Week 10 in Huaycan

This was a pretty solid spiritual week for me, so that was awesome. One day while we were out walking to another cita, I stepped a sharp rock but thought nothing of it because that's kinda normal. But my next step I felt it again and could tell it went right through my shoe. I was thinking, What kind of rock goes through your shoe like that? A big ole rusty nail, that's what kind. It didn't go into my foot though so that's what matters. But it got me thinking. How many times in my life has God guided me so that I didn't step on a spiritual or physical rusty nail without me realizing? It just made me reflect a bit on how good God has been to me in my life. I challenge all of you to do the same. He is there for us even when we don't realize it. One thing I learned this week is the power prayer has when we do it in faith. First example: Sometimes Elder Lainez snores really loud, and a couple nights ago it was especially bad. So during my prayer, I kinda just asked if he could just stop snoring so I could sleep better. After my prayer and I was in my blankets ready to go sleep, he snored so hard that he choked on it and woke himself up. That wasn't what I was expecting, but he still answered my prayer. Then later, after a day of contacting nonstop with no appointments, I developed a pretty big rash to the point where it hurt to walk. I hoped when I went to bed it'd be gone, but it was maybe even bigger in the morning. It was bad enough that I didn't know how I was going to walk all day with it. So I said a couple fervent prayers asking God if it could go away for at least while I was working that day. As soon as we left to work for the day, the I couldn't feel it anymore. It didn't bother me the entire day. Then when we got back for the night, it came back but a lot smaller. That definitely increased my testimony of prayer. Before my mission I didn't really understand the concept of praying in faith, but now I know how critical faith is. I have a woman in my ward who's conviviente named Cristina. She wants to get baptized super bad, but her parejo won't marry her. Ironically enough he's a member. He's super bad to her too just in general. I won't go into detail. She really just needs to leave him because that honestly is the best thing for her since she's only 19. But yeah, she reads the Book of Mormon and prays daily and everything. She wants it so bad; it's not fair for her. The only thing I can do I guess is pray for her. She needs all the prayers she can get so you guys should pray for her too. I know that it is through faith that miracles are worked. But yeah, this week I did intercambios with Elder Aguilar. We had a good time together mainly just contacting. I'm on intercambios with Elder Ianni right now too. It's interesting because he's had me take the lead in everything and teach half, if not more, of the lessons. It's kinda a cool for me because before I was kinda nervous about taking over for Elder Yañez once he leaves and possibly training (because the other elders told me president does that a lot), but now I think my Spanish is good enough and I'm an ok enough teacher that I could do it. I'm not asking though, so don't get the wrong message though jaja. This week we also baptized one of our investigators named Magaly. That was awesome. But that's all for me today. Have a good week! 

-Elder White 

Monday
We're thinking about changing where we do internet because the guy that owns the place doesn't arrive until like 9:45, which is a little late for us. I worked some magic and gave Elder Cabascango 100 monedas for his 2 fifties.  So I took all the rest of the money I had, 400 soles, to the bank and got them all changed into monedas (coins).  

My stack of coins.

I'm still missing like 2 maybe 3 coins in my collection.  Then we went to a store and bought some church clothes for Cristopher.  Tomorrow is Chilean Independence Day, so we had a huge lunch at Maria's.  Elder Yanez and her bought 2 kilos of meat for the 4 of us.  

 
That's a pound per person of steak.  And that's not including all the potatoes and rice we had.  That was a dang good lunch.  We were going to hike Mt Sinai after, but we realized that wasn't a good idea after eating.  So we watched 17 Miracles instead.  I had forgotten how sad/good of a movie that is.  Then we went out and started working for the day.  We went up to visit Mener and Magali, but they were just leaving so we couldn't teach them.  We had an FHE with Malisa on the complete opposite side of Huaycan almost in Pariachi planned for the the next hour.  So we walked all the way there to save some soles.  They surprised me when we got there and told me I was doing the lesson.  I had exactly 2 minutes to make a lesson plan.  So I recreated a lesson from 9th grade seminary where we picked a girl up in a chair using 1 finger.  It went well.  We had chicken sandwiches when it was over.  The family bought some aerial fireworks to light off.  My favorite  part of the night was when they asked if they should set them off inside their house or outside.

Tuesday
My new favorite past time is sneaking up on street dogs.  They see a big 'ole gringo down the street and start barking maybe.  Then they turn around for a second.  When they turn back around, all the sudden his face is 6 inches from theirs.  They jump super high and take off sprinting while barking.  It is straight up hilarious.  We had interviews with president today.  We showed up at 2:50 for them, but we had to wait 2 hours because he was a bit behind.  The ZL's asked us to bring an ironing board with us.  I don't know if you've ever tried shopping for an ironing board in a 3rd would country before, but it is an experience.  We did find one though.  The interviews with the president  went well though.  Nothing too exciting to report there.  We got back for our first cita at 6 with the Penas.  Nayeli's dad didn't give permission for her to be baptized, which is stupid because he had no reason to say no and he's never home for her.  Mener finally found a job, but it requires him to work on Sundays.  He has to take the job, but he's going to keep looking for another.  We went to go and visit Katty, but we're still kind of checking her desires.  Then we grabbed Cristopher and took him to a Noche de Hogar at the Carlos'.  His cousin, Sandra, came along too.  Except then the Carlos' couldn't do it today for some reason.  So instead we went back with them and taught Sandra.  The lesson went really well I think.  We got a fecha (date) for the 13th of October for her.  I have a good feeling about this one.

