¿Cómo están a todos?

Glad to hear you all had an awesome time on the cruise! I told you mom that you should have worn sun screen hahaha. now you cant yell at james when he never puts sunscreen on and gets fried haha. Im sure you all REALLY enjoyed that 12 hour drive from Cali. I nearly forgot how big the US is. Its about a 12 or 14 hour drive from here in Piura (the far north) to Lima (almost the far south) Peru is tiny compared to theStates. I love the pics you all sent haha. First off, Joel is wack. Im not sure which is worse, that bathing suit picture or his dirty stache that hes got hahaha. Did he grow that just for the trip to Mexico? hahaha classic. Sounds like you all did tons of fun stuff though. Was it all included in the cruise or did you have to pay extra? we are DEFINITELY going on a cruise when i get back ;) haha.

Well this week here in Peru has been pretty good. We went out and worked as usual and its been a little difficult to enter into houses lately as weve been knocking doors. But on the plus side we were able to have Manuel and his daughter attend church along with another family of 4. When we met the family, the mom and dad were living seperatly and werent married. They had tons of problems and we have been working really hard with them to help them have love and harmony in their home and its  been a miracle to see how they have changed. I remember the first time we talked to them both together they were constantly fighting and bickering, "he does this" and "she does that"! It was horrible . But we have worked with them and  encouraged them to read the" proclamation to the world" which is probably the greatest thing ever for the familes, ever since when we go to visit them they still had problems but instead  of arguing about it they have been laughing it off. Way cool to see.  They even came to church without us going to get them, so im pumped to see how they progress! Other than that the work goes on. As you can see in the pictures we had a service project this week. One of the  brothers in the ward lives out in the "country" and someone set his land on fire! so we went out and cleared all of the burned branches and such from his land. It was awesome...lots of mosquitos but really rewarding.

Thanks for trying to get me glasses for Elder Cañete mama. You tried and thats what counts :) youre the best :)

Glad to hear everything went well on the cruise. That pic of mom and dad is awesome! its crazy to think that the ship is really that big inside! i wanna go! haha but it really is true that everything is going smoothly here in Peru, my companion is from a cold  place and so the heat of Piura is getting to him and hes sweating a ton so hes got a little B.O. but i took one for the team and gave him my deodorant that you all sent me. Man i love that stuff, but i had to show him a little love and i know that it will pay off when the room  doesnt smell so bad ;) hahaha, dont worry, i hadnt used the deodorant, it was still closed when i gave it to him ;) hahaha

Thanks for all of the support that you always send my way. I couldnt do it without you!

Hasta la próxima semana!

Love,
Elder Woodburn

Do You Love Me?

Family, DO YOU LOVE ME?!

Oh man, Jeffery R Holland is the best. This weekend was honestly one
of the best weekends ive ever had in my life. It had a few different
factors that added to it but the main reason was conference. But i
will start off explaining that the investigator that i told you all
about, Manuel, is doing great. We went to go teach him this week
after having a week and a half of not seeing him, and we straight asked
him, Do you believe that the restored gospel is found in this church?
and he said, and i quote "I KNOW that the restored gospel is found in
the church of jesus christ, i KNOW that the book of mormon is true, I
KNOW that Joseph Smith was ordained by God, and I KNOW that this
church is true." I was honestly stunned. I sat there for a few seconds
with a huge smile on my face so happy and so stunned by the power of
his testimony and the spirit that it brought that i didnt know what to
say. I then asked him if he wanted to be baptized into this church and
he said yes. I honestly cant explain to you all how "chosen" this
brother is. He was prepared by God. We have done nothing differently
with him than with other investigators. He has been prepared to accept
this gospel. Then he was able to go to the Sunday morning and
afternoon sessions and afterwards i asked him what he thought, he said
"I know exactly what i need to do now, i need to take the next step
and follow the teachings of God" He explained that he had always been
searching for a church where EVERYONE taught the same true principles
and that he hadnt found it until now. he said " I listened to the
missionaries and knew what they taught was true, but now i have
listened to the prophet himself, the leader, and his teachings are the
exact same. This is the true church." I cant explain how amazing this
weekend has been in strengthening my testimony. There is no fault in
this church. It is lead by God! I know it and it has given me such a
greater desire to share it with everyone! I strongly encourage
everyone to watch conference, there is honeslty nothing in the whole
world that compares to it. I loved Elder nelsons talk and i came to
the realization, that  an apostle of Jesus Christ has so much confidence in
us that he is referring everyone to us in hope that we can help them.
That gave me a kick in the butt to be better. haha We were able to
watch the saturday afternoon session and priesthood session in english and the rest
in spanish. I understand it all in either language, but what i miss is hearing
their voices. When Elder Holland raised his voice and said "DO YOU LOVE ME?"
all it says is" me amas" in Spanish. Not the same at all, but he was
speaking so loudly i could still hear his voice in the background
haha!! . Everyone here started freaking out when they announced the new
temple to be built here in Peru and the change in themissionary ages. It was funny though because we were watching by internet and the quality wasnt great. So we heard the
announcement of the young men lowering the age to 18 which was awesome
and then we heard President Monson say "and we are now going to lower
the age of the young woman to ----" and then it skipped and we didnt
hear it! haha everyone was really mad about that. so we didnt know
until Elder Nelson came on and said it was 19 later on in the talk.
Exciting!

