This week was pretty interesting. It was kinda rough
having to wait a longer time for a p day, but being able to go to the
temple is definitely worth it. I love being able to go there. The spirit
is so strong and I enjoy the spiritual recharge
that it brings. We were at a district counsel, but then the ZL's came
and told us all that we were leaving to Chaclacayo (which is in my first
zone) to go and talk to the kids at FSY (latino version of EFY) about
being a missionary. We each had to individually
teach a group of like 25 kids for an hour. That was really fun even
though I had a couple fall asleep on me jajaja. I loved EFY when I went
so it was awesome for me to be able to go and talk to them. The spirit
was strong there too. We marched into the auditorium
where all the kids were at, and we singing Llamados a Servir (Called to Serve). The kids
all started cheering super loud when they saw us and I couldn't help but
smile. It's so awesome to feel loved like that. That was something that
I'll never forget. We did a zone attack
in Elder King's area yesterday that turned out pretty cool. My ward is
super awesome. We've got a couple where the wife is a member but the man
isn't. We're only missing the partido de nacimiento (birth certificate) from the sister and
then they'll get married and he'll get baptized.
That's super exciting to me. We're also going to have another one of
our investigators get baptized this Saturday. Our area is literally the
best and I'm happy everyday to be able to work here. We did a service
the other day where we carried 3000 bricks and
a whole bunch of sand up to the 4th story of a house to build another
floor. That was long and hard, but fun. Here's some culture for ya: Down
here there's something called a cortamonte. It's basically a piñata on
steroid for adults. They put all of these
gifts and stuff up in a big tree. Then they take turns swinging an axe
at it to knock it down. Then when it falls, they all run and get all the
gifts. It sounds pretty exciting. Well, that's all from me for today.
Have a good week everyone!
-Elder White
Monday
Elder Wily told me a funny story the other day. In Lima there's a few abandoned cars in the streets. He and Elder Sanchez saw a member come home for the night and go to get into her house. They decided to scare her. There was one of those abandoned cars in front of her house, so they hid on the other side and opened and slammed the door. They repeated it twice more. After the 3rd time, an old homeless dude on the inside sat up real quick, threw down the broken window and yelled, "Hey! What do you want? I'm trying to sleep!" They went running into the member's house. That surprised them real good. Today wasn't P-day. Elder White needs a P-day. He's mostly dead right now. Regardless of that though, we did internet this morning. Señorita's funeral was the most Señorita Taylor thing possible, so that was cool. Nothing else too exciting to report though. Arlet wasn't home when we tried to visit her. We went to go and visit Juan Carlos and Evelyn. They're still working on their marriage papers. We had to be marriage counselors for a bit because they were in a bit of an argument, so that was kinda weird for me. We taught the Plan of Salvation. Juan Carlos asked a question about every point we taught. It's great that he's got this curiosity, but it's kinda hard to feel the spirit when there's so many questions asked. From there we went to Oswaldo's house to have a lesson with Mafer. Oswaldo wasn't home, but David and Zeroima were. That lesson went pretty well. Mafer got a job so she's home a lot less now. After that we went and did a noche de hagar with la familia Rojas. Nelson brought his son to it too. It got a bit chaotic at times because there were a bunch of kids, but it was fun nonetheless. Situations like this really made me wonder: Will they be quiet and chill, or will they be the kids that every nursery teacher fears? From what I understand, the stuff in Venezuela is starting to get interesting. After the corrupt election, the other candidate declared himself president. So from what I understand, there's 2 possible outcomes: a re-election or a civil war.
