-Elder White
Monday
Today wasn't Pday, but we had internet time like normal because that's what president told us to do. I came up with a great joke. ¿Que dijo Bruce Lee mientras estaba juganda futbol? (What did Bruce Lee say while he was playing soccer?) ¡Wacha! That one's a classic already. We went out to work like normal after that. We were going to visit Jimmy, but we found him drunk in the street. So we couldn't really visit him. That means we just contacted all day really. Nothing too exciting today with that. There was a testigo (witness) teaching us false doctrine that we couldn't get to stop talking. I guess it's only just because I'm pretty sure Elder Gonzalez contacted a testigo missionary earlier in the day. It's kinda sad how misguided people are sometimes. Like just the other day I was talking to someone and I finished the contact and he told me, "Awesome. I'd love to come. I just need to ask my pastor first." *Facepalm* Why boy, why? I think that later that some day I was contacting a woman and her kid was freaking out and crying because he thought that I was selling something and was mad at his mom for not buying anything. Anyways, we decided to do intercambios (splits) with Lomas 1. I went there with Elder Condie and Elder Vasquez went to my area with my companion. Elder Condie is new, but he's pretty cool. I contacted with him a bit and then we had a couple of citas. The first one was with their recent convert and it went well. Lomas 2 accompanied us for that one and the cita after. The next cita was kind of a disaster. A member brought her aunt and cousins to her house to have us teach them. I think the other companionship ruined it. They were too focused on telling the doctrine. I tried to invited the spirit at the end and invited them to baptism, but Lomas 2 was like, "We're a little short on time. Let's come back Friday." That kinda made me really mad. After that, we did a noche de hogar with a family who's husband finally decided to marry his wife so that she can get baptized after 5 years. Her son went on a mission too, so he's cool. We were thinking that it'd be just that family, but before we knew it the bishop, 2nd counselor and 18 others were there. We had to adjust and did a great improve lesson.
Tuesday
We did service this morning. We had to take a moto along this sketchy dirt road up the mountain over a cliff to get there. At least he wasn't watching TV on his phone while driving like I've had happen in the past. For the service, they were going to have us work along side an excavator to clear out the mountain to make a lot, but it broke down right before we got there. So instead we moved a whole bunch of wood and other crap from a demolished house that was a little higher up the mountain so that the excavator could excavate. After that, we ate lunch and started our day of proselyting. We had a lesson with this one crazy lady that lived kinda high up in the mountain. While Elder Condie was praying, she yelled at her kids, "¡Ven!" (Come!) right in the middle of it. When she finally got them all there, she uttered her own prayer under her breath while he was praying. Shoot man, I couldn't get her to stop talking. I'd ask her what faith is for her and she'd tell me that, how her kids are doing in school, how she met her husband, the typical behaviors of the stray dog down the street and how the weather affects her laundry. I tired to cut her off so many times, but it didn't work. When we finally get it to a close, we taught her how to pray and she was like, "Oh, ok. I think I got this." She disregarded everything we told her and spent 3 minutes praising God. It had the same feel to it as a junior high kid trying to reach his word count. I guess I should have known it'd be a weird prayer when she asked me who she wanted me to have her pray to. We spent the majority of the day contacting though. We had one more cita at night with a woman named Roxana. She's pretty ready to get baptized, but she has a super weird working schedule where she'll not work for a while, but then will travel for a couple weeks at random for work. So it's kinda hard to set a fecha (date) for that. Going back to that one crazy lady, what drove me mad was when she said she couldn't understand us, even after I slowed down a bit to focus on pronunciation. I know for a fact that my Spanish is really good. I was thinking, "You racist. You're not even trying." Whatever though I guess. We finished intercambios at 9:30, so I made it back in time to our pensionista for dinner. It was an interesting intercambios.
