August 31, 2015

Okay so you guys aren’t even going to believe the story I am about to tell. Today just walking around in plaza vea (like a Peruvian Walmart) I had one of the craziest experiences of my entire mission. So me, Elder Rollins, Elder Riquelme, and Elder Hendrix were going to buy a bunch of stuff. But we needed to get our money out of the bank first. We sent Riquelme and Rollins to the lower part of Paita to go to the bank and me and Elder Hendrix went to plaza vea to just wait for them. We were just in there walking around and looking at stuff almost in the back when all of the sudden we just heard people screaming by the entrance. So we got to a place where we could see what was going on. I thought that people were fighting or that someone was trying to rob the place. But turns out that two giant Rottweilers had attacked their owner and gotten out and decided to take a trip to plaza vea. Well one guy tried to scare them and make them run away. Bad idea. He got bit really bad in his leg. So we were kind of walking down the main aisle to see what exactly was going on and we saw them walk right in front of us. They had blood dripping from their mouths. Well they finally got them out and shut the doors to the store. Another guy in the parking lot got bit too. Then the cops showed up with guns and stuff and finally trapped them in some room that was outside and they were helping everyone get out of there. The floor of plaza vea by the entrance looked like a crime scene with all the freaking blood. Turns out that there was a third one as well but someone shot it before it got to plaza vea. Pretty freaking scary man ha-ha. I was about to open up a 50 gallon drum of butt whoopin on some dogs man hahaha. Just kidding. But it was a pretty crazy experience. I don’t ever plan on buying a Rottweiler though. I’ll just stick to labs.

Anyway other than that everything went well this week. Just working hard and spreading the good news. Last week I completed two years in the mission. Crazy how fast time has flown. And is still flying. Is there a pause button? I know you guys don’t want there to be ha-ha. But even the thought of having to leave here just makes me sad. Happy to see everyone, but sad to leave Piura.

So as you all know, Elder David A. Bednar was here last Friday with us. It was an awesome experience. My companion and I got to sit front row right in front of the pulpit so we were really close. It was funny though because the first four rows were for sisters only. But since my companion was leading the music we got to sit there too. It was a little awkward sitting there with just a bunch of sisters, but oh well ha-ha. The conference was great and his teaching method is so unique. I love it. I went in knowing he was going to give us time to ask him questions. Well my question for him was going to be "what did you do and what advice do you give to us to stay active after our missions?" when we started he asked us what we thought of the talks he had sent us to study. One of them he sent was called "Converted Unto the Lord" and talks about the difference between a testimony and conversion. So I raised my hand and he told me to stand up. I told him that I learned that there is a difference between being converted and only having a testimony. Which then led to like a 3 minute conversation between me and elder Bednar. He was just asking me more questions and it was crazy how strong the spirit was there. Then he asked, "So Elder, can I ask you a question about home without you getting trunky?" ha-ha I laughed and said “yes”. Then he said, "what do you plan on doing once you get home to stay converted?" and the first thing that went through my head was, "well that’s what I came to ask you!" ha-ha but the spirit taught me what I needed to do and I told him read the scriptures every day and work in callings and just make sure to do the basic stuff.” Then he said, "Here are two things that if you do them, you will never go inactive, 1. Feast upon the words of Christ daily from the Book of Mormon. 2. Pay your tithing." so that was my answer! It was an awesome spiritual experience that I will never forget.

That’s about all the news for this week. Love you guys!

PS...watch out for dogs.

August 17, 2015

And he's probably never seen a "selfie stick"! Wonder what he'll think of those!!!

Hey guys. What’s up? If everyone is still alive I would like to know. I mean I know my parents are alive. And Jason. But if there is anyone else out there, please feel free to let me know. Hahaha.

This week was crazy and full of changes. It has been awesome being with elder Rollins. We both have big goals and are working hard in our area to achieve them. To be honest, having a North American companion is awesome haha. I feel like we can connect a lot better and talk about common things that we both know. Not that having a Latino companion was bad, but I have loved having my first and last gringo one haha.

We found a really cool family this week. We went to visit a less active that isn’t really progressing so we just asked him for a reference. He didn’t really know of anyone but he said that the people that lived around the corner from him were receiving the missionaries about a year ago but nothing ever happened. Well we decided to go. They are the Zevallos family. Well when we first got there the mom wanted to like contend with us about Joseph Smith and why our church is so big and has so much money. But we just started talking about the Doctrine of Christ and we softened her right up haha! She started talking to us about the things that have been going on in her family and all her problems and stuff. She also has 5 kids that are really receptive too. So we visited them a few times and they all came to church yesterday! It was sweet.

