Our friend Oswaldo is a YouTuber and he put us in one of
his videos. I'll put the link at the bottom for you guys to watch if you
want. We have one recent convert named Jherson that we baptized a
couple of weeks ago. He got kinda sick a couple
days before, but he went through with it still. He only got more and
more sick after. They took him to the hospital and found out that he has
a swollen liver or something. But he's come to church every week since
we started teaching him and has seemed fine
there. He'll say he doesn't feel the best though if you were to ask. We
couldn't pass by his house at all for like a week because his grandma
says he was way to sick. We finally talked her into letting us stop by
to give him a blessing yesterday though. He
looked like he might faint while we were talking to him beforehand. But
as soon as we started talking about Jesus and preaching, he looked like
his normal self. He even acknowledged that he for some reason always
felt good enough to go to church when it rolled
around, but would crash hard afterwards. It's really awesome to see the
power of Jesus so evident in his life like this. He is super sick, but
when it comes time to talk about the church, he's fine. It's just so
cool! What a blessing it is for me to be able
to witness. It is a strong testimony to me that God will help us if we
really make the effort to be better and live our lives like He lived.
Always try harder to be better.
-Elder White
(Elder White and his companion appear around the 3:17 mark and then Elder White shows off his mad Flossing skills at around the 5:00 mark.)
Monday
During internet, Elder Mayta got an email from a gringo that ended when I started. He just got engaged. When I talk to members they'll be like, "Yeah, I got baptized 5 years ago by Elder So-and-so. Now he's married with 3 kids." Where the heck will I be in 3 years? We came back and deep cleaned the room after. Elder Mayta was determined not to almorzar (eat lunch) until we were done though, so we got a really late lunch. We went to a local Chifa and ran into Owaldo and his dad, so that was fun. Let me tell ya something Ernie, mostrito is one of the best meals money can buy. Guar-an-teed. We were coming back and this older guy in a sweater called after us. I was thinking, "Ah crap. Another testigo?" But he was just drunk. We were like, "Can we help you?" He told us he needed money and then put his hand in his pocket. I thought he was going to rob us, but he didn't. Elder Mayta declined. He then asked why I was tall and he was short. I made up an extravagant story about how my mom dropped me on my head, which broke my spine. He accepted it so I said, "Gotta go. Chau," and walked away. San Fransisco still wasn't back when we returned so I put some of those poppers in the creases of Elder Artega's folding chair so that they'd pop when he sat down. I also taped two to the bottom of his chanclas (sandals). That was down right hilarious! Apparently it's illegal to burn muñecos now, but some people don't care. Some meñecos have sarcastic fake quotes about things they've done that are pretty funny.
An over the top muñeco someone made.
I bought a whole bunch of poppers tonight; they've got to last the whole year. Everyone was selling yellow underwear today. That was really weird. Peruvians aren't just a little skittish, they're superstitious. They say if they wear that tonight they'll have good luck through out the year. We had a cita with Mafer tonight. We got Diego, a less active, to come with us. Mafer is so easy to work with. It's awesome! After that we went and visited the ex-obispo (ex-bishop) from la familia Lopez. They seem pretty cool. Then we went and visited Rogelio y Rocio for a second. We ended the night by going to visit Oswaldo and his family. While we were there, he started filming a video for his YouTube channel out of the blue. That was pretty fun. We did a noche de hogar with them too. It was pretty solid day. A couple of days ago, Elder Mayta asked me, "Have you seen Robot Chicken Star Wars?" It was at that moment that I knew this friendship was complete. There's been less of a build up to midnight for fireworks, so I'm thinking they'll come all at once.
Happy New Year from Peru!
Tuesday
There were even more fireworks than on Christmas yesterday. It was really cool Except they never completely stopped. I laid there trying to fall asleep, but couldn't. I gradually started to feel sick. I figured that maybe if I used the bathroom I'd feel better. Then my stomach got even more upset and I ended up throwing up until I couldn't anymore. I spent about an hour in the bathroom. I didn't fall asleep until after 2. I got up like normal and called the man, my man, Elder Van Tassell. He told me to take a pill and go back to bed. I wasn't about to argue with that. I went back to bed at 8:30. Elder Mayta woke me up at 1:30. I might have never woken back up if he hadn't. We missed the breakfast Rogelio had invited us to at 10, but oh well. I don't feel super sick, but I'm definitely not 100% I can't think straight though. I have been sick all year. We went to the capilla because that's where lunch was. There was supposed to be a huge ward activity that lasted all day, but not a ton of people went. Due to that, there was a bunch of extra food. Don't ask me how or why, but I had 3 plates myself of the Peruvian trinity. I was hungry man. YOLO. We stayed and visited for a bit and then came back to the room. There were still some lingering fireworks lit throughout the day. Some of them are actually bombs though, I swear. They don't go into the air at all and they just blow up super loudly and make car alarms go off. Elder Wily's trainee is Elder Sánchez from Ecuador. He seems pretty chill. After hanging out a while in the room, we took our clothes to the laundry lady and then ate dinner. It was lamb and a really good drink call soya or something, so that was a good mix up. Some people started partying last night and they didn't stop until it got dark outside tonight. I don't know how that's humanly possible, but I respect it. Unless there was alcohol, in which case I'll have to drop a palabra de Sabiduria folleto (Word of Wisdom pamphlet) off for them.
