This week was incredible! Most of it was pretty slow right up until yesterday. Elder Cordova and I had put the goal at the beginning of the cambio to fast every week. Saturday after lunch as I was about to pray, I felt discouraged because I felt like I hadn't seen as many milagros (miracles) as I should of throughout my mission with respect to the sacrifices I've made. So as I prayed to start my fast, I prayed that God would help me strengthen my testimony of fasting and other sacrifices. It was a pretty quiet Saturday: nothing happened. Then yesterday I saw so many miracles it was incredible. I had been fasting that a super escogida (chosen) family would be placed in our path. Church was going pretty normal. It took a bit to get our convert's daughter away from her mom so that we could go to Sunday school, so we got in a little late. We sat down and were listening all normal when at the end of the class, the teacher asked if anyone had any questions. A man stood up in the back and presented himself. He explained that a friend (from the other ward) had invited him to come and that it was his first time there with his wife and 20 year old son. He said that they had really liked what they had seen and felt and then asked what a gentile was. That was pretty milagroso if you know what I mean. We were talking to them and put a cita and everything. When it came down to it though, their house is across the street from our area. So, I guess I've just got to specify that the escogidos be in my area next time I guess jajaja. We were walking around and Elder Cordova was like, "Hey, remember Davis?" He stayed out too late with his friends from school the other week and as punishment his parents weren't letting him come to church for a while. So we went by and were talking to him a bit. Then I felt like I should talk to his mom. Not to burn her, but rather just to say hi. She kinda sheepishly came to the door maybe thinking we'd be mad. But I just asked her about how her family was and stuff and invited her and her family to come to church and promised blessings (because the only member is the 13 year old, the oldest). We were talking some more and then out of the blue she asked us what she needed to do to get his 8 year old brother baptized too. That was the last thing I was expecting. We talked some more, but a cita for later today and left. We also had what was probably one of my most favorite citas so far in the mission with our investigator Jackeline. Last time we put a fecha, but she was super unsure and said she needed to repent more, but accepted a fecha. When we went to teach yesterday, she was super unsure and kept saying she needed to repent even more before she could be baptized. We talked her through the gospel principles and helped her realize how much baptism would help her. She thought Jesus was mad at her and didn't love her, but I helped her to learn the truth: that Jesus loves her with a perfect, unmatchable love. The spirit was super strong the whole lesson and she was excited to be baptized at the end. I love this area. I know that sacrifices bring the blessings of heaven, as said in the hymn Praise to the Man. I feel my conversion growing more and more every day. I love Elder Cordova and wouldn't want to be anywhere else! Have a good week!
-Elder White
Monday
I slept like a rock last night, which is weird because I’m a light sleeper normally. They tried waking me up at 10:30 last night and had no such luck. However, they did manage to wake me up at 5:30 this morning so that we could go and play soccer. Why in the world people wake up so early just to play soccer, on a Pday of all days, I’ve no idea. Lucky for them I wasn’t feeling sick anymore. We did zone La Molina versus The Offices. The game was on a big turf field in Musa 2. It was kind of fun. I think we one, but I wasn’t paying super close attention to the score. We came back home and then went to Internet. The biggest news? Someone made a Facebook event saying that they were going to take area 51 because “They can’t stop all of us.” There’s 1,000,000+ people that have signed up to do it on September 20 at 3 AM. The weirdest part? I’m not even really surprised that this has happened. That’s just the way the world is now in the US. After 2016 I don’t think anything will really surprise me. We had a zone Pday. We watched The Lion King. Hermana Copa had never seen it before somehow. Then we went and played 3 deportes (3 games). I accidentally took out Elder Clark’s foot while playing. It was fun, but not super competitive, so that wasn’t as fun as it could have been. I came home and made some cake batter. Now it’s a waiting game to see if I get salmonella. #YOLO. We went to go visit Monica tonight. She’s doing well and is progressing, so she’s back on the ovejos (sheep) list. The only thing is that she didn’t arrive in time for the sacraments prayer. We went to go teach Ismael. He’s pretty cool beans. Elder Cordova fell asleep while he was teaching The Great Apostasy. His words slow down and his head gradually drop until he stopped talking for five seconds. Ismael and I were both confused. Then he slowly woke back up and said, “un ratito (a little bit),” before waiting a moment to teach. He had obviously lost his train of thought. That was pretty funny, so I gave him a hard time after. Looks like we’ll wait a bit before playing early morning soccer again.
