Week 18 in Alameda

I'm all geared up and ready to go for a 4th cambio (transfer) here in Alameda. I'll be honest, I thought I was leaving. I kinda said bye to everyone so we all got a good laugh when we found out I was staying jajaja. We did an intercambios (exchanges) this week with Elder Carrera, so that was awesome. This week we had two baptisms. One of them was a surprise that we weren't really planning for, Flormira, so that was really cool. It was another one of those cases where the ward lost all the records of the person so that it was necessary to get rebaptized. She was really unsure about it, but we talked to her and got her to agree to do it this past week. Really cool stuff. We also had my convert Juan baptize his son since he turned 8, so that was really cool for everyone. Then there was a 9 year old that we got her dad to baptize. She was kind of really hesitant to go through with it, but in the end she got baptized. It was a miracle 50 minutes in the making jajaja. While I was busy pacing and panicking in the hallway though, our investigator Lucero came up to me and told me that she really wanted to get baptized and asked if she could do it this next Saturday and asked if I could baptize her. That was pretty cool. The hermanas all brought pants to district meeting on Wednesday, so I had to break out Deuteronomy 22:5 on them. (The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.)  That was pretty funny. Well that's it from me. Have a good week!

Monday
I called home during internet today, or tried to at least.  Why, you ask?  When the church came out with this new announcement, I told them I'd only really call home on birthdays and holidays.  Yesterday was Selection Sunday.  March Madness is a pretty significant holiday where I come from.  Por lo tanto (Therefore), I called my mom to make my bracket with her.  The mic wasn't working on my end though, so I just had to type.  It was cool though.  I told her not tell me the seeds.  I obviously didn't watch any games this year.  Watch me win though.  It'd be pretty funny.  Today was P-day de distrito.  So we all met up and went to a member's house.  I found out later that that member turned out to be President Hurtado.  Interesting surprise.  While we were on our way there, we got doused with laundry/paint water, I'm not sure which.  The owner of our building was the one that did it too.  It was an accident though and just a few drops too.  After finding out about Elder Shupe's cooking abilities, we decided to put it to use.  He made some dang good hamburgers from scratch.  On mine I had caramelized onions, pineapple, the standard sauces, and fre shavac ado.  It was kind of a really messy hamburger.  Not even the all so proper Brits such as Benedict Cumberpatch or Princess Diana could escape that burger unscathed.  I fell American again between that and yesterday.  It's so good to have grease flowing through my veins again.   We all brought pictures from home to see each other's families.  It kinda weirded the Hermanas out that Elder Cabral is engaged.  They were like, "Does President know?"  Bruh.  He talks about her multiple times a day.  Everyone one the southern half of the River Rimac knows.  We all watched Ratatouille.  During the movie, Olga called me and informed me that Dante went to the ER.  That's not good.  Something about his pancreas and bladder.  I had to make a lot of phone calls after that.  At night, we were contacting and there was a girl that came up to me and started talking and asking where the church was.  She moved two years back and went inactive, but she's looking to come back and her cousin is interested in taking lessons.  So that was the miracle of the day.  We were going to have a cita with Lucero, but instead took her to a NDH with Mafer and Oswaldo.  Then we went to another NDH with Jessica, Marcelo, Meguimi, and Octavia, as well as a bunch of ward members.

Tuesday
Today flew by fast.  A little too fast.  We did weekly planning this morning.  My biggest weakness is my face.  My normal facial expression looks like I'm mad or bothered.  I feel happy on the inside, but I still look bad on the outside.  It's a work in progress.  We went to go and visit Arlette today.  Her parents were home, so we decided to talk to them too.  We taught about the Plan of Salvation.  It wasn't our best lesson though.  Arlette's 5 or 6 year old brother was playing Slitherio and GTA and he screamed every time he lost, so that was really distracting for me.  Then we went and picked up Oswaldo to go and visit Marjorie, the girl that talked to me in the park yesterday.  She is 19, so that's important to remember for later.  We got to know her a bit.  She told us about how she's studying English, then will study civil rights.  Once she's done with her studies, she wants to move to the USA and marry a gringo.  I was just kinda like "yeah, ok" because that's what a lot of people down here want to do.  But then she started asking about my friends and asked me for their phone numbers.  Then we reviewed the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  When it was time to leave, I asked if there was something we could do for her.  She just told me, "Please don't forget your friends' numbers."  When I asked if there was anything else she said, "Give their Facebooks too.  Dame todo (give me all)."  We left that cita and Oswaldo and Elder Cabral gave me that look, and I gave them the same.  We laughed about it and then Oswaldo told me, "Well Elder, if you ever happen to need to get married fast, I know a guy."  Funny stuff.  Nelson is leaving to work on a boat again, so he came with us to the rest of the night after that.  He's a really good guy.  I'll miss him.  We visited Rosa Leon since she's had some problems recently.  She's one of those people that want us to visit them all the time, so that's kind of uncomfortable for me.  They just don't understand our job as missionaries very well.  "It's a trap!" -Admiral Ackbar.  Then we went to go and visit Jeannina and her family.  At almost the same time, Juan and Johan went to the church to have interviews with the bishop.  Everything is looking good for Saturday.  To finish the day off, we went and visited la familia Astuhuamun.  Mario's uncle just passed away.  It seems like they've had a lot of death in their family.  We sat down and talked to mostly Elva about it for a while.

Wednesday
We had a district meeting this morning, our last of the transfer.  This district has been pretty fun to be in.  The hermanas all wore pants.  When I walked in and saw that, I stopped and said, "What the heck is going on here?  Is it P-day again?"  They were pretty happy though doing the splits and kicking and doing lunges and what not.

When it came time for the counsel though, I decided to do a 2nd pensamiento espiritual (spiritual thought),  so I dropped Deuteronomy 22:5 on them.  That was pretty funny.  They were all like, "How do you know that one?"  An excellent missionary knows the scriptures inside and out.  I'm only a great missionary though, so that doesn't apply to me.  I know it because the other day Elder Cabral and I were making a good contact and then he randomly asked us what is says in that scripture.  We were just kinda like, "Uh...," but he was cool so we looked it up.  Elder Cabral read it and we were just like, "?"  The dude was just like, "I like to memorize passages from the Bible," and offered no further explanation.  I can summarize the weekly video from President in one quote: "Arrepientanse! (Repent!)" -President Amato.  It was basically just 10 minutes of that.  I guess a companionship got sent home recently.  He talked about how we have to be responsible for our companions.  My thoughts immediately went to Elder Mayta.  Even though I know I did the right thing, it was a good confirmation because I think about it a lot.  Why did things have to go down like they did?  We spent almost the whole day contacting.  Nothing exciting to report today about that.  I called Elder Myers and got him to come with us to visit Flormira.  We went and there and were like, "No one in the ward has a picture.  That means you've got to get baptized again.  How does this Saturday sound?"  She was just like "Ok."  So, surprise.  We're actually have 2 baptisms on Saturday, in addition to Johan.  Flormira doesn't seem overly excited about it, but I think she'll go through with it.  Later, we had a noche de hogar com barrio (FHE with the ward).  There weren't a lot of people that came though because there was a JAS activity.  We got Flormina to come thought and it turned out well.

