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.
No comments:
Post a Comment