Wednesday
Today was Pday. Or it was supposed to be at least. Today started off good, then it stunk for a while, but we ended on a good note. We got up this morning early to go get haircuts. When we walked outside, you could tell it had rained because everything was wet. It feels nice to have a fresh cut. Afterwards, it was raining ever so lightly. It was as if the mist was falling down. When we got back, we had to hurry and get ready for the day. I tried doing something new for breakfast: an egg sandwich with hotdog bits. It was a great idea. Except I accidentally used too many eggs, so my sandwhicher over flowed a bit. Then Hermano Espiritu, the building owner, came. He came to fix the shower. But to do so, he shut our power off, leaving my eggs half cooked. I just had to put them in the fridge and we left right after because we were already running late. A couple of weeks ago, I would have given my left arm to have hot water. But now I'm just like, "I've lived here 121 days with cold water and you have the audacity to come and fix it when I have less than a week left here? Sir, esfumate. (slang for whatever)" The entire mission met in Vitarte for an emergency preparedness thing focused on natural disasters. We were 20 minutes late, but the speaker dude was an hour late. I knew it was going to be a long meeting because he started like this: "After the 6.8 magnitude earthquake in the year 1987, the legislature passed law number 29067. Under subsection Owb part 2 paragraph 3, we are taught these 3 rules that..." Blah Blah Blah. I've never seen a room full of missionaries so bored. All I wanted to do was eat some American food. I even brought a bunch of money for it too. But instead we went and ate a cheap Peruvian lunch at the temple. We were supposed to have our session at 2:15, but the guy told us that the missionaries had already entered. I guess they thought they could just do their's early. But because of that, we had to sit around for an hour doing nothing. The session was really nice though. I think I learned a couple of things. It was really nice to be in a place so clean and beautiful after living in Huaycan for more than 4 months. We got back pretty late tonight. I swear Elder Gonzalez ran into half the people he's met here today, so that was a tad bit annoying. We went to correlations when we got back. Cristopher got his temple recommend tonight so that was pretty awesome.
Out the front of my house. And that fog is normal in the winter, but strange now that it's summer.
Monday
Today wasn't Pday, but we had internet time like normal because that's what president told us to do. I came up with a great joke. ¿Que dijo Bruce Lee mientras estaba juganda futbol? (What did Bruce Lee say while he was playing soccer?) ¡Wacha! That one's a classic already. We went out to work like normal after that. We were going to visit Jimmy, but we found him drunk in the street. So we couldn't really visit him. That means we just contacted all day really. Nothing too exciting today with that. There was a testigo (witness) teaching us false doctrine that we couldn't get to stop talking. I guess it's only just because I'm pretty sure Elder Gonzalez contacted a testigo missionary earlier in the day. It's kinda sad how misguided people are sometimes. Like just the other day I was talking to someone and I finished the contact and he told me, "Awesome. I'd love to come. I just need to ask my pastor first." *Facepalm* Why boy, why? I think that later that some day I was contacting a woman and her kid was freaking out and crying because he thought that I was selling something and was mad at his mom for not buying anything. Anyways, we decided to do intercambios (splits) with Lomas 1. I went there with Elder Condie and Elder Vasquez went to my area with my companion. Elder Condie is new, but he's pretty cool. I contacted with him a bit and then we had a couple of citas. The first one was with their recent convert and it went well. Lomas 2 accompanied us for that one and the cita after. The next cita was kind of a disaster. A member brought her aunt and cousins to her house to have us teach them. I think the other companionship ruined it. They were too focused on telling the doctrine. I tried to invited the spirit at the end and invited them to baptism, but Lomas 2 was like, "We're a little short on time. Let's come back Friday." That kinda made me really mad. After that, we did a noche de hogar with a family who's husband finally decided to marry his wife so that she can get baptized after 5 years. Her son went on a mission too, so he's cool. We were thinking that it'd be just that family, but before we knew it the bishop, 2nd counselor and 18 others were there. We had to adjust and did a great improve lesson.