This week wasnt all that successful, we didnt have a ton of lessons
and in fact we were rejected quite a bit, but my testimony is stronger
now than ever before because of conference. What a blessing.


Thanks for everything! I love you all.

Elder Woodburn

HolaFamilia!!

Hola Familia!

Okay im just gonna start off by asking....what in the world happened  to Holly's hair? hahaha she got messed up! that might be cause for a lawsuit? hahaha thats what ya get for messin with your hair ;) better off  just leaving it normal :) Haha but other than that i gotta warn you   that this letter is gonna be a little bit short this week because i spent a little bit of time helping my companion find the right web pages to write president and all that good stuff. Sorry! ;)

So only a few more days till we go on the cruise right? yay! ill be   ure to pack up my bathing suit and all that good stuff...oh wait....hahaha hey at least James and Holly are suffering my pain too  right? ;)haha no im just kidding. I hope ya all have fun, take lots of pictures and be sure to talk to all the latinos so that they can make  fun of you for being white...or at least thats what happens with my
down here. :s

Im definitiely pumped for conference this weekend. Nothing quite like it, especially for a missionary. I have the hope that we will be able to put it in english with the other missionaries but we will have to
wait and see. you'll defintiely have to record it and watch it when you get back. There is nothing like listening to the prophet. Oh and be sure to send an ensign with the talks in engligh thaaaaanks :)

Well well well, Its been a tiring week here in Catacaos. Tuesday we went to transfers and i picked up my new companion, Elder Zevallos. Hes from Peru, from a department called Junin. Hes 19 years old and was born in the church. Hes a pretty chill guy and unfortunately i forgot to take a picture with him to send home so youll have to wait to see him till the next week haha. But this week has been tirng because the work is a little bit different with a new missionary. Now i know how Elder Lopez felt when he was training me. Even though Elder Zevallos is fluent in spanish, he is a little bit timid in the lessons  and doesnt talk a whole lot. To be honest the whole first day was basically me teaching by myself which wore me out a ton. But as of late ive been able to draw him out of his shell a little bit and get him to talk. Hes got a great testimony but is just a little bit nervous at times which is normal and i understand that, i just keep telling him that it will come with time. I definitley want to thank
you all for your prayers that youve been sending my way, they have really helped. Im just lucky to have gotten such a great companion. He may not know everything about the scriptures but he came ready to work  and now i can set the tone on how we work and what we do so its a lot more satisfying for me :) Chances are that we will be together for the next two transfers, or 12 weeks. Sometimes they change the trainer but it doesnt happen too often so well have to wait and see. If I do stay
here until he ends his training, itll be until the 17th of December :s    6 months in Catacaos! lol


Tell dad hes funny and i ask him comos das too ;) haha thanks for all the love and prayers and we will definitely have to go to the ogden temple rededication when i get back because ive never seen one either. nice work with that sandwhich! hahaha youll have to make me one when i get back! good luck!

Tell james i love that scripture, its the one that i had the ward put on my missionary plaque. Keep doing work bro, Love ya.

Tell Meg that she cracks me up! I smell like a man! dont worry, we  have water now ;) but my new comp doesnt like to shower cuz the water  is so cold so...he smells a little fresh ;) Meg, your cake was
delicious! thanks a ton ;) and i hope you understood the secret message i left on the sign! "you smell like pea soup!" hehe Love ya
tons Meg!

Mom, I love you thanks for everything you do. I couldn't do this without all the love  and support that I get from home. You all are the best. Im definitely thankful for all of the love you always send my way, it would definitely be awesome if you could all send it my companions way too because im sure that right about now he is a little bit sad even if he doesnt necessarity show it.

Love you all tons,
Elder Woodburn

Transfers!

 

A note from Mom... I have to preface this post by saying that last week he wrote home and told us about how they haven't had running water in their apartment very often over the last several weeks.  He went on to talk about how he has had to "bath" with the baby wipes that we sent him in a recent package.  In our email this week we made a reference about him being "the smelly kid in class" a funny line from one of Tyler's favorite movies  BIG DADDY...........
____________________________________________________________________________________

Hola Familia mia!

Yeah yeah yeah....I know i know...im the smelly kid in class. Last
night we had to go over to the other elders room to take a shower
because we still didnt have any water...haha We talked to the lady and
hopefully she gets on it because its really annoying.

