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).
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
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