Monday
Well, today wasn't P-day. That's Wednesday. The whole mission is going to get together in a park in Chosica. It's gonna be lit. But as for today, we did internet and then went about working as usual. I emailed Elder Gonzalez to find out what ever happened with Ruth because he said he'd invite me to the baptism, but I never heard anything. He was like, "Yeah man, she got baptized last Saturday. I invited you but you didn't come." That was kinda bitter-sweet because I'm super happy she got baptized, but at the same time I'm super mad because somewhere there was a zone leader that decided not to tell me. She was the only good thing that came out of Huaycan last transfer after all that work and I wasn't there to see it. Otherwise nothing too exciting happened during internet. We came back and started our weekly planning, but then got a call from the zone leaders saying that we were gonna try and take money out one more time. So we went all the way to plaza Vitarte to try again, but still nothing. We were like, "Well, shoot man, we promised them money today. We probably gonna die now." So after lunch they sent us to the office. There were problems with the cards so we just picked it up directly from the financial secretary. The office is nice dude. We picked up a boat load of money for us and a couple other Elders. We got caught in traffic on the way back and missed our cita with Jherson. We also tried to visit a contact named Ruth that came to the NDH last night, but we wrote her address down wrong. Then we went for a cita with Jean Franco. His family was getting ready to go to their cousin's birthday party, so we just set up a time for a entrevista (interview). I managed to talk Angie into doing an entrevista too. She still doesn't have a fecha (baptismal date), but we're optimistic. I'll bring all her paperwork with me just in case. As we were leaving, I was joking with Jean Franco about dancing at the party and I discovered that he can do the floss as well. So we did a floss off. He can do it pretty fast too, but there is only one master. I can do it one hand, two hand, eyes closed, eyes open, walking forwards, walking backwards, while having a conversation, holding my breath, fast, slow or any mix of the above. He's got my respect though. We had started walking away when Elva called us back and gave us Aji de Gallina to take home with us from the party.
Tuesday
We paid the Guarantee last night and reviewed the contract with the owners. It went well, but I can't help but feel like they're over complicating it a bit. We pay them, we live here and have a few rules. That should be it, right? Why are you telling us about the premises of ley 37049? And why do you want to know the name of the dude that represents the church that's going to sign the contract? Were you wanting to add him on Facebook? Sheesh. We picked up the filled out contract to take with us to choir practice this morning. As a zone, we practiced our little performance there for a couple of hours. We came and worked like normal after that. We had a cita with Jherson that went pretty well. We were contacting and we ran into Roberto Guitierez. What are the chances of that? It was really nice to see him again and talk for a minute. I hosted the English class again tonight. Not as great as a turn out. Ruth was the only one that came really. We were teaching her a lesson after the class too. She seemed so perfect; she wants to come Sundays, participate in the ward choir, be a member, have more peace, etc But she was all too content with her Catholic baptism. Shoot man. I think she still plans on participating though. Nothing else really went down today. Let me tell ya something Ernie, Elder Wily has some pretty exciting family and family history. His grandpa was a policeman in Samoa. But all the native islanders have to wear a lava-lava on the job and he didn't like that. So he did some family history and found out that his biological dad is actually German, so he isn't 100% Samoan. Long story short, he translated his family's last name to English just so that he could wear pants. Now if only Jaxon would follow his example. Elder Wily was also telling me about how his great great grandpa was one of the first members of the church in Samoa. The persecution of the church there by the other people got to be pretty bad. It got to the point where they were like, "If you don't deny that church we're going to kill you and your whole family." But he wouldn't deny it. So the next day a mob showed up with torches. He told his family to change into white and then come to family prayer. They were praying as their house was burning down around them. Then a cloud came just over their house out of nowhere and the rain put the fire out. It rains about as often there as it does here. Needless to say, they left his family alone after that.
