August 31, 2015

No group email from Jeremy today (he says his email was giving him some troubles) so here are some highlights from what he sent to Kathy and me.

I told him about eating grilled beef heart and he said "You think grilled beef heart is good, you should try grilled Alpaca heart. Yeah, I ate Alpaca heart the other day."

I asked him about his hump day (one year mark) and he said "The tradition is when you hit 6 months you burn a tie, a year you burn a shirt, 18 months you burn a pair of pants and the day before you go home you burn a whole suit. Well, I didn't really want to burn a tie, I don't have enough pants to lose a pair, and burning a suit is just plain stupid, but I am planning on burning a shirt. I actually started with one of the zone leaders, Elder Ramirez, and we're thinking about burning our shirts together. Maybe we'll do a big bonfire or something."

When asked about exciting events this past week he wrote "Oh, yesterday I conducted Sacrament meeting! That was something. Nothing real exciting is going on yet."

And from Kathy's email he said this "This week was super weird. We were traveling basically the whole week and there was not any time to teach. On mondays we always go to a city called Juliaca because it's where the rest of the missionaries in our zone are. So last monday we went to Juliaca and then we had to stay there til wednesday morning because I had to go to Puno and sign a couple of documents for my visa. On thursday we went to Asangaro in the morning to get a birth certificate for a member in Arequipa (which is another mission) so that he and his girlfriend can get married. We got back to Choquehuanca at like 2 in the afternoon, then had to leave again at 4:30 to pick up our district leader Elder Kline to do divisions. Friday we went back to Juliaca again to drop off Elder Kline. I think in all I spent at least 9 hours on a bus this week just going back and forth. Our branch president had his leg operated on during the week and because of that couldn't come to church yesterday. Since Elder Blancarte and I are the counselors we were in charge of everything. I even conducted. It was super weird, but I kinda had fun.

My pensionista from Quillabamba wrote me this week. She started her letter with "hola mi hijo". I love her. Just thought you should know I have another mom here haha."

You can't really tell, but the watch reads "9:35" We're always supposed to be back at home by 9:30, but one day Elder Montero and I got stuck in a baptism  until 9:45ish and our district leader was going to send this to President and tell him how disobedient we are. The best part is that the district leader was also there, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to take the picture, and it was his baptism.

All of those kids were part of our seminary class. They came with us to a baptism one day. The kid right on my left is Alex, one of my converts :)

August 24, 2015

Hey guys! Sorry about not writing anything last week, I didn't have a whole lot of time. This one's gonna have to be pretty short too. But basically, things are picking up here in Choquehuanca. We've met a lot of promising people and we're starting to teach them. It's been slow but steady. Thanks to you guys who have been writing me and praying for us. It's really making a difference.

So Saturday we had interviews with President Harbertson. I love interviews because I always learn something new. This time we talked a lot about the attitude we have and how it affects us in the work.

Yesterday in church they called me to be 2nd counselor in the branch presidency. My companion is first counselor. It was weird, they sustained me and everything. So basically I'm going to learn a lot as I try and help in this role. I just hope I actually can help out. I've been secretary and stuff like that, but never a counselor. This is going to be fun.

Love you all. Thanks for the support and love.

August 10, 2015

Hey all! Sorry I couldn't write anything last week, we ended up painting the sister's house all day and we were only in internet long enough to write President. I've got nothing but time now though, and a couple of stories to tell.

A couple of weeks ago Elder Montero and I were walking down the street when a drunk guy stopped us. That's always a good time. So we start talking with this guy and he's telling us how much he wants to change his life. He told us all about the problems his drinking had caused, the biggest one being that his wife was about to leave him and take his daughter away. He had no idea how to handle these problems either, so he just started drinking more to try and forget about them. Obviously that didn't help much. So he sat there in the street pleading us to come over and help him out. The next day I went over with Elder Flores, our district leader. The guy was still kinda drunk, but I feel like the lesson went pretty well. We have another appointment with him this coming week, and we're going to see what happens.

That was the only thing out of the ordinary from two weeks ago that I could remember, but this past week has been insane. Basically all of the branch leaders have been traveling this week, so we've had to do a bunch of stuff for them. We taught seminary this week, taught all of the classes in church yesterday, had to make the program for sacrament meeting, etc. It's been stressful, but at the same time we're having a lot of fun with it. For example on Friday we couldn't teach seminary because there was a baptism and we had invited some investigators. We couldn't find a replacement either so we actually ended up bringing the whole seminary class to the baptism. We filled 3 rows haha :) I'll try to include a photo if Elder Flores will pass it to me.

On friday and saturday some gringos came with this awesome service project. The people here are all fairly poor and sometimes they can't afford to go to the doctor and do basic things like checkups. So there's this group that comes and offers things like that for free. This time they checked everybody's eye sight and gave out free pairs of glasses. They were there 2 days, met with about 1,000 people and the whole time we were there contacting and explaining more about the church. We met a ton of people there, not just future investigators but less actives as well. Between Elder Montero and I alone there were 87 contacts between those two days. Super cool!

Big news! Today is transfers, and I'm leaving Quillabamba. My new sector is a tiny little pueblo called Choquehaunca and my new companion is named Elder Blancarte. I leave tomorrow, so next week I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Love you all! Write you next week!

August 3, 2015

Hey guys! So basically I have no time at all to write, we spent the whole day painting the sister's house and I just barely got to internet but I have to leave in five minutes and I've gotta write President so I don't have time to write all of you guys. Sorry, I super suck but I'll try to make up for it next week (if we don't end up going to Machu Picchu (we're planning a trip)). I love you guys and I'm super sorry. Blame the hermanas :P

To make up for it, we took a photo in Cusco a couple of weeks ago with almost all of the elders from my district in the CCM. It's crazy seeing how much we've grown in these few months :)