Well, I thought that this week was gonna go one way, but then emergency transfers happened and it went a totally different, but still great, way. So Yeah, I'm the financial secretary now and I'm going to be working in a super cool area called Covima. It's kind of a wealthier part but the people are still super receptive and the area is only a few blocks from the temple too. That means lots of milagros! The week's gone by in the blink of an eye. I'm getting used to the office life and all that good stuff. I enjoy it. The work is going really good here in Covima. We've got 2 baptisms in our companionship tonight and the other Elders have 2 more too that are all getting baptized tonight. Now we're just sowing seeds for the weeks that come. I love being able to proselyte so close to the temple. That in of itself is an amazing blessing. On Wednesday during the multi zone, Elder Napier had us envision us finding, teaching and baptizing an escogido. Because like he said, things are created spiritually before they are created physically. I imagined a tall Latino with mildly paler skin, also with a long, but kinda thin, beard. He was smiling a lot. Despite never having worked in this new area before, when we left the office that night to go proselyte I was determined to find and teach this random dude that had come into mind. Elder Wilcox told me that during the day he felt like he should look through our list of online referrals. He found a dude named Alvaro from a referral that we received back in July. So he called him and he seemed kinda cool. He set up for us to meet with him on a given street corner at 8, which is kind of a risky move. But we had the faith that he was an escogido and that he was going to be there. So we showed up, not really knowing who we were looking for. We had called him a few more times to confirm it. He told us he was near a Tambo, so we walked over there. As we were walking there, there was a dude that walked past us that seemed kinda like the dude I had imagined. I watched him from across the street and we quickly discovered that it was him. We went over and started talking to him. He was basically almost the exact same as the man I had envisioned during the mental exercise. He was a really cool guy. We took him to a park, found his spiritual need and he chose to prepare himself to be baptized. That was a really awesome miracle that we were able to see in our area. I know that if we can create things spiritually before we do them physically, God will bless us with more success. I know that he lives and loves and blesses each and everyone of us. Have a good week!
-Elder White
Monday
D&C 6:36--"Look unto me in every thought. Doubt not fear not." Even when the times get rough or you don't quite know what's going on, you've just gotta put your shoulder to the wheel and keep moving forward with hope in Christ. Today started out fairly normally. We got already to go and went to internet. I fell like internet has gotten less exciting exponentially as time goes on during m mission. We went to go eat chaufa, as per usual. Today is P-day. Uncultured people may think that that P stands for preparation. What it really stands for is patriotic. For that reason, I showed up decked out in my USA flag shirt and pants; I even had the wrist band rolling. I definitely got some weird looks from people passing by in the streets. It was funny though. As a zone we watched Rio. It was kind of interesting to watch that again now that I've learned to understand Portuguese a bit more. After that, we all played a game that resembled soccer, but was still pretty different. That was pretty fun. So we went back to the room and started getting ready to go out to proselyte. I was at my desk listening to music and putting my shoes on when the phone started to ring. I pushed pause on my music and leaned back in my chair to grab the phone off of Elder Cordova's desk. I looked to see who it was and saw President Amato's name. My first thought was, "Oh crap." Here's how the conversation went: "Hello?" "Elder Cordova?" "No, it's Elder White." "Elder White how are you?" "I'm doing well, thanks." "Good to hear. Elder White are you worthy of a temple recommend?" "Yes." "Good. Elder White, the Lord has called you to be the new financial secretary. I'm pleased that you'll be joining us in the office. I need you here at 10:00 AM tomorrow. Have a good night." I got blindsided by these emergency transfers. I had time to go say bye to all of my converts (except Nataniel) and Juana. Lourdes said that she had a dream that I was leaving and were all crying during breakfast. Juana got kinda teary eyed when I passed by. Andree and Angela were crying, but Elena completely lost it. She was worried about being forgotten. Santos, the local tamale dude that we were friends with and always saw walking around, got mad and ran off when I asked if I could take his photo. Completely savage.
