Week 6 In Hauycan

Emailing is kind of weird because I come to a cyber cafe to do it and literally everyone around me is playing Fortnite. They're actually pretty good at it too. I don't know if you guys knew this or not, but Spanish is a cool language. You think you just called someone a duck? Psych, you just called them gay. They also have a phrase for when that fart wasn't just a fart. You could say Ese pedo salió con challa. Tuna isn't a fish. It's a cactus fruit. Also, Avocado isn't a Spanish word and we eat them all the time, so it's weird to adjust because I totally thought that it was a Spanish word. But this week has been pretty good. I got to go to the temple. Afterwards we went to Domino's. I haven't had pizza in 2 months so I get a little overly excited and bought a lot of pizza. The dogs and I are pretty chill now I guess. The important ones have names. There's Pavo, Pablo (because he's an evil version of Pavo and it rhymes with Diablo), Provs, Sleeping Beauty, Los Perros Blancos, and many more. I also had my first baptism: Cristopher. It was a nice service and the the spirit was really strong. Antonio (the investigator that has been taking discussions for 20 years) also got baptized, but I wasn't able to go to that one. So now I have 2 baptisms. Scripture character of the week: Zeezrom. Why don't we talk about this guy more? At first he was like hardcore against Alma and Amulek, but then he changed and was like their third wheeling homie. Anyways, that's all for now I guess. Have yourselves a good week!

-Elder White


Tuesday
 I took a hot shower this morning.  My first one since the CCM.  I really enjoyed it.  Since the water is heated by electricity, if you got too close to the shower head it shocked you bit. So that was exciting.  I finished up intercambios with Elder Ianni.  I forgot to mention that I got attacked by a pack of dogs last night.  It only scared me a bit because they were the first dogs I saw in Chaclacayo and there was 5 or 6 of them, so I didn't know which one to swing at.  Still haven't gotten bit yet though.  There was an emergency meeting for all the district and zone leaders, so I got dropped off in Huaycan and went with Elder Monzon Casbascango.  We had a few lessons, but really didn't do all that much.  We did a bunch of contacting, mainly in the park.  It was kinda hard to keep track of who the others had already talked to after a half hour or so, so that wasn't quite my idea of fun contacting, but whatever.  We went to piano class tonight.  Then we left from there to go pick up Elder Yanez.  It was nice to see him again after almost 2 days.  We went up to go visit the Carlos family and check up on their reading and stuff.  They're doing ok.  But William was drinking all weekend, so that's not good.  I don't know what else we can do.  We're there all the time and he never reads what we leave with him.  After that we went down to la Capilla for El Yanez to do a baptism interview.  Today was just one of those days where you read 50 pages in the Book of Mormon.
 
 Wednesday
Aaahhh!  Gardeano Antonio Torrealva Cabello!  We had his interview tonight!  It's actually happening!   I am so happy!  He was always quoiting Ecclesiastes 3, saying everything has its time.  Then he said that now is his time!  20 years in the making.  Today was our P-day.  We celebrated by going to the temple.  We only get to go 3 times per year.  It was really nice to go there.  La Molina is almost a US outside of the US, so we went and got Domino's for lunch!  I've been crazing pizza for 2 months.  So I may or may not have dropped 5/73 on lunch.  Worth it.  Just for Elder Yanez and I.  Cheesy bread, 2 giant pizzas and 1.5 L of Inca Cola.  Good stuff.  And I have enough left over for breakfast.  When we got back, we went straight to internet.  We only got an hour in because it was a little late.  We were going to have English class after, but no one was showing up.  Plus, then we got that call from the zone leaders in Chaclacayo about the interview.  They were a little late, so I just pretended to know cars and talked to Antonio who's a mechanic for 1/2 and hour.

Thursday
We had to go back to Chaclacayo this morning for a district meeting.  We should have just had a sleepover with the zone leaders last night.  Nothing overly exciting really happened at the meeting.  We're kind low on bus money right now though, so we're going to be walking more I guess.  We tried going to visit Cristopher when we got back, but he was working again.  So then we went to go visit William and Sandra.  Ssandra's friend, Maria, was there so it was nice to be able to teacher her as well.  When we had finished teaching there, we realized that we still hadn't taken care of the laundry.  So we hustled down and took the laundry to our laundry lady.  After that, we went to go visit the Salinas family, who are almost all old investigators.  They are all pretty nice people.  I feel like old investigators are always either super excited to see missionaries, or are indifferent.  As for inactives, they either do their best to avoid us or are excited.  Kinda weird.  After that we went to go visit Elizabeth and Nicolas, some people that Elder Yanez found while with Elder Carrera.  The first lesson went pretty well, so we're hoping they read the folleto and go to church on Sunday.  Then we went all the way up to Miriam and Juan's house.  Juan wasn't there, so we decided just to teach the 10 Commandments.  He was there for the end though.  Miriam said she'd keep the Sabbath Day holy, so that's a good step forward.  Then they gave us some bread ad tea after.  They're very hospitable people, regardless of how much money they have.