So we had a leadership council with president last week. And we were looking at the numbers of the mission and to be honest, a lot needed and needs to be changed here. So we decided to make some changes in the mission. One of the biggest changes we made was that every single day, from 6-8 at night, we are only supposed to knock doors and look for new families to teach. I was excited for the change because I mean that’s what me and my companion had been doing all week haha. But it has really helped us out in more than one way. We are finding new investigators and it is helping us have to plan a lot better. I’m stoked.

My companion and I decided to fast this weekend so that we could find a new family to teach. A family that is prepared and ready to be baptized. Well we finished our fast on Sunday and in the afternoon we headed out to go teach. A few lessons fell through so I looked at the references from my planner. We went to look for a guy named Hector. He lived basically at the end of our area but when we got there and knocked on the door I could tell there was something special. Well probably because when they opened the door I saw a bunch of pictures of Christ and even a pictures of Moroni with the plates haha. Come to find out the wife is a member that recently moved to our area but has been attending another branch. She and Hector used to live in another area and they weren’t married. Well the missionaries there worked with them like 4 months ago to be able to get married, the missionaries were changed, and they never got to get married. Until a month ago when they got married! It was so awesome to find them and I know the Lord hears and answers our prayers. I have a very strong testimony of fasting as well.

Yesterday was District Conference here in Paita. President and Sister Rasmussen gave some awesome talks. The crazy part was when President just randomly called on my companion and me to go up and share our testimonies and our experience from our mission. Haha the first thing I said was, "well future missionaries, just so you know, you need to always be prepared because your mission president can call on you at any time and make you go up and talk in front of everyone." haha it’s a good thing President Rasmussen has a good sense of humor haha.

Love you guys!

August 10, 2015

Otter Pops in Peru...who knew! Haha...a little piece of heaven for this kid!!!

Wow I honestly can’t believe how fast time has flown. Today is the start of my last transfer in the mission. And to be honest, a transfer that I am lucky to have. It’s weird because all of the missionaries from my group are going home tomorrow. But I still don’t feel like my time is up yet. My companion returned home this transfer...if I had a dollar for every time I heard him talk about or mention the fact that he was going home I could have bought him his own plane ticket and sent him two weeks ago haha. But even though he was a little trunky I still loved him to death. My new companion is Elder Rollins from Lehi. Yep that’s right, a North American companion! Maybe I can improve a little bit more on my English this transfer haha. But so far we have gotten along great. I knew him from when he was in the office as the financial secretary and it will be fun to work with him. I’m really excited.

So on Saturday Pamela got baptized. I don’t know how I forgot but I forgot to mention that to you guys last week. It was a great baptismal service. The best part about Pamela was that we basically didn’t have to do very much. The young women took charge of everything. Helping her come to church, helping her go to the activities, making sure she has friends,
and much more. We just taught her the lessons and helped her get enough of a testimony to make the decision and have the faith to do it. The young women also participated a lot in the baptismal service. It was the first baptism in over 16 months in our branch so the members were really excited for it and so was I.










Well this marks the start of my last transfer. And after seeing how many missionaries have been finishing their missions lately, I don’t want to be just another one of them. I want to work my hardest every single day that I have left. I am going to look at these next six weeks as a gift that God has given to be able to keep participating in this great work. I know we will see miracles this transfer.

Well that’s all. Love you guys!

PS. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

August 3, 2015

Well this week was pretty crazy. Went by slow at first but finished great. Last week was "independence day" in Peru so it was a pretty rough two days here haha. Lots of people drinking and partying and being off of work. And you would think that with them being off of work it would be a great opportunity to meet the missionaries and let them in their house and hear a message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. But no. I think that is the last thing on their to do list when they are on vacation haha. But we worked hard and tried to talk to everyone we could.

So last week we went running to the sister’s room one morning so that a sister could sign some papers. Well they live about 3 miles from us. We made it without even one heart attack haha. But the funniest part was when we came back there was a dog that followed us all the way from their room to our room. It was pretty funny. I named him Calichín. He followed us around that whole day. But then disappeared. Freaking Peruvian dogs. At least he didn’t try to just attack us for no reason like the other ones.