Wednesday
How would I describe Huaycan in one picture?  Someone go find a gif of Po from Kong Fu Panda walking up the stairs.  I know that God hears and will answer our prayers.  Even if it's seemingly small or insignificant.  Last night Elder Lainez was shoring up a storm.  So in my prayer I asked if he could stop.  Shortly after ending my prayer, he snored so hard that he choked on it and woke up coughing.  This truly is a mission de Milagros (of miracles).  Another milagro today.  I was walking and I stepped on a sharp rock.  I thought nothing of it and took another step, only to feel it again.  I was like, "That's in my shoe.  What kind of rock is sharp enough to do that?"  A big 'ole rusty nail, that's what kind.  I was very fortunate it didn't penetrate my skin.  It made me wonder, "How many times have I almost stepped on a rusty nail, literally or figuratively, but the Lord was there to guide my step and I didn't notice."  We had a district meeting this morning.  It was pretty normal, but the leaders had an exteded meeting after.  So Elder Droubay and I just chilled for a while since he was on splits with the other Elder Yanez.  Maria found an old 1 centimo coin buried in a drawer or something and gave it to me.  So that was awesome.  Elder Yanez and I took Cristopher up to the Penas with us.  Cristopher bought a house and plans to live there by himself, which is fine as long as he doesn't go all conviviente on me.  We went down for our clase de ingles, but the stake president is holding Book of Mormon classes there at the same time now.  So we talked with him in a brief meeting.  Then we just did our weekly correlations for the ward.

Thursday
Today we intercambios (splits) with Lomas 2.  I went with Elder Aguilar from Mexico to Las Lomos 2 and Elder Morris went with Elder Yanez to Huaycan 2. 

  Elder Aguilar and I

We're doing this intercambio for 2 days.  I love Elder Aguilar; he's awesome.  We worked hard today.  We didn't have any citas.  So we contacted for a solid 8 hours today.  That's a lot of walking.  We also visited a lot of inactive members, or tried to at least.  My legs are super sore right now.  This half of Huaycan is some how even dustier than mine.  And the people here know how to say no.  Their pensionista, Santo, was watching the news a bit.  The news is completely unedited here.  It shows people getting hit by cars, people getting mugged, everything.  Huaycan is wild, especially the dogs.  Elder Aguilar and I were just walking along when we heard barking and scuffling behind us.  There were two decently sized dogs in a pretty serious fight.  Another small dog tried to join in, but must have realized it was a bad idea.  One of them got the death grip around the neck and probably would have killed it if some guys hadn't pulled them apart.  All this was happening while two dogs were a couple meters away watching the whole thing whilest making puppies.  But yeah, nothing much really happened today.  Elder Aguilar taught me a bit about Mexico.  One of the super popular knocks we have means something really bad there.  There's also some words in Mexico that have the opposite meaning as they do in Peru.  For example in Peru "ya" is kinda like "tranquil."  But in Mexico you use it when you're angry or frustrated.  So basically it either means calm and everything is fine, or they're about ready to kill you.

Friday
Well, today is Jaxon's birthday.  It's funny because when we were kids, we didn't get along at all and I think we hated each other.  But that doesn't matter because when I left, he was my best friend and leaving him was one of the hardest things I've had to do.  So here's the deal: last night I developed a pretty big rash.  When I got up, it was still there and it hurt to walk.  Enough so that I know I couldn't walk too much with it.  So I went to my knees and prayed with faith that the rash would go away. (because I don't have my cream on me), or that it would at least subside for while I was working.  As soon as we left for the day, it went away almost immediately.  When I came back for the night, it came back again, but was much smaller.  God will answer our prayers when we ask in faith.  On a separate note, the address system in Huaycan is straight AIDS.  Finding houses is so hard.  There's no pattern to it either.  "Let's see.  We need Lote 53.  Here's 48, 49, 50, 51, 54....wait, what?"  I said I'd kill the guy who made the address system here, but I can't for two reasons.  A: I'd get sent home for that.  B: No one made the address system.  Today was a lot like yesterday.  We spent almost the entire day contacting and finding inactive members to talk to.  We also had a few citas though with people that we had found yesterday.  A couple of them seem to have some potential.  We also went to their correlations meeting too.  I almost got bit twice today.  One tried to bite my ankle and the other the back of my knee.  They both only got my pants though.  I haven't been bit yet, but we'll see how long that lasts.

Saturday
I woke up at 3 AM to the sound of glass shattering.  I heard yelling too.  I figured it was just borachos throwing their bottles at the ground because I kept hearing glass break.  Elder Aguilar looked out the window.  They were borachos all right.  And they were breaking the windows of a car across the street, not their beer bottles.  That was the first time I've felt unsafe in Huaycan.  We got up 3 hours later and went to the church to play soccer as a district.  I don't know why I'm not in the pros league yet.  JK.  I'm awful against people that know what they're doing.  We also switched back from intercambios.  Not too much happened today really.  We pretty much just did things for Magaly's baptism.  We filled the font and then were going to take off, but the Huaycan 1 asked us to stick around for a cita.  Long story short we waited a while, then they didn't even actually need us.  We went  up the Penas to check on them.  Then we went back to la capilla where we were supposed to have a cita with Yanina, but she was a no show.  Then it was time for the baptism.  We had Michael do it. Magaly had a problem with question 4, but she got through it.  Davis was going to get baptized too (their son), but he was a no show to the baptism.  It took a couple of tries, but we finally got her baptized.  The spirit was strong, so that was awesome.  Also, someone gave them a duck for some reason on their way down.  So they had a duck with them the whole time.  That was definitely unique.

 The baptism of Magaly.

 There's a duck in that pink bag that someone gave them on their way down to la capilla.

