Week 3 in Manchay

We had a pretty good week this week. It ended rather oddly because we woke up at 2:30 am Sunday to an earthquake. It wasn't anything huge here, but our beds sure were moving a lot.  We didn't get any new investigators, but we do have 2 pretty good potentials. We did find the son of a recent convert that we'll see if we can't help, and we also found Jose Luis. I think he's really interesting because 2 months ago he joined his mom and took up a job as a gardener at the MTC. His mom didn't really want a whole lot when we talked to her, but he was pretty interested. The cita we had with him went pretty well, so now we just need to see if he's willing to keep commitments. I really hope we can work more with this dude because it's so obvious that the Lord has put him in our path so that he can follow the teachings of Jesus. We had the opportunity to take 3 of the recent converts here in our area to the temple this week. It was a really spiritual experience for us and for them too. As soon as I walked in the front door of the temple I could feel the difference the spirit made inside the temple. This week I did a lot of pondering and came up with a better way to conquer temptation. I was just thinking one day because a temptation presented itself and I was just like, "No. Satan wants me to do that." I think that if we can do this whenever we feel tempted, it will be easier for us to defeat temptation. For me it has helped a lot because once I tell myself that, if I were to go through with the temptation, I know I'm willing heeding to the will of the devil. And no one wants to do that. It has really helped me to increase my level of consecration in the mission and I believe we can all benefit if we apply that. Have a good week!

-Elder White

Monday

Today was P-day.  We spent an extended hour in internet this morning because the rules are different now and because we were in the church and it was free.  I used my time like I normally do and then used my extra time to edit all of my music.  Cool beans.  Then we went and ate some over priced mostrito.  Then we came back to the room.  Elder Lainez took a nap and I decided it'd be best if I cleaned the kitchen since Hermana Amato burned the mission pretty good in her email for not having cleaner houses.  I spent an hour cleaning the dishes and surfaces because the other Elders don't wash their dishes.  Elder Clark and Elder Kimball went to Gamara today, which is a huge market in la zona San Luis.  I told Elder Kimball to hit me up with a customized USA soccer jersey with my name and double 00 on it if he could and I'd pay him back.  My man came in clutch.

We visited Nora a little and then went to a ward NDH (FHE).  We went to buy burgers tonight and I saw the weirdest thing on TV.  There was this dude that looked like Fin from Sharnado who had a flashback to where he was dining with other dudes dressed up as fruits and veggies.  He was a banana.  Then the police came and arrested his friend broccoli.  Then it cut to them drinking.  Latin American soap operas man.

 Eating our burgers.

Tuesday

Today wasn't that eventful really.  Sorry to break the news to you.  I made an awful pancake this morning.  I had tried to make a Finish pancake with the recipe my mom sent me yesterday.  When I had the "batter" ready though, it looked as if I had made some dry bread dough.  So I just added about 1 cup water and hoped for the best.  Hoped in vain that is.  I feel like maybe I should've added a cup of milk instead.  Let's see what happens tomorrow.  (Elder White's mom here. I sadly left off a major ingredient from the recipe.  Milk.  1 cup milk.  Oops.  He is never gonna let me forget.  At least he was right that it should be milk.)  We had wanted to meet with Yasin's dad this morning, but he keeps avoiding us and telling us he needs to talk to her on more time.  This dude just gotta understand that not everyone wants to be a catholic.  We visited the fam Machicoo today.  The dad, a CR, isn't coming to church and is listening more and more to his sister, who's from another religion.  He wasn't there when we passed by.  That's kinda concerning us.  We passed by Victor's real quick.  His baptism was cool because the water was pretty cold.  He didn't even notice the cold though; he waded in and out normally with a huge smile on his face.  He didn't shiver or say anything about the temperature or anything.  What a guy.  Then we went to go visit la familia Tate real quick to talk with the kids about a trip to the temple.  Since her dad wasn't there for us to talk to we went to go visit Yasmin.  She hasn't been to church these past 2 weeks for no reason other than that her friend  Sandra didn't pass by to pick her up.  I'm not quite sure what to make of that.  She's pretty decided on getting baptized.  She said she talked to her dad and that he said it was ok, but we still need a signature.  When we told her mom June 1st, she was like, "Wait, what?"  Yasmin reassured her though.  We didn't talk her into this at all.  She had been scheduled to get baptized with Nora, but her dad talked her out of it, so Elder Jensen and Elder Lainez stopped teaching her even though she never stopped coming to church.  Then Sandra talked to her about baptism and the was like, "Blessings," and Yasmin was like, "Oh shoot, you're right," and now here we are.  We went to go visit Angela and Andree.  Angela's desires to be baptized have dropped from a 10 to a 7 and she won't give us a reason why, so that's kinda bad.  It'll be interesting to see how we fix it.  Pro tip: Only eat ice cream when it's cold outside, otherwise it'll melt.  That got me some weird looks.  A tall handsome white dude preaching about Jesus and then eating sometimes chocolate ice cream on a cold winter night while wearing short sleeves while everyone else is bundled up tight.

Wednesday

We had a consejo de distrito this morning.  Elder Rushforth has a parasite.  He's named Albert.  My man has lost tons of weight.  Like 20 pounds in 2 weeks kinda tons.  Poor dude only has 120 lbs right now.  It's kinda funny to talk about Albert though.  You know what else is funny?  Saying direct translations in English.  I started it last week and now it's a thing.  For example, "my turn" in Spanish is "me toca" which in English is "it touches me" and so on.  It makes us laugh.  Today I made a conscious effort to be more aware of my thoughts and surroundings and what not.  As I did so, there were temptations that were easier to conquer.  When you classify a certain action as something that the Devil wants you to do, it becomes a lot easier to just say no and not have it better you versus when you don't classify it and just have to choose.  It works in a variety of circumstances.  So there's my consejo (advice) to you for the day.  One of the citas we had today was with Juana.  We're going to take her and a few others to the temple with us Saturday.  So we prepped her for that a bit.  We decided it'd be a good thing to teach her the Articles of Faith since she has a testigo back ground and all.  That was one of the most interesting lessons I've probably had in my mission.  The testigos and us have some beliefs that are very different.  If she weren't super escogida (chosen), yeah, well...yeah.  They're different.  She takes it well though once she understands.  On our way to visit Nora, we ran into her sister, Claudia.  She said the feud isn't because of what happened 10  years ago with their sister and Nora's ex, but something from a year ago.  We're gonna see if the bishop won't fix things.

Thursday

Breakfast.  What a beautiful word.  I went hard this morning.  And maybe the best part?  It only cost about 1 sole.  Cool beans.  (It wasn't beans.)  I made mountain man breakfast.  I got myself un poco de (a little bit of) some real finely chopped onion and fried 'er up with some potatoes and a whole lotta butter.  I fried some burger and diced a tomato, then threw all that in with some eggs.  In reality it cost s/2, but I only ate half.  I'm getting this whole autosuficiencia (self sufficiency) stuff down.  One of my goals in life is to normalize 'your mom' jokes in Latin American, so I have to make them all the time.  I've got Elder Lainez hooked on it.  Whenever another gringo hears them though, they look at me and I just know they're thinking, "Dude, what are you, 12?"  I discern their thoughts and then think back, "Your mom is 12."  We had interviews with President today.  Ours was scheduled for 10:50, but we didn't actually end our two interviews until 5:15.  So we kinda spent a good while hanging out in the office.  One of the Elders (Muniz, the personal secretary) had a beard before coming out here.  So we talked about beards a bit.  Let me tall ya something Ernie, Elder White's gonna grow a real hermoso (beautiful) beard when he gets home.  Like, right after my homecoming talk.  My whisker's power will have doubled since the last we met, Count.  I'm pretty hyped.  All the greats have beards.  I talked to Elder Muniz a bit.  We're friends now.  He's been the SP for my whole mission, except my first cambio.  He was telling me about how one day he, Elder VanDassell and Elder Wall were in a taxi coming back from dropping a missionary off at the airport in Callao 4 months ago.  The driver got out at a red light to adjust his headlight.  The missionaries saw a bright light in the window and then the window shattered.  Someone snatched Elder Wall's bag and then drove away.  Callao is just kinda sketch like that.  My interview with President Amato was pretty nice.  He's such an awesome and spiritual guy.  He always has a good answer to my questions.  This is someone I really hope to pattern my life after.  Well, I ate lunch today at 6:10.  That may or may not be the latest lunch I've ever had.  We ran to a cita with Nataniel at 7:00.  I love their kitten, which is kind of odd because I kinda hated cats before I left.  Before last week too really.  On our way to that, we stopped by Jose Luis's house real quick because it was his wife's birthday.  They gave us cake and ice cream.  Then we went back to the pension because it was her birthday too.  She gave us each a 1/4 pollo (chicken) with fires and cake.  At the end of the night, all I could do was look myself in the mirror and say, "Tengo (have) diabetes."

