June 16th 2014

Hello Family!

Well the World Cup started and it's crazy!!! I love it but then I hate it at times.

It's not as crazy as I thought but when Mexico plays it does get a little nuts. We live in an apartment complex so everyone is just yelling going crazy throughout the game and they have it super loud so I always know what's happening. When Mexico scored though, everyone screams, there are fireworks going off! I love it! I'm all updated as well so I just talk soccer all the time to get conversations going.

Well honestly other than that everything else has been good here in LOS ANGELES! We have this investigator that came to church and he is so cool. He loves clothes hats, and loves keeping his hair fresh. We get along just great!

HAPPY FATHERSDAY TO MY AWESOME DAD!

Te amo negro y gracias por todo! Cuidate en Peru!!! Love you!

Here's a pic of a dog laying down funny and Elder Suarez... a new missionary I met last week!

Love you all!

Elder Puertas

June 9th 2014

Hola!

Wow ya tengo 20 años!! I’m so old. This week was good. On Monday we played soccer and street basketball for a bit and it was so much fun. I haven't played in a while. We played with some of our investigators so it was good to show them a thing or two ;) ha-ha. So now I am going to jump all the way to Saturday,

MY BIRTHDAY! All right so we actually had exchanges that day. I was with Elder Schwalger! We started off the day visiting a less active woman that just had her baby. The baby is so cute and tiny! Super super cute, anyways they came to church on Sunday as well. It was good to see them then we went to a member’s home that threw a BBQ for us and it was so good. There family is so great! That was around 1, then we visited some more people and taught a few lessons. Elder Schwalger (Shh-wa-ger) has a Uke and I had my Uke so we walked around, played a little bit, made up some songs and actually we taught a lesson while playing.  

Then we had dinner with some of our investigators, we had "Posole" So good! And we ate sooo much. THEN we got a call from another member whose daughter was having her Quinceñera and there was a family there that lives in our area that wanted to meet us. So we went over for about an hour, ate MORE food (I was already stuffed with Posole and BBQ) and the good news is now we have a new family to teach :) After that we headed home because it was about 9pm, planned, played some more Uke and just talked for the rest of the night. Super chill/hardworking/lots of food day. All this on my birthday! Ahhh I’m 20! Well I’m not a teenager anymore. Yesterday were TRANSFERS again. Man time flies and long story short, Elder Kimball and I are once again Companions :) round 2. Here we go. Some GOOD Elders are leaving the mission on Wednesday though. Now it’s weird to see people you really know leave. Wow. Well that was my week!

I love you all and remember God loves you too! :)

Love, the 20 year old. Elder Puertas

June 2nd 2014

Wow what an amazing/busy week.

       First off we went on exchanges with this Elder named Elder Smith and he is a baller. We were riding in the park tryingto find people to talk to and literally we were having no luck. There were a ton of people in the basketball court playing street ball so yes, we went over asked to play. They chuckled a bit and let us play and.......... we beat them two times.  They were way cool after and asked us what we did and we explained that we were missionaries and everything. It was so much fun. We played in our missionary clothes too. 

       Another cool thing was that when we were teaching a girl named Heidi, her husband who is 19 (they are a very young couple) was in the next room and didn't want to hear us out. I kept telling her, "Let me just walk into the room and talk to him" she's like no, no, he's not going to want to talk to you guys. Well I kept thinking what could be the icebreaker to walk in and start talking to him... okay so the door opened a little bit one time and the TV was on and it was soccer!!! Uhhhhhhh I got this! The best part that the teams that were playing were "Germany vs. PERU” I ended up talking to him for like 30 min about soccer at the beginning and eventually leading it to the Restoration. He is super cool and we are teaching him now. Actually today we are going to play soccer in about an hour.  

       This week we had so many people to teach and so many new people we meet. We found 12 new investigators this week and it was crazy! It is a struggle getting people to church though, but we did have one. We don't know what’s going on, we find and teach a lot but we can't get them to church :( well Elder Ballard, of the 12 came and spoke to our mission yesterday. It felt so peaceful there, the spirit was so strong and I really got a lot out of it. He really focused on "calling the powers from Heaven" by Praying and really asking for God's help in all things. Truly "Walk" by the spirit in all things. We all know the best teacher is the Spirit, we should never be afraid to slow things down and just listen, wait for the spirit to testify to their hearts that these things are true. With that, they will FEEL something and they WILL want to keep commitments JUST because of the feelings they have felt. With this, it will help our investigators really feel the love God has for them.

       Elder Ballard is so funny! He really is just a normal person, just like all of us. He honestly loves us so much as well and really wants us to be the best that we can be. I am so grateful for everything, especially this Gospel we have. I know we have a living day Prophet and that we have 12 true apostles of God to help and guide us through these times. "It's all spiritual connection" I love it. I love the Lord and I love my mission.

Elder Puertas

Shout-outs! To one of my best friends Kenzi Evans! Happy birthday!!! You are amazing! Also to my cousin Hyrum! I love you man and I hope the best always! THE BIG 20!! 

May 12th 2014

Family and Friends!

Oh my, such a great week this week! I want to start off by saying I love and miss you all! On Wednesday it was great because every morning we study and some times we do role plays for our investigators, so I just remember I wasn't really trying to practice or anything and it was funny because later on that day we went to our investigators house and literally it was EXACTLY like our role play we practiced at home that morning. So that's just something really amazing.

Well we worked really hard this week. Really helped our investigators grow and come closer to Christ. Found some and lost some but it's ok. Well life is good. On Saturday though it was really cool. We got to help out with this service preoject. It was like this Walk for Cancer and there were thousands of people there! We had so much fun! Elder Smith and I got on a big screen for ABC 7 at one point and we got a shout out! I loved it! We got to go in to this Stadium! It was so awesome! It’s called the Coliseum! USC! Also at that service we saw Bruce Willis and Halle Barry!

Well, later that day we had our Ward Mother's Day activity and Elder Schwalger and I just made up this song and played it at the activity! It was really funny and good. We both played the Ukulele. Yes, I can kind of play the Ukulele now. On Sunday we had 3 investigators come to church and after church I got to SKYPE!!! I love my family! I miss you all! Everyone is getting so big! Later that night we went to the Temple and Lindsey Sterling (violinist) gave a fireside and it was really good! She played a little as well! So that was really exciting and our investigator came and really enjoyed it as well. Everything is well here in LA just working hard!

Love you all!

<3/ Elder Puertas

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

P.S Here's a pic of our zone! HP1 ZONE!!

Cinco de Mayo 2014

Family and Friends!!!!

Okay this week was so crazy! I am with Elder Kimball and he is so good. He was my Zone leader a long time ago and now we are together. We work so hard, it's insane. We had taught and found more people this week than I have in a long time. He's 6'5 so haha yeah. And he's huge. Picture "Thor" with short hair and a white shirt and tie = my companion.

We really helped people progress and it felt really good. We had a chance to go to the temple yesterday and the sisters that gave the tour were so good with our investigators. We set 3 baptismal dates for June 1st so pray pray pray for them! It's a mom, daughter (20) and another daughter (11) and they are so amazing. After they were done they were like can you come tomorrow and as many times as you can next week. Ummm yeah we can! And guess what they literally live in front of us so talk about daily follow-ups. This was such a good week I love it. We went to work!!! That family also had a cat that just had kittens and it is so cute. Well other than that that's our week!

Also Elder Ballard is coming to our mission on June 1st so that's going to be crazy cool! An Apostle of the lord will be in LA speaking to us. I cannot wait.

I love you all! <3

Jesus Loves you!