Good bye photos:
Tuesday
I know that the Lord doesn't give men impossible tasks. Everything he has us do is for a wise purpose in which we, and God's children around us will be blessed. So just put your faith in God and do your best and he'll do the rest. Well, after a packing marathon last night and this morning, we left to go to the office to drop me off. The first thing Elder Pardo told me was, "Look, what happens on office p-day stays on office p-day." He likes to make a lot of jokes. He also told me, "Just a heads up: we make a lot of your mom jokes here." I smiled and thought, "Now this is where I belong." He's the secretary of operations. My companion will be Elder Tenney, who also happens to be my first gringo companion. He's a cool guy, so I'm looking forward to it. We got there to the office and he had me read part of an instruction manual. Then he explained some stuff to me and threw me into the midst of things. He was there for all my questions and stuff. I had to make some payments and sign some receipts. I'm gonna have to find a faster signature because my standard McKay White takes a little too long to read if you know what I mean. I also started doing some stuff for the end of month expense report, which is mainly matching receipts and credit card payments. Today was Elder Meyer's last day in the field, so he was there at the office all day with us. He's a real funny dude. I'm gonna miss him. That was still my favorite district that I've had. We had to go to the bank to get a fat chunk of change for caja chica. Elder King and Elder Frame, who are both in Lima Tambo now, stopped by the office real quick, so it was great to see them. We left and waited in front of the temple for Hermana Amato to drop her card off for us. While we were waiting, some dudes came along and took our photo for us. Then we got the card and went to Tottus to buy a bunch of stuff for break tomorrow. We ran into Luis Angel from Manchay. Then we went to the chapel to set stuff up for the multi zone tomorrow. While we were there I ran into Yure from Alameda, so that was cool. Our dinner pensionista's name is Juana. She gave us churros. I like her. The main thing that stood out to me today is the sheer number of taxis we took today.
Wednesday
There's a couple of scriptures that talk about making things spiritually before making them physically. That was a big theme of the multi zone today too. Today my testimony of that was strengthened greatly. Let me tell ya about it. So this morning we went to the multi zone of course. President Amato started right off the bat by calling the entire mission to repentance. It was a good, mildly fiery, but loving, talk. I think it was what the mission needed. The coolest part of today was getting to sit at the office's table with all the other secretaries and the Amatos. All us secretaries snuck out to go buy 240 burgers and chicken sandwiches for everybody at Burger King. We got there and they were like, "We're closed. Come back at noon." (It was nearly 11 AM.) So we talked about it for a minute and then said to them, "Just FYI, we're gonna buy 120 burgers as soon as you're open." He got wide eyed and went to talk to his manager. Then we heard a lady gasp/yell "¿¿¿QUE???" Then we had to double it because the other Burger King was closed. While we were waiting, we went to Plaza Vea to buy some garbage bags. There was a Dukin' Doughnuts inside, so we had to aprovechar (take advantage of) that stuff. 240 is a lot of burgers FYI. The assistants had us do a mental exercise of finding and baptizing an escogido. For whatever reason, the dude who came to mind was taller, mildly lighter toned Latino with a small beard not overly thick and he was always smiling. The conference ended and we went to the office to get some work done. Elder Tenny told me that the Lord wouldn't ever let me mess up with His money without warning me. For example, I was getting ready to pay all the dueños (landlords) in the mission electronically and was about to send it when I got the feeling that something was messed up. I asked Elder Tenny 3 times if there was something wrong with it and he said no. So I sent it. Half an hour later, we discovered names on that list that we shouldn't be paying, so we had to retract the payment and fix it. Tonight I went out proselyting with Elder Wilcox, the personal secretary. Our area is Corvima. It's pituco, but the people are super open still to talking to us. We decided that there's gotta be 25 escogidos in our area. Elder Wilcox said that he called an online referral from July and that we were gonna meet up with him on a certain corner at 8, which is always a risky move. But he was there. And it was a 95% match of the dude I imagined. I had left to work determined to find him and I did. His name is Alvaro, he likes basketball, he's 19 and he's getting baptized September 28. #Milagros!
