Wendy keeps up better than me. Masen got to skype

If picture is worth a thousand words, then skyping is worth a gazillion! We got a great surprise Sunday when Masen was able to skype from the jungle. There was a delay and it was hard to discern what he was saying, but just seeing his smile was all we needed.

He was at the ward mission leader’s house and as we talked people came by and Masen would aim the camera at them and introduce them to us. We were all squished together trying to be in the camera frame all at once. He had ear phones and a mic so they could not hear us, but we would wave and they would wave back. There were several children, a cute 2 ½ year old who Masen persuaded to say “Hola”! And a little eight year old girl snuggled right up to him and “shared” one of the head phones. Her name is Sondra and when Greg commented to Masen that it looks like he has a little “friend” Masen burst into a big smile and nodded his head. EJ and Brietyn cried several times when he spoke just to them.

He looked incredibly happy, showered with love, and completely at home. It was hard to believe he has only been there for 3 weeks. He has a pensionista—a member that is hired to cook for the missionaries. In Lima his pensionista did not cater to them, but his pensionista now has told him she will try and cook American food that he wants if he gets her a recipe. So his big request was a recipe for pizza dough. His companion, who is from Chile, was in the background saying “pizza please…pizza please”. He also asked for us to send him brownie mixes. We asked him if he was still having to eat a lot of fish. He said the pensionista saw him eating fish and recognized that he did not like it and told him she would not make him any more fish. Can I just say I LOVE THIS WOMAN! I am so grateful to her for spoiling Masen!

He said he has to cross the river everyday on a bridge this is bouncy like a trampoline…just like the movies. He takes a cold shower every morning…colder that the river. He said that the bugs and spiders have not been any more ominous than the ones in Lima. He said that it is beautiful and amazing and he is loving it. I don’t think it is as remote as you might imagine.

As we were saying goodbye, he aimed the camera at the group of people and we made a heart shape with our hands. He aimed the camera back at himself for a minute then back to the group of people who were making hearts back to us. All barriers vanish…geographical, cultural, language…and we all felt the exchange of pure love and we became brothers and sisters instead of strangers. It was a powerful moment for me.

We asked Masen to call us for his remaining 15 minutes so we could really communicate. It was about another hour when we got his call. The connection was fuzzy and still hard to hear and I asked him if he wanted to call back to try to get a clearer line. He said he only had 12 minutes left on his card and was headed for a meeting and asked me what else there was to talk about? Enough said…”been good talking to you but got to get back to work.” I actually thought that was the perfect way to end the call. Can’t wait for Christmas!

I’m writing this at work and funny thing just happened his mission president, President Blunck, just called in. I could not help it…I had to tell him that I had a missionary in his mission and what a great conversation we had with him on Sunday. He, of course, told me what a great missionary Masen is and thanks for sending him to us!

This is Masen’s “two-line” e-mail from Monday…(really Masen?)

ya so it was good talking to you yesterday. ill write you next week. this computer stinks. ill see if i can send you pics another way. love you all. bye

This last week Masen let us know that he is getting his wish and transfered into the jungle... oh wow

Hi Friends and Family,

Here is his e-mail from this week. It has finally happened…he’s going to the Jungle. This is why the Lord sends out 19 year olds…who else would be so eager to live in sweltering heat with giant bugs and spiders and endure poor, remote living conditions. He will have to fly to get there. The zone leaders fly to the mission office once a month to meet with the president and take back the mail. I believe a rite of passage of living in the Jungle is to eat certain giant caterpillar. Our mother’s day call is really going to be interesting now.

In Primary on Sunday the question was asked…do you have anybody you really look up to and want to be just like them. Several of the kids responded and cute EJ shot his hand up and replied that he wants to be like Masen. I was telling the story to Greg at home and Brynlie said to EJ that Masen is her hero too. Greg made the comment of how nice it is to have a big brother to look up to. I wrote about that to Masen and thanked him for being the kind of big brother that we can all look up to.

