The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

December 19, 2016
"So this week was good weird hard and just different! So we had 3 amazing baptisms this week! And only 2 showed up on Sunday.... N wasnt there!!!! We didnt really know what happened but she says she is going to be there the next Sunday we are praying for that to work out. Elder Fernandez is going to die this Friday! So so crazy. He has been such a great influence on me. We have worked so well together and I know that in the end of my mission i will look to him as one of my best companions. He does so well at listening to the spirit and he does really well with enduring to the end. He is a great missionary and its going to be really sad saying goodbye to him. Im nervous to have a new companion but i know that we are going to do great things together. So our baptisms this week! N, A and AM! They are so awesome and they know this is the truth. They love the church and everything this gospel offers and they are going to be great members! I had the oppurtunity to baptize A and that was just awesome I love it. This week was kind of crazy hahaha lots of going to the Church for baptisms or too the offices for Elder Fernandez so that was all kind of fun! I got to say goodbye to Elder Olsen! He lives in Arizona and he left last Thursday! He is awesome and that was sad seeing him go. This week we are going to say goodbye to 2 more Elders in our district... Its sad seeing missionaries leave but also very happy. They have worked so so hard for all of this and its made me realize how I do not want to go home at all. I want to work hard hard hard so when the days comes when I leave I can feel as if I have done the work I was called to do. Ive been listening to the talk by Elder Holland about missionary work a lot this week. Its so awesome how he talks and its so true what he says."Why is it so hard" "Why isnt our success more rapid? This is the truth, we believe in angels we trust in miracles why dont people just flock to the font?... Ive thought about it a great deal and I offer this as my personal feeling its not church doctorine persay its just my feeling... I believe that missionary work is not easy, BECAUSE SALVATION IS NOT A CHEAP EXPERIENCE! SALVATION WAS NEVER EASY!... why would we think it would be easy for us when it was never easy for him." Then he goes on and talks more about missionaries and its just so awesome. This work is definitely not easy but it is definitely necessary. I love being a missionary and I love Peru. missionary work is very awesome and i hope to hear from you all love you!

Pics on the way!"

Roller Coaster Weeks

12/5/2016
"This week was very very busy but also in a very different way. With Elder Fernandez being the district leader we have lots of interviews to do.. and we have to take a bus to the church then take one back so sometimes that takes up a lot of time and then with all the baptisms we had this week! 7 baptisms in our district this last week! So awesome I am so happy for our Elders. Me and Elder Fernandez are working really hard to baptize this month! So we have Family M E and they are just so awesome still. They always read theyve gone to church three weeks in a row and they just dont have a testimony of the Book of Mormon yet. So thats something we are helping them with. Theyre awesome keeping their commitments too! Besides praying... which is a pretty big commitment to miss hahaha. But we are helping them with that too. They are awesome and I dont know how to explain it just really amazing people. So interested in the Church and they are really progressing! Then there is A and AM and they are awesome too! They are really into the fact that they are going to be baptized for themselves and for Jesus Christ. Not for anyone else. They are doing awesome and are getting excited to get baptized. They have accepted the Law of Chastity and The Word of Wisdom with no problems and I cant wait for the day that they are baptized. We found a new family that we are going to start working with! They know that we are "Elders" and they always say hi to us! We taught them one short lesson cause it was late and we are meeting with them again this week! They are a really cool family! So besides that we had a day or two that was just a lot of walking but thats alright! We are going to keep working hard and finding more people! We also had our Multi Zone this week with different zones so that was really cool! I got to see some of my good buddies! SO yea! Hope you are all doing great!

1Corinthians 13:11

I found a snickers so that was really awesome. And then in the other picture i just look dumb im still practicing my smile... then the other is a picture of the crazy every day traffic in Peru! I want to hear how everyone is doing so you should all email me real quick lol. Love you all!"

