Week 7 in Manchay

This week was incredible. It's definitely one of the best weeks I've had on the mission. It all started with the cambios (transfers). I was sitting there waiting for Elder Cordova to come in his bus and I got a phone call from a member I didn't recognize. Turns out he's leaving on his mission in October and he gave me a reference for one of his friends. He offered to come along and said that it was actually his friend that asked to meet with us.  So we went there and it turns out that that friend had another friend that he brought along.  Long story short, they've had a gang life style and were looking to leave that behind. They were super repentant and have remained so and are progressing super well. We went to go pick them up to go to church and asked if they wanted a combi or a moto because we would have to pass through their "enemy territory" I guess you could say. One of them just said, "God is with us. Let's walk. Nothing'll happen." I sure do admire that faith. That was probably one of the most exciting walks to church I've ever had though jaja. We had our heads on a swivel all the way there. So I'm super excited about those guys. We found another lady this week that's a pf. She was conviviente (cohabiting) before and for that reason couldn't get baptized. She was going every week, but then fell away a bit. But now she's not conviviendo and is super excited to get baptized. Everything is super cool in Manchay. We have a lot of really good potentials too to work with that came to church as well. Elder Cordova and I are enjoying the blessings of the Lord. Have a good week!

-Elder White

Monday
Well, my family decided to go out and get another dog last night.  They enjoyed babysitting Oakley so much that they went and got a puppy just like him.  So that's a new development.  After almost 8 years, my dad is finally leaving the deacons quorum.  He's not getting any rest though because he's going straight to the high council.  He's cool like that.  I was starting to think I might have had my kids have him as their leader when they were in deacons, if I lived in the same ward that is I guess.  I had to use the bathroom as our time in internet came to a close, but there isn't a bathroom in that one.  I didn't want to make him cut his time short talking to his family, so I held it in.  Using internet always makes me need to pee for some reason despite my best efforts to make it not that way.  We at last were going to leave, but then we realized that we were locked in.  We were the only two in there and I guess she had to step out a minute.  We kinda figured she was in the house still, so we called for her to come and knocked on the door that lead into the rest of her house.  She showed up a little more than 5 minutes later with groceries.  Good thing too because I had to go to the bathroom super bad.  We went back to the house and started to get stuff ready for cambios (transfers).  I spent 2 hours cutting the cheese, rolling it in wanton and then frying them in order to make my Peruvian take on a Venezuelan classic: tequeños.  I made enough for all of us to have 9 each.

They were pretty solid, and you know it because you could feel the grease sitting in your stomach after.  The other Elders watched Up and Tarzan while they "cleaned and packed".  The house could have been cleaner, but oh well.  I don't want to be that guy.  I took Elder Lainez tonight to finish saying goodbye to his converts here in Manchay.  He's left a pretty respectable legacy behind here.  We went and visited Nataniel.  Then from there we went to visit Andree and Angela.  We ended the convert visits with la familia Quispitupa.  To end the night, the 6 of us went to the pension and had a good dinner and cake there.  Elder Lainez dominated the lessons, so everyone was like Elder White doesn't talk much.  I can talk, but I'm not about to cut my companion off while he's talking.  The same happened with Elder Mayta.  After he left, everyone was like "Wow!  You talk a lot now versus the past."  I'm sure the same will happen here.

Tuesday
Well, we had Elder Lainez to drop off this morning.  Jose Manuel, one of his converts, came by to pick us up to take us to the stake center in La Molina.  I found out some more about Lima Tambo.  Elder Carrasco from my CCM district will be a zone leader there.  Elder Broadhead will be secretary of operations there.  Elder Hyde is in Tambo.  Elder King is going to train Elder Yañez who are both off to Tambo.  Turns out that la zona Santa Patricia is also off to Tambo.  My best friend is in that zone.  She's called the Temple of Lima.  So that's kinda unfortunate.  Turns out too that Elder Cabascango went home over the weekend, not really sure why.  The bus that I was waiting for that had Elder Cordova on it didn't come until 12:30 so that gave me plenty of time to chat it up with the other missionaries.  Elder Cabral is in Alameda still for a 4th transfer.  There's a missionary named Elder Porter.  He came up to me and was like, "Hey, you're in my stake back home!"  I was like, "I think we go further back than just that.  Who was your 6th grade teacher?"  "Powers."  "Your name's Kaden.  I was in your class."  We both didn't like our teacher.  That was cool to catch up.  He didn't really remember me, but I have knack for remembering the small things like that.  Never mind the fact that I didn't recognize the bishop's wife when we passed by the church tonight, that's not important. haha.  The dudes training had a break, so I went to talk to Elder King for a bit.  I'm sad that I have so many friends leaving.  While I was waiting, I got a phone call from an unknown number from a member I didn't know named Franchesco, who's going on a mission to Columbia in October.  He was like, "Hey, my friend wants you to come visit him.  Can you pass by at 3:00?"  I didn't know when the bus was going to arrive, so I was kinda iffy about that.  He called me a few minutes later with more info.  I asked if he'd come with us and if he had already confirmed the appointment by chance.  He told me his friend had requested that we pass by at that time.  I was like, "Well shoot.  We'll be there si o si."  We went and his friend, Luis, was waiting for us.  He told us that his other friend, Wily, was gonna be there, but he didn't wind up coming until the end of the cita.  They're both my age, but have been off drinking and doing drugs and stuff.  But now they're preparing to get baptized the 20th of July.  We found another PF named Laurdes that accepted fecha for the same day.  She's 58 and cool, but I'll tell you more about her later.

Wednesday
Elder Cardon is from Elder Cabrali's group, so he's kinda new still.  He's from Ecuador and is a cool guy.  His older siblings have all served or are serving missions.  For some reason I don't understand his Spanish super well, which is kinda odd since I haven't had that problem since my training.  I think it'll just take a few more days to get used to his accent.  We had consejo de distrito this morning.  Literally half of the zone is new.  We were presenting ourselves to everyone and it turns out that Hermana Lester and I have the same birthday, same year: August 10 of '99.  What can I say?  It's a great day to be born.  The only other person I've ever met with my same birthday was a kid in my 6th grade class named Jordan Chapman (Elder Porter told me that he's in Argentina right now).  Conserjo was pretty bomb this morning.  We had a blind taste test with 7 Peruvian candies with a few American ones mixed in.  I am proud to announce that I was the only one to get 7/7.  I know what I'm about son.  As a reward I got a can of Pringles and  Chocoman bar.  The idea was that we have to pay close attention to our feelings when working with people.  Elder Arteaga was Elder Cordova's first trainer.  He was telling me that a gringo had gotten a package and was tossing out candy and in the mix threw a bottle of play dough and was like, "Que extraño este dulce (How strange is this candy)," but ate it all because he figured it was just a weird American thing.  The next day he saw Elder Nye playing with play dough and was like, "Por que estas jugande can ese dulce? (Why are you playing with that candy?)"  They were like"¿?" and explained play dough wasn't to eat.  Then Elder Arteaga said, "Ah, entonces eso es porque me delia el estromago ayer. (Then that is why I had a stomach ache yesterday.)"  They got a good laugh out of that.  We went to visit Anabel today.  She had fallen asleep when we tried to visit her yesterday.  The cita went really well, but Illary was all over the place and even sorta broke my bottle.  So afterwards I went to the sol store (like a dollar store) where I bought a light up American batarang fidget spinner and bought her a cool toy car for next time.  Jeorge has his court hearing on Tuesday, so we stopped by to get him spiritually prepped.  He can't afford a lawyer and Peru doesn't have American laws, so that worries me a bit.  We went to go visit Elena and her family tonight.  I don't remember if I explained before, but basically Angela went to the doctor and they found a lump in her breast.  I'm pretty sure that means it's cancer.  They were gonna do an apollada domingo (fundraiser Sunday) to raise money, so we taught the Sabbath Day real good and they'll do it Saturday now.  Elena told Elder Lainez about the problem, but I don't think they know I know the details.