I slept like a rock last night, which is weird because I’m a light sleeper normally. They tried waking me up at 10:30 last night and had no such luck. However, they did manage to wake me up at 5:30 this morning so that we could go and play soccer. Why in the world people wake up so early just to play soccer, on a Pday of all days, I’ve no idea. Lucky for them I wasn’t feeling sick anymore. We did zone La Molina versus The Offices. The game was on a big turf field in Musa 2. It was kind of fun. I think we one, but I wasn’t paying super close attention to the score. We came back home and then went to Internet. The biggest news? Someone made a Facebook event saying that they were going to take area 51 because “They can’t stop all of us.” There’s 1,000,000+ people that have signed up to do it on September 20 at 3 AM. The weirdest part? I’m not even really surprised that this has happened. That’s just the way the world is now in the US. After 2016 I don’t think anything will really surprise me. We had a zone Pday. We watched The Lion King. Hermana Copa had never seen it before somehow. Then we went and played 3 deportes (3 games). I accidentally took out Elder Clark’s foot while playing. It was fun, but not super competitive, so that wasn’t as fun as it could have been. I came home and made some cake batter. Now it’s a waiting game to see if I get salmonella. #YOLO. We went to go visit Monica tonight. She’s doing well and is progressing, so she’s back on the ovejos (sheep) list. The only thing is that she didn’t arrive in time for the sacraments prayer. We went to go teach Ismael. He’s pretty cool beans. Elder Cordova fell asleep while he was teaching The Great Apostasy. His words slow down and his head gradually drop until he stopped talking for five seconds. Ismael and I were both confused. Then he slowly woke back up and said, “un ratito (a little bit),” before waiting a moment to teach. He had obviously lost his train of thought. That was pretty funny, so I gave him a hard time after. Looks like we’ll wait a bit before playing early morning soccer again.
We had District Council this morning. Hermanas Lester and Copa did a training for us on how to work with members. Hermanas before them kinda ruined the relationship between the missionaries and the ward for them. So they went and bought the Bishop keke (a type of cake) and now they’re in good with him. I was about to ask why they didn’t bring anything to get in good with us when they brought out packs of cookies. That was cool beans. After lunch, I went on an intercombio with Elder Rushforth to his area and Elder Silva (a new, younger elder) went to my area. The first thing we did was to go pick up one of his investigators to take him to La Molina for a baptismal interview. We were waiting around for a bit and he didn’t show up. So we took the mountain trail and a moto to see if we could go to his house to pick him up. We got there and his brother told us that he had left an hour earlier saying that he was going to a church in La Molina, except he of course doesn’t really know where that is. I kind of thought he might have gone off to the temple. But we were just asking ourselves, “Why didn’t he wait for us?” We said a prayer and then got on a bus to go to the church in La Molina. But then I got the feeling that we should get off 30 seconds later so we did. He doesn’t have a phone, though he’s 27, and his mom didn’t answer her phone. We searched the restaurants and ran into his mom. She told us that she put him on the corner half an hour earlier. (5 minutes before we arrived.) We hung out a bit more debating over options and hoping when he arrived. His four year old daughter had needed to use the bathroom and was hungry. A couple of complications led us to not getting back from the interview until 8 o’clock. We pass the time throwing paper airplanes with his daughter. When we got back, we went and taught the 10 Commandments to three of his investigators and that was the day. Elder Rushforth and I talked a whole lot today and into the night. He’s kind of a redneck, but he’s super fun.