12/12/2016

"So this week was awesome! First off i want to start off with the fact that we had a lesson with Family ME and also the Mission President decided to tag a long hahahaha. We asked him for his help and he was more than willing to go! There are almost 200 missionaries in this mission and he felt the need to visit this family with us. That was amazing. I cant even explain it akll but that was awesome the spirit was so strong and the family felt it too they are so amazing. They are making this Saturday the goal but its not for sure. THey want to know more but President Stauffer really helped. WOW:

Our district is doing so well and its so awesome seeing the hard work pay off and its going to pay off for me and Elder Fernandez this week! So something awesome happened today! N (who is our investigator that told us she is going to be baptized when she gets home) called us today. WOW! After the longest up and down roller coaster of my life she decided that she wants to get baptized WEDNESDAY!!! She called us and told us that she went to the baptism of another companionship and one of our other investigators was there too, AM. AM and her daughter are going to be baptized this Saturday. Anyways, N sat by AM during the baptism and after the baptism they left together. AM didnt know what type of situation N was in but AM started to talk about her baptism this Saturday. AND Nacilmar wanted to get baptized as soon as possible! So she called us today and said Wednesday!!! Because of the excitment and testimony of another investigator! That was something so amazing. Miracles are weird and they are real. Such a testimony builder. We are going to end Elder Fernandez's mission strong! EMAIL ME!"

October 17-November 28

Hello! I'm still not good at keeping up on missionary blogs so, I apologize.  (Side note, I edited names to be just the first letter of the name for privacy) Here we go!

10/17/2016
"ello everyone! Start of week 3 in Peru! This last week had a little bit more bumps than last week...but thats ok not every week is going to be the easiest! We had pur 12 investigators committed to baptism and also committed o go to church turns out that this last sunday none of our investigators came to church... that was pretty hard, Another thing about this mission is about half the families here are not married so that means that cant get baptized until they get married because its a commandment! aAnd not very many people think its worth getting married to be baptized... and the big problem is that if they arent progressing like getting marriage papers for baptism then we cant teach them,,, but there is this one family with two kids who is actually working really hard for it. They feeel so much peace and joy when they read and they are goung to get married i believe! They are so awesome! I promise everyone here that if you read the Book of Mormon with a sincere and oopen heart then pray and ask if its true with faith then i prpmise you will know for yourself that it is the true Book! I love Peruvians they are so fun hahaha. I was assigned to give a talk this next week so thats cool! On Friday I got tp play basketball with some random kids on the street and im like a foot taller than all of them so i wrecked and everyone watching freaked out everytime i blocked someone hahahahaha i loveit here spanish is hard but geting better!The church is true!"

10/24/2016
"This has been another amazing week! I love it here

So sadly our planned Baptisms fell through but we have some really good investigators! The first is the A Family! They have like 10 kids and 3 of them are members (one of them being less active) but they are so amazing. The mom loves us and she really loves the gospel but she has a hard time going to church hahha. Then the others that have a date is the dad who doesnt really understand the church all that well but we are helping him and then their son who is sort of the same. But then they have 4 littles girls who are so funny and so sweet they are just so awesome! the oldest is 10 i believe and her name is N then there is D who is 8 and B who is 4 and another little girl who I cant remember what her name is. But evry time we go to there house the always scream Its the Mormons!! Theyre awesome. Going to their house makes a hard day turn good always. Then we have been teaching this other girl named N who is 18 and living with her grandma who is a member and she is getting baptized on the 19th! She reads El Libro De Mormon and feels so much peace and joy when doing so. Then there family A who attended church and they love it their mom works on sundays sometimes but theyre an awesome famiy! Then there is J This was the best. So we were just meeting with her sister and she was there so I tried talking to her with my little knowledge of spanish but she thinks its funny i dont know spanish. So we gave her a Book of Mormon that her little brother who is 11 makes her read and she really likes it and then she went to church this sunday! So Yesterday she went to church and then after we had other lessons that fell through so I felt like we should visit her! It was awesome. I spake so much soanish and she is going to get baptized on the 12th! Her sister and brother are members but not her because she had a kid and lived with her boyfriend for a while. But she is so awesome and her and her boyfriend broke up and now she wants to get baptized I invited her to be baptized and she said only if the water was hot hahahaha! Our ward help is absolutely awesome and are a huge help! The companionship is awesome. We had a hard day saturday because i was getting frustrated with the language and we also were given back 2 Books of Mormon so that was really really hard. But after we got the Book of Mormons the people promised us that they would hear from other missionaries. My companion explained to me that we cant save everyone. Some people are meant for other missionaries and some people just arent ready. This work is so awesome. I love Peru so much."