Thursday
Here's something interesting that happened tonight: I had to teach my comp how to make Anj-no-men (Top Ramen).  I never thought I'd have to teach another dude my age how to make those.  I got a call yesterday to tell me to go to the office, so we went there this morning.  We may or may not have gotten off at the wrong stop 3 miles away from where we needed to be.  I was only just a little lost though.  But I could see the temple, so in a way I was only half lost half the time.  I had to sign a paper when I got there to renew my extranjero (foreign) status for another year in Peru.  Last night at 11:45, we were up talking and all of the sudden there was an earthquake.  It was barely strong enough to feel--you could really just hear it.  We went to go have a cita with Luis and Wily today.  They did their homework.  I was impressed.  They seem to have legit interest.  They haven't left with their friends to drink or anything since Saturday.  We were talking about plans to take them to church and they told us that they can't go into portada 2 to get there.  We were like, "Ok, we can go around, buy why?"  Let me explain to you what I've learned from them, other Elders and a contact Elder Cordova made. La U and La Alianza are the two major soccer teams here and they're hard core rivals. Portada 3 (where they live) are all Alianza fans, while everyone else pretty much likes La U since we're in their territory.  As it turns out, it's pretty much la ley en (the law in) Portada 3 to like Alianza.  If you say you don't like them or that you like La U, there's a very serious chance of being beaten.  It goes both ways too.  These aren't fans, they're straight up gangs.  They break bones, heads, stab people, etc.  If they see an opposing "fan" trespass, they'll stop whatever they're doing even subir/bajar a combi to get a good beating in.  Luis and Wily want out, and I'm gonna help them.  #YOLO #Thuglife.  We had a little citas with Lourdes tonight.  I was a little disappointed she didn't read the folleto all the way through, but the cita went well enough.  She has, after all, received the missionaries for 5 years.  She couldn't get baptized before because she was conviviendo (cohabiting).  But now, her husband lives at his pig farm.  He comes every day at 5 AM to eat breakfast and then leaves.  She's determined to keep the law of chastity and even told her husband that if ever wants to come back, they need to get married first.  Then we went to go visit a super cool contact named Lucia.  It was easily the coldest day of the year and she was waiting for us out in a t-shirt.  She lives in Huertul though I guess and her husband wasn't home, so we just passed the reference.

Friday
Rejection is part of being a missionary.  It takes on a variety of forms: funny, sad, frustrating, confusing, etc.  The other day I was contacting in the park.  We were about to leave but then I saw an ambulante selling nuts and stuff and decided to contact him.  He asked what church we were from, so I told him.  Then he asked him we worshiped the Virgin Mary and I was like, "Nope." Then he emphatically told me, "Then you're lost!  How can you believe in Jesus and not his mother?  How can he be holy?"  The dude was telling me I was lost like he was Obi-Wan and I was Anakin.  We had a weekly planning session this morning.  Our schedule got mixed up a bit today, but it wound up working out.  We went to go visit Juana today.  She had told us before that she didn't really feel super rushed to get married, so we taught marriage in the temple and exaltation and family real good because Elder Lainez and I both thought she didn't really understand that all that well.  In the end, we made her cray a little.  She had a pareja (like a husband) before that she never told me about that ended super badly.  So she's looking for someone she said, but not super actively and she's being careful.  Juana is super cool.  Then we had a cita with Annabel.  That cita was kinda delayed because she had to go stay with her mom a while since she's sick.  We taught some mandamientos (commandments) though and she was super down to obedecer (obey).  The lady at the panaderia (bakery) is super cool.  We passed by yesterday and I asked if she had any collection coins.  She told me she'd trade me a tumi.  So we went by and she traded us both 2 tumis.  That was pretty hype.  We went to go visit Fabio, but we had to share somethings super short because we didn't have a lot of time.  Everything seems to be Gucci with them.  It was Freddy Junior's birthday today and Elena invited us to stop by.  We got there though and they were like, "Sorry guys, there's not cake."  Freddy Sr. still hadn't gotten home from work.  We sat down and talked with them.  Freddy apparently has a history of beating his family.  Not all the time, but enough to be a problem.  We had been talking to Elena about getting married to him the other night and trying to brainstorm how to get it to happen.  Now there's talk and threats of divorce.  It's hard for me to see a family I love in a position like this, especially with Angela's condition.  I just hope God shows us a way to help them.

Saturday
We got up early this morning to play soccer at the church.  Standing in at 193 cm and weighing in at 92ish (maybe) kilograms, the last pick of the past 4 MLS (Missionary League Soccer) drafts, I present to you: Elder White!  Yeah, I'm not super sure why I'm always dead last in choosing teams.  I mean, it doesn't seem like I'd know how to play soccer, but I'm not half bad really.  I led both teams in goals by double the next highest scorer; I had 6.  They were all pretty dope too, if I say so myself.  I even pulled off a rainbow kick.  Maybe someday my draft position will catch up to my level of pride hehe.  They apollada for Angela was today.  Elder Cordova and I tried to visit Roly, but he was a no show, so we went straight to Elena's to pick up a dish for each of the 4 of us.  While we were waiting for ours, Elana's mom brought us each one to eat.  That was some dang good chicken.  I'll have to get the recipe for that one.  I'm typically not the biggest fan of chicken because I don't think it has a lot of natural flavor--it's like a blank pallet.  But every once in a while, I get blown away.  Elder Cordova and I decided to fast once a week.  Elder Lainez was afraid of fasting.  He liked food a little too much hahahaha.  It's pretty cold most of the time now, so you don't feel quite as much of a need to drink water.  We went to go visit Luis and Wily today.  They read what we left them, but they're not the smartest people in the world, so they don't have a super high retention.  But they are able to recognize the spirit while reading, so that's good, all that matters really.  Luis had a lot of questions about the after life so we taught The Plan of Salvation.  We had some good time for contacting.  We went to go look for a girl we had contacted.  We weren't finding her and Elder Cordova stopped to ask a lady for directions and instead found another person that was set on coming to church.  We went to go visit the Quispitupa family real quick tonight.  We keep hoping.  At the end of the night, we were asked by a member named Angelina to bless her home and her baby (who was sick).  Her brother, Angelo, served in Elder Cordova's ward.  Angelo said he knew the lady that gave us directions.  Sometimes God make you set up a cita with someone just so that you can meet someone else.

Sunday
This morning was a roller coaster.  We were getting ready to go and I got a call from Anabel's uncle.  He was like, "Hey, I know that you guys were going to come pick up my niece and all, but I just got called into work and my nephew has a thing in his colegio so she can't go."  So I was like, "So she can't go because your son has an activity at his school?"  "Yeah...but she can't go.  But next week she'll take my son with her to church."  The contact that Elder Cordova made earlier in the week was from the same "fan group".  When he told him that Wily and Luis were going to church, he said, "I know them.  They wouldn't.  It's too dangerous."  For that reason I was a little worried when I called Wily and Luis.  Wily didn't answer and Luis told me he had to go to a family meeting.  I told him back, "Look, we're going to be at Wily's at 9:45 to pick you both up.  Call me if anything changes."  Lourdes seemed pretty unsure about coming today.  She put the excuse about having to help her uncle pack to leave when we passed  by last night.  So it was looking like we'd only have Fabio there today.  While we were in consejo de barrio, we got 2 missed phone calls from Luis.  I called him back and he told me that he was going to come to church.  I never asked about his family meeting.  We went to Wily's house and he answered the door.  He works from 7 PM-7 AM as a security guard in Musa.  He had only gotten an hour long nap in, but was ready to go and didn't fall asleep later or even acknowledge it if he was tired.  Luis came a minute later and we walked down to the main road.  I asked them if we were taking a combi or what, and Luis told me, "Estamos con Dios.  Vamos a caminar.  No va a pasar nada.  (We're with God.  Nothing is going to happen.  Let's walk.)"  I sure do admire that faith.  That was one of the most exciting walks to church I think I'll ever have.  As we were walking along, Luis showed me where all the people he has beef with hang out.  Elder Cordova and my heads were on a constant swivel.  He kept asking me what would happen if we got jumped and the best I could tell him was that nothing would happen because God was protecting us.  We got there safe and sound and put them with Francesco.  They loved church.  Luis always says he doesn't have words when we ask how he feels about baptism.  As sacrament meeting ended, Lourdes said hi to us as she walked out.  I guess she snuck in somehow.  That lady from yesterday, Gloria, came with her daughters.  We had a zone attack in Huertos today.  Then we took Wilber to visit Fabio and set up the baptism.  The zone leaders had an investigator come from Callao (about 3 hours) for sacrament meeting and then go back after.  All in all, this week was super dope.