Friday
I got to sleep until 7:30 this morning for once, so that was nice.  Anyways, the first lesson we had today was with the Elders Quorum President, Hermano Palomino.  He actually has a really cool conversion story.  He met the missionaries 15 years ago at a family home evening.  They wanted to meet with him, but back then he left for work at 5 AM and didn't get back til 10 PM.  The missionaries were at his house at 4 AM the next day to teach him.  Now that's some faith and dedication.  Then we went to go visit Cristopher and taught him lesson 5, so he now has all the lessons done and is ready for tomorrow.  I'm excited!  After that we went with Elders Monzon and Cabascango to an FHE with the Salinas family.  Except they thought we said a later time, so they weren't all home.  So we did mini splits and went out and contacted for an hour.  Once in a  blue moon, you'll find a guy that gets really defensive when you ask how he's doing.  It's pretty informal, "Hola, ?como esta?  ?Que tal sudia?"  Then they're like, "Why do you care?  What do you want?"  It's like dang chico, get you and your salty attitude back to the US.  The FHE went really well though.  We taught about the army of Heleman.  I think that it was the first time they had heard that story.  We have an appointment with them later.

Saturday
Well, we had an appointment at noon today with an inactive member.  Except when we called to confirm, he gave us a fake address.  So we went on a 45 minute wild goose chase trying to track him down.  It was mildly aggravating since it was up and down the side of a mountain.  We had lunch and then went up to R to try and find inactive members there.  As it turns out, they've all either moved or weren't home.  Then we walked from there to La Capilla to save on passage.  It took an hour to walk from the end of our zone down the mountain to the end of Huaycan 1.  Longer than I thought it'd be.  We had to be at Cristopher's baptism an hour early.  When 6:00 arrived, it was just the ward mission leader, Cristopher, Paulo and us.  We waited until almost 7:00.  Then we had Braulio and another hermano from the ward come, so we started.  I had to give a thought on baptism beforehand.  Paulo is 18 and preparing to serve a mission, so we had him baptize Cristopher.  I was so excited when it happened that I accidentally started clapping.  He's 18 and says he'd like to serve a mission.  He's as golden as it gets.  Elder Yanez found him while contacting in the street with his old companion.  It wasn't a special contact.  They invited him to church, but he didn't go.  Cristopher saw them the day after and went up to them to apologize for not going.  They set up an appointment and the rest is history.  He was my first baptism.  Antonio got baptized today as well.  I'm going to count him as one of my baptisms as well.  So as of right now at the end of my first transfer, I have 2 baptisms.  Two down and hopefully many more to come.  The spirit is so strong during baptisms.

Sunday
Cristopher got sustained in church this morning, so that was cool.  The Mendoza's didn't come because they had to take Carmen to the hospital because she was pretty sick I guess.  I hope she gets better.  Miguel wasn't there because he had to work.  Other than that, church was pretty normal.  We went to the bishop's house for lunch after.  We had Tequenos with guacamole, which is dang good.  We also had that one dish with the (almost) flavorless gravy.  His kids are super crazy, but a lot of fun.  There's 3 of them ranging from like 4-7.  They pulled each other's hair, pushed each other off chairs and punched each other, all while laughing.  They never cried or complained.  Peruvian kids are just kinda cool like that; they can take a beating and be ok with it.  We went out trying to find members after lunch.  Nicol wsn't home, and neither was the lady in that purple house on G hill.  (Because it's the only hill with plants and it's in zone G.)  Then we went to go visit an old investigator named Cristina.  After that, we visited Cristopher.  Then we took them both to the Carlos' for a noche de hogar.  It went pretty well I think.  Afterwards we played the chocolate game.  I ate more than an entire chocolate bar by myself, so it was a pretty good night.  Wednesday is transfers, so we got a call tonight about that.  I'll be staying with Elder Yanez here in Huaycan2, which basically also guarantees I'll be here for 3 transfers.  I'm down though because Elder Yanez is pretty cool.  Elder Cabascango will be getting a new trainer and Elder Monzon is off to go finish training a pool redhead from my group named Elder Shockley.  So I taught him some random English slang to use.

 The Pizza Boys (Elders Morris, Cabascango, Me, Mabalot, Monzon, Perez, Yañez)

 

 Cristopher's baptism (Elder Yañez, Paulo, Cristopher, Me)

Illiterate Peruvians trying to make a no dumping sign.  It translates to: It's prohibited to leave your trash here.  If someone takes a picture of you leaving trash, your picture will be posted in all public places.

Week 5 in Huaycan

This week has been really awesome. So many milagros. We'll start with the small ones. So we put up an appointment with this guy that was an old investigator. He told us that he'd feed us and stuff when we went to visit him the next day. As we were walking to his house, I realized that we were fasting and that I didn't know what to do. Should I break my fast early or deny the food or what? We didn't know. So we got there and it turns out he was busy so he told us to come the next day. We got bailed out of that one. Then after my interview with the mission president on our way home, we were in a conbi and got stopped by the police for some reason. He came in and told every foreigner that he needed their ID. Except I haven't been here long enough to receive mine yet. I was sitting right in front of the door so I know he had to have seen me, I made eye contact once I think. But it was only for a second because he never gave me more than a glance and took everyone's ID except for mine. I don't know if he just decided not to ask for it or if he didn't process me in his head as a foreigner. I don't know what would have happened if I had been caught without it, but I'm glad the Lord was there protecting me. Then when I was on intercambios with Elder Ianni, we went to go visit this one Venezuelan family. The dad has been having missionary discussions for 20 years and still wasn't baptized. I was kinda like ok, we probably won't get it either. But then I remembered president Amatos words about always having faith so I decided right then and there that I would baptize him. I taught and bore my testimony like I never have before and we got him committed to this Saturday! He's been having the discussions since before I was born and something about Elder Ianni and I finally got through to him. The spirit was so strong it was awesome! I also went on splits with Elder Morris. I had a good time teaching with him and stuff and learned a lot from him as well. I feel so blessed by God with my mission so far. I know that I can do anything he wants me to. I hope I have many more weeks like this to come. I was also wondering if I could maybe get a name plaque that says Elder Blanco. It's a direct translation and not a lot of the natives can say White for some reason. Have a good week!