Sunday
Before ward council this morning, the Bishop decided to give us, the missionaries, blessings.  I don't know why, but I'll never turn down a blessing.  It was powerful for me because in that blessing he asked God to help with with every single weakness I have as a missionary.  He listed them all out.  I've never told anyone those.  So that was awesome.  After church, we went to go eat at Hermono Russell's house, who's the primer consejero (first counselor).  I didn't really like jello before the mission, but I love it now.  Then we did intercambios again.  I don't know why it's for a Sunday and Monday, but I don't really have a say in these things.  I also don't  know why we're doing them with the ZL's again.  Elder Ianni came here and Elder Yanez went off to Chaulacayo.  First we went to go visit John Carlos and Rafael, two Venezuelans that just moved here.  They come to church almost every week.  John Carlos is a member and Rafael isn't.  We got a date put on Rafael for the 13th of October.  They're both really cool dudes.  I'm looking forward to teaching them.  Then we sorta contacted for a while.  The other Elders joined us and we went to the Carlos' for a noche de hogar.  It was kind of interesting today because I took the initiative on everything and Elder Ianni let me teach half, if not more than half, of the lessons.  I had my doubts before, but now I think I could be a self-sufficient missionary.  The elders from Las Lomos were telling me it isn't uncommon to get called as a district leader and/or a trainer as soon as you're done with your training.  I was freaking out a bit about that, but now I think I could handle that.

  How they build houses here.

 Sunset in Huaycan

Week 9 in Huaycan

Well this week Elder Renlund came to my mission to talk to us, so that was pretty dope. Also, we went to a zoo last P Day. But the zoo here is really just a dairy farm with a couple other animals I guess. Sorry I don't have to much  time to write more this week. Have a good week everyone!

-Elder White
 

Monday

P-days are awesome, just an FYI.  A couple of weeks ago when I was on splits with Elder Morris, he got me hooked on collecting coins.  About 1 in every 10 coins of 1 sol will have something on the back; either an animal or a place.  I had 14 before today.  Then I took all the bills from my church "allowance", if you can call it that, and other bills I needed change for and took them to the bank.  I converted 180 soles en monedas de 1 sol.  I sorted through all those and then took back 150 of those coins and converted them back to bills.  Then I those 150 back into monedas.  I found 13 new coins, 2 of which (Machu Pichu and Tumi de Oro) are pretty rare.  I may or may not have a problem.  By the way, there's like 10 banks in La Quince.  As a district, we went to the local zoologuio.  Except that must translate to dairy farm and not zoo.  There was a pond with fish, a couple tortugas, patos y two iguanas.  Also a lot of cows.  I drank a liter of yogurt, which may or may not have been a good idea.  I found a donkey, so I started singing "burrito sabanero".  Mi burro even came and posed for a selfie.
 

 (My selfie buddy.)

What a homie.  Then we kinda just wandered around for an hour or two until Godfather's Pizza opened.  It's the best Peruvian pizza you can find.  It's actually pretty solid.  So we had lunch at like 5 or so.  Then Elder Yanez and I went to go and teach Yanina.  It took a bit longer than we wanted, but that's ok I guess.  She's pretty solid friends with Vanesa, so we had the lesson at her house.  We taught the restoration and gave her un libro de mormon.  It went pretty well.  Then after that, we went down to do a noche de hogar with Melissa's family, who's leaving on her mission this week.
 

 Me with cows at the "zoo".

 Me with a runaway tortoise.
 

 Pizza at Godfather's with Elder Yanez.

Tuesday

Today was 9/11.  It's always a depressing morning for me.  It was, and has been, kinda weird not seeing any American flags.  Having to explain 9/11 to my companion was kinda weird.  Anyways, I made myself PB&J for breakfast.  Words cannot describe how good that was.  My back has been hurting recently, especially today.  It's from hunching over in those combis all the time.  I just hope it gets better when I go home.  To start the day off, we swung by the Carlos'.  Yolanda gave us some leche asada, which is awesome.  Then we just contacted for a while.  We had an appointment with Cristopher.  We talked with him about patriarchal blessings a bit.  He's starting to get into the Book of Mormon a bit, which is awesome.  From there, we tried picking up some people to take them to seminary, but it didn't quite work out.  Then we went to the church for piano/guitar lessons.  After that, we went to go visit the Pena family (Mener and Magali).  The good news is that there's a succession of staircases you can take that leads right to their house.  The bad news is that that was the most stairs I've ever climbed at once before.  I miss judged the other night.  Their house is 50 meters from the top, but we were 20  meters away from the top while looking for it.  Other than the fact I was super sweaty for the first few minutes of the lesson, it went really well.  We taught about the restoration.  Afterwards we gave Mener a blessing because he's out of a job at the moment.  We also gave Magali a blessing because she's a bit stressed and out of energy.  Then we gave Nayeli, their 14 year old niece, a blessing too because she's a bit sick.

Wednesday

We had district counsel this morning.  The assistants came so I was kind of excited to hear them, but all they did was burn us.  So that wasn't too fun.  But the meeting was good otherwise boring.  We contacted for a significant part of the day today.  Nothing overly exciting to report there.  We grabbed Cristopher and took him to Yanina's with us.  We read 3 Nephi 11 with her since she didn't finish.  There wasn't time for anything else.  Then we tried going up to Diego's house for a noche de hogar, but no one was there.  So then we tried visiting a kid named Juan Carlos we found a couple of days ago, but he wasn't there either.  So then we walked down to la capilla, but no one was there, again.  So we hung out there and waited for correlacion con hermana Edgar.  That meeting got out late.  Once of the two new gringos in the zone, Hermana Houchington, has already seen an alpaca and she's been here for like 2 weeks.  I'm mildly jealous.  There wasn't even a llama at the zoo we went to.  I don't know what it is, but Elders Yanez, Lainez, and Monzon (even though he's not here anymore) all say "freak" all the time.  It's just mildly annoying.  It's like "flip" from the Best Two Years, except everyone says it.   My vocab is much more refined.  My top 3 most said phrases are Chispas, no se precupe, and Este Elder (used in the same way as saying "This guy").  I finished reading the Book of Mormon on Thursday, so I guess that's something noteworthy I forgot.  Only took 45 days too.

