Hello, good morning. Nothing too big happened this week, just a little something that you call I HIT MY ONE YEAR MARK! 🎊 Manchay is a pretty cool place. I feel like I'm doing a lot of good here so that makes me happy. We were able to find another new investigator this week, had a baptism and didn't have anyone fall. So we've got 5 with fecha with a few more potential guys that we're going to work with. Our investigator Fabio got baptized on Saturday like I mentioned, so that was really cool. Elder Cordova and I have great chemistry and are working well here in Manchay 2. Nothing else too exciting happened this week. I can feel my faith growing day by day as I continue to serve the Lord. Have a good week!
Monday
Today we went to go do internet. As I've said before, I'm not one to spend a long time. Two hours is a perfect amount of time--I can get everything done I want. Elder Lainez always used at least 2 1/2 hours. After 3 hours today, I called quits. Elder Cordova stayed at it for another half hour after that though. I saw this mildly nerdy dude playing Starcraft 2 and then saw his wife walk in. I thought, "RIP brother. You're toast." But they kissed and then she sat down to scroll Facebook next to him. Something about that was unsatisfying to me. I don't know why. We ate chaufa and then went to Tottus (the American store) because I had to buy a bunch of crap to celebrate my 1 year mark later in the week. To do that though, I had to go take out a little extra cash. The ATM gave me a fee of 20 soles to take out 100 soles. That sent me directly into penny pincher mode, which is unfortunate since I left with intentions of spending some big bucks on food. I did talk myself into spending 57 soles still though. I bought some sodas, Tottus Pringles, TGI Friday potato skins, some other random stuff and a chocolate and vanilla Betty Crocker cake mix.
I had every intention of eating raw Oreo cookie dough and cake batter. But then I realized that I don't trust Peruvian eggs. We went to the church so that Elder Cordova could play the piano. We had some citas fall and rescheduled another. We went to pass by the Machicao's and picked them all up to take them to a noche de hogar (FHE) with la familia Dipaz with a bunch of other converts and investigators. I really thoroughly enjoyed Elder Kimball's message. He talked about Samuel the Lamanite and how he preached an converted people. Then all the bad guys put a date to kill all the believers. He asked us if we had the faith to believe if we were them. It was a good conversion evaluation. Then he talked about how Jesus was born and there was a bunch of signs given. Due to these signs, the people started to believe. But then, despite all the signs and miracles, the majority of the Nephites returned to their wicked ways and rejected Jesus. That got me thinking. It truly isn't signs that convert people. Laman and Lemuel saw an angel and look at them. Now look at all the converts in the church where all they had to do was read the Book of Mormon to get baptized. There's a scripture that says that what the prophet says is what the Lord says. I think we can take that a step further: Anything someone says by the power of the spirit is something the Lord says. Moral of the story: don't wait for a sign or something to repent. Just do it. Take the initiative.
Tuesday
Let me share with you some words of wisdom: "The only thing worth skinning is a pineapple." --Elder White 16 June 2019 10:12 PM, as Elder Kimball was skinning a pear to make a smoothie. It goes deep. I think about that quote a lot. We had a good 'ole consejo de distrito this morning. But last night, I got talking to Juana. Remember that one time that we found that super sick lady on the way up to Andree and Angela's? Turns out that she was Juana's cousin. And she passed away 2 days ago. It's a small world. I'll have to see if I can't take Juanna to go visit the family. Our schedule for right after consejo was crazy. We went directly to go visit Anabel. I was happy to see that she was doing well. She was just as sad and frustrated that she couldn't go to church as we were. Lessons with her are always chill and easy. We tried to meet with Gloria and were all ready to go since she lives down the street from Anabel. We gave her a phone call to make sure she remembered we were stopping by. Her oldest daughter is 17. She wasn't able to go to church Sunday with her mom because she has a 1 year old kid who was sick. Gloria explained to us that her nieto (grandson) was super sick and that they had to take an emergency trip to the clinic. So we went back to the house and had a late lunch. My stomach got upset all the sudden. "Take a bismutol (like Pepto Bismol) and drink lots of water," is the response to basically any medical need in the mission. It might even cure cancer. I found Rolando in the street the other day and set up a cita with him for today, but he wasn't there. We had a cita with a single mom in her tienda (store) named Monica. She accepted a fecha for the 27th of July. I'm not 100% about her since she was kinda poker face the entire time, but we'll see what happens. Then we went to visit Luis and Wily. Wily wasn't there, but Luis came when we called him. I told him we were gonna look for Wily since he wasn't answering. Luis said he had to get something from his house real quick. When he got back, he wouldn't tell us what it was. We think he went to get his knife just in case. We found Wily with a group of his friends in the street. Luis hid himself in an internet so that no one would see him. We waved Wily over and went back to his house. He told us that he just went to pay a phone bill and his friends came over to him and started talking and before he knew it had drank a glass of alcohol. We had a solid lesson on the Word of Wisdom and the influences that friends have on us. Wily was only just barely noticeably drunk. But despite that, he gave the most heartfelt prayer I've ever heard an investigator give.