-Elder White

 
Monday

Well, when we got up this morning we had no running water.  Bit of a problem there.  We haven't had it all day.  Everyone else in the city that usually has it, has it.  It's just our building and no one knows why.  I've heard stories from other missionaries about having to randomly go without water for 4 days.  Hopefully it doesn't last that long though.  We're living in the really 3rd world life now: no water and limited electricity.  I was complaining about taking cold showers in the dark and now I can't even do that.  We got ready faster today due to that.  Then we went to the internet cafe as per usual.  I bought myself a pocket Bible while I was out and about so that I don't have to carry my quad set everywhere.  There was a funeral procession thing in the street blocking traffic.  There were dudes with trumpets and other instruments playing a song.  The dudes carrying the casket were grooving respectably hard considering the weight they were carrying and how long it was.  I got a haircut.  For lunch we met as a district and were going to get pizza, but all the pizza places were closed.  So we got Chinese food again.  We all went and played soccer at the church for a while after.  I was impressed with how well I played.  We went to Las Lomas room to shower.  It felt real nice to be able to shower with room temperature water.  After that we just spent the night at a family home evening at the home of Hermana Becler.  It was a nice lesson.  They gave us a bit of popcorn after, so that was awesome.  I miss that stuff.  Maria made this dish for dinner alled arroz tapada that was pretty good.

Tuesday

The water was back on when we got up this morning.  That made me happy.  We had a district meeting this morning.  When I got there, I found I had a package from my family and 2 letters from Grandma Haacke waiting for me.  The meeting was pretty normal otherwise.  We all had a mini choir practice thing after because we're singing at the fireside type thing on Sunday.  When we got back to Huaycan we went straight to Maria's for lunch.  The traffic here is weird.  There aren't any traffic laws--ones that the police enforce at least.  The only thing I've seen the people obey is that red means stop.  They're good about that.  There isn't a speed limit anywhere, just a crap ton of speed bumps.  I was finally able to open my package when I got back to the room.  It had a lot of cereal and other food, all of which is really good.  There were also some candles and stuff I'll save for the next Elder, as well as some stuff to kill flies.  Also, pepper spray?  I don't know how that got to me without being confiscated, but cool.  It seems a bit extreme, but I'll take it.  (Note from McKay's mom here:  the pepper spray is supposed to help ward off the dogs that seem to like attacking the missionaries.  Somehow he missed the note.)  Elder Yanez and I went up with Becker to try and talk to his nonmember brother, but he wasn't home so we went to go visit an inactive.  I had never realized how big Huaycan is until I climbed the part of the mountain.  After that we went to piano class.  I taught Roberto English while his daughter was doing piano.  We weren't able to meet with Christopher again, so I'm starting to worry about him.  We went to go visit an inactive that's about 14 years old named Carlos.  After that we went looking for Daniel Jr.  We taught him lesson one and it went pretty well.  We're returning Friday I think.

 
Wednesday

Those one dudes came with the 2 zone leaders this morning to finish installing those mosquito net thingies in the other study room.  I still don't know why since the only bugs we get are flies.  Otherwise we did morning studies like normal.  I gave myself a crash course in shoe shining because we had interviews with President Amato.  The time for the interviews kept getting pushed back an hour because the president was doing interviews in another part of the mission too.  So we were pretty tentative to plan anything.  We tried visiting Katy, an inactive, but she wasn't home.  So then we went to go visit William and Sandra.  The lesson went well.  Sandra took us down to visit her friend after.  We'll go back tomorrow to teacher her. Then we finally had the interviews.  We took a bus to Nana to the chapel there.  The interviews went well; nothing overly exciting there.  When we got in a combi to go from Entrada de Huaycan a La Qince, we got stopped by the police.  They came in and went through and took everyone's ID.  Only problem is I don't have an ID yet.  But when I first got on, a lady offered me a seat in the corner across from the door.  I just stayed quiet.  He had to have seen me as he got in, but he never looked at me again.  I don't know what would have happened if I, a foreigner, was caught, but we can assume it wouldn't have been pleasant.  I don't know if God made me invisible to that guy or what, but I do know he's protecting me.  From there I taught my English class.  Miguel came!  But he was the only one.  I love that guy; he's so awesome.  He worked from 6 AM-7PM and went straight to us.  He even offered to pay our passage for us afterwards.  We tried going to go visit Miriam, but only her parents were home.  So we talked to them.  They were pretty chill.

Thursday

Today was another day of 6:30 AM soccer.  However, today we decided to do intercambios (exchanges) today, so Elder Morris came with me back to our house.  When he saw it, he said, "This is the trashiest one I've seen."  I don't think it's too bad, I guess things can only get better from here on out.  It was really nice to be able to hangout with an American for a day.  He's a really cool dude.  We started the day off with a marathon of watching the district for my 12 weeks.  It was kinda weird explaining to everyone what intercambios are all day.  Today was kinda rough in the way that all but one of our citas fell through.  We even got Alex and Sandra to accompany us to see Sandra's friend and another potential after that fell through.  Neither were home.  We ran into Christopher and he said that he was going to be working nonstop basically 'til Saturday.  Long story short, basically we contacted all day.  After a while Alex told me that I was originally supposed to meet with Alejandro.  Somewhere along the line there was a mix up.  So Alex left at 6 and along came Alejandro.  I felt really bad about that.  Elder Morris had me lead the way all day.  So, the day was kinda rough I think.  Daniel wasn't home and neither was Raquel Carlos.  Then Alejandro jumped and tripped on one of those chain rope things.  He got 4 or 5 gnarly looking cuts from the chain on his leg through his jeans, so he went home after that.  Our last appointment was Miriam, and she was actually there!  She tried to greet us with that Purivian woman hug kiss thing.  It was my first time so I just kinda went stiff and leaned back.  It was kinda awkward, but whatever.  The lesson went really well though.  Elder Morris engaged me a lot more than Elder Yanez does.  She said she'd get married September 9!  But she has to talk to her husband still.  The spirit was super strong during the lesson.