Thursday

I had a dream I could fly last night, so that was pretty cool.  We went to go visit a recent convert named Richard today to see how he was doing.  He's working a lot so it's hard on him, but he's still going to church, which is awesome.  After that we went to go visit Juan Carlos.  We basically just read follet 3 with him.  Then we tried visiting someone else, but they weren't home.  So thus began our ascension to the famlia Pena.  They hadn't read the chapter we left t hem yet, so we had to do that with them.  That was all we had time for.  Just that staircase thingie alone is about 556 steps by the way.  Then we went to a noche de hogar with Huaycan 1.  It went well enough.  We all played la papa se quema and had the spinning around the stick punishment.  It reminds me of when we were playing that at another FHE earlier this week.  I had spun around the stick 30 instead of the usual 15 times to show everyone I'm macho.  Elder Lainez came to support me and keep me from fallig over, but I was like, "No se precupe Elder."  Right after I said that, I took an awkward step and almost fell over.  While we're talking a out embarrassing moments, the last zone p-day we played soccer like I was saying.  The ball was in the air, so I ran and jumped and did a ninja sorta kick.  I tried to kick it backwards way from my goal, but somehow I accidentally wound up kicking it into my crotch.  The sisters got a really good laugh out of that one.

Friday

They say the spirit goes to bed at 11:30.  But by that logic he doesn't wake back up til 7:30.  That's why it's hard for a missionary to get up at 4 AM.  The whole mission went to La Molina and we took a group photo.  Then Dale G. Renlund came.  First impression?  He's a lot bigger than I thought and looks different than the official church photo.

It was the first time I've met an apostle.  He shared 3 points with us:  He thanked us on behalf of Jesus Christ for being missionaries; told us we have been called to serve by prophecy right here, right now; and President and Sister Amato have been called to serve here by prophecy.  He shared a really cool story about him assigning a sister missionary.  He assigned her, but then didn't feel good about it, so he went back and changed it twice.  They he finally decided on the Rome, Italy mission.  That sister, when she was 9, dropped her brother off at the CCM.  She pointed at the map and said, "I'm serving there."  Rome, Italy.  Cool story.  The point is that the spirit won't let us make mistakes.  He talked about being sons of God and attitude and effort.  Then the coolest part was that he gave us an apostolic blessing based on Alma 31:38.  So cool.  The spirit was so strong.  I know that he is called of God.  The only downside to the meeting was that I had to pee the entire time.  After Sister Montoya talked it was like, "I kinda need to pee."  Then it got steadily worse after Elder Montoya and Sister Renlund talked.  I went beforehand and didn't drink anything all day, so that's the biggest mystery.  President Amato told us before though that we weren't allowed to leave during any part of it.  By the end, I could feel, with my had, my bladder bulging.  I've never had to pee so bad in my life.  I was fidgeting uncontrollably at the end because it was taking all my concentration not to pee myself.  Why did that happen?  Satan.  It's the only explanation.  he tried hard, but I worked harder.  He must have not have wanted me to hear something.  We had pizza for lunch from Pizza Hut, so that was a nice surprise.

 
We had sort of a mini multi/all the zones conference.  They showed us a new song and announced our mission logo is going to change.  Nothing too exciting happened the rest of the day once we got back.  We visited Cristopher.  Then we were supposed to do a baptismal interview for las Lomas, but the person was a no-show.  That's always frustrating.  No one else was home the rest of the night so we just contacted.  I hate it when a street contact is going great, but then a big 'ole Podemos Peru political parade pops up  out of nowhere on your street and gives you a handout, matches, and a no longer engaged/interested person you were talking to.

Saturday

I dream about Jiffy Lube a lot, which is weird because I never dreamed about it while I worked there.  We all started the morning off with a service project for the Guitierez family.  Roberto's mom broke her femur and she lives in Bolivia.  He needs to raise 6,000 soles to pay for it.  So they made a whole bunch of chicken and sold them for 12 soles each beforehand.  There was also potatoes, rice and salad included.  We were the food delivery boys.  We also bought a chicken for ourselves to help out.  Then we had a second lunch at Maria's   That was hard to eat again.  She made us ceviche with Calamari, so that was interesting.  I had ice cream again for the first time in a couple of months today and let me tell ya something:  that's some good stuff.  In the afternoon, we went up to the other side of K Mountain and visited some people with Hermano Fransisco.  Then we visited the Pena family with him.  Fransisco is cool beans.  He's outgoing and is on the sumo consejo too.  I met him for the first time today.  He wants to introduce us to all his neighbors too.  Why can't more people be like him.  Anyways, then we went to go and visit Richard and Katty.  We got a date on Katty, which is cool.  But she doesn't talk a whole lot so I don't know what's going on in her head.  And she's 15 so she needs to ask her mom for permission.  We went to stop by the Camacho's to ask Vanesa if she'll be home tomorrow, expect we forgot it was her daughter Ashley's birthday today.  So we accidentally got sucked into a party.  The cake was good though, and so was the duck they gave us.