Friday

You've heard of 'Extreme Makeover Home Edition', now get read for 'Extreme Budgeting Elder White Edition'.  When I found out I had extra money for the month when I got here, but had to pay for my dinners, I figured 1 of 2 things would happen.  That I would A, overspend since I didn't know how to budget dinner overly well, or B, I would budget too good and end the month with a ton of extra money.  The correct answer is B; I'm a penny pincher by nature.  I counted this morning and I had 130 extra sols.  And I've gotta spend it all before June since I can't save money month to month.  That means that this week is gonna be lit.  We did weekly planning this morning.  We were thinking of people we could possible teach and I remembered seeing "La Referencia" saved in the phone.  Elder Lainez had no idea who it was, so I was just like, "Maybe this dude/dudet wants to get baptized," so I called it.  She answered and we were both like, "Who are thou?"  I told her we were the missionaries and she was like, "Hello Elders," and I was like "¿?"  Turns out that they were the hermanas from the mission in charge of references.  So I just said, "Chao Hermana Monaño."  That was a funny awkward call.  It was super foggy all day.  The kind where you couldn't see the end of the block.  It was cool; I liked it.  We were out contacting today and ran into one of the ladies that works as a ground keeper at the CCM.  I had no idea that those people weren't members.  I had just assumed they were.  She was able to recognize the special spirit that was there, but she wasn't really interested in coming to church, so that was sad.  But we did mark down a cita with her adult son.  While we were talking to them, I had my arms folded.  I adjusted and noticed that my whole finger was covered in blood.  I was just like, "What the question mark is this?"  My elbow was bleeding pretty good.  We spent another 5 minutes in the contact and then 1 1/2 washing it before it stopped.  Angela came along while we beginning to wash it and was like, "Woah!  What happened?"  I just shrugged.  It seems to be just a small bug bite.  I must have been that mosquitos's first ever victim because it obviously had no idea what it was doing.  Today we had a cita with Yasmin.  She's pretty set and excited to get baptized.  She'll be able to see her dad and get permission signed Monday.  We also visited Angela.  She now says that she's 100 out of 10 for getting baptized.  Alma 34 works wonders my boys.  Good day.

Saturday

Last night, after realizing how much money I had, I went out and blew 30 soles, which would probably last me a little less than a week.  I just bought a bunch of crap at Mass (Peruvian Grocery store) and then bought a 12 sol enchilada.

Good stuff.  Last night when we were visiting Andree and Angela, their siblings came out of the back room, so we high-fived them and what not.  We asked where their mom was at and they told us that she was with their little siblings because they were all sick.  Elder Lainez asked what they had they said that they got hepatitis from school.  I looked at my freshly high-fived hands and them chopped them off with a knife.  I'm actually writing with my mouth right now.  (I actually just did write with my mouth.  Talented, right?)  This morning we were able to take Juana and Sebastian and Maria Tate, CR's to the temple.

The temple is such a cool place.  As soon as I walked in the front door, I could feel the noticeable difference the spirit makes.  Saturday is the busiest day because it's when people from provincia come, so it's discouraged for us.  But we got an inside man and got in with another group.  Elder Lainez and I were testigos (witnesses) for the baptisms.  That was pretty special.  We were testigos for an hour or so because they didn't want us to leave until that group was finished.  We finished watching Safety Zone.  After seeing all those videos, I felt like I needed to hold my companion's hand and avoid puddles and children otherwise I night get a lawsuit and die.  While we were out contacting today, this middle aged dude with two of his friends walked by and said, "Wow, you're pretty tall," and from there we got talking.  His 11 year old son died 3 or 4 months ago and he said I looked like him.  It was tragic really.  He was with his son near the chapel and his is son somehow, for some reason, was shot.  He held his son in his arms as he died.  He told me he had gone to church his whole life weekly and lived righteously as a Catholic.  Then he looked at me and asked me where God was in that.  It was hard for me to explain a bit of the Plan of Salvation.  He refused to let me comfort him (he wasn't rude about it) because I had never lost a son.  I could have helped him.  That was sad for me.  We had a cita with Jose Luis today.  Turns out that he works in the CCM too with his mom as gardeners.  He accepted fetcha.  I really hope that he follows through with it because the Lord has so obviously placed him in this amazing position to accept the gospel.  The 4 of us had parilla with hot chocolate with 2 CR's from the zone leader's area, Klesi and Mariela.  So that was pretty awesome.

Sunday

There was an earthquake at about 2:30 AM today.  A mildly big one, but not in Lima.  It was a 7.5 in Iquitos.  Here though, almost the entire city woke up to the shaking.  Everyone except Elder Clark, that is.  I woke up because my bed was shaking a lot.  I remember sitting up, recognizing it immediately and saying, "Earthquake.  Terremoto."  It lasted about 20-30 seconds.  It was kinda interesting really.  It was the first time in my life I've ever noticed an earthquake.  As soon as it was over though, I went back to sleep real quick because ain't nobody got time for dat.  I wasn't sure if it was just a dream or not until I asked the other missionaries in the morning.  It was a major source of discussion today. Freaking Earth.  Not keeping the Sabbath holy.  These earthquakes sound  like a lot of work.  You're the reason why we have the commandment you  know.  We had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich/chocolate milk party, so that was dope.  Church was pretty good.  We had a family of like 5 Venezuelans come to church today, early even.  I'm excited for that cita later.  We had our 3 investigators there today, but they were all cutting it super close to being late for the sacrament though.  There was some talk of Elder Bednar.  I'm actually getting a lot of anxiety when I think about it.  I'm really scarred that I'm gonna have to go to the bathroom really bad again despite all my best efforts.  It doesn't help that they told us he'd probably take 2 1/2 hours.  What is this phobia called?  It's not fun.  But I am excited to see what he has to say.  We went to go eat lunch with Victor and his family today.  It was pretty good.  But while we were there, we got several phone calls from people because there was a misunderstanding and other family thought that they were going to feed us.  We compromised though and Elder Lainez and I went to their home after to take the food to our house for a second dinner.  The dad in that family was mildly loco.  To make a summary "I saw a mermaid in the river once.  But no one believes me!"  The Peruvians are pretty believing in these mystical things, so if they don't believe it, that's how you know you've got a really tall tale.  We had a cita with Yasmin today.  She and Angela both met today and are both super excited for their baptisms on Saturday.  They both say that there's nothing that can stop them. We'll have Yasmin's dad sign her permission when he picks her up for school tomorrow.

 Manchay at night.
 

 Before and after shining my shoes.

 

The spider that I almost ate when I went to go throw on the PJs.
 

 Michael, who I was teaching in Alameda, got baptized this week.