But anywho, ive got a little bit of news for you all and also a
hilarious story of what happened this week, but first be sure to send
Jake Giantkid Miller a message for me on Facebook and tell him thanks
for the love and that im proud of him for going out and playing
football that Eastern. Very cool seeing him with the eastern gear.
Hopefully hes tearin' it up. But first up is the news about transfers.
So Saturday the Zone leaders called us and told me that i needed to go
to the mission home this morning at 8 30 to meet with
president....haha i wasnt quite sure what that was going to mean but i
went this morning and it turns out that....they are going to have me
train a new missionary! pretty exciting. Im not really sure what to
expect but normally there are at least 10 missionaries that come at
the same time but this time there are only 2 missionaries coming, my
new companion, and a sister missionary. haha So tomorrow ill be able
to meet him and we will start up the training and companionship.
Luckily i dont have to know a whole lot to train, just show him how to
work. haha All i know is that he is from Peru and hopefully all goes
well! wish me luck!

But the other story is that this week we were walking in our area,
Elder Garcia and i and there is this main road that goes through our
area called the panamerican highway. It goes all the way down to Lima
i think, but anyways, we were walking along this highway when all of a
sudden this guy comes flying by us on one of those motos, like the
picture i sent you, he was standing up on the back and he had a rope
in his hand. all we heard him yell was "stop stop" to the guy that was
driving. We were really confused at what was going on until we saw a
big bull come running up behind him and almost flipped the
moto....hahaha it just went barreling down the road and then they went
off and chased it down. They ended up catching it and getting it into
the back of a truck, but it was one of the most hilarious things ive
ever see to see a "peruvian cowboy", some guy riding on the back of a
moto with his rope. classic.

Probably the best part of the week was when Elder Waddell from the 70
came to talk to us all. I cant really do it much justice explaining it
by email but it was awesome. He talked a lot about the importance of
the mission for us and how we need to take advantage of it. One phrase
that he said that has stuck with me was "saber y no hacer condena,
Saber y hacer, Exalta" which translates into "knowing and not doing

condems, but knowing and doing exhalts". It sounds way cooler in

spanish trust me, but it helped me understand the importance of

obedience not just in the mission but in our lives as well.

Other than that not a whole lot going on. Weve had a little bit of
trouble with the investigators that dont want to come to church lately

which has been tough, but yesterday we met  one brother that has truely
been chosen by God, he is super intelligent and has been looking for

this Gospel his whole life. He finally was able to come to church and
loved it so hopefully we can keep progressing with him.

oh ya, I love Hymn CD you all sent! One day i put it on and put it
to random as i was getting ready in the morning. Then all of a sudden
number 10 came on. I was sitting there listening to it thinking "what
hymn is this? i know ive heard it before" but i couldnt recognize it.
But then all of a sudden the other part of the song started and
immediately i recognized viva la vida! haha then i realized that it
was Love story and Viva la vida piano mix. So funny but such a great
song. Thank you very much :)
 

Well thats all from Peru, Thanks for all the love and help that you
always send. I just wanna ask you all one thing for this week. Pray a
lot for me and my companion. Its gonna be tough for the both of us
adjusting and i wanna be a good trainer for him!
until next week!

Love,
Elder Woodburn

A few pics...

We are on the countdown now! 11 months and counting!  He hit his one year mark last month and its all down hill from here. He will be home before we all know it!   He is doing great and loving Peru and the people he has met along the way.  He is learning and growing and it is wonderful to see that in his letters home.   Thanks to everyone who reads his blog and for all the love and support you have all shown Tyler over the past year.  A special thanks to Alli Yost for working so hard and keeping the Blog up to date.   Here are a few pics that he sent home last week.  Enjoy!

Hola Familia!

So ive got bad news, good news, and even better news....well start
with the bad news okay? So the bad news is that there is this rule in
the mission handbook that says "bathe yourself everyday" seems
reasonable right? well....Ive been struggling a little bit with that
rule hahaha.   For about the last 5 weeks there has been water in our
room sometimes and sometimes not...so...its been a struggle to find
time when we can take a shower.   Normally its wake up and shower, but
lately its been wake up and see if theres any water...so its always a
nice suprise in the morning :) But that brings me to the good news,
you remember those cleaning wipes that you sent to me in a couple
packages? yeah well those have come in real handy ;) haha in place of
taking a shower, its been me bathing with baby wipes....hahaha I love
the mission. But that brings me to the even better news! Yesterday the
zone leaders delivered me....2 packages!!!!! yay! oh man it was
awesome. one from the family and one from Allison. Thank you to all.
youre the best. I especially love the CDs you all sent. Those are life
savers and full of awesome music. job well done :) tell james thank
you very very much. The sweets always help out but dont worry ill be
sure to share with everyone else.