Thursday
This morning we had to get together as a zone for a mandatory meeting of deportes (sports).  We played soccer for a bit.  But then the hermanas arrived and we had to change to volleyball for an hour or so.  My volleyball skills were MIA today.  It's ok though because I was on the stacked team.  We started a bit shaky, but then we went on a 30 minute win streak.  That was pretty fun.  But I also wouldn't mind getting together with the gringos to play a game of 21 sometime.  Elder Cabral is that guy that I hate playing against on the other team.  A lot of pride and excuses.  (Elder White Mom note here: sounds a lot like how Elder White used to be!)  It drives me crazy.  All the other 3 Elders fell asleep during study time, but not me.  For some reason I don't really get tired a whole lot anymore.  Actually, tired yes, sleepy no. #Bendiciones (#Blessings).  But the other guys not so much.  I'm an obedient missionary and I try to help the others be obedient too when necessary.  I try to be funny about it though.  For example, a couple of years ago there was a kid in my Spanish class that would sneak up on people and nibble their ear.  So I tried that today.  Not gonna lie, it was kinda weird.  After lunch we did a 12 semanas (weeks) marathon to do our best to catch back up.  The people in the building in front of ours are digging a huge hole in their house.  They cut a 6' x 6' hole in the concrete and started digging.  This is no joke probably more than 8 feet deep.  It was kinda crazy to see the dude in there with his shovel.  I don't know what or why they're doing it, but I respect it.  We went to go visit some twins in the ward that aren't going to seminary.  We basically just talked to them for a minute, promised blessings and then took off.  Jeannina had her interview tonight.  She passed everything ok.  I forgot to mention this, but we met with Mafer this morning.  She answered the door and was like, "Elders, ¿Como estan (how are you)?  Hurry and come in before my grandparents get home."  My first thought was was, "Wait a second.  I've seen memes about this."  Her boyfriend was with her though, so we went in.  She's been having family problems with her grandparents recently.  They're super Catholic and not very supportive of her going to church.  As a matter of fact, we had barely started to teach when they came in and we had to leave.  We had a lesson with Lucero tonight.  That went pretty well.  She agreed to move her fecha baptismal up to the 30th of March.  Cool stuff.  We got Yure and Aylin to come with us to visit Flormira.  She wasn't home so we were going to leave after waiting around, but she showed up just in time.  I've taught the law of chasity 3 times in 2 days.  Teaching Jeannina that was weird, not gonna lie.

Friday
We did intercambios (exchanges) with the zone leaders today finally.  They've canceled on us like 3 times before, but I'm glad we finally get to do it.  Elder Carrera came here with me and my comp went to Vitarte with Elder Moreno.  Before that though, I had a long morning of paper work and getting stuff ready for baptisms.  I finally sat down to study a bit and what not, but then I looked down and realized that I had a huge rip in the crotch of my pants.  So I had to take those off and stitch that up.  So there went my whole morning.  When Elder Carrera got here, we went straight to a cita with Elliot and Lisabeth.  Elliot got baptized as a teenager, but then went inactive later and now is convivient with his pareja.  They've gone to church the last few weeks though and word on the street is that she wants to get baptized.  When we entered that cita though, I felt like I was in my training all over again.  Elder Carrera talks a lot.  Not that that's a bad thing by any means.  It's just that I sat there feeling powerless as he taught almost the whole time.  He's a really good teacher though.  She's got pretty good desire to be baptized.  They only problem is that they want to do a big party for their wedding.  They've got money for the wedding, but not for the after party.  That's the problem right now.  We'll see what happens though.  We spent pretty much the whole day contacting.  We were supposed to go visit Daisy and Rocky, but long story short they were having marriage problems and didn't want us to pass by.  It's a sad situation.  The thought that that could possibly happen in my marriage someday horrifies me.  From there, we wen to la capilla to do Flormira's interview.  It took a while to do it.  She was still kind of unsure about getting baptized again and it took a bit of convincing on Elder Carrera's part, but she agreed in the end and is ready to go for tomorrow.  After that, we had correlations.  Everyone got there late again, which is kinda frustrating.  I learned a lot of invaluable information in that short time though.  Marcelo and Arlette are finally enrolled in school.  Also, Marcelo apparently has some desires to get baptized and that the source of the problem is actually Arlette and not him, which is surprising.  He's going to seminary at night too.  I made a really cool contact in the park right before curfew.  We'll see what happens.

Saturday
While I was praying last night, I had some incredible revelation to me on how I can help my family get involved in missionary work.  I'm excited to tell them about it and can see great results from it.  Today was one of my most stressful and exhausting days yet.  It's kinda hard to explain, but it doesn't really seem that way though.  It's cool to see God's hand like this in my life.  Today's a day I can't forget.  We finished intercambios and picked clothes up from Tilda on our way home.  I spent every last bit of my free (ish) time to do stuff to plan the baptisms.  We took Daniel to go and visit Lucero today.  Everything was pretty normal there.  We tried looking for the people I contacted in the park last night, but I couldn't find them.  Then we went to go get stuff ready for the baptism.  The permission for Flormira was a bit complicated.  Her aunt, who's a member, is in charge of her.  She's been on a trip in Piura all week and her cell phone's been turned off the whole time, so we couldn't call her for vocal permission.  So we decided that since she was all aboard the first time we taught, we'd count that as vocal authorization.  The zone had a noche blanca (white night), but we did it at our own capilla because we can.  Flormira was kinda super nervous and was almost crying, but Paul is a good friend to have, so he helped a lot.  Juan was kinda grumpy about his jumpsuit being kinda small.  He baptized Johan after a couple of tries, so that was real good for them.  Jeannina saw that Johan took a couple of tries and got scared I guess.  PTSD.  She was crying so we had Flormira go next.  That went smoothly.  Jeannina was still pretty scared, so we decided to pray with her.  Demetrio tried to cut me off while I was praying and tell me it was better to wait, but I kept right on praying.  It took us a while to get her to touch the water, like 20 minutes.  I didn't think she'd get in.  She hesitantly stood by the side for 10 minutes.  Before that happened, Demetrio got mad and went home.  Yure straight up jumped in the water in his church clothes to get Jeannina in.   I was busy nervously pacing the whole time outside.  But another 10 minutes later, she got baptized.  That was a relief.  Pictures of the baptism:

Sunday
Welp, today just got awkward.  Turns out that I'm staying a 4th combio (transfer) here in Alameda with Elder Cabral. I thought I was leaving, so I kind of already said bye to everyone.  I kinda put a couple of things off for later for the next guy that would have come.  It was judgement day today and the whole room is staying actually.  As much as I love Alameda, I felt like it was time for me to go.  But oh well.  This morning we called for a consejo de barrio (ward council).  We went there and I just kind of let Elder Cabral take the wheel because I thought I was leaving.  Elder Cabral gets kind of extreme sometimes with high expectations and demands a lot from everyone.  So after that, the bishopric took us aside and we talked to Elder Cabral.  He had kinda showed a huge lack of respect to everyone.  So Josemar did a very smooth job of putting him in his place and telling him to chill a little.  I felt kinda bad.  I should have controlled him better.  The bishop got really teary eyed during that conversation and didn't say anything until I asked for forgiveness at the end.  Elder Cabral just stayed silent.  We got the 3 baptisms confirmed during sacrament meeting.  Lucero was there at the baptism yesterday.  While I was busy freaking out about Jeannina, she came up to me and told me that she was super excited to get baptized and wanted to do it this next week.  I was just like, "Cool!  That's when your fecha is."  She also told me that she wanted me to baptize her.  Her mom, Norma, came at the end of church. She introduced me as "the Elder that's going to baptize me on Saturday."  I'm down.  On the way home, I noticed Elder Cabral was silent so I just said, "I guess we learned a couple of things this morning."  He stayed quiet and after a bit of pestering said, "I already knew all of that."  He was being so unreasonable and extreme.  Not everyone is living the law of consecration.  I had to burn him a bit.  After that we went to go and visit Juan and Evelin a bit.  Then we went to go eat lunch with la familia Quinto.  They're some pretty cool people.  Then we went to a PF attack in Tilda.  I had to bring my white pants because there was a dude my size that was going to baptized someone.  We knocked on one door and a lady come on the intercom and started screaming stuff about Mormons.  So I pushed the doorbell to see if that was for someone else and the same lady on and said Satan or Demon like 20 times.  I was half surprised she didn't come running out with a cross in her hand.  Elder Cabral talked to President Hurtado, but I didn't go over because I thought I was leaving.  We finished the night off by going to visit the familia Astuhuaman.  Jean Franco showed us this weird conspiracy video about dinosaurs in the Bible.