Photos in the dark:

Week 6 in Manchay

Cambios Han Venido (Changes Have Come)

This week was pretty awesome, and it was ended by cambios (transfers). Elder Lainez will be leaving and Elder Cordova will be coming here with me. I have enjoyed my time with Elder Lainez. We have been able to work hard and have success together. I'm excited to be receiving Elder Cordova. I have high expectations for this next transfer. We had the chance to pick up a new investigator this week that's really cool named Anabel. She's super excited about church and loved her experience there yesterday despite her 18 month old running around everywhere. Life's pretty cool here in Manchay. I don't really have a whole lot to say this week. I'll see ya'll next week! Take care!

-Elder White

Monday

Today was P-day.  I didn't have a whole lot to do during internet today because my family was coming back from Lake Powell.  It's kinda unfortunate having them go on vacation without me.  I don't get vacations.  Instead I work every day of the week, usually somewhere around 63 hours or so in the street I'd say.  That's a long time.  It's ok though.  I'm happy.  It's kinda crazy because missionaries are probably some of the hardest working people in the world, but they're also some of the happiest people in the world.  #Yeet.  We had some pretty bomb fried chicken (polo broaster) for lunch today.  It was only mildly questionable since I found some mysterious organs inside it.  We got together as a zone for p-day.  We played soccer for a bit.  #lastpick.  But I was the Isaiah Thomas of the match; this last pick got 3 goals in that time and even more assists.  When the Hermanas arrived we played 3 way sports.  I'm pretty good at that.  My team won.  We watched The Lion King afterwards.  When that was over, Elder Lainez and I went back to the room to clean.  The zone leaders came an hour after us.  I was pretty frustrated about that since I've been cleaning up after them all transfer.  I was planning on burning them hard.  Not in a prideful nor malicious way, but enough to give them shame if they ever didn't wash their dish again.  But instead, it left as a "Hey we've been cleaning for the last hour, and you guys haven't been a huge help with cleaning this transfer.  Can you be better please?"  I feel like that's usually how that sort of thing works out for me: you plan on going big, but then it's small.  We went out and contacted the night away.  I felt pretty productive, so let's see if any of the citas we set up work out.  I was pondering on how to help a person overcome temptation/addiction and I remembered that one time I went on a shark dive with my dad in Honduras.  All my life I've watched shows and had heard about sharks, so I knew they had the potential to be dangerous.  Before getting in the water, they told us, "Whatever you do, don't touch the sharks."  I was like, "Well duh."  We got down on the ocean floor though and there were like 20 sharks all around us.  They appeared to be so magnificent and peaceful.  They were swimming super close to us too, I wouldn't have even needed to fully extend my arm to do so.  I found myself extremely tempted, despite all my life experience.  Then the guide opened a bucket of fish and those previously peaceful sharks turned ravenous.  I collected a tooth I saw fall from one of them to help me remember.  If the sharks are that temptation, I should have never gotten in the water if I really wanted to guarantee I wouldn't touch them.

Tuesday

We had our last consejo (council) of the transfer today.  Elder Lainez and I were in charge of the training.  We totally winged it and I don't think it turned out too horribly.  Lunch was pretty good today--we had beef, potatoes and rice.  The thing that made it though was that the green sauce tasted kinda like the mild sauce of Cafe Rio.  I miss that stuff.  Remember that time yesterday that I said we had some good citas lined up for today?  Yeah, well, we didn't really wind up with any citas today.  That kinda stunk.  But hey, we had a lot of time to schedule some cool citas for tomorrow!  I called Isabel today to see if we could pass by and also to see why she didn't make it to church on Sunday.  Geez, Satan launched a full-on frontal assault against her.  Here's what she told me: the owner called her Saturday and told her that she was booting her out and had to leave Sunday, and she didn't tell her why.  Isabel lives in a big apartment building on the 3rd floor where everyone rents tiny, cheap rooms.  Isabel had never broken any rules nor had received any warnings.  She tried to meet with the Dueña (owner) day Saturday, but the Dueña didn't get home until Sunday.  The first time she was able to talk to the owner was during church hours.  The Dueña explained that it was because Isabel had been receiving strange visitors recently.  Her daughter-in-law is staying with them because her 5 year old grandson is sick.  Her son passes by maybe every 3rd day because of how much he's working.  Her neighbors complained about that, but mostly about us.  The neighbors lied a lot about everyone by the sound of it.  Isabel explained that we pass by for 20 minutes to share the gospel then leave directly.  Then dueña didn't really care that much, but did gave her until the end of June.  Isabel said she'd still come to church on Sunday though.  She's lost almost everything, well, a lot at least.  She's had some serious difficulties in life.  She just needs to get baptized already.  The bishop invited us over to eat Dominoes with his family so that was awesome at least.

Wednesday

We got up early this morning and met up as a district at the church to have breakfast together.  Yesterday they were asking what we'd all bring and I volunteered to do French Toast.  I surprised myself when I said that.  Have I ever made that before?  Nope.  Did I have any idea whatsoever I was doing?  Not really.  Did anyone die as a direct result of my French Toast?  Yes.  Just kidding, no one has, not yet at least....  Breakfast was really tasty and really fun.  We went out this morning and a few minutes passed and Manchas the dog ran passed us without noticing.  But then Elder Lainez called out to him we got him and his henchwoman, as it turns out, following us 'til lunch.  Our cell phone was kinda crap today.  It couldn't make nor receive calls for 90% of the day.  There were some exciting 5 minute bursts through the day where we could get a call or two in.  Hopefully it'll behave itself better tomorrow.  We got some good contacting in and visited a convert or two.  I had to go to the bathroom, so we went to one of our designated spots.  On our way there, we ran into a contact I had made that seemed cool, but wasn't home when we had planned to visit her.  We taught her a lesson right there at the base of the staircase leading up the mountain.  She seemed distracted, but it was probably because her 1 year old was all over the place.  So we'll see what happens next time.  Yesterday Elder Lainez ran into an antiguo investigator who almost got baptized, but said he didn't because the area got white washed and the new Elders never went to go visit him.  So we went to go visit him tonight.  He was pretty chill and dispuesto to ser bautizado (willing to be baptized), if you know what I mean.  His name is Angelo and he's 19.  When we got back to the room later at night Elder Lainez found Angelo's baptismal records.  That was awkward.  We decided to go visit Andree and Angela.  On the way to their house, Elder Lainez talked to a lady who told him that her 27 year old handicapped daughter was on the point of death, so we passed by to give her a blessing.  I have never seen someone so skinny in my entire life.  It was like a photo of someone that starved during the Holocaust, but even skinnier.  That was sad to see.  When we got to Angela's, I noticed that their dog was dead.  He was 14 years old.  We had to break the news to them so that was unfortunate.  Freddy was in denial for a while that it was dead and Angela said she had seen it running around a couple of hours before.  They were all pretty sad.  But we shared a good message with them and then they invited us to stay for dinner.

Thursday

Last night we were talking to Angela and she mentioned to us that she always takes her Book of Mormon to school with her every day.  I thought that was super awesome and was like, "I never did that."  Elder Lainez added, "Yeah, my school was far away and I always had a ton of books to carry."  Angela responded, "Siempre hay espacio para un Libro de Mormon.  (There's always room for a Book of Mormon.)"  That really stuck with me.  She's got an hour trek to go to La Molina, including that huge hill walking a distance and taking a combi.  No matter how busy or tired or whatever we are, we always have the time and ability to read the Book of Mormon everyday.  If we don't it's because we haven't made doing so a high enough priority in our lives and we need to fix that.  We were informed this morning that there will be another mass wedding here July 20.  That gets us hyped, so we tell everyone that's not married about it.  We had a pretty solid work day for us.  We started out by visiting a contact named Anabel.  She's 19 with an 18 month old girl with a bad skin condition.  She's been humbled to say the least.  She was super escogido and accepted a baptismal date readily.  That was a cool cita.  We had some great time to dedicate to contacting today.  We stopped by to visit a recent convert named Daniela.  She has a big Peruvian dog that was super hyperactive.  Her 8 year old brother was with two of his friends and the dog wouldn't stop aggressively playing with one of them.  He kept on jumping up on him so that they were face to face and nipping at his hands.  They couldn't escape it.  And the dog's name?  Beelzebub.  I think that's super funny.  At night we stopped by both Nataniel's and Fabio's to see how they're doing and to share a brief message with them.  There was a huge festival tonight at one of the local schools because it was its anniversary.  There was a huge parade with all the students holding strange plastic piñatas with lights on the inside.  They had them of stars, animals, hearts, etc.  They even had a fake giant cake and Chinese dragons.  There was this super nice family that gave me a bag of oranges from their food cart while I was working.  I got home and went to share and Elder Clark told me that I shouldn't eat fruit from strangers because apparently there's some people that inject fruit with AIDS before giving it to missionaries.  So even though I know it's safe since its from their cart, I'm too paranoid to eat it now. 

