I gave my left arm for that baptism!!!

Dear Family and friends, 4-11-11

Well this week has been a lot of EVERYTHING!!! A little disappointment here and lot of joy there and a lot of TIRED!! Well this Family along with 2 others was baptized this week. YUP it’s done, they are baptized and confirmed and they can`t change their mind now. No, it’s great! I was all excited for this Wednesday when we went to visit Fam. Ortega and the mom was having major doubts about the Book of Mormon and wasn`t sure if she was ready to be baptized, and so we talk to them and she wasn`t in a very good mood I think. lol she said yeah if we are ready we will show up tomorrow for the interviews and we left. haha I was for some reason certain they wouldn`t show up but THEY DID. Where is my faith? But they showed up and they were baptized the next day. We did have a miracle this week though. One of our investigators Cristian, who came to church with his friend, Aaron, about 4 weeks ago for the first time. Well this last Monday we got a call from Aaron saying that Cristian called him and had permission from his parents to be baptized and wanted to be baptized that Friday. Well we weren`t going to say no but we did have a little more to teach him and so we got busy and taught him Tuesday and Wednesday and then Thursday had his interview and was baptized Friday! It was such a great baptism. You know Satan doesn`t want baptisms, and he will do whatever it take to stop them. Well he tried to stop this one, but we wouldn`t let him. We have to use a baptismal font in another ward because we are in a church house for the moment and don`t have a real church and so when we went to get this font ready it still had water in it from the last baptism and was just nasty. and we couldn`t find a key to a room that had the pump to empty it and so me and my companion emptied buckets of water into the drains for this baptism. I did this for 1 1/2 hours until it was almost empty and cleaned it. It was a good thing we did this right after service and we were in service clothes but I didn`t know until yesterday my companion counted how many buckets we carried. He switched hands but for the entire time I used my left arm to carry the buckets and then dumped it into the sink in the girl’s bathroom right there and he said he carried about 325 buckets of water! HOLY COW!! That’s a lot. I was happy I could just lift the people out of the water for the baptism and my arm wasn`t sore until sat. and then sun. even worst. But I’m just glad everything turned out perfect!! 4 in a complete family and 1 grandma that is just so nice and then a youth! It was great!

Yesterday I did have the opportunity to sleep and study all day because it was elections and it was just great to take a little bit of a day off and "relax". I don`t know who won but maybe I`ll figure it out soon, I heard someone named Ollanta was winning last night but we weren`t allowed to leave our rooms except to go eat food. My area was real quiet and not a lot of commotion but I`m sure as you got closer into central Lima it got a little more crazy. But that’s about all for this week, we now need a lot more new investigators and so a lot more contacts this week and looking for people to teach because we don`t have any baptismal dates in our area right now, we need to work on that! ;-)

Thanks everyone for your support and love and I`m glad to hear I`m not the only one that is getting blessed for my service but I did put up some papers around my room. Like one says "why are you here?" so I can remember my purpose, and then right above my bed on the ceiling I put "what is your excuse today?" to remind me if someone asks why you didn`t get up on time? And I don`t have an excuse how bad I would feel, so it gets me up on time ever morning and makes me exercise. I think I`m getting fatter which isn`t good but it’s not really my fault they feed us so much for lunch I just want to die! lol I think I`m going to tell the hermana that we need less food for lunch! I love being in control of my food. Oh and if anyone said I wouldn`t be eating roman here in Peru is WRONG, lol they actually have roman here, well they just call in instant soup and now that she knows I like it, we get it every couple days! ;-) lol its awesome. Today we are going into Central Lima to just look around at stuff and do some gift shopping I guess. It will be fun! Oh and if you saw my cases for my Spanish scriptures which are awesome and that’s llama skin, I bought some more for my English scriptures and they sized them to fit so I`ll be waiting for those soon. It’s awesome seeing all the different stuff they have here that they use for things. I love it! Well I got to go and hope everyone has a great week! Love you all and thanks for all your support!

Elder Corbett!

I want more!!