Sounds like everyone is having lots of fun and taking advantage. Wish
Grandpa a Happy 60th! I thought he was at least 75 ;) hahaha Love ya
Grandpa!

Today was a pretty exausting day. We went out to the fields where
they grow their crops and took lots of pictures. We also went to a
pretty cool museum where they had a lot of cool stuff to see. I hope
you all like the pics. Its kinda hard to explain but ill have to
explain when i get back home haha. This week was a little bit tough.
Coming into the week we had two baptisms that were "for sure" and one
for next sunday that was also "for sure"....youd think that by now i
would have realized that there is nothing "for sure" in the mission
let alone in Peru...at the end of this week we have 2 investigators
with whom we have lost contact and another that has a problem with the
law of chastity. I got pretty discouraged after that but i managed to
get myself to keep working which helped a lot. All in all next week is
transfers so well have to see how it goes. Im pretty sure that Elder
Garcia will be getting out of here because he has 6 months here in
catacaos. Ill let ya know!


Not much time to write becaue i was writing the pres about the BYU  applicatoin but,

Love you all tons. Thanks for all that you do for me and the love you
send. Especailly all the work and money that go into those packages.
Youre the best! Until the next time!

Love,
Elder Woodburn

Whats new from Peru?

Hola a todos!

This week went well enough here in Peru. The most exciting part was
definitiely this morning though. We were in our room and i was writing
letters home. It was Elder Garcias turn to sweep so he moved the bed
and BOOM! there was a bat on the ground. haha Its funny because last
night i woke up in the middle of the night and could hear a bat making
noise. I wasnt sure where it was and it crossed my mind "is that thing
in our room?" but in the end i just thought "eh oh well" and went back
to bed. haha little did i know that it really was in our room and that
it was sleeping under our bed. Dont worry, it was just a baby and no
body got bit. phew. Oh another cool thing that im sure will scare mom
is that the other day at about 5 45 in the morning there was a nice
little earthquake here in Piura. it was probably like a 3 or so. so
nothing much but still cool. From what everyone else has told us there
have been quite a few earthquakes in Certral America Lately? pretty
scary stuff.

Haha i love the story about pops. Someone ask him for me if hes still
"king"? haha Oh so this last friday we had a big family home evening
in the house of a member and invited like 10 familes to come. So we
had a little message and played games and ate cake. But then Peru was
playing against Venezuela and if Peru lost they would be eliminated
from world cup contention so they started to watch the game. They were
all really interested up until Venezuela scored a goal and everyone
went home...haha classic. But then we went to our pensionista and ate
dinner too. We were walking back to our room and all we heard was
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
GGGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL"
haha apparently Peru scored two goals and ended up winning the match.
the people were going nuts and ran out into the streets to honk the
horns on their cars and motos haha. the next day everyone was
defiitley much more happy. But now they play against Argentina on
Tuesday and Messi who is the best player in the world so....im sure
itll be short lived haha.

Oh and one more thing. Instead of putting Elder Stephensons name on
packages now, from now until the end of the mission you should put
Chad Alvin Rowley. Thanks!

Well thats all from here in Peru this week. We should have a couple
baptisms this next Sunday from that really awesome family that we are
teaching. Lots of prayers! haha. Love you all tons and thanks for the
constant support!

Hasta la próxima

Love,
Elder Woodburn

Hola Hola Hola

How is everyone doing? It was a pretty good week here in Catacaos, It
seemed to go by pretty quickly. We spent most all of our time working
as usual, knocking lots of doors and getting rejected a lot. Good
times good times. Then Sunday we had stake conference here in
Castilla. It was pretty good. The coolest part though was being able
to see a bunch of members and converts from La Union when they came to
stake conference. It was great to see some of the converts making the
hour long trip out to the stake center with all the members. The best
was seeing "la hermana meche". haha she was our pensionista in La
Union and probably the best pensionista in the whole mission. Shes way
funny and nice and today we also went to La Union as a zone, all 26
missionaries to play games and play soccer. But she made us lunch so
that was waaay delicious and she promised to make me some tacos and
send them to me through the other elders! hahaha.

This week weve been working with a really great family. Its a single
mom and her two kids and they are really excited to be baptized in the
church. We knocked on their door one day and taught her a little bit
about the church and she ended up asking us what it is that she needs
to do to be baptized in the church before the end of the first lesson.
She is definitely one of those that are prepared by Heavenly Father.
It has been great to see her progress and also the growth of her son.
Homefully they will be getting baptized the 16th of September! her
name is Marianela and her kids are Christhian and Suli. haha love her
name :)

Dont worry about me. Its always difficult being with a companion all
day every day especially when your personalities dont exactly mix
perfectly, but thats part of the fun right? making it work. So thats
what im gonna keep doing, making it work and trying to love him like i
would the best of companions haha. Im nice and settled in now and this
week i came to the resolution that its time to put in the extra mile
and go to work even harder so thats what im gonna work towards now.

