Monday
This morning we met as a zone to watch a video of the assistants reading a letter from the first presidency about the new rules about communication. Interesting stuff. There has been a lot of changes in the church recently, that's for sure. I honestly don't know what to make of it all though. This I do know: people got trunky this morning, especially the Hermanas. I think just about everyone called their families this morning when we did internet as a zone. It'll be good for some people I think, but I feel like this change was made more for our families back home. The computer I was using was being really weird and wouldn't let me upload or send any pictures. But somehow the screen saver on the computer got changed to a photo of my journal. I couldn't figure out how to undo that, so now some random Peruvian kid that's there to play Fortnite is gonna plug it all into Google Translate and know exactly what I did yesterday. We went back to the capilla and played soccer until the ball somehow got kicked over the super tall fence. But it was probably a good thing though, seeing that I was doing bicycle kicks and sliding and slipping on the concrete among other exciting things. I had 3 goals though. Then we went and ate lunch as a zone. Nothing too exciting there. After lunch I thought we were going to watch a movie, but the zone leaders had something else in mind. They had invited these two Peruvian siblings to come and teach some form of Brazilian dance fighting. I was kinda like, "Oh cool! It'll be like Jumanji." It was nothing like Jumanji. Of the 2 hours, the first hour and fifteen minutes was just straight up rigorous conditioning. I don't know why or what we did to make the zone leaders think we deserved that. Then they taught us how to do some kicks and made us practice kicking each other. That was interesting. But they taught us how to do a cartwheel! I had never done a cartwheel before. I was kinda like Creed. All in all, it was a weird P-day. My body ached the rest of the day. On the way home we stopped in Ceres and bought my comp an extra towel. We did a noche de hogar with la familia Astuhuaman and with la familia Alvarado. We taught about faith. It went decently well. The room is pretty interesting because I'm starting the training of Elder Cabral and Elder Peterson, who is 1 transfer out of his finishing training, is training Elder Sanchez. It's weird that I'm the oldest there. Elder Cabral is really protective of me crossing the street. He'll actually grab me sometimes if I go to cross. I know I've got bad habits, but I still haven't been atropellado (hit) if you know what I mean. More than anything though, I think we just need to let natural selection run its course.
Tuesday
We got up at 4 AM this morning. There was no traffic at all (which was weird) and we found a combi fairly fast, so we arrived at the office at 5:30. I dozed off at bit, but then started getting worried at 6:15 when we were still the only ones. But soon enough a big van full of kids from the CCM pulled up and we hopped in. I had to go with them to Interpol, which is unfortunate because I planned on sleeping in the office. That depressing moment when you realize it's only 9 AM but you've already been awake as long as you were asleep the night before. My body was extremely sore today too, especially my legs. So between that and being super tired, I had like a penguin waddle kinda walk going on. I actually don't know why I'm up still; I'm a go to bed.
Alight, I'm back. I'm gong to write as if I didn't just take an 8 1/2 hour nap. It was interesting to be at Interpol again. They made me sit outside on a bench though since I already had my DNI.
Interpol
There were some Americans there, but I didn't talk to them. Talking to Americans is scary. It was kinda interesting to hear the CCM kids and then went with their leader to the parking garage office in Miraflores. We finished there in record time as well and then were on our way back home. We were home in time for lunch. We went to go visit Jordy today to see what's new with him. He's still super cool. Elder Cabral got to practice L1 and Jordy gave us a reference to one of his friends, so that was dope. We also had a lesson with Arlet tonight. She's pretty excited now to be able to go to the temple. We were gonna have a cita with Anjii and her friends, but her friends weren't able to go I guess. The Astuhuamans are super cool though. They're always inviting all their friends to go to church with them on Sundays. What great people. There were some good contacts that we had today. There was one where there was this lady walking along. I said hi to her and she turned into a restaurant. I was just like whatever. We were 10 yards away a few seconds later and Elder Cabral said to me, "Elder White, look! The lady!' I turned just in time to see her exit the restaurant and go to walk in the same direction as us. But then she noticed I was watching and awkwardly turned around and walked in the opposite direction. We got a good laugh out of that one.
My comp was asleep and I wanted to see what would happen.
The parking garage office in Miraflores.