I have been so bad about posting his letters, so here is a ketchup post.

Dear Family and Friends, April 4, 2011

Conference can`t be over already I want more. :-( Yes I got to watch all 5 session and in English with 3 other gringo missionaries. It was so great. I learned so much and because it was in English I cried the first talk because it was just so clear and beautiful. It was hard looking at all the beautiful pictures of salt lake though because first it was clean, and they have pretty flowers and it was GREEN!! There is none of that here in Peru, at least not in my mission, lol. But it was great, I loved who ever said, ``if you are looking for a church that is easy, This is not the one!`` This church doesn`t just require a little of your money, or a little time for church ever week, no it requires your life. This week has probably been the best week for me and I feel powerful and ready now. I feel like I could just talk to anyone and explain why this church is the true church, and although people won`t want to listen because they are just catholic, someone told us they couldn`t listen to us because they were catholic, but she wants to know more but because she catholic she says she can`t. some excuse huh? But its just been such a wonderful week. this new way of teach with focusing on more of the spirit then the lesson is making it harder to keep my lessons shorter but its 10x more effective. It blows my mind how much more success you can have.

I had a perfect day this week though, and it was Wednesday, we woke up in the morning and went the office and had a training ALL day and it was so great, and for lunch we had pizza which was super delicious and then at the end I GOT MY PACKAGE!!! YES it’s here so send another one! (and explain to Logan and Abby how too) and then I also got a Dear Elder from Emily after all that I went over to This family Ortega and we committed for sure to baptism!!!!! They are getting baptized this FRIDAY!!! HALLALUJA!!! so it was just a perfect day! Oh and Thank for SO MUCH for the package, I love every single thing that’s in it. it’s so wonderful and I put the calendar and Christmas card up on my wall. ;-). I love it to death.

I`ll be honest I am loving my mission right now, my Spanish is doing a lot better, I have a lot to improve on but I can understand and say a lot. I did have a problem last night when familia Ortega played a trick on us. We asked them if they were excited for their baptism and all that and they said this, ¨we have decided we don`t.....(and they paused forever)....want to be left without baptism¨ and I was a little confused and didn`t get it and I thought they didn`t want to get baptized or wanted it later or something but no they are super excited and they wrote it down on a piece of paper I will probably keep forever. And so my week has been going so good. Conference went by so fast I want another 10 hours! You just love ever single minute of it, I feel like I`m literally hungry for the gospel right now and just love every minute of study in the morning and wish I could have more time to study and right now I decided to take a break from d&C and am ready Revelation which is interesting and it actually talks a ton about the restoration you just have to dig it out, one flake of gold at a time! It’s been wonderful.

Oh I did see something sad this week, a public demonstration. no one got hurt or anything but I was waiting in line at the bank and you’re not supposed to sell things in front of the bank it’s against the law and so there are always a ton of people selling things, like these little eggs or fruit and stuff but this truck that was on the road was passing and I guess it was a group that enforced the law and they pulled up real quick grabbed a ladies cart of whatever she was selling and just took it away and she was fighting them and crying because these cards are their lives, that was her income and these men were just doing the law and so it was sad to watch but it was the law and I guess that’s a lesson the church wants us to obey the law so we aren`t in any harm’s way of losing something legally.

Frisbee was also really fun last week at the beach and I got some cool pictures of my in the air catching the Frisbee with the ocean and everything in the background its cool. and we don`t have church next week ;-( we have to stay in our room all day because its elections for president down here and so we can`t do anything that day just study all day long and I`m actually super excited to use that time to learn more Spanish and ready the scriptures.

Well that’s all I have to report but I`m loving it here in wonderful Peru and its starting to get a little cooler and feeling good so that’s exciting but thank you everyone for your prayers and love. I love you all and thank you all for your help and guidance!

Con Mucho Amor,

Elder Corbett

No bautismos!

