10/14/13
We had the loudest thunder this week. It would strike and rumble for 5 seconds and then happen again and just pouring rain the whole time.
This week was pretty good. A couple of
rough patches but all is good now. This week we got a new Elder in the Pension.
He has been out for almost 20 months but he is new to our pension.
I am getting used to being the tallest person here but with him around it
is the exact opposite. I think he is about 6 foot 10 in. He is so
dang tall, but super nice and positive.
On Monday we didn’t really do anything. It
was PDay and my comp slept all day.
On Wednesday we went and ate lunch with the
Familia Guaratchi (haha I found out this week that the Huaratchi family is
actually spelled with a G... Not an H... My bad...) We ate this Peruvian food—way good but the
meat was different. I found out after that it was because it was the
utter of a cow. But too late now to be
grossed out since I already ate it. After that we went and taught a family
with a single mom and 2 boys that are exactly like Johnny boy and I were, only
better behaved and speak Spanish. The older one is taller and a twig and
loves doodling and soccer and the other is shorter, a bit bigger, and is
starting to swim. Anyways, we
had our first lesson with them and it was so dang good. She went to
General Conference even though she isn’t Mormon and she loved it and wanted to
hear more. We taught the lesson and I invited her to be baptized and she
accepted! We ended up teaching for 3 1/2 hours—that is like watching all
of King Kong but instead of watching a giant monkey fight dinosaurs you are
talking about the church the whole time. But it flew by so I guess that’s a
good thing, right? We missed all of our other appointments so then we
went to look for a reference. The clouds were dark black as far as the
eye could see so we were trying to hurry. We got a little bit lost and we
had to ask for directions from these 2 churros. I thanked them for their
help and then they said, "Hey my sister and mom are inside and are Mormon. Do you want to talk to
them?" So we went into their house and started talking to
their sister. They both told us that they were not interested and we were
never going to change their minds. And then, the rain started
dumping. It was so much rain it’s ridiculous. The thunder was for
seconds and the rain was trickling in through the tin roof. It was pretty
relaxing to listen to the rain hitting the roof though. In this house
were 3 little kids, 2 people who don’t like Mormons, 2 hoodlums, and 2 Mormons.
How much do we have in common? Not much. So I started to talk about the 2
things that all Argentines love—food and soccer. It just so happens that
I love those too! So it was pretty easy to have a conversation and they all
started warming up. They bought us some bread at a store next door and
made us some mate in the little tea bags. But we chatted it up and then
they told us that they were playing soccer on Monday for one of their birthdays
and that they are eating asado too and they wanted us to come. Woo!
What’s not to like about that? After that we got a taxi and went home.
On Thursday we did the normal routine, wake up,
exercise, bathroom, shower, shave, study for 3 hours, and then go to a member’s
house to talk a bit and have lunch. After lunch we had a lesson at 2:30
and then all of our other lessons dropped us. So we went to a member’s
house and just sat there. I was kinda bugged because my comp was just
talking to them because we only have so much time so I just pulled out my list
and started studying. We got a reference (Laura and Santiago) from the
family and we went and visited them and it turned out pretty good.
Santiago is the son and has some drug problems and also has a bit of schizophrenia
so they asked us if we could help. We gave a lesson (and by we I mean my
comp) and then after that they told us how much hope they have now.
Man it makes me so happy when people tell me things like that.
The next day I was on splits with Elder Stowell
(Cam Stowell from little league football.) We went to lunch and to go
meet up with our normal comps but there was all sorts of confusion and I
accidentally called one of our investigators and I couldn’t understand them and
so I asked them if our appointment was at 5:30 and then they said something and
I couldn’t understand them and then they said something else and then I didn’t
understand that and then they said something like "we can try for 5:30, it
is more difficult for us but if you can’t at any other time..." So I
didn’t know what to do or how to respond to that because I guess I wrote it in
my planner wrong so it was just all chaos trying to get them to understand what
I was saying, but in the end we got it all figured out. After that we
went and taught the Fernanda, Bruno, and Santiago (the duplicates of john and I) and
things were great there again. And then we went to the Guarachi Familias
house and they fed us dinner. They gave us shiskabobs of chicken and
beef. And then they gave me another kind of meat and when I started
eating it they all started to laugh. The first beef was cow heart and the
second was intestines. Haha man after my mission I’m going to have eaten
every possible part of a cow. The heart was actually pretty dang good
though. Also they gave us presents that night. They knew that I
loved honey so they bought a huge thing of honey and just gave it to me.
Man I love the people here.
On Saturday we went to a member’s house and made
tacos. My companion is kinda bossy sometimes and so he was saying stuff
like "What are you doing?" "You’re doing that wrong” and
all that, but guess who ate 5 tacos? My companion. The family told
me that they loved it and they want me to cook again, woo! After that
there was a Stake activity so we went to that. They wanted us and the
members to go out and do street contacting and see how easy it is to share the
gospel. I did this before but this time there was a catch—I had to be in
charge of a group of 14-17 year old kids.
The other catch was my companion wasn’t with me. Haha it was like
a zoo. They were so stoked about it, they were just bookin it with pamphlets
from store to store, person to person. I couldn’t control them at
all. I felt like I was in one of Asher’s baseball games again. But
in the end it turned out pretty good. We
got 2 references and handed out 1 book of Mormon and 60 more people received pamphlets
haha.
Sunday was Fast Sunday. The familia
Guarachi invited one of their nonmember friends named Henry who is Columbian
and he had this sweet bag. I told him that I liked his bag and then we
went into the meeting. Church was good. I bore my testimony,
probably didn’t make sense but I give it an A for effort, right? After
church we went to lunch and taught a lesson and after that we went to the
Guaratchis. Henry was there and the first thing he did was hand the bag
to me, the one he had at church, and said "Here, this bag is for
you..." haha So dang nice. Literally the second time that I
have ever seen him and he gave me his backpack. We taught him a super
long lesson and then we went to the bishops and then home.
Today, we just relaxed, went to a member’s house
and had some asado. I was so dang hungry so this was the perfect thing to
end on.
In other news I don’t know why but I wanted to
have a little PB&J here but there is no Peanut butter to be found so we
went to the store and bought some peanuts and made some fresh Peanut Butter. It
isn’t that good but it will have to do for now.
Oh also about my companion.
He is from Chiclayu Peru and is a 3 year convert to the church. He
is 25 and was an electrician before the mission. He has been dating a
girl who is also a convert for the past 8 years and I’m pretty sure they have a
house already.
Crazy story for the week:
I saw a record breaking 4 normal sized people on
1 motorcycle! Man I still cannot believe it. They were so scrunched
on there, it is ridiculous.
We are having classes of English in a week and I
have no clue how to teach or what the heck we are gonna do or who is gonna show
up. So if you have any tips for teaching English, let me know.
Good luck out there. I hope all is
well. I love you guys.
Love-Andy
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