10/31/2016

"Hello everyone! This week is the start of week 5 in Peru and it was so awesome! This week was amazing! JGOT BAPTIZED SATURDAY!!! she was supposed to got baptized on the 12th but we talked with her and she felt ready for the 29th of Oct. as long as the water was hot... which it wasnt hahaha but she was ok. I got to baptize her and that was my first one ever, Such and amazing experience honestly. She is awesome. It was scary though cause i though ti was going to mess up on her name (deleted her name for privacy purposes but just know it was a long one:) ) hahaha but luckily i got it right! So this week we were walking down the streets of Villa los Reyes and me and Elder Fernandez felt really good about this section of houses no clue why. We got a few names of people that said they could hear lessons but not now. So at that point I was wondering why we were feeling good about that area when nothing even hapend. So anyways we were playing soccer with some of the niños when a couple approached us and said they wanted to hear our message! They lived on the street we had a good feeling about! So we went that night and now we are teafching them! They are so awesome i love that family. They didnt commit to a date for baptism but they said if they felt the spirit after asking through prayer if our message was true that they would be baptized

The spirit works in different ways. It is so awesome I love Peru and even though spanish sucks sometimes i love it as well.

Oh yea there were earthquakes in Peru but im ok and so are all the missionaries i believe! I was asleep and woke up to our whole house shaking hahaha there have been three days where there has been rumbling but no damage has been done here! Love you all and hope to hear from you!"

11/7/2016

"o this week was a little slow and our numbers werent that great but i also had some great experiences! So first thing that was awesome! We were going through the old investigators for a part of my Language study and i would read the reports amd what not so i was going through the papers and i found one that i felt really good about. So i took it out and set it aside. Then a few more later i was going through and i found another one that i felt really good about. She was an older lady and was conviviente but i still felt the need that we should visit her. So we first go to the family and we made an appointment and they are awesome so then after them we went to go find the older lady. We looked at the address and it was the same as the family... we were confused but stopped by and it turns out the older lady is their grandma! So we are going to keep teaching them and see where things go. So awesome feeling the spirits help like that. Another awesome story was that the Juana, my first baptism, and both her sisters AND the mom went to church yesterday! The first time the mom has gone to church in 10 YEARS! She bore her testimony in one of the classes to and it was so awesome. After church we had a lesson with them and I have never seen a family so happy. They have had a lot of trials in their lives but holy cow they were so happy. Attending church changes families. I saw it yesterday. They were so happy and you could just feel how happy there house was just being in it. I know this gospel is true and I know it blesses family. So cool. Yesterday was one of my best days as a missionary! So awesome. There were a few more earthquakes but we have emergency bags now so thats cool too hahahaha. We have transfers next week and i am getting nervous for that... i have been getting along with Eldder Fernandez very well.

Me and my companion are awesome. We are working so well together and I am so so grateful he is my trainer. He really helps me out a lot and he is hilarious too. Yesterday we had a lesson with two new investigators and we taught the Restoration so good that was our best lesson ever I think. The family we taught were so interested and you could see their curiosity to read the Book of Mormon. This week was just awesome! I love this work. Love you all hope to hear from you!"

