8 March 10

Well there isn't too much to say that isn't in the recording (Coulson sends us voice mail message each week-Ed), but everything is going fine here in Urubamba. I just don't get too much sleep anymore cause we have to do a bunch of things for the zone almost every other day. And when Ane Marie (Coulson's Cousin) is here just have her give me a call in the morning (8 to 10) or at night (9: 30 to 10:30) and i'll set her up with what she should do and where she should drop it (a package from home-Ed) off. And i already told you about the chapel in the street called Tullumayo, she should be able to drop it off there Sunday at 10 am if she's here on Sunday.
And as to the earthquake there in Chile, it hasn't done anything here, cause they're still concentrating in the things that are going on in the Sacred Valley. Another town... se hundió... ummm... basically got washed away when one of the water reserves broke open. So they aren't thinking much in anything else.
But i'm pretty sure tha t almost no one died cause i haven't heard anything, so that's good.
And in two weeks we're gonna move out of the chapel house and into the real chapel that's still in construction. Anyways, thats all the big news and don't worry about the picture mom (from the last post, hanging from the bridge), i already told president all about it in my interview

28 Feb 10

Well just like i thought was gonna happen, i got put up to be Zone Leader of Valle Sagrado here in Urubamba. But what i really didn't expect is that i'm senor companion too. How weird is that? Normally you have someone to train you how to be a zone leader, but President put the two of us, me and Elder Vega as new zone leaders at the same time, so we just have to wing it.

And about my new companion Elder Vega. He's from Colombia, Bogota. He was is one of my zones before this and we worked in neighbor sectors, so i knew he pretty well before, but i figured because he has 6 more months in the mission than me that we would never be companions, but i just take this as proof that God loves to laugh.

And ya, that little hotel is owned by members, and they are currently the only members in the whole town. So that would be fine with me. (Coulson's Mom and Dad will probably stay there when retrieving Elder Huntington-Ed)

As to a fun story, we finished church and went to drop a few things off at the house, and then i felt the prompting to go and call one of the investigators from Cusco, so we went and gave her a call and she just happened to be getting to Urubamba in about 20 minutes, so we waited for her to go meet her family that aren't members. She said they lived in Pascar which is about 20 minutes away so we went with her. The thing we didn't know is that after getting off in Pascar we had to walk for two hours climbing up the side of a mountain and coming down on the other side (theres a few pictures of that)





So we didn't eat lunch yesterday and we got back to town about 7 hours after we. left. I felt horrible to have put so much time in just a few people, and to have missed out on our appointments, but at least she accepted a date to get baptized and we changed her from atheist to believe in God and put to rest a bunch of her doubts.
The only thing is that it'll be really hard for her to come to church cause she lives so far away. But ya, we'll see how that goes.

Anyways, less time for internet today cause we had to put in the numbers for the office, but know that i love you and that i'll have to work a lot harder now as a zone leader. Pray for me a lot. Love you guys!!

15 Feb 10

Well the Schellenbergs (new senior couple missinary-Ed) got here last Tuesday and they stole our cell phone, so we don’t have that anymore, but we have a land line that she (Anne Marie Hyer, Coulson's cousin who is on a humanitarian service adventure-Ed) can call, and from there in Cusco, the number is 201634. Just let her know that we’re only there in the mornings until 10 and from 9pm until 10:30. Wow, so when is she gonna come here to Peru? Cause Urubamba is just about an hour or a little bit more from Cusco on the way to Machu Picchu.

And about that thinking ahead stuff (BYU when her comes home-Ed), that would be great, I’d love to be able to room with people I already know, so if you can pull that off it’d be great (rooming with his cousin's). I’m not thinking too much about the future cause I always get lost thinking about everything I need to do right now. And about what we’ve been doing, we had that baptism last week, a baptism this week, a baptism that we’ll have on Saturday, and maybe 2 more this week. Its awesome here and now that the couple missionaries are here I think it’ll start to progress even faster.

Piper (Coulson's niece-Ed), of course I got the pictures,

Piper and Grandma


but I didn’t have my usb to download them and print them out, and I forgot the usb today too cause we had to come here to Chinchero. It’s a little pueblo about an hour from Urubamba and the first family just got baptized about two weeks ago. We’re gonna go there to eat after we finish up here so we can all meet them. Maybe if you guys want to come stay here you could consider staying at their hotel, its called La Casa de Barro, and I’m pretty sure they have their website you can look up.

And as to President Tyler, he’s great, really relaxed and ready to help us out in whatever we need. But I’m not sure for how much longer he’ll be my mission president because they just announced the opening of the missions Lima Oeste and Peru Cusco. Right now, I’d be part of the Cusco Mission and my president would be Wilson Calderon. But right now we still don’t know who is going where and what’ll happen. It’s an exciting time right now, and I’d send you an audio clip but this computer won’t accept it cause it’s a malcriado.



And that gmail thing the elders were talking about it almost true, but its still gonna be myldsmail.net, but it’ll be a subdivision of google, so we’ll have more memory, faster emails, fotos will upload faster and all that and it'll have the gmails features. And my new email address will be dale.huntington@myldsmail.net, so you gotta let everyone know that. Get on my facebook and put in my new email. And i know that you guys probably don't know how to do that, so tell Becca to do it, and i think my passwords are save of the computer, just need to look up the document.