Wednesday
Going back to Luis and Wily, I don't know if I've ever felt such a love for two of my investigators before. I think about them a lot. Even though they're a little rough around the edges, I think that makes me like them even more. They don't talk a whole lot when we're in a cita with them, but they open up a little bit more every time that we have a lesson with them. We always have the cita out front of Wily's house on the hill. They're always looking over our shoulders down the hill, though I'm not sure why. They're not the smartest dudes in the world, but they understand what we teach. When we asked them how they felt about their baptisms from 1-10 and Luis said, "20!" Wait, what was the question?" So we repeated the question and he was like, "Yeah, 20 sounds good." Wily shows more emotion than Luis though. As we were talking in consejo yesterday, it was brought up that we need to make sure that they don't have pregunta (question) 4, which is unfortunately very possible and very much an impediment to their baptism. We had a lot of citas fall today. We went to go visit la familia Tate today. Apparently Emma was a hardcore escogido when Elder Lainez and Elder Jensen were teaching her, but how not so much. She hasn't taken the sacrament since I arrived. If I had one sol for every time she's given me an excuse about why she can't or couldn't go to church, I'd have enough plata to buy a helicopter and go pick her up to take her to church. I hate it when people give me excuses man. I can't tolerate it. We went to go visit Idis, but long story short, her husband doesn't want to talk to us, nor does he want to marry her. There's another thing that triggers me--when someone's salvation is pushed aside by another person's pride. We were late to that cita too because Elder Cordova took a little extra time in a contact. Being late frustrates me, but I can't exactly get mad at my comp for doing his job. Our cell phone is still broken in the way that we'll randomly lose signal for hours on end. We realized that we weren't going to have time later, so we had to hurry and go pick up our laundry, which made us late to our cita with Lourdes. Lourdes didn't read because she says she gets headaches when she tries to read, so we tried to sort that out. But we couldn't teach since she didn't read. It's an interesting situation. Looks like I should've had a bad day. I didn't though. It didn't seem that bad in the moment. Elena referred us to a bunch of family members. She also asked me for a card and then contacted her neighbor when we ran into her in the street. The 4 of us went to eat dinner with Ada, the Relief Society president. She made a really good lomo saltado de carne.
Thursday
Today is my cumple año. That's cool beans I suppose. Of all the stuff I had planned to do to celebrate today, I did exactly zero of it. Including all of that food that I bought too. I didn't really have time. I'll probably do that Sunday with Elder Clark and Elder Kimball to celebrate our 1 year left mark. (They are from the group after me, but ya know, I'm Latino technically.) I spent a long unfruitful night last night of trying to throw my top. It's fancy because you use a string. Then I got up this morning and we like, "Hmmm...Maybe if I throw it upside down it'll work better since it usually lands upside down." Long story short, I've got a cleaner throw than the others now and I'm also working on my tricks. Moral of the story? If at first you don't succeed, take a nap and then try to do the opposite of what you did last time and crap will work itself out. Today marks the first day of Lima Tambo. We lost the zones San Luis, Surco and Santa Patricia, but were all surprised to hear that we received a zone from Lima Central called Las Flores. We visited a young contact that Elder Cordova made, but nothing much really happened there. Then we tried to visit Elena's family that she referred us to, but they weren't home. Every time that we walk past Juan Luis' house, his mom is almost always in her store. If she sees us, she'll always call us over and give us some food. This morning when we walked by, she gave us each a manzuna, banana, orange, chirimoya and granadilla, with a sporade to top it off. It's always super awesome to feel loved by the members and other people in Peru. We went to go visit Antoni today. He had been starting to fall off recently from what his mom told me the other day when we met in the street. So we emphasized on that preserver part. We had another cita with Monica today. Even though she's till got her poker face on, she's reading and progressing. I'm impressed. Now let's see if she'll come to church on Sunday. She seems pretty legit though. From there, we went to have another cita with Luis and Wily. They're doing well, but Wily hasn't read the last 2 chapters that we've left for them, which is mildly concerning. We retaught them the Palabra de Sabiduria (Word of Wisdom). Wily mentioned the other day he had a girlfriend, so we felt that it was necessary to teach the law of chastity. They weren't the biggest fans of that one, but said they'd do it. That might be the hardest commandment for them. I need to know if they've ever killed/stabbed anyone because that's something "fans" do sometimes. But how in the world do you ask some that? "Weather's pretty cold tonight. I might kill someone if they aren't bundled up. But, hey, I've never killed anyone. Have you?"