Sunday

I don't know why it's hard still for me to walk up hills and stairs all day.  I fell like my calves should be watermelons by now.  We had stake conference today, so we had church sponsored buses for free taking the members to Nana where the Stake Center is.  I got to practice being cobrador a bit, so that was cool.  The stake center is actually small, so we had the live video from the sacrament room streaming in every room, as well as outside.  Elder Yanez and I got shout outs during President Amato's talk, so that was cool.  He deemed me Estadounidense Peruano (Peruvian American).  We also had someone there from the area 70 to talk too.  It was a pretty good morning.  Afterwards we had lunch at John Diego's house.  I like that guy.  Then we went with Fransisco to visit another one of his neighbors named Olga.  We got a baptismal date on her, so that was hype.  We tried visiting Mariela, but she wasn't home.  We were supposed to teach Yanina at the Camacho's home, but she was in the cemetery for some reason.  So we just talked to Jesus and Vanesa instead.  We were about to leave, but then Carlos, and old investigator showed up.  We offered to teach him a bit and he agreed.  He said he's been struggling with holding grudges and stuff, so we tried to help him there.  He seems like a cool guy.  I hope we can get a baptismal date on him our next appointment.  After that the two of us went down to the church for Melisa's missionary farewell.  She leaves on Wednesday morning I believe.  The young adults in this ward are all so close and so awesome.  I love it.

 Mission Photo with Elder Renlund.  Elder White is on the back row closer to the mid right side.

Huaycan
 

 At the top of one of the Mountains in Huaycan outside of Mener and Magaly's house.

Week 8 in Huaycan

¿Como estais vosotros? I'll be kind of honest. The last week was kind of really brutal at times. We had to drop the family that we were teaching, so we had zero investigators for a couple of days. But you know how it is. You've just got to turn to the Lord and push through it, so that's what I did. Last Sunday was rough in general, but then we were blessed with a new investigator on Monday night and that whole day was just awesome all the way around. Then the week was kinda hard again like I was telling you. But yesterday was awesome! We had an inactive/PF family we've been working with come and one of our recent converts got the priesthood! Then we saw a new family walk in. So we went and talked to them and it turns out that they used to live in Las Lomas and were taking missionary lessons there, but then stuff happened and they lost contact with them. Then they moved to my area and decided to come to church I guess. This is like a couple months later now by the way. So they basically just tell us they want to get baptized. How awesome is that?! Then someone gave us some chocolate cake later in the day. So in reality there's really no way yesterday could have gone better. I have such a strong testimony that the Lord will always bless his children after their trials. Have a good week y'all. 

-Elder White

Monday
Another P-day bites the dust.  Literally.  The amount of dust here is unhealthy.  After internet this morning, we went straight to Chaclacayo.  We ate lunch together as a zone, so that was nice.  We all went on strike against choufa, because that's what we have every P-day it seems.  So instead we got pollo a la brasa, which is my favorite way they cook chicken here.  After lunch we went to Girasoles and hung out there a while.  We tried to play basketball, except none of us can shoot anymore.  We also tried to play soccer for a bit.  We took some quick showers when we got back.  Then Elder Yanez and I went and visited a reference we got named Yanina.  We brought Cristofer with us.  She was actually really cool.  She was born Catholic, but has been investigating a lot of churches.  She heard about ours, but couldn't find time to go.  Then one Sunday she went during the last General Conference.  She loved it and wanted more.  She tried coming back, but she didn't know what day we meet.  So she went everyday to try and see.  Then she happened to find a member.  I don't know who the member is, but huge shout out to them because they were a huge help and even taught her the correct way to pray.  But Yanina is always super busy Sundays.  But she adjusted her schedule and went to church yesterday.  Long story short, now she has a baptismal date!  Then we went and did a noche de hogar with a family from Huaycan 1.  The spirit was so strong tonight, it was awesome!  As we were walking Elder Yanez said, "You know Elder, the Lord always gives us blessings after our trials."  He is absolutely right because yesterday was probably one of the hardest days of my life and today was awesome.

Tuesday
 Elder Yanez had a leadership meeting this morning, so we had to get up early to drop him off there at the entrada.  I was with Elder Lainez and Elder Cabascango most of the day.  We started out by contacting in the park.  I don't like contacting there.  It's hard to keep track of people. The people there were surprisingly rude today.  I also tried to buy a D'ono Frio hat, but she wouldn't sell it to me, probably because she was wearing it.  But I've seen other Elders do it.  Then we tried going to a contact's house, but we wound up talking to their neighbor instead.  They had a bunch of Frepap election posters (Isrealitas), so I took a photo. 

Then as we left, an entire Frepap parade cam marching down the street.  I even shook the one dude Wilmer Cayllahua's hand.  Israelitas are unique because they don't believe Jesus was resurrected, but rather reincarnated as Jonas Ataucuzi and is wandering around Mt. Siani, which is a mountain a couple of peaks south.  They all dress up like they would have back then and the men even have beards and stuff, which is funny because Peruvians don't look good with beards.  They also use vosotros a lot.  Once a month they have a giant sleep-over party in their temple and do animal sacrifices.  They all have normal houses and phones and everything though.  So that's them.  After Elder Yanez got back, we went to go visit Jesus, the executive clerk.  He and his wife are awesome and their 1 1/2 year old is one of the most chill babies I have ever met.  After that we went and hung out with Cristofer.  Then on our way home we stopped by Cristina and Rodolfo's.  I love them because even though she's a nonmember and he's inactive, they both read the Book of Mormon and Bible daily by themselves.

