Elder Logan Thatcher

"Beunas Dias!!!! It is going by so fast here it is crazy!!!! Two weeks already???!!?? SAY WHATT?!? I went from being a beginner here to the CCm to an itermediate today... And i still dont know much spanish.. this past week has been just crazy. like really crazy.. miracles and all.. we have been teaching "fake" investegators for the past week which was good practice, mi compañero knows a lot of spanish so we are a good team, I help him with the teaching and he helps me learn spanish. so the lessons were going pretty good, and then on friday night we were invited to go contacting and knocking on doors with the advanced and itermediates as beginers. It was soooo cool and scary at the same time, we left at 1 in the afternoon on saturday to the northern slums of lima and dint return until 8 at night.. it was mind blowing to see the places i went.. i wish we were aloud to take pictures.. we climbed up mountains to peoples little huts and houses and went knocking on doors. I once walked up 575 stairs to a house.. and these are just houses in lima!!!! imagine what it is like in HUANCAYO!!! I was so pumped to go contacting though even though all i can do is great people and say who we are and that we represent Jesus Christ, say prayers, and bear my testimony. So when we went out every Gringo (American) was grouped with a Latino so they could take over the conversations, but it was just sad even just being on the streets, but it made me happy to know that I can help them get closer to the gospel and to there father in heaven. This one guy we knocked on his door and he was repairing his roof so we offered to help him out so we did, then tried to share him a message but he didnt want to hear about it, so we helped and he said we were good boys so he let us teach him. Then after we taught him we were able to get a referral for other missionaries to come back to his house. This guy was a miner and had a ton of cool gems and rocks and gave me some that apparently had gold, silver, zinc and some other elements all combined in it!! I will get a picture of it next week to send it to you, its in my closet right now. So after we taught him we were about to go knock on more doors, but i felt like we needed to go contacting at the park.. There was a ton of families and didnt know where to start because we only had an hour left before we could go back to the church.. Then i saw this man selling candy, and it hit me that we needed to talk to him even though he was busy selling candy. So we went up and i bought some weird candy and then we asked if he would like to talk to us and take a break because he seemed tired. He said sure, and he also said, "i know who yall are... MISSIONARIES.." he yelled it.. So i looked at my companion and was like maybe we shouldnt of done this.. and then he said "tell me why all are soooo great.. because your church is the reason i am alone at my house and selling candy at parks" anyways my companion did all the talking i told him to translate some stuff and apparently his wife and 5 daughters all left him for the church because he had a drinking and pornography problem like 20 years ago. Then i told my companion that its never to late to find his family again, and that there is hope for him to enter into gods presence with his family by him and to be with his family forever. He started crying later and i didnt know what was going on.. but at the end we got his referral to talk to more missionaries, and then at the end of the talking apparently he had prayed this morning that someone will help him get his life in order and he thanked us and said he wasnt going to dringk or look at pornography again, and he said he was making a goal to be worthy to enter the temple so he can be sealed to his family and finally get to see his grandchildren that he still has never met.. it was so sad, but he felt the spirit, i know i did and i dint even say much spanish, or could understand him.. It was really touching and i hope it was a miracle in my life. On the bus home thinking about him it made me realize how much i missed my family, and then i got to my room and got to see my pictures!! =) Im so happy for eternal families and the power it has in peoples lives.

Lima has dogs everywhere!!! just stray skimpy dogs that look like they want to bite you.. I saw at least over 200 dogs that night. at least.. the traffic is crazy, its worse than new york, people just drive into lanes without looking, theres no such thing as a crosswalk, so you just have to look, and they wont stop either! But its ok, i havent had a problem yet.

Yesterday we went to interpol, it was fine, we have to go 2 more times before we leave. Since we were waiting for a long time we got to go to pizza hut after... it was good, but i aint gonna lie.. it was greasy!! im getting used to just eating bread, rice, mystery meat, potatoes, and apples. It aint that bad, but the pizza was still good too, i will take american food anytime..

Today was P day, of course, and this morning we went to the temple, AND I WENT IN THE SPANISH SESSION!!! I had a transloator but it was broken.. so i did spanish, i still feel the spirit even in spanish... what do you know!?! haha. then after we went to a store to get snacks, and then a store right next to it that had soccer stuff. I got 3 soccer jerseys for like 8 dollars each. and they are so nice..

Well the latinos left this morning and the advanced gringos so a lot of my friends left which is sad, but a new wave of missionaries are coming in tonight so thats cool!"

Me and elders johanson and enrequez, they left for cuzco today

Me and Rocky Balboa (Elder Farias) He left for lima central today

Me and elder sanchez.. He loves meee, he is super cool and good at soccer

#icandohardthings