-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.
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.
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