Elder McKay White: 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.