Friday

We held a weekly planning session this morning, possibly the last of my time with Elder Lainez.  This has been the fastest 6 weeks of my life.  I feel like I've only been here for like a week.  Where did the time go?  I've got no idea.  But YOLO I guess.  I got Elder Tigse to buy some fingerless gloves for me at a shop in his area.  They're cool because now I feel like a biker.  Just kidding.  I probably look like a chump, especially since I forgot to bring a sweater.  Fech man, it was the wrong night to forget your sweater.  Elder Clark threw up pretty good this morning.  It wasn't my AIDS orange, so I don't know what it was.  First thing after lunch, we went to go visit Anabel.  This lady is escogidasa.  She explained how she likes to have the TV on when she's doing stuff and how she always listens to music as she reads.  Then she related how she started to read, but felt weird reading the pamphlet with that stuff on so she turned them off.  The more she read, the more she liked it and felt the spirit.  She believed everything she read and was excited to talk about Joseph Smith.  So that cita went super well.  She started feeding her baby though right as I went to talk about Joseph Smith.  That still gets super uncomfortable, but it's normal in Peru, so you've just gotta keep teaching.  Elder Lainez just kept his eyes on me and I practiced my staring contest ability, not moving my eyes in the process.  On a slightly different note, I've noticed recently that I'm pretty good at staring contest.  I think the humidity might just help me keep my eyes open longer though.  We had the ex-bishop, Jhon Ramierez, accompany us to go try and visit Andrea (the friend of a member and has been to church a few times) but that cita didn't really work out and la familia Quispitupa.  The first time I talked to him, he was like, "La familia Villafuerte manda saludos. (The Villafuerte family sends their regards.)"  I was like, "Whah, how do you know them?"  He reminded me that he was there one of the times that I went to eat lunch with the Villafuerte family.  When I went to leave that day, he told me that my next area would be Manchay.  Welp, he wasn't wrong.  We ended the night by visiting Angelo.  It was just a straight 30 minutes of me burning him.  He didn't read the pamphlet despite us reminding him.  We were talking and he asked if we kept registers at the house.  "Yup."  "Do you have any of me?"  "Yup."  "Like baptismal registers?"  "You mean the one that says you were baptized January 27, 2018 by Elder Lopez?"  So I burned him for lying to us.  I still don't know why he'd do that.  I bought a salchi pollo for dinner only to come back and found out the ward made us dinner.  That was a pleasant surprise.

Saturday

Well, today was a little bit longer of a day.  We didn't have any citas planned for today, so that means that we had plenty of time to contact today.  There's always a thing or two to see when you're in the streets of Peru all day.  We were walking along the street after lunch and all the sudden heard a bunch of shouting inside la Posta, which is like the clinic of Manchay.  We were like, "Oh no!  What the heck is...Oh yeah."  It was at that point that we remembered that Peru was playing against Venezuela in Copa America.  That was pretty funny.  When Peru is playing, there's very few people in the street.  And you always know when something important happens because everyone in the city starts yelling all at the same time.  We were in one part contacting and Elder Lainez told me that he had to use the bathroom.  I told him to hold it a minute and we kept contacting.  It was at that point that we met a dude that had a 1 1/2 month old baby goat.  It behaved just like a dog.  Not gonna lie, it made me hard-core want a baby goat.  I was scratching its head and the little goat started sucking on my fingers.  I guess you could say that it's a chupacabra. hahaha  Moral of the story?  Always hold it in just little longer because you might get to meet an awesome baby goat and miss out on a life changing experience if you don't.  I got to be pretty exhausted as the day wore on.  We ended the night well though.  The 4 of us had a dinner cita with Klesy and Mariela.  Elder Lainez and I went to the capilla just a little early so that I could use the bathroom, but we ran into a big young women's activity.  They gave us both an amazing slice of cake, so that was awesome.  In case you're curious, Peru tied against Venezuela 0-0, which is why I don't like soccer.  But the dinner was great!  We had some pollo de la brasa and talked.  We were about to leave and they were like, "Wait!  Gifts!"  I figured it was just something for Elder Kimball and maybe Elder Lainez too since they're both leaving, but they gave us each a gift!  We each got a Peru soccer jersey, a scarf and a beanie.  Elder Kimball got a tie instead of a beanie.  Those were some pretty hype gifts.  I love getting presents from people that I barely know!  I just want to say that I love reading the scriptures.  My favorite time of the day is always my personal study time.  My testimony of the Book of Mormon is continually growing, and it won't ever stop growing.  I know it's true and that it was written by God through his holy prophets.

Sunday

Today t'was judgement day, and boy oh boy were these combios (transfers) interesting.  Elder Lainez is leaving to go to El Agustino.  I will be receiving Elder Cordova who was Elder Jensen's companion in Jicamurca.  (Elder Jensen was here in Manchay 2 before me.)  The zone leaders are both staying put.  Other notable changes are that the assistants are taking over the area of the offices and will be in our zone now, so that'll be hype.  They're white washing an area.  There's some interesting stuff brewing.  I wonder what happened in other zones.  Elder Winder went to Surco, so that basically means he'll be an assistant in Tambo.  It's time to get geared up for a great cambio in Manchay 2.  I'm sure Elder Cordova will be amazing, but it'd be cool to have a gringo companion someday.  All I can say is that with 3 gringos the 4th of July is gonna be lit.  Literally.  We have to wear suits all the time now, basically every official reunion of the church ever, so that's kinda sad.  Ever since Elder Topam came a couple of weeks ago, President announced that the area restricted using backpacks.  So life in the fashion sense has been kinda low recently.  I'm the only one that really consistently cleans the room.  The trash was full, so I waited a day or two to see if someone would take it out.  This morning, I was like, "Guys, we gotta take out the trash."  So we went over there and upon further inspection discovered about 30 maggots crawling around.  I went on a maggot killing spree.  That was nasty.  I figured out that flies are a winter problem.  I'm harnessing my Latino ability and only kill them by throwing my chanclas (flip flops).  Gotta practice for when I have kids haha.  Isabel didn't come to church.  I'm kinda frustrated because it's like she got salty and left before even receiving her food because it was a little pricey.  I've got this special dish called "baptism" waiting for her and she doesn't want it.  Roly, Katia and Nohjer came though, so that was a weird surprise.  Fabio and Anabel came today.  Anabel brought her 18 month old, Illary.  She was all over the place.  We had our entire bench dedicated to trying to keep her calmer.  I was worried that Anabel wouldn't enjoy church too much because of that, but she told us that she loved it!  Today is Father's Day, so I called the family so that they could congratulate me since I'm a future father, and also to say the same to my dad.  I figured Elder Laniez would leave, so we went around and started visiting all his converts one last time.

 The pancake burrito that I made.

I miss doing math.  So I decided to do some.
 

