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