Friday

We all met at the Quince to switch our companeros back.  I really enjoyed being with Elder Morris.  I learned a lot from him in that short time.  You really do develop a love out here for the people you're serving and who you're serving with.  I had to formally apologize to Pavo today.  Turns out he never attacked me; it was his evil twin.  I named his twin Pablo because it sounds like Pavo, but rhymes with Diablo.  Today went a lot like it did yesterday, except none of our planned citas worked out.  Days like this are pretty frustrating.  But there's not a lot you can do other than just contact and try and find people to teach.  We ran into an old investigator named Joan and scheduled an appointment with him for tomorrow.  We had just a mini lesson; he seems cool.  Towards the end of the night, Elder Monzon and Elder Cascango came to our area for us to all meet with the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric to discuss about the ward.  We were at the bottom of a seemingly never ending staircase and I said, "Yeah, he lives at the top of the mountain."  Joke's on me because we actually went to almost the very top.  We couldn't find his house, so we were asking around and they were like, "He lives on the other side of the mountain.  You have to go down these stairs, go up the street, then climb and you'll be there."  So that's what we did.  Except we were able to take a meto 1/3 the way back up so that was nice.  He and his family are super nice people.  They live up in a shack pretty far from the church, so it's cool that they go every week.  They gave us crackers and Pulp de Durazno.  I feel bad eating at houses like that because I don't know how much money they have for themselves.

Saturday

We got up at 5 AM this morning to take a bus to Chaclacayo so that we could play soccer as a zone.  Why we sacrifice so much sleep for this is unknown to me.  I was goalie almost the entire time too.  Still fun though.  We took one combi today that was so crowded that I was literally hanging out the door. Bienvendos a Peru.  We tried to visit the Jamampa family today, but had similar results.  There was music playing again, and this time there were people walking in and out, always locking the door behind them.  It's extremely frustrating.  We were going to just stop by the Carlos' to remind them of the activity tomorrow night, but we wound up staying an hour.  Funny how that works.  We went to visit Joan after.  Yesterday he told us he was going to make us a nice meal when we went.  Except we forgot to tell him we were fasting today.  Elder Yanez said we'd just have to deny the food, but I wasn't sure what to do.  He was busy and told us to come back Monday!  God blesses us in mysterious ways.  Then I got really excited because we went to Zona X.  It's the sketchiest part of our zone and Elder Yanez hadn't been before.  So I got my trusty pepper spray on standby and went to try to visit an inactive member at 7:30 tonight.  Turns our she moved though.  Then we went and checked up on a member named Michael.  After that, we finally got to visit Christopher.  I was kinda nervous to see how he's been doing since it's been a while, but I was excited to see he's as strong as ever and ready for his baptism in a week.  Then we got Brawlio (the 2nd counselor) and went to visit Miriam.  Her husband, Juan, was finally there, which was good.  He's chill.  We taught chastity and it was my first time doing so.  They family received the lesson well though.

Sunday

So this morning we went to the church, dropped off our weekly report, and left to go get Miriam and her family.  We won't stay long we said.  Be ready to go when we get there we said.  we arrived at 10:10ish.  They tried to give us bread and herbi when we arrived, but we had to deny it because we were fasting still.  Its kinda hard to fast in Peru because if you have a visitor that you like come stop by, you break out the Herbi and crackers.  We should do that in the US.  Anyways, they finished cooking their lunch for later and then got ready to go.  We we left their house 11 AM-ish.  But then Miriam decided to give someone a haircut at her salon thing as we were passing by?  Still confused about that one.  She finished at 11:26ish and we were in the chapel at 11:35.  We missed the sacrament, which is kinda important.  Miguel didn't go unfortunately.  But Christopher did!  He's so ready for Saturday.  Juan came after sacrament meeting so we had the whole Mendoza family, except Fernando, who's sick.  After church, we went to go take the sacrament to a Hermana that was sick.  We also have her a blessing for the sick.  Then we hustled over to a member's house for lunch; bistek with that green mush stuff.  Good stuff.  Then the whole zone went to the Stake Center in Nana.  The mission president was there too with his wife.  We had to be there at 4:30.  We put on this training thing for all the leaders in the stake about new member retention.  Then at 7, a bunch of members who've been baptized came for a little presentation and Q&A.  The other missionaries and I were supposed to sing, but we never did which is fine.  It didn't end until almost 9:30.