Tuesday
We did service this morning. We had to take a moto along this sketchy dirt road up the mountain over a cliff to get there. At least he wasn't watching TV on his phone while driving like I've had happen in the past. For the service, they were going to have us work along side an excavator to clear out the mountain to make a lot, but it broke down right before we got there. So instead we moved a whole bunch of wood and other crap from a demolished house that was a little higher up the mountain so that the excavator could excavate. After that, we ate lunch and started our day of proselyting. We had a lesson with this one crazy lady that lived kinda high up in the mountain. While Elder Condie was praying, she yelled at her kids, "¡Ven!" (Come!) right in the middle of it. When she finally got them all there, she uttered her own prayer under her breath while he was praying. Shoot man, I couldn't get her to stop talking. I'd ask her what faith is for her and she'd tell me that, how her kids are doing in school, how she met her husband, the typical behaviors of the stray dog down the street and how the weather affects her laundry. I tired to cut her off so many times, but it didn't work. When we finally get it to a close, we taught her how to pray and she was like, "Oh, ok. I think I got this." She disregarded everything we told her and spent 3 minutes praising God. It had the same feel to it as a junior high kid trying to reach his word count. I guess I should have known it'd be a weird prayer when she asked me who she wanted me to have her pray to. We spent the majority of the day contacting though. We had one more cita at night with a woman named Roxana. She's pretty ready to get baptized, but she has a super weird working schedule where she'll not work for a while, but then will travel for a couple weeks at random for work. So it's kinda hard to set a fecha (date) for that. Going back to that one crazy lady, what drove me mad was when she said she couldn't understand us, even after I slowed down a bit to focus on pronunciation. I know for a fact that my Spanish is really good. I was thinking, "You racist. You're not even trying." Whatever though I guess. We finished intercambios at 9:30, so I made it back in time to our pensionista for dinner. It was an interesting intercambios.
Wednesday
Today was Pday. Or it was supposed to be at least. Today started off good, then it stunk for a while, but we ended on a good note. We got up this morning early to go get haircuts. When we walked outside, you could tell it had rained because everything was wet. It feels nice to have a fresh cut. Afterwards, it was raining ever so lightly. It was as if the mist was falling down. When we got back, we had to hurry and get ready for the day. I tried doing something new for breakfast: an egg sandwich with hotdog bits. It was a great idea. Except I accidentally used too many eggs, so my sandwhicher over flowed a bit. Then Hermano Espiritu, the building owner, came. He came to fix the shower. But to do so, he shut our power off, leaving my eggs half cooked. I just had to put them in the fridge and we left right after because we were already running late. A couple of weeks ago, I would have given my left arm to have hot water. But now I'm just like, "I've lived here 121 days with cold water and you have the audacity to come and fix it when I have less than a week left here? Sir, esfumate. (slang for whatever)" The entire mission met in Vitarte for an emergency preparedness thing focused on natural disasters. We were 20 minutes late, but the speaker dude was an hour late. I knew it was going to be a long meeting because he started like this: "After the 6.8 magnitude earthquake in the year 1987, the legislature passed law number 29067. Under subsection Owb part 2 paragraph 3, we are taught these 3 rules that..." Blah Blah Blah. I've never seen a room full of missionaries so bored. All I wanted to do was eat some American food. I even brought a bunch of money for it too. But instead we went and ate a cheap Peruvian lunch at the temple. We were supposed to have our session at 2:15, but the guy told us that the missionaries had already entered. I guess they thought they could just do their's early. But because of that, we had to sit around for an hour doing nothing. The session was really nice though. I think I learned a couple of things. It was really nice to be in a place so clean and beautiful after living in Huaycan for more than 4 months. We got back pretty late tonight. I swear Elder Gonzalez ran into half the people he's met here today, so that was a tad bit annoying. We went to correlations when we got back. Cristopher got his temple recommend tonight so that was pretty awesome.
At the temple with Elder Gonzalez.