Wednesday
Today was a super long day. Everything we had put together fell apart: Mafer left unexpectedly, Jherson is sick still and went to the hospital (they just gave him a shot though because that's their solution for everything from a paper cut to dislocating your femur), and the ward movie night thing got canceled last second. Canceling that really threw us for a loop because we had already invited a ton of people and it was the one thing we thought was guaranteed in our schedule. I was reading in Jesus the Christ this morning and it really stood out to me how James E Talmage really ripped other religions a new one, especially burning the Catholics. This was just his summarized version too in a chapter. He wrote 176 pages about that in another book. What a guy. We did nothing but contact from start to finish today. Here's an actual contact I made this morning with a 25 or so year old dude: "Hello, good morning! Are you interested in hearing something about Jesus Christ?" "My parents are Christians." "Oh, that's cool! We're Christians too; we believe in Jesus. Does that mean you want to learn more about him then?" "No. My parents are Christian." "Yeah...ok. Have a good day then! Take care!" Hey man, you want a donut? No thanks, my uncle is a vegetarian. Boy what? I is confusion. I hate it when people tell me they're in a hurry when I contact them. Some day I'm just gonna break down and say, "Lady, I know for a fact that you're not in a hurry. No one in this country is. Y'all arrive 30 minutes late if you say you'll be early. Sit down with me and let's talk about Jesus." On a similar note though, the members here are woke. We'll plan something with the leaders and then announce that it starts 30 minutes to 1 hour before it actually does so that people will be on time. But somehow they know we do that, so they'll show up about 30 minutes to 1 hour after the time we want it to start. For example, we'll have something at 5, so we tell them 4, but they arrive at 6. That's just how things work here I guess. I don't know how I forgot, but we had to teach the Sr. primary during church because the teacher didn't come. We somehow talked about goals and Christmas for almost the whole time. There were only 6 or so kids though, so that was easy. The last 10 minutes I broke down and introduced them to spiritual hangman.
Thursday
We had a district meeting this morning. I was talking to Hermana Houghton to catch up and her dad just got called as a mission president in Australia. So instead of going home to Colorado, she's going to Australia when she ends. Since she's studying at BYU she'll go there for school though. Not gonna lie, that'd be kinda rough. Good for them though. We took money out afterwards. There was this one dude that was really grumpy because we were taking a while. They security guard set him straight though. He told him how we had already been there 30 minutes before him, we were in line, and we had as much as a right to it as he did (the ATM). He was quiet a couple of minutes. Then a lady, which I am assuming is his wife, randomly said, "There's no way you're called of God." Then he started calling all of us sinners. Shoot man, they really got us. We broke the lesser known 11th commandment: "And if thou art a missionary, a servant of God, take thee heed; Thou shalt not use an ATM on the fifth day, at the third watch of day, lest I smite thee; thus saith Mr. Grumpy Pants." All of our citas fell again for the 2nd day in a row, so that was dandy. I made the resolution to make the same satisfied "Ah" that LeBron James does every time I take a sip of Sprite for the rest of my life. I'm very proud of that goal. Elder Mayta was like, "Yeah, that commercial is cool. But have you seen the Old Spice commercials?" So after that we screamed like that dude who's name I forgot. What more does this friendship need? We had a small correlation with Carlos, Caro and Josue. They shared a chocolate bar with us, so that was awesome. Josue is my spirit animal (he's 14). He wears chanclas (sandals) everywhere he goes: church, shopping, sports, etc. He even wore them when the ward choir sang on live national television on Christmas Eve. What a dude. It's partly because he has a minor foot problem, but don't let that distract you from the fact that he's legendary, and that the Warriors blew a 3-1 lead in the 2016 NBA Finals.
Friday
Last night there was a dude alone in the park out from of our house, so I threw a popper at him from the window. He was mildly confused. I did it again a couple of minutes later and he was even more confused. He was joined by a friend and they starting smoking on the bench, so I repeated it twice more. By the end they were looking around frantically. That was pretty funny. We went to the dentist this morning. I finished Jesus the Christ while we were there. I read it in about a month. I'd say its a pretty dang good book. I don't know what to do with myself now though. JK, I just started Our Search For Happiness by M Russell Ballard. Today I was arguing with Elder Mayta about Donas should have a "t" at the end like it does in English "Donut". But then I realized I was fighting against everything I stood for. With the Utah accent, we don't pronounce that "t" even thought it's there. My mind got broke. I wasn't about to give up like that though. Got too much pride for that. Alfredo had an uncle die, so they're on a an unprecedented trip for a while. So we're our own pensionistos for a bit. #Mostritoforlunch. We took Oswaldo and David with us to go and visit Olga after lunch. She doesn't have a ton of spiritual knowledge, but she does have a lot of faith in what she knows. We swung by to pick our clothes up after, but we wound up staying a bit to get to know them. They told us about these older investigators in SF. The husband had a very simple nose surgery that was nonthreatening to his life, but they gave him too much anesthesia and he fell into an irreversible coma. That was 2 years ago and in a coma he remains. Scary stuff man. Elder Myers (Elder Dantas) came to our area to come with us on a couple of citas to meet our investigators. Our cita with Mafer went well. She's awesome enough that when we had just stopped by yesterday, she asked for homework. We passed by Angii's but she was home alone so we couldn't really do anything. President changed the food rules so that we can buy in the streets if the preparedness looks clean. There's this one Venezuelan food stand we had walked by, but tonight we tried it out. It was so. dang. good. It was like a deep fried pizza pocket, but infinitely better. Honestly the best part of Peru is Venezuela. Elder Wily was out contacting tonight and dropped a card. When he reached down, he ripped a huge hole in his pants. It was on his busiest street too, pobrecito (poor guy).