Pictures of our zone:

Week 5 in Manchay

Nataniel, Multi Zones and Miracles

I really enjoyed the multi zone this week. If I were to summarize what I learned in a phrase, I'd say "Faith is Obedience". The more I got thinking on it, the more I realized how similar they both are. Usually we don't receive blessings until after we are obedient to the point where our faith is tried. There are three examples of this in the scriptures that I love. The first is the story of Abraham, a story we all love and study. In Alma 26:27 it describes how the sons of Mosiah were at the point where they had had enough and were about to turn back, when at that moment, the lord came and comforted them and gave them instructions. The third example is in Joshua 3. I like this story a lot because not everyone knows it. The children of Israel needed to cross the Jordan river. Joshua said that the lord would part the river. But the thing is, the lord didn't part the river until all of the priests that were carrying the ark were in the water, then they crossed on dry ground. A lot of times the Lord doesn't bless us until we have shown that we are willing to go all in. I feel like this really encouraged me to give my all as a missionary, because only when I've done everything I possibly can is when all the great blessings the Lord has for me will come. This week was kinda rough in the way where we were having a lot of great success and had 10 investigators, but it ended with only 1 investigator on Sunday. That was kinda rough. We did have the baptism of Nataniel though.  I would have been discouraged, but then I remembered something that Elder Cabral told me during the multi zone. He told me that Laura, a contact we did one lesson with back at the beginning of March, got baptized the other week. I was pretty surprised. I remember that lesson quite well. It was the craziest circumstance. This lady was living with her boyfriend. They had two kids, one was 4 and the other was like 6 months. Her husband wasn't home a whole lot and their relationship wasn't super strong. Then she found out that he was cheating on her and got the other lady pregnant. So she was kind of a mess and all I could think was, "They did NOT teach me how to handle this when I was in the MTC." It was a complicated lesson, but we wound up mostly explaining the first half of the Plan of Salvation I think. But she didn't come to church or show up to appointments, so we just kinda left her. I thought at that time that it was a bit of a waste of time. Then fast forward a few months and her husband totally ditches her. She didn't know what to do, but the first thing she remembered was Elder Cabral and I, so she went to church on her own that week to look for us. She saw Elder Cabral, took the lessons and then got baptized. What an amazing miracle. It really goes to show that any good act we do isn't wasted, even if we can't see an immediate fruit of our labors. In the end, we will be remembered when it really matters. And then that person will be able to have the blessings of heaven. Yeah, so, that was my week for me. Take care and see you later!

-Elder White

Monday
My cooking powers are ever expanding.  My new self proclaimed title is Elder "The Chef" White.  I made myself mountain man breakfast this morning, but bigger and better.  This time I sauteed those onions and added hot dog and bell pepper.  (See previous post.) Dang good.  On Friday night, I bought a burger.  It was one of the best burgers I've had in my entire life.  (But maybe my memory is just fading.)  So tonight I was inspired to make pineapple cheese burgers.

That was pretty good.  I have now decided that pineapple is a must have on a hamburger.  Tomorrow I'll add egg and ham too.  I got Josh to send me the videos where I jumped into the school lockers sideways back in November 2017.  Why?  Because it's kinda funny, but mostly because I had a beard.  Dang man, I look good with a beard.  I was planning on waiting until after my homecoming talk, but now I'm thinking it's coming in the day I get released.  We're all hyped for that.  I called home today to say hi to everyone.  Elder Lainez likes taking long sessions of internet.  I mean that's fine and all, but I run out of things to do after a while.  After internet we went and got choufa.  Then we came back to the room and watched Tarzan and then The Lion King.  That was a fun movie marathon.  While we were watching, I stitched up my book since it was falling apart.  I sorta destroyed my fingernail doing so.  Tonight didn't exactly go as planned.  Our 2 citas got canceled.  When we went to go eat with Elena and her family, she was working and only Andree and Angela were home.  So we shared a message with them.  We had time to go visit Nataniel and do the pre entrevista (pre baptismal interview) though.  While we were in the street, we ran into a member.  Her 8 year old daughter liked my Peru soccer jersey pendent on my side bag, so I was like, "It's stuck there.  Too bad you don't have scissors."  But then she took safety scissors out of her bad and handed them to me.  I put my finger in them and said, "Look, they don't work."  She took them back and tried cutting her finger.  "No!  Don't do that!"  Her mom thought it was funny though.  It was funny really.  We ran into a member who just moved here form La Molina Vieja ward named Claudo.  Saturday night, I got a call from a MA and he told me he'd go to church.  After not coming to church yesterday, he called us drunk.

Tuesday
Today was a good day.  A busy day.  Let me tell ya about it.  It all started out with a consejo de distrito, but that was really just mass interviews with the zone leaders and district leaders.  I'd say that every aspect of my life as a missionary right now is great, so my interview was pretty short.  We had citas lined up every hour on the hour from 3-9 today, so that made things mildly hectic.  We got a late start because we weren't able to eat lunch until 2:25, so we were a half hour behind most of the day, which doesn't help my stress levels.  I didn't get that stressed though; that's the cool part about Jesus and the gospel.  We were incredibly blessed by God today.  We started by visiting Milagros and Isabel.  They're doing well, but they don't want to commit to anything until they fell like they know the church better.  After that we visited Jose Carlos, a 16 year old boy who's the only one in his family who's not a member.  He agreed to get baptized the 29 of June!  He's kind of a rebel and gangster, but he's seemed to have leveled out a bit.  Then we went to visit Rolando, a contact I made.  He was pretty cool.  We started talking about baptism and he mentioned that he participated in and was baptized in a Christian church when he was a teen (he's 26).  I was worried what he'd say since the only thing wrong with their baptism is the lack of priesthood.  But when we extended that invitation, he readily accepted it without any doubts and will get baptized this 6th of July to grow closer to God once more.  His mom is Catholic, but she was down for us to visit him and even brought us lemonade.  From there, we went and visited the Elder's old house (they moved a week before I arrived) since the dueña (owner) came to church on Sunday.  Long story short, her whole family's Adventist and she was only there because she's the care taker of an older member.  Then we went to go visit Roly and Katia.  Katia is pretty hesitant about baptism still, but Roly was down.  His son (7 going on 8), Nojher agreed to get baptized that same day.  We went to go visit Fabio.  My man gave us an in-depth analysis on 2 Nephi 2.  His mom didn't help him.  The dude's 9.  Needless to say, he's progressing really well.  We went to go visit Juliana after.  We met her because she dropped her phone without noticing and then she cried in the contact.  We had an awesome lesson.  Here's a summarized version of what happened after asking if she'd get baptized July 6th:  "What time?"  "Uh...probably 6."  "Ok that'll work in the evening because my daughter's sick so I gotta take her to the doctor  during the day on Thursday."  "....we mean July 6th, not June 6th."  "Oh yeah that'll work great!"  She was so awesome that she was down to get baptized on a 2 day notice.  Cool beans.

Wednesday
This morning a bunch of missionaries got together to go play sports at estaca (Stake Center) La Molina at 6:00 AM.  That was cool beans.  That building is the only chapel in Peru, that I know of, that has an indoor basketball court.  There were a bunch of guys out playing soccer, but 6 of us gringos playing ball.  It was my second time playing an actual pick up game in the last year.  I was a little rusty, but not horrible.  I only missed about a little more than half of my layups.  Hahaha maybe not that many, but still.  What I wouldn't give to have an hour alone for a shoot around in a gym.  Playing was fun, but it made me miss all my friends I always played with at school and on Jr. Jazz.  We contacted a lot today.  It was kinda hard though because I was pretty tired and couldn't seem to find my animos (encouragement), even after eating an ice cream bar.  The morning wasn't as hard as the afternoon though.  While we were out in the morning, the dog of the owners at the old house, Manchas, found us.  He knows Elder Lainez, so he was happy to see him.  A little too happy.  Manchas and one of his henchmen followed us around for over an hour.  No matter how far we got from his home or how evasive our maneuvers became, he still followed us.  We finally hopped on a bus when he wasn't looking so that we could go to lunch.  Luckily he didn't see us or follow the bus, because yesterday a dog saw its owner get in our combi and followed us for over a mile trying to get in before Elder Lainez and I got off.  That was funny.  We had another cita with Rolando today.  He's a cool dude.  He never doubts anything that we tell him.  His trust and confidence--his faith--in what we teach him is incredible.  Even in his prayer he acknowledged that he wasn't 100% confident and was nervous, but prayed for comfort and greater faith.  The only downside is that he only read a part of the pamphlet we gave him.  But other than that, what a guy.  We went to go visit the Quispitupa family real quick tonight to see how they were doing.  Natanel had her baptismal interview tonight and she got all passed off and is ready to go for Saturday.  La Copa America started and Peru played against Costa Rica tonight.  That means that the streets got to be pretty empty.  We were walking along and heard the whole city go, "Yes.  Yes!  YES!" and then a whole lot of cheering.  The whole country was watching that game.  Last I heard the score was Peru 1, Costa Rica 0.