Wednesday
This morning we had to go to the stake center to have an interview with the zone leaders. It wasn't all that exciting really. Our numbers are a bit low right now, but we're doing our best to fix that. I still feel super lost sometimes on what I'm doing, but improvising as gotten me this far. God too. Always gotta give him credit. We were walking along contacting today and I noticed that this car wash we always walk past was shut down. The sign said something about a safety risk. I don't know what those guys were doing back there with their power washer, but whatever it is seems exciting. We spent most of the day contacting as per usual. I don't think that there were any contacts that really stood out though. At night we went to go visit a contact named Alejandra. We found her and her mom, Bianca, in a park. They're Venezuelans and Oswaldo was with us, so they talked about Venezuela a lot. The cita was really hard for me to keep under control. Bianca seemed really cool, but Alejandra might need a bit more help. Between having a group of Venezuelans and a less experienced companion, the cita lasted like 90 minutes and was a mess. I hope that doesn't throw them off. To give you an idea of what was going on, at one point Oswaldo and Bianca were talking about arepas (a Venezuelan dish), Elder Cabral turned to Alejandra to ask if she wanted to get baptized. "Ahhhh!" She said no. After that cita we had to sit down and talk for a bit about how we can improve. When I asked him what I can do better, he was just like "You're perfect." "Ahhhhh!" I'm not perfect. Far from it. All my other comps have had 16 months or more, so having someone brand new is a hard adjustment sometimes. Today was Mafer's day off, but she wouldn't answer her phone. That was frustrating. We went to go visit Juan and Evelin tonight. They popped some popcorn and we watched Mormon Messages for a while. He's having doubts about baptizing Johan, so I'm gonna have to talk to him about that. He's still got some doubts. I see a lot of my old self in him. On a different note, People. Won't. Stop. Freaking. Giving. Me. Vegetables. It's starting to happen all the time. They're starting to grow on me literally. They're going to make a fungus in my stomach and kill me.
Thursday
Last night we were playing with my dog tazer in the room. There's a laser on it when you push the button. We saw a pack of street dogs, so we pointed the laser at them to see what would happen. Pretty soon we had all of them chasing that mysterious red dot. That was pretty funny. The zone was called to assemble again this morning. Traffic was slightly worse than usual. I wish that I could see what they were doing to build the subway. We got a bit of a training this morning on how to discern an escogido. It was a good reminder. Then we practiced a song that we're gonna sing tomorrow for the multi zone. They asked me to direct it. Fake it til ya make it kids. "Why?" someone asked. "Because he knows how and he can sing," replied Elder Moreno. You are certainly entitled to your opinion my friend. He made me show them how to sing a part though. That let me secret out: I'm a soprano, not a bass. JK, I don't even know what that means. Hermana Black was in the zone today on intercambios. That raised some jokes from some of the Elders. One of the CCM kids from Interpol knew her and they had jokes for me too. Elder Shumway was talking to me and was like, "Hey, remember that one Israelite lady we contacted? She was crazy dude. Remember how she told us about how God killed everyone that wronged her?" She was crazy indeed. Today was pretty rough for me. I kinda got depressed at the end of the day. We had a cita with Olga today, but we went primarily to talk to Dante, her husband. When Elder Mayta and I talked to him a bit ago he wasn't too interested. But then he almost died and just got out of the hospital after 2 or so weeks, so we went there with high hopes. The lesson went well; he was humble, the spirit was strong, and he even accepted the baptismal invitation. When we tried to put a date on him though, he just told us he'd do it in July sometime and was pretty set on that. Bruh. Why? That cita was the only of the 6 citas we had today that actually worked out. Everything else crashed and burned. We got a reference from Elder Garcia and the lady was pretty cool when I called. The address was kinda confusing. I thought it was in our area, but then realized it was in the Hermanas' area so I sent all the info over. But then I was like "Scrap that, that is our area." But it actually wasn't and was in the Hermanas'. What looked like a super busy night was actually empty. I'm doing my best and I feel like were doing everything right, so I don't know why the Lord isn't blessing us with investigators. It's kinda hard for me.
Friday
The hermanas put a fecha on that reference from last night, so that's good. We had a zone conference this morning, so we had to get up kinda early. But I feel like the majority of the things that we talked about were a direct response to how I was feeling about yesterday, so that was great for me. Hermana Amato gave a good training about using the Book of Mormon, which I enjoyed. President had some good stuff to say about faith and working with a good attitude. Elder Hugo Montoya from the 70 and his wife were there. Hermana Montoya told us to make sure we taught super clearly. Elder Montoya had a lot of good stuff to say about working with animos (encouragement), being happy and out going and how to best help people. Good stuff. Most of my friends in the mission were there, so that was fun. Today might have been my last time seeing Elder Yañez, so that was kinda sad. *Elder White gets motivation to work out to get a 6 pack after Monday. *Sees that his companion didn't grab a plate of food for lunch. "Hey man go get a plate anyways and give it to me. I'll eat it." This is my life now. I got us lost a bit on the way home so that was exciting. We took a different combi than normal. They told me they were going to avenida La Molina, but they were going to a different part of it. It's ok though, we just went in the wrong direction and had to walk 20 minutes to where we could take a combi. It was an adventure. As soon as we got into the room though, we went running back downstairs because the ricos helados moto (the ice cream motor bike) with the kid was driving by. Good stuff. The first time I tried these, Elder Mayta and I had ran into it like 3 times already that day, so I said if it happened a 4th time I'd take it as a sign I was to buy ice cream. God wanted me to have ice cream. I made a point of using or referring to the Book of Mormon whenever possible in contacts. I'd say it went well. There was this one dude that was saying how the Bible is altered and imperfect, so I just said, "What if I told you there were prophets that prophesied about that?" He was really intrigued so I explained a bit about the Book of Mormon and opened up to Nephi 13. Now we have a cita for tomorrow. We had a cita with Arlet today. She's still cool. I called to confirm the cita with Bianca, but she just got a job and will be working Sundays and was working right then too. So we took David and went looking for Alejandra. Her neighbor said she was walking her dog, so we went walking looking. After a bit we said a prayer and then found her 5 minutes later. Even though she didn't want anything, it was still cool God helped us find her. We finished the night off with correlations. Nimrod is a good fit for his calling.