Wednesday
Today marks one year in the field. One year since I met Elder Yañez. A lot of stuff has gone down since then, so we all got burgers to celebrate. I spent an extra S/2.50 for pineapple and you know what my burger didn't have? Pineapple. I'll take this as a hard, but necessary lesson: always check your order. Last night after the baptismal interview, the unthinkable happened– as we were leaving a nicer combi be pulled into the parking lot. I heard a loud song on the inside and then the bus started to rock. As soon as I saw that, I knew. HEFY. Gringos. Teenage gringos. The door opened and I recognize the song as the one that Eminem made about his mom's spaghetti. Whole bunch of highschooler's came spilling out. I think I've forgotten how to greet people in English, because I was going to say hi in Spanish before I remembered that they don't speak a lick of it. So I was just like, "Hello. How are you? Good evening." I felt like an overly formal Britt. I finished intercombios with Elder Rushforth this morning. It's always valued time to be with another gringo. It was kind of a trunky intercombio though since he ends in eight weeks and we didn't have a ton to do. But I got back today and we went directly to visit a contact Elder Cordell that made named Jacke, a twenty year old with a 1 1/2 year old daughter. She is super repentant and wants to put herself back on the path of Jesus Christ to receive help to defeat her weaknesses and bless her family. She wasn't super ready to accept a date because she thought that she needed more time to repent, but we helped her realize that she'd be ready for August 17. She almost got baptized with her friend Rori, who's now the young women's president, a few years back. We went and contacted and did some stuff. We had a miscommunication on when we were going to visit Anabel, so we went and did that. She's doing well, but is thinking she might have to move out from her uncle because she feels mistreated. But she's carrying her LDM (Book of Mormon) and has already had the chance to share her testimony with the lady at the tienda (store). Then we went and visited Monica. It was kind of an interesting cita because she has little Catholic shrine under her desk in the store and I decided it was time to get rid of it. So we read that bit in Mosiah 13 and she was like, "Ok." But then I was like, "That means no shrines or Saints," and things got a lot bit more interesting. It was kind of hard for her to accept it with her Catholic background and all, but she said she'd do it. I guess we'll see if it's still there when we go back.
Thursday
We spent a good part of the day contacting today. But it was kind of just one of those days where you're not really in the mood to contact the whole day. We went to go visit Andree and Angela. Andree has a 2 1/2 week strong girlfriend, but hasn't read the LDM in that time so with him we were just like, "Easy there cowboy." Angela on the other hand reads the LDM every day and always carries it with her and will even read with her friends and is in Alma 25. She's pretty poderosa (powerful). We were about to leave and were like, "Any quick last questions?" Andree: asks a super complicated question about the creation and the Bible and the theory of evolution. Us: Uh.... Trust the Bible. But we're late for the next cita. We'll explain it better later. We went running to Ismael's house, but long story short, his grandma was sick and ran off to her house for the night. We missed him by five minutes. Is mom was talking to us about him and said that she prefers him to go with her to her church she felt good there. But she said she'd come to our church Sunday to see how she feels there. If she comes with an open heart, she's gonna always come back with her family. We finished the night off by visiting Lourdes to talk to her about her baptism on Saturday. Turns out that she went to the doctor today and is receiving treatment for bronchitis. So together we decided that it'd be better to postpone the baptism a week. She'll be okay though. We could have healed her or something for her baptism, but her faith wasn't there.
Friday
I woke up yesterday morning and noticed I respectably large bump on the back of my right hand the size of a nickel that, depending upon how I have my hand position, stand up at most .4-.5 cm. It doesn't even look like a bug bite. It's almost feels as if It were a bone, but it's too soft– almost like cartridge. It moves a little bit if you try to move it, but that kinda hurts. It normally doesn't hurt on its own, but today I've had random pains in my wrist where it is more or less, but nothing consistent. No one else I've shown has seemed overly concerned. I'm not super worried yet, but I'd rather not have it there of course. Elder Cordova is still trying to get his elbows to a lighter skin tone since they're so dark still. Since bleaching his elbows didn't work, he tried putting some wart remover stuff on them. But I guess that that didn't really work either because today he went and bought a huge nail file and filed his elbows until they started to bleed. All he could say after was, "Pucha amigo. Esta vaina es bien profundo. Sigue oscuro. (Shoot friend. It is very deep. It is still dark.)" We had interviews with Pres. Amato today. Ours was scheduled for 12:30, but before we left, it had already been pushed back two hours. I was right there when President opened a package that has letters from all the missionaries that went to Tambo. The first one he opened was from Elder King and I accidentally said, "He's my pata (slang for very good friend)," in front of President. It's not bad at all, but it's a slang word and President has asked us not to use any slang. Everyone just looked at me and I was just like, "Yeah...welp. I'll just go jump off a combi now..." Well, that didn't come up in my interview at least. He was just like, "Wow, you've got a good chunk of time in the mission now. How's that gone for ya?" It was a great interview and I learned a lot. Millennium = 4 Nephi. We didn't get back to our area until 7. We went directly to visit Monica. She still has the shrine there. I'm losing confidence in her little, but she said she'd get rid of it. Ismael was nowhere to be found.
