Well, we woke up really early to get ready to head to Chiclayo. The "bus" ride there was interesting because everyone on it was male and they looked at us like they have never seen a woman before....haha.. We finally arrived at the Mission Office and got the paper work for Hna Reid and headed to inmigracions. Once we got there, we waited for 30 minutes and got in but once we got in we ended up having the wrong paperwork and not enough copies of another, so we returned to the mission office, got the right things and waited again.... we finally finished her papers and went shopping. I found a lot of fun things that I sent home today! :) In Chiclayo, us white people don't get as much attention. I love it! I feel normal again. haha
We went to lunch at El Boom (The Boom!) I got a hamburger and fries, and then Hna Reid and I shared a caramel cake. It had coconut on top. It was so yummy. The hamburger not so much, but the fries were SO AMAZING!
After lunch, we headed to Lambayeque (city right outside of Chiclayo) to do emailing and meet up with two Hnas that we were going to do divisions with, because we are staying the night in Lambayeque for a meeting of zona in the morning. What ended up happening was that we met up with hermanas, dropped our stuff off at their cuarto and well, they decided that we would all teach together instead of doing divisions...so then it ended up being really weird going around town as 4 missionaries. We ended up "teaching" this woman, actually we ended up just having a conversation with her and Hna Reid and I tried to share a message but the other hermanas took over and continued to conversate.
Then we left and went to a home of a beautiful family to have a noche de hogar (Family Home Evening). Well, we got there at 7:00 pm but the family was not there except for the mother. We ended up waiting to have FHE at 8:00 pm. We shared a message and ate food until 8:30 pm. We ate popcorn and juice. We then went to dinner. We ate arroz con leche (rice with milk) and toast. It was so yummy.
After dinner, we went back to their cuarto and planned. After planning, the hermanas did nothing to help us know what to do with our things and where we were sleeping. Well, we figured it out. I guess we will see what happens because they gave us a dirty pillow and mattress (pretty sure it has dead bodies in it!) that we get to share....good thing Hna Reid and I love each other!
Today was interesting. I definitely miss Motupe!
Martes, Junio 10, 2014
Well, I've never slept as bad as I did last night. haha Not to mention I woke up with a swollen, mucus filled eye! So that was good. haha Hopefully everyone won't make a huge deal of it! NOT! Everyone stared at it! Well other than that, this morning was pretty bad. Why? Oh because the Hnas we stayed with gave us both 5 minutes to shower, not each, but 5 minutes total! Then we went late to breakfast. Breakfast was really good - a bunch of whole fruit on a plate and hot milk. Then we had personal study. I studied Jesus the Christ and read in Chapters 23-24 and I found some really interesting things in it, like, Jesus went on a temporary retirement to prepare his apostles for his death and resurrection. I thought that was cool. I also learned that we need to have the belief like children, but act/think like adults (smartly) haha.
We left after studies to get eye drops that Hna Risso told me to get for my eye from the pharmacy. After we got the eye drops, we headed to our reunions (zone and district meetings) After, we had lunch and headed back to Motupe. Since both elders in Motupe are not from Utah like Hna Reid y I, they made fun of our sayings and words that we use like 'butting' in line and 'sluffing' class...haha.
P.S. Got my package today! All the Jesus stickers made me smile!
Well, after we returned to Motupe, we stopped by our pension to let Hna Crisalina know that we were eating lasagna at a member's house tonight, and she gave us 2 ice cream popsicles that she makes that are made with leche y 'peanut butter' y chocolate. After we ate those, we left and dropped off all our unneeded items at our cuarto and then headed back to the pension to meet a member there, and while we were waiting, Hna Crisalina gave us another popsicle thing and also a hard boiled egg. I seriously love her with my whole heart! She is always giving us so much. Hna Reid and I think that today she wanted to fill us up so we don't want to eat the other dinner tonight. haha. Jealousy issues! :)
After we ate, we went teaching, and at 8 pm we went to teach English. That was so fun. Their accents are so adorable. We started with 2 guys, and they kept asking me to translate Spanish for them into English and they were all love song lyrics! It was really funny. By the end of the class, we had 6 people! It was great and they are doing so well with English! I am really excited to help them learn!
After class, we went to dinner at Hna Maruja's house for lasagna. It had eggs in it but it was really yummy, and we had a jello dessert. We had to run home to be home on time, and once home, we planned and got ready for bed and laughed about my experience in English class. The 2 guys (Luis y Franklin) asked me what the " F-word" meant. I told them that it is a really bad word and don't say that. Also, to end the class, we pray in English and I offered it. I struggled so bad! Yay! That means that my Spanish is really affecting me.
