"I really can't wait to see you guys! I can't believe how soon I'll be home! Wish I could have written more, but I gotta go finish my mission!"

This is so weird. My last p-day of my whole mission. I actually gotta hurry up with this e-mail because I've been taking full advantage of my last p-day playing soccer with the elders (classic way to end my p-days), eating Pizza Hut, and buying some last little souvenirs before I go home. Don't got a whole lot of time left to write this week, but I s'pose it's okay because pretty soon I'll be able to talk to you about whatever the heck you want to know about. I'll jot down some thoughts though for you guys:

Pretty good week overall. Honestly, we aren't seeing that much success. I'm ending my mission on sort of a low point. Not low as in I gave up and haven't been trying or working as hard, because I've still been working. Just, we aren't having much luck. Surprisingly, this is the area I've had the least success in in my entire mission. Even though it's by far the best ward I've been in. I dunno. Guess that's just how it is. But, the few successes (Herber...) definitely make up for the rest of our unsuccessfulness. It's been good here.

Last Monday was Hermana Celia's birthday here at the house, and we got to eat cake 'n stuff. And duck. But, I really do not like duck. I didn't eat that. I'm totally willing to eat guinea pig, and cat, and dog, and whatever, but I don't like duck, and I do not want to eat it. Odd. PS, no, I have not eaten cat or dog here. I wish I had. Anyway that night Hermano Francisco, Celia's husband hired a mariachi band to come play Mexican music live right here in the house for Celia. So, we got to go down and see that too. Pretty fun stuff. Dude, Mexican music is way better than Peruvian music. Have I ever complained to you about Peruvian music yet? Because it's been driving me crazy the entire two years I've been here. I do not like it, at all.

Been writing a whole lot of last-minute letters to converts and members 'n stuff this past week. I'm pretty burned out on letter writing, but I still have tons more that I want to write. This week we had a Zone Conference here in Cajamarca, and President Risso came and spoke, I was way excited, because I thought I wasn't going to be around for any more conferences! I gave President like 15 letters to take back to Chiclayo to deliver to the people there. Still have to write a lot more. Anyway, the conference was so awesome! President Risso spoke the whole time about how we have to be witnesses of Jesus Christ. He also spoke about how in the Church a lot of times we hear about how the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon are apostates and how Emma Smith also apostatized, but President said that when we hear people talking like that we need to defend those four people, because not a single one of them ever denied their testimony of truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. They stood as witnesses of the restoration of the gospel for their entire lives, whether they were active in the Church or not. I took a buncha notes and stuff but I don't remember well enough or have enough time to elaborate on it. But, it was one of my favorite conferences. Then, the bad part came. President Risso invited Elder Callis, Elder Vargas, Hermana Lazalde, and myself to come up to the pulpit and give our final testimonies. I got up there and shared my testimony, and it was super hard because I could barely speak. I was shaking. It was so hard to talk. Apparently I made a bunch of people cry, but I didn't notice from the pulpit. I almost cried too. When I got back to our room for dinner Elder Santos and Elder Lopez were there and they we basically like (en español...) "dude you jerk your testimony was so powerful almost everyone was crying! Hermana Risso was crying, and for the first time ever I even saw President Risso's eyes begin to water." Haha. Cool. It was really sad for me giving that last testimony though...

We visited Kevin Zapana this week. Had a short little visit. Helped resolve some of his doubts that he's had about the Book of Mormon 'n stuff. As we were about to leave I said "well, I hope we've been able to help in some small way." And he responded "on the contrary, you've helped a ton!" He told us that he has had questions for a very long long time, and he said "I've been waiting for the answers you gave me." Way cool. He said the closing prayer, and in it he said "Thank you God for helping me remember that I'm a very special person." Wow, I hope all our visits can help someone feel like that.

Anyway, I don't have time to talk about too much more stuff. I can't believe that this is seriously my last p-day and the last time I'll be e-mailing you guys before I get home. My mission flew by so fast I can't even believe it. I'm gonna miss it a lot. I feel like this is going to be a pretty sad week for me. But, I can't wait to see you guys again! And I can't wait to be in the United States again holy heck I love that place so much!! The mission has been the best thing ever for me. It has been the most life-changing experience ever. I haven't loved every moment, but I wouldn't trade a second of it for anything else. My testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel has gone from strong to unshakable, and the knowledge that I truly am a literal son of a loving God has become so much more apparent to me than ever before. I love the gospel. I love my Heavenly Father, and my older brother and Savior Jesus Christ. I love this gospel, and I owe all I have to the Church of Jesus Christ, because without it, my life wouldn't have a purpose, I wouldn't have hope, I wouldn't have standards, I wouldn't have any goals and wouldn't be doing anything meaningful with my life. I wouldn't be happy if it weren't for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I'm just glad that I was able to spend two years sharing what makes me most happy with whoever was willing to listen. It has been the biggest blessing ever. It's gonna be hard to take this name tag off forever, and stop being an official representative of Christ. I will miss it a whole lot. Now I actually have to start worrying about myself and about school and about work and about all kinds of chaos, and I won't be able to focus 100% on helping other people anymore. It will be a bummer... But, on the plus side, I'll be able to eat delicious American foods, listen to music, and hug girls.

I really can't wait to see you guys! I can't believe how soon I'll be home! Wish I could have written more, but I gotta go finish my mission! I'll just leave you a scripture in 3 John 1:13-14. See ya soon!

Love,

Elder Hemsley

OH DUDE! After an entire mission of searching, I finally found, on my very last p-day,OCARINAS FOR SALE. SO AWESOME SO AWESOME. Bought two. Cheap ones. But still. They're ocarinas. Zelda!!!

ZELDA!!!