Rokin' Perú: McFlurries and the Pope

So this week has been pretty good. Pretty chill week, not too much happening, but it's been good. On Monday my companion and I went to the mall. I did my Christmas shopping with the money that was sent. I bought myself some cool stuff (new suit, sweat pants, new pants, bought some shoes in the mayorista market that normally cost like 300 dollars… I got them for 35 dollars haha.) Afterwards we went to the McDonald's there in the mall. I wanted to cry. Haven’t had McDonald's for a hot year and a half haha, it was SOO good! Straight McFlurry and fries had me almost cry, straight up!

Tuesday we ran it off in the morning. My companion, Harold, Nicola and I all went running in the big park. They´re slow. I was going hard, and WOW, I was EXHAUSTED the next day. Like I've never been so tired in my mission. Not only that, I had to prepare myself because the assistant, Elder Rhoton, (from my CCM group) did an interchange the day after that with me so I had to pull it off that I was hyped and not tired. The next night I came back WHIPPED! Absolutely exhausted! It was a super good interchange with Elder Rhoton. I learned a bunch from the kid. He´s a stud. Really just all in the simple stuff that we forget at times to do. Doing those simple things really does bring out the best results in the end.

On Wednesday we had an awesome meeting with the Zone about the things from consilio (counsel.) One of the points we talked about was being called to where we needed to be and to keep enduring to the end, although it may be hard to know why we should. I shared, in my own words, the story from Elder Holland given in a mission president training not too long ago. It’s the one about the rebel son that his missionary brother finds him and tells him, “I'm here to call you back home.” The story really impacts me a bunch and just gives me hope for my big brother. I almost cried a bit sharing the story, then relating it with Chad, saying how I would want missionaries to find him and that’s one of the things that keeps me going when things get hard. It turned out really good and everyone really felt the spirit.

During this week we had a bomb lesson with Hirvin about the priesthood. The kid is a stud. He has such intelligent questions. Also we had some super great lessons with Ariana! She's so awesome. She reads everything we ask her to. She tells us how she is praying and asking if it's all true. She has a real desire to know if this is the truth or not. And she always comes to church each week for the 3 hours. We had a lesson on the Sacrament to help her understand more and she really got it. Tonight we are going to watch the Restoration video with her. She already has a bunch of friends and they always accompany us to lessons. She's so prepared though. We are so hyped!

Ariana is in the middle.

Mateo is the little boy in the blue tie. He's our pencion's son.

Us with Ariana.

Later this week we were FINALLY able to contact Familia Roncal. We haven’t been able to meet with them for almost a month. They had a fecha (baptismal date) for the 27th of this month but due to the lack of contact, I don’t think they’ll make it. But Johan and Jose Luis did come to church, which was good!

Also during this week we were preparing for today. We are playing against Zona Laureles again in fútbol CHEEHOOO! We got some cool France jerseys. When we were there, there was a Pope shirt on display - - quick backround info, the Pope is coming to town here in Trujillo on Saturday. -- I look at my companion, and in English say, “Bro, I want a Pope shirt.” He looks at the guy and points to the shirt and asks how much it is. The guy goes, “10 soles.” 10 SOLES???? WHAT!!! THAT’S LIKE 3 DOLLARS!! I was like YUP! You already KNOW I bought myself a Pope shirt!

In the second hour at church we always have a Gospel Principles class with all the investigators and new converts. Sooo, both teachers got released and apparently nobody got called. We get there and realize there is no teacher with about 15 people there… cool. So yeah, I gave a 50 minute improvised class haha. But it actually turned out WAY good. 100 percent guided by the spirit. Haha, so yeah, that was cool.

Hermana Tejada (Hermana Higginson's companion here in La Noria 2) found out she has to return home this week. She has a blood disease and lacks iron in her body. She's always tired and can barely leave to proselyte lately. Super sad, but it's better that she gets medical attention at home. So we made No Bake cookies for the last time with her this week, then had a little goodbye “party”, even though it wasn’t a party.. it was Sunday.. haha, but yeah, kinda sad, but it was honestly a miracle she was even here in the first place. So yeah, keep her in your prayers if you would!

I may or may not have eaten 12 of the cookies......

Anyway, that’s about it for this week. It's been a great week. Had some super spiritually uplifting lessons this week with Hirvin and Ariana! Hope you all have a great week though. Miss you all. Love you all. Dueces.

Ya boy, Elder Rokovitz

Found this kid in the park. Don't even know who he is and I don't even like the Jazz, but he was reppin' Utah!

Chillin' with our boy, Fernando. We saw all his "rocker" stuff outside and wanted to contact him. He's not an investigator though. He's pretty funny. He told us that he was in the CIA before and that the Mona Lisa is really the Virgin Mary. We asked him to play a song for us with all his stuff but he said he would have to hook it all up, so instead, we sang Karaoke with him hahahah.