Día de Gracias y Fasting Works!

This week was super great!

Last p-day a bunch of elders were in town because of transfers and we played soccer at our stake center. I remember thinking, wow I love the mission. Also we fasted last week and I had a crazy strong craving for pizza rolls haha, which don't exist here. But yes, I love my mission. I might miss random stuff like pizza rolls, but the mission is so worth it!

Anyway, my new companion is goofy and loves to work. So I think this transfer is going to be a good one. First off, I just want to say Happy Thanksgiving to y'all! I didn't think I was going to celebrate it since no one here knows what it is, but this family in my ward invited us to their house. The grandma used to live in the States and she threw together a Thanksgiving dinner. There was turkey, mashed potatoes, a pasta salad, and of course rice. Before the dinner we watched a small video explaining the origins of Thanksgiving and then I explained my family traditions. Then we went around in a circle and said what we were grateful for. There was a lot of us huddled in a room and it was a super good night. If felt like I was with family. It's going to be hard for me to leave this area.

I want to give a shoutout to my mom. I was able to continue another tradition. In my family we always decorate the Christmas tree on Black Friday. Well my mom sent me a Christmas tree, so Friday I decorated my tree and listened to Christmas music.

Outside of these celebrations, we worked a ton this week. We only had study time 2 days, because we have had appointments all day. I love study time but teaching is more important.

This week I learned two things. The first is to never trust anything given to you in a bowl. When someone gives you a plate you can easily see what's on it. But like the devil, lots of mischievous stuff can be hiding in a bowl. (Refer back to the chicken foot soup experience) haha. Tuesday we taught these people, and after they gave us a bowl of I don't know what. It was a struggle to eat it.

The second thing I learned this week, is the power of the Fast. This girl we are teaching has had the missionaries for 7 years. She wants to be baptized so bad but her dad won't let her until she is 18. She is only 15 so that's 3 years away. Se we fasted for her and her dad. Then Sunday we taught her again and her dad showed up which is rare. At the start he didn't want to listen. He told us he was tired and needed to rest because he had been drunk all weekend. Another funny thing he said later on, is that all of his friends invite him to drink, but the only friend he has that doesn't invite him to drink is Jesus. It was hard to not laugh. Anyways we got him to listen to a verse before he went to rest and then he sat down and asked us a bunch of questions. One question he had was about tithing. In his old church they had to pay to go to church. The pastor told him that the word of God isn't free Haha. So when he found out our church was free he said he is going to try to come with his daughter to church. Anyways missionaries have been trying to talk with him for 7 years. And Sunday he came and sat down and talked with us. We didn't do anything to change him, but through fasting, God was able to help us reach him. So yeah we will definitely be praying more and lets hope that he will finally let his daughter be baptized!

That's pretty much it for me. Oh p.s. if you want a good laugh little kids always come up to us in the streets. These like 8 year old girls were shocked that my hair was blonde haha and that even the hair on my arms was blonde. Also I bought a Captain America fidget spinner for about 60 cents. Probably the best purchase I've ever made.

Dog🐶 Count: 442 for week, 4071 total.

1)Thanksgiving!!!!!!!

2)My humble Christmas tree featuring a slice of cake someone gave us

-Sorry not many photos, but this next week you will probably be spammed with photos - so sorry you'll have to wait

I'm done with training!!

Well this week was an interesting one.

Monday I was super frustrated. One, our church is under construction and usually we play volleyball at the church but we weren't able to with the construction. I can leave Logan High, but I can't leave its curse of construction haha. And two, I was very angry with my companion.

Then Tuesday morning I took out that frustration on the house and cleaned our entire house. It was so gross. I'm pretty sure I cleaned like 5 different kinds of mold. If you want to know how gross it was, the mop I used (a towel tied to a broom) to clean with I left outside. Friday I went to use it again and there were these gross maggot worm things all over it. I don't know where they came from - I'm not a biology teacher, but yeah. Anyway, cleaning is good therapy and I felt better after that.

Then Wednesday and Thursday I was on divisions with my zone leader from Ecuador. He ends his mission at the end of December and it was so fun to be with him. We had really good spiritual lessons and a bunch of success. And Thursday we were in a trio with this super funny Elder from Honduras. It was a good break from the usual. It was the most fun I have had in a while.

This week I also had lots of teaching opportunities outside of teaching the gospel. So I've continued teaching Sergio, my pension's son, math. While on divisions somehow I spent an hour or so teaching a girl how to divide fractions. Sergio's teacher asked where he learned to do the math since he does the math in a different (if I do say so, better) way, and he said there is a gringo living at his house haha. He said his whole class copies his work now.

Then Saturday I got called last minute and had to replace an elder teaching English. The church has started a program called English Connect and its free English classes that are church organized and missionary ran. It was fun to teach and I thought it was really funny that they teach how to pronounce words, and then how we really pronounce words. For example in the lesson I taught, they learned that when t or ts is followed by the next word starting with y, we say ch. For example It's nice to meet you is It's nice to meechu. They had lots of fun practicing this.

Then Saturday another unexpected thing happened. My companion got transferred out of the area and I'm staying again! I'm happy to stay in this area through Christmas. My new companion is from Chile and is also district leader so now I'm 6 for 6 with district leader companions.