Week 2 in Manchay

Victor and Andree

This week was pretty exciting. It started with me kicking down our front door on Monday night because somehow the sliding bolt lock thingies had slid into place so that we couldn't open the door. That was cool. Most of the exciting stuff happened during the weekend. On Saturday, we had 3 baptisms scheduled, and it was also the CCM attack. So we had those Elders with us. We left from that cita (appointment) and came to the church to finish getting stuff ready for the baptisms. When we arrived, the second counselor in the bishopric took us aside and explained how Elena, the mom of the two teens getting baptized (she wants to get baptized too, but is convivient (cohabiting)), came to the church crying just 10 minutes before we had gotten there. She said that her husband had changed his mind about the baptisms and had even hit her and was afraid of getting hit again if they got baptized. We were kinda surprised because he was pretty chill about it when he signed the permission. Elder Jensen, who had taught them before being transferred, had just gotten there for their baptism and we explained to him what had happened and he was just like, "I did not just come here 2 plus hours in a combi to have this dude cancel on me like this."  So he went to go talk to the family to see what he could do, which was great for us because we had to do stuff to prep the baptism and stay with the new CCM elders. We were kinda waiting around to see what would happen with the 2 other guys when we got a text saying "Andree se bautizara (will be baptized)!" We waited a bit more before we decided it'd be best just to start taking photos and having the hymns. Andree got there with Elder Jensen, his mom AND with his dad too. That was surprising. His sister was sick and had lost her confidence because of her dad, so we'll have to work with her a little bit more. But the service was really nice. Victor and Andree both got baptized. I delivered a really powerful message on the gospel of Jesus Christ while people were changing. There were about 4 or 5 guys that weren't members. Then after Elder Lainez and I went and had dinner with Andree and his family. I don't know what kind of things Elder Jensen said, but in just 4 hours the dad went from being super stubborn about this whole thing, to going there himself and then sharing dinner with us. What a day. Elder Lainez and I are enjoying a lot of success here in Manchay. I love this area, I love my comp, and I love the Lord. Have a good week!

Elder White

Today I had to kick down a door.  Our front door.  Let me tell ya about it.  Today we celebrated the missionary recognized weekly holiday of P-day, and we did it as a zone.  We started it in the morning by doing a bunch of small games.  Elder Lainez and I owned the egg toss, but when it came to the talent show at the end, we were at a loss.  The best we could come up with was just doing trust falls.  Really good trust falls.  Afterwards we watched Moana and ate chaufa.   Our zone is pretty cool, but our district is especially super hype.  Elder Rushforth is a chill dude that's good to talk to.  He tells me about how he and Elder Davis blow up matches at night.  Fun stuff.  Elder Quispe is a funny dude who's easy to get along with.  After watching it in Spanish, we watched Moana again but in English from the part where Maui sings the You're Welcome song.  Not really sure why we did that really.  Just don't let Latinos have the remote.  From there we went and did internet.  I had 25 emails today, usually I have 12 or so.  Those were some busy 2 hours.  From there I went and got a haircut.  The lady was asking me questions about it, like if I wanted her to use the shaver or her scissors.  People make this whole haircut thing too complicated.  See the cut I have right now?  I want the same one, just make it shorter.  I'm not about to walk into one of these salons and say, "Hey hit me up with that 6 3/4 on the top with a retro blend slyly down into a pie (as in the math symbol) on the sides with a hard hexagonic sideburns parallelogrammed in the back.  Be sure to use a weed wacker on the sides, with a chainsaw on the top.  And don't forget to massage my scalp with a peach extract when you're done."  I'm not one of those guys yet.  Then we came back to the room.  Or tried to at least.  Earlier in the day Elder Lainez realized he forgot his key, but we figured the zone leaders could just let us in.  But they were down at the office, and the home owner wasn't home upstairs.  So we tried breaking into our apartment.  It's pretty ladron (thief) safe.  I just about tore my arm off trying to use my book to open the bedroom door.  I even had to push the bed out of the way with the fingers on my left hand.  The sliding bolt was in though, we we couldn't get in even though I got the weird Peruvian doorknob done.  I borrowed the neighbor's broom and got the front door unlocked, but we couldn't open the door, so we figured the zone leaders used the key to put the extra lock in.  We had gotten there at 5:45 and the zone leaders arrived around 7:30.  Turns out that two of the sliding locks were somehow locked, which didn't make any sense, but we couldn't get in.  So long story short, I had to kick in down so that we could get in.  We just contacted the rest of the night.

Waiting outside our locked door.

Kicking in the door.

Tuesday

We were just kinda peacefully getting ready to go this morning when the zone leaders were like, "Oh hey, by the way, the assistants are coming here on intercombios today, so it'd be cool if you guys could clean up a bit before they get here."  We had a consejo de distrito this morning.  We have 4 assistants currently , and elder Topham and Elder Leite are assigned to us, and they were there this morning for that.  They didn't burn or give a training or anything like that, but were rather there for animos (encouragement) and a check-up I think.  They've always got something good to say.  I was kinda nervous about having an assistant in the room, but it isn't that bad actually.  Elder Leite stayed here with Elder Kimball.  He's a quiet dude.  He's pretty friendly though.  It's kind of an interesting personality for an assistant to have.  Today was a great day.  I left with a great attitude and was focused in 100% almost the entire day.  Due to that, we were able to see a lot of miracles.  I felt like every contact I made was a good contact.  We marked down a few good citas for tomorrow.  We tried meeting with Jose Manuel and Trinidad (CR's), but they weren't home, so we talked to Kathy, the nanny (and also a member) a bit.  We went and did the pre-interview with Victor today.  What a guy.  We got to pregunta (question) 4 and asked, "¿Una vez ha cometido undelito grave? (Have you committed a felony?)  He looked confused, so I explained, "¿Ha matado a alguien?  (Have you killed someone?) ¿O usted ha robado el banco antes o algo como asi? (Or robbed a bank or something like that?)"  Victor replied, "Pues, no hay banco por aqui. (Well there is no bank around here.)"  We were laughing real good after that.  From there we went and visited a contact that Elder Kimball and Elder Lainez made during the attack on Sunday.  It was with Maria (the grandma), Valeria (the mom) and Lonzo (the son).  They're a pretty humble family with some health complications.  They all accepted a fecha for the 15 of June.  I don't know if Maria will be able to get baptized though because she works Sundays usually.  Fingers crossed though.  Then we went to go visit la familia Quisitupa (Nora).  Her husband, Jose Gabriel, wants to get baptized, but he can't always go to church because sometimes he refs soccer games on Sundays and he's hesitant to stop working Sundays because he has a lot of debt.  So we talked to him and tried to encourage him to stop working and take a leap of faith.  There's a story that the Andersons in my old ward shared during sacrament meeting probably 10 years ago that has always stayed with me.  They talked about how when they were in college and paid tithing, they somehow had more money to pay bills than when they didn't pay tithing.  I related that to him.  We're tentatively planning his baptism for next Saturday.  We also went and did pre-interviews with Andres and Angela.  They're good to go.

Wednesday

A lot has changed in 10 months.  When I was charged by a pack of dogs in Huaycán, I initially subtly hid behind Elder Yañez.  Last night when it happened to me, I charged back at them with my Naruto run.  The zone leaders finished the intercambio super early this morning.  Elder Lainez and I did studies this morning and then we went down to the office.  Allow me to introduce you to the next best extreme sport:  Combi surfing.  You board the combi like normal, but then you don't grab on to any handrails.   You stay alive using your strength, fast reactions and pure determination.  Exciting stuff.  Elder Lainez just had to sign a paper to renew his immigration thingy.  While we were there, I saw a package that my mom had sent me, so I snatched that.  Goldfish, cookie dough Poptarts, and Chewy Chips Ahoy.  Good stuff.  There was also some headphones and a camera for a call home (hint hint I guess), among other things.  They also sent me a cool shirt from the from the Houston Space Center.  It was announced today that Elder Bednar is coming to talk to the 5 Lima missions on May 31.  That's pretty dang exciting.  It was interesting because on Sunday during sacrament meeting, they casually announced that Elder Bednar would have a fireside in La Molina for JAS and AS around that time.  I thought it was odd that he'd come down here without addressing the missionaries, but now it makes more sense.  When we got back to our area, we had to go and watch some safety zone videos.  I was kinda surprised because they've got the host from BYU sports show doing the stuff.  The videos are entertaining though at least.  Not a whole lot happened today.  There's a dog named Coco that everyone knows because he's notorious for barking at everyone and biting sometimes.  I shone my laser my mom sent at the ground by him and he immediately stopped barking and starting playing with the laser.  Hehe, poderoso (powerful).  Elder Kimball has to strict doctors orders about what he needs to do with his infection because he's on the verge of going home.  I spent the last hour of proselyting with him.  18 months ago if you would have told me I'd be walking up and down hills in a place like Manchay with a random kid from my calc class, I would have called you crazy.