Tuesday
Yesterday I received a reference from a contact from a missionary in Lima Central during internet. That was kinda interesting, so we went to go look for her. I don't know what kind of people they're working with in Lima Central, but long story short, she's not ready at this point in her life to receive the gospel. I am developing a deep hatred for Peruvian bugs. I find spiders or other insects crawling on my shirt all too often. The mosquitoes here have turned into nocturnal predators. They leave us alone for the most part, but they've been really getting us during the night recently. We were sleeping with the window open, but now it's closed. It gets really hot and stuffy at night now. I've got bites only on my legs really for some reason, especially my feet. They're all big and nasty too. Also, the termites fly here. They're all over the place. They're nasty. I'm worried they might get into my scriptures and other study materials. I'm not even going to bring up the flies in Huaycan. Hermano Terre-Alba asked us to stop by his house today, so we did. I'm not sure why, but they gave us Inca Cola so I wasn't about to argue. It was especially hot the first part of the day. Gotta love sweat dripping while you're walking. As it starts to dry and get kinda crusty, making my forehead kinda stiff and forcing a bit of a scowl. We tried to visit Arlet again today, but she wasn't home. Later, we went and visited Daniel to see if he was going to invite his lady friends to church. The dude's a total slayer. He opened up his messenger app and it was chucked full of read and unread DM's from girls. I teased him about it and he was just like, "Yeah, I only talk to about 10 of them though." In all my life I don't know if I've texted 10 girls. I've got some major practice to do when I get home. We were out contacting and got a call from la familia Astuhuaman saying that they were busy doing stuff and that we'd have to visit them some other time. I always appreciate it thought when people call to let us know; I get really triggered when they aren't home and don't tell us, especially when it's for a silly reason. We were kinda discouraged about that cita falling, but we went about contacting normally. As our plan B we were contacting in a park. I saw a dude on a bench that I decided to contact. I was just like, "Hey, what's up? How are you?" "Bad, very bad." So I sat down to talk to him. Come to find out, he's got a bunch of crap going on in his life. So we sat down to talk to him. We invited him, Alfredo, to baptism and set up a cita for tomorrow. It was a great example to me of how we can have something good in mind, but the Lord will have something better. Alfredo really needed us.
Wednesday
I've had at least a thin layer of sweat on me for the last 2 weeks straight. It just never stops being hot. Today was another classic example--maybe the most extreme example--of a day going nothing like we planned or even considered. We had consejo de distrito this morning. Everything was going as normal and we were like 1 1/2 hours in when the zone leaders told everyone that we had to end early because there was an emergency. They got us all together and told us now they had just gotten off the phone with the assistants. We were to go to FSY (Latino EFY). They told us that we were going to each be in charge of teaching a group of 20-30 kids. Not with our companions, but solo. They also told us that it had to last an hour and that our goal was to inspire them to serve missions. We had 1/2 hour to prepare something and then we had to leave because the FSY was in Huampani in Chaclacayo. We drove past Huaycan on the way up; that place is crazy. I got to sit by Elder Shumway on the way up, so that was fun. His companion is Elder Villanueva, my CCM companion. The FSY was at this super nice club. They had all the kids in this giant tent-pavilion thing. They turned on Llamados a Servir (Called to Serve) and we all came in marching in from the back up to this stage singing. When the kids realized we walked in, all the 1000 kids or so got really excited and cheered really loud. That felt real good. Shoot man, it was hot in there though. I don't think I've ever been hotter in all my life. All the Latinos made fun of me for sweating so much. I know it was hot because it was a relief when I walked back outside and the normally blistering heat was a relief. Then it became my time to teach. I was put with 2 dozen 14-15 year olds. I went in there with the plan of giving them a spiritual round-house kick to the face because that's how my first EFY changed me. It didn't really go according to plan though. A couple of them even fell asleep on me. Oh well though. We were going to eat lunch with the FSY kids, but they were serving pork. So instead President bought us all chaufa at this nice restaurant at the club. President and his family sat down at our table, so that was fun to just talk to them.
There was a llama at the club, so we all freaked out a bit about that. He was on the verge of spitting at a couple of Elders.
When we got back, Alfredo was a no show to the cita unfortunately. I was in charge of the ward NDH. I did the lesson based on something that Doug shared that I liked about Lehonti vs Moroni on temptation.
