart and always brings the spirit. I talked with President about some of the things that were bothering me in my interview with him last week and he said all that I needed to hear. 

This week was really slow because they had a protest and everything closed and traffic stopped and we couldn't find a single person. It lasted from Tuesday to Thursday so we didn't get a lot done. I sent a recording with a little more on that.

Things are great here in Alborada. The ward missionaries are getting more excited to work and we've been doing lots of less active visits with the hopes to see fruits from that. We're rebuilding the ward little by little, as well as improving ourselves and becoming the men that God wants us to be little by little. We're strengthening the recent converts and hope to strengthen the current members little by little. The small and simple things are the things that will bring the strongest changes. I've learned that my ministry as a representative of Christ does not end after two years, nor will it end with my death. It will last forever.  Mom, Dad, everyone, do me a favor please. Visit those who need to be strengthened. Visit those who are falling away. Please help them feel like someone cares, like they're wanted. All they need is a friend that loves them but that can speak with them boldly. Please do that.

The church is true! I love you all and hope the best for you. Enjoy the camping trip. Remember that We're all soldiers in God's army. We are all called to serve. This is the greatest work that we can be doing, and it will never end. It's never too late to start. It's all true.

Love,

Elder Tate