So I don’t know if you guys remember but a little over a month ago I wrote you about a work visit that I had with elder Abbott in Pueblo Nuevo. Well this week I had another one with him but he came to my area in Paita. As we started we were talking about the things that happened in the last work visit and the funny things that happened. Then he told me something that really lifted me up. He said, "Do you remember the family that we contacted when you were with me last time?" and I honestly didn’t remember haha. But he explained to me who they were and how I told him that we should go talk to them. Then I finally remembered and he said, "yeah, they are getting baptized in two weeks." who would thought! Haha that was something that I really needed to hear. To know that someone that we talked to over a month ago is now going to be baptized was an awesome feeling. I didn’t think much in the initial contact, but I guess you can’t judge people by a two minute contact in the street.

But the true highlight of last week was when the assistants called me on Friday morning. Now to explain the setting a little bit without going too into detail, I have been really stressed out because my companion is going home and is pretty much just indifferent about everything. So after about three weeks of that I was pretty stressed out and was just laying on my bed thinking about everything that was going on. Then the assistants called…they said, "hey Elder Chapman Hermana Liliana is getting married today in Talara, are you going to go?" Well I basically said that there was no way that President was going to give me permission to go to Talara for a wedding. But they told me to call and ask him. So I did. And he said yes!! Holy crap that was the highlight of the last two and a half months since I left. Nobody there knew that we were going to show up. Me and Elder Mendoza traveled together and got there a little earlier so we went and bought the wedding present. An 8x10 picture of us with their whole family the day they got baptized. When we got to the wedding at the church they were signing the papers so we just stayed in the door and kind of hid ourselves. Then when they started their first dance Hermana Liliana looked up and saw me and Elder Mendoza and started smiling really big and crying. Everyone there was so happy to see us. But I don’t think anyone was as happy as I was to be there haha. It was great to see my big Talara family. I love them so much.

That’s about it.

PS. if I wouldn’t have extended I would be coming home next week. Wow. Luckily I extended!! And don’t even start a countdown. I don’t want to hear it haha.

Love you guys!

July 27, 2015

Well we finally had a better week here. It was an awesome week and seemed like things were going the way they should, well at least for a little bit. It was nice to finally have some good lessons and contact some people that actually wanted to talk to us haha. Yesterday at church Pamela came and Tatiana came as well along with 7 less actives that we are teaching. It was a great blessing and proof to us that our work is actually paying off. We still have quite a few people that aren’t coming to church and we are working hard to figure out what to do with them.

So these past couple weeks I have been trying to figure out why I extended. not that I didn’t want to, because I prayed and fasted and received my answer that I needed to extend, but I have just been trying to find out why the lord wanted me to stay. Well this week I got a little bit of that answer. We received the awesome news that elder Bednar is going to be coming to Chiclayo at the end of august and we are going to be invited to go to the conference. I guess you could say I was a little excited haha. I was happier than a dog chasing his own tail when they told me that. And I will also be the only one from my group that will see it because I was the only one that extended. I’m pretty pumped for it haha.

Funny story of the week, on Friday night there was a party two houses down from our room. And when there is a party in Peru, they have more alcohol in one house than in the entire state of Utah. Well the party started when we left our room at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. When we got back at nine it’s pretty safe to say that the alcohol was starting to have effect on them haha. Well we just went into our room and I was writing in my journal and my companion was studying when we heard people screaming and yelling so we went outside to see what all the fuss was about. Well we watched them argue for a few minutes and then things got calmed down and we got bored and went inside. About 3 minutes later we heard the same thing so we ran to see what was happening and they were still just arguing over stupid stuff. But as we were watching we found the highlight of the party. A 70 year old that was so drunk he was in another world man ha-ha. I guess you just had to be there, but it was freaking funny haha.

The Espinoza family is also going well. We only visit them once a week so we are working hard to help them progress. Yesterday we were with them and we asked them where their other Book of Mormon was because we had given them two. They said, "Oh we took it to our son that is in jail so that he can read it. He says he really likes It." well I guess you can’t be mad about that haha! Hopefully he keeps reading it and they can use that to join themselves together when they visit him.

Well that’s about it.

Love you guys!

July 20, 2015

Wow this was a tough week for us. I don’t know why, but almost every lesson we had planned always fell through, people were never home, and nobody was in the streets to talk to. I think everyone just got together and agreed that they were going to make our lives a little more difficult than normal this week. And they succeeded haha. But I guess you win some and you lose some. I’m just pumped to get back to work this week and work even harder.