Dear family and friends, 3/28/2011

Well this week was great and bad at the same time. I had training all day Wednesday and went to the temple Friday and they were both just great. The training was about a new way of teaching. Now in the MTC they are going to change how they teach new missionaries. They are going to teach 8 lessons on how to teach and things like that and then the missionaries will learn the 5 lessons you teach in the field in the field. Right now we are learning these 8 different lessons, 4 last week and then 4 more this week, but I have the best mission pres. ever! He is so wonderful. The temple, this is one of the best sessions of my life, and one of the shortest, sometimes I felt like they were long but it went by so fast but it was so nice and I felt like I really needed it! Then after since we were in central Lima we bought pizza and it was SO GOOD!!!!! No kidding the best food I have ever tasted I feel like because it had been so long since I have had fresh pizza. MMM

Ok Familia Ortega wasn´t baptized but they are getting closer. They had a couple doubts about things but they are starting to understand a ton of things. And it was funny yesterday when we were over there we talked to them for a long time and then we talked about what is different from our church and other churches and they were nailing it with how they felt and everything when we teach compared to others and then the mom asked, ´´well why don´t the other churches talk about José smith if its in the bible? I´m like well DUH!!!! If they said he was a prophet they would be in our church!!! I just thought it was funny so now I know she has a little bit of a testimony of José Smith. We have another one we have been working on and a bunch we want to get baptized for the 16 or 17 of April and so that our goal! and Familia Ortega whenever they finally get up the guts to take a swim! lol

But everything is going good, the spot where the dog bite me is healing super fast, haha seems like nobody caught that at the end of my last email. oh well, yea I was bit by a dog and now have a little hole in one of my pants. :-( but all is well! Today we get to go to the Beach in my area and we are going to play Ultimate Frisbee!!!! aaaaAAARRRRRRRRRIBA!! So excited it feels like it has only been a week sense our last real P-day and time is just flying by, I´m so serious it is crazy how quick time is especially because we are SO busy! It’s so good though and I´m just loving it.

Ummm my lesson for the week is sometimes we think too much with our head and not with our heart. If you feel something is right do it, that’s how the spirit talks to you, I had a cool experience with knocking on a door last week where we were just passing by. Usually I like doing just contacts in the street as we walk places because we just don´t usually have the time to wait for people to answer doors. We walked by this house and I didn´t feel super special or something magical but I just was like I´m going to knock on this door because I need to. And it opened up and we talked to these two guys for like 30 mins and taught them and they didn´t attend church but we´ll get them. ;-) Anyway if you’re doing what’s right don´t question if it’s the spirit or not, just do those things you feel are right!

Oh and for you Dad I´m in Lima the City but it is HUGE right, Lima is the size of Guatemala. But I´m in the district of Ancon (the second largest district in Lima and its along the coast. so that should help with your search, or you could go to lds.org and search the ward miramar! and no I haven´t received your package so that’s showing you I just might not receive it, but let me know how you sent it; like was it in a official box and what kind of stuff did you pay for it to get it here. Thanks for everything and love you all!

Con Amor de la Playa,

Elder Corbett

Dear Family and Friends, 3-21-2011
This week has been a lot better and we are having success. Right now we have 5 baptismal dates and 4 this week. The great Familia Ortega,. I think they are so ready to be baptized and feel the joy of the spirit with them forever. They are a great family, they haven`t had any problems with any of the commandments. We still need to teach the law of Chastity but I`m positive they won`t have a problem with this, they didn`t have a problem with the law of tithing, just lots of questions because they are professors and like to understand everything. They are so ready they just need that little nudge into the font. I`m so excited though for this because I had the wonderful opportunity to find and teach them and I feel they are like my best friends. They are like, we remember you’re Spanish when we first meet you and it has improved a lot. I remember I could barely talk to them our first visit and now I can almost understand everything and say what-ever I want to them. They know my Spanish is miserable but they always try to understand me. I know when people try to understand me and when people don`t, because if people don`t try they just can`t understand anything I`m saying and I drives me nuts sometimes but I just try again and learn. But that is my big goal this week, 4 Baptisms. This family attended a baptism sat. , it was so good for them.
Besides that this week has been normal, not much to report actually or I just don`t remember much. Oh we don`t get a P-Day today because we are going to the temple Friday and that’s going to be awesome, and so that’s our Pday this week, only get to email today and back to work. Ummm a lot of people not in their houses for appointments this week but we managed. I think we will be able to have more success and we had 5 investigadors at church which was good and are getting help from members but our mission leader in the ward wants to help us but every time we have a time to meet and go find people he never shows and so I`m losing my trust in him, a little sad but if he says something then he needs to do it at least one of these times. Ummm I still don`t know about the package and I have no idea if the zone leaders have even gone to the office to pick up letters and stuff, which is sad but I don`t know.
Well I don`t have anything to report more just working hard and pretty tired.
Con Mucho Amor,
Elder Corbett