Wednesday
The worst thing in the world might be waking up 30 minutes before your alarm and having to go to the bathroom. Because you're like, "it can wait," but then waste 10 minutes trying to go back to sleep. But since you can't, you have to get up and go and loose another 10 minutes. What are you going to do with that extra 10 minutes you have left? It's the worst. We left early this morning to meet up in Vitarte to go to the activity. We found an almost empty combi that the entire zone piled into. We saw zone La Molina in a combi next to us on the way up, so that got lit. About 20 minutes in I had gotten like 20 bug bites. It occurred to me that at that rate, by the end of the day I'd die from loss of blood. I made a comment about it to Elder Shumway and he was like, "I got you bro." So we snuck around back for a second and he smothered me in bug spray like I smother my potatoes in gravy. That's how you know if you've got a real friend. To start it off they gave us all a hat, so that was cool. I was thinking that if I work all day in the sun without sunscreen and never get sunburned, I shouldn't have to worry it now especially since I had a hat. I will pay dearly for that mistake. We did a lot of activities, mostly with eggs. They were fun. It reminds me of that time in Chaclacayo when we egged each other for our P-day activity. Good times. The activities were kinda fun. We had a couple of minutes, so I played volleyball, and then basketball. I was worried to see if I could dunk still since there's no hills in Alameda. I threw down the soccer ball I found pretty easily, but it hurt my back, which is kinda concerning. They gave us burgers for lunch, which was great. Some of those missionaries got a ton of bites. Once of them looked like a kid with a peanut allergy that just finished swimming in peanut butter. Then it was time for the zone's presentations. Almost all of them sang. We were last too, so everyone was kinda just like "we've already heard this song 6 times." Sorry bro. At least we sounded good, I hope. I got a card from Emma, so that was a pleasant surprise. We all got a small gift bag with American candy and a tie, so that was cool. It was nice to be able to see all of my friends from the mission and Chaclacayo. Elder Yañez, Hermana Houghton, Elder Droubay, Elder Morris, Elder Gonzalez, and all the rest of them too.
The zone performance.
Burgers with Elder Mayta
Reunion with Elder Yañez.
All in all, it was a really solid day. In part because I had like 10 popsicle/ice creams. After the almost 2 hour commute back, we had just enough time to pick up la familia Astahuaman and go to the ward NDH.
Thursday
I was a fool for thinking I was stronger than that gigantic ball of burning gas in the sky that we call "the sun". Sunburn + sweat + collared shirt = the unholy trinity. My sunburn isn't that bad actually; I've had it worse here. The best part about the noche de hagar lasts night was Oswaldo trying to do the floss. That was pretty funny. We wet to the dentist this morning and ran into the zone leaders in the waiting room. Elder Moreno is from Argentina. He was telling me that in some parts there the mosquitoes are the size of quarters. When they bite, the welt after is the size of a watch face. And they can bite even through jeans. No one is safe. Today we had a cita with Jherson. Everything's cool there. After that we went straight to the capilla to do the interview with Jean Franco. Elder Mayta stayed there with Elder Dantas and I went Christmas caroling with the rest of the district. We went caroling to the CR's and investigators in San Francisco. We had plans to do it for the whole district, but that didn't really work out. It was still fun though. When we got back, I found out that Jean Franco passed his interview. Angie, however, didn't. She doesn't have a strong testimony of Joseph Smith. Then Elder Dantas said, "She also drinks and smokes every once in a while." I was like, "Haha. Oh. ¿En Serio? (Seriously?) Oh." She's only just barely 15. Elder Mayta was telling me about how one time he knocked a door in San Gregorio and a 16 year old answered. She was living with her 20 year old boyfriend and their 3 year old son. Welcome to Peru. I had gotten a call from Oswaldo asking if we could stop by his house, so we went there right after. We got there and saw that he had a couple of Krispy Kreme doughnuts waiting for us.
Friday
Milagros are always in the making here. The other night, I was praying and Elder Mayta started snoring super hard. I was kinda like, "Well crap. As appealing as it'd be to stay up all night listening to that, I'd like to fall asleep really." So I kinda asked in my prayer if he could stop snoring. As I was about to end my prayer, he was still snoring, so I kinda reiterated it. Not even half second later, it stopped completely. That was cool. I'd like to present to you 2 words in Spanish: Pata means paw and Palta means avocado. Pata also means "dude' or "best friend". Except I can't always hear the difference. I don't know if it's much better to hear people calling each other avocados than feet though. We had a consejo de distrito this morning. Nothing too crazy happened. Afterwards we played a version of the signs game though. It's a fast paced version where you pass and receive the signs and the dude in the middle has to tag the dude that currently has the sign. It got lit. Turns out that Elder Mayta is super sick. He was talking to the secretary of health and Elder Van Dassell asked him, "Did you get a lot of mosquito bites?" That's an understatement. Those mosquitoes drank my man's sangre (blood) more than the ancient Philistines ate cake as an empire combined between the years 802 BC to the time they were conquered in 734 BC by Tiglath-pileser and were annexed to the Persian Empire. I don't actually know if those dudes ate cake, but the point is that my companion got eaten alive. I mean, really we're eaten alive by mosquitoes a little every time they bite us if you think about it. But anyways, he was told to call Hermana Amato and from there he got put on bed rest. Apparently a bunch of others that got a bunch of bites as well are pretty sick too and have had to go to the clinic. So he might die, but probably not. So we came back and I ate lunch while he just watched. After that we had a cita with Olga that went pretty well. Then we came straight to the room. The San Fransisco elders came by and I gave him a blessing and he's been sleeping since about 4:30. So I'm pretty bored right now. Update: We called Hermana Amato and she told us to take a taxi to the clinic in La Molina. You know it's real when they tell you to take a taxi. Trying to hail one is always a good time. It was pretty fun trying to tell the driver where to go in a language I don't really speak, in a city I don't know, to a place I'd never been. We got there though. They gave him a shot and some medicine and sent us on our way. We left at 8:20 and got back at 10:50. I'll tell you more tomorrow.