At the Noche de Hogar
Thursday
P-day! At long last today was P-day. It was pretty hard to go 10 days without a P-day, but fortunately no one went MIA (Missionary In the Abyss of despair). To celebrate, we went to the temple. I had heard that they had made some changes to the sessions, but this was my first time in it since then. I was fine with the changes. I love being able to go to the temple; the spirit is so evidently there. I noticed the same spirit when I stepped into FSY yesterday. It was a nice spiritual recharge. I love being able to attend the temple. What a blessing it is!
We went shopping a bit afterwards. Then it came to be the moment that we were all waiting for: Holly Food--All you can eat American food. We had been hyping about it since Oswaldo told us about it last transfer. We got LA and SF in on it too. The thought of being able to eat there was the only thing that kept us all going at some points, especially in the last week. We prepped by not eating breakfast. We got there with speed and walked in with joy. But then we were filled with tears when we realized that they were renovating that day and weren't open. That, my kids, is what you call true disappointment. So instead, we went to Subway. It was good to have an American sandwich again. After that we went to the Americanized convenience store next door. I already had my mind set on spending a lot at Holly Food, so for that reason I spent more than I should have there. But YOLO. We keep almost getting in car accidents. These Peruvians are out to get us man. At night, we went and had a cita with Juan. We decided to reteach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It went super well. While I was teaching about the Holy Ghost, the spirit got super strong. Juan was able to recognize it too, so that was super cool. We've run into some unexpected problems with getting all their marriage papers together, but we're still working on it. Then we went and visited Arlet. Yure was nice and let us do it in his house. Arlet is now done with all of the lessons. All that's left is to wait 9 days for her baptism. I had a bit of free time today, so I listened to 3 hours of Truman Madsen's talks. He goes into great detail about different aspects of Joseph Smith. For example, today I listened to the First Vision, Attributes, Spiritual gifts, and trials. I really enjoy them and they're a great testimony builder.
Friday
I got up like normal, 1/2 hour early, so at 7:00. I was about to shower when Elder Wily asked me, "Are you not going to the service?" "What service?" I asked. Come to find out, last night we got a text from the zone leaders saying that we were to go to a service in Amauta at 8:00. Elder Mayta failed to inform me. He was still in bed and wouldn't get up for nothin'. I took his blanket, called our phone with SF's phone, blasted my air horn, but nothing worked. I called Elder Dantas to let him know we might be late. He gave me a few ideas and told me to keep trying. I mean it was 7:15, not 3 AM. Why fight so hard? What finally worked was when Elder Wily literally picked him up out of bed and walked with him. It is not worth confronting him though, not again. For the service we hand carried bricks and sand up to the 4th floor of a house so that they could build another floor. The pile of sand was probably a bit bigger than one of my dad's iconic piles of bark. After some quick calculations, I determined there were 3,000 bricks maybe a few more. Each one probably weighed about 2 kilos or so. We had 12 guys there, but 2 were sanding the whole time. Over the course of the 4 1/2 hours, the other 10 of us got all the bricks and like 1/2 the sand up (there was a hired dude to help us with the sand, but he stopped so we did the sad too). I completely sweat through my shirt I also got pretty sunburned. She was good to give us drinks throughout though and even gave us lunch after. We were all pretty wiped after that. I'ma hurt tomorrow.
That is us by the huge load of bricks.
When we got back we showered and then went out to contact. We didn't really have a lot of success though. Later we stopped by Jherson's to see how he was doing. After him, we went to go do the same with la familia Astuhuman. After calling our contact from the other night, Alfredo, it turns out that he impulsively moved back to the jungle with his family. While it is kinda disappointing, I know it's ok because I did everything the Lord asked me to do to help him even if he didn't really act upon what we taught him. Or just not acted yet at least.