Thursday
Not gonna lie, I was really looking forward to that hot shower this morning. I turned that water on and flipped that switch. There was some nice, hot water. I was feeling it with my hand. Then the light started to flicker and I saw a flash inside the shower head. I had to sit there and feel as the water went cold again. The freaking shower broke before I, or anyone else, got to use it. I didn't even do anything wrong that'd break it. I feel like that conversation between Vadar and Sidious at the end of Revenge of the Sith perfectly describes this situation. "Where's the hot water? Is it safe? Is it alright?" "It seems that in your joy, you broke it." "No! It was hot! I felt it! Nooooooo!" I think I'm just playing a game of "What unfortunate event will happen next" at this point. We had a district counsel again this morning. I brought my sandwicher again and we had another meeting of the grilled cheese club, which is really just me, Elder Hyde, Hermana Evans and Hermana Haughton. It's fun though. The counsel was fairly normal. Nothing super unusual to report there. We did intercambios afterwards. Elder Aguilar came to my area with me. Nothing really happened. The citas fell through ( all 2 of them), so we contacted all day long. I bought this snack that I kinda liked. The only way to describe it is Styrofoam covered lightly in powdered sugar. I think it was corn based though, so don't worry. I feel like the people were especially hard hearted today while we were contacting. Not a whole lot of success there. There wasn't even any crazy people we contacted or any weird things that happened to keep the day interesting. The Peru vs. Ecuador soccer match was on at night too, so the streets got almost completely deserted. The day was long and boring. At night though during dinner, we got talking to Lisa (Maria's daughter) and her boyfriend (Angelo). They're pretty cool and fun to talk to. Yesterday during the emergency preparedness thing, a new gringo on the back row in the gym ( a couple of rows behind me) let out one of the loudest farts I've heard right in the middle of the dude's presentation. I'm sure that almost every head turned around to look at him. It was pretty funny. That pobrecito (poor) guy though. It was probably the highlight of the presentation.
Friday
I was doing good, real good. I hadn't said a "your mom" joke the entire transfer. But I've had an out break of those the last couple days. Elder Lainez has caught on too now. I'm so proud. Today was a good day. Every day that I have tequeños is a good day. I'm not even joking. I don't know how it works, but it just does. I could get shot in the shoulder and still tell you it was a good day if you brought me a plate of tequeños while I was in the hospital. I helped Hermana Maria make them too and it turns out that they're actually super easy to make, which is nice. Anyways we were supposed to meet with Ruth at la capilla at 7 AM again, but she didn't come. I guess it was fair though because Elder Vasquez didn't get up when my companion did for the cita the other day. We were supposed to have a lot of citas today, but I'm not too surprised that they all fell through because Elder Aguilar was pretty trigger happy to plan citas with contacts yesterday. Let me tell ya somethin' Ernie, Elder Aguilar is a salty contacter sometimes. But he's funny about it. He tried to contact someone and they were like, "No me molestes, soy catolica." (Don't bother me, I'm Catholic.") So he's just like, "Ok, nos vemos (see you)," and then turned and muttered to me, "en el dia de juicio (on the day of judgement)." We did have a cita with the Carlos family though. They were like, "It's been a while. We were starting to think that you had forgotten about us." I've tried leaving them alone more so that they could be self sufficient, but they were right. I had waited too long. I feel kinda bad about that. We tried going to visit a reference deep in la "R". When we got there and knocked the door, there was a dude with his friends walking by that told us no one lives there. The neighbor outside of her house was like, "That's a lie. He's the one that lives there." So that was a fantastic waste of time and pasaje (passage). We went to the chapel after to switch back from the cambios. You know, I don't want to leave my area yet. I like it here. Next cambio is Christmas. I want to spend that here with all the people I know and have grown to love: Cristopher, Hermana Maria and everyone else too. I'd miss the small things, if I left, too. Like the security guard out front of the Leña y Carbon restaurant. I just always say hi to him when I walk past him on the way to the church. He always says hi back and is happy about it. too. I've seen him out there singing and dancing sometimes too. It's boosted my mood every time I've seen him, especially on the bad days. Tonight he made the effort to shake my hand. What a guy. I like him.