The spiritual thought I have for this week is about opposition. That day I was with my zone leader was super successful. But that didn't mean it was easy. This Elder is fresh off of crutches and it hurts to walk a lot. The appointments were scattered all over the area and we definitely walked a lot. I also had an awful headache and my nose randomly started bleeding during an appointment. We could've easily gone to the room and taken some vitamins and rested, but we didn't. That day unexpectedly we set up two baptisms, one for yesterday and one this week. Then we also got a new investigator and just had an awesome day. That night he had physiccal therapy in a different area and he showed me this cool Mexican restaurant which is rare here. So anyway if everything seems to be going wrong, think about if possibly the devil is trying to stop you from doing something or stop you from receiving blessings.

Sorry this one was super long haha, but I love and miss y'all!!!

Dog Count: 296 for week and 3629 total.

1)Accidentally woke up at 5:30 but was blessed with a cool sunrise

2)A dog we've named the Warcraft Dog

3)Sunsets

Where your Focus is

What is up everyone!!

I'm not going to lie, this week was a little rough. But God helped me out a ton. So my stomach was super bad this week. It sucked because I wasn't able to do a lot. There were a couple days when we weren´t able to do much work. Saturday, while thinking back on the week, I became super frustrated because my stomach freaking sucks, this week I've started to get bed bug bites, somehow I got an ingrown fingernail even though I cut my nails a ton, and sometimes it was hard to have patience with my companion.

Later Saturday I was laying on my bed flipping throuugh my scriptures and a verse in Alma 38 stood out to me. In verses 3 and 4 Alma praises his son Shiblon for his mission work among the Zoramites. In verse 4 Alma says, For I know that thou wast in bonds; yea and I also know that thou wast stoned for the word´s sake; and thou didst bear all these things with patience because the Lord was with thee; and now thou knowest that the Lord did deliver thee. That verse helped me realize how wimpy my frustration was. I was frustrated because of small things like bug bites or a bad stomach, but at least I'm not getting stoned. I was frustrated because we weren't able to work a lot because of my stomach and because of my companion, but at least it's not because I'm in bonds. So yeah, my week seemed "rough" but if I look back on the good, I had a good week!

Monday night I made my pension´s family some good old chocolate chip cookies. Tuesday our pension´s husband, who worked at a pizzeria in Spain, made BBQ Chicken pizzas. I ate an entire pizza because who knows when I'll eat that again, but I definitely regretted that one afterwards. Tuesday we also helped people build a house. Thursday we helped in the bakery again and the owner said the pizza crust I made came out super beautiful and was the best one.

This week I started tutoring my pensions son in math which is a little sketchy in Spanish but I actually like it. They call me the gringo todo poderoso or the all powerful gringo haha. This week was my best of Spanish, we found some super cool investigators, and p-days we play volleyball and last time I spiked it good on them haha. So yeah, if I focus on the bad this week sucked, but if I look at the good, I had a lot of fun this week. So my advice would be to always look for the good, count your blessings, and if you look at the good of my week it was all interaction with others. But the bad of my week was focused on myself. That just shows where your focus is, is where your happiness is. Focus on God and others and you'll be happy. Focus on yourself and things can get bad real quick. Anyways that's it for me. Peace out until next week I love y'all!!✌

Dog Count🐶: 278 for week, 3333 for total

1) A clash of Culture! Chocolate Chip cookies meet Panetón

2) Sorry I had to flex on them. Shoutout to my cousin Hannah for the coolest socks I've ever seen!

3) Idk what it is but selfie with pizza

4) Ferrocarril! It means railroad but also is the name of the street which I find funny that the name of the street is literally railroad

Halloween and rain destroy missionary work

What up y'all!?

I hope your week went well! I was expecting this week to be cool because of Halloween but this week was super boring. All of our appointments either fell through, or we had to cancel or reschedule them.

Tuesday we had to go to a different area on divisions because one elder had to see the doctor. So we missed all of our appointments that day. Then Wednesday was Halloween and I didn't realize it until almost lunch time haha. We weren't able to do anything because in the afternoon everyone was busy preparing for Halloween. Then that night, all of the celebrations were in central Huancayo which isn't in our area so no one was home. Thursday was the day of the living which was terrible. 99% of all the stores were closed and our area felt like a ghost town. I don't know where everyone was, but somewhere off partying. Friday was the day of the dead and it was lame here. It was basically their memorial day and everyone just went to the cemetery. We tried to do a family search activity but it started to rain hard and wrecked that idea. I ended up spending the afternoon with the elder who went to the hospital because he's on crutches and can't do a lot. My companion went with his the other elder out teaching. Another pair of elders were stuck with us because of the weather so we ended up playing Monopoly. I was frustrated because we lost all of our appointments that day but monopoly is always fun haha. Saturday was pretty cool because we had an activity called Noche de Blanco where everyone in our zone had baptisms together at the stake center. It was super fun because two of my favorite investigators got baptized. Yesterday (Sunday) we had an amazing storm. There was a bunch of lightning and it hailed super hard. It took a good second, but I got a photo of the lightning! The only problem was that we live on a rooftop and I paid the price of the picture by standing in the hailstorm. So appreciate the photo. Sorry this email was lame but that's how the week was.

The spiritual thought is going to be simple this time. Pray. God is all knowing and all powerful. He is also your Father. That means he always wants to hear you and help you, but he wont help you against your will. A faithful prayer shows God that we want His help. So whatever help you want, pray and have the faith to receive an answer. If you are praying for and answer, remember that prayer is a conversation and to meditate after because if we ask someone a question and then leave or go to sleep before the person can respond, they aren't going to be able to answer us. It's the same with prayer.

Anyways peace out! I love y'all, and I'll try to do more cool things next week!

Dog Count: 338 for week, 3055 total

Photos:

1)Just smooth chillin

2)Noche De Blanco!

3)Storm Viewz

4)Plz Enjoy ;)