Sooo this week has been really amazing! I've been understanding the language at times a lot better. I usually can comprehend during the lesson, but once they start telling their life story, I get lost and maybe only pick up a few words.
Last p-day we went to Viru, about 30 minutes out of Chao and went to go eat POLLO LA BRAZA (Peruvian grilled chicken) with the Zone Leaders and Elder and Hermana Whitney (they are the senior couple and are from Arizona.) Pollo la Braza is so amazing!! It's this rotisserie chicken with actually good fries. Most fries here are cold and wet but these are actually good haha.
I've noticed that I love Christmas music now that I don't listen to any music anyway haha, but Elder Harper lost his USB so now we have no music.
The next day we went to Trujillo for a multi zone conference and had to wake up at 5 a.m. to ride the bus for an hour and a half to Trujillo, but we got to listen to the Grease soundtrack in English and Top Gun too haha. We can't control what happens on the bus... So I figured it might be okay to listen. Plus Grease is one of my favorite movies.
Anyway the next day we found a nuevo (new investigator), her name is Karla. She has 4 kids. We found her through service. I helped her fix her hose... Then we set a date after giving her the missionary run down. As we walked away we found out that fixing her hose was so that she could water her dirt... haha yeah, for some reason they water their dirt here. I guess since they don't have grass, they figure they might as well water their dirt.
That night we found out what happened to Lizbeeth! (Carlos´ wife that randomly ran off.) She apparently was cheating on him and was being fake to the missionaries. It's really sad what happened... and apparently the kids said, "No we don't want to go. That guy is mean, he hits us" which is horrible because Lizbeeth and Carlos were going to get married and baptized and live happily ever after... We can tell he is really sad about it, but he tries to tell us everything is alright and then changes the subject to our lesson.. poor guy. He is still planning on getting baptized on the 8th though so we are really happy about that!
Friday morning I was having a hard morning, missing home (stupid I know), didn't have motivation to work out, I was super tired etc... I know I shouldn't look back home and I was just having a hard time for some reason with missing Amber's wedding! But, I know why I'm here and I know this is the best place I can be and I am loving every second of it!!. We did service later and ate and took a nap after lunch at Flor's house for about 30 minutes. Then I realized I needed to quit being a bago (lazy) and get to work. For the rest of my life I'm going to be tired but it's my mood that's going to change my bad days into good ones. I was reading in "Adjusting to Missionary Life" and it says to act first, then get the motivation to do it. Sometimes that's what we have to do - Act first and then the motiviation will come... Especially with waking up haha. The next day was kind of long... not really, but just kind of mostly because all of our citas (appopintments) fell through etc. But then we went and taught Alonzo (a recent convert and needs the lessons over again) and I killed it and killed the First Vision! I have that memorized totally in Spanish now, so wootang-killa-bang! After that we taught Victor, a progressing investigator, who is currently co-living with his girl. We commited him to a baptism date for the 21 of Oct. He just needs to ola (orar leer asistir - Pray, read and attend church) to know that this is what he needs to do and that it is true. Yes, the church is definitely true!!
That night, our friend... not really our friend... our neighbor, Juan, apparently that's his name... decided to turn 50. Yep, here they like to blast their music all night when it's their birthday, and you know what? There is no sound ordinances here! Que en el mundo?! (What in the world?!) Yeah I know!! Haha so yeah they blasted it from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.. perfect right? Haha it was awful! But oh well, life goes on.
Sunday we had a ton of citas (appointments) and were booked! But we were able to get to all of them. We taught Ivan and told him about the Law of Castidad (Law of Chastity) and asked him to move out, he said no. Mostly because he didn't have the money... So he said he will start working on their marriage papers, which is hard here, so we are going to help them. It's actually really common not to get married here because of that. After that lesson, we were going back to Flor's for dinner, when a man came up and asked us something that I didn't understand, having to do with beer. I think he was trying to sell it to us. We told him who we were and gave him the run down and then he told us his life story. I know that this guy believes in God but he claims he doesn't because his life has been really hard. He said his dad was a drunk and would beat his mom until one night it went too far and he killed her then he ran away and left the kids behind. He now works for a restaurant and just has never understood the gospel and feels like Jesus didn't do anything for him. I'm really excited to teach him. We should be teaching him tonight, but Elder Harper had something bad and has been double dragoning it all night and day, so we've spent the p-day inside today. But I did get 5 hours straight of studying without noticing it haha, and then took a nice nap. He seems to be doing a lot better now though. He had some crackers and got some fresh air. Oh yeah.. and he has a foot fungus so his feet smell kind of stinky! Haha so that's why my title says that... Sometimes it's pretty bad at night hahaha but I just pray for strength to be able to endure it.. haha. Well I love you guys! I hope all is well!! Philipians 4:13 - I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. Church is true, go to seminary kids, you'll regret it if you don't, I promise. Hasta la pasta!! ......
Okay, question time Mom and Dad!
- Tell us about Flor.
Cory: Flor is our pencion and she is amazing! (She cooks for the missionaries and I think she does laundry too.) I showed her my family pictures this week and she was just lit up so much!!
- We saw pictures of bikes with wood type boxes on the back that say "taxi" on them. What are those?
Cory: The little bike taxis are very common. That's how a lot of men make their money here. They're called Moto Taxis.
- Where do you go to church?
Cory: Our church building is just a house basically, haha, and we have a Branch obviously, but it's getting pretty packed! We had 11 of our investigators come to church this week. That's not counting Chao 2 (the other elders) they live closer to Flor.
- How many live in your apartment?
Cory: It's just me and Elder Harper in our appartment.
Cory:
- That's really cool about all the young women in our ward who are preparing to serve missions!!
- I'm sooo happy that Maple Mountain beat Spanish Fork high school in football last week!! I just didn't want Maple Mountain to lose to them! And it was on their turf, so even better.
- I got a clip from Cia about Cam's email. That's crazy he already got bit! The dogs in Chao are really nice luckily. Cam always had the best Spanish out of anyone, naturally, because of his fam. I hope the guy is doing good. I need to get to emailing him!
- Don't tell anyone this, but girls are snakes. You probably already know that! Except the girls in our family. They're all pretty butterflies or something like that. My all time favorite Proverbs 21:19 - It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.
Besitos (Little kisses) !!! Love you fam
(Cory uploaded his pictures to a photo sharing site but didn't give us the login information or password. I tried to catch him online to find out what it was, but he was already gone..... So no pictures this week. Darn!)