Saturday
Today was weird. There's no other way to describe it really. We did weekly planning today, so there's not a whole lot of exciting stuff there. We had steak for lunch, so that was great. After Maria told me that that might have been my last lunch with her. Then I realized that we find out about cambios tomorrow. That hit me like a truck. After that, we contacted a bit. Then we tried visiting a couple of inactive recent converts: Jamie and Patrick y Dyghorgy. None of them were really able to talk with us though. From there, we went to the church for baptismal interviews. I've somehow budgeted like a boss this transfer, so I can spend a lot of it on food now. So I bought some good snacks on the way down. We had to wait around for the people to show up, so we cleaned the capilla in the mean time. The two kids from Huaycan 1 showed up, but the dad of the girl from Lomas 2 canceled it. I'll tell you more about that later. But while my companion was doing the interview, Ruth came to the capilla for a cita. She's so reliable, I love it! She's only not showed up once and she always reads what we give her as homework. We taught her tithing and fasting and she took it well. We were talking more and we discovered she took 2 drugs on Thursday, so that's kind of not good. Oh, I was teaching with Elder Lainez by the way. There's a new rule in the mission where you need the approval of the bishop and President Amato when you baptize kids because they usually just go inactive really fast. They got permission from the bishop, but forgot the last step. So we had to make a couple of phone calls and wait around a while to get a response. It was kinda awkward because Huaycan 1 had been about ready to start. They got permission after 30 minutes though. I went on a brief intercambios con Vilca and Vasquez, who were on intercambios themselves in Lomas 1. I went with them on a cita and contacted. My companion went with Lomas 2 to talk to the dad who changed his mind about letting his daughter get baptized. We got permission to stay out late, since he gets home late. I just kinda ate a bowl of bananas with yogurt (which is actually really good) while I waited. Long story short, we didn't get back to the room til after 11, they didn't get permission and my companion was in a bad mood.
Sunday
Hey, I've got another joke for you. ¿Que dijo el anunciador cuando John Cena estaba jugando futbol? (What did the announcer say when John Cena was playing soccer?) ¡Wacha! ¡Wacha!
¡Wacha! ¡R-K-Gol out of nowhere! ¡And his name is John Cena! *Theme song starts playing* I think that's better than my Bruce Lee one. Dang man, I'm pretty funny. What does my family do without me? In all seriousness though, I've got this whole kicking a rock between your comp's feet thing down to a science. I'm starting to try trick shots now. Behind the back, off the curb, backwards without looking, etc. Did you know people here water their dirt? I thought it was weird at first. I was like, "What are you watering? It's literally so barren here that not even weeds grow." After a couple of weeks though, I realized they do it to make the dirt more compact. That way dust doesn't fly up, especially when motos are driving by. Anyways, no one came to church today, so that was kinda inconvenient. Otherwise church was pretty normal. Almuerzo (lunch) with a member today was good. It was with the ice cream lady, so that's cool. We contacted a bit and then went to la capilla to meet with Ruth. Alejandro accompanied us. He's cool, so I gave him one of my ties. We basically just talked with Ruth about repentance for an hour. It went well though. While we were teaching, the church in Colegio Manuel Gonzalez Prada was having their reunion. Their prayers are pretty interesting. They have their own made up language for those. It kind of sounds like one of those Hans from Night at the Museum decided to become a lead singer for a heavy metal band. Then he was yelling into that mic, I would have thought they were devil worshipers if I didn't know it was a church school. Then at the end of his prayer he yelled, "¡Wow! ¡Wow! ¡Wow! ¡El espiritu santo me esta golpeando! (The holy spirit is hitting me!)" That was super funny. After that, we went to go and teach a lesson to Patrick. It was kinda chaotic because kids get distracted easily. Then we did a noche de hogar with the familia Salinas. Huaycan 1 was supposed to go too, but they were 45 minutes late. So in that time we were just talking to Nicol because they kept telling us 5 more minutes. The lesson went really well. I regret not visiting that family more because they're super cool. Welp, today was judgement day. President received revelation that I am to go to Amaledo in Vitarte to open the area with Elder Maita. There were Hermanas there until now, which is kinda odd. It must have gotten a little more sketchy then or something.
Last hike up the mountain by my house this morning to say goodbye to my city.
The world's best flower pot.
A Peruvian street dog. They're ugly little suckers.
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