Wednesday
We had to get up at 5 this morning to go to the office in La Molina.  We meant to get up at 4 so we could shower, but oh well.  From there, I reunited with all the guys from the CCM and we took a drive back to that parking garage office place.  I'm officially a Peruvian (immigrant)!  Afterwards we went to the McDonald's next door, which was really good.  Then we drove back to the office and went home.  As we were walking past the temple, I saw Nate Morrill from school.  He told me Joe was inside.  I was just 20 minutes too early.  There was a bee in the room today so I killed it.  But then I felt guilty because I realized it was the first one I've seen in Peru.  The main thing we did today was go with Jesus and Vanessa to get the youth in the ward signed up for seminary.  It was a lot of walking.  First we went to go visit Cesar, which is a hard climb to make in the heat of the day.  Then we went down and back up another mountain to visit Nicol too.  There were some other people we tried too, but they weren't home.  Then just Elder Yanez and I went to visit Manela,  a recent convert.  We're hoping to get her and her parejo married int the temple, and it's looking optimistic.  After that we went and grabbed Cristofer to go and visit Yanina, but she wasn't home so we just took him to la capilla with us.  My English class consisted of just him tonight.  Then we just left him there so he could do his priesthood interview with the bishop.  The Carlos' didn't have a varon in the house when we called, so we stayed a the chapel and had our weekly ward mission meeting.  As soon as 7:30 hit, I got super tired.  It's been a struggle staying awake all day though.

Thursday
We had a district meeting this morning, which meant getting up an hour early. Tengo mucho sueno.  The meeting was pretty normal.  Not a lot happened.  We stopped by Cristina's to start the day today.  Turns out their situation is very not cool.  Elder Draney (who has served in my area) was telling me Cristina almost got baptized, but then Rodlfo refused to get married.  Apparently he also treats her really bad too.  Sad stuff.  Then we grabbed Cristofer and went to the Carlos'.  The lesson went well.  They're going through a bit of a financial crisis.  Elio and William have a baby bus/luxury combi and they went outside of their assigned route and got a 3000 sol ticket.  That's a thousand dollars almost!  Never mind the fact the people here are super poor.  No wonder people here freakout when they get a ticket.  Anyways, Yanina wasn't home when we stopped by and the baptismal interview we were supposed to do today got pushed back to next week.  So we decided to go and visit Jimmy instead.  We talked to him about fasting and invited him to do it for help to stop drinking on Saturday.  He's also going to go with us on some citas that day.  After the lesson, Jesus and Vanessa (who also live there) surprised us and brought us each a hamburger.  It wasn't an American burger by any means, but it's still good stuff.  Jesus and Vanessa are my favorite power couple in the ward.  Jesus is actually from Iquitos, but he served his mission in Lima East and now he lives here too.

Friday
Today was a blur.  Not in the way that it went by fast though.  I just can't tell  you a lot of details of what happened today.  It was mainly just a lot of walking.  Lots and lots of walking.  We visited, or tired  to at least, a bunch of contacts and references.  We were 1/3 there.  They person we visited was Eder, the brother of Becker.  I thought that the lesson went great and was already looking forward to his baptism when we left.  Except then Elder Yanez told me tonight that he's not an escogido and we probably won't wind up teaching him.  The unfortunate part is that he's usually right.  We walked all over the place trying to find other contacts or old investigators, contacting on the way.  Yanina wasn't home again, which is frustrating.  Why can't people just be home when we go to visit?  We decided to go and teach Cristina and had a nice lesson there.  We tried going to Monica's to pick up Patrick (her 11 or so year old son) to take him to the church with us, but we couldn't because his mom wasn't there.  It's too bad because I like that kid.  We went to la capilla to do some baptismal interviews for Los Lomos.  When there's days like this where you're always walking, there's a couple of things you can do to pass the time.  you can have a conversation with your companion, get lost in your thoughts, or there's the classic game of trying to kick a rock between your companion's feet while they're walking.  I've started saying "cool beans" a lot recently, which is weird because I never really said it at all before my mission.

Saturday
We contacted for the first two hours today, which was rough because it was hot and we were fasting.  We passed by Cristofer's today and talked to him a bit about the priesthood since he's getting ordained tomorrow.  After that we swung by Jimmy's.  He forgot to read, but he's fasting today like we asked him to which is good.  We wanted to pass by Jan Carles and Rafael's house (an investigator and a member who just moved here from Venezuela), but they were working.  So then we went to Monica's.  Her niece was there, who's 26.  We taught  most of leccion 3 and extended an invitation for them to get married.  They agreed, but said they have to talk to their husbands.  Adrian, the niece's son, has been having a lot of pain and sickness recently, so we gave him a blessing.  Poor kid's only 6 or 7.  They spirit was there though so it was cool.  Then we went and visited Yanina.  She was finally home, but we didn't have a varon so we just said hi basically.  After that we went and stopped by Carmen's house, who's a reference we just got.    She has potential, but the only problem is that she can only meet Saturday and Sunday because she works from 3 AM until 5 PM during the weekdays if I heard correctly.  Time is weird here.  It drags on, but yet flies by at the same time.  I can't explain it.  Today I realized how gringo I sound when I talk in Spanish, which makes me cringe.

Sunday
Today was an awesome day.  The only bad thing that happened was my shirt ripped on my back when it caught on something as I was exiting a combi.  Church was great.  Cristofer attended and got the priesthood too.  Monica, Patrick and Gyghorgy came too, which made me really happy.  There was a new family there during sacrament meeting, so Elder Yanez and I went to talk to them.  Turns out they used to live in Las Lomas and were taking missionary lessons a couple months ago.  But then some stuff happened and they lost contact and moved into our ward.  So they were basically like, "So we've had all the lessons and we're back.  So can you baptize us?"  That was pretty awesome.  After church, we went to visit Moariela and talked to her more about the requirements for marriage.  As we walked past his house tonight, we saw Jimmy staggering around so drunk that he would have fallen over if a breeze picked up.  It's pretty frustrating.  Anyways, we went looking for Magali and Mener, the family from church.  They address system here is awful, so it's always a little challenging to find new houses.  We went all the way into no man's land looking for them, where all the houses are further apart and there's not trails.  So we were trail blazing in dirt and rocks on a steep mountain in our church clothes.  It enjoyed it actually.  We were 50 yards from the summit.  We couldn't find it, so I was like let's ask those people over there.  But it was those people over there!  The fact we found them, let along they came to us asking to be baptized, they're just un familia de Milagros.  We taught and talked a bit and then we had to go.  Very nice people.  Then we had a noche de hogar with the Carlos'.  Yet another day to serve as an example that blessings follow challenges.