Thanks for the constant love and support as always. The heat is coming
back here in Peru and chances are ill get sent back to Tumbes where
its hottest of all! haha jk jk. Im actually so used to the heat that
in the mornings its about 65 degrees or so and im so cold that i study
with my blanket....im gonnna die when i get back to Utah for winter.
haha. Love you all tons! Take care until the next week!

Love
Elder Woodburn

Un año atras, un año mas!

Hola todos!

How have you all been? this week has gone pretty well. Success and
frustrations like all the other weeks. Little by little im learning to
appreciate the succeses and forget about the frustration. Lucily i
have one more year left to get it all down. I really hope i can take
advantage of it.

So like you said, this week was the one year mark here in the mission!
It was a pretty normal day, we just had our weekly planning and went
out to teach. But then after dinner i was sure to get a little shirt
burning in since i missed out on burning the tie ;) haha I had my
shirt all ready, and i hope you can see it in the pictures. I wrote the names of
all of my companions from the MTC to Elder Garcia, i wrote all of my
areas, I wrote the name of my group from when i arrived, just a whole
bunch of stuff. And then on the back i wrote "mi primer añito" which
is kinda an inside joke here because people always throw huge
birthdays here for their 2 year old kids and make giant signs that say
"mi primer añito" (my very first year). Just trust me...its funny ;)
I sent a bunch of pics but youll
have to wait to see the video when i get home...its all in spanish so
i dont think youll understand much anyways haha.

But lets see, other than that Elder Penney and I were invited to a
middle school here in Catacaos to be judges for a english speaking and
spellling Bee contest. It was actually pretty cool. We were the only
two white
people there but that was pretty normal. It was just funny because it
was a spelling bee and it was actually pretty obvious that they had
given the kids a list of words to memorize and they had memorized them
exactly as they were on the paper. some of the older kids had words
that had like 15 letters that even i couldnt spell, but they were able
to spell them in 3 seconds flat because they had them memorized. The
best part is that they couldn't  speak a lick of english otherwise. I
It was funny and overall it was a pretty cool experience and a good
chance to help out with the
community a little.

Well thats all for this week. We spent the morning helping out with a
baptism of an 8 year old member even though it wasnt a convert
baptism. Was a little frustrating because we wanted to be taking
advantage of p day but thats okay. At least it all went well and its
time to play soccer in the afternoon! The work goes on. we found a
really great family that has tons of intrest. Il love this work and i
love you all.

Hasta la proxima semana

Love
Elder Woodburn

It's almost my birthday!

Hola familia mia!

It was a good week here in Catacaos. Elder Garcia and i were able to
re focus ourselves and get back to work knocking  on doors and being more
diligent. We have a few investigators now that look like they will
progress towards baptism but we will have to help them overcome a few
obstacles that are in their way . We are gonna need a lot of help but
i have no doubt that it can be done.

So a funny story from this week. We were teaching this family about
the word of wisdom and we went around the table asking if they had a
problem with any of the things and the parents said that they drink (
which is normal here, everyone does) but then we get to the 11 year
old son and we ask him if he smokes?" no." Drugs? "no". drinks? "only a
little bit". We were just like what?!    The best part was that his dad
said, "only sometimes, only when hes hurt and drinks for the pain or
when hes thirsty and there isnt any water around" hahahaha that last
one was my favorite, "only when hes thirsty". classic. I love Piura
Peru!!!! :D

So one year coming this week! Pretty cool. I think im gonna try and
burn a shirt for the one year mark considering i forgot to burn a tie
for the 6 month mark haha. Its definitely gonna be a missionary mall
shirt cuz i dont like them as much as the stafford ones haha. only
problem is that i have exactly the perfect amount of shirts, so im
gonna have to go shopping for another one afterwards ;)

Somebody eat a hamburger for me on Friday ;)

Love you all tons!

Love Elder Woodburn

Cambios

Well the zone leaders called this morning and.....everyone here in
Catacaos is staying right where they are for 6 more weeks. haha Elder
Garcia spent the last week or some saying goodbye to all of the
investigators and members here and now hell be able to say hi to them
again starting tomorrow haha. At the end of this change hell have 6
months here in Catacaos which is a pretty long time, but that was
pretty funny to see their faces when they told us. It should be
interesting to see how it goes this next change. Because he had
already been here so long before the transfer, this last week he didnt
have much desire to work...6 more weeks now so hopefully we can get it
back into gear and start knocking doors, he says hes knocked all the
doors in the area so he doesnt want to anymore but thats not how it
works so well see how it goes! wish me luck! (oh and one more thing,
in spanish there isnt a word for transfers so we use the word cambios
or changes. so if i ever say changes or a change i mean to say
transfers, im just used to it in spanish and i translate it in my
head. Sorry!)