So there’s not really any news this week haha. J didn’t come to church because he and his girly friend got in a fight. I guess we are really going to have to make sure he can get a testimony haha. And the other people we were teaching didn’t come either. Heck, we even showed up 40 mines late ha-ha. Here’s the story, on Saturday we went out with our mission leader and we found this new family to start teaching. On a scale of one to ten I would say they were about a 6 as far as level of interest goes. But we still committed them to coming to church on Sunday. Well our church starts at ten. So we told them we would pass by at nine thirty. When we got there they were just barely going to shower. I wanted to die haha. So they all got ready and we went to church and finally got there at ten forty. Haha but the kids liked the primary and young women’s and stuff. The mom wasn’t as excited. But hey, you win some and you lose some.

Funny story from this week, me and my companion were walking down the road and we walked past a parked moto. In the back of the moto there was a dog that was just chillin out being cool. Well then he started to kind of lazily bark at us. Well us, two twenty year old who think they are funny, started telling the dog to do something. "Do something!" "Come over here and do something!" and all other kinds of stuff that we were just egging him on to come and attack us. Well someone must have taught that dog an infinite amount of Spanish or someone must have peed in his coffee that morning, because he jumped right down and ran after us and almost bit my companion. I was already on the other side of the street by the time he got there but my companion didn’t really know what to do ahahaha. So be careful what you say to dogs, you never know if they might just understand you.

And today marks one year since my best friend Daulton and his brother Jaxon passed away. Crazy how fast time flies and it still seems so surreal to me. But the thing that keeps giving me comfort is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the promised blessings. That was a really hard time for me in my mission. Pretty much the refining fire. But it helped me learn to put all of my faith and trust in god and everything will be okay. I miss Daulton. And I’m sure it will hit me even harder when I get home. But I have the surety that I will see him again. And that’s what keeps me going.

Well that’s about it.

Love you guys!

No pictures this week from Logan...just adding these from memories with Daulton...

July 13, 2015

This week was actually really fun here in paita for us. I don’t know what it is, but it seems like we are always laughing about something ha-ha. Me and my companion get along great and we are always making jokes and are just enjoying our time here. And it’s good because we are enjoying everything but still working super hard. This week we found a new investigator named Julio. He is 17 and we found him through his "friend" who is in young women’s ha-ha. Well he came to church last week and we taught him and everything and he came to church again. So I would say things are lookin pretty good for him. Now we just gotta try to help him receive a testimony so that he will stay active in the church even when his girlfriend dumps him ha-ha. Because hey, it’s bound to happen sooner or later. But at least she helped him know the church so I guess they can date for a little bit so that he can get a testimony ha-ha.

We have also been visiting a girl named Pamela. She is 15 and her mom is a less active that is coming back to the church. We have

always tried to set a baptismal goal and it never worked out. I guess it was us just thinking that it was an automatic baptism because her mom was already a member. So the last time we visited her which was like a month ago I just told her to read her book of Mormon. Well we were teaching a lesson on Saturday night and when we finished it was like 9 at night. We were way far away from our room and were going to walk back home. We were also pretty far away from her house but something told me that we should call her mom to see if they were home. So we called them and they said that they were so we basically ran to their house to visit them. Well we sat down and Pamela told us, "I have been reading my book of Mormon and I talked to my mom, I want to be baptized on august 8th." who can say no to that! Ha-ha. But I love the book of Mormon and the converting power that it has in people.

The Espinoza family is also going really well. They are super catholic. Like with saints in their house and they have tons of catholic traditions. But they are also so open and receptive. Yesterday we taught them the book of Mormon and they seriously couldn’t wait to get their hands on it to start reading it. I know that it will help them to know that what we are teaching them is true.

So I guess you could say that the book of Mormon was a big part of my week, and it was. I finished reading it again this week. And I set a new goal. I am going to read 7 pages every single day to be able to finish it one more time before I get home. And I am going to focus on and mark the Christ like attributes that are in it. Ever since I came on my mission I have gained a whole new love for the book of Mormon. Heck if it wasn’t for that book, I wouldn’t even be here. I still remember the plane ride and being so nervous and not having any idea what I was about to do. But the only thing I did was open my scriptures and read them and it brought instant peace and comfort. And it has done the same ever since. I am so thankful that we have the scriptures to read and learn from. I don’t know who I would be without them. I know that they bless us and our families and they help us prepare to be eternal families.

Well that’s about it.

Elder Chapman

Ps. LEAN SUS LIBROS DE MORMÓN!!

Translation…read your Book of Mormon