Monday
Today was zone p-day. We all ate lunch together. There were donuts there, so that was cool. On the way back to the stake center, I was walking and talking with Elder Winder. We walked past this 70 or so year old lady standing on the side of the road and said, "Buenas tardes." She responded by exclaiming, "Guaplo! (Good looking!)" That was super funny. I turned to Elder Winder and said, "She was talking to you." He's 20, but he's balding already so he looks a lot older. We played a bunch of fun little games and soccer. We had a water balloon surprise attack. I accidentally nailed Elder Peterson down low. He was a bit mad. I'm humbled that you think I can aim where I'm throwing. I just huck it their general direction and hope for the best.
Tuesday
Yesterday during the P-day, Elder Pereira told me he was going to come to my area with me on a 3 day intercambio. It was kinda of a huge insult to me honestly because to do that is a to imply that we're disobedient missionaries who don't work and require major changes. So I was mad. Then Elder Pereira called last night and said it would only be 1 day. Prayers answered! This morning we were getting all ready to go and ate lunch and everything. I called to confirm the intercambio and he told me that it wasn't gonna happen because they were at the doctor. Even better! I planned mostly contacting for today. There was this one Venezuelan dude about 50 years old that was dressed up as an Amish that I tried contacting. He kinda just did a short rant about Jesus, Venezuela semanu santa and some other stuff I didn't catch, and then just walked away. I realized today that I'm bilingual. That's pretty cool I guess. One of the songs that I frequently have stuck in my head and singing is Secret Prayer. It's a mess though because I only know it in Spanish, and the chorus only too. I try to sing both parts because that's just how it needs to be. I think I've got it down though. We counted on having a cita with Rocky and Daisy today, but crap happened again. It's unfortunate looking like Daisy is going to have to divorce him. We went to Zorayma's house and helped her map out where all the recent converts, investigators and that kind of stuff is in the relief society. We grabbed David and went to a cita with a contact that Elder Cabral made named Darlene. (It's pronounced like a gringo though.) She's 18 and studying. She's pretty cool. It took us forever to find a solid problem in her life for the gospel to fill. Then I felt prompted to ask her about her grandparents because I remembered what Elder Villanueva told me while we were in the CCM. That did the trick; one of her grandma's passed away when she was younger that she was pretty close to. We had a really good lesson with her. In the end she was still really open, but wasn't ready to leave her other church just like that because she's an active Evangelical. I think she'll accept our message though. Aylin was in the park with her puppy Lucas, who kept running over to us. That was kinda funny.
Wednesday
You know what's weird? Today was the half way mark for the hermanas in the group that came in after me. And here I am still in my second area. hahaha. I don't think I'll ever leave Alameda. We had a consejo de distrito this morning. There are some birthdays in the zone this month, so we had some cake. Alfredo and Lelia went to Jaunja on a month long trip early this morning, so I had to say bye to them yesterday.
Daniel, their son, is cooking for us now. I like it, I like it a lot! "I declare this food to be delicious!" Arroz con pollo, hamburgers, one of the best ají de gallinas I've ever had and easily the best lomo saltado I've had. We tried to have a cita with Norma today, but she left us hanging again. We'll have to stop teacher her now until she can show interest and dedication. We went to go talk to Jeannina and her family, but only Ricardo was home. So we talked him through a couple of questions and then left. Our next cita was with Dante and Olga. We got there 15 minutes late and they were like, "We were starting to think that you guys had forgotten to come." It's cool when they're waiting like that. Dante read what we had left him too. You could kinda tell he was loaded up on these pain meds though because he was mildly out of it. We had a pretty solid lesson about temples though. Turns out that he was in a coma for 5 days. He legit almost died. All because of these 5 neglected pebbles. That has some great spiritual applications to it, but I'm not going to explain it all out right now. Maybe later. It's basically just the idea of evading sin and getting rid of problems when they occur. We were going to do a noche de hogar with the Elder's quorum president and his family, but his wife had stuff going on, wo we just talked to him a while at the door. Pro tip: If you ever want to break into a Peruvian Apartment building, just push the intercom button. When they say, "¿Quién?" just say, "Yo," in a slightly drawn out voice with a mild hint of boredom and annoyance. that's how everyone does it here.
Thursday
I am making important life decisions right now: Elder Cabral and I bought 50 tequeños and pasteles to fry up because that's how many you need to buy to get them cheap. So I've got breakfast planned for the next however long 34 will last me.