Thursday

Yesterday night, we went to go visit a reference we had gotten.  She wasn't home though so we talked to her parents instead, who're a bit older.  She told us about how she had a dream (while she was on her death bed) and how she talked to Jesus, who told her she was still needed by her family.  After that, she improved miraculously.  I was impressed.  Her husband has Parkinson's and is pretty disabled and her son-in-law's parents just died, so he's pretty depressed.  That meas she's working a lot to pay for the family, including Sundays.  For someone who had such an experience, that made me sad.  The spirit moved upon me to burn her and motivate her to come to church, but I wasn't totally aware of it in the moment.  I said to her, "If Jesus were here, would he tell you that you're the exception to the commandment?  No, He'd tell you to act in faith and not work Sunday."  I can't believe I was so brutal, but that's what I guess she needed.  We'll see if she comes.  I've been thinking about that a lot recently.  When we knock on doors sometimes, Elder Lainez always shouts, "Yo," when they ask, "¿Quien es? (Who is it?)"  One time after saying that, the teen girl on the other side of the unopened door said to no one in particular, "¿Cual yo?"  Hoy muchos yo's. (Which I?  Today there are many I's."  That was pretty funny.  We watched The Safety Zone a bit more today.  That's some heavy stuff sometimes.  For lunch, the penson gave us some mazamora which is basically just a super sweet jelly.  I felt like I had to get my teeth to the ER to have them professionally brushed after eating that.  We were kinda nervous when we went to go visit Juana today because the bishop wasn't there when we told her to go to the church on Tuesday for a temple recommend, and she seemed mad when she called to let us know.  But she was pretty tranquila (calm).  She's an awesome convert with a powerful testimony.  We retaught the restoration of the gospel.  At the end, she asked us how we came to know the Book of Mormon was true.  I loved that questions more than 1 year ago.  I simply believed it was true.  Then I was able to reflect on all the experiences I've had in the past year that gave me this knowledge.  Good stuff.  Tonight we had baptismal interviews for Andres and Victor.  They both passed just fine.  Angela wasn't able to come down to the church though because she was feeling sick.  I'm impressed Andres was alone and early though.  We went to go visit Nataniel.  Her dad was there and wasn't willing to give her permission.  As we wrapped up the cita though, he realized more that we made scarifies to be here and warmed up a bit.  We're still hoping for permission.  We went to visit a humble contact named Celia.  We'll see more about what happens with her tomorrow. 

Friday

Was today a good day?  Why yes, yes it was.  Why though?  Because I decided it was.  It's hard to say you've had a bad day if you're eating a second dinner of a hamburger that actually had cheese while listening to How Great Though Art by Mariah Carey.  At the end of the night, Elder Lainez and I went into a small restaurant and got bistek.  When we got home, I realized that earlier I had told the zone leaders to bring us hamburgers from a restaurant in their area if they had time.  My boys came in clutch.  We got up early this morning to play soccer at 6 AM.  There were 8 of us there.  It had been misting all night, so it was cold and the court was super slippery.  It was fun still.  Last night when we got home, Elder Kimball was like, "Surprise!  Someone came and installed a hot shower."  That was nice.  This morning he called dibs on using it first.  Gotta respect the dibs.  He took like a 20 minute long shower and shouted the entire time about how great it was.  When Elder Clark went to get in though, it wouldn't work.  I started having mad flashbacks to the 15th of November.  I'm sad, but not surprised.  I seem to have bad luck with this whole hot shower thing.  The weirdest thing that's happened to me so far on my mission might be something that happened when I first got here to Manchay 2 on the first day.  Elder Lainez and I ran into the mom of Yasmin (we're trying to get permission from her dad for her to get baptized) picking up two of there little kids from school.  They were both like 3-5 years old.  They both high fived Elder Lainez, so I tried going for the same.  The 5 year old boy, who has hair down to his shoulders, let out a war cry and ran at me and head butted me in the groin.  The mom didn't really seem to notice nor care.  That was pretty weird.  Today we went to go visit a man named George.  He's had a sketchy past. He's been to prison thrice, for a total of 13 years, all of it for robbing.  That's all in the past though, years ago.  He can't get baptized yet though because there's a court case against him that came up out of the blue for the end of June for attempted murder.  George told us that he's been in a few fights, but he's never tried killing anyone before.  We're hoping it gets cleared up fast.  We went to go visit Andree and Angela to get them excited one more time for their baptism tomorrow.  The rest of the day was a story of fallen citas.  There was a lot of hiking up and down mountains.  We spent the last hour of our work day on a caza de grillos (cricket hunt), if you know what I mean.

Saturday

Well, today just happened.  I should have know it would be a crazy day, because I had a crazy dream last night.  There was an attack from the CCM today.  But before that, we had a lit lunch.  Teqyeños and lomo saltado.  Doesn't get much better than that.  There's an hermana from Australia that was there from the CCM and she's coming to our mission.  Crikey mate.  It was cool hearing Spanish in an Australian accent.  When one of the gringos from the CCM stood up to present himself, a hermana pointed and said, "¡Es él! (It's him!)"  We all just kinda looked at her like, "?" and laughed a bit.  I ran off with Elder Gonzalez from Mexico.

With Elder Gonzalez we contacted a bit and then went to go visit the family of a missionary.  Then we went to the church at 6:00 for Angela's baptismal interview.  We got there and ran into the 2nd counselor who was like, "Elders, do you have a minute?" and we went into a room with him.  He explained to us how just 10 minutes before we arrived, Elena, the mom, who's pretty awesome, came to the church in tears and said that her kids weren't going to be able to be baptized.  While she was totally all for it still, her husband had changed his mind last second even though Elder Jensen and Elder Lainez had talked to him and had him sign the permission.  He actually hit her and she said that if she let her kids go through with it, she was afraid of her or her kids getting hit again.  When we heard that, we were just like, "well, crap."  Elder Jensen had arrived to around the same time from 2+ hours away in Jicamarca.  When I told him that, he just said, "Uh uh!  I did not just come from 2 hours away on a bus to have this dude cancel on me like this," and went to the family's house.  Meanwhile, Victor came and we got him already to go.  We sat around and waited a while and were about to start when I got a text saying, "Andree is getting baptized!"  We waited a bit more and then just started.  Andre came just in time, with his mom AND dad there too.  They came in his taxi. We had the CCM dudes give the talks.  Elder Jensen came back just in time with Andree to see the 2 baptisms.  It was nice.  I gave a powerful talk on the gospel while they were changing.  There were like 5 dudes that weren't members there and I know they felt something.

 Victor

Andree and his family.

