Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Elder Huffaker and Elder Blakemore left at 2:30AM Tuesday to go to Arequipa. I'll miss those guys. Then after breakfast we walked to the church next door where we met President Amato and his wife. My companion is now Elder Yanez. He's Chilean and is pretty cool. We got assigned to the Huaycan 2 area. After 4:00 we took the 1 hour taxi drive here. It's a pretty big city. The houses go up the mountain and are in the valley too, which is what I asked for I guess. It's super dense though. And there's dust everywhere. Also dogs. Lots and lots of dogs. There might be more of them than people. My new apartment freaked me out at first, but it's ok now. There's just 20 flies for each person. And there's no water heater so you have to take ice cold showers. At least I'm with Elder Cabascango though. The roosters start playing Marco Polo with their cock-a-doodle-dos at about 4-4:30 AM, so that hour or so is unpleasant. The first night Elder Yanez taught piano lessons at the church. I had my first lesson after with Christopher on tithing. Then he just kinda showed me now to contact. We had a zone meeting today, so we got up early (earlier than 7). The meeting went well I think. After the meeting we came back and did all of our appointments and some contacting. Its cool getting to know the people here. Maria is our pensionista, which mean she cooks all our lunches and dinners for us. She's a dang good cook. One time though she made causa (or papa) rellena. Basically it's broccoli, beans, carrots, peas and every other vegetable I've ever hated with chicken wrapped in mashed potatoes. Just don't look at what you're eating. Other than that, I've loved everything.
Friday, July 20, 2018
I had to get up at 5 yesterday to be able to go with Elder Iamni to the medical clinic. He's a zone leader. It was kinda like splits. It's about a 3 hour bus ride from here to Mira Flores, near Lima. The buses have a guy leaning out the side yelling at the people to get in, where they pack you like sardines. There's always room for another person I guess. We were at the clinic for like an hour and a half. Elder Iamni has had stomach problems recently I guess, even having to go to the ER. I bought a candy bar from a Venezuelan and he gave me a 5000 Boliviano bank note. My companion is the district leader, so he was at the training thing the entire time we were gone. The first lesson we had when we got back was at Christopher's . I invited him to baptism and he said yes, but we're still kinda iffy on the date. We also visited Jimmy, who's getting baptized a week from tomorrow. Then at night we went way up the mountain to visit Cesar. He's 12 years old and his 16 year brother Raul was there too. I loved the time we spent there. We eat lunch at 1:30 and dinner at 9:30 so it's kinda weird. My companion did a baptismal interview at the church today. After that we went to go to visit Necida. We had a really good lesson at her shop and stayed there for about an hour and a half. Her daughter is trying to learn English and I think I might wind up teaching her a bit. Don't know how that happened. After that we went to go visit the Carlos family. They gave us tea, croders and some eggs. They're members. Jimmy's family gave me a suit coat too. And Necida gave us cookies. They're all very nice here. We stayed there for almost 1 1/2 hours, then walked almost to the very top to visit Jose.
Saturday, July 21, 2018
I spent more that 30 minutes this morning trying to microwave buckets of water in hopes of taking a warm shower. Instead I wound up overheating the microwave and taking a lukewarm shower, which is still a step up I guess. The mountains here have no plant life. They're just big piles of dirt. It's kinda depressing. The kids here play soccer with a plastic bottle instead of a ball. As a district, we decided that we'd fast every Saturday. We tracted for a long time today. We went looking for Christopher, but we didn't now where he lives. We were wandering around and asked a guy if he knew him. He was like, "Christopher Rodriguez?" And we were like, "Yeah." Then he stuck his head in his house and said, "Christopher, the Elders are here." You can't tell me that that's a coincidence. Elder Yanez and I were talking about this cliff and how you could walk right off without realizing it. There was a house with a roof missing at the bottom so he was like, "Yeah, you might fall 20 ft into the bathroom." So I replied, "What a way to go." I love accidentally making puns. I do it quite often for some reason. Elder Yanez laughed real good, which was good because he doesn't laugh a whole lot. I got attacked by dogs twice today, I didn't get bit though. I got caught in the only part of the city without a rock to throw too. The Gutierez family got baptized tonight. It was really special to see how emotional the dad got. He came from a sketchy background. The spirit was super strong. The little girl is super scared of the water though. So poor Elder Monson spent more than 30 minutes in the font trying to baptize her. Jimmy was drinking again so we went to go visit him tonight. His baptismal date will have to be moved back.
Sunday, July 22, 2018
Back when I was still freaking out on the first day on the field. I flipped open my Spanish scriptures and the first thing I saw was Alma 17:10. (And it came to pass that the Lord did visit them with his Spirit, and said unto them: Be comforted. And they were comforted.) That helped a lot. Don't tell me God isn't watching. I've killed dozens of flies, but it still feels like there's so many more. Like at least a hundred. The toilet has no seat, so when you have to go no. 2 you just gotta poop a squat. Your level of constipation is your level of workout. So basically hard constipation=Arnold Schwarzenegger legs. We went to ward council before church today. Then during church I just shook hand after hand. Probably everyone's hand. I had to get up and introduce myself and bear my testimony. Whenever I introduce myself to someone, after they're always like, "Elder Blanco!" then laugh. Every time. After church we went to Betty's house for lunch. She's been going to church for 6 years, but her boyfriend refuses to marry her so she can't get baptized. Her kids are or will be baptized though. After that we went contacting for a while. We stopped by Jimmy's house to visit him again. They were doing a birthday party for his sister, but we got to share a message anyways. Then we went contacting some more. We had FHE at the Carlos' family. We shared a message and then played a game where you roll a dice and if it lands on a 6, you have to hurry and put some clothes on and then cut some chocolate with a fork and knife. You had to do all that before the next person rolled a 6 and you have to eat the chocolate with the fork and knife. Not the most sanitary game I've ever played but Yolo I guess. Literally everyone here drinks tea. But I guess it's the ok kind since all the members and other missionaries drink it too. I feel like my Spanish isn't at the level it needs/should be right now, so I'm mildly concerned.
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