Music Blessings in Peru! (Week 4)

Oh my lovely family and friends!

I have been so blessed with so many awesome things happening this week I am so excited to email you. This is what has happened in choronological order...

Proselyting on Saturday was such an awewsome thing!! Mom, there were tons of dogs. Like I saw so many just roaming around. A couple were fighting but I did okay. I went to a super poor area of santa anita and it was so humbling. The people were building houses themselves and didnt have any money it looked like. No roads, just dirt. We taught 10 people in about 4 hours or so. We only taught on families and the Plan of Salvation. What sweet testimonies we bore because I opened my mouth. My companions opened thier mouths a ton and we were blessed by the Lord!! At one point, Hna Boza, our supervisor, chastized us for being scared and we prayed for help and every time we spoke to someone we taught. A sweet ladyt was standing by herself waiting for a bus with her baby less than a year old. She didnt have much money and we could tell she was hungry. I went up to her and taught on the Family Proclamation and Hna Boza gave her an apple. She said she needs more happiness in her family and she works so much so her family can have money. What a blessing!!!

Funny story: So we are walking down a street and a little kid is playing on a hill of sand!! How cute!! then some man drives his car down and yells at the boy. We thought to ourselves that he as rude! then we got closer and realized the boy was throwing baby hamsters up the hill, watching them roll down the hill, then throwing them up again. How crazy is that!! They werent dead, but it looked like he was choking them when he was holding them. Too funny. We laughed so hard!!

On Sunday I was called as Music Coordinator. It just means I choose the pianists for each meeting and the hymns and such. And musical numbers!! I was so honored. Its so exciting for me to participate in inviting the Spirit into the CCM.

Now if youre still with me, I have huge news:

1. Tuesday the Peru CCM participated in the first LIVE devotional from Provo. Every Sunday we usually watch reruns but Tuesday we, along with other Missionary Training Centers across the world, watched a live broadcast from Provo. What an awesome feeling it was to see a General Authority speak live...

Speaking of seeing a General Authority speak... you ready??!!! Sunday, August 25th, we will be meeting the following people: Quentin L Cook, Tad R Callister, amnd John Groberg. HOW AWESOME!!!!! Now, Im not in charge of the music for that because theyre not speaking at a devotional, its just a metting but still!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!!! I literally gasped when they said Tad R Callister...

Family, I love you all so much. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ! Every morning I get to wake up and put Christ´s name on my heart. What a splendid feeling. I am having such a blast here and hope to hear from you all sometime soon. I pray for you all daily and hope God´s blessings are upon and, and also that you are recognizing his blessings! We need to choose to remember his tender mercies.

Con amor,

Elder Risueño

P.S. Im teaching piano to Hna Boza!! Shes helping me learn piano vocab in Spanish!! hopefully it helps in Bolivia!

Loving Lima!! (Week 3)

Hey family! Ahh man I just love Lima so much. The Spanish is getting better, I´m becoming more humble, and Im still having fun!! First off, the trifecta of Elders Olsen, Holmes, and Risueño is AWESOME! I love us so much!!! We teach so well and we all get along great. Its so awesome to live with people you like. I pray all the time for my Spanish to help. We are starting to teach a real investigator who works here and its awesome. He needs a lot of time before he will be ready to enter the waters of baptism because of some trials in his life, but we have a scripture where God says that missionary work is HIS work, not ours. Entonces, we just want to be great friends to himl. I am starting to learn that to be a missionary you needt o be a friend! Jesus Christ was a friend to everyone he taught. He cared for them. He helped them. I am a representative of Christ and I will do all I can to e like christ. Ive really changed a lot this week. I still laugh a ton but I just look at people and think that each person is such a great asset to our Savior and God must be so grateful for everyone in the world.  On a fun note, I love Miranda Sings. Shes a youtube sensation who has a saying HATERS BACK OFF. So, while playing volleyball, péople get jealous because I tend to hit the ball too far because I kind of handball hit it instead of the normal way becasue Im not normal so I wont hit normally. When they get mad because they have to go after it, I just say "HATERS BACK OFF." Está bien everyone. They all love me.  I love playing piano, in typical RJ fashioin, the CCM president´s wife an d I are good friends because shes an awesome violinist so were jamming a good amount. Were even performing next week I think for church. I played for Elder Waddell who visited our stake a while ago and I played prelude4, musical number, and hymns. So fun. And the Latinos are CRAZY singers. They may not hit the right notes, but man they just love the Lord so much and they sing their hearts out. Im so excited to hopefully work with some Bolivian singers more and maybe even get them to the right notes. I always tell the Latinos that God loves ALL pitches. Which is true, but I testify that he loves the right pitches even more. hahahhaha Family, take the time to read the Book of Mormon. Share it with your friends. I was reading Alma chapter 16 a few days and it teaches a beautiful lesson about missionary work: Ammon and Alma were working together as missionaries and Ammon decided to give up EVERYTHING for the Lord. His family even pretty much disowned him. So Alma went to build up the church in the area they were teaching, then he did something so Christlike: He went back to Ammon to comfort him and "strengthen him in the Lord." Now, if youre not of my faith, I hope you think of a friend who may have given something up. Maybe they lost their home, or had a huge trial of some sort. Have you, have WE taken the time to strengthen them in the lord? I hope we have or we will make the decision now TO strengthen them when they need it most.   Lima is great. Im great. I love you all.  Just a reminder that Dearelder is a no go for the rest of Peru. Bolivia is fine but I’m leaving in 2.5 weeks!!! Con amor, Elder Risueño  PS:  How fun. I love meeting cool people. I love everyone!! To Alyssa Whalen:  Elder Ellsworth (from the El Dorado ward in Long Beach) says to say hi! To Sydney McGagin:  I met Elder Holland Wilson from Kaysville who is good friends with you!!

Proselyting in Peru (Week 2)

Family!!!

This week has been so awesome. Let me tell you about it:

So obviously I went proselyting in Peru. We got on the bus and after about going half a mile from the CCM, the bus broke down. We had to push it to the side of the road in crazy traffic and it was freaky. I actually jsut pushed a Latino who pushed the bus hahahhaa

The Lord blessed me so much. While talking to a person, the Spirit prompted me to share with him a scripture 2 Nephi 25:26 and give him a Book of Mormon. So I did and testified of it. I didn’t say much but I knew it was true. The Lord has blessed me for all of my hard work and preparation here in the CCM. After that, we went to visit a less active and as the Latino missionaries were knocking on the door, E. Holmes and I saw a guy across the way just standing there... I went up and spoke to him and it was awesome. He didn’t know about Mormons and once it got complicated, I had one of the Latinos take over. I was so blessed to meet him and we gave him a Book of Mormon as well. This was when I had been there for 10 days!! God is so good.

Oh, one of the Elders in my district got transferred to the 2 week Latino group so E Holmes and I got another comp, E Olsen from Ephraim! He’s so fun!

I play volleyball and I´m not too good but I sure laugh a lot! My district forced me to play soccer one day and I blocked like 5 goals by simply cringing and the ball hit me while I was bracing for impact! It was such a blast, especially because they call me Mama Risueño because I have so much hand sanitizer and stuff. Speaking of health, I have had DIARRHEA SINCE EASTERS! Well, for a few days. We call it the siempres here, which means always in Spanish because you’re always in the bathroom hahhaa. It’s getting better…ish.

Look up granadillas (sp?). They are Peruvian fruit things that look like snake eggs, but are so good!! Weird.

We had Peruvian independence on Monday (we celebrated it then) and the food was SO GOOD!! If i could take pictures of it I would. CLASSY MOM! Its like normal food but with goodness.

Finally, I’m playing piano every day because jam sessions are so great. Its so awesome. I’m really close to my flight friends and its really fun. I saw a video last night called only a stonecutter and I thought of Dad. How I miss you all so much!

Oh Spanish story for the week:

So were teaching an investigator, our teacher, and he says he teaches 10 year olds. Instead 9of saying MUCHO JUEVES which means REALLY YOUHNG I said MAS JUEVOS which means big eggs. Super awkward. He laughed so hard. Put that on my blog! I thought of that after I said it hahahahha

Its rough but I love it so much. The spirit just whispers so much goodness.  The language gets hard and so do my worries about home. But I trust in God so much. I’m so strong now. I know he’ll do what needs to be done.

So I wake up at 6 every morning so I don’t have to wait for the showers because they have long lines and I hate waiting. I loved the Latinos that left and I was really sad.

Oh my Spanish teacher speaks with the voice of an angel. Pianists dream come true. 

I really love it here like I say every day. The spirit is so strong and when I want to be angry on Sunday because I’m tired and frustrated God just answers my prayers with Devotional videos we watch...

I really love this gospel. A mission is hard, but so fun. Peru is such a beautiful place and I am so grateful for all I’ve seen. Its hard being away from home, but I know the importance of sacrifice and loving life. I love you all! Please write me via snail mail or DearElder.com because Internet here is bad. Thank you all for your prayers and please continue to pray for ALL of the missionaries out there.

Con amor,

Elder Risueño

I love the gospel. Elder Bednar said the atonement wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the characteristics of Christ. He said that in an MTC talk on December 25th, 2011. I love the Lord. I love his work. I give all my glory to him and his Atonement. Sacrifice is hard, but so is perfection. Giving up time is hard, but Christ gave his All. And I will do the same.

Side note: Tell Aunt Denise that Brandon Bridgewater is here and he is going to my mission! He owned a snow shack right down the street from her at Days market that Joseph and I went to at Education week.