So the next Bourne movie came out huh....well....i had no idea that
there was gonnna be another movie...i thought they had ended the
series....so uh...that was a little bit of a stab in the heart ;) haha
but thats okay...ill live, just have it ready for me when i get home
;)

Im glad everyone liked the video of the trompos it was a lot of fun
making it. Better than doing nothing all P day. it took like 20 shots
to make it because im still a rookie ;) oh but funny story, so this
week we had a talent show and us ( the missionaries) did a nice skit,
we had them announce that the missionaries were going to dance for
everyone! so we went up on stage with our backs to the crowd (the 4 of
us) and they started playing really loud hip hop music and everyone
started clapping. we counted to 3 and turned around holding signs that
said Los misioneros no bailan ( missionaries dont dance) and then
walked off the stage. It got a good laugh out of everyone because they
all thought we were going to see something unforgettable. haha

Thank you all tons for all the love from home! You all definitiely
sent a ton this week. I spent a lot of my hour today searching for my
password and Eaglenet ID, which was a waste of time :( so idk if ill
be able to respond to everyone one by one! sorry!
Trev Kandi y los niños!
hey! how are you all doing?! I love the part you wrote trev about the
smells of tiajuana. Its so true so true...haha By now ive basically
gotten used to it...until i walk past the many random piles of garbage
or a dead animal....oh well. Im glad you understand it. haha im gonna
take your advice to heart. this is my time to learn all that i can.
There isnt going to be any other time in my life when i can dedicate
my life to helping others and in turn, help myself. thanks for giving
me the heads up and telling me what no one ever told you! thats so
awesome that they are into dirtbikes now! did you get one too then?
cuz if thats the case then im gonna have to come visit and take em
out. Did my mom tell you that ive decided im getting a motorcycle when
i get back? youll ahve to back me up on that one and tell her its a
good idea! haha. Miss you all tons. I cant wait to get back and see
how big the boys are and hear all of the stories from your mission
too. Cant believe i never asked! Say hi to Kandi and the Kids for me!
love you all tons!

Sorry there isnt time to say hi to everyone! but i love you all tons
and i feel the love!

Hasta la proxima

Love Elder Woodburn

¡Bala Humana!

Hola Familia!

Bala Humana! That was the headline of one of the newspapers i saw as i
passed the newspaper stand this morning...Human Bullet! It also had a
nice big picture of Usain Bolt on there so im assuming that he won the
100 meters...am i right in also assuming that he broke his own record
again? youll have to let me know about that :) Im really missing out
on the olympics huh? well im sure itll be even better when im back in
4 years. I dont hear a ton about it here because Peru is pretty
terrible. They said that when they did the entrance the USA was on the
screen for like 5 minutes with all of the people competting and then
when Peru came up they didnt even have time to read the countries name
before they went to the next country because almost no one went. haha.
Oh well.

Sounds like you all had a good time in Montana. How many times did you
go out on the lake? cuz i can already see the sun burns that you guys
have in the pictures haha. Good to see pops and grandpops out on the
tube. I bet that was a good laugh ;) I see Josh is just one of the
family now huh? haha someone let him (Josh) know that i still havent
given away that Book of Mormon yet, I can write a heartfelt testimony
in Spanish, but i wanna make sure its someone that is going to treat
the book good.

Ive been thinking about what i want to study and i still havent
decided for sure but i think i wanna go into dentistry or
orthodontics. Ill have to think about it some more and pray a lot ;)
let me know what you think. thanks for finishing with the CDs! cant
wait to hear em. As for anything else that i need? hmmm...i can never
think of anything when you ask :s sorry! oh wait, a few weeks ago i
was gonna ask but forgot, idk if you could send me another journal
like the one that Alli bought me? or if thats not possible i think
there are also looseleaf ones that would be a little bit easier to
send. I just would like one of the same type because if im gonna keep
it forever i dont want it in a dragon ball z notebook (which is all
they have here ;)) Thanks!

This week has been going well here in Catacoas, nothing too out of the
normal, this is the last week of the change so next Monday well see
whos going where and whos staying. Elder Garcia has been here 41/2
months so theres a chance that he goes, but we will have to wait and

see!

I didnt have enough time last week to tell you thanks for that awesome

bit  of counsel you sent! :) Looking ahead, i can definitiely see it
happening, Ive been enveloped in this world and it feels like the
normal now. There are times where i forget how dirty it is, how no one is
married yet living together, how irreverent sacrament meeting is, or

 how no one wants to listen, but looking ahead, i KNOW that i
am going to miss it so much. Im going to take that cousel to heart.
This is the time when i should take full advantage of it. Im not sure
why but ive been thinking a lot this week about what you told me and i
feel like i have a better outlook on the next year here in the
mission. Its just work, thats all it is. Work and love. As long as im
willing to have both, its really isnt hard. I love this work so much.
I know that its true. 