With Elder Yañez.  Elder Yañez extended his mission by four weeks.  He was a good trainer and great companion!

Week 17 in Alameda

This week has gone by super fast. The whole transfer actually. I could have sworn transfers were just the other day. We're out here working hard in Alameda. We're starting to see a lot of really good stuff happen. The Lord is blessing us with a lot of opportunities to help people. Elder Cabral and I have got a pretty good chemistry down, so that's always awesome to have. This week was crazy with last second chicken cook offs, meetings and interviews. There was one experience that really stood out to me this week. There's this dude in my ward named Rocky. He works as a miner and is gone for a couple of weeks at a time. A couple of Sundays ago, we went to go eat lunch at his house. He was about to leave on his trip to go work in the mine, so he asked for a blessing of strength/comfort. Elder Cabral gave him the blessing, and while he was giving the blessing I had the prompting to give Rocky a promise. So when my companion finished the blessing, Rocky was shaking our hands and I shook his and told him that if he would read the Book of Mormon everyday before working, he would be blessed. So I said, "Rocky, in the name of Jesus Christ, I promise you that if you will read the Book of Mormon everyday before working, you will never have a lack of energy for that day and that the Lord will bless you while you are working." Now, 3 or 4 weeks later, I saw him at church. He came up to me and said, "It worked. Your promise worked. I did it everyday and so did 62 others." Then he went on and explained to me how they only had a group of 63 men to work when there's usually 80. But despite that and the horrible weather conditions, they did the work of 80 men. They finished their time there with the highest production and safety scores of all the groups that were working at the mine. He didn't say if the were all reading the Bible or Book of Mormon, but he did say that everyone in his group was constantly praying. Rocky was constantly sharing his experience and scriptures with his co workers and inspiring them to do good. All of that just because I felt prompted to make a promise. This experience really boosted my testimony. There is power in using the name of Christ like this and I know that there is power in the Book of Mormon. I know that the Lord will bless us all in similar ways when we too read the Book of Mormon at the start of each day. Have a good week!

Monday
What's the weirdest things that happened yesterday?  My sweat tasted like lemon juice.  Don't ask how I came to figure that out, but rather glory in the oddness of the situation with me.  How cool is it that if I had found the extra time, I could have made lemonade with my sweat.  Just add sugar!  I got wrecked hard by the mosquitoes last night.  Even after I closed the window they continued.  I laid there mortified as the mosquitoes taunted me with the buzzing of their evil little wings in my ear until the early morning hours of nearly 1 AM.  I had no success falling asleep, so I decided to shower.  After that I was finally able to fall asleep.  Internet was normal this morning; nothing exciting to report there.  From there thought we went straight to the stake center for our zone P-day.  We got there early though, so we went to Plaza Bitarte so that Elder Cabral could change his Reales into Soles.  But they charged him a 30% fee!  I have no idea why he agreed to that.  During internet, my mom asked if there was anything she could pray for to help me.  Nothing came to mind, so I just told her to pray that a nice plate of American food would fall from the sky.  I don't know if my mom's got her prayers on speed dial or if God just intercepted that digital messenger pigeon or what, but for lunch there was a member that cooked each of us two real nice burgers.  God is basically the coolest dude ever.  He's always got your back, even on the small stuff.  The zone leaders took a while to set stuff up, so in the mean time we entertained ourselves with signs (Shumway style) and killer frog.  The Elders even started doing the Hokey Pokey.  I present to you a group of young adults with little life experience here with some 3K miles from home that will turn your life around by helping you get to  know Jesus: the Elders.  We did some interesting games that led to us having a water balloon fight and then covering each other in flour.  We had a powerful LO with a YSA named Lucero tonight.  The spirit was strong and she was cool and she also accepted a fecha for April 6.  Elizabeth canceled the cita so I had to burn her a bit.  The church doesn't have the records of another youth in the ward named Flormira.  We went to go visit her and explain and she ironically doesn't have a super strong testimony and is unsure about baptism.  She goes to church though, so we'll see how it plays out.

Tuesday
Here's my opinion on people in a situation like Jherson was and Flormira is now.  It might seem a bit odd that they'd have to get baptized again, but if there's no physical evidence, people are better off safe than sorry just in case it didn't actually happen.  I think God actually makes a purpose in it though.  I think he does it if maybe something went wrong in the ordinance the first time and no one caught it.  But also, the people that have had to get re baptized that I know of have all been inactive (or at least a super weak testimony in this case), so maybe that has something to do with it.  Today we had a district meeting.  There's some interesting rumors going around about kids back home receiving their calls and having them say that the amount of time they're going to serve will be announced in the April General Conference.  People say that people will get to choose between 6, 12, 18, 24 or 30 months.  I don't know though.  Hermana Amato straight up roasted the entire mission for not keeping our rooms cleaner and announced that she's going to start doing random room check ups.  Needless to say, when we got home we cleaned a bit.  Jordy accompanied us all night last night and was there with us too almost all day today.  He also told us to call him up tomorrow today.  What a guy.  He'll be able to leave on his mission around August.  We went to go try and talk to Arlet for a bit, but it turns out that right before we got there she got into a fight with Marcelo, her 14 year old brother, and ran off to her aunt's house in Tilda.  Marcelo was still home though, so we went inside and talked to him.  From what I understand, he's always with his friends, so that's why he's never home.  He seems to be a cause of worry in the family; he's kind of a punk, but he was chill with us, but also not super talkative.  We're gonna go back later to talk with the whole family (I hope) because there seems to be some general family contention.  We went to go visit Lucero after.  The first vision is always the most powerful part of all the lessons.  She's doing pretty well, but I might have gotten after her too much for not reading the folleto all the way.  We were on the way out and we ran into Norma, her  mom.  She was just kinda like, "Oh shoot, you're leaving?  I was hoping to listen too."  Hermana Amato said there'd be blessings to have our room clean.  I credit that milagro to her.  From there we invited her to the NDH tomorrow.  She seems pretty cool.  We went to go and teach Jeannina after.  That went well, but there was a bit of a problem with Robin saying that he actually wants Ricardo (his brother) to baptize his daughter.  We'll see how it works out though.  We went to Alfredo's to meet with his friend, Luis, but Luis showed up 50 minutes late.  So I explained we had to leave in like 5 minutes and asked him to show up on time next time.  He made a bunch of excuses and then said, "But let me tell you 1 thing," and then told us the huge story about how back in the day he was 1 of 8K dudes hired to be a vauquero (cowboy) and why they had dogs and the bulls and stuff.  I have no idea why he took 10 minutes to tell us that.  I kept waiting for a plot twist or a good message to take away, but nothing came.  We also went to got visit Jherson tonight.