Thursday
Life's pretty Gucci right now.  I get to go walk around preaching the gospel all day long.  Then at night I make myself a 5 star dinner, and a 5 star breakfast in the morning.  This morning I made pancakes (with milk this time) and borrowed some homemade syrup from the zone leaders.  Starting 4 days ago, I have to grill my gourmet burgers 8 days in a row because that's how long they have to last.  I ain't arguing though.  I think that's how eating works as an adult: buy some food and then hurry and eat it before it expires.  I have realized though, however, that cambios (transfers) are coming soon and that Elder Kimball will probably be leaving.  And his electric stove with him.  A single tear fell when I realized that.  We did weekly planning this morning.  Elder Lainez has been a great companion for me.  Literally the biggest problem for me is that he doesn't like Star Wars, which is a pretty big problem actually.  But he doesn't hate on it, so I'm over it.  We went to go visit Isabel and Milagros today.  Isabel is one of those people that feels like they need to know the church in and out before getting baptized.  That's not how it works.  #Mosiah18:8-10.  We talked to her a bit and I think that helped a little, but there's still some work to be done.  Then we went to go visit Jose Carlos.  That lesson went well and his desires seem to be legit.  #2Nephi31:5-11.  Once of the bishopric counselors, Juan Luis, usually doesn't talk to us a whole lot. But then last night he offered to accompany us out of the blue, so that was cool.  His mom gives us food every time she sees us walking past her store.  We took him and went to visit Katia and Roly, but Roly was at work still so we just met with Katia and Nojher.  Katia is a more extreme version of Isabel.  She says that she needs a lot more time to think about it, but part of my suspects that she's just not ready to abandon bad habits #Alma7:14-15 #3Nephi7:24.  We couldn't get her to understand the importance of baptism.  But what can ya do other than tell 'em to come to church?  The other citas we had scheduled didn't really work out.  It was a pretty cold day.  I got thinking recently all of these optimists always tell you to keep your head up.  My advice to you?  Don't .  There's money on the ground.  I've found probably 357 soles on the ground since I arrived in Peru.  Those optimists just don't want to let you in on the secret because they don't want to share.  Instead, keep your head at a 45˚ angle down so that you can see if there's someone you need to say hi to and look for money at the same time.

Friday
We had a multi zone this morning.  Vitarte was there, so I got to see Elder Cabral and his trainee Elder Ramey.  Alameda is doing ok by the sounds of it.  There was a cita we had a while back with a lady named Laura with her convivient pareja (husband) cheating on her.  She dropped off on Elder Cabral and I.  But I guess that after I left, he ditched her and went to live with his pregnant lover.  Kinda messed up since she had a toddler and a baby with him.  But anyways, she was in a desperation and first thing came to the church looking for Elder Cabral and I.  Long story short, she got baptized the other week.  Cool beans.  Even if something seems like it didn't work in the moment, it wasn't a waste because it leaves an effect on people and it'll help them later.  This is a perfect example of that.  Hermana Amato gave an amazing training on repentance that I feel like was an answer to my prayers.  I had been feeling really guilty about some of my past converts that are less active now, pondering on what I did wrong and what I need to improve for the future.  Hermana Amato explained that part of the repentance process is being able to forgive ourselves after too.  God doesn't remember it, so we should learn from it and move on.  Something else that stood out to me is that we need to follow God with blind faith sometimes even when we don't know how it's gonna end, even when it gets really hard.  Here's some examples: Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac; the sons of Moshiah almost giving up (Alma 26:27); and the Israelites not having the water of the River Jordan parted until all the priests carrying the the ark were already in the water (Joshua 3).  There were these older missionaries (the Grahams) that came to talk to us about stress management.  I thought they were medio loco (half crazy) because they straight up cut an Elder's tie off.  Turns out though that it was staged, thankfully.  They did this thing where they put a ping pong ball on a bottle and told us to extend our arm and flick it off as we walked past while everyone else clapped to a beat.  I don't remember the point of that, but only 1 of the 12 or so of us that tried was able to do it.  I have no idea why I wasn't able to flick the dang ball.  We got Fransisco to come accompany us on some citas tonight. First we went to visit Andree and Angela.  They're doing pretty well.  They're talking to all their friends at school about the church and there's some that seem to have a good interest in coming so that will be cool.  Elena gave us bread with avocado, which is pretty bomb.  Then we went to go visit Fabio.  He had a lot of energy, but we got through it.  We're kinda in a awkward position right now because he's ready to get baptized, but we won't have time to do it until the 29th.

Saturday
Today was a busy day.  This morning we went to the church to prep some stuff for the baptism.  We forgot to drain the water from last week, but it was dirty so we couldn't use it.  While it was draining, I hopped in the ankle deep water and I got my broom and I swept that water.  Why?  Good question, that's something I never thought I'd do.  But that's what Peruvians do: sweep water.  And I'm Peruvian now.  So I just have to embrace my nationality now.  But it's actually surprisingly effective.  We went to go visit a contact I made.  I felt kinda unsure in the contact, but he answered both of my calls to confirm it.  We got there though and found out he lied to us about his address.  And I think he blocked our number.  I hate it when people do that.  Then the 4 of us went to the CCM to pick up a couple of dudes for a mini MTC attack.  We got Elder Farias and Elder Yañez, who were both Chileans. 

 Elder Yañez didn't know my Elder Yañez though.  Mine lives in the center of the country and he lives almost in Antarctica.  Almost a year later, it was weird to go back to the MTC, but almost weirder to train a missionary named Elder Yañez.  He'll be coming to Lima East too.  I had a lot of memories of my first days as a missionary come back throughout the day. Good stuff.  One of the weirdest things about the multi zone yesterday was that all the Elders going home had as much time as I have right now when I got into the mission.  Elder Aguilar, Elder Morris.  Strange things done be a passin'.  Lunch kinda tarried, so we got a late start to the day.  Nataniel had her baptism today. 
 

 

 

We started an hour late because we were waiting for her mom to get off work.  Her dad didn't come though.  I drew a real nice "Bautismo de Nataniel" on the black board.  I'm basically a professional graffiti artist now.  I need to start charging.  The service was really spiritual though.   You could definitely feel the spirit when Elder Lainez performed the ordinance for her.  We let the CCM Elders give the talks.  I love Chileans.  If I were going to live in South America, I'd live in Venezuela.  But since that's sketch right now, I'd go to Chile instead.  I took Elder Yañez contacting.  We made some good contacts and then regrouped to drop the Elders off at the CCM.  We came back and contacted some dudes after.  All in all it was a very interesting day.

Sunday
Welp.  Church today was a no-go.  We had exactly 0 of our investigators there at church.  That was mildly frustrating.  We'll probably wind up dropping half of them today.  Natniel almost didn't get there, but she arrived just in time to get confirmed.  It was very unfortunate to go from 10 investigators earlier in the week to only having 1 to report tonight: Fabio.  And he didn't even come to church today.  We were feeling pretty good about Jose Carlos.  He came with his siblings, but it was only to drop them off.  We were like, "You're coming in, right?"  "No, estoy apurado.  (No, I'm in a hurry.)"  "What?  What do you mean?"  "My enamorada is waiting for me in el ovulo."  He had a girlfriend that lived in Huaycan, but he broke up with her then other week after having been with her for a couple of years.  It was a good change for him.  You could see that something was different in him.  I think that's one of the reasons why he was more open to us and wanting to get baptized.  I asked him, "Well, which is more important to you?  Your baptism?  Or your girlfriend that wants you to get back together?"  He chose the girl.  Let this serve as an example: a teenage girlfriend/boyfriend just ain't a good idea.  I can source my teen experiences as well as the extreme rate of teenage pregnancies in Peru as examples too.  We went to eat lunch with a mostly inactive family.  That was some dang good spaghetti.  We were talking to their 20 year old son named Clark about coming back to church and serving a mission.  I found myself thinking pessimistically.  I had to give myself a quick mental slap to the face.  Were here to work miracles through the name of Christ, not to sit here and make a game plan according to the minds of men.  I really want this dude to get reactivated now.  Let's see what we can do.  We went and did a zone attack in Cieneguilla today.  It's kinda far, but there's also a ton of trees there.  Like, a forest.  We didn't go into that part though.  We got back and were contacting when at the end of the night we got a call from the zone leaders saying that the home owners wanted to meet us.  I was kinda thinking, "Oh crap," just because I've had bad experiences in the past.  I figured they'd toast us for using too much electricity and stuff, but they gave us a nice polo al brasa dinner first and then did that kindly.  When I was introducing myself, I said I liked ceviche de poto.  I meant to say peta which is squid.  Poto is a Peruvian slang for butt.  That was pretty embarrassing.  I think I said it because I was thinking about how one of Elder Lainez's companions said that once.