Love you all tons! Until next week!

Love,
Elder Woodburn

¡Feliz 28 de Julio!

Happy 28th of July! haha the 28th here in Peru was their "independence
day". It was actually pretty cool, that was part of the reason that
there were parades and such here but tons of people put flags up
outside of their houses so it looked pretty cool walking down the
street with flags all over. As for the actual
holiday?....welll....lets just say i wasnt too thrilled. Its actually
really funny because it says in our mission manuals that weekends and
holidays are when we should do most of our tracting because "everyone"
is together as families. which i suppose is pretty true...in the
united states....haha we always talk about how that manual was written
for missionaries in the US because a lot of it doesnt apply here. for
example....weekends and holidays? no one is in their house. haha ive
already told you all about this before but they all just go out and
drink. so that was a fun day of tracting...not a ton of success. There
was a nice little experience that came of it though, a reassurance you
could call it. There was this one guy we had taught once and then we
had an appointment to come back later in the week, but Elder Garcia
got sick so we werent able to make it, we went back the 28th and he
was there. Sadly he told us that he was waiting for us and that we
didnt come. And that he really didnt have much time to talk. He said
that he told his wife about it and that she didnt want ANYTHING to do
with it. Not gonna lie, i was a little frustrated. But instead of just
saying yeah thanks and walking away like i really wanted to do, i
asked if there was anything we could help him with. Im not sure why
but that really opened up his eyes and he told us that he had heard
that the church always lends a helping hand to others. In the end he
said that there was nothing we could do for his and that he wasnt
interested and so we ended up just leaving. the really cool/weird
thing is that the next day during sacrament meeting, he showed up and
told us that he had talked to his wife, and that we could come and
visit them this wednesday night. It was completely and utterly
unexpected, but totally a blessing. It imediately brought to mind a
scripture in Alma 16:16 where it talks about how the Lord ALWAYS is
preparing people to hear this. Who knows what will come of this guy
and his family, but im excited to be able to help him out, he must
have felt something.

But anywho, so this week we had the opportunity to baptize a young
woman named Tatiana. Shes 14 years old and her mom was already a
member. She is really smart and understood everything that we taught
her, we were just a litle bit worried about whether or not she really
wanted to be baptized because she knew it was the right thing to do or
for her friends. We ended up working it all out fine and she was
baptized Sunday after church. It was actually pretty funny, she told
me her name before hand, and the thing is that here they have multiple
names, mostly 4 names, so she told me that she had 3 names, one first
name, and 2 last names. So i said the prayer and baptized her using 3
names. Then after wards Elder Penney told me that she had 2 first
names. The REALLY weird part was that she didnt want me to say that
name? I was like okay we are gonna have to do it again okay? and she
was like...no no no no. haha in the end i just said the prayer and did
it again. I hope you catch the funniness of that ;) i guess you had to
be there ;)

So yeah ive been seeing the Olympics all over the place here and its
been trunking me out of my mind....haha jk jk, but really i wanna
watch them really bad. Youll have to keep me updated on how the states
are doing.

So its gotten really really hot up there then huh? its actually been
really weird here. Its gotten down into the upper 60s which has been
nice. Ive loved it. Basically when its cloudy it cools off and when
the sun comes out its a furnace. But the best part is that whenever it
gets down to 70 or so, the people bust out their winter clothes.
Legitimately their winter clothes, were talking full winter jackets,
hats, gloves. its like they think its 30 degrees down here. I get a
good laugh out of it everytime i see it. But i cant balame them i
guess, i get pretty cold even when its just 60 degrees. I guess ive
just gotten used to the heat.

bueno, me encanta la misión. no hay un sentimiento mayor de lo que
siento cuando estoy ayudando alguien. verdaderamente ayudandole a
alguein recibir la felicidad. Esta es la iglesia del Señor. no hay una
duda. deben seguir firmes en lo que creen, en lo que saben, porque
cuando yo regrese del Peru, vamos a hacer una fiesta!!! haha

Well i love you all. thank you so much for all that you do for me. I
know that there isnt much that i can do from way down here in Peru but
if there ever is anything, let me know.

Stay strong until the next week!!!

Love,
Elder Woodburn

Greetings from Peru

Hello everyone!

This week went fairly well here in Catacaos, the only problem is that
it seems like we have spent more time in Piura and in the office than
we have in our area. We had to go to the hospital two more times this
week so that Elder Garcia could get his stomach checked up again. It
turns out that he had a little parasite still so its a good thing that
we ended up going back again. But it was not very fun for the fact
that we had to waste two more days without getting to teach our
investigators. Kinda frustrating, but the good news is that he doesnt
have to go back for another month so we should be good to work from
here on out.