In this e-mail we did a question/answer section…so in the middle he includes my question and then his answer.

first things first, hold off on that package, im going to the jungle, so it wont get to me for forever. ya i just found out about my transfer. im super super stoked, but i wanted one more change here. the family of luis is going to get married so we can baptise his mom. puchi. oh well i just hope things keep going with that family like they are. im glad im changing though. gives me a fresh start, which means i have to work super hard and i want that because the time goes by faster becuase its funner. im super stoked, but ill be going to war with the bugs and spiders. alright.

Did you get to enjoy some baptisms on Saturday?
yes ma'am i did. we baptied luis's aunt. it was pretty cool because i guess she was a little reble a month ago alway leaving the house and staying out late. . . . if she came home, and rosemary (the mom of luis) said that she was changing, and that she new the church was true and this was the right thing to do. its super sweet to hear that come from one of your investigators, and its cooler that she is still young. i just saved her from a life of miserey. thats whats up.
Did I tell you that Grandma Lynn turned 85 a couple weeks ago? She is the same age as President Monson. Do you ever get visiting General Authorities down there that talk to you?
same age as president monson. she is a boss. thats super awesome. wow. she is living right ha ha. we have had 70s talk to us in the mtc and one time for our stake conference, but thats it. area 70 by the way. but they are super good at giving talks.
everybody is old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im old!! your old! ha ha we are all old. man life is so short. what to do in so short a time. well the best thing to do is do what larsen is doing and give your time to the lord ha ha. its pretty sweet to see what the lord can do, and the cooler part is what the lord can do with me. the lord has his perfect plan for everyone. we just have to ask to see what we have to do. that hero stuff is sweet to hear, but they should look at someone better. but hearing that makes me want to be better so that they can have someone better to look at.
love you all
Elder Fenn

Two weeks late

Hi All,

I neglected to send this e-mail out last week. Funny story. A call came through on my home phone with like 20 numbers on the caller ID. I showed Bryn and said look at this crazy number and didn’t answer it of course because I thought it was a soliciter. I jumped in the shower and heard the phone ring two more times. Bryn said she ignored the calls because she knew I would tell her to tell them I won’t talk to them and she hates doing that. As I was dressing Tayden called on his cell phone and said mom I just talked to Masen and he is trying to call you he lost his debit card and needs it cancelled. I WAS IGNORING MASEN’S CALLS!!! He actually did call a few minutes later and we talked for barely 2 minutes. It was so fun to hear his voice. He sounds exactly the same which was strangely surprising… I guess because he had changed so much on the inside. We cancelled the card and nothing has been taken from his account. So that was a great bonus for the week.

He talks about telling an investigator the “story about you mom” trying to help her find courage to pay tithing. I’m not sure what story he is referring to and I am very pleased to find that Masen was actually listening to my stories. We were in St. George for a dance competition for Brietyn…he refers to that. The CCM is MTC in Spanish.

Here it is…

do i think in spanish yet. . . yes and no. when im thinking to my self it depends on the day. sometimes i wake up and i find myself thinking spanglish. its funny to catch yourself like that sometimes. one time i cant remember what i was doing, but i turned to my comp and started talking to him in english. it was funny cause he was like WHAT I DONT UNDERSTAND. haha but we had a good laugh with that. but the spanish is good. i can talk to almost everyone and understand almost everything. so its good. sorry about the email thing last week. i try to give you a heads up next time if i can remember, but this time i didn´t really know what was going down untill like friday before. the cool thing is that i saw one of my teachers from the ccm in the temple, then we went to the cafateria and i saw a kid from my class in the ccm. so that was tight. maybe i will see him today again because we are going to a place called larco mar. its a super rich place thats in his mission. so maybe or maybe not. we are just headed there to get out of our zone and play some fútbol on the beach. should be sweet.