Monday

Ok, I'm going to start with the important stuff while it's fresh.  I've been on splits/intercombios.  We went to go visit a Venezuelan.  I think the wife's a member, but the husband and two sons aren't.  The husband, Antonio Torrealva, has been having missionary discussions for 20 YEARS.  Still not baptized.  Elder Ianni and I decided to focus on that, just like he has been with Elder Carrera and every other missionary for the last 20 years have been.  I was doubtful at first, but then I remembered the words of President Amato: Always have faith.  So I decided right then and there that I would baptize that man.  We started out casual, just asking him.  He was like, "No, everyone has their time."  He doesn't really have a reason not to be baptized. He has a strong testimony of everything in the gospel and the church.  So then I decided to go all in.  I taught like I have never taught before, speaking Spanish like I never have before.  We pulled out Mosiah 2:41 and 3 Nephi 18:11-12.  The coolest thing is that we did this lesson like 50/50 I would say.  We explained the  doctrine and he was still iffy.  So then I bore my testimony with fervor and tried to explain to him how important baptism is for him.  He was still trying to make excuses.  So then I bore my testimony harder than I ever have before, stronger than I previously thought my testimony was.  Then his wife bore her testimony too.  The spirit was so strong the entire lesson.  Maybe the strongest I've ever felt it.  Elder Ianni talked a little too and then asked him, "Hermano Antonio, will you get baptized THIS Saturday?" He said yes!  20 years later!  I'm still so excited!  Then I shared my testimony one more time and we took off.  We hugged each other outside and were so happy.  I'm still trying to figure out what we did that others in the past didn't.  All I know is that the spirit was guiding me very much so.  Milagro!  Anyways, today's not p-day because we're going to the temple on Wednesday.  We decided to do intercambios with the zone leaders so Elder Carrera is in Huaycan and I'm in Chaclacayo with Elder Ianni.  He's a cool guy.  The first thing we did was go to this part of his area named California.  It looks nothing like California because it's just a Huaycan Jr.  We taught an investigator there, which went ok, then came back to Chaclacayo.  None of our citas were really home, so we wound up just contacting a whole bunch.  This place is a lot nicer than Huaycan.  Greener too.  The people here are actually firm too, which is nice because they'll actually say no.  There was this one rich guy that we were supposed to visit, but he canceled last second.  He has a freaking pet tiger.  Granted it's a cub, but still.  I was really looking forward to that cita.  I guess it's fair though because it would've been ridiculous if I saw a tiger in Peru before a llama.  I wonder what llama milk tastes like.  We walked past this one house that has special forces outside it 24/7.  It's a terrorist's house.  He killed a bunch of people 20 years ago when terrorism was a problem here, but then got released from jail and said he had no regrets.  So basically they just shoot him if he leaves.  Then we had an appointment with a recent convert named Timmy.  It went well I think.  Then we took their laundry to their laundry lady.  After that is when we went to go visit that Venezuelan familia.  When we got there, there was this huge guy walking around without a shirt.  We were like, "Como esta?"  He gave his stomach a jiggle and said, "Gordito" (a little fat).  Funny guy.  We stopped by the bakery on the way home and got some good bread for breakfast.
 

 Huaycan

 

 At the top of the eternal staircase.

The area called California that is supposedly "greener".

Week 4 in Huaycan (Birthday Week!)

It's been a crazy week. I can't even remember a lot of what has happened actually. I'm starting to name the street dogs, so I guess that means we're friends now. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, it was an awesome day! The members even threw me a surprise party! It was a lot of fun and still a productive day. We've had a lot of success the last few days. We put baptismal dates on the Mendoza family, but the parents aren't married. So please keep them in your prayers. People are always saying the Huaycan is a sketchy place. I can see how they'd say that. I never feel in danger though. I guess that's just Jesus keeping me safe. But I love my companion and all the missionaries that I am with, even if they do listen to the same song literally 6 times in a day, usually in a row. Anyways, Have a good week everyone!

-Elder White

Monday

Today was another p-day come and gone.  We got ready this morning and went straight to the internet cafe.  I saw my family was wishing me a happy birthday so that was pleasant.  Then I did a bit of shopping.  Everything is stupid cheap here.  You can buy like 5 brand new pirated movies that came out yesterday for about a Sol.  Not that I did.  But I bought a pretty nice hat for 20 Sols (> $7).  I also bought like 15 pretty big rolls for 5/3.  The other companionship and us helped the Gutierrez family (the one family that just got baptized 2 weeks ago that I really like) move their shop.  They sell shoes and none of them were by the other pair and none of them in boxes.  So it was a giant matching game with a couple hundred pairs of shoes (none my size btw) that took us 2 1/2 hours.  We took everything we could to the new shop, including the wood display holder thingies.  That all took another 1 1/2 hours.  I thought he was going to make me cut a live wire to remove the light too, but he killed the electricity first.  I was ready for things to get exciting.  Then we had to come back and do an inventory of all our teaching materials.  Then we went back to their house and did a noche de hogar (FHE) there.  It went well.  They ordered chicken delivery from a restaurant, so that was cool.

Tuesday

We had a mulit-zone meeting today, so we had to get up at 6:15 to go to La Molina.  As we were walking to the chapel, a girl leaned out of a tourist bus from across the street and was like, "Hey Elders!"  The entire bus was waving and cheering us on.  It feels good to be that guy now.  I was talking to Elder Lewis beforehand and he was telling me how after the 2 weeks thing last week, he asked his companion where he ranks with his Spanish.  His companion told him, "Other than that one White guy, your pretty good."  I've had a few others tell me it's good too.  I'm gonna give the gift of tongues and Senorita T all the credit on this one, because I rarely speak Spanish with Elder Yanez and I haven't really actually studied it directly here.  I can understand basically everything if I concentrate, but that's exhausting.  The training all in all was good I guess.  We did some skits about missionary work at the end that were pretty funny.  The whole thing lasted until like 4:30 so it went way longer than we thought it would.  When we got back, we went straight to piano lessons at the church.  I almost forgot: at the meeting they sang Happy B-day to me and a few others.  They also gave me a really good fudge brownie.  After the lessons, we sorta just decided to contact the rest of the night.  There was this one lady who was just about to walk past us, but then I was like "nope" and stopped to talk to her.  We were talking to her and I just really felt like I needed to bear my testimony of eternal families.  So I did.  She immediately lit up like a Christmas tree on the 4th of July and was super excited and interested in talking to us.  We hope to see Mariala this Sunday.  Bearing testimony works wonders.  I felt really good after too.