Sunday

Last night, Elder Lainez and I went and ate dinner with Andree and his family.  I don't know what Elder Jensen did, but in 4 hours the dad went from hitting his wife and not letting his kids get baptized, to Andree getting baptized and us eating dinner with the whole family.  Hats off to him.  The dude came to fix our shower yesterday, so I took a cautiously relaxing shower, a hot shower.  I got electrocuted pretty good.  My head touched the shower head.  I saw lights and got a weird taste in my mouth.  Pro tip: don't do that.  We went to ward counsel this morning.  Nothing too exciting really.  I had to give a talk this morning about missionary work.  They told me early in the week, but then I forgot 'til last night, then forgot again, then remembered, then forgot and remembered one time more.  In Alameda I made a big intricate outline, but I just wing it now.  Started from the bottom now we're here.  Started from the bottom now the whole team's....here.  They turned out better when I just make an outline in my head real quick.  Lunch was pretty good.  Elder Clark and Elder Kimball tried teaching the ladies English, just basic words really.  It was like the hamburger scene from Pink Panther.  Elder Kimball was telling me that one time that one hermana went with them to teach an investigator.  They put a fecha on her and the hermana got excited and said, "We'll sing this song at your baptism!" and proceeded to start singing Oracion del Profeta.  Elder Kimball couldn't get her to stop 'til half way through the 2nd verse.  So she's a little crazy, but she's funny.  I almost got eaten by a dog today.  We were up on a hill walking on a dirt road when a big 'ole black dog saw me and then charged at me barking.  I didn't think much of it, so I just casually held my book out.  He totally just jumped at me and used his front paws to spring up off my groin so that we were face to face.  If I hadn't leaned back, I might have lost my nose.  The little girl grabbed him, other wise I might be a doggy chew toy.  We had another violin zone attack today, but in Musa this time.  On the way back, I was just chilling down, seated by the window on the bus when I saw a flash of white as we were driving along.  Then I saw the cobrador (collector) get nearly tackled as a dude jumped through the door.  I don't know how but a crackhead had somehow chased the combi down and jumped in.  Crazy dude.  We went to go visit Nataniel and her family tonight.  We read 2 Nephi 31 with them because I've heard of the miracles that does.  Then I said to the dad, "You know we're not here for money, because we're bored, nor because our parents sent us.  We've seen the blessings Jesus has for us and we want your daughter to have those blessings."  He signed the permission after that.

Elder White on a foggy night.

Week 1 in Manchay

Primera semana en Manchay 2 (First week in Manchay 2)

This week was pretty awesome. I'm already loving it here in Manchay 2, and a good part of it is because it reminds me of Huaycan 2 a bit jajaja. I hard core love going up and down hills all the time now. Elder Lainez and I are a great match together. We get along well and we already know each other kinda well since we were in the same room in Huaycan. We've got a bit to practice getting our contacting and teaching styles to mesh better I think, but there's great things going on here. We had a marriage and a baptism on Saturday for our now convert named Nora. Her situation is bien complicado (very complicated), but she's got a super powerful testimony. Basically what happened was 10 years ago, her son then 6 years old walked in on Nora's then 16 year old sister and now ex pareja (partner) cheating on her. I don't know how it turned out this way, but the entire family got super mad and put all the blame on Nora. To this day there are still bad feelings. Her family was at her wedding, but two of her sisters, who're also active members, left without saying a word. Nora has tried getting forgiveness for forever, but these two sisters, who even live in the same ward won't even talk to her. Not a word. We're at a loss on how to help the situation. But anyways, we've got 3, maybe 4 people if we're lucky, lined up to get ready this week. We've also got one other potential that just needs permiso (permission) right now. So we're hoping for that. This ward and area are both super awesome and I'm excited to be here! Have a good week!

Monday
Cosquilloso (ticklish).  What a funny word really.  In Vitarte there were a lot of Elders that were pretty ticklish.  I like those kind of people.  If you're ticklish I like you.  I have been saved from Lima Tambo (knock on wood because there's still emergency transfers sometimes).  Elder Sanchez is going to Ando Huaylous in Santa Anita, which is literally across the street from San Fransisco, so he didn't really see much from combios.  Elder  Peterson is receiving Elder Lopez from my group.  Elder Lopez is probably one of the trunkiest dudes in the mission.  It'll be a rough transfer.  But I'm hyped.  From what I understand, I'm basically going back to Huaycán.  I was talking to one elder and he told me there's 4 areas in Manchay.  The lower bit is green, but after that there's a ton of hill and dust.  No paved roads.  Hopefully lots of dogs.  I'm getting an adrenaline rush just thinking about it.  This transfer went by so fast.  It does not seem like 6 weeks.  This morning we went to internet.  After, we went back to the room and cleaned/packed.  Oswaldo called and told me that Elder Mayta was there with him and invited me to go and say bye to him.  He seemed happy, but he's a good actor when he's around other people.  So I'm hoping we ended on a semi-good note.  We went to go eat lunch while we were out and about.  Then we went back and finished stuff up.  I wasn't in the mood for a big despedida (farewell), so I just went to go visit a few converts.  The first one was Juan and Evelin.  It was Evelin's birthday.  We talked a while, I told them to endure to the end, Evelin cried, and then I left.  When I came here I didn't imagine getting attached, me or them.  I went to go visit Jean Franco and Angi.  Same things as before, but without tears.  Then I swung by to say bye to Jherson last second.

Tuesday
We got up bright and early this morning because Elder Cabral had to be in La Molina at 7 AM.  Fun days.  I just kinda chilled there in the stake center for a while waiting.  I don't even know who Elder Cabral is training because Elder Lainez got there early and we went straight to Manchay.  I think I'm in the nicer part of it.  The district of Lima name is cool: Pachacamac.  My area is super similar to Huaycán.  The only difference is that it's not quite as hilly here, and people realize how barren it is so there's a handful of homes on every street with a couple of plants.  After being in a smaller area that I knew super well, I get kinda overwhelmed a bit by not knowing where I was a good chunk of the time and how big this area is.  I'll get over it though.  At the end of the day I had a decent idea of where I was.  The only reason it's hard is because we don't have a map.  But I'll survive, adapt, and then overcome.  We share the room here with the zone leaders in Manchay 1.  Elder Kimball and Elder Clark.  It's crazy because just a year ago I was in calc class helping Elder Kimball with is homework, and now he's my leader.  I miss math, and my calculator.  Elder Lainez was in the room with me in Huaycán for 2 transfers, so I already know him pretty well.  This transfer will be real good.  They've got a handful of people with a fecha, including a wedding this Saturday.  Our pensionista's name is Ana.  We eat there with the zone leaders and the Elders from Musa, so that's a party.  The food there is super good too.  I couldn't really give you a solid play-by-play of what we did today.  We contacted a lot and visited some members/CRs here and there.  We spent a good part of the day scaling a mountain and going back down to visit/contact.  We visited a good handful of their investigators today.  First we visited the couple that's going to get married this Saturday.  She'll (Nora) get baptized the same day and her husband (Jose) a week later maybe.  They've got some solid testimonies despite her brother bringing his pastor with him to try and talk them out of it.  We also went to go visit two siblings, Andres and Angela that'll get baptized.  Their mom is super cool too, but she's convivente (cohabiting).  It got to be cold at night, enough to make even me uncomfortable.  The wind was the real killer because we were outside.  The miracle of the night was that after the charla (visit), they invited us to have a bowl of calde de gallina (hot chicken).  It was nice because I was cold and we don't have a pension for dinner.

Wednesday
I woke up this morning and I was just like, "The fetch?  Where....Oh yeah."  In the room in Alameda, we always made jokes about my 4th and possibly 5th cambio there.  Good times.  It's nice to be in a new area.  I'm thinking we have the nicest area of all those here in Manchay.  We have more paved roads than the others, even though there's only a few.  A lot of houses have plants too.  It's (on average) more developed than Huaycán too.  There aren't tons of dogs like I was hoping, and they're generally super friendly too.  Instead of batting them away to keep them from biting, you do it to keep them from jumping up and getting mud on your pants.  I'm kinda disappointed really.  I was really hoping to get in some good fights and other exciting stuff with them.  I brought a box of pop-its to throw at the dogs that were barking.  That was funny.  I met a dude today named Carl Malone.  Carl Malone didn't even know who Karl Malone is.  I need to be friends with this man's parents.  I met a convert that got baptized 2 weeks ago named Juana.  She's super cool.  She used to be a testigo (Witness), but then she met the missionaries, read the Book of Mormon in 3 weeks and got dunked.  She and the 2nd counselor in the bishopric are both about 30 years old single and awesome, so the missionaries are trying to low key set them up jaja.  We had a cita today with Victor.  He's in a pretty active family, but he turned 9 and they forgot to get him baptized I guess, so now it's our job.  He reminds me of my cousin Caleb.  They have similar personalities.  His brother said he was taking care of someone, but then Victor called him out on it.  We tried teaching the word of wisdom and Victor kept saying it was, "Drogas (drugs), cocaina (cocaine), alcohol, cerveza (beer)....¿Que es el viltia?"  He was pretty concerned about that concaina ahahaha.  When he went to say the prayer at the end, he was saying "Thank you for sending the Elders.  Please protect Elder Lainez and Elder What's his name..."  Funny kid.  Today was the 7th birthday of one of the kids of a recent convert we went to go say hi.  They were having a little family party and invited us in for a minute.  I was thinking, "Hello family I've never met before.  Don't mind me as I come in and eat all the food you give me."  We played a game called "¿ Amas a tu projime?"  Where you basically wind up trading seats with other people a lot really fast.  The mom thought it was pretty funny so she started to film it.  They kept saying "all the fat people" when it came time to change seats.  Another time I got up and ran to a seat and sat down, but the plastic chair leg broke and I went flying over.  They all thought it was pretty funny and it's funny now for me too but in the moment I was super embarrassed, especially since they're a humble family.