1st place huh. dang super sick. i want to go to st. george. . . . no i dont i want to go to san diego. ya and go to the beach. ha ha. maybe when i get home brietyn will be pro and we will be going to san diego for here dance. ya that would be sick. so brietyn work hard and when i get home have a compitition that month. awesome. ha ha

the world is changing. we are supposed to be having colder weather for a month now. last week we had like 2 days where it dropped in temp. but the days after that it was super hot. not hot like bridger has, but 95ish i think. at night it drops, but i still cant sleep under a blanket. and i have a fan (big fan) in my face all night. when i got to lima it was cold enough in the mornings to wear a long sleev shirt outside. so im sure it will get there.

about the dude in the park. nothing much has happended with him. we have visited him a couple times now, but he hasent come to church because sundays he goes and visits his family like 2 hours away and plays soccer with them. but thats alright for now because he is smart i can can see him changing soon. as for the steak counsler ya dont know anything new. but he is a punk. ha ha no not really. the crappy part about it is that his wife is our biggest help here. hopefully that doesnt go away.

but i have a better story this week. so i was way scared to not have a baptism this month we have had the goal of this week for a girl named jenifer for this week 28 of april. she is kinda iffy still so i dont know if it will happen. but wednesday we went to visit this family that we thought we were going to drop. they have been listining to the missionarys for 2 years now. we have been visiting them for 3 weeks with not much new happeing. when we went we said that we were going to invite them to be baptised. if they accepted, cool. if not we were going to drop them. the mom actually started talking about baptism first and said that she was scared that she couldnt live all the laws like tithing. i told her the story of you mom and bore my testimony about it. then she said she was going to be baptised. it was super sweet. we asked her to prepare for the 12 of may. she said no. i was confused and asked why not. she said it was to far away and wanted to get baptised as fast as possible. we had an interview with jenifer already schedualed for thursday. so we just added her in and long story short she was baptised on saturday. it was super super sweet. now we just have to baptise her husband and 1 of her daughters. the other one is already a member. so that helps the month be better. im still hoping that we have another one this week.

my zone is going to the beach today to play futbol, and no i am super white still. that means i cant play futbol that good yet, but im still better than some latins. ha ha there are kids that are crazy good. FAT kids that work me because they have been playing all their life, but ya im alright for a white kid.

as for the garments and stuff that can wait a little if you dont have time or whatever. with that package though i would like my shoe conditioner that is ontop of my dresser i believe. and some kind of chocolete. ha ha. but the jeerky was supper good. i loved it. ah crap if you can i have like 4 pair of pants that can be washed and 2 get washed every week, but it takes about a week to get the laundry back, so if you can send me some pants that can be washed so i dont have to wear the same pants for like 3 days. ha ha and maybe 2 shirts. that would be super super sweet.

thanks for everything, and for the birhtday package. the tie is super sick. i loved it.

love you all.

Elder Fenn

 

Happy 20th birthday

Hi Gang,

It was Masen’s birthday yesterday. Our family put 20 candles in a Hersey’s Pie and sang to him and then sent him a picture of the pie aflame. Of course my big worry was that nobody would know it was his birthday and there would be no celebrating. A Peruvian birthday tradition is cracking eggs on your head and then covering it with flour. He will refer to this. He thought he would have to eat fish all week because of Easter. April is his 6^th month mark…can’t decide if it is going fast or slow.

Here is today’s e-mail…

20 years old.

Wow I am old!!!!!

ha ha ha love the pictures of the mega fire. and everyone. ha ha way sweet thanks

but your prayers were answered to the max. word got out that it was my birthday in sacrament meeting from someone in the ward. so every meeting we went to that night there was dinner for me. It was overwhelming. i went from lunch eating rice and chicken to eating tacos to eating rice and chicken in another meeting and then to family night with the bishop where he had refreshments. wow i felt so fat and sick. the miracles that happened this week. i did not eat fish!!! second i didn’t have a funny guy crack an egg on my head. if that happened i would have been mad, but all is good cause it didnt happen.

miracle that didn’t happen. . .. . .getting my package. but thats ok cause i wasnt expecting it.

oh ya another cool thing that happend was one lady gave me toblerone. i didnt think about it at first, but when i got home i remembered that in the airport they were selling this for 20 soles. That is like 7 American dollars. and for a sole 50 we can buy a coke. so thats way expensive. another cool thing is that one of our investigators gave us food.

wow. out of time. sorry for the crapy letter. im trying to write everyone a letter and send it with all my pictures of my mission. we will see what happens this week. hopefully i can send it.

love you all have to go.

sorry again.

