Rokin' Perú: D&C 58:3

Welp, first off I need to excuse myself for being prideful last week. I was too quick to judge and only thinking of myself. This week.. I've been humbled. I hope you guys can forgive me for my pride and horrible demostration of bad judgment before knowing anything last week about where I was going. I love it here. Thank you so much for your letter Mom.. covering up here because I was bawling my eyes out. The quotes were PERFECT as well. Maybe I don't even know why I was really changed here. It's true. God was challenging my response to coming here.. I did a lot of repenting this week on how I responded haha. I have repented greatly for the things I said last week. But I am soo so greatful for my parents to be able to vent to and hear.. well read.. what you had to say to help me. It means so much I have you two to talk to. I have thrown my pride aside and I am LOVING it here. The mission experience is unico (unique) and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Anyway, now that you've all forgiven me, this week has been amazing! My new companion, Elder Fernandez, is super cool and absolutely hilarious. He`s 21 and from Argentina.. He's whiter than I am.. haha. I am sooo glad to be co-companions with him. I love not having to have that leadership in my head, it's stressful.

People always ask us where we`re from. If I say "USA" first, they say, "Oh, you're both from the states?" When my companion responds no, they go, "Oh! Well you don't look like it." (Doesn't look like he's from Argentina) Haha. If he says "Argentina" first, they say, "Oh, you're both from Aregentina?" And when I say no, they go, "Wow! You don't sound like it." (Don't sound like I'm from the states.) Pretty hyped because when I tell people to guess where I'm from and they say, "Venezuela? Colombia? Argentina? Spain..? Brazil....?" Nope! I'm from the land of the brave, boys and girls! Makes me happy because I've gotten a ton of complements on my Spanish. I've noticed this week, speaking Spanish literally just feels like speaking and listening to English. When someone is talking, I understand literally everything, and sometimes forget I'm listening to Spanish.

I'm super hyped to be here in Chimbote though! Never thought I would get to know Chimbote and now I practically know all of it because we can see everything from our area. Our area is straight up hill, all day. I'm about to come back with absolute tree trunks for legs! Our area is absolutely massive too. I thought my last area, Salaverry, was a fishing town.. Chimbote is like the fishing capital of Perú. It's SUPER famous for fishing. You get off the bus at the terminal and it smells HEAVILY of fish. Sometimes at night you can smell it as well. Oh yeah, Elder Vilchez is in my District too. And Elder Mori is my Zone Leader. Our zone is pretty lit. With our pension that cooks for us, there are 4 of us elders but from two different areas. I'm the only gringo.. also in my distrtict, I'm the only gringo.

For the transfer here, yes, we took a bus. It was pretty cool because I was talking with Elder Davis and a new elder, Elder Rossi, who's super chill. It's a pretty long ride, but it went fast. We`ll have to go back up to Trujillo like 3 times more for all the meetings and me finishing up though.. ugh.

Pretty good week investigator wise. Just getting to know everyone here. Wednesday our investigator opened the door in her bathrobe.. cool.. We just took out a cita (appointment) haha. Miercoles..(Wednesday) wasn't the greatest. I broke a shoelace in the morning and all day I was dropping and spilling things.. haha, dropped my Book of Mormon like 5 times, dropped the entire roll of tp in the toilet at a recent convert's house, dropped my orange.. (people gave us like 5 oranges that day), dropped my hot drink on my pants at night.. that REALLY sucked haha. Apart from that, it was a good day though.

Thursday we taught