Week 4 in Manchay

Angela

Hi guys nothing new much this week. We just had a little man named Elder David A Bednar come stop by real quick. I loved the chance we had to hear from Elder Bednar this Friday. I was really touched many times by the things he said. The way he taught us was the way we need to be able to teach our investigators, so I loved that. More than anything, what stood out to me from him was how I really need to use the spirit more as a missionary, especially when it comes to teaching the investigators. I loved a lot of the things he told us about teaching them and hope to help them and the converts to have a more profound conversion.
This week was pretty cool though. We got a handful of new investigators, 5 that is. So that's pretty awesome. We were also able to have the baptism for Angela this week. She was pretty nervous, but we had a real nice service for her. We've got another baptism planned for this Saturday. While we definitely had a few challenges this week, we had even more milagros (miracles). Have a good week president!

-Elder White

Monday
There were some testigos (Jehovah Witnesses) knocking on our gate this morning.  Hat's off to them for being persistent, because they were there for a couple of minutes.  I really wanted to go out to talk to them.  Then Elder Clark asked if I'd buy him some milk so I was like, "Heck yeah I will!"  I opened the door and was like, "Hi guys!  Good morning!"  The look on their faces said it all: "Oh fetch.  This is where you guys live?"  I walked past them cheerfully and confidently and they shyly said good morning and walked away, ditching the street entirely.  Darn right, this is my town fellas.  Poor dudes had no idea what was gonna go down when they came down this street.  What a way to start off my cumple meses (birthday months)!  Today marks 11 months in the mission.  We went and did internet like normal this morning.  Elder Cabral let me know that Michael got baptized on Saturday.  Everyone in the ward there was confused as to why I wasn't there.  So I was I really.  The work is going well there though.  They've got 3 with fecha and 2 families they're gonna work with.  I guess the school year is ending here in 3 days.  Weird stuff.  It was P-day de distrito today and since they didn't have anything planned, I threw out the idea of going to Papa Johns.  So we went.  While we were waiting, Elder Lainez and I went to Totu's, which is a rich people grocery store with American products right in the middle of rich people Lima.  That was the trunkiest grocery shopping trip of my life; I heard songs and saw products and cleaning machines I haven't seen in almost a year.  I bought a root beer, Cherry Dr. Pepper, and a chocolate cake, and a box of Kraft Mac 'n Cheese.  That was some good pizza.  Elder Lainez and I each ate a full family sized pizza.  YOLO.  Then we came back to our room and the 4 of us watched Wall-E.  Elder Lainez insisted that we put on Spanish subtitles, but after a while we were like, "Well, it's a good thing we threw on those subtitles..."  Then Elder Kimball was just like, "Dude.  The climax of the movie is people taking steps."  He's not wrong.  We went to go visit Jose Luis tonight.  He isn't committed to coming to church so we're gonna have to drop him.  We also went to go visit Andree and Angela.  Their mom, Elena, reminds me of an older version of Mafer.  She looks and talks like her and acts like her.  It's pretty interesting.  The more I think about it, the more I realize how much of a miracle it is that Andree got baptized that day and that Angela will get baptized Saturday.  There was another earthquake tonight at 10:15.  It kinda felt and sounded like a big truck was passing by.  It wasn't super big, but just enough to notice it.

Tuesday
So last night the zone leaders got a phone call from Elder Topham (the assistant) saying that he was going to do an intercombio with them, but in a trio.  That stressed me out because I thought he was going to come and burn the whole everybody, especially since Elder Leite was just here.  He didn't though.  Instead he just gave us some animos (encouragement).  We had a consejo de disitrito this morning.  While we were getting ready to leave, we got a call from Yasmin's dad.  He told us we couldn't baptized her.  He was in Manchay and agreed to meet with us in the capilla.  So we snuck outta consejo to talk to him.  So we talked to this 'Mauel' figure for an hour trying to get him to sign the permiso, but we didn't wind up getting the ink in our desired formation on our paper.  "She needs to be a member before she gets baptized."  "Other Christians tell me baptism isn't necessary."  Yeah, well, I don't think those dudes have ever read the bible son.  "She needs more time to prepare."  Ok there Catholic boy, how old were you when you got baptized?  Sheesh.  Lunch was solid at least.  Turns out that Elder Topham studied Aerospace Engineering at Utah State a year before the mission, so that's cool.  We were out contacting and Elder Lainez knocked a door.  A dog started going crazy on us and poked his head out from under the wooden door to snarl at us.  I don't know what he was thinking, but he stuck his book at the dog, who snatched it and went back.  When I peeked over, all the contents in his case were all over the place.  Luckily the owner was home though.  From 5 until 9:30 we were full with citas.  We had one with a contact, but that didn't go anywhere.  We met with that Venezuelan family, but they didn't  understand the necessity of having authority to baptize since they were Adventists before.  Then we went to go visit Yasmin.  She told us that she didn't actually have interest in the church and was only going because Sandra did.  And also that she was only going to get baptized because we told her it was important and she didn't want to offend us.  Then she told us all the same things her dad told us.  For that reason I'm not super sure what she's thinking.  We'll see what she winds up doing thought I guess.  The day up until that point was kinda sad and frustrating.  The day improved after that though.  We went to go visit Luz Torres (a CR) and her son, Fabio, who just turned 9.  When there's a problem child, in Peru they call him a "chookie".  But take away that Latino accent and you'll find they're saying Chucky, after the infamous doll.  It isn't really rude to say though, so you can joke around with it.  Fabio is a Chucky.  But he behaved the whole time we were there and wants to be baptized.  After, we went and taught the commandments to Nataniel and her family.  Francisco accompanied us the whole day, even when I bought groceries at the end.  What a guy.

Wednesday
Last night while we were walking on an empty street by our house, we had someone sneeze from inside their house.  Elder Lainez randomly called out, "¡Salud!"  Then we heard someone shout back from inside "¡Gracias!"  That was pretty funny.  I've been doing a lot of pondering recently about humility.  It's something I've really had to learn here since at home pride was kind of a weakness of mine.  I've got a bit of it still, but it's small and easily contained and I joke about it.  For example, our pension brought us soup with slices of lemon to squeeze into.  Elder Vilca was like, "Don't worry about them.  Gringos don't like lemon in soup."  So I said, "We do too like lemons!" and grabbed a slice and squeezed the whole thing into my mouth, even though I'm indifferent on the subject.  But more than anything, I was reflecting on the transfer from January 1-February 12.  The trait of the cambio was Humility.  So I took it seriously and did everything possible to make myself humble.  One of my goals was to pray nightly for God to humble me.  And thus started the hardest six weeks of my life.  My companion, who was my best friend leading up to that point, went crazy on me, and Señorita Taylor passed away, just to name a few of the things that went down.  But even though those were the 6 saddest/most frustrating weeks ever, they were also the 6 happiest weeks of my life as well.  Those were times, especially in the 2nd and 3rd weeks, that I learned I had to put my trust and thoughts and deeds 100% in the Lord if I was going to make it through my problems, because I realized if I didn't, I would be straight up miserable.  We see the same thing in the Book of Mormon many times.  I went to go pray recently to be humbled again so that I could be as happy as I was before, but I hesitated at first.  There's a price that must be paid because there are very few men that can humble themselves and establish such an intimate relationship with him without being given an incentive.  But the price is worth it.  It's always worth it for God.  We had a cita with Juana today.  We worked on establishing her relationship with Heavenly Father since before she didn't understand the whole Jesus is Jehovah thing.  The way she puts it, it's like being told you're adopted after 30 years of thinking someone else is your dad.  We took the Bishop to go and visit Jose Manuel with us.  The bishop here is super awesome.  He has a great testimony and is always in action in the church.  I wouldn't mind having him as my bishop.  Angela got her interview done alright tonight.  So we're all good to go for Saturday.

Thursday
Tomorrow's the big day.  Everyone is pretty hyped for Elder Bednar to come.  I'm kinda stressed at the idea of possibly having to pee during the talk.  But anxiety makes you supposedly need to pee more.  Which makes me more stressed.  See the cycle there?  Yesterday morning, we decided to contact hiking up to Quinuapata, which is almost the highest association that's in our area.  Above that, there's only pre-made houses that are far apart.  It was almost a nonstop hike, at a steep angle usually, that lasted about 80 minutes. 
 