Elder Fenn

Wasn't able to avoid the kiss but was able to avoided the alcahol. ja ja ja

A great letter from Masen this week.  He was able to tell us about a couple experiences in their teaching and the success in their baptisms.  Here is the highlights of that letter that I think he will be OK with us sharing with all of you.  It might make you laugh a little as it did me.

!Por fin! estoy 14 libres mas gordo. ja ja no, no es verdad. estoy solamente como 8 libres mas gordo. the package was awesome. The cookies were definitely a uni cookie and tasted weird, but they were soft. I don't know if they tasted weird because of the travel time or because my taste buds have changed or what, but they were still good. I have only opened the chocolate chip ones, the sugar cookies have a message on them. . . ? I am not going to be able to read that, sorry, but I'm definitely looking forward to frosting that huge uni-cookie. yum. Goal to have a happy tummy. . . . . . . didn't work. ha ha ha sorry. the whole week I was sick, not from the package.  I think I got sick from Chili's. Man this week (I) was sick.

Alright this was my week. I finished emailing you last week and then we went to Larcomar. I now know one place in Lima that I can take you. It was sick right on the beach. We went bowling and then went to Chili's. yummmmmmm but i think the chicken got me, it was worth it. Cost 30 soles. We only get 90 personal a month. ha ha ha ha worth it. Ya I dropped a lot of money but its all good. In that day I only spent like 25 bucks to bowl and eat at Chili's.

 

After that the spiritual stuff went down. The whole week we had very good lessons. We are actually having a lot of success. We got one reference for someone that has depression. We knocked the door not knowing what to expect. The mom answered and said oh your from the church right? ha ha ha ya.. hold on. She ran inside, don't know what she did, ran back to the door and opened it way excited and let us in. At first we were like alright sweet they like the church. ha ha The kid with depression is a smart kid like Einstein. We will see what happens with them or maybe not if I get transferred, but I don't think I will. I find out in a half hour. 

The best part of the week is that we had a baptism. The kid is 9 year old so that was cool. What was even a cooler part is that on the 4th of Feb. we baptised his older brother who is 16. Saturday he was able to do the baptism. It was sweet. The brother baptised his little brother. ha ha ha. In May we have a date that the mom will get married so that she can get baptised. Now because of the baptism, one of his sisters who is an evangelist is starting to listen to us. Sweet.

Bad things that went down this week. We went to visit one person that came to church last Sunday. In church his relatives came up to us and said go visit him. Ya so we went. He is Adventista (I think he was trying to say Seventh Day Adventist) or something and when we talked to him he always tries to prove us wrong through the bible. This is a good thing because he knows his bible and that makes him easy to teach. The bad things that happened was that after the lesson he kinda forced us into eating lunch there. It tasted fine, but my comp took a sip of the drink which was juice with alcohol. ha ha sucker drank on his mish but he gave me the heads up not to drink it. Thanks man. After that his daughter came down. She is 16 but looks older. It's custom here to give the women a kiss on the cheek. To defend us from this we throw out our hand for a hand shake. Usually that's it, this has never happened to me before so i threw out my hand not expecting anything. She grabbed my hand and pulled it in so that I could give her a kiss on the cheek. WOW I'm going to hell. Got my first kiss of the mission and after it happened to me my comp tried not to do the same thing, she didn't have that and he got his 5th I think. After that we explained the rule so hopefully that won't happen again here. It was pretty fast and I thought I acted fine not to offend her and get out without that happening. I failed, I'm a failure. ha ha ha

Don't worry, I've already repented. Hopefully that doesn't happen again because it was weird for both parties afterwards. We went back again to teach the dad and invited all his family to listen. They didn't want to but I think they understand better and its all good.

That was kind of the big things of the week.

Bugs aren't bad around here but their are roaches and spiders and stuff. Not bad. There are more at home. got to go. 

