This hamburger was named "The Stroke" I struggled to get the last few bites in, but I did it!
Mom
Hey whats going on? Sounds like y'all are doing
awesome. I totally forgot its going to be Thanksgiving. Days have just turned
into weeks, and weeks into months. Everything is just blurring together for me I
don't even know what time of the year it is. When it's always hot I still think
it's July but it's now November. I can't believe its almost December!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where did the time go?
So this week we didnt get a whole lot in. We were in Cuzco
and traveling much of the time, but it was still a good week. Aliana got
baptized which was super awesome. I was super humbled when she asked me to do
it. I just remeber being in the bathroom changing and just had this strong
impression of wow I just helped someone enter into heaven. It was a super
awesome moment. It's moments like that that make the whole time worth it. Hans
didn't get baptized. The same thing happened he started freaking out when he was
in the font. So we might have to change our tactics and go to a river or
something we will see. Anyways, I'm doing good. I'm happy and healthy. That's more
than elder Freestone can say. He had a bad case of stomach issues this week. I
felt so bad for him but then I just remembered we all have to go through that
at some time. I'm sorry I don't have alot to write about. Just know I love you
keep the faith stay strong This is God's work.
Well I'm sorry it is super cold there. I know how that feels.
Not right now of course because I'm in the jungle but yeah I know about the
cold. I don't think it ever got that cold but we didn't have heaters so that was
super fun.
Well so sorry I didn't get to write to y'all yesterday. I was
on a 10 hour bus ride. I threw up one time trying to get here in Cusco. So now I'm
writing y'all here in Cusco. We had an awesome training. Elder Evans who is the
head seventy from the missionary department came and talked to us. He talked
about a lot of different things but the one I really got out of it was how to
find new people. The things he talked about were straight out of preach my gospel
and I had read them probably a ton of times but it really just hit me today.
Ask for references from everyone!!!!!!! That was the thing that I realized that I
have missed most in the mission. I have left here in this training with the
determination to do that and do better in finding new people.
So this week we have had a lot of people to teach. No crazy
stories we were just super super busy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had so many appointments
that we couldn't even go to all of them because we have to walk so much. Its an
awesome feeling. SO for this Saturday we have two with a baptismal date. Hans
is getting baptized. We also have one date for a young woman named Ali. We have
been working with her mom who is a less active and here kids Fabio and Ali who aren't members have been listening too. So Ali wanted to get baptized. Fabio
still wants more time but I think he will come around. What we really need
prayers for is the dad of the family he has like no time and I don't know if he
would be willing to listen even if he had the time.
Something super happy happened to me this week. The mom and
dad of Hans and Jon we were talking to them. Basically to set some goals about
the temple. They basically had already had the goals set and were like yeah we
are going to the temple next year we are going to be active we are going to pay
our tithing we are going to get our life in order. It was so awesome to just
hear them say thank you so much elders. Even though they made the effort to do
everything it was just one of the happiest moments to just think from the
little bit I did they came closer to Christ. Also the dad will be getting the Melchizedek priesthood here in the next two weeks. Same with Layo the guy we
taught. He's preparing for a mission. Moments like that make everything worth
it
I love y'all so much and I hope everything is going good.
Please keep the faith.
Elder Kotter
Dad,
So
to answer your question about getting robbed. The guys in our room were guys
fixing the water pipes that I guess they were having issues with. Not
with us but other rooms so they just redid everything. I'll be honest too, I
didn't downplay the robbing. I had only two things stolen nothing else I don't
know why that happened but it did. Don't worry now we have a beefed up security
so we won't be getting robbed again.
So
we got the chance to teach a Catholic deacon. Super awesome experience. So how
it goes is this guy contacted us and was like hey I want to learn English and I
also have some questions about the church. so we were like yeah that's fine. So
we go to teach this guy and he whips out a packet of papers. It's flipped over
but I already knew what it was. sure enough after a little English lesson he flips this packet of paper over. The title How to respond to the Mormons and
the Jehovah Witnesses. Yup so he opens this packet and starts to explain to us
why the apostasy didn't happen and how Joseph Smith had basically copied our
religion from other religions. 45 minutes to an hour later he says ok it's your turn to
respond. Well after that much information it's basically impossible to respond
to anything in a logical manner. So we pause for a second and then pull out Matthew where it says beware of false prophets and by your fruits you shall
know them. Then we pull out the Book of Mormon and we testify that it is true
and that God had answered our prayers that this book is really the word of God. We take a total of 5 minutes and after that telling him that God gave us an
answer all he says is vale (translation valid) or what he was trying to say
is basically I can't say anything. That scripture of the small and weak and
humble things will confound the wise it happened. It was fulfillment of that. This man has had 4 years of psychology and 4 years of theology and 3 years of philosophy, he had a packet composed by the Catholic church with all the logic
man could come up with and in 5 minutes two young men with 6 weeks of theology
and 1 year of college experience between the both of us got this guy to say our argument was valid and we even got him committed to read the Book of Mormon.
Being a missionary is awesome!
I
love you so much dad keep the faith I hope this story helps you with something
this week. I felt impressed to share it with you.