We went to the office in La Molina for interviews with President today We were scheduled to be one of the last, and when we got there, he had just finished the first few, so it seemed like we'd be there a while. When he walked out for the next one, I happened to be standing by the door so he called me in. I completely skipped everyone that had already been waiting for 2 hours. It wasn't a very exciting interview. Elder Van Dassell has to go home today to receive American medical treatment. It's kinda sad. Hopefully he'll be able to come back though after. I forgot to talk about his before, but we ate breakfast as a district this morning before the interviews. It was fun and tasty. I played Elder Petersen in Jenga.
Elder Petersen
I've pretty much hacked that game. We ate lunch and then really just contacted all day. We decided to do our fast early this week because tomorrow we are going to have a zone attack here and we want extra spiritual help with that. Tonight we were able to find Mafer and teach her a bit. We had to use a bit of fire because she's not doing any of the things she need too. Every time that my mom emails me, she tells me to put on mosquito repellent before going to bed. So last night I opened the window and dared them to eat me. I defeated them with my own will power: not a single bite. Good thing too for them, because I was going to drink some rat poison and let them die after trying to eat me.
Saturday
Blaze it! Yesterday was pretty normal We had a cita with Jeannina. It was kind of a weird cita. They had family visiting. There was an odd luck of the spirit so we finished quick and left. We had a zone attack in our area. However, it was Good Friday. That's kind of a big deal here. Everything closes down, more than for Christmas. They don't really celebrate Easter here from what I understand. Due to that, there were very few people in the street. I had kinda lowered hopes, but we actually received a lot of really good references that I think we can work with. We had a brief correlation meeting. I was starting to feel really sick at the end of the night though. I had had a constant headache all day. (I'm fine now though.) When we got back to room, Elder Cabral fried us both a tequeño. I felt like throwing up, but I took one look at that blessed thing and said to myself, "I wouldn't mind eating that a second time." But I went to bed early, so that's why I didn't write last night. This morning we got up early to go to a service as a zone. It was basically a juvie/orphanage/refuge witness protection program center place thing. I taught a short message with Elder Agurlar to a group of 7 deacon age kids. It could have gone better, but, ya know: deacons. It's actually a really nice facility for Peruvian standards. It was a cool experience. Most of them seem like normal kids. It's kinda sad that they're at where they're at mostly due to their parents. We came back and did a couple of things and ate lunch. Then we went to a zone attack in Tilda 2. It wasn't all that eventful. Elder Cabral and I just followed the garbage truck and contacted everyone that came to take out their trash. Give them a chance to throw out their trash and their sins too. We had a cita with Dante about the Restoration. That went pretty well. I had another run in with Elmer Blonco; dude needs to come to church already. We were just walking along in the street and there was a 50-60 year old dude 20 yards ahead facing us. He straight up dropped his pants to his ankles. That was something I won't forget soon. This other dude asked to borrow my pen. He wrote down his new buddy's number on his black motorcycle seat. He gave me my pen back and was like, "Thanks. Sorry man, I'm just a drunk Peruvian." Yeah, I can see that. Almost all the citas that people made for us from the attack didn't workout. At the end of the night though, we taught Magino and his brother, Rider. Their mom has cancer. Rider seems promising for some reason, so we'll see what happens with him.
Sunday
Today was pretty eventful. A bit too much so for my liking. We were going to pick up Darlene this morning, but she gave us a bunch of excuses when we called to confirm. So instead we just picked up Rider. He's pretty chill. The JAS class started 30 minutes late though, so that was kind of uncomfortable. The attendance today in church was super low: about 122 or so. We talked with Rider a bit after to clear up some questions/doubts about the Book of Mormon. The Astuhuaman's were gonna give us lunch, but they were on a trip, so we ate with Mari Luri instead. As were eating, we starting talking about her family. She's got a lot of crap going on. That's really sad. We were just about to start teaching something that would help her, when her 86 year old part deaf previous bishop father-in-saw was there. I had one of the oddest contacts today. I met a legit Satan worshiper witchcraft dude. He was an evil dude. He was telling me he enjoys messing with people's lives for his gain/entertainment. He converses with demons. He told me he can control bugs, dogs and women. He acknowledges Jesus exists, but he chooses Satan. He said it's because he likes the power and he wants more of it and likes sin. There were a lot of other things he told me he could do. I felt the spirit powerfully testify to me that even though he had a lot of power through the Devil, he had no power over me and I was more powerful than him through Jesus. I basically told him not to do that stuff anymore and he walked away. We were going to go visit a reference from the attack, but instead wound up having a cita with Jordy. Lucero is his girlfriend I guess. We went to go visit Nimrod tonight to plan a few things. We had a cita with Juan. Turns out he actually has little faith in God. So I shared some super personal things and told him to pray. I'm concerned for him.
The infamous niña head that the owner took down.
The last photo of Elder Yañez before he went home.
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