p.s. Oh yeah, Un Perro Me Mordìo tambien, ;-) love ya tons!

Tsunami!

Tsunami!

Dear Family and friends, 3-14-11

I`ll start off by saying everything is safe here near the coast of Perù. I heard about Japan in the morning from our zone leaders and thought it was a joke because he was saying all this stuff of a Tsunami coming and we were going to have to leave. Well 2 zones for safety all left and meet at a chapel in our zone farthest from the shore, we were supposed to bring clothes for 2 days. Well we did that and after waiting about 1 hour in the chapel they called a false alarm and said ¨everyone can go back to work except Elder Corbett¨. Those were his exact words, except in Spanish! Everyone went back to work except us. We were the only ones in the entire mission that could not work because of the earthquake in Japan but oh how sad. We didn`t have a great week for numbers. First we had transfers and so that took a day and then P-day and then the Tsunami so our numbers weren`t that spectacular for our first week, but hey they will be next week! So now you know I have the area that is the coast, no exauration. but the water only came in about 170 feet up and took out a couple tables where they sell fish and stuff but besides that everything is good and I`m safe, I`m glad no body worried. ;-)

Well now about being a trainer, yea, from the frying pan right into the fire is right. My new companion is Elder Lopez, he is from Guatemala and 22 years old. He is so wonderful; God has a reason for everything. My Spanish is not fluent, I don`t feel fluent but I feel like I can get my point across and understand people, I`m so thankful for all the Spanish I do know. My companion`s Spanish is excellent as well, he can say whatever he wants, I think he`s pretty much fluent so that’s going to help me, ;-). haha but yeah I have never had a harder week in my life. As some people know I want to always be the best, its true, I want to try my hardest at everything but when I got called to a trainer I sad down that first night and just wanted to cry because I felt so overwhelmed. I have the biggest area by far in all the zone and probably all the mission. Its HUGE and some parts are far and I just didn`t know what to do and wasn`t exactly sure how E. Iquic was so easy with it. But I have never felt more stressed more weight on my shoulder then I do now and as I do with this area. I feel like I`m just going to be accounted for ever little things that happens in this area and I just don`t know how right now I`m going to do it. I just feel overwhelmed. You know I truly do have the best companion anyone could ever ask for though he knows the lessons and he knows this gospel and is just so excited to be here. I feel less of a dictator and that we have things we have to do in this area and we have to work together. I think a lot of times its like how it was for me and I just kind of followed my companion and taught and learned a lot but he kind of made the decisions. Well I am the head of the companionship I`m going to be the leader but there are so many things we want to change about how we do this work. I told him the first day my Spanish is not perfect and I`m going to need your help and your going to need my help to know this area but we have to plan and work together and he is so smart. We truly are making plans so we know who we are teaching and who’s progressing and we can visualize the people in our area and make the improvements. This was a sad Sunday we have 0 investigators at church and last minutes we both had to give a talk and so it was a little crazy yesterday but when I got up to give my talk I didn`t write anything down like I usually do and just had a scripture I wanted to share and thoughts. And when I got up there I shared my scripture and told them straight up you know us as missionaries are here to teach. We are always looking for people to teach and people to be baptized but we need your help. I`ve only been here for 6 weeks and my companion only 4 days and this area is humongous and we don`t know it very well, but you do. I told them to remember there baptism and how they felt and what they promised about taking the name of Christ upon them and that people see us in the street and we are missionaries for some church and foreigners. But the people that they know see their example, they are the example for the area and the people you know see that example and will be more receptive to our teaching. And then I bore my testimony and sat down. Later I received about 3 or 4 referrals just from people coming and talking to me.