Friday
We went to go get some cash this morning. I'm pretty sure that taking out money is every missionary's favorite thing. This zone is a lot more effective at taking it out than my past ones. We got our dough and since we had permiso and a little extra plata from June, we went to Tottu's. I bought some strawberry milk and a pint of Ben and Jerry's Tonight Dough ice cream. I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to eating Peruvian ice cream again. That's some good stuff. I had felt bad that I didn't treat myself better yesterday, so that's why I bought this stuff this morning. Scratch that. It was yogurt actually, not milk. That was disappointing. Who the heck sells yogurt in a bag by all the milk that are also in bags and also write milk on this bag? I feel very decepcionado (disappointed) right now. We knocked out that weekly planning and then went to eat lunch. Our first cita today was with Anabel. She's still really excited for her baptism. Her nephew (or cousin maybe) is a member in Trujillo and is going to go on a mission here soon, so she's wanting to go to his farewell talk at the end of July. Some opposition has presented itself in the form of her Catholic mother. It's not bothering Anabel too much though. Then we went to go visit a 18 year old contact I made. We were talking and she quickly revealed that she got impregnated when she was 17 and was like 4 or 5 months pregnant. That kinda threw a wrench in things since she was still seeing her pareja. Fetch man, I think I contacted maybe 4 pregnant teens today. The worst one was a girl at the end of the night that was 13 and pregnant. We went to go visit another contact I made named Luz. We talked to her and her heavily-ingrossed-in-puberty-and-semi-rebelious-14-year-old-son. They were pretty cool, but we weren't in a position to really have a cita. From there we went to the chapel and had a cita with Fabio. We did the pre interview with him and then Elder Rushforth came and did the interview. Fabio passed just fine, and Francisco passed his interview earlier this week too, so we're all good to go for tomorrow. It's going to be a good day.
Saturday
I am exhausted and kinda done with today. The days typically always fly by despite what happens. So while today wasn't a long day for say, but it was a very tiring day. We got up early and went to the stake center as a zone. The JAS in the stake were all there to have a missionary day. They tourned the CCM, and then we taught them how to contact a little. From there, we all took a bus to Manchay and contacted our ward here. That was cool. I was with a mostly blind dude named Jose from barrio Las Viñas. For the first 1 1/2 hours he was with me, he had his hand on my shoulder the entire time for me to guide him. I'm not saying I disliked that, but it's definitely easier to work without that. I accidentally walked him into a pole once. He has a powerful testimony and served a service mission a few years back. He couldn't really see who he was talking to, but he was excited to talk to them. He kinda reminded me of Elder Cabral, even down to the shape of his head. There were 3 Hermanas that went with us, and one of them was Hermana Mendoza from the CCM. Remember that one time that the other Elders played Hot Line Bling and I did the Drake dance and I was the one that got busted? That was her. She was pretty chill though. But now the shoe t'was on the other foot. I was the guide today. Juana was there. That was a proud dad moment. As soon as that was over, the brand new gringos fro the MTC came here for an attack too. We were with them the whole day. I was with Elder Francis from Mapleton, Utah.
He wasn't super excited about being a missionary. So I did my best to be super positive and make him laugh throughout the day to show him that you can enjoy being a missionary. He spoke very little Spanish, so that was rough for him. He only made 2 contacts all day. Once was with an old dude that turned out to be a member, and the other was a very pregnant woman (she was actually first). I had to hype him up so much just to get him to try. "Look, this lady's pregnant. Pregnant ladies are nice. She'll talk to you." He got out a very gringo "¿Coma esta?" and she payed him zero attention and kept walking. The dude across the street working in construction was watching and started to laugh. Not gonna lie, it was kinda funny so I laughed too. I hope I helped the man. The weirdest part was that all these new guys graduated from the class of 2019. We had Fabio's baptism today. Francisco performed the ordinance. Elder Lainez came back for that.
Sunday
Today marks my 1 year until I go home. Crazy beans. Only Anabel and Lourdes came to church today. Anabel brought her 11 year old nephew, Bruce, to church with her. So that was dope. We have kept having some minor problems with the cell phone. Minor as in several hours a day without signal and not having signal when it's most needed, like this morning when we're wanting to confirm plans to pick people up. Luis and Wily went MIA on us and didn't show back up this time. That was really frustrating and sad for me. Luis later told us that he accidentally slept in and Wily for some reason was in San Juan de Luriganche. Luis seems pretty legit still, but I'm starting to have doubts about Wily because of whats happened recently and because he hasn't read his Book of Mormon the last 2 visits. But we'll see what happens I guess. Today was an international Catholic holiday for some saint. I have never heard music so loud before in my entire life.
(Peruvian teens get together to dance sometimes. They scream funny.)
My dinner on my one year left mark. First root beer in a year. Good stuff man!
Walking in the street at night.
Last photos with Elder Lainez:
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