Wednesday
We had interviews today.  *Drops pen and walks away*  That's literally basically the only thing that happened today.  We were scheduled for 2:00, so we ate lunch and did studies like normal and then went to the office in La Molina.  We were scheduled to be last, with the hermanas being first at 10 AM.  But when we got there, the hermanas were still being interviewed.  They always take forever.  It was at the moment that I knew I needed to get comfy because I was going to be there a while.  There was a lot of talking, seeing as there wasn't much else to do.  We made a lot of jokes about Peruvian ideas about health.  "Elder, you can't drink cold water!  What?  It doesn't matter that it's hot!  You'll get sick!"  *Coughs*  *Peruvian gasps and wine glass falls and shatters*  "Elder.  Have you been sleeping with the ventilator?"  Also, if you get anything from a paper cut to losing a limb to cancer, manzanilla (chamomile) will cure you right up.  Don't even worry about it.  I spent a good hour trying to reteach myself how to do my favorite physics problem: the skier on the icy slope with only air resistance to slow him down.  It was a bit of a struggle, but I did it.  The office is cool and all, but we were there a super long time.  President actually canceled the interviews of the 2 other Elders and moved them to tomorrow.  I didn't enter mine until 7:15 or so.  It was a fairly normal interview.  He told me about a couple of things that I need to start doing.  He told me, for example, that I need to have the mentality of a bishop and take care of the ward like such since that's my responsibility now, and also because it's practice for when I'll be a bishop later.  When he said that, I was just like, "...."  I was looking at some stuff in the office, and saw that 2015-2017, we got 950 baptisms or so per year.  But then as soon as President Amato arrived, our numbers began to sky rocket.  We more than doubled the baptisms when he arrived.  He also told me in my interview about how many wards in the mission are splitting, how there's a new stake in each of the Lima missions soon and how they're already planning for a 7th Lima mission when Tambo still wasn't open for another couple of months.  The Kingdom of God is being built at an unprecedented pace.  I like it.  I was kind of on edge during my interview though, I don't know why.  He noticed it too.  Oh well though.  Elder Cabral had a decently long interview.  It ended in him calling home to his family.  That was good for him because his parents don't know how to email and they're not there to Skype him on Mondays.  President's kids brought him some food--a veggies burger from his wife.  He was eating it and talking to me (we were the last ones there) and he offered me a bite.  He's the coolest dude I know.  We left there at 8:45.  President had us close it up because he was in a hurry.  We took a taxi and went straight to the ward NDH.  We were an hour late, but that means someone else gave the message.  There were a bunch of members there and Jordy took Lucero, so that was awesome.

Thursday
This morning we had to go to a mandatory physical activity at the stake center at 6 AM.  That means that we got up at 5 AM today.  Getting up used to be probably my biggest weakness.  But with the Lord's help, He makes it easier for me to get up early than for your average Jośe.  I decided to get up half an hour early everyday.  Then with Elder Mayta, I soon learned that if I didn't get up, he wouldn't get up.  I also just decided at one point that it wouldn't be hard.  Miracles happen.  The first thing Elder Cabral said when he got up was, "I hate soccer."  At that precise moment in time, I made the goal to never say anything negative again.  It's a lofty, but good, goal I hope to do my best to achieve.  The first thing we did was play soccer.  This guy right here got the first goal.  Too easy.  haha.  We played this weird version of dodge ball with only 1 ball after.  It was fun.  Then we played volleyball.  I should have played that in high school, but oh well.  We had a cita with Mafer today for the first time in probably 6 or so weeks.  She's doing ok, but she'll be better once she finally quits her job.  Today was pi day.  To celebrate, I ate a pie.  Crazy, right?  I respect that in American we make holidays like this sometimes just so that we have an excuse to eat something.  People say to me sometimes that there's no such things as American food.  Barbecue my dude.  Also fried food.  None of these fools have ever had the privilege of eating the glorified deep-fried Twinkie.  Legend has it that it's so American that if you listen closely, you can hear Niel Diamond singing the Gettysburg Address accompanied by Nirvana with fireworks and red necks screaming "Murica!" in the background.  We went looking for Flormira, but she wasn't at her cousin's house.  So her cousin led us to her house.  Except she brought her dog with her, and  every dude dog on the way followed that chica dog.  It was pretty exciting shooing all those dogs away because those dudes were SUPER desperate.  By the time we got there, we just took a cita and then took off running.  Elder Cabral lost his plaque in the moto, so that's kinda not good.  We had a cita with all of Arlette's family, except her.  She's still at her aunt's house.  It was a rather interesting cita.  They have a lot of problems in their family.  We were digging deep to try and find the source of the problems, but we just found more and more problems.  There seems to be a lot of contention and general unhappiness in the home.  While Jessica does seem to have a lack of motivation every time we asked Henry what he can do better, he would just point back at Jessica.  We entered as missionaries, but we couldn't teach, and we left as marriage counselors, even though we found out later that we can't do that.

Friday
What kind of guy is my companion?  He's the kind of dude that says a 20 minute long prayer when everyone is fasting and is blessing the food to break the fast.  That's kinda hard sometimes.  This morning we went and helped la familia Chagua to paint the 3rd floor of their house. They put me in charge of painting all the corners up there with a hand brush that they gave me.  Holy Virgen De Rincones there were a lot of corners to paint.  I don't know super well how praying to the Virgens works actually.  Do they each have a different function like the Greek Gods, or do you just pick a favorite?  I'm not even going to mention though how the Bible explicitly says not to worship idols.  Any who, the paint here in Peru is super watery.  That means that we had to paint a spot like 5 times to actually get it white.  It's cool though because I got plenty of that brush action practice.  Daniel Son, where you at?  I'm the real karate kid now, boy.  If there's one thing Hollywood has taught me, it's that if you do a surprise ice bucket challenge with the local bully and then let him beat you up, the local old Chinese dude will come and beat him up for you and then teach you karate after.  We ate lunch with the family afterwards.  From there, we came back to the room and showered and stuff and then did a bunch of the 12 weeks stuff with Elder Cabral since we're kinda behind.  Then we went and did an attack in Tilda as a district.  We did the mesa misional again.  We had a lot more success this time than when we did it in my area.  Elder Myers bought us all an ice cream after too, so that was awesome.  He and Elder Shupe came with us back to our area after to accompany us to our cita with Lucero.  She's pretty awesome.  She takes initiative and confirms the citas with us.  She's progressing really fast.  She read the chapter in the Book of Mormon that we left for her to read and said she felt good while reading it and felt good while praying about it after.  There's very few things that will make a missionary happier than to hear that.  We were supposed to have correlations right after, but only Rocio was there on time.  That means that some people are going to get burned on Sunday.  Buy the time we got a couple more, we only had time to talk for like 20 minutes.  That was frustrating.  We mostly talked about Arlette's family.  Turns out that Arlette got a surprise job at the Venezuelan pizza place by the church.  Rogelio, Recio, Kayla and Nimrod came with us.  The kids aren't in school yet after 2 weeks, so they tired to help with that.  Henry wasn't there.  We left a Family Proclamation and taught Jessica how to pray.

Saturday
Today as one of those days that was just destined to be crazy.  It all started with a phone call from the Hermanas.  That was kinda interesting because we're not really supposed to call each other (turns out they had permission though I guess).  Today they threw on this whole apollada.  Hermana Houghton and Hermana Peterson are helping this couple get married and baptized, but they don't have money so they made plates of chicken, potatoes, and salad to sell to earn money to be able to have a wedding.  We all helped sell chicken.  Hermana Houghton was telling me yesterday that the lady accidentally bought 100 chickens when they were planning on selling 60.  So they started frantically trying to sell apolladas yesterday.  We were planning on just passing by at 10 to pick up and drop of our chicken, but when they called it was 9:30 and they hadn't even started cooking  yet.  They had gotten up at 6 AM, but among trying to start a fire for an hour to cook them and other problems, they needed help.  So we went as a district.  Elder Shupe was studying in culinary school before, so he was the grill master in charge of cooking the chicken.  The rest of us found things to do like peel/cut potatoes, fill bags with Aji/jugo, etc. 