Saturday
I love Alameda, let me start by saying that. It really stood out to me today how much I love the people here. I wouldn't mind staying here the rest of my mission. I didn't really have space to write about this yesterday, but after we talked to Alejandra David introduced us to one of his amigos. He's going to take her to church on Sunday, so that's cool. There's always at least one good outcome to every problem or trial. We did weekly planning this morning. I got kinda bored and started moving random facial muscles to see what would happen. Long story short, I figured out how to flex my nose by moving the top of it down without moving the rest of my face. Elder Cabral cracks up laughing every time that I look at him and do it. There were a lot of fallen citas today, but it didn't bother me all too much for some reason. I could never really get into my contacting groove though. We had a cita with Jorge today, whom I contacted with Nephi 13. As we talked, it became clear to me that he's still not ready for the gospel to be accepted into his life. When the cita ended he mentioned he was going to go out and buy a Book of Mormon. I thought about it a second and then decided not to give him mine. Here's my reasoning: since he's unwilling to act, the more he learns the more condemned he'll become. So it'll be better for him to read it when he's ready. I don't know if I'm right or not, but that was kinda just my thought processes. It was kinda slow contacting during the day. Things got real exciting at night though. We were walking along and I saw a Venozdada I'd talked to a couple times before named Virginia. I stopped to talk to her to see how she was. Apparently there's some pretty serious crap going on in Venezuela right now. Guaido is trying to send aid and medicine, but Maduro just shuts it down when it gets to the border. People are dying because he won't let them be helped. Virginia was obviously very troubled by this. We talked to her about it a bit and then Elder Cabral shared Alma 60:13. (For the Lord suffereth the righteous to be slain that his justice and judgment
may come upon the wicked; therefore ye need not suppose that the
righteous are lost because they are slain; but behold, they do enter
into the rest of the Lord their God.) She got kinda teary eyed and we got her to commit to going to church. We finally found Aylin's mom and set up a noche de hogar with them. We were on our way to go visit Angii when this group of Venezuelans hailed us over saying they wanted us to share something with them. They said they were gonna go to church tomorrow too. Things are looking pretty optimistic.
Sunday
Garlic bread for breakfast. I win. What else do I need in life? I have Jesus and I have garlic bread. I'm arguably the most well-off person in the world due to this combo. Power! Unlimited power! Sheer would be proud. I thought church was going to be pretty great this morning, but it wasn't as awesome as I was planning on it being. We didn't have a single contact or other person we can work with come. That's always fun. One of President Amato's counselors, President Hurtado was there today. Definitely not my best moment for him to be there. He kind of burned me a bit for not knowing a couple of things about the ward. In my defense though, some of them were things I didn't know I needed to know. I guess Elder Cabral is kinda down and frustrated. He broke down crying while we were praying in the room. Shoot man, they didn't train me on this. I kinda just told him our faith is being tried right now and that things'll get better. We ate lunch with Rocky, Daisy and Peruvian Meredith (turns out her name is Alejandra and she's from Mexico). Elder Cabral really enjoys talking. The conversation turned to politics and gun rights so I elected to stay out. It came to be time to leave so I was looking for a way to end it. Elder Cabral motioned to his watch and then went right back to talking. A couple of minutes later he did this same thing. He was the one keeping the conversation alive. A lot to learn, you still have my padawan. I was eventually able to end it. We gave them each a blessing and then took off. I felt prompted to promise Rocky something rather peculiar: he was concerned about his job as a miner, so I told him that every day he read the Book of Mormon he wouldn't have a lack of energy that day. Cool promise. There is real power in that book. Today got to be kinda rough for me. The people seemed to be particularly hard hearted, so we didn't really have success. Elder Cabral for some reason somehow scheduled a cita for tomorrow at 5 instead of confirming it for today at 5. Bruh. Tomorrow's P-day. We tried looking for the bishop to talk to him about the things President Hurtado talked to us about. It was kinda hard to find him though because he ran off to the stake center without telling us. But we did find him eventually. Unfortunately, it appears that consejo de barrio (ward council) will stay at 7 AM and that we're gonna have to start going to that. That makes me mad, but whatever.
I almost got hit by a train in that pic. Living on the edge man.
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