Saturday
Elder Mayta was the 9th missionary at the clinic yesterday. Elder Van Dassell had been there since 11 AM. We were pretty lucky to have had such a short stay. They did tell him though that he can't work for 4 days, so this will be interesting. Elder Carrera had been there since 7 and probably wasn't going to leave til midnight or later. Pobrecito (poor baby) was all IVed up. We got talking about Huaycan 2 since that's where he started his mission as well. Apparently there used to be 3 wards there. I was thinking, "No way. Those wards are struggling. That's not possible." But there was a cas capilla in la R with an attendance of 90 each week. But I guess there were some big time apostate missionaries and one thing lead to another and President saw fit to close the ward down 2 years ago. Sad stuff. I always wondered why there were so many inactives over there. We really just mostly sat around today. It was pretty weird. We had Jean Franco's baptism to look forward to at 6 though. There was also a little girl from the ward that was going to get baptized too. It was just the ward mission leader and the 2 of us until 6:30 though. But I think I've finally figured out Peruvian time though. When Albert Einstein published his theory of relativity, they were all mind blown. These people are very simple They just couldn't handle it. They were like, "Shoot man, if time really is relative then we can show up an hour late and still be on time." What they didn't understand though is that that's a relatively foolish way to think. Everyone applied it universally though, so they didn't realize they were wrong. So the people came tonight, but they were all pretty late. We had about 30 people there though. I can't stop looking at the photo we took. I look so much like my dad when he was my age. Except I know mullets are unattractive. I also can't stop watching my Polar Express video but that's different.
We got Erick to baptize Jean Franco. They were both babies getting into the cold font, so that was funny. The baptism was really nice. The member girl's forehead poked out, but she got water up her nose and refused to do it again. Her family didn't even try to support her. They just said another day she'll do it. So that was unfortunate. Oswaldo is a YouTuber. He was looking at his videos and I was like, "I'm a YouTuber too ya know." "Really." "Nah, just kidding. I've got some Spanish project videos though." So we watched those. I knew that egg would come back to haunt me. He thought they were funny though.
Pictures from Jean Franco's baptism:
Me, Angie, Mario, Erick, Jean Franco, Elva and Elder Mayta
Sunday
Church was a little bit less fantastic than normal today, but that's ok. We got Jean Franco confirmed. Jherson arrived just a minute after they closed the doors for the sacrament. So long story short, we might not be able to baptize him on Saturday. We had a ward council after church. The lunch we had with the member today was pretty solid, but there wasn't a lot of it. So I popped a bag of popcorn when we got back to the room. It was good, but greasy. It brought back some memories. When I was a kid, our babysitters were always Jessie and Maddie Christensen. I don't remember which, but one of them like to add extra butter and salt to the microwave popcorn and I didn't like it. So I resorted to telling her that I was allergic to butter. Probably the worst lie I've told. Last week the owners came and installed a glass door for the bathroom in our room. We were pretty grateful because it would have been awkward to see each other taking care of business. *Next day: "Bro! Close the door! I don't want to see that!" "Bruh. It's already closed." "Oh shoot, you're right. My bad." A couple of days later he came and installed a door knob with a lock. Wouldn't want to accidentally walk in on my companion, so I'm glad he prevented that. Note: He just came back and installed a tint thing so that you can't see through the glass. The lock is still useless because it doesn't have that metal shark fin thingy. When I was at Shelley Elementary, we had a heated rivalry with the grade above us. The lunch was scheduled though so that we'd only have lunch recess together every other year though. That just made it more intense on the on-years. Lunch recess was always them vs. us. There were tons of us on that probably almost full sized field. That's where me and my friends were everyday: Kai, Kallin, Landon, Marty, etc. I remember mostly winning. Sam was always our goalie. One time one of them got this sweet header against us to score. We tried not to count it, but he was like, "You guys are just jealous." He was right. Good times. Tonight we went to a stake choir concert. We all sang as a zone there and nailed it. You could hardly tell we planned it out 15 minutes beforehand. Our ward sang too and they and they sounded pretty good as well. Update: When we got back, we found out that the owners put a sliding lock on the door, but there's no hole to slide it into. There's also a lock on the outside of the door too for some reason. *At some future point: "Lock the door man, don't forget." Locks door. "Elder let me out! Why'd you lock it man?" "But you told me to." "I was talking to myself dude." "Oh. My bad." I'm running out of sarcastic things to say about this door.
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