Oh, funny story. While we were teaching today, we went to a menos active's house and her dad was there.....with the front door wide open and him sitting in a rocking chair in the dark with an old radio (silent) sitting in his lap...we were so confused and little afraid to enter the house...haha. We entered and were fine, but it was just a strange/awkward moment. :)
Miercoles, Junio 11, 2014
It was so nice to be back in Motupe today. I missed my bed, my pensionista and the people. Everywhere we go we know someone and people are always yelling to us.
Today at lunch, we were served cold soup (cold soy milk). Not once since being here in Peru has anyone served cold milk. I like it hot but for how hot it is outside, it was nice to drink it cold! I love the soy milk here. I don't think I will like milk in the States after drinking soya for a year and a half. haha I am just going to have to grow a soy bean plant so I can make myself a nice glass of soya everyday!
We started teaching right after language study. We visited Anyela (the woman who gave us the yummy fruit). After we taught her, she brought us mini Ritz crackers and soda. I had Sprite. I hate soda. haha Then we went and taught Pascuala y Ruth y their member friend, Keiko y a little boy named Jon. They were so cute today and the funniest/saddest thing happened when they asked when someone new was going to replace Hna Reid. How sad. At least they wanted to keep me there. No se why, because all we do is make funny faces at them and draw and sing. But Hna Reid talks with them in SPANISH (the language I pretend to know) and she sings AMAZING, so no se why they want to keep me? Oh well, I am glad someone here loves me. :)
After visiting them, we went and visited these newly baptized children, Jesus y Julia because their mommy feels like her children are terrible people and 'badly created', so she wanted us to talk to them about responsibility. These kids are 9 y 11 years old.
After that, we went to the church for a meeting, but no one showed up so we called the elders and they told us to meet them at our pension to go to their pension for a Birthday dinner for Elder Coons' 20th Birthday. When we got to their pension the table was set with HUGE bowls of masamora (super sweet) and arroz con leche and orange soda. Basically, I wanted to die. Everything was sooo sweet and then they fed us huge slices of jello cake. After we ate, we smashed eggs on Elder Coons' head and my egg exploded back onto me, so that was good. Then we dumped flour on his head. After we cleaned up a bit, we left to head to a house of a member to eat more cake! After we arrived at the street, we were trying to decide if we should just go get cake tomorrow, because we were going to throw up rainbows...we were laughing so hard about everything, and the fact that we were laughing so hard and speaking English, it looked like we were on drugs!
On our walk back to our cuarto, we passed this guy who was whistling a song. He stopped walking, faced us and he did the loudest cat call whistle at us and then just awkwardly walked away....what?! And then as we walked a bit more a huge group of people (men) called out, "I love you!" and I turned to Hna Reid and said, "they love us." And as she was finishing her sentence to me, the only word I heard was "yum", so I just busted up laughing! We are always laughing and joking together. Anyways, I feel super sick from all the sweet things we ate today, so....goodnight.
Jueves, Junio 12, 2014
Today, we found a menos activo named Fabian (22 yrs) and he is less active because he is working full time to save up to serve a mission. He is so cool. His spirit and desire to serve is crazy strong. We are going to try and reactivate him and help him get to the point to serve a mission. After we taught him, we met the Elders at the member's house (Hna Maruja) who had the cake for us. We ate cake (it was heaven) and drank soda. After, while we were walking to our cuarto, a drunk guy started talking to us. And this was the conversation:
Hna Reid: "Buenos dias"
drunk guy: "Buenos dias, oh wait its afternoon...buenas tardes."
Hna Reid: "No, it's still dias."
drunk guy: "And her? (pointing at me)
Hna Reid: "What?"
drunk guy: "She is beautiful. She brings me pleasure. She is so pretty. You need to take care of her."
Hna Reid: "Okay, I'll take care of her. Don't worry."