 
My legs were pretty sore today.  But my legs are getting yoked.  My calves are so swole that that part of my pants are snug now.  This morning we visited a couple named Roly and Kirstia, their 7 year old Neli Smith (turns 8 June 18 or something) who wasn't there.  They're pretty cool story.  When Roly was a kid, terrorists went to his house and yelled for them to come out or they'd throw a bomb in.  His dad walked out and they shot him dead on the spot in front of the entire family.  In December, Katina had her appendix burst.  Those are both unfortunate circumstances.  They're a humble family, so they decided they'd have to go into debt to pay for the 3,000 sol surgery.  When they went to pay though, someone had payed for all but 326 soles of it.  So that was amazing for them.  Back when the CCM was installing the synthetic courts, he was helping with that.  A coworker, who was a member, gifted him a Book of Mormon.  That coworker left and he stored the book.  Then around the time his son was born, he found the book and saw a picture of Jose Smith.  He thought that that was a cool name, thence his son's name.  They both accepted a fecha for the 29th of June.  They gave us a small lunch of Peruvian turkey after.  Cool beans.  We went to go visit la familia Quispitupa.  Everything is pretty normal there.  We also went and visited Fabio.  For how much I hear about him being a Chucky, he's remarkably well behaved when it comes time to teach.  He's pretty excited to get baptized.  There's nothing like  strengthening the primary. hahah.  When it came time to start, I asked him and his mom if they had anything they'd like that I'd include in the prayer.  They both told me one thing.  The uncle had arrived meanwhile and had retreated immediately to the back room.  Fabio told us, "One sec," and then went into the backroom and came back and said, "My uncle wants good luck at work."  It was pretty funny that he went and asked his uncle that.  It was like they were ordering off of a menu. haha.  We were told to be home at 9:30 tonight since tomorrow is an early day.

Friday
I got up at 4:20 this morning.  You know why.  We were told that we had to be in Lima Tambo at 7:00 AM, which is kinda far from here.  We found an empty combi for the 18 of us though and used that boy like a taxi and got there at 6:30.

There were already a ton of guys there though.  But it didn't really matter because they had assigned seating.  I wound up sitting right behind the last row of benches, which was a pretty good seat.  From the time we entered at 7:20 to the time Elder David A Bednar walked into the room at 9:55, I used the bathroom 4 or 5 times to make sure that I truly was empty and wouldn't have to get up.  That's just how General Authorities work.  Listening to him was pretty cool.  He pointed out how fast the work is moving now.  From 1952-1970 the church population grew 3 fold under President David O McKay, but there still wasn't a million members.  Now there are 1.5 million members in both Mexico and Brazil.  It's crazy stuff.  Elder Bednar is a funny dude.  He used a Spanish word here and there while he was talking.  He told us that it was going to be interactive and explained how it was going to work.  That made us all kinda nervous, but he reassured us and told us not to worry about it.  In his thick gringo accent, he said, "¿Por que terror? (Why terror?)" and then looked at his translator and was like "¿Esta bien? (It is good?)"  His translator nodded, and so Elder Bednar said, "Pretty good, eh?" and stuck his fist out for a fist bump.  But the other dude didn't see it at first and almost left him hanging.  I felt like the main theme of his thing (and the other dudes as well) was following the spirit and letting him guide us.  It was a great discourse and I learned a lot.  The spirit was strong and now I have an even stronger testimony that he truly is an apostle called of God.  The meeting ended at 1:00.  In summary, do everything you can but don't get in the way of the spirit.  Good stuff.  The 5 Lima missions were there, but I only saw one of my friends from the CCM, Elder Vazquez.  I did see two guys I knew from AF/Mountain Ridge though.  I also saw a lot of missionaries from past CCM attacks.  Then it hit me.  I have more time as a missionary than half those guys there.  That was weird.  We had a cita with Nataniel when we got back.  Everything's smooth sailing with her still.  We also went to go stop by Angela's house real quick, just to make sure that  everything's good to go for her baptism tomorrow night.  Her religion teacher in school told her not to get baptized because, "The Mormons are a false church."  Bruh.  I miss American schools.  It didn't really bother her though.  We're all good to go for tomorrow.

Saturday
I tried eating a plastic bag this morning.  It didn't really work out.  What happened was that we went to go take money out this morning and Totus was just right there, so we stopped by real quick.  They charged me an extra 10¢ for an organic grocery bag.  On the side it said that it was made from corn and would decompose in a week.  It even smelled like corn bread too.  Seems pretty edible to me.  It isn't unfortunately.  I chewed on a piece for 5 minutes.  It tastes like a regular Walmart grocery bag.  Otherwise I might have gotten a few extra.  We lunched like usual.  This pension probably only cooks something really tasty.  She might be better than the other two.  For that reason, I was surprised my suit pants fit when I put them on yesterday.  We didn't have anyone to visit today because our cita with Roly and Katia got canceled.  So we did contacts all the day long.  All the day long until it came time for Angela's baptism, that is.  Angela had already been in the capilla all day for young women's activities and English Connect.  She got really nervous as it came to be time for her baptism.  But fortunately for everyone, her friend was super awesome.  She was with her every minute to encourage her.  It was a nice service.  Her dad was there too, so that was pretty great.  A lot of the young women came to support Angela. 
 

Elena brought refreshments, but it was fast Sunday of course, so we couldn't eat any of it.  She was kinda sad when we told her last night that we'd be fasting today because she wanted to take us to a polleria (poultry shop) after the baptism to celebrate.  I would have loved that, but we were able to talk her into taking up Monday instead.  Andree wasn't able to come because he had to watch the Chuckies back home, but he was always super supportive of Angela getting baptized.  He'd always pray for her baptism and asked us to do so too.  What a brother.  Speaking of fasting a bit, that t'was a tad bit more difficult that normal.  We were walking and I said, "Elder, siento una dulce tenacion."  (The really awesome candy shop in our area is called dulce tenacion (Sweet Maintenance).)  We walked in and I dropped a solid 6 sols on candy.  Elder Lainez ate a chip and then was like, "Eh, fetch.  We're fasting dude."  Well, fetch indeed.  While that was literally a dulce tenacion it was more a tentacion cruel.  Low blow by him-who-shall-not-be-named-in-this-sentence-but-you-know-who-I'm-talking-about.  It's funny because my first 1 1/2 weeks were still pretty hot here.  But now I find myself wearing a sweater in the night and sometimes in the morning/late afternoon.  That fog I  knew in Huaycan at night is in Manchay now at night too.

Sunday
We went to church today.  Surprised?  I would be surprised if you were.  Nothing really exciting or interesting happened there today apart from that we confirmed Angela, which was awesome.  We didn't have a whole lot of people come to church today.  Right now we have 6 investigators; Nataniel, Fabio, Roly, Katia, Isabel and Milagros.  Nataniel, Roly and Katia didn't come.  You see, there's this evil device created by Satan called a "Fallena".  It's basically a mandatory (monthly?) community meeting everyone has to attend with out exceptions.  If you don't go, you get fined 50 or more soles, depending on their mood.  And they're always on Sundays, I'm pretty sure, and always in the morning too, I think.  So that's why Katia didn't come.  It's as if they Hollow decided to meet from 8-2 and talk about everything from the problem neighbor to how the plan for creating a new speed bump is coming along to how they're gonna feed the 17 1/2 stray dogs that hang out in that part.  They're long and stupid and pointless and prevent people from coming to church.  But Isabel (40) and her daughter, Milagros (13), are pretty cool.  They're old contacts from Elder Lainez.  They called us during the week and asked when church was.  We went to visit them and then they went to Angela's baptism and came to church today too.  That's pretty cool.  I've been looking into improving my sacrament meeting experience.  Before, I wasn't really feeling what I felt I should be feeling when I partake of the sacrament, especially when I was back home.  So I started to pray about it and started really trying to focus in on what I was doing and thinking as I sit there to prepare myself for it and to take it.  I feel the spirit a lot more because of this now and I feel better about myself because of it.  You can only feel the spirit if you prepare yourself for it and have a desire to feel it.  I feel like very rarely the spirit is able to have a powerful effect on someone if they don't do that.  We went and ate lunch with the old pension and Elder Lainez and Elder Jensen had a while back.  It was pretty good stuff.  Some of my favorite Peruvian foods are Lomo saltado, arroz topado, tequeños and ceviche de pota.  That's some good stuff.  We didn't have any citas today unfortunately.  But fortunately, we had a handful of really cool guys we took citas down with.  It was a really clear night today; I saw more stars than I had seen in the last 11 months.

The Mountain Man breakfast I cooked up.

A cool sunset.