For some reason, they boiled the potatoes before peeling them.  That means that they were hot.  That's ok though because I peeled them with my fingers.  #YOLO.  We went and delivered all the 7 chickens that we sold to people in our ward.  Then we went back and ate as a zone there to help out.  These people better stay active.  We all smelled like smoke after, but we didn't have a lot of time so I just changed my shirt, washed my face and put on a bunch of Old Spice.  Flormira seems really unsure about getting baptized again.  For that reason I really hope that we're able to find a foto because I dunno what'll happen otherwise.  We went and taught Jeannina today as well.  She's doing well and Robin is down and already interviewed to baptize her.  We tried passing by for Jessica and Henry, but Henry wasn't home so we couldn't go in.  We were walking along and saw Arlette working her stand.  She was so happy to see us, but when we tried to talk to her, she was kinda quiet and sad.  That was hard on me.  It reminded me of when I was in the attack the other day.  I met a woman, who turned out to be an inactive member, desperately searching for her 12 and 13 year old kids that went missing early Monday morning.  I don't know what I would do if that happened to me.  The world is a sad place sometimes.  Fasting wasn't too hard today.  There was a party in the capilla for the Relief Society, but instead we went to have a cita with Elizabeth.  Turns out that she's not an escogida though.

Sunday
Well, we were supposed to have ward council bright and early, but when we arrived at the church at 7, it was still locked.  I was going to burn them for not being at correlations, but they didn't show up there either.  So instead I just burned the stray dog that was chilling with us.  Half an hour later, we were able to sit down with the bishop and a couple of other dudes.  Elder Cabral called the bishop out on that and other things as well.  Everyone's respect for Elder Cabral went up including mine.  It was something no one else was willing to do.  Last night when I was calling people to get them to come to church, I came across a contact I made named Guicela that I noted that I had to text.  So I did and she seemed really excited  and was down to have us pick her up.  So this morning we swung by just as she was leaving.  She said that she was leaving early so that she'd have time to get to know people there.  She's 44 years old and a gym trainer, so that's dope.  Apparently she liked church too.  Rocky came back from his work trip.  He told me, "It worked.  Your promise worked.  I did it every day, and so did 62 others."  Then he told me about how with his group of 63, they did the work of a full group of 80 despite the bad weather conditions.  And they had the highest production and safety scores of everyone at the mine.  I don't know if everyone was reading the Book of Mormon or Bible as well, but Rocky was sharing his experience and spiritual thoughts to boost the 62 others.  How amazing is that?!  All this because I acted on a last second spiritual prompting that I almost disregarded (since it was Elder Cabral that gave the blessing).  We ate lunch with la familia Herrera.  A couple of days ago we slid them an extra 20 soles and told them to make extra tequeñas and pasteles. 

If I left their house with anything short of a heart attack I would have been disappointed.  But we had all of that and Venezuelan lasagna too.  Good stuff.  Today we went to a zone attack in Amauta.  It was pretty cool.  It's always interesting for me to go back to a poorer part.  We went to what looking like the end of the world road and took some cool pictures on that cliff. 

You could see half the mission or more from up there.  We went to go visit Juan when we got back.  Johan, Jeannina and Poalo Lozpez's kids are going to get baptized this Saturday.  I'm curious to see what'll happen to Juan when I leave.  I hope that the ward will do their job. Tonight we had a meeting with the bishopric and Nimrod to talk about the converts and retention.  I'm tired of these late nights.  We haven't eaten dinner at the pension since Tuesday.  This week was so. dang. busy.

Week 16 in Alameda

Hi guys. Nothing overly exciting happened this week. Crazy catholic ladies, funny drunk dudes, calling people to repentance, you know, the usual. Something that I think is important for us to do is to be able to develop a really good habit of studying the scriptures every day. And when we have a question about something, study it and read about it. Although it sounds really simple, to be able to read and then to pray afterwards to receive a confirmation that what you learned was true is super critical to gaining a stronger testimony. Have a good week everyone!

Monday
Internet was pretty normal.  Justin is pretty exciting to email because he's deep in the hood; he almost gets shot every once in a while.  My dad had his office manager quit this week.  I don't know what that means, but she was a good friend of his and that position sounds important, so I'm sure he's stressed and a little hurt.  He's a great guy though; he'll get through it all right with God's help.  We finished that up and then went to eat at a restaurant.  They had tequeños, but they only had hot dog inside it. A tequeño without cheese is like getting baptized in the Evangelical church.  It looks really good, but on the inside there's not any priesthood (or cheese in this case).  Elder Petersen and I split a pint of Lucuma chips ice cream together; that was pretty tasty.  I made a bunch of Asian jokes with him all the time, but he's cool with it.  For P-day I basically just listened to 4 1/2 hours of talks.  Good stuff.  I listened to one called the 7 Theories by Bruce R McConkie.  He roasted people so hard and so bad that after listening to it I felt like I had to go and repent in their behalf.  The more I learn about the gospel, the more I realize it just makes sense; on paper and spiritually too.  We went and had a cita with Jeannina tonight.  I think we're slowly improving our ability to teach kids.  We had her neighbor there (Drucila), so that was cool.  Then after we had a NDH, at last, with Aylin and her mom Octavia.  We've had so many citas with them cancelled.  The lesson went decently well.  Afterwards, Aylin followed us down and told us how the bishop told her that her mom told him that she wants to get baptized.  8 years of missionaries later.  Dope.  Now we've just got to have another cita with them.

Tuesday
We had a district meeting this morning.  The zone leaders introduced us to 2 new enfoques (approaches) that the mission has.  They weren't that exciting though.  On the way home from the meeting, it was Elder Cabral and I as well as the Hermanas on the combi, as well as a bunch of other Peruvians of course.  A drunk dude got on the bus.  I was standing up and he was too, initially.  He went to get off, so I sat in his chair, which was by the door.  As he was getting off, he grabbed my shoulder and looked me in the eye for a moment.  Then he let go and said, "Chaufa," (instead of Chau') and got off.  But then he stood in front of my window and said something like, "Hasta luego.  Cuidate choelo (See you later.  Care cello)," and walked away.  Everyone on the bus thought that was pretty funny.  In addition to a companionship fast that we're going to do every Saturday, Elder Cabral decided for some reason that he wants to do a personal fast during the week too.  I don't know why he wants to fast 2 times a week every week, but I'm not gonna stop him.  YOLO I guess.  We finally found Arlet.  She ran away from home over the weekend and went to her aunt's house 4 hours away.  Family problems I guess.  She's doing ok though.  Her entire family is concerned about her 14 year-old brother.  She used to have a good relationship with him, but I guess they fight a lot now.  That made me really sad to hear.  It's like the opposite of what happened to me and Jaxon.  Her brother is not home a lot because he's always with friends.  I told her that she has to say I love you every time she sees him and mean it, even if it was just 5 minutes ago.  I've got some good advice man.  No one else was home the rest of the day though.  At night, Jean Franco, Angii and Arlet all got interviews with the bishop for temple recommends.  So that was pretty dope.  At night we were contacting and I said to this lady, "¿ Le gustaria aprender mas sobre Jesucristo? (Would you like to learn more about Jesus Christ?)"  "Si, pero soy catolica. (Yes, but I am Catholic)"  "Catolica, mucho gusto.  Me llamo Elder White. (Catholic, nice to meet you.  My name is Elder White)."  *Shakes head*  Elder Cabral was with me when I said that and he had to walk away because he started to laugh.  She was looking at me like "Darn gringo doesn't understand."  Psych sucka!  I know exactly what's going on:  You haven't been to church in 7 years, but your grandparents were Catholic so you just say it for tradition even though you don't care at all.