Wow that is terribly sad to hear about the guy that went crazy at the
batman premiere. I can tell it must have been terrible for everyone
there too because it managed to make news down here too for the last
few days. Ive heard like 3 different stories about someone going into
a bank and this and that so thank you for setting the story straight
mom, but now i think id rather not have known. I had no idea that
SEVENTY people were shot?! thats just sick. I cant understand what
would drive someone to do something like that. They will all be in my
prayers.

So this last friday the ward here had an awesome activity. They
invited everyone, members, less active, and investigators to the
church with their best meal. So we had it all set up for 6:30
(naturally everyone showed up at about 8) and everyone was invited to
bring their favorite or best meal that was native to peru. So we had a
ton of awesome food that the members brought and then we have 6
missionaries from different countries (USA, Nicaragua, El Salvador,
Hondurous, and Argentina) and so we each made something from our
country, except my companion because he didnt know what to make. now
im not entirely sure that Rice Krispy Treats are "native" to the
states, but they are delicious and easy to make, so  thats what i
made. ;) the activity actually went really REALLY well which was kinda
suprising because its hard to get things to work here but i loved it
and it was great for the investigators, plus i got to eat rice krispy
treats (eventhough they werent that great...but i blame the lack of
good marshmellows and original rice krispys ;)

Sounds like you all had a fun time out on the town! :)
thats something we will definitely have to do when i get back. I
forgot how much we just go out and eat on the weekend back home. Yum.
you all better appreciate it, Chineese, Italian, German, burgers,
pizza all in one place. Someone be sure to eat something for me ;) i
guess i cant complain too much though, last pday we went and got Pizza
hut too. I always feel like im spending so much money when i buy it
for 40 soles, but thats just the peruvian mind thinking, its really
only like 10-12 dollars :) but i think its time to stay away from the
pizza, im starting to get fat.

Oh and I got to say a nice talk in sacrament meeting yesterday! haha
it was a great joy. I feel like it went well...but at the same time,
who knows if anyone actually understood anything right? oh well, i
talked a little bit on missionary work and how there are lots of
different ways to do it, through service, example, or directly sharing
the gospel. But the most important thing is that we do it with love.
If we dont do it with love, theres no point in doing it at all ;)

Sorry no time!

Love you all tonnnnn!,

Hasta la proxima semana!

Love,
Elder Woodburn

Perú!!!

Hola todos!

Thats so cool that you and dad got to go and see President and Hermana
Chipman! I wasnt sure if you two would be able to make it there on
such short notice or if youd be able to find it but thats really cool
that you got to go and see them. I love that picture of dad and pres
Chipman too. Its pretty weird seeing him without his missionary
nametag. haha. Really weird to think that they are at home with all
their grandkids and just a short distance from where you are. But i
agree, President Rowley is a great man too. Tomorrow we actually have
interviews with him 1 on 1 so that should be a good chance to get to
talk to him a little bit. We will have to see how it goes.

This week has been pretty good. It had a lot of ups and downs to it.
One day was bad and the next good, then bad, then good. The bad days
drove me to my knees and prayer and that brought the good day along,
it was definitiely a rollar coaster but it helped to get back to the
basics. for a while there IIII was trying to teach the people instead
of letting THE SPIRIT teach them. Now it has helped me get back to
simply testifing of Jesus Christ, his Atonement, and letting the
spirit do the rest. because really the only way they are going to know
if its REALLY true is through the holy ghost. Overall id say i learned
a lot this week DUE to the tough week instead of IN SPITE of it.

Oh and one other thing, i havent gotten into my bank account in
forever but assuming Trevor is still giving me 150 dollars every month
and they are just sitting there, i think ive came to a decsion this
week. In one of the lessons where we were explaining tithing and other
offerings i was listening to my companion teach about it and i
realized how much i love this work and how important it is, and that
lead me to decide that i would rather give that 150 dollars every
month to the general church mission fund. Being down here with a lot
of latino companions i can see how much they wanna serve but they just
dont have the money AT ALL. So i would love it if Trev could either
donate it himself, considering it IS his money and therefore his right
to choose, or if he says its okay, you can take it from my account and
do it for me. It might sound a little bit crazy but the spirit spoke
to me that day and helped me to know that ive got more than i need and
that this work is going to progress with or without me...its just a
matter of how fast, so might as well help it along by helping others
right? the more missionaries the merrier!!!

Well Family and friends, I love you all tons and i thank you very much
for all of the support and love you send daily through prayer and
weekly through these emails and letters! This church is true. Theres
no doubt about it, and if there is, pray about it! ;) Love you all!
Until next week!

Love,
Elder Woodburn