Adam's February 8th Email

Dear Family,

This week's been pretty good. My new companion is a fast learner and
he's starting to get the hang of things already! Together, we've had
some pretty good progression. We've been able to find some great new
families to teach. Both have read their assignments in the Book of
Mormon already!

One family, the Olimar Family, is actually pretty funny. They've
spoken with missionaries before, back in 2011. Some gospel seeds were
planted back then, and now we're here to harvest 'em!

The other family, the Mori Family, was a reference from a recent
convert of the other area of Nauta. The family is pretty great! They,
too, have read the Book of Mormon already. The father is a
schoolteacher and he's usually extremely busy, but when we met him, he
mentioned to us that he wanted to put God in first priority, and was
hoping we could help him with that. Of course we can, and we
definitely will! The real test comes to coming to church.

That's one of the biggest weaknesses for the people down here is
keeping the Sabbath Day holy. As a mission, we've been focusing on
that lately (I think the entire church has been focusing on that), and
something I've learned that helps brighten the idea of what can/cannot
be done on Sunday is to think these questions:

"Would the Lord be pleased if he saw me doing this on his day?"
and
"What can I do on Sunday to make the Sabbath better?"

Something I recently read in the Spanish scriptures about the Sabbath
Day is that when someone begins to neglect the Sabbath Day, every
single aspect of their life begins to decay and degrade.

Yesterday was a huge Peruvian holiday called "Carnaval" (where they
plant the trees in the middle of the street and chop 'em down). I was
in Pucallpa when it happened last year, where it's pretty calm and
mellow, but in Iquitos and Nauta, it's a bit too crazy. The president
asked the missionaries to stay at home the entire day.

It was definitely different. I've been used to getting out and working
everyday, but this Sunday we practiced some of the things we learned
about keeping the Sabbath Day holy since we had to stay in all day. We
made cookies (they were deliciously burnt :P), exchanged mission
stories, and watched the Joseph Smith movie on our portable DVD. I was
a bit bummed that we couldn't work that day, but we had fun.

How's everyone up there? Has the snow melted yet? What's everyone up
to nowadays?

Love,
Adam