I was so confused the whole time! haha
We went to lunch and afterwards we went teaching again, and today was the start of the World Cup....Everyone in the whole city of Motupe was watching the first game. It wasn't as difficult to get people to listen to our message, which is great, but everyone in town was in their houses all day...the town was empty. After teaching, we went to help the ward with choir practice. I lead the music while Hna Reid plays the piano. They are sounding a lot better now then they did before we started practicing 2 times a week. Oh, but before practice, when we were walking to practice, a moto drove really fast passed us and someone inside yelled something at me and threw an orange at me. Turns out it was Elder Coons...and he yelled, "You're late!" What a sassy boy. haha
After practice, we (us and the elders) walked together until we had to go separate ways. It's so fun having 4 gringos here because we all speak English and we all stand out like crazy! haha
We had hot milk (with milo) and chicken potato sandwiches for dinner. After dinner, we went across the street to buy dessert (croissant filled with caramel) and treats for planning in the morning.
Viernes, Junio 13, 2014
I studied Jesus the Christ today. It is Chapter 27, and it has so many amazing parables in it! We had planificacion semenal from 10am-2pm...longest, yet most rewarding times here on the mission.
Today, we went to many homes and no one was ever "home" because there was a game on today- they were home, but pretending to be gone. It was a blessing that most people were not home because we met so many fantastic people as we walked a certain path. We went to visit Cristina but she wasn't home, so we decided to go and visit a less active family down the road, and when we got there the only people there were Jaraldin (the eldest daughter) and her friend Yajaira. So we were talking to them and started teaching about praying and I bore my testimony about God always being there for me, especially now that I'm on a mission and trying to speak a language I don't know. Right after I shared that, Yajaira started asking how to pray to have a testimony like me. And then she told us that the Elders have met with her but she didn't trust them, but she trusts us, even though we had only met her 30 minutes ago . After we finished teaching them, we started to head to this woman's house and on our way, we just happened to run into Cristina and she told us to go to her house to teach her so we did, and we asked her how reading of the Book of Mormon is going, and she said she was in 2 Nephi! We were so happy and so we just read a chapter with her and answered her questions. After reading, she sat there in silence and the spirit radiating from her was beautiful!
After that, we went to visit a less active young woman and while walking we started talking to this young woman and she was so cool and I can't wait to talk to her more, because she has a great spirit about her. And cool thing is, is that 4 years ago 3 people in her family got baptized into the church. So that is going to help us out when it comes to teaching because she is in a household that has the gospel.
We then went to dinner which was fruit salad, smoothie y little bread cookies. I love my pensionista! Seriously! Oh funny thing. Today we were craving bananas so we bought 6 each. haha Don't worry, they were bite size bananas- they are so cute. You can fit 3 mini bananas in 1 big banana. The bananas are SO good! The fruit is AMAZING and so FRESH!
Sabado, Junio 14, 2014
Bought some more bananas. I have never craved bananas as much as I do here. It's probably because they are crazy fresh here. We went to the mercado and saw bananas so we asked how much they were and the man said some thing about a dozen, but we only wanted 2, so we asked "how much for two?" and he said, "50 sentimos for 3", so we asked "how much for 4?" and he tells us "50 sentimos" (which is 15 cents in USA), so we bought 2 each! I love bananas!
Tonight was amazing. We taught the girl that has family baptized in the church. Her name is Katerin and she is 18 years old. Yesterday when we saw her on the street, we had the feeling to talk to her and today she told us that she had the feeling to talk to us, but she heard us speaking English, so she was nervous, but when we started talking to her in Spanish, she felt relieved! And during our lesson, the spirit was so strong! And at the end of the lesson, I taught her the guidelines of praying and her prayer was so beautiful. She has so much potential! We also visited Alex to give him a Book of Mormon. While we were there, a parade came through. They call them "Pase Calle" (street passing). It was so cute. The floats had children dressed up as princesses and super heroes, and they were throwing candy at everyone. The funny thing about here, is that you just follow the parade so you can get candy and see the people. So basically, everyone is in the parades!
Anyways, we were about to teach Alex when a buddy of his walks into his store, so we invite him to join us and Alex got a little jealous. I think he likes that most of the time, its always about him, but this time, he had to share his throne. haha Afterwards, we visited Jesus y Julia and apparently we are annoying the grandma that lives with them, so she is going to build a back door so we can knock on that and only "bug" Jesus y Julia y their mom. So....here we are the hippies that have to use the 'back door'....awkward...
We also visited a woman named Socorro. We have been visiting her since we got here to Motupe. She is a menos activo and basically every visit goes like this. "Can we come in and share a small message with you?" " I am sooo busy....okay, come in." We start to talk about her week...she complains about not having time to do anything...we pray and then she continues to complain, so we tell her if she comes back to church, God will bless her, but she ignores us and continues to complain about, "No time!" for 45 minutes!