11/14/2016

"Hello! So this week was more of just a normal week! I had some pretty cool and funny experiences! So first we have this family just a mom and dad and they are so very interested in the Book of Mormon and how Jesus came here and how it has record of the first people here in the Americas! So they went to church that was awesome! We didnt have any baptisms but Spanish is going good! I mean i still struggle a lot but it still fun to try and pretend like im good at it hahaha. We dont know about transfers until 8 tonight and im praying i stay with Elder Fernandez so we will see how that goes! So this week we have a scheduled baptism and she is a rollercoaster she cant make up her mind if she wants to be baptized here or at her home. We know she wants to be baptized here but we think there is something else holding her back and we are trying to find what that is. But i think she is going to be baptized saturday. Also we have these two teenagers who love the church but their mom has a very hard time going. They go all the timeand they are getting baptized next satruday! Something cool that happened was this week we were just doing some door to door stuff because I wrote down a wrong address so we were just doing stuff around there and we knocked on one door and and Hermano M anwsered and said Hermanos! Come in! of course in spanish but we were like what the heck does this guy even know who we are but he was so happy to see us hahaha so we went in and he had like three books of Mormon in his little office and apparently we were an anwser to his prayer. He prayed for some sort of sign from God and we showed up hahahaha he hasnt talked to missionaries for a while but he was happy to see us. God anwsers prayers sooner or later. If you have faith you can recieve an anwser you will in one way or another.

Another cool/funny story is we were walking around and there were this group of drunk guys above 50 just dancing to music and partying and they tried speaking english to me and they were dancing and it was hilarous and then we went to the house like two houses down and this guy anwsered and he said Where are you from? In like perfect english and we talked in english! He is lived in the US for a while for work AND he was baptized! Hes an inactive member and he was a little buzzed when we were talking to him but hes going to start going to church hopefully! We will see how that goes! Cool week i love Peru so much i hope to hear from you all!"

11/21/2016

"Hello everybody! So transfers happened last week but luckily nothing changed just that my companion is the district leader now! So thats awesome! So last week he had a training for his position as district leader so i got to go on splits with Elder Canfield! He was in my district in the mtc and he is one of my very very good friends! That was so fun hahaha and we actually had a very sucessful day! sWe commited 2 people to baptism so that was awesome! Just a good day. Then the next day we had new missionary training from 9-5 so that was just great... but yea this saturday we were supposed to have a baptism with N... But she is just recieving too much pressure from her family right now so she is too scared. Her dad does not want her to be baptized... so she says she is going to wait... she believes in everything but she is just going to wait i guess. That was really hard. Because she has all these blessings waiting for her but shes too scared to get them because of pressure from her family.. we are working really hard with her. So besides that we had 2 families at Chruch so that was awesom! Family of 2 and family of 4! The fmaily of 4 is Family M and they love us. The dad didnt believe in God at the beginning and now he prays all the time with his family which is awesome. He loves us and they give us food all the time. Apparently i can eat really hot stuff cause they give us a sauce to put on our food and i just chow it down and they just laugh cause i dont think its that hot hahaha. The other family is Family M just two. They are awesome too. They love the missionaries and the church and are getting baptized in december! Yea spanish is hard somedays i think im fluent others i have no clue whats going on hahaha. I feel like my english is getting worse and my spanish is staying the same hahaha,

One spiritual thought.

This is my thoughts on the story when Jesus walked on water. Matthew 14 24-32

So in the scripture all the apostles are in the safety pf the boat in the ocean. And Jesus comes to them and at first they are frightened but then Jesus tells them "Be of good cheer for it is I be not afraid."and after the see it is is Jesus Peter asks if he can come into the water with Him. and Jesus says "Come" and after Peter left the safety of the boat to come unto Jesus. He walked on water. Then the winds came from the storm and he got frightened and scared and he started to sink and he said "Lord, save me." and i love this next part in verse 31 it says "And immediately Jesus streched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" and then in verse 32 it says "And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased." We will have times when we will sink. Where we fell and sometimes feel ashamed of our actions. The winds will always be hard and scary but when we fall we can always get back up. But you have to ask for help first. as soon as Peter cried to the Lord Jesus "IMMEDIATELY" streched his hand. He is always there everyone!

 Love you all and hope to hear from you all!

Quick shout out to the best Mom in the world turning 25 yesterday! Love her so much and she is the most amazing mom out there so everyone wish her a happy birthday! 