Wednesday

So my shoelace on my brown shoe literally snapped in half today.  I've had them less than a month and half and wear them every other day.  So that was dandy.  I found some laces en La Quince, but I think they're a bit big.  We'll have to make it work though.  The district got up early to play soccer this morning.  Today was another one of those days were literally no one was home when we went to visit.  We even got Alex, the gospel doctrine teacher to come with us so that we could visit our female/young people we're teaching.  But yeah, no one was home so we wound up using all our time walking to and fro all over our area trying to visit them.  When he left, we had Alejandra come with us.  But he had to leave pretty quick because his mom needed him.  Hermana Yolanda (Carlos) took us to visit one of her non-member friends.  We drove to the end of a super steep street till that ended, some stairs till those ended, then climbed the rest of the way through the dirt.  She wasn't home either.  The craziest thing about my area is probably the fact we probably have a total change in elevation every day more than a mile.  And most of it is walking.  Up and down and up again.  My ears don't like it.  I got stuck in the chapel for a long time tonight because there were a lot of baptismal interviews.  I got reading Mosiah 26.  It's a pretty good chapter.  I've noticed that tons of people here wear Gucci.  Also Crocs.  Lots of people wear those too.  It's an interesting fashion trend.  I'm not really sick anymore, but I've still got a pretty good cough.

Thursday

The zone leaders came by this morning to install these mosquito repellent thingies by the windows with some dudes from the office (zone).  Except we don't have mosquitoes here.  And they only put them on the windows in one room.  But whatever.  I miss all the guys from the CCM.  Today was pretty awesome.  It started out pretty slow because the references we went to visit weren't home.  That's all we did today: visit references.  Usually (or in the last 3 weeks at least) the references aren't home or we were given a wrong/fake address.  Speaking of which, the address system here is horrible. Once you get to the right UCV, sometimes you spend another 10 minutes looking for the house (Lote).  We got Alex to come with us again and we went to go check out Miguel.  He's done a lot of soul searching with a lot of churches and knows the Bible well.  He's 30.  We invited him to be baptized and he didn't say no.  He didn't say yes either.  But we're taking him to church with us on Sunday.  It's looking good.  The we got 2 more accompaniments from the ward: Diego and another Hermana.  We spent about 40 minutes looking for the house of a reference named Mariam.  We found the house and it was one of the smaller ones.  It was kinda tight fitting our 5 plus the 5 from her family in a room a little bigger than our study area.  But the lesson went super well and we committed her, her parents, and her son and daughter to baptism!  Except then we found out she's not married, which is kinda a major obstacle.  But she says she has plans to get married and she was a super escogido (chosen one), so hopefully it works out.

Friday

Well, today was my birthday, and it was pretty stinking awesome.  To start the day off, our zone had a get together breakfast at the pariachi church.  It's a casa capilla (house chapel), so that's pretty cool.  Elder Yanez and I went early to help prepare the food: breakfast burritos.  They were pretty good.  It wasn't for my b-day of course, but it was still fun.  Elder Monzon has picked up my "your mom" jokes.  That man is relentless.  They're all original and pretty funny though.  We went to go visit Christopher today.  He's ready for the 18th. !Un bautismo esta viniedo! (A baptism is coming!)  While we were walking afterwards, Elder Yanez told me that someone was coming to fix the hot water heater in our shower!  I was super excited and said it was the best gift anyone has given me: hot water.  I guess that shows how much the mission humbles you.  We picked up Alex and took him to Zenaida's with us.  She's not interested anymore so we'll drop her.  I found a dude while contacting that was an escogido, but he lives in Pariachi, so he's for different Elders.  I watched some kids get into a fist fight while playing soccer, so that was cool.  Then we had some more entrevistas (interviews) at the church.  After that we stopped by a store and this one actually had cereal bars!  I tried one a couple of days ago and really liked it, but I can't ever find them in stores, so I was really excited.  We went up to the Carlos' for what I thought was a lesson, but them and some other members actually threw a surprise party for me.  They had a bunch of food and a cake.  It was a good time.  The members here are really awesome.  Then we went down to Maria's where she had Inca Cola and Lomo Saltado waiting for us.  Good stuff.  She got a cake too, but we didn't have time to eat it because it was getting late, so we just took the cake home with us.  I felt kinda bad about it.

Saturday

Well, we have added a new song to the overplayed list: "Have I Done Any Good?" by Alex Boyega.  We listened to it 4 times in a row this morning, as with the past few days too.  Speaking of music, the garbage trucks here have their own theme song.  It's better than the ice cream trucks: Vecino, Vecina, cuida tu salud.  Poniendo la basura en el recolector. (Neighbor, Neighbor watch your health. Putting the trash in the dumpster) It's catchy too.  Today has been frustratingly unproductive.  After lunch we went up to visit the Jamampa family for our 2:00 appointment we had set up.  They live far up the mountain so it's an expensive bus ride.  When we got there, they wouldn't answer the door.  We knew they were home though because there was music playing and I'm pretty sure I heard voices.  So then we had to take a bus back down and go to our apartment to let the guy in to keep fixing our shower.  Turns out our mini circuit breaker is broken, so we had to go with him to get a new one.  (Electricity heats our water somehow I guess.)  But to replace it we have to flip the real circuit breaker, but we couldn't find the owner of the building to let us into that room.  Long story short, it's a mess.  Then we went to Pariachi 2 to get some baptismal clothes for Los Lomas.  Mission rules complicate things.  So we went on a adventure trying to find the Las Lomas missionaries and found them at their house.  Elder Dahl is staying the weekend with them before he goes home on Monday.  It's kinda crazy seeing guys like him as a new missionary myself.  Then the shower dude came back and did some more stuff.  The owner will have to finish it when he gets back though, which is hopefully soon because the lights only work in one room right now.  Elder Yanez and I had very little time to contact, but we had good success.  We got up at 5:30 this morning to play soccer as a zone.