Thursday
The more time I pass in the mission the more in tune with the spirit I become.  Let me tell you about it.  We were walking down a rocky path in the evening and we saw a teenager with her kid.  I was just thinking, "Hey, there's Angii."  Elder Lainez asked her what her name was and she said Angii.  I don't know why or how I knew that, but I did.  President told us that there's not coincidences in the mission field and stuff similar to this has been going on a bit recently, so I can't just shrug it off.  It's kinda like Moroni said, "And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."  Example #2 from today:  At night we were walking along up on a hill and needed to use the bathroom.  We found this empty soccer court shaped with walls with stairs leading up to this platform thing which is where I decided to go to the bathroom.  As I was walking over there, I got a strong feeling I shouldn't go over there.  I shrugged it off saying that I just needed to go to the bathroom and Elder Lainez had already taken the other corner.  I got over there and even though I didn't see anything (just graffiti of a dude smoking and a pile of sand), I sensed an evil presence.  For some reason though, I decided to go to the bathroom anyways.  I have never been more freaked out while going to the bathroom before.  I was looking high and low over my shoulder the entire time.  After I finished, I looked around a bit to try and see why I felt so unsafe.  I found a staircase that led down into a dark room.  There was some wood laying around on the staircase.  I couldn't see anything past the bend, but at that point I felt the evilness super strong and the spirit told me very forcefully to get out of there, so I did.  I don't know what was over there, but it wasn't good and I should've listened to the spirit the first time.  Luckily though, I came away without any harm.  I think that this will serve as a good warning for my future self.  I got to meet a lot more of the CR's and potentials that we have in the area today while we were out and about.  Elder Lainez and I talk about the good 'ole days from back in Huaycán a lot, especially Elder Caro (he's the one that used too much toilet paper).  Nora had one of the classic pregunta cuatros (four questions), so President Amato called her tonight to do it.  She got everything passed ok, but it did take him a while to call her.  We kinda just had to stall a bit.  She's been facing a lot of opposition with this whole wedding/baptism thing but she's also been really good about building her testimony.  We also went to go visit Andres and Angela tonight.  It went pretty well.  They even committed to go to seminary tomorrow.

Saturday
We had a consejo de distrito yesterday morning.  It was good stuff.  Elder Rushforth is our district leader.  I jokingly volunteered for the testimonio en ingles (testimony in English) and he accepted it.  I was kinda like, "Yeah, ok.  I got this."  I didn't 'got diz'.  I got up there and I was as bad as the Latinos.  I had to stop and think about half my words.  I even almost forgot how to say "Joseph Smith" in English.  It was bad.  I mean, I can talk in a conversation normally, but when it come to talking about the church my ability exponentially drops.  We went to go visit Victor yesterday.  All is good with him.  Funny little guy.  I had a constant little headache all day long.  At night though, it got worse.  A lot worse.  I kept trying to work through it, but at last I sat down and called to get permission to take some meds.  I really didn't want to go back to the room though, but my head hurt real bad.  I got back to the room and went to grab some pills, but instead said, "Well fetch," and threw off my tie and ran into the bathroom  I threw it all up.  They told me to drink some Sporade (like Gatorade), but I threw that up after too.  I went to bed at like 9:45 and woke up at 6:30 feeling fine.  That was the biggest miracle of the day, because I should have woken up feeling like crap.  But thankfully I didn't because we had to go to Nora's wedding.  She was part of a mass wedding where 100 other couples get married too.  It was cheaper that way.

 
We had some momentary panics about people not having their DNI, but it wasn't nearly as stressful as my last wedding.  They brought out champagne for everyone and the alcohol was there, so that was a bit panicky too.  Their 5 year old got lost while everyone was taking the group photo, so the announcer dude was like, "My little man Jhon is lost with me and crying.  Can someone please take this dude off my hands?"  We came back and ate lunch real quick and then went to Nora's baptism.  We started kinda late because as it later turned out, 2 of the zone leaders baptisms fell today.  Unfortunately for Elder Costa, he came and his investigator wasn't there.  But Elder Jensen came back to see Nora.  It was a nice service.

 

We went to go visit a 15 year old tonight named Yasmin.  She was going to get baptized before, but her dad who lives in Vitarte was like, "Nope.  You're Catholic," so she got discouraged.  But tonight she was super down for it and said she'd talk to her dad again though.  We also went to go visiting the 9 year old sister of a recently reactivated 12 year old named Estrella.  Her parents are still convivientes (cohabitants), but she accepted fecha.  We'll see if her dad gives permission.

Sunday
I tried shaving with a razor this morning for the first time ever.  I wanted to try it because one time another Elder left his out, so I was like, "Does this even work?"  So I shaved a strip of leg hair and was left amazed, so I decided to try it on my face.  I cut myself a bit and that kinda hurt, but I like the close shave.  The other Elders baptized one of their ladies this morning that wasn't able to go yesterday.  Pro tip:  if someone ever invites you to an 8 AM baptism, it's probably because someone wants you to give a talk, so just be ready.  Church starts at 10:30, which is really nice compared to 8 AM with 7 AM council.  We went straight from the baptism to go and pick up Andres and Angela, except they live super far.  But we walked really fast and climbed up to the top of the hill even faster.  I don't know if I've ever been so sweaty before.  It was just a drip....drip....drip of sweat off my face.  They weren't quite ready when we got there, but they almost were, so we told them to be on time and hiked up and down that part looking for another person to recoger (pick up), but we didn't find them.  Our investigators weren't getting there and then arrived right after they started the sacrament.  I was like, "Well, hot diggity dang.  There goes Andres' fecha," but they gave the sacrament to the people outside.  That was a pleasant surprise.  The 3 year old of one of the Huerto's investigators somehow snuck out of nursery when no one was looking and walked a couple of blocks and crossed a busy road to go to a park, so that caused a panic.  Today we went to go eat lunch with the relief society president, Hermana Ala.  From there we went and called our families.  I didn't know who any of the members were whose home we used, but that was nice of them.  My mic was kinda super broken, so the two teen daughters from the family kept laughing as I said, "Hello.  Hi.  Now?  Here?"  I'm not one of the Elders that calls home all the time and my family is already bored of talking to me.  My brothers were all off doing other things.  I sang my mom a song I still remember from my first Mother's Day program in kindergarten.  I succeeded in making her cry.  Score 1 for the republic.  After that, we came and did a zone attack in our area.  Elder Kimball played his violin and we all sang a bit and then went to go contact the park before moving on to the next one.  We got a couple of references from the attack, so we'll see what happens with that.  We went to go visit Victor.  He's excited and ready to be baptized.  We also went to go visit the family Tate, which has some CR's.  While we were sharing the message the 12 year old daughter gasped and said, "¡Tus ojos son bonitos! (Your eyes are pretty!)"  *Facepalm*

The hashtag board in Alameda

Last photo of the Alameda crew

The front door to Elder White's new apartment.  That's a lot of locks!

Elder White's new living quarters:

 (At least put the toilet seat down for the picture!)

