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.
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