Love you guys, hope you're all doing well, and let me know about how that room goes with Robert. Send pictures if you can, and i'll try to remember to bring my usb next time
WHOOOOO, MISION CUSCO PERU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7 February 2010

We had five investigators last Sunday, they are workers from the hotel which they are also staying in, but this week we’ve been trying to contact them and we haven’t been able to. Sucks, but that’s just the way it is.
The pension is a lot better, the whole family are members, but there are two people who rent rooms there that aren’t members, and we answer a few of their questions, but don’t really want to hear the lessons yet, even though they’re working on the construction of the chapel here. The pensionista is a little weird, but she cooks really good, so I’m happy with that. I really wanted to burn her one time cause she didn’t want us to baptize Romario on Friday because she thinks everyone is gonna go inactive if they leave the foster home, but we tried to explain the doctrine of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost and the fact that when he says he wants to get baptized we can’t say no, because if we do we would be denying his agency and the will of God. It was a little bit harsh, but I wanted to burn her even harder so I had to restrain myself.
And Huancayo, I don’t know much about the place, but I hear its pretty cool, but its not even close to Cusco or Machu Picchu. Its not even in this mission, so you’ll have to look that up by yourselves if you want to know about it. I Love You guys

1 Feb 2010

The flooding has been pretty bad, but mostly its Machu Picchu that’s been affected. The Elders there can’t leave and can’t bath and don’t really have that much food either, but I keep telling them that it’ll be a great story to tell their kids one day. But if their parents come to pick them up, neither of them want to go back to visit Machu Picchu ever again. It wouldn’t have been all that bad, but the houses here are mostly made of adobe, and when it gets too wet it just falls over, so there are a bunch of people who don’t have houses anymore, and even though there are a lot of other people who want to help, they don’t accept it. The District President offered the house-chapel for a family to live in (the house is pretty big and would be great to live in) but they turned him down because if they leave the tent they won’t be able to get anything else from the government. Everyone is just milking it for what they can get from the government. Its sad, but that’s how it is, and I don’t really feel too bad about it cause everyone’s fine. The Lord is just helping us out a lot by making some people a lot harder of heart or a lot more humble.

Love you guys

25 Jan 10

Anyways, we’re doing great here even though the city is slowly flooding over and some of the houses are getting pulled into the river because there’s been a lot of rain lately. I here its worse in Machu Picchu because they’re further down the river and it just keeps getting higher and higher. A few of their investigators had to move into hotels because they’re underwater now. Its just bad enough here to waste their corn crops and do a little bit a damage to their homes (the ones that are on the river bank).
But aside from that, we have a few really cool investigators, 2 that are gonna get baptized, one that just needs his mom’s approval, and another that just needs to get married. We don’t know them all that well yet, but they are all new investigators cause the other missionaries didn’t leave us anything, we just had to start knocking on doors and it worked out really well. Its just not really a good thing that all of them are in the same area, we have to spread out and start to use the members more. Its just a little hard when you don’t know who the members are… but Sister Tyler told me that we’re gonna get a couple missionary next change if they accept to come here to Urubamba, which would be great. She told me their names too, but I forgot, I think its Shellingberg or something like that. I shouldn’t know that, but I figure its ok if the President’s wife told me.
But everything's good, health is going strong apart from the fleas and the cold, and now that we’re gonna change the pensionista, I think its just gonna get better. Well internet got cut out today so i can't send you guys much, but here i go. In Urubamba there aren't any ward missionaries, so they don't help us out, but there are a few members who are way cool. I just found out that i was gonna train again but my kid went home in the CCM, he was Elder Aquino. Yes, we have to do a lot in this Branch, but not too much, just a lot of talks in Sacrament meeting. As to their work, just a lot of tourism.
Love you guys, i'll see if i can log on later

18 Jan 10

That’s a cheap shot daddy (Dad asked Coulson if he actually sent the correct SD card with pictures on it!-Ed), because that is totally something that I would do, but no, I made Conny check to see if there were a bunch of photos on it and she told me there were about a thousand, so I’m sure it was the right one, but they’re hidden in 2 different folders. (Casio 100 and Casio 101)
Anyways, as you can hear in the recordings, I’m in Urubamba, but that consists not just of Urubamba, but Yucay (you-kie) and Ollantaytambo (O-jan-tie-tam-bo) as well. I still have only been in Urubamba cause to go from one end of my sector to the other takes about and hour and a half in bus.
Oh, and my companion is Elder Cespedes, he’s from Santa Cruz Bolivia and has one change less than I do in the field. He was in my zone in Trebol when I was with Elder Marcelo. He could be a trainer but he just doesn’t want to, he told President that and I think pres got mad at him and is gonna keep him as junior companion for a while.
Anyways, cause daddy hasn’t figured out how to open up the files on the card, just send me another one so we can try again, I just am gonna keep most of them on back up in my usb just in case. And here are some other pictures too, hope you guys enjoy them
Love you guys, chaooooo

Here are some pictures from Urubamba, and in the airport.