Week 7 in Huaycan

Nothing too exciting comes to mind of what happened this week. It was just a lot of work really. But I do have a hypothetical question for all of you this week. Christ's atonement applies to everyone right? We see that in the Book of Mormon with the Ammonites among other example. So let's say we're teaching someone and they're progressing and becoming a better person and all that good stuff that the gospel of Jesus Christ does. But then let's say one day we're giving a lesson and they randomly and willingly confess to a ton of horrible stuff they've done in the past that would probably make them considered a terrorist. Remember that this is all hypothetical, I'm not teaching terrorist I promise. But what do you do? You've seen the changes they've made in their lives and are genuinely better and doing good in the world. What would you do? Leave them and pretend nothing happened? Turn them in to the police? Continue teaching them anyways? Let me know  what you guys think. Anyways, have a good week!

-Elder White

Monday
We got up and then went to go do internet, as per usual.  After that, Elder Yanez and I cam back to the room and deep cleaned everything before the new elder gets here.  Then we went to Maria's for lunch.  Papa rellena and lomo saltado.  Good stuff.  Elder Cabascango eats a lot.  He'll sometimes take two servings.  Plus Elder Monzon never eats all of his, so he'll finish that off too.  He's put on some weight since I first met him.  After lunch we went back out and I restocked my cereal bar and pan supply.  I cam back and studied for a while.  Then we went out and contacted for a bit.  Alex Llamoca is leaving on his mission to El Salvador tomorrow, so the Carlos' threw a farewell party.  All the missionaries (the 4 of us) thought it'd be a good idea to go and support him.  He was taking a little longer than we thought it would at the chapel, so Elder Yanez and Elder Cabascango went downstairs to help finish cooking while Elder Mozon and I stayed and talked to the members.  It was nearing our curfew, so we had to go.  As we were walking out the door, Alex finally showed up.  So we got to say goodbye and good luck before his 3 AM flight.  He's 25 and has been a member for like 18 months.  I love guys like him.  He'll be a great missionary.  Today was Elder Monzon's last day here, so to celebrate Maria bought pizza.  Except it was Purvian pizza, so it's actually nothing like real pizza.  It lacks sauce, good toppings and flavor.  Did it taste good?  Yeah, I guess.  Was it a good pizza though?  Nope.  But now I have one transfer behind me.  It went kinda fast.

Tuesday
We went out contacting today before lunch.  It was pretty normal until a guy driving una moto pulled over randomly to talk to us.  He was like, "Gringo, ?hablas espanol?"  So I was like, "Poquito."  Which I guess is a lie because I'd say I'm one step below fluent.  Then he explained that here in Peru they speak Quechua (what the Incas spoke) and Castellano, which is literally just Spanish with a fancy name.  They just call it that here in South America because they want to feel special and/or  because they hate Spain, mostly due to conquistadores (conquerers).  Anyways, then he was like, "Digame en ingles." (talk to me in english) So I said, "What's your name?"  He didn't understand though so we invited him to church and he drove off.  After lunch, we were up in R trying to visit members again.  I felt like we needed to give the Janampa's one more shot.  So we did and we actually got into their house.  They're actually really nice people.  The dad was telling us that the last times we've visited we caught them by surprise and they were having family problems, so that's why they didn't let us in.  He apologized and said it was no excuse though.  Very classy man.  After our visit, we went down for the piano/guitar classes.  I taught Roberto more English during it.  While I was there, I met Elder Cabascango's new trainer, Elder Lainez from Honduras.  He's kinda quiet, but very nice.  After that, we all went up to do an FHE with la familia D'avila.  They're a little less active, so we talked about the Sabbath day observance.  After that, Elder Yanez and I tried to go up to visit Miriam, but she wasn't there.

Wednesday
We went contacting in G again this morning.  After lunch, we did a service activity for the members that live like two houses up.  We carried these tables and cabinets that had been sitting for a while from Instituto de Huaycan to her house.  She went around with a broom trying to get all the spiders and Elder Lainez was like, "No se precupe, somos protegidos." (Don't worry, we are protected) I was just like, "God doesn't protect stupid people.  Wack away hermana."  Whiles I was out today, I saw a lady walk out of her house with a parrot perched on her shoulder.  There's another parrot up in R somewhere.  All this before I've seen a llama mind you.  We grabbed Cristopher and went to go visit Betty.  Carla was there too, so that was a nice surprise.  The lesson went well.  Josefina is in baking school , so they had cupcakes after.  Then we went to go and visit Cristina.  No one came to my English class tonight.  Oh well though.  I got talking to Elder Vasquez, who just got here from El Aqustino.  That place is the hood.  We tried to go and visit Maria tonight, but she wasn't home.  While we were walking back, a drunk guy started following us.  Elder Yanez started talking to him for some reason.  I didn't really say anything because it's typically bad to interact with borachos.  At one point, he grabbed Elder Yanez by the shirt and held him against the wall and asked, "?Confias en Dios?"  (Do you have faith/trust in God?) I tried to talk him down before doing anything physical.  He let go after a minute though thankfully.  He followed us for another 5-7 minutes until he got bored and left.