Sunday

We went to church this morning.  Surprise.  But Miguel came to church!  He payed attention and was pretty interested the whole time.  Very exciting stuff.  However, no one else came, including Christopher.  His baptism was supposed to be this Saturday, but we'll probably have to push it back a week now.  It's kinda frustrating.  After church we went to lunch at a member's house, the Penas.  Their son served in Guatemala Central, so we talked to him a lot.  Lunch was super good.  They had the good rice, potatoes and bistek.  I thought it was weird when I first saw the natives putting ketchup and mayo on their rice, but now I do it too.  When you have rice every meal, you get desperate for flavor.  They had apple pie for dessert.  From what I've seen so far, the apple pie here is pretty dang good.  We went contacting for a bit and found some good potentials.  Then we tried visiting a couple of our investigators, but had no success.  The Carlos family had us over for another FHE tonight.  They gave us some choufa and left over dessert from my b-day.  We played that one chocolate game after.  When Elder Monzon sneezes, it's like a marathon.  The most I've counted him do at once so far is 14.  It's pretty impressive.

 
Pictures of Elder White's apartment:

 The birthday Elders at the multi zone conference. 

All the missionaries from the zone conference.

Pictures from the surprise party that the Carlos family threw for Elder White:

 A video of the main event.   It is well worth the two minute watch!

 
The cake that Maria (his pensionista) had for him along with the Inca Kola:

Week 3 in Huaycan

Guys. Popo means poop in Spanish. The popo is coming now has two meanings. You're welcome. Lots of dogs this week, but I'm starting to show them that I'm the bigger man. I haven't seen any llamas at all, which is mildly concerning considering that we are in Peru after all. I did see a goat and a sheep on the same day though, so that was weird. The faith of the Members here is so amazing. It'll be on the Sunday part of the recent blog post. I don't have too much time. Have a good week everyone!

Tuesday
(The picture he took of this day's entry was a little blurry so some of this may not make sense)
We had to get up a wee bit earlier than usual to go to la compania de 2 servicios en La Molina.  They were using the chapel for that same thing my dad and I did in El Salvador a few years ago.  So we did it at the CCM next door.  I didn't see any of my friends there though.  We took a combi (basically a mini van bus) most the way there.  According to ley 27050, there's 2 or 3 reserved seats for old guys, cripples, pregnant women or women with infants.  They need to add all white guys that need to fold themselves in half to fit while standing to that list.  The training went well I fell like.  It was good to see all those Elders again.  I feel pretty loved by President Amato.  I felt like he gave me a lot of his attention for some reason.  Like, more than everyone else.  Sister Amato made us all cookies too.  Good stuff.  It was all in all one of those meetings where you walk away feeling like you're gonna baptize everybody.  I liked it.  The meeting got out a lot later than we thought, but that's ok.  None of our appointments worked out, so we just ended up contacting the whole night.  We found this one guy named Raul that seemed pretty promising.  I'm still sick though, however.  I have to blow my nose every 15 minutes.  The barber lady gave me a roll of toilet paper, which has been a blessing to have with me.  If my body put in half the energy and resources it uses for making my snot and instead used it for making me feel better or something like that, I'd be the most fit man in the world and look like Chris Hemsworth.  My companion taught his piano class tonight, so I just read my trusty Libro de Mormon for an hour and a half.

Wednesday
I really need to stop using bad English around the natives.  They're trying to learn English.  When I'm bored with them I might say something like, "I is the most tallest aqui."  Then they start picking up on it and it's a mess.  Elder Yanez had to go to a leadership training in La Molina so we took a bus and dropped him off with Elder Stoliker.  So then I was on splits with Elder Cabascango and Elder Monzon.  They had an 8 AM appointment though, and it took everything I had to not nod off.  It was with that one family they baptized a week and a half ago though, so that was cool.  Such a great family.  We did it.   We finally did it.  There are no more (alive) flies in the apartment.  Elder Monzon went ham with the fly killer spray Elder Yanez bought last night.  I sniped the rest with the electric tennis racquet.  I've killed I don't even know how many in my short time here.  There are some spots that looks like we have peppered tiles now.  It's pretty gross.  I'm a gonna sweep right now.  UPDATE: I keep finding more.  I don't know if they're finding their way into our our apartment or just want to die.  At the height of the fly menace, I was worried I'd swallow one in my sleep.  I think I actually did swallow one because I got the weirdest taste in my mouth all the sudden while I was killing them.  Kinda sweet and tangy.  Anyways, I went to one lesson with the other Elders again.  We were there for an hour and half.  Then we went to go pick up Elder Yanez and Stoliker.  We headed to Elder Stoliker's house, which is a lot bigger than ours.  We split up and went back to our areas.  We didn't really do any contacting because we were at lessons all night.  We stopped by William's, but he wasn't there.  They gave us some great apple pie though.  We couldn't find Fernando and Carmen's house (the old people from Sunday), so I said a prayer and we found it 20 seconds later.  It was actually their niece's house, but we still found it even though they don't live there.  We also went to visit Jose and Jannet.  It looks like we'll give them another shot.