Wednesday
We had to take an extra bit of time this morning to try and catch up on Elder Cabral's 12 semanas (weeks) book.  We just seem to always have stuff going on in the morning that impedes us from doing it.  Alfredo and Celia made us ceviche de pota this morning, which is the kind of ceviche we can it.  It's good for the first couple of bites, but after that it's just alright.  It's a decently good dish, but I feel like Peruvians over hype it a bit.  We had a ataque de distrito (district attack) in our area today.  They told me about it yesterday, so we didn't really have a whole lot of time to plan everything out super thoroughly.  We had the hermanas at a table with a bunch of flyers and Book of Mormons and the rest of us went out to contact.  We worked hard and I enjoyed it.  We were on calle el Agusto (the name of the street we were on)  the whole 1 1/2 hours of the attack.  It was fun and we got some good work in, but there's only one problem with that road: Testigos (Jehovah Witnesses).  I don't know why, but they always build their churches close to ours.  It certainly doesn't help with the problem people have of confusing us and them.  The Testigos congregate Wednesday-Sunday in the evening, so I try to avoid that street when they do.  We tried contacting a few of them when there was no one else in the street.  It didn't really work.  I had almost forgotten how prideful they are of their false doctrines.  They trigger me so much.  I shouldn't be able to disprove half your belief system in 5 minutes with your own Bible.  I'm screaming internally right now just thinking about it.  The district attack was decent though.  We got 1 or 2 really good references that we can work with hopefully.  We had a cita with Jeannina tonight.  It's kinda hard working with her family sometimes.  There's just a lot of excuses when they don't do something.  Our plans for the end of the night were kind of a toss up all day.  At first we were going to go visit la familia Astuhuaman, but then Nelson called us was talking like he was organizing a last second NDH as the ward, but what we finally wound up doing is going to go visit Aylin and her mom, Octavia, since Aylin had called us and told us she can't tomorrow.  we went there and Octivia wasn't there.  When Aylin had called 15 minutes earlier, Octavia said she was busy.  I was bothered, but doing my best to make another time to return.  I even offered to go at 7 AM, but at that point God was like, "That's not necessary," and Octavia showed up.  She said she only had 20 minutes.  Due to that we had to teach a little faster than I would have liked.  Due to that, we weren't really able to find her need for the gospel to fulfill and she said the infamous "mas adelante (later)".  Aylin started to cry, probably due to that.  I felt bad after.

Thursday
Elder Myers called us this morning.  I answered and he said, "It is Thursday my dudes.  AhhhhhHHH!!!  I forget to do that when I called for indicators last night.  I'm gonna call SF too.  You should go stand by them so that you can hear it again," and then hung up.  So I went and stood outside their door.  I heard their phone ring and then the same thing happen.  Find yourself a district leader like Elder Myers.  Elder Cabral was wanted to buy some sunscreen a couple of days ago, so I just gave him mine because I never use it.  That boy lathered himself up like I used to smother my mashed potatoes in gravy on a fast Sunday.  He still had a bunch of it not rubbed in all over his face and for some reason refused to rub it in more.  I don't know why he wanted sunscreen in the first place--Latinos have a natural sunscreen in their skin.  But anyways, that lead to me making a lot of jokes today: "Hey have you been drinking enough water?  You look kinda pale."  "Where to next Elder Casper?"  * After a kid leaves him hanging*  "Don't worry about it.  Kids can't see ghosts."  "You've been around me so much that now you think  you're a gringo too."  There were a lot more I came up with.  The first thing a first guy said today was, "The sun's strong today, no?" and looked at Elder Cabral.  That was funny.  We had a meeting with the seminary teachers today to see what we can do to help.  Aylin is one of the teachers, so we got talking about her mom a bit.  She told us that Octavia is for sure coming on Sunday to church and that even though she didn't accept a fecha, that's the most Aylin has seen her open up and be receptive and all.  That was really good to hear because I felt really bad that Aylin was told her  mom wanted to get baptized and then having her say no.  We'll go back to see what else we can do.  Afterwards we went to go visit a reference named Elizabeth.  SF told us that she's been to church multiple times and that she told she wants to get baptized.  We walked into her veterinarian clinic thing and started to talk.  But then all the sudden people started bringing their dogs in and she went into the back with them.  45 minutes later I went back and said, "Hey, I'm sorry but we've got another cita.  I'll call you later to set something up."  From there we went to visit Juan Carlos, Nimrod's brother, since he's a PF and went to church on Sunday.  Long story short, it's still not his time.  Then we took Jherson Chagua to visit Elva Astuhuaman.  We taught and then invited her to get baptized.  She said she has to wait for Mario to do it juntos (together).  She loves the church still and when I asked what she needs to be happier, she said baptism.  Ahhh!  Why wait?!

Friday
This morning we had what has come to be a weekly emergency meeting.  I don't feel like it was the most productive meeting, but we had some cake to celebrate birthdays.

 We went to go visit Daniel today.  They other day we were walking by an internet where there were a bunch of kids playing video games, and there was 22 year old Daniel with his shirt off playing too.  What a guy.  We went to go visit Sara and Rossany, two Venezuelan references from the district attack.  They talked a lot.  We'll see if they come to church, but I don't know what'll happen with them.  We finished the night off with correlations.

Saturday
We had studies this morning.  We also did a part of weekly planning.  Being a trainer is interesting.  Even though Elder Cabral is way ahead of where I and most missionaries were at in that point of time, I still have to be patient.  We have different ideas sometimes.  He interprets the rule of always stay with your comp as I'm not allowed to cross the street to contact if he's already talking to someone.  The way he wants it, I feel like I'm holding his hand.  If he had problems contacting or something I'd understand.  But he doesn't.  As I see it, he's perfectly capable.  I want to contact 2 people at once (so contacting separately) like everyone else in the mission does since it's so much more sufficient.  It drives me crazy to contact together, especially when I've already started a contact and he awkwardly stands behind me without contacting other people, or when he'll butt in on my contact too.  But like I said, he's a great guy and we've all got our own little things.  We left to go work today and like 15 minutes later he asked me if we could go back to the room.  I asked why and he told me it was because he forgot his engagement ring.  I was just kinda like, "You really think that's worth our time?"  But he made us go all the way back for it.  The first week he was always talking about his comprometida (committed).  I figured he just had a girl waiting back in Recife or something.  But then I saw the ring and put two and two together.  She's on a mission too right now I guess.  He says that they're gonna get married their first week back home together.  He's kinda a trunky dude.  We contacted a good part of the day today.  We went to go and visit Jeannina.  She's a lot less quiet now when we're with her, so that's good.  She's progressing well.  Her family is changing for the better as well.  We went to go pick up our clothes and they were like, "Pasen (Pass)"  I knew what was about to go down though, so I tried to deny it.  They insisted though, so we went up.  When we walked in they had 2 think slices of chocolate cake and Inca Cola waiting.  Satan is a real jerk sometimes.  It was a very sad moment when we had to tell them that we were fasting.  We went to go visit Juan tonight and teach Johan at the same time.  Elder Cabral isn't very good at teaching really simply yet, and that's a problem if you're teaching Juan.  He'll have questions no matter how simply he's taught.  But when Elder Cabral answered his questions, he'd only cause him to have more questions.  Juan is a good guy and he's great about reading the Book of Mormon, but he's a very logical guy and has some questions and doubts still due to that.  I see a lot of myself in him really.  We gave Nicolas a blessing before leaving.  One time Juan had Nicolas on his lap and in the other hand had a Sprite.  He took a sip and then said, "Want some?" and gave Nicolas a sip.  He's barely a year old. There are some dad goals right there.