Thursday
We had a district meeting this morning.  Everything there was pretty normal.  The new other district leader is Elder Yanez from Chile.  It gets real confusing real fast because it's the same with my comp.  The new other ZL is Elder Silva.  He seems like a good leader and rule follower.  After the district meeting, we went to the super market down the road a bit to take out our money for the month.  Taking money out always takes super long.  While we were there I found out we were doing a surprise intercambios.  So as soon as we were done there we all went and got our stuff ready and did the splits.  I went with Elder Ianni to Chaclacayo, except we stayed in Nana with the Elders there because his room in Chaclacayo has no water.  That reminds me, there's 2 new gringos: an elder and a sister.  We ate lunch at the pension in Nana too.  Cool guy.  We had lunch at 6:30 and then went to Girasules (the Alpine of Peru) for an appointment.  The security at the entrance of the neighborhood was giving us trouble, so we had to call a member to let us in.  The guy called and canceled on us when we were a block from his house.  So then we went to ward mission night at la capilla, except no one was there.  So I learned how to play "Next Episode" by Dr. Dre and then we went to dinner.  He bought us pizza.  It was Peruvian pizza, but really good Peruvian pizza.  This is Elder Ianni's last transfer.  He's seen some pretty interesting stuff.  Today was Parker's birthday and also Dia de Santa Rosa de Lima, so there was a bunch of fireworks last night and today.

Friday
I finished up my morning in Nana and then we swapped back.  We spent a couple extra minutes doing studies when I got back.  We were contacting pretty much the entire day, which isn't my favorite thing in the world.  But it's important to do.  Even more important is to follow the spiritual promptings you receive while you're working.  For example, we were a little behind and we walked past this guy on the stairs and I felt like I needed to talk to him.  So I went back and talked to him.  It's as if he was waiting for us to invite him to church.  He seemed pretty excited.  We grabbed Cristofer and then went to visit an old investigator named Monica.  The lesson went all right I guess.  We tried to visit Miriam, but she wasn't home again.  It's kinda really concerning.  Here in Huaycan you have to watch your step all the time or you might step in dog poo, trip on a rock, or fall off a ledge of some kind.  But don't forget to watch your head because you might hit it on a door frame, or get clothes lined by an electrical wire or an actual clothes line.  But also watch your back, because you might have a dog ready to attack you or there might be a crazy moto driver.  But always watch in front of you or you might walk into a pole which has already happened once or twice.  In summary, watch yourself.

Saturday
Today was a pretty normal day.  On the way home from lunch, I found a Podemos Peru version of those air fresheners you put in cars.  It smelled good still, so now it's hanging above my bed.  Lima is getting a new Alcalde (mayor) in 2019, so political propaganda is in full swing right now.  I actually have no idea who will win.  Either Dupuy or the Podemos Peru guy.  There's two Isrealitas running which is kinda funny.  I'll tell you more about Isrealitas later.  We went with the other Elders to do a Noche de Hogar with Monica's family.  It went alright.  There were some gallos (roosters) strutting around outside.  I cringe a little whenever I hear one crow now since there's that one that crows super early in the morning on the floor above us.  Those things really do look like evil mini dinos if you watch them closely.  After that, Elder Yanez and I went to do another noche de hogar (FHE) with the Janampa family.  It was kinda awkward because the 17 year old twins almost never looked up the entire time.  He was twiddling his thumbs and she suddenly took a big interest in the hymn book.  To make it even more weird was that the dad kept joking about the internet whenever we tried to talk to them, just saying how much they use it and stuff.  After that we went down to la capilla (the chapel) for a meeting with Edgar, the ward mission leader.  We talked about all of our investigators and recent converts and what they need.  After the meeting we went up and stopped by Cristina's house.  Then we did the same thing with the Carlos'.  Richard, who's 15 I think, likes playing the rock-paper-scissors version of tennis.  Reminds me of Jaxon a bit.

Sunday
I'm gonna be honest.  Today was brutal.  After ward council, we went out to find all the people who said they'd go to church with us.  Monica's family said they were running late, but would go still.  They were no shows.  Then we went to go get David, the one guy from two days ago that I felt good about.  He was sleeping still and wasn't home when we went back to visit tonight.  No one came to church, not even Cristofer.  But a gringo family came though.  Elder Whipple finished his mission and his family was here picking him up.  Very nice people and a pleasant surprise.  We decided we need to drop Miriam's family as investigators.  The jugo de pina (pineapple juice) and flan we had during lunch were good at least.  The apartment owner finally came and fixed the lights while we were at church.  But he didn't hook up the shower.  The two wires are sitting right there by the box.  It's not hard to hook up either.  We even talked to him about it.  I had been looking forward to this for a long time.  I was so mad and depressed that I almost cried.  Anyways, then we went and did a service project for a hermana and moved a ton of furniture between floors.  Walking down stairs backwards in 3rd world countries is a favorite pastime of mine.  There was a nice guy I met on the combi though: he gave me his seat and even offered to pay.  We tried to visit an old investigator, but we barely missed them.  We were walking along and Jimmy walked up to us straight up wasted.  We saw William Carlos drinking with his friends too.  That was really disheartening.  We visited Cristofer and helped him with some family history stuff.  Then we went back to the Carlos' and did a quick noche de hagar.

 Elder Carrera, Antoni (the son who baptized the dad), Antonio and Elder Ianni.  (This is the Venezuelan man's baptism that had taken the discussions for 20 years.)

 The pink note reads: 1 week without sweeping in our study room.  Just our study room.

 Me with Alex who left for his mission to El Salvador.

 Nana
 

 The Podemos Peru air freshener.

An evil rooster.

Surprise Text From Lima

I received a text from the Whipple family who is in Lima picking up their son who just finished his mission.  It read:

"Hello from Lima!  Elder White says hi!!"

 Your son is about a foot taller than his companion!!  (This is just outside of their church building which is two stories with the stairs on the outside.)

It was fun to get a surprise text and it was super thoughtful of the Whipple family to send us some pictures and to relay a message of hello!