Saturday
I probably had, last night, what has to be one of my strangest contacts yet. You see, last week we were just walking home and a Israelita saw us and shouted after us " 2 Nephi 9:41!" So we read it when we got back to the room and were mildly confused/amused. Well, last night we were out contacting and I saw him so I contacted him. The first thing that happened was that we all believed that Joseph Smith was the prophet of the restoration. That was something I wasn't quite ready for. He quoted the book of Mormon and a few times and then a ton of scriptures from the Bible (New and Old Testament) to explain his beliefs. Shoot man, I think that that dude has the Bible memorized. He could just quote scripture after scripture. Israelitas believe in reincarnated, not resurrected, Messiah. For that reason, I found it funny that he would use the book of Mormon as well as epistles from Paul. He believes in the LDM and everything, but didn't have a lot of desires to come to church on Sunday. I never thought that the LDM would be used with the purpose of establishing the beliefs of another church. We got up at 5:15 for a zona La Molina versus La Offices soccer match. Why I, the one opposed to it, was the one that had to drag the others out of bed, I haven't any idea. Not going to lie though, it was a fun match. It was pretty close the entire time until they scored three quick goals at the end. Soccer brings out the extremes in some people. You would think that Elder Leite is quiet and chill if you haven't seen him playing fútbol, because when he's playing he's the exact opposite. Elder Topham hurt himself real good, so hopefully he's ok. Today the zone went to the area offices of the church. All they told us is that we were going to do something with FSY. Then President Amato walked in and explained to us that 2 of the 70, as well as all the next FSY directors for the next year, were all in a conference room and we were going to divide into groups to talk to them about what motivated us to serve a mission and stuff. That was a cool experience. It's amazing to me how much people look up to a bunch of young dudes like us. But it's true– we do have a special spirit about us. Elder Cordova saw the temple president he worked with back home, so that was cool for him. We came back to Manchay for a bit and then embarked on a perilous 2 1/2 and a half+ hour in Lima rush hour traffic to Jicamarca for a baptism for Elder Cordova named Jean Pierre. I had to use the bathroom and super bad by the time we arrived and the super bumpy road didn't help at all. We got there 45 minutes late, took photos, or witnesses for the baptism and then directly after was like, "I have very much enjoyed these 30 minutes, but we got to leave now so that we can get back before midnight."
Awkward selfies I took while at the baptism:
Sunday
I'm starting to think that fasting every week isn't super great for my body. From what I'm starting to notice, I feel sick the rest the day after breaking the fast. I get a constant headache despite how much water I drink, and I'll start to feel a little nauseous. This morning was crazy. The zone leaders have a dude named Jhairron that got baptized yesterday. He's at the same dude that goes to Callao Saturday night, comes back three hours to Manchay for church, and then goes to Callao again after. Evidently, he's a pretty powerful dude. In his three weeks investigating the church, he went to every JAS activity and then some more too. He's 21 and has expressed desires of being a missionary. So we were all there chilling at the beginning of sacrament while the bishop was calling and releasing people and then, all of a sudden he announces that Jhairron is being called as the new JAS leader. This man didn't even get confirmed until 10 minutes later on in the meeting. All the schools had they're big marching thing this morning, and due to that the attendance today was pretty low. We also had no investigators come today. And I thought I disliked marching band when I was in the states. When I started my fast yesterday I was thinking about how my experience of making sacrifices like fasting in the mission isn't super strong. So I prayed that God would help me improve my testimony of it and that we could find a super cool family. So we were there during Sunday school and this dude in the back row stands up, introduces himself, says that it's his and his family first time there since they were invited by a friend and then asks what a Gentile is. Him, Zena, and his wife and 19 year old son were pretty cool and we thought that they were in our area. But in the end, they lived across the street in Huertos. We got what I asked for, but next time I need to specify that they would live in our area I guess hahaha. In addition to this miracle, the contacts were really good today. We had a cita with Jacke again today. It might have been my favorite cita in my whole mission up to now. We got there and asked how she felt about her baptism and she said she was unsure and still needed to repent more. We walked her through it and explained the broken heart and contrite spirit thing as well as the sacrament. Then I discovered that she thought that God was mad at her and didn't love her. I walk her through it and told her to say a prayer like the one I did a while back. She told us things about herself that only her ex-husband new about. She told us that she told us that because she recognized us as representatives of Jesus Christ. She enjoyed the lesson a lot more and is desirous to get baptized. The spirit was super strong the whole time we were there.