Week 24 in Alameda (Last Week in Alameda)

Manchay 2

Cambios came in and now I'm off to Manchay 2 in Estaca La Molina with Elder Lainez. It'll be kinda like going back to Huaycan from what I understand, so it'll be interesting. This was a good week. It went by pretty fast. We picked up a new investigator named Cynthia. This whole transfer Elder Cabral and I weren't having a whole lot of success this transfer, but I feel satisfied leaving him with the 3 we have right now that I know will get baptized. It has a good ring to it. Stake conference was yesterday. The sound was broken though so I couldn't really hear anything that people were saying at all. But I heard from some members that were over at the stake center that President Amato gave me a shout out during his talk. He shared about my promise about the Book of Mormon that I made to Rocky and the amazing experience he had. Thanks for that jajaja. But in all seriousness though, that is still an experience in my life that really stands out to me. I can still feel that same spirit whenever I stop to ponder on it. I'm glad that he shared it with everyone because they, and all you, can all have the same blessings in their lives. I'm thankful for the time I've had in this wonderful area of Alameda and now I'm ready to baptize all those escogidos (chosen) in Manchay 2! Have a good week y'all!

Monday
This morning was pretty normal.  My grease intake has skyrocketed recently as of late due to Daniel cooking for us and me doing my thing for breakfast.  My vegetable consumption has reduced as well.  I almost feel American again.  ((3Grease+〖meat〗^3Cheese )/〖veggies〗^(-Eh…))∙〖love〗^(〖excitement〗^2 )+b^2 q^(pizza+hot) = a healthy American diet.  There's some math for ya.  Internet was pretty normal this morning.  Not a whole lot had gone one since Friday.  After internet, Elder Cabral and I went to Ceres to shop around a bit.  I bought 2 soccer jerseys: one of Peru and the other of la U (Universitario), which is a local team on the South American level.  I like them because that's who everyone around here likes and they're the rival of Alizanza, which is the team Elder Mayta liked.  I would always tease him about that.  I'm still not in the mood for eating a real meal after Rodizios last week.  So I just had a couple of cookies and some yogurt.  We came back to the room and I experimented with cooking some pudding.  It seems ok, but it isn't as good as the stuff back home.  I listened to talks and cleaned for 2 hours or more.  I only cleaned the bathrooms really.  They were super dirty.  We had a cita with Michael tonight.  He hadn't read what we left him, so I unfortunately had to burn him a bit about it.  We had a really good lesson about the restoration.  Spiritual body slam every time, guaranteed.  After I related that first vision, I asked him how he felt.  He told me, "There's a feeling you get when you find something after it being lost for a long time.  I feel that.  I feel good."  There is no sweeter sound to a missionary's ears than hearing your investigator say that.  I do like that man.  We were out contacting the rest of the night.  Lots of rejection.  I accidentally contacted a testigo (Jehovah Witness).

Tuesday
Pues (well), basically nothing went according to plan today.  Even the 12 weeks training for Elder Cabral got rescheduled.  It should have been a rather frustrating day.  It started and ended as such (Elder Cabral left the cell phone at the pensions house), but the in between bit wasn't so bad.  The citas we tried to have today were with Jeannina, Milagros (a MA de Elder Mickleson) and the Elders quorum presidency.  We did studies like normal this morning.  We had a district attack in our area today that yielded some good results.  Other than that though, I felt like I only had like 3 contacts that lasted more than a minute though.  It's hard to explain why, but I almost came to enjoy the reactions.  Like, to the point where I was laughing and whistling the I Don't Want to be a Chicken/Duck song.  Or maybe I just snapped today without realizing it and now I'm insane.  It ain't too bad being crazy, if that's what it is.  Good thing Michael's a psychologist.  Speaking of whom, we ran into him tonight.  We saw him in a shop drinking Sporade (a drink similar to Gatorade), with who turned out to be his cousin.  His cousin is pretty chill too.  We talked to then for a bit.  They've both got some pretty nice looking motorcycles.  Michael asked us, "My baptism is on the 24th, right?"  "25th," I told him.  Then he turned to his cousin and said, "Hey, I'm getting baptized in the church May 25th.  You should come."  That was pretty cool.  His cousin works on Sundays though, so we can't really do much there.  I broke my record for longest contact today.  It lasted 45 minutes.  He had a lot of really good questions about the church.  We spent a good while talking about Joseph Smith, the apostasy and other stuff.  I felt, however, in the end I shouldn't mark down a cita with him.  But we'll see if he calls us.  Since Milagros wasn't home, we just talked to the Astuhuaman's instead since she lives in the 2nd story of their house.  Elva is kinda concerned because Jean Franco and Angii have been leaving at night a lot, for more than just seminary.  Sigh, teenagers.  My earliest memory of church that I can specifically recall is walking down the isle with my mom and having her ask me when she was going to stop bringing snacks to church for me.  I told her when I was 5 (because my birthday was close).  My next memory was the week after my birthday.  I asked for snacks and she was like, "Nope.  You're 5 now."  I was disappointed, but knew I had made the terms.

Wednesday
The 1st of May is Peruvian Labor Day.  I've never seen so much alcohol and so many borachos and drinking parties before.  They were really just looking for a reason to get wasted on hump day.  There's actually a party right in front of our house right now.  There's no noise ordinance laws and Peruvians love their loud music, so trying to sleep will be an adventure.  Last night we all got a mass text from INDECI--some government organization that warns about natural disasters--about a possible earthquake during the night.  Elder Peterson and I were excited to see what an earthquake would feel like because we've never been in one before.  But nothing happened last night.  This morning Elder Cabral and I went to his 12 weeks training. 

The curse of the stake center is La Molina is a real thing; respect it and don't anger those natural forces.  We were only there for less than 4 hours, but I had to use the bathroom 4 times.  I used the bathroom before leaving the house in the morning and couldn't recall drinking anything before either.  They must have built the church on some ancient port-a-pottie burial grounds or something.  I didn't really get a whole lot out of the training probably because it wasn't meant for me.  I had to say bye to Elder Gonzales today. 

If there was on companion I wish I had 2 transfers with, it'd be him.  I love all the rest too, but he's a great missionary and we didn't get what we deserved while we were working together. All of the citas that we had planned for today fell through the cracks.  Pretty much almost 2 days of straight contacting.  The rejections were rough today.  I called Olga to see if we could visit and also to see how Dante was doing.  They're gonna wait 'til next Tuesday to see about the surgery.  The doctor said he can't touch water really, so we have to postpone the baptism.  That made me pretty frustrated.  Here's something funny that happened today though.  This group of moms walked past us with all their kids on the way home from a party or something.  I saw a balloon falling into the dirt, so I kicked it back up into he air.  It tried to hit it back to the kid, but the contact card in my had popped it accidentally.  I looked over at the 7 year old Peruvian kid who had just had his balloon popped by a gringo, probably the first he's seen.  He was there with his mouth open, accompanied by a look of shock and sadness.  We were there looking at each other for a bit and I was like, "Uh...Sorry...." and he ran back to his mom.  We weren't finding anyone, so we sat down and evaluated and determined we were doing everything right.  So I prayed and told God that and asked him to send us someone.  An hour later, Elder Cabral contacted Cynthia.

Elder Cabral at his 12 weeks training meeting.