We also had a great FHE with a family of a couple that’s members and the husband, only a member for a year so we now have a wonderful new family to teach and are really receptive, because also their father converted and they saw that change in him. So little by little we are making progress and also the same family that has a baptismal date for the 26th of this month!

I`m working hard and hope everything is going great for all of you, I miss you and thank you all for your prayers! This is going to be probably one of the hardest transfers for me but maybe the best as well! ;-)

Con Mucho Amor,

Elder Corbett

My first accepted challenge!!

Dear Family and Friends, 3-7-11

Wow this week has just flown by. It has been a super enjoyable week and I just don`t want tomorrow to come because its transfers. I don`t know if I`m staying or going but in a couple hours I will know. I actually don`t want to switch areas or companions. We are loving this time and....WELL I JUST RECIEVED MY NEW ASSIGNMENT LIKE 2 SECONDS AGO. So I`m not leaving the area...YAYAYAYA!! But.....I`m going to have a newbie! You thought 10 months was quick to be a trainer well I`m going to be a trainer for my second transfer. CRAZY no? I can`t believe this I don`t know what to think right now, I`m actually in huge shook. But that’s ok my Spanish has sky rocketed these past couple weeks and I guess the lord know what’s best! I don`t know what to say right now, WOW. I did write down this down this week, I want a calendar in whoever sends my next package. A monthly calendar because everything they have here is a single calendar on one page for the entire year. I want one I can plan on and write important dates.

So having success in our area, I`ve told you about familia Ortega and we ate dinner over at their house Sat. which was cool until I threw up! They were totally cool and understood because honestly I loved the food but I don`t know what it was that my stomach just literally rejected and just threw up a little. Haha I have tried some cool food, Octopus and guinea pig. The Octopus wasn`t that good, like it didn`t taste bad but it was just tough and not just to chew but the Guinea Pig was pretty good! I liked it. ;-)

Oh and back to Familia Ortega last night when we went and visited with them we answered a lot of their questions and we had challenged them to baptism before and they have been praying and just aren`t sure like they want to but aren’t positive and Elder Iquic told them that yeah just keep praying kind of thing and we were about to wrap it up and leave and I`m like I have to do something because it’s been the same thing for 2 weeks and so I asked them maybe it would be good for a goal; a little promise with God that we pick a date and we will prepare you for that date and if you feel ready then go ahead with it and if you don`t then it’s always your choice but to pick a date. And so we picked a date on the 26 of March and so they are getting ready for baptism. I think with a date they will really start thinking hard about this baptism thing and so I think it will work out because we have asked them before what’s holding you back from being baptized? They said nothing really they just didn`t receive an answer so I think this is great for them. We also have a young boy that’s really smart and listening to us, he is 12 and his uncle is a member and leaving on a mission in June or something so we started teaching him as well and his family listened in on the last discussion and they are receptive because they have a family member that is a part of this so it’s a good gate way!

Besides all that nothing much else to report, oh besides I saw the best sunset ever in my life. We have an area called Arboleda and in this area you have a nice view of the beach and so we went to the top of a sand dune and the sun was just setting and it looked so pretty over the ocean and super big and beautiful orange. We got some pictures on my companions camera, I need today, but it was so pretty. I`m so glad I`m not leaving the ocean! It’s nice right now, has some cloud cover every once in a while from the ocean which makes it really nice. well I`m keeping you all in my prayers and love you all so much and thanks so much for your support, I think I`m going to need it for this next transfer its going to be a new experience trying to train someone after only 1 transfer. Don`t forget what this church is all about and that is serving those around us and sharing this blessed restored gospel with our friends.

Con Amor,

Elder Corbett