Monday
There was so much that happened yesterday there's no room. Right before the cita with Jacke, Manchas the dog found us and followed us. I knocked on Jacke's door and then remembered that her family has nine pit bulls. Then someone open the door and two of them bolted out and attacked Manchas without a half second of hesitation. For a few seconds I watched in horror as they fit and trashed around. We were able to kick the smaller one away. I kicked super hard, but that dog kept his mouth clamps on the back leg. Then I remembered that my dad told me after Oakley, the Flemming's dog, was attacked that the only way to get them to let go is to choke it. My hands didn't even fit around the beasts net. It was kind of scary because I didn't know if it would turn around and attack me. But I finally got it to let go after a minute of the whole scene. Then the owners finally came out and held the dog while poor Manchas limped away. The lady was like, "What happened? Why is my dog bleeding?" Madam, I hate your dog. And no, that's not his blood on his face. Right after that was when Jacke arrived. I was afraid it would distract me from the lesson, but it didn't. Here's the last miracle of the night from yesterday: We were walking along and Elder Cordova said "Hey do you want to pass by to see Davis?" He's a friend of Angela and the only member in his family. The other week he stayed out too late with his friends from school. To punish him, his mom said that he wasn't allowed to go to church. It was an odd and frustrating punishment. "Bruh. The church is what will help your kid." So we went by and were talking to Davis to see how he was and I saw his mom peak from around the corner and then panicly duck away when I saw her. I felt like I needed not to burn her, but to talk to her. So I told Davis to call his mom over. (He is 13 and she is 29.) She sheepishly came to the door and I started to chat with her and invite her to come to church with her family. After a minute she randomly said to me, "So I have another son named Andre that's eight. What do I need to do to get him baptized?" That was a surprising turn of events. So we explained a bit and took out a cita for Tuesday. So, in summary: yesterday was some exquisitely cool beans. Pday got canceled today because we are going to the temple on Wednesday. So today we had our last district council of the transfer.
Then we went and contacted the whole day long. At night, we took Jacke, Anabel and their two kids to a NDH (FHE) with la familia Dipas and the other Elders and Jhairson. Jacke and Anabel all had a lot of fun and meshed well together.
Tuesday
One of the funny things about that reference the we past to Huertos is that the 20-year-old son mimicked whoever he was looking at. It's subconscious, so that makes it funny. With hands, legs, facial expressions, etc. Elder Hoddad and Elder Woolf were surprised to find that in that cita. Maybe we should have given them a heads up. We all thought it was pretty funny though. Air were a bunch of fallen citas today. But, it is kind of hard to have an an eventful day in Manchay if you're out in the streets the whole day. He other elders in the room have turned into exercise-aholics. They're all super good about doing their weight lifting and stuff in the morning. They even made a makeshift bench to do some bench presses they always poke fun at me for not joining in. But this fella aint about to succumb to a little pure pressure. While they're all over there sweating and grunting and stuff, I am over in the kitchen making myself a five-star breakfast. There is a 95% chance they would stop at the Elder Pedrozo left and took his weights with him. So instead of the dedicating myself to some short-term muscles, I'm dedicating myself to breakfast. These aren't the good life decisions. When we went to eat at a members house on Sunday, she gave us a whole lot of food. So Elder Clark and Elder Pedrozo we're both like, "I'm fat." She was like, "Nah, but he is," and pointed to Elder Cordova. It was kind of funny and sad at the same time because he always brags about his body and point out that he's losing weight, though he's not even fat. We had a cita with another single mom named Luz this afternoon. But didn't really go anywhere. We were walking down the staircase only to see a giant black dog with a small dog in his mouth by the neck. Why is this happening recently? Jacke told us that Rossy was her friend, so we brought Rossy the MMJJ rep (22 years old) with us, but it turns out that it's another Rossy that got baptized. But Jacke and Luciana we're both sick. We walked them halfway to their house last night. After that though, there was a big water truck that drove up next to them and right at that moment, the water tank blew up drinking her daughter in the cold night. That's a pretty crazy story. I don't really know what happened with Luis and Wily. We haven't really been able to communicate with them. We ended the night by visiting Elena, Andree and Angela. Elena has quite high expectations for her kids sometimes, which can't be good and bad. Andree's new girlfriend was a points of controversy, so I let Elder Cordova teach the whole time since I have zero experience and he had lived quite a life before the mission.
At the temple today.
Lunch with the district after the temple.
Manchay at night.
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