Thursday
I would call this place a concrete jungle, but literally everything is made out of bricks.  Instead we'll call it brick city.  This must be there they store Shaq's free throw stats.  I'm not really scared of dogs anymore.  Instead I pick up a rock and pull a "Kobe" fade away.  I've killed a dozen flies today, so that's pretty depressing.  We had a district meeting his morning.  We watched Johnny Manziel highlights during a part about compromisos.  Still not sure how that ties in.  All the Elders in my room are saying they're starting to feel sick.  I'm feeling better, but I've got a cough now.  Still not 100%.  Elder Monzon actually took some pills and stayed behind to nap for a while.  Elder Yanez and I took our laundry to the member's house.  We spent the most part of our day contacting, but didn't really have any success in doing so.  We really need new investigators though.  I think there was some kind of Women's pride day today.  A whole bunch of them blocked a street and were marching on it.  Then later that night we saw a bunch of them dancing at one of the canchas.  Sandra was with them.  Right after we saw her there, we had a lesson with her and William.  It went well enough I think.  After that we went walking to the very end of the street to talk to Michael and Wendy.  They seem to be doing fine.  I'm at the point where I'm starting to name street dogs.  There's this big one that is by Maria's that always barks at us.  I named him Pavo because he has a bunch of skin/fat on his neck that swings around when he barks.  He was always in a broken window before, but today he was on the street and he tried to attack us.  I honestly felt very betrayed.

Friday
I think I've lost some weight.  My pants were all form fitting when I bought them.  (Which I wasn't aware of.  I'd prefer normal pants.)  Anyways now they're not tight on me anymore.  I'd like a scale though.  But the most important thing that happened today was that Maria made hamburgers for dinner!  That was a blessing in of itself.  I was thinking all morning about what I wouldn't give for a PB&J or a burger.  President Amato said there's no coincidences in the mission field.  I believe he's right.  God helps us in big and small ways.  I'm still a little sick, but that's whatever.  We did a whole lot of contacting today.  Still not a whole lot of success though.  We went to go visit Jimmy today.  He's kind of at a take it or leave it point.  If he goes to church on Sunday, we'll put a date on him.  If not, we'll have to leave him.  Then we made our way up to talk to Jose and Jannet.  It was crazy foggy tonight.  You couldn't see much past 3 houses away.  We also went to go walk by the Carlos'.  There's no such thing as a short visit there.  They love talking to missionaries, so it always takes up a lot more time than you'd think.  I'm at the point where I'm taunting street dogs that are barking at us.  I even yell "square up" in Spanish at them.  !Enfrentame!

Saturday
The district got up early and we all went to the church to play basketball.  The shower was especially cold this morning.  We went down to do a service project with the other companionship somewhere 3 moto soles away.  When we got there, a bunch of guys were getting ready to work on constructing a house, so I was kinda excited to help.  But we were only there to dedicated it.  They had us sit down and wait.  I figured it was for the rest of the family to come.  We waited for an hour and a half to two hours just waiting.  Then they invited us to eat.  So we went to another home down the street, ate, and did the dishes afterwards.  There were a lot of people showing up and they had a ton of food prepared, so they had us carry that out.  When we returned to the house, there was an authentic Peruvian band playing with a bunch of women dancing in a circle.  And there were beers going around.  Bit of a strange atmosphere to be doing a home dedicatory prayer in.  They waited until the workers were done for the day and then took us inside the house.  There were sticks (more like small limbs actually) supporting the ceiling of solid brick and wet cement every 3 feet.  It was pretty sketch.  As we were leaving, a worker scraped some extra concrete off and it got all over my right shoulder.  We planned on being there for an hour, but instead it was more than 3.  When we got back, we tried visiting the Jamampa family, but only their daughter was home.  We went to go visit William and Sandra.  Their entire family is struggling to read the Book of Mormon, so that's not good.  Jimmy is showing a lack of motivation, so it's looking more and more like we'll have to leave him.  We also passed by Carla's and a new reference.

Sunday
Elder Monzon listens to the same cover of Army of Helaman usually 2-3 times every morning.  I liked it the first dozen times I heard it.  Some of the people drive with their hazard lights always on.  That about sums up driving in Peru.  I did another full fast today.  I feel like they're easy to do if you just pray for the strength to do it.  The faith of the members here is astonishing.  Betty, who's been attending for 6 years despite not being able to be baptized; Cezer and Alex who live on the other side of the city and near the top of the mountain; and this one other hermano that only has 1 leg.  They all come every week.  We went to a random member's house for lunch after church. They were nice people.  We accidentally took the wrong combi home, so we had a long walk.  I'm still a bit under the weather, but that's whatever.  What amazes me is the dedication of some of these street dogs to attack us.  There's this white one kinda by Maria's that comes after me and Elder Yanez every time.  Tonight, it was asleep.  But another dog's bark woke it up and bolted immediately straight at us.  We tried mostly lessons, but they all fell through.  So we wound up contacting basically all day.  It's kinda frustrating, but that's the life of a missionary I guess.  We didn't find any escogidos.  The other companionship went with us to the FHE at the Carlos'.  We watched another video and then went and played La Papa se quema again.  Also good to note: that family makes a mean apple pie.  None of our investigators came to church today.

 The view from my kitchen window.

That dog usually attacks us, but he was being chill.  That's near the top of the mountain.