Heres a few pics too of our district and some with Elder Canfield! And also 2 jerseys i bought for a totaly of like 15 bucks hahaha

11/28/2016

"o this week was so awesome! We had lots and lots of lessons and its been pretty busy! Busy is best! We had 7 of our investigators in sacrement! And 6 of them was their second time in a row! The other was her first time and sacrement was so awesome! So there was Hermana G who has been a friend of the missionaries and finally let us talk with her and we got her to go to sacrement with her sons girlfriend! They both were crying so hard during the story one of the Hermanas gave in sacrement meaning! The spirit was so strong that was an awesome experience! We meet with her tomorrow to see how shes feeling about everything! Then there was A and A a daughter and her mother! Those two are so awesome and they love the church! They havent read much of the Book of Mormon yet but they said they are going to be better at that! They really want to know if this is the true church so theyre going to read and pray about the Book of Mormon! But both of them feel awesome about baptism! Hahahaha. So then there is Family M! THEY ARE AMAZING! At first the dad didnt even believe in God and now hes making his family pray every day! They are so awesome! Its the parents and their 2 kids Jamie and Lucia! That family is seriously so awesome. They are working hard to know if this is true. They read and go to church and have so many questions its so awesome. They just forget to ask for specific anwsers in their prayers. But that family is awesome! They told us yesterday that we have changed their lives. Theyre such a loving family. And ive seen the happiness increase in their house since we first met with them. They went to an activity last week with the ward too and they are just loving it! Thursday we are going to teach them about Eternal Families with the bishop so that should be so awesome. So yea things are going great! We got some new investigators and things are just really looking up! The last two weeks weve been working hard me and Elder Fernandez and its really paying off. 

Id also like to give a shout out to Erin Kunzler because she sent me apackage and it was so awesome. I know have some sick Naruto action figures on my desk and new cards and a new journal and candy and she is the best. God bless you all!"

October 10, 2016
"Wow Peru is crazy! My first week in Peru is over and ive had some amazing experiences already. First ill talk about the first day. So when we got to the airport we went tp the Presidents house andwe slept at his houseand then the next morning wewent to a church where we got our new companions and are area! I am in Zapallal! <this place is just so crazy and its very sad because there is so much poverty. It is vry humbling being here. At home I would get upset because I couldnt get some things but the people here dont even have a real floor. Some people dont even have doors and its just so sad. I was freaking out my first night because it is just so different and then within the last few days its just been so awesoe. One thing weird about Peru is there are a million cat and dogs just everywhere like a million. They dont ever bother you but ya. With animals comes poop so thats nasty too. There is trash everywhere and ive seen the soon once but theres just something about this place i love. We actually have a lot of investigators. My second day my companion said to me choose a house to knock their door. so i did and we talked to fmaily Olivarez they only have a dad and a mom aand their daughter but we shared with them and they were so accepting to hear our message and we meet with them tomorrow so thats way cool! Then theres this other family the family Apaza and they have 10 kids! Some kids are baptized but we set a date of baptism on the 29th so i hope that goes well! Thanks to Erin almost every kid loves me because i give them toys and they love it! The kids are so awesome and so are all the people! I love Peru and have some pictures along with a few more stories later! Hope to hear from you all!"

Week 4 & 5 and off to Peru!

"Hello everybody start of week 4! The saying days are slow but the weeks are fast is a very true saying! So last week after I had to stop sending emails we went to a devotional and D. Todd Christofferson was there!! Pretty crazy. As soon as he walked in you could feel the spirit so strong and it was so awesome. I love it here. He talked about   