Thursday
Elder Cabral got up at 6 and said that that party in front of our house was still going on.  Sigh, this is Peru.  Cynthia last night was pretty cool, so we took her to a park to teach her.  She looks like she is 16-18, but is actually 30.  That surprised me.  To help you get a better feel for her, I'll just say that she was born to be a librarian.  She was super open to us about all her family problems.  At the end she was just like, "Wow.  I've never told anyone these things before."  She was with two dudes, 19 and 21, that she had just barely met in the street.  That's not abnormal for missionaries.  She accepted a baptismal date for June 1.  We'll go back tomorrow morning to talk with her some more.  This morning we had a consejo de distrito.  Let me describe how it went for ya in two words: roast session.  President in his video was just like, "Here's some rules you guys have got to be better at."  We had an RM from a Bolivian mission that came to talk to us.  The zone leaders were like, "He's going to talk more about angels.  It'll be cool."  They were right; he had some cool stuff to say about angles for like 15 minutes.  I can't recall the specifics, but he transitioned into burning us for the next hour.  He burned us good and hard too.  At the end I felt like I had to talk to President even though there was absolutely nothing I needed to confess or talk to him about like that jaja.  That's just how the Bolivian missions work though.  They're super strict because I think there's a culture of laziness and disregard for rules from what I have heard.  The dude told us a story about how he literally raised a kid from the dead though.  That was pretty cool.  We went to go take money out after.  We went to go visit Jeannina today.  We always seem to wind up giving a lot of blessing whenever we go there.  We had an attack in SF as a district.  Nothing too exciting happened there.  I know my area incredibly well, and the areas of Tilda, LA and SF respectably well as well.  That's just what 4 transfers in an area can do to a man.  We went to go visit Dante.  I'm always nervous to visit him because I'm always worried he isn't reading or has lost his desires.  He's always ok though.  We're just kind of waiting this whole health complications thing out to see where it's going before we put another baptismal date on him.  We had a cita with Michael tonight.  We taught him the Word of Wisdom.  He responded well, which I'm glad for because I never know how people will respond to that.  We had a brief meeting with Luis about the Elders quorum tonight.

Friday
Elder Cabral apologized to me this morning about something he did, a nice apology.  I just looked him in the eye and made a "you mom" joke.  From the backroom Elder Peterson yelled "¡Matalo! (Beat!)  That was pretty funny.  It obviously wasn't a huge thing he was apologizing for.  I've corrupted them all though with the your mom jokes, even the Latinos, even though it's against their culture.  We had a cita with Cynthia this morning.  It went pretty well.  We had Angela Lopez and Keyla there with us.  Cynthia is a very matter-of-fact person and doesn't show a whole lot of emotion, so it's kinda hard to read her.  She seems pretty invested into the church and likes and believes what we have to say though.  It'll be cool to see how the gospel changes her.  I've read the entire Missionary Reference Library and Drawing Upon the Powers of Heaven as well, so now I'm going to read Jesus the Christ again because I liked that a lot.  Right now for my personal study, I read 30 minutes in the LDM (Spanish Book of Mormon) then 30 minutes in the New Testament.  For my language study I read Doctrine and Covenants 30 minutes in Spanish.  For lunch we had fish, rice, beans and onions with a glass of papaya juice.  We were given a lot of pudding and crackers after too.  Interesting combo.  We tried to visit Juan today, but we were only able to find Evelin.  It's hard for her right now because she's super active in the church and wants to get endowed and sealed too, but Juan is lacking.  He's being reluctant to read scriptures, and when it comes time to go to church, he isn't always really excited to go.  She kinda confirmed my fears.  It makes me sad really.  I don't know how else to help him.  I'll probably be leaving this area here soon as well.  We'll see what happens though. After that we pretty much just put our shoulder to the wheel and contacted with a heart full of song.  Elder Peterson was out contacting today and slipped on some concrete and hit his face on a pole.  He broke his glasses and got a pretty nasty cut on his eyebrow.  It's pretty funny to joke with him about it jajaja.  We had correlations tonight.  Only Mari Curi and Kathy from from SS and MMJJ respectively were there.  We were talking for a bit and then Mari Curi was like, "Elder, this ain't right.  The ward is spiraling down and the other leaders are slacking off.  You've gotta burn them."  I was just like, "Hehe.  Ok."  I let Elder Cabral direct while I put all my energies and emotions into burning the ward council.  I burned them good, real good.  Alma 5 every time.  I'm content.  On a scare from 1-10, it was a 8 or 9.

Saturday
May the 4th be with you.  Where I come from, today is a natural holiday.  All the Elders in the zone got up early to be able to play soccer from 6-7:30 AM.  We chose to go, which means that we got up at 5 this morning.  Why did I do this, you ask?  Good question, but let me respond with a better one:  Why do you even ask anymore?  I should know myself well enough by now to know that I impulsively do stuff like this sometimes.  It was a turf field though, so that was definitely a factor.  I was chosen very last.  That had never happened to me before, so that took a pretty good hit at my pride.  I was on the best team though.  We went like 40 minutes without losing at one point.  We all scored too.  I even got a header to go in.  That was pretty dope.  I slide tackled Elder Peterson and got a nice 'ole turf burn on my elbow.  Falling on a turf field is the closest thing we'll (hopefully) get to being on a giant cheese grater.  But YOLO.

Not a whole lot happened this morning.  We started fasting like normal.  I swear, the ricos helados moto girl (ice cream girl) only comes out when we fast.  Satan just doesn't play fair sometimes.  We did weekly planning after lunch.  Nothing too much happened there either.  We were reflecting on our 12 weeks together and Elder Cabral was like, "You've matured a lot since I met you."  He's right.  I showed him photos of Huaycán and he's just like, "You look younger in the photos."  He's right about that too.  We had a cita with Michael today.  It got delayed a bit because his motorcycle broke down on him while he was working.  We explained a lot more about why praying is super important.  We also taught him the law of chastity.  I didn't know why, but I felt the need to explain it in greater detail than normal.  It turns out that Michael really respects it because he can see how it could have blessed his family and prevented problems in the past and sees how it will bless his future family too.  I feel glad to leave Elder Cabral with 3 really solid investigators after not having tons of success earlier if it happens to be that I leave this transfer.  We had a district attack in our area today.  We've got some numbers to call now to see if people want us to pick them up to go to church together tomorrow.  At night, SF and us met with Hermanas Young and Memmot and their CR (investigator), who's moving over here.  We weren't sure if he was going to be in Alameda or SF, so we were jokingly fighting over him.  He's a 16 year old Venezuelan named Abraham.  Super cool kid.  We determined that he's now in Alameda.  We had a mini lesson with the Hermanas and welcomed him here.

Sunday
Well, Hermano Jesus passed away yesterday.  I was kinda shocked to hear it.  It's pretty sad really.  From what I understand, he used to be a normal dude.  But then he got sick and his body deteriorated to the point where he was like 80% paralyzed.  He couldn't really see either.  His brain still worked perfectly fine, however.  He was pretty smart.  It was an incredibly difficult circumstance.  That's how he was when I first met him.  He has spent the last 3 weeks or so in critical condition in the hospital.  So it wasn't a huge surprise when it happened, but we were both pretty sad still.  The whole ward is.  He liked talking to me and I have him a few blessings in my time here.  We had stake conference this morning.  Dante and Olga went to the stake center.  Michael had to take his brother to a soccer game and Cynthia's mom called her and she had to go to Chosica, so they weren't there.  I was kinda frustrated, but in the end, it might have been better that way.  The transmission was horrible.  At first it wasn't even working, so we went to go to see it live in Vitarte.  But hen we got a call from SF saying that they got it working.  So we went back.  It took a bit, but they got the video up, but there wasn't any sound.  we watched Hermana and President Amoto talk and I couldn't help but wonder what they were talking about.  Later some members told me that he talked about my experience with Rocky and the Book of Mormon and made the same promise to everyone and talked about the importance of the LDM.  That was a cool shout out.  We got the sound working at the end, but it was bad and I couldn't understand anything.  We ate lunch with the Villafuertes today.  They always give us a ton of food when we go there.  They're pretty chill.  We tried going to visit Dante, but they were kinda just making a bunch of excuses and putting it off.  They're older, so I couldn't really reason with them.  We were going to go to a zone attack in Santa Clara, but it got canceled so we did a district attack in Los Angeles instead.  I went with Elder Pereia.  He took a big 'ole stack of Ley de Castidad folletos (law of chastity booklets) and handed them out to everyone that had hands.  We tried going to visit Cynthia, but she was still coming back from Chosica.  I went to say bye to the Herrera's tonight.  They're cool; I'll miss them.  Today was judgement day.  Nearly 6 months later, I'm leaving and going to Manchay 2 with Elder Láinez.  It'll be interesting.  I'm basically Abraham: I must have done something right because now Elder Cabral will train a newbie.  I'm gonna be a grandpa!  I can already see that my seed will be like unto the sands of the earth.

 Lunch from last transfer.

When the Latina starts flirting with you and you remember she just wants the green card.