Saturday
I was awoken this morning by a loud beeping noise. I tired sleeping through it, but couldn't. I thought to myself, "What idiot is playing that sound and why so early?" I got up to look for ear plugs and I quickly discovered that it was our smoke detector. There weren't any batteries I could take out and I tried all the buttons, but it wouldn't stop beeping. So I gave up and chucked it out the window with extreme prejudice. I slept very little the rest of the morning, but at least the sound was gone. I went out to go retrieve it in the morning and somehow it still worked and had stopped beeping. No regrets. We did a weekly planning this morning. I drank water in excessively healthy amounts to try and prepare myself for fasting in the Peruvian summer, but it didn't work. Or maybe I'd just already be dead if I hadn't done that. We ate mostrito for lunch today again. We went to a zone attack in Tilda 1. We got there early and the rest of the zone (almost) got there like 30 minutes to an hour late. We got horsing around with San Fransisco and had some fun, but then Elder Wily tripped and got a semi-nasty cut on his hand. But we enjoyed it while it lasted, so that means it's ok. The attack was long and boring because their area is kinda small, so it was super saturated with missionaries. Plus there weren't that many people in he street to begin with anyways. We visited Mafer when we got back. She's super ready. I like making up stories when people ask me a question I don't know the answer to. She asked me why we're called Gringos, I told her it's because we go green when we get sick (hence Green-go) and that the Mexicans thought it was really funny when they saw it for the first time, so they called us that and the name stuck. Paul called and asked us for Angii's address because he wanted to visit her. We went there like 30 minutes later and found them there with Ailin too, so that was cool. We did the pre-interview with her and she seems more ready than I thought, which is great. Elder Mayta and I decided to go buy some of these pasteles Venezuelans for dinner tomorrow. It was crowded by a bunch of Venezuelans, so that's how you know that it's authentic. One of them was as high as Snoop Dog, and he kept talking to me. He wanted to know more about religion. So while mine were frying, I taught him a super brief version of the Gospel and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He seemed pretty interested and got asking when and where we meet and all. He'll probably forget everything and not go, but it'd be super cool if he did.
Sunday
8:00 church is kinda rough for me if I'm being honest. Why so early? The way they worked things out this year is that San Fransisco will start at the same time as us. They do sacrament and we do classes then we swap. It was kinda chaotic, but it worked. We picked Mafer up this morning on the way to church. We hung out with the youth since there's no gospel principles. Jean Franco brought his 2 friends again and Jordy brought his sister. Then there was a couple that walked in last second that aren't members. So that was all great. In this ward, it's a race to get to the stage so that they'll have time to bear their testimonies. It was actually one of the things we talked about in ward council after, which is a good problem to have if you ask me. The consejo (council) lasted for what seemed like an eternity. We ate lunch with the Rojas family afterwards, so that was fun. We had a cita with Jherson today. He's been super sick with a swollen liver since his baptism, but somehow he's managed to always come to church. When he's there and when we're teaching, he seems fine. But the rest of the time he looks like he might die. It's really cool to see the power of God helping him so evidently like that. We gave a blessing to him and then to his grandma. I'll never forget how his crazy uncle made them turn on a crazy song for a couple of 6 year olds to dance to at the ward Christmas party. That was one thing I never thought would happen. We contacted for a while. It was kinda rough because the people didn't want it tonight and I was at the point where I was about to sleep standing up. We had a noche de hogar with the Herrera family. Elder Mayta told me that Oswaldo was going to do the message, but when we got there, I found out they expected a message from us. It was my turn, so I pulled out numbers 22 on them. I figured it'd just be a really chill lesson, but when I finished I realized that I had burned them a bit. Oh well, they still love us. Oswaldo published that video that we're in. It's not getting as many views as normal though, so he teased us about that. Sometimes when I'm bored, I'll walk directly behind Elder Mayta. He'll look over his shoulder, so I'll side step. Then he'll do the same with the other side. It always mildly panics people, so it's kinda fun. So then he'll do a 360, except then I'll be walking right next to him and ask, "What's up Elder? You lose something?" We both enjoy it.
A picture a ward member sent Elder White's family this week.
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