All the elders are leaving tomorrow and tuesday who i have became so close with. Its going to be really sad seeing them all leave but its all apart of the process. This Wednesday I get to host the new missionaries and we will be getting two new districts! Hopefully theyre as cool as the guys before! Another cool thing I learned this week is that my branch president is Paul Nolan Hyde who is known for his knowledge of Tolkien writings. Like look his name up and you will see everything this guy is a genius. He was a professer at BYU and he also has the biggest dissertation in the USA so that is pretty dang cool. So everyone here in the mtc was very lucky this last week. We were all blessed to hear from D. Todd Christofferson on tuesday. He gave such an amazing talk to the missionaries and I would like to share just a few things of what he said. The biggest thing that stood out to me was whe he told us "You hold the kingdom of heaven in your hands" that came from the mouth of an apostle then he went on to say how god loves everyone but he does not trust everyone. "It is greater to be trusted than to be loved." That was amazing. Like I said in my farewell talk we can all be missionaries and serve. You can literally give someone the kingdom of heaven. I am so excited to share with the people of Peru the gospel and hopefully give many the happiness the gospel brings me. Then just this last Sunday M. Russel Ballard came and spoke to us. The coolest thing in the world is feeling just thespirit as soon as they walk into the room because we have no idea who is speaking and you can just feel it when they enter the room its awesome. Anyways he literally had no talk prepared for us. His wife asked him what he was going to talk about and he said "I have no idea" he didnt have any idea what he was going to say until he got up to the stand. He ended up giving an amazing talk and it was all by the spirit. A lot of it was about positive attitudes and being grateful. He told us about how every morning we wake up at 6:30 we should smile and just be grateful we get another day to serve the lord. He also talked about how service is one of the greatest invitations to feel the spirit so thats a cool little thing to know. Then at one point in his talk he paused and said " You are the greatest and most prepared youth in the history of the Church." and apostle said that to us. This week has been amazing ive loved it all! I know this gospel is true and only three more weeks till I am in Peru! I love you everyone and I hope to hear back from all of you! One more cool thing I forgot to share! So me and my companion were teaching another companionship in our district just for practice and out of no where I could speak spanish. Like i knew exactly what to say and how to say it and its never flowed so well with me! Then we had our TRC which is like with a real investigator and the same thing happened! The gift of tongues is real! I love my mission! I hope to hear from you all!"

"Hello everyone! Start of my last week here in the mtc! Im so excited to go and start serving the people of Peru! So this week was awesome! First off me and my companion had the oppurtunity to act as investigators for the new spanish speakers and it was like their second day and this one dude knew absolutely nothing and it made me so freaking happy. Not because he was bad but because thats exactly how I was when I first got here and now I am doing not so bad! THis language is hard but so awesome I cant wait to speak in spanish! I was having sort of a rough time this Sunday and them this guy who I havent even heard of gave such an amazing talk. He said "Everyone who is giving something up to go on a mission stand" and of course everyone stood then he goes on to say "If you are scared of losing friends or a special someone while youre gone stand up"  and again everyone stood up. Then he said "Stop worrying about it. If God wants them in your life they will be there when you get back." and that just made everything easier God has a plan for all of us. Ive been missing friends and family pretty bad this last week then this guy who ive never heard of shared his testimony which was exactly what I needed. So yea that was cool! Also I GOT MY FLIGHT PLANS!  My flight to leave Utah is at 9 AM and then I fly to Georgia and have a 2 hour layover and then go straight to Peru! Ill get to Peru at about 2 AM our time I think so that will be fun! Im so excited to get out there and serve! Also I talked about being in the Conference Choir this Saturday and it will be in the Afternoon session so everyone go and watch it! Im so excited its going to be an awesome but really busy weekend! I love you all and I hope to hear back from you all!"

The Beginning

Hello! This is Mia, Porter's sister. Me and my mom will be updating this blog with letters and pictures from Porter as he takes on beautiful Peru along with the people he gets to teach there. We dropped him off yesterday and he was greeted by some long time friends, they saw us pull up and the called out his name before the truck even stopped. My mom said it best, "I think this is what heaven will be like. Friends to greet you to take all of your fears away." 

we also received a quick email from him:

"HELLO!!!! So they kind of sprung up on me that I can email you guys real quick so it has been an amazing day I honestly love it here so much. My companion is awesome his name is Elder Anstead he's from American Fork and we have gotten along very well. I have great roommates and I live on the same floor as Michael Skonnard! I love it and won't be able to reply but I love you!"