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.