Celebrating August birthdays at the multi zone.
Multi Zone
Thursday
As we were wrapping things up last night, we saw an old drunk dude in a dirty suit tap dancing. Elder Wilcox went and contacted someone near him. In the middle of the contact, the drunk said to him, "¿Quieres chuper la piña conmigo? (Do you want to suck pineapple with me?)" The contact got mad at him and told him to show some respect, so the drunk said, "Pero con respeto, con resto. (But with respect, with respect.)" That was something funny I never thought I'd see in La Molina. This morning we stopped by the office to get some work done before going to the other multi zone. Elder Tenney had to go to the clinic in Miraflores, so I was working alone basically. I made a sticky note with like 20 questions in the matter of less than an hour for when he comes back. I guess you could say that I'm not quite ready to go off on my own yet hehe. Elder Wilcox and I got there just a minute late and Elder Pardo had already left to go buy the burgers without us. So we left to go buy some chicken for a sister with allergies. The burgers kinda took a really long time though. Long story short, 2 1/2 hours in Elder Pardo came back with 3/4 of the and we went to get the rest of everyone and President payed for Ubers for everyone (well, the 4 of us). An Elder decided that he didn't want to be here anymore and was starting to cause problems, so that kinda threw a wrench in things. Especially since the decision was made today and the flight bought was for 9:50 tonight. It was pretty sad, especially since he had 16 months here in Peru. Elder Tenney was his companion once, so he went with him to pack his stuff. That's the thing about office Elders; President has a lot of trust in us and has us run all different sorts of errands. Elder Fuertes had to stay the night with us because he had a dentist appointment, which I took him to. Turns out that the dentist lives in Covima, so we chatted a lot. I told him all about how my dad is a dentist and stuff, all while Elder Fuertes was getting his root canal taken care of. He and his wife are pretty cool. So right now we have 2 investigators. On Tuesday we had their baptism interviews and tonight Juan Pablo and Carmen got married.
I do love myself a good wedding. They're a good couple. I mean, of course I don't know them super well, but it was still super cool. Now they're one step closer to having an eternal family. I know that eternal families are a critical point in God's plan, and I love it.
Friday
Jesus wants to bless us. That's a fact and there's no debating it. He loves us, but he doesn't necessarily hand out free blessings. If I'm not mistaken, the scriptures say that in order to receive a certain blessing, we have to obey a certain law preceding said blessing. I was reading in D&C this morning and 42:3 helped me learn how to obtain these blessings in a basic process. You need to 1) be obedient, 2) do it with a good attitude with your will aligned with God's, 3) pray earnestly and diligently asking God in the name of Christ for the blessing. Then you will receive the blessing(s) you desire of God. All us office Elders live in the apartment right next to the assistants, so we've basically got the whole 3rd floor rented out. Once getting home from working, all of us sit and chat the rest of the night away. You see, after my interview with President, I knew that he was gonna call me to be financial secretary. I even called Elder Rushforth and told him I suspected it. Then Elder Napier told me, "Yeah, President wanted to call you on the spot in the interview. But we were just going to wait until cambios to extend the call to you. But then Elder Leite and I were looking at cambios with him and realized it'd be kinda hard to wait. So President called you right then and there." Today was my first real day of office work. Nothing too exciting really. I just got the end of month expense report up to date and fixed some stuff with the water distribution worksheet using some good 'ole Excel. If I had to go back in time and have President ask me again if I knew how to use it, I would say, "Nope," with a capital "p" (noPe). We'll get it figured out though. Working in the office is like a featured episode of "Peru Lima East Mission: Backstage". There's a tradition in the office where all the new guys that come in have to buy pizza for everybody. So today I dropped s/107.80 on Dominos for everyone in the office.
It pays off to be a penny pincher (pun intended ) because I didn't even have to use my personal McKay fund, just the Elder White fund. I'm still kinda broke though considering that tomorrow they want to all go get all you can eat sushi for s/45. Tonight we went and visited Juan Pablo and Carmen to get them all ready to go for tomorrow.
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