Sunday
We went to go pick up Arlet and her family this morning.  I was disappointed yet surprised because Arlet came with only her mom and her sister.  When we passed by yesterday, Henry was super gun hoe and it seemed like he was going to fight with his wife (Jessica) to get the family to go to church.  I didn't really do my best effort to interact with her though--even though I should have--since she doesn't really show interest in the church.  Church as pretty good today.  In sacrament meeting, I was standing in the back looking for a CR or non member to sit with.  After a minute or two I realized I just needed to find an open chair to sit in.  The room was jam packed; there literally wasn't an open seat.  What a great problem to have!  Mafer came to church!  After weeks of being MIA, it was good to see her again.  As I was standing there looking at everyone, it hit me that I've helped this ward more than I thought.  I looked at Robin and Jherson Chagua, Ricardo el Chino, and others I've gotten to come back to church, as well as all my converts there.  It was good for me because I was feeling a bit embarrassed that we still only have 1 with fecha right now.  There were a lot of potentials there today too.  President Hurtado made a surprise visit to us and pulled us out of sacrament meeting to talk to us about the ward a bit.  We talked to Mafer a bit after.  It's been so long that she forgot she can't kiss us.  She's gonna quit her job at Tambo at last, so that'll be good for her spiritually .  We were talking to some people after church and it sounds like the records of some are missing.  So that means we might be getting a free baptism soon.  Alfredo called us and told us that we'd have to find somewhere else to eat dinner since the dude literally accidentally cut the power cable to his house.  Sometimes I almost feel bad for Satan and him being the devil and all the suffering he has, but then he'll do something like this to 2 elders that are finishing up a fast and I say that he deserves all that and then some.  We ate with the familia Villafuerte for lunch.  From there, we went to an zone attack in San Fransisco.  I got paired up with Elder Rodriguez, who's a missionary from Elder Cabral's group.  It was an attack on the PFs so we had two dudes from their ward to help us out.  We made some good progress for them.  I actually went inside a house for the first time on one of these attacks.  When we got back to area we just contacted the whole rest of the day.  I don't think the bishop likes us very much.  He never seems super willing to help us.  We called him and a couple of other dudes to see if they could maybe give us dinner and they said no.  Elder Cabral came in clutch though and shared his breakfast for the next day with me when it came time to eat.

Week 15 in Alameda

Hi everyone. Nothing too exciting happened this week. There was this one training we had during the week that I really like though. This dude named Miguel Avila came and talked to us a lot about faith. Exercising faith wasn't something I had a super good understanding of before the mission. But he talked about how faith is pretty much a mental exercise. You have to continually think about it and work towards it and believe that God will help you through it. Have a good week everyone!

Monday
P-day.  Why I am so tired still, I have no idea.  I had plenty of time to relax today but I'm still exhausted.  We went and did internet like always.  There's been a lot of earthquakes in Peru and Utah recently.  As for me though, I never actually really recognized being in one before.  Knock on wood real fast, but only tap it lightly.  I want to know what it's like to be in one, but I don't want the entire city to go down in the process if you know what I mean.  We went to go eat at the KKK Kelly's restaurant.  It's always good to have some fried chicken.  I love Venezuela man.  I want to go there so bad, but due to Maduro and crap I might get shot if I do.  Sad stuff.  Those people sometimes suffer a lot of discrimination here in Peru.  They're all super chill though; they don't deserve it.  We had to go to Ceres today to buy my comp some more white shirts to wear.  I don't know that part extremely well, so we were looking around a bit.  There was this street performance thing that we walked through because they were in the way.  I was walking like 10 yards behind Elder Cabral.  There was this man gone woman dude in a shear short dress that threw on a blue wig and started strutting suggestively behind him.  That was something I never considered happening.  She (or he? I dunno) stopped before I could gather together a plan in my head (only a few seconds).  I was afraid she'd do something more, but thankfully didn't.  Otherwise I would to have called her to repentance right then and there in front of everybody because we can't have people doing missionaries like that.  I probably should have said something anyways.  People these days.  Elder Cabral doesn't even know.  To celebrate P-day, I bought a quart (almost) of chocolate ice cream.  My thought process was this: if a girl can eat all this after a breakup, then an Elder treating himself on a hot Peruvian day should have no problem.  I was a fool.  Seeing as how it wouldn't fit in the freezer, I had to commit.  I had to share a scoop or two to finish it.  It was a good reminder of my mere mortal state.  I listened to a handful of talks.  The one about the Abrahamic tests was great.  Truman Madsen is a super gifted speaker.  I felt the spirit strong during that one.  We had a surprising number of really good contacts in the short time we were in the street.  We were gonna do a NDH (FHE) with Aylin and her mom, but they canceled last second.

Tuesday
Today we had Elder Cabral's 2 week reunion in La Molina.  It wasn't the most exciting one ever.  There was still some really good stuff said though.  There were some cool things said about attitude that I needed to hear.  It was a lot like my 2 week training way back in the days of 'cán (you've got to read that in a Vietnam veteran's voice).  Go figure, right?  One thing that stood out to me today is that I need to be more direct as a missionary.  I wasn't called to be passive.  President told us that we're getting smart phones in 4 months, so that's super exciting.  Except Lima is notorious for people having their cell phones stolen.  That'll certainly make things more interesting.  All of my first 3 companions are going home in the middle or at the end of next transfer.  It makes me treasure all the time I get with Elder Yañez and Elder Gonzalez.  The training lasted a really long time.  We didn't get home until like 5:00.  We tried to visit Jherson, but he said he was resting and wasn't really in the mood.  Whatever.  Yesterday we ran into Ricardo Chahua and got talking to him about Yanina, his niece. He invited us to come by their house to go and talk to her.  When we went there with Elder Mayta, they told us she wasn't ready yet.  But that was a while ago, so we went with high hopes.  We ran into Yanina out front of her house and she got excited and called her parents for us.  We went into the home and started talking to everyone, but Yanina didn't come in.  I said something about it and they were just like, "She's out playing with her friends."  I asked if they could call her in and they said they would in a couple of minutes.  So we took our time introducing ourselves, and then I felt prompted to stall by sharing Mosiah 2:41 (And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.).  Then they finally called her in.  We taught a good lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and were able to put a fecha on her for March 23.  I'm so much more in tune with the spirit when I'm teaching now.  I love it!  What a blessing it is to have the spirit work through you to bless others!  I got her dad, Robin, who's less active, to commit to being at the lessons and then to baptize her.  I got the permission signed and everything.  Good stuff.  Then we went to do a Noche de Hogar with Arlet and her family.  It didn't quite go as planned, but we got Daniel to go with us last second (he's a real one) and had a good lesson on the blessings that come from living the gospel.  Her dad actually seemed pretty interested, so we'll see if he goes to church Sunday.  I have successfully convinced myself that Sprite has supernatural powers.  Whenever I'm down I buy one.  All this because I wanted to mimic LeBron in the commercial.  I was feeling sick, bought a Sprite, blessed it, drank it, and then felt fine.

Wednesday
Today is my 8 month mark.  That's weird to think about.  Crazy stuff.  We had a district meeting this morning.  Nothing to exciting to report there.  We had to be at the office at 3 though because Elder Cabral had an appointment with the eye doctor to get new glasses, so that made things interesting especially since the meeting got pushed back an hour.  I wanted to leave at noon so that we'd have time to eat lunch and still get there with traffic, but the zone leaders wouldn't let us.  So I decided we'd stick around 45 minutes at the most then take off, and that's how it went down.  Except the gate was locked and they were reluctant to let us out.  That was a bit frustrating.  I'm a very punctual kinda guy.  We had to eat lunch super fast and then take off flying.  We got there a bit late still.  The zone decided to all do a fast together today to find new investigators.  Hunger hasn't been a problem, but thirst has.  We did the things with the eye doctor and then came back.  There were 2 contacts that we were going to visit, but they were both unfortunately not home.  But Elder Cabral made a pretty good contact in the park with a woman named Ericka.  We went to go visit her in her home at night.  We had a brief panic attack because her BF left right after we arrived, but we called Jordy and he came to the rescue.  She's pretty chosen, but she was hesitant to accept a fecha.  We'll see how it works out though.  We had the NDH como barrio (as a ward) at the house of Jacmar.

