July 6th, 2015

Dear Family,

Well the Mission has officially split! This last week I was able to meet President Rios and his Family. They are all so nice and have such great intentions! Every month we have a leadership meeting with the mission President, the AP's and all of the Zone leaders of the mission and so what we decided to do this leadership meeting was to go to the Temple! So this last Wednesday I was able to go through the Temple with all the leadership of the mission including President Rios! It was such a good experience going through the Temple again, especially the Temple that we have been talking about my entire mission. So Wednesday I was able to get to know President Rios and his Family, which was so great. He is such a powerful and spiritual man and has great desires to serve. I already love him so much and am excited to work with him. 

This week has been such a great week. We have such great people here that we are teaching. We have an investigator named Daniel who is such a great person. He has great desires to change and do to what God wants him to do. He has a hard time coming to church, but this last Sunday he came and had a great time. We are hoping that he continues to progress and is able to be baptized in the next upcoming weeks. We also are teaching two parents of a missionary. Jose and Vilma are such wonderful investigaters and just want to keep all the commandments. They are progressing really well and it looks like they will be baptized really soon. The only challenge that we have with them is that they aren't married. They have the desires to get married so we are working with them and their papers. We are also teaching the Lescano Family. They are a less active Family that are sealed in the Temple. They really want to come back to church and become the strong Mormon Family that they were before they went inactive, so we are excited for them and with their progress.

It's kind of funny because here in Moche we teach a ton of people that speak a little English. Just about half of all the people we teach speak a little English and so my companion and I joke all the time about that and how Heavenly Father wants us to search for these people. I love my area so much and all the people here. At times it is hard teaching because of how much Catholicism there is, but I love it so much and I love seeing great people progress. 

I love the gospel so much and am grateful that I have this time to share it and change as a person. 

I love you all and hope that you have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Thorpe

Just so you all know, my companion and I did celebrate the 4th of July by eating Hotdogs and chips, but that was on the 5th of July because that is the day that we are able to cook! But all in all it was a great 4th of July!