Saturday
Today was interesting. In the morning we moved right from personal study into weekly planning. Then we ate lunch early. My body hurts from yesterday and I'm super tired still. The kids from the CCM came to our chapel to do an attack in San Fransisco. On of the Hermanas from the CCM walked in with pants on. My first thought was, "Did she run out of skirts? Why did she come in P-day clothes?" But then I realized that they were dress pants and that Hermanas are allowed to wear pants now. Apparently the girls at the CCM wear pants now more than dresses. That's pretty weird. We were going around in a circle introducing ourselves and an Elder that looked familiar stood up. It took a second, but then I remembered him. After Elder Dether sat down I said, "Your name in Kimball. You went to Shelley Elementary and your first grade teacher was Mrs. McGee." Everyone was like, "Whoa, how do you know that?" What I should have said is that I have the gift of revelation and rattle off all the other memories I have of him. Unfortunately though, I was honest and told them he'd been in my class. It took him a bit, but then he remembered me too. There's some people you run into sometimes that you never thought you'd see again. For the the attack, I went with a missionary named Elder Owens.
He was a pretty cool guy. He's 23, so you know he's here to take care of business. Cool guy. It was a bit of a longer attack--3 hours. After the attack, we went to go take out money. We were fortunately able to get it kinda quick. When we got back, we went to go collect people to go to Tilda's baptism. Arlet wasn't home, but we got Juan and Evelyn to go with us. We're only missing one paper from Evelyn and then they're ready for marriage. How cool is that? Tilda's baptism turned out pretty good, but it wasn't super organized. They asked me to dirigit el himno (direct the hymn). Venid a Cristo (Come to Christ) is pretty popular in English, but not too much so down here. I was kinda singing and leading normally. But no one else was really singing, so the Hermanas motioned for me to sing louder so that they would sing louder too, hopefully. It didn't work though, so instead I just sang a super loud solo. The whole district was there and all the other Elders were in the back matandose de risa (dying from laughter). After the service, they started bringing out all this food and even cake. For a fasting Elder, that's pretty cruel.
Sunday
I've been pretty tired today. I'm tired of all the members coming 30 minutes late too. That's a quarter of the time that we're supposed to be there. They're missing out on a lot of spiritual nourishment. Arlet and Juan both came, so that's pretty cool. Keyla also brought 2 of her nonmember friends, so that's pretty great. The sacrament meeting didn't start until like 9:25 because SF ended late. The sacrament ended at 9:45. Because our ward is our ward, people wouldn't stop getting up to bear their testimonies until the bishop told them to. So we didn't leave until 10:30 or later. Elder Wily was talking to Elders Sanchez and Mayta and found out some interesting information for me. They ranked my accent a 5 or 6 out of 10. I feel like I have a really solid accent for the most part. I'd rank it a 7 personally, maybe an 8. But I guess I know what I have to improve now. They did say, however, that my grammar is a 9 or 10. I'd give myself a 9 though because I'm aware of all my screw-ups when they happen. We went to go eat lunch today with la familia Villafuerte. They gave us a big plate of the Peruvian trinity with corn, then chicken soup, then una tuna, and then a granadilla, with a whole bunch of Inca Kola throughout. Hermana Charo told us that she'd give us candy if we stopped by, so we passed by to say hi because why not? She gave us each a big bag of candy and then a big 'ole bag of cheese puffs to share. Then we went clear over to Elder King's area on the other side of the zone for a zone attack. There's this water carnival thing going on in South American, but it's not too big here. As we were on our way, we saw part of it called a cortamonte. It's basically a huge piñata on steroids Peruvian style, and mostly for adults. What they do is put a bunch of stuff on a tall tree. Shoes, blankets, buckets and other stuff too that I'm sure is cooler. Maybe there's stuff in the buckets. But anyways, what they do is take an axe and then take turns copping at the tree. Sometimes people miscalculate where it's gonna fall and they get crushed and die. But I guess that just makes it more exciting. It looked like there were 8 trees they were doing that to. I don't know how they found trees to do that to, but whatever. For the attack, I went with Elder Tigse. We basically just contacted the whole time. It was only the 2nd time I've worked with a missionary with less time than me. Their area is kinda like Huaycan, but with not dogs, less people, less dense and a lot smaller.
The chapel in Elder King's area.
I tasered Elder Monzon in this picture and it was pretty funny.
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