Thursday
Today is Elder Cabral's birthday. I tried to make it special, but didn't do a super great job.  I think he enjoyed it though.  For like half the day, I thought it was Wednesday.  This week is flying by.  It needs to slow down a bit and chillax a little so that I can catch back up.  This morning we did studies like normal and then went to eat lunch directly.  We were informed yesterday of a surprise meeting in La Molina with Miguel Avila.  We had to be there at 2, so that kinda took up the whole day.  I really enjoyed what he had to say though.  He's an RM, the cousin of Elder Avila, and is probably one of the richest dudes in South America.  He had some interesting things to say to us.  I learned how to teach with more confidence.  There were some cool things said about how to increase faith.  The scripture D&C 82:10 (I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.) really impacted his life and he talked about how it applies.  I also learned how to improve my baptismal invitation.  He talked a lot about how words have power and how we're here to change lives.  Speaking in the name of Christ also has a lot of power.  It reminds me of what President Nelson told us when he came here to talk to us.  He said, "You need to stress the same things Jesus did.  We're not here for good social conversations."  I'm going to be better about doing that.  No more grey areas!  I feel like going was a great use of my time.  I also got to see Elder Yañez and there were snacks too, so that was a plus.  The rest of the day was kinda slow though.  We contacted a lot of the rest of the day.  The contacts were poppin'.  Hopefully some good stuff comes out of it.  We've been having citas with contacts fall a lot, so I'm thinking we need to filter a bit more perhaps.  We had a cita with Jherson.  Since he's been working a lot, I thought it'd be good to review tithing.  Good thing I did.  He doesn't have a lot of friends at church, so that worries me sometimes.  We finished the night off by visiting Juan and Evelin.  Juan had to walk home from La Molina, so he was felling pretty tired.  I didn't really have super high expectations for the cita, but it went really well actually.  I didn't think Juan was reading the Book of Mormon a whole lot, but he listens to it on his phone all the time and is in Mosiah 8.  Not only that, but he teaches Johan all about what he learns while reading.  How great is that!  He also feels more sure about baptizing him and got them to agree to do it March 23.

Friday
The entire neighborhood was woken up early this morning to the emphatic screams of Elder White.  "Why?" you ask.  The answer is simple.  One does not simply apply Old Spice body spray without doing his best Terry Crews impression.  I had an entire file of saved videos on YouTube of him.  Good stuff.  Seriously powerful!  This morning we had to go help Elder Garcia and Elder Rodriguez move.  I got us on the wrong combi thought and then zoned out and didn't get off until Ceres.  We had to walk a but, but we were only 10 minutes late.  But the two of them had somehow already loaded everything up, so we just hopped into the back of the sketchy trailer thing in his truck.  He closed the gate and then told us we had to stay down so that the police didn't see us.  That kicked things up another notch.  We made it through undetected.  It was good practice for when I have to smuggle myself into Canada.  We got everything into their new room all right and then took off.  Except I had no idea where we were, so we kinda just walked hoping to run into a main road.  I drank a liter of juice on the way because I can.  We did weekly planning.  Then eye doctor came by to drop of Elder Cabral's glasses.

Today the Lord saw fit to try my faith.  We only had one cita work out.  Even though Elder Cabral had some good contacts, I could barely get people to stop and talk with me.  It got to the point where a couple of my contacts were like this:  "Hola buenas tardes."  *They give me the hand to show they don't want to talk*  "Soy Cristiana (I'm a Christian.)"  *Shakes their hand*  "Cristiana, mucho gusto.  Yo me llamo Elder White."  And that's how I started it.  We were walking along and this group of 12-14 year olds starting yelling random English words like, "Hello.  How are you?"  That's pretty normal, but I decided to have some fun with it.  I asked them if they wanted to learn English.  They got kinda nervous and said they were just taking it in school, but I told them they just had to repeat after me.  "I." "I." "Eat." "Eat." "Poop." "Poop."  "I eat poop! ¿Qué significa eso? (What does that mean?)"  "No se percupen. (Don't worry about it.)  *Sees they they think it means something bad*  "It's slang for I like to play sports."  They all said that they were going to go to church on Sunday.  Can't wait to teach them more English!  When the day is hard, you just gotta look for ways to make yourself happy.  We had a lesson with Jeannina today.  It was pretty cringy.  We're not good at teaching kids.  At night I made cake from the packets Grandma and Grandpa Haacke sent me and had ice cream to celebrate Elder Cabral's birthday a day late since Alfredo gave us a thick slice of cake last night.

Saturday
We did studies this morning.  I'm starting to get a good habit on my ab workout.  6 pack here I come.  We went out to take out money today.  Nothing too exciting happened this time.  The zone leaders actually did it really efficiently this time too.  Alfredo and Celia went to a wedding in Callao, so we were left on our own for lunch.  So we went to the casera chifa and got ourselves a healthy plate of mestrito.  We did another fast today.  I had never fasted twice in one week before, so it's definitely an interesting experience.  Fasting doesn't seem as hard to me as it used to.  I hardly get hungry anymore.  I do get really thirsty though, but somehow I'm able to work though it to the point that it doesn't bother me all that much when I'm working.  My pronunciation goes down a bit when my mouth is dry, but it's ok.  We had correlations last night, but only Paolo from the obispado (bishopric) was there.  So we swung by Nimrod's to give him a quick update on things. Every last thing after that we had planned fell through the cracks.  God sees fit to try our faith sometimes even though we don't know why.  I don't know what we need to do to improve really.  The best I can do is stay worthy of his blessings for when he decides to send us more people.  In the meantime, we keep working.  We were supposed to have a cita with this kid named Santiago.  He didn't remember his address the first time we met him, but we've ran into him 3 times now in just a week, so we were thinking it's definitely for a reason.  We think he was in the hospital with his mom when we tried to pass by.  We were going to try and take Ericka to a noche blanca, but then the noche blanca got canceled and then she called and canceled as well.  We were going to visit the Astuhuaman's, but they took a last second trip to Manchay I guess.  There was one contact that stood out to me today.  We were on the bus on the way home from taking out money.  We were talking to the hermanas and then they got off.  This lady leaned over and asked why there's always a Latino and an American together.  The conversation lead into the Book of Mormon and I was able to give her a copy before getting off.  Cool stuff.  We went to go visit the family Chagua to make sure that they're going to church tomorrow.  We wound up talking to their extremely introverted son Jherson (about 23 years old) and giving him a blessing.  He likes to play Star Craft 2, so we're friends now.  Elder Cabral was determined that tonight we'd stay out contacting until 10:29 since we're fasting.  I'm tired.

Sunday
Remember that time I taught those kids some English a couple of days ago?  I think 2 of them came to church today!  How crazy is that?  Maybe I should start doing that more often.  jajaja  They didn't really stick around though; they took off running after the classes ended.  There were a couple of other dudes that came.  Nimrod didn't come, but his brother who isn't a member did.  That was a pleasant surprise.  The family Chagua came, and they brought a friend too.  Cool stuff.  Before church actually started though, we went to correlations at 7 AM.  That wasn't very fun.  We used the time to make a ward mission plan for the year since they hadn't done it yet.  I had no idea what that was nor how to make one, so I made Elder Cabral do almost all the talking, which was probably a mistake.  His ideas are good, but sometimes they're unrealistic or a least not all the way thought out.  After church, President's counselor was supposed to come meet with us but never showed up.  It's ok though because we sat around and sang hymns with Diego.  I also practiced throwing cards.  I can get some pretty good range on those now.  I'm gonna have to look into getting some ninja stars when I get back.  We went to go eat lunch with a family where the mom was out of town and all the kids are less active, so that was interesting.  There was a zone attack in Elder Shumway's area today.  We were waiting around for 45 minutes for a combi before I decided to wing it.  It worked out in the end.  I went with my boy Elder Shumway during the attack, so that was pretty fun.  We didn't find any crazy Israelites this time though.  It took like 2 hours to get back because the traffic was so bad.  When we did get back, we went straight to have a lesson with Juan and Evelin.  Their son Johan was there too.  We're trying to help him understand the importance of baptism.

A missionary's fridge when he is getting ready to break the fast.