So Socorro was her happy self today- so that was good.
Domingo, Junio 15, 2014
At church today we had 4 investigadores attend! It is so exciting when they start making progress. And this week, because it was Father's Day, a lot of our investigadores were out of town but next Sunday should be better. After church, we had lunch and then started teaching. The man from the other day that told Hna Reid to take care of me, found us again....and once again he yelled to her to take care of me. haha Men....
At 5 pm, we had choir practice but we got stranded in Salitral (a little town out of Motupe about a 30 minute walk), so we speed walked to the church and we were 20 minutes late but when we got there, no one was there. Lucky us. Everyone showed up at 5:30 pm and we practiced, and they are getting better and better everyday! After practice, we started teaching again. We went to a family we found who has one member and we taught them a couple days ago. The father of the household is Hugo and he is really interested in the gospel.
The best thing happened today! The Elders said that they have been visiting the member in that family for awhile and no one in the family has wanted to listen to their message until we came and taught them and apparently the Elders taught them the day after us and the dad started listening to the lessons. How awesome is that?! Our spirits touched his heart so much that he now has interest in the church. After we visited them, we visited a recent convert Fiorella and she asked me to give her a massage because I 'studied' physical therapy. I gave her one! haha :)
After, we headed to the pension, but on the way, this guy was walking 'with' us, so I started contacting him and then he started to tell us how he watches us run every day and proceed to invite us into his house (which he described as, I live alone-top floor-wanna come in?) We told him "No" and went to shake his hand and he pulled me in for a kiss, but I pulled away so fast. He is such a snake. We fled very quickly!
We ate dinner (soft boiled eggs, tomatoes, french fries y 4 desserts each) Our pensionista loves us!
Oh my gosh- funniest thing happened at church today. One woman said she was sick, so someone ran and grabbed medicine and right after she took it, many other women were saying that they had pain and felt sick, too, so there was a bunch of drugs being handed out in Relief Society. We run a drug dealership out of our casicapilla- no big deal. Us Mormons run the town. :)
Today, we found out there are cambios (transfers) and we were thinking that Elder Coons would be leaving because he has been here in Motupe for 3 cambios, but we found out tonight that ALL FOUR OF US GRINGOS ARE STAYING IN MOTUPE!! When we got the call, we ran around and screamed for 8 minutes! We love these Elders so much! Looks like we are stuck together for 8 weeks! This is going to be awesome! We had cambios early because we are getting a new mission president at the end of the month, so we have to make sure everything is set in place for him so he doesn't have to worry about it, and be overwhelmed.
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| in front of our cuarto inside the apt. building |
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| Happy Father's Day! I love you a lot! |
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| saying goodbye to some missionaries |
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| our district leader Elder Robbins is leaving |
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| My Mission Family Rama Manti: Elder Pawnkalilikane,Elder Sandholtz, Elder Meidell, Elder White Bull Hna. Olivas, Hna. Blackburn, Hna. Waite, Hna. Favero, Hna. Guymon, Hna. GivensHna. Payton, Hna. Kennedy Hna. McGinnis, Hna. Dodson, Hna. Klingler, Hna. Wease, Hna. Kuhn, Hna. Juhl, Hna. Lofgren Hna. Gonzalez, Pdte. Gonzalez |
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| Rama Abundancia: Elder Garcia, Elder Espinoza, Elder Floreano, Elder Puma, Elder Montoya, Elder Cruz Elder Espinel, Elder Jeria, Elder Morgan, Elder Macias Hna. Venancio, Hna. Lucano, Hna. Vara, Hna. Quispe, Hna. Sequeria, Hna. Brito Hna. Sosa, Hna. Garcia, Hna. Toscano, Hna. Guzman, Hna. Paez Hna. Gonzlez, Pdte. Gonzalez |
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| Rama Zarahenla: Elder Castillo, Elder Reina, Elder Barrenechea, Elder Melgar, Elder Calle, Elder Calle Elder Sanchez, Elder Amaya, Elder Webb Hna. Molina, Hna. Haro, Hna. Gonzales, Hna. Daza, Hna. Barzola, Hna. Acosta Hna. Alacron, Hna. Gilvonio, Hna. Salinas, Hna. Ruiz, Hna. Sofan, Hna. Rodriguez Hna. Gonzalez, Pdte. Gonzalez |
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