Like always, love and miss you

Elder Fenn

 

 

 

Hello everyone

It has been awhile since I have had the time to post updates for Elder Fenn and the successes he is having in Lima.  Much of the problem is that his mother can instant message with him and there usually is no letter to post.  He is still in the north part of Lima but would like to make it to the jungle as soon as possible.  He says that he or his companion will be transferred for sure this next week and he is hoping that it is him.  I find it funny that some of the people are asking Masen about the kind of man Mitt Romney is because they know that he is a "Mormon".  Isn't it interesting that they would know that?  You never know who is watching and what they may think about who we are.  Keep the faith and work hard!

Here is some of the questions his mother asks and his reply.

What about the President and his wife...any association there?
we have training meetings with them every month so ya i see them every once and a while. we have had 2 so far and both times i got to see elder Richardson. i am blessed because i am having success. we have baptised like 8 people in the 3 (almost) months that i have been in the field. the first time i talked to him in the field was like 3 weeks ago and the Saturday before he had just gotten his first baptism. by then i had 8. and last week i saw him again and he said that they were getting more and more so he is starting to work.

this week i had 2 baptisms. they were sweet. our focus in the mission is in the family right. so every time we baptise a family its like a little bonus. the next focus is in hombres mayores, or men older than 18 years old. this is a focus because it is building the church con el sacerdocio, or priesthood.
this week we had 2 baptisms. i would send photos but my card isn´t working. . . so next week. but they were both men older than 18 so it was way sweet. one was a man that came to church with his cousins and his uncle. he is like 32 and said that it was the first time in most of his life that he has felt like that. he felt a feeling that he forgot about, the feeling of peace. the day after he went to Church we saw him again. that Monday he said he wanted to get baptised. that was 2 weeks ago mas o menos and ya he was confirmed a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints yesterday. sweet. the other man was 88 YEARS OLD ha ha. that was kinda a scary baptism. i thought that he might die in the font. but he was actually really smart. you could talk to him and he could understand almost all of it. but you had to shout for him to hear the lessons. we found him because we are teaching his daughter that is 55-60 years old. we will baptise here in May if I'm still here. May because she has to get married first.
Have you had a zone conference or anything yet? When are the next transfers?
the answers are already in the letter, but i have had 2 zone conferences. he is starting to do them every month because i guess as a mission our numbers have gone way down. next transfers. . . . i will find out after the next email sesh how will be transferred and where. but i am almost positive that I'm not going. my comp has 7 months in the same area. pobre-cito ha ha. por kid. but its all good. i have a lot of investigators that are way cool here and i want to see them get baptized. ha ha ha the coolest of our investigators are from elder Richardson's zone. ja jaja but not his area. we stoled them because they live a lot closer to our Church than the other church.
out of time.. never have enough..

No transfer so still in Lima

Sorry to have missed a week but Elder Fenn is doing great and still in Lima and his first area.  He has found more success but is waiting for a couple items to fall in line to go ahead with the baptisms.  It is also encouraging that the language is coming easier and he loves the people but the newness has worn off.

Fam,

What’s up. So today is the day that I wrote a tiny e-mail . Sorry about that, but hopefully this will make up for it a little.  The good stuff is that all the people are really friendly and the way the Gospel changes people. Remember Kevin, that kid I baptized who wanted to swim in the font? Ya when we started teaching him his mom didn’t want to listen to us. After Kevin’s baptism Flor (the mom) started listening and taking lessons. She really started to open up to us. Her mom said that she was changing a lot. After a couple lessons we found out they were moving. That day we asked her if she wanted to get baptized. She said yes. But first she has to get married or the Dad move out.

The family I baptized in my first week is still super sweet. The best meal I have had here was at their house. We are trying to plan a trip to the temple with them to do baptisms. We only have 2 families we are teaching and they both need to get married. We are also teaching another lady that needs to get married before baptism. We try to have 8 families progressing though. We are teaching a 16 year old boy named Luis that is way sweet. He is freaking smart. He also knows his bible so its way easy to teach him. We have the date for this Saturday the 4^th of February, but we don’t have permission from his parents yet. We have a meeting Tuesday with them. Cross your fingers, but this kids a stud he will get it from them. We’ll I’m out of room, but that’s pretty much all.

Love ya miss ya. Bye

Elder Fenn.