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Hey everyone!

Things are great here. Today were cambios and I have been transferred to Ciudad Eten. It´s a town about twenty minutes from Reque that Elder Larsen and I started visiting. They decided to send missionaries there so I guess we´re opening up an area. I´m really excited. My companion´s name is Elder Elguera, from Peru. I haven´t met him yet, but he arrives here from Bagua Grande tomorrow.

Love you all so much. --Elder Bassett

(If you get a few minutes, write to Garret...he could use some encouragement :)
Elder Garret McKay Bassett
Peru Piura Mission
Calle Los Naranjos Mz. H Lt.4
Urb. Los Geranios
Piura, Piura, PERU

AWESOME WEEK!

Ok! This week has been awesome of course! I had the privilege of baptizing three of God´s children this weekend—Felipa Coronado on Friday and Lenin Pisfil Casas and Edwin Cumpa Valasquez yesterday. It was really cool. Here´s their stories real quick:

• Felipa—About the third day after we got to Reque we were knocking doors and at one door a 17 year old named Wilson answered. We taught him and he seemed pretty ok with the gospel. He invited us back. We came back and his mom was there. We invited her to listen. She didn´t seem too interested. We fixed an appointment with her for a couple days later. The day of her appointment we were really behind and I just thought, you know what let´s not go because she didn´t even seem interested. But we did. And now she´s getting baptized four weeks later. She is amazing and I sure hope she can be an example for her family.

• Lenin—23 year old studying to be a lawyer. His little brother joined the church and wants to go on a mission. He went with his dad to yell at the branch president for letting his little brother waste two years of his life. We don´t really understand what happened, but after that visit he wanted to know more about this church. His testimony is already like twenty times bigger than mine.

• Edwin—We were teaching a part member family and this kid was hanging around in the street and we´re like hey punk come listen to the gospel! Ok not really, but we invited him in to listen. He is only twelve and has no members in his family but he is making a big decision and I am very proud of him.So those baptisms were an awesome experience. We´ve been so blessed. There is another girl who is sixteen and wants to get baptized so much. She comes to church and obeys the commandments… But her mom says that she will never allow one of her children to be baptized out of the Catholic church. We pray her heart will be softened. Other things…

• I was in an appointment teaching Felipa and they asked if I could sing a Christmas song. So I sang La Primera Navidad (First Noel) and I miss Chamber SO MUCH!! Cara tell Mr. Wood that. I miss singing in chamber. It´s just different here. Nobody knows the hymns. But the song of the righteous is always a prayer unto the Lord, no matter how bad their intonation ;)

• Mom you would have a heart attack here. We all know how much you love to pick up trash… Well there is trash here everywhere! Everybody just chucks their trash on the ground. Ha ha if you ever come to Peru you have your work cut out for you.

• I´ve noticed a lot of things about priorities. So many people say they can´t come to church because “estoy ocupado.” (I´m busy). But they´re not. It´s all in the priorities. The lifestyle here is so laid back. For a lot of people church just isn´t important.

• References to Christ are here everywhere. Everyone “believes” in God, but hardly anyone acts. The line between religion and tradition is so blurred that people just don´t even know the difference. Religion taught in every school so it has become something different. It´s really hard to explain but it reminds me of a scripture… With their mouths they honor God but their hearts are far from Him.

• One of the pictures is of chicken feet soup. Yum!

Love you all a lot. --Elder Bassett

(Actually Elder Bassett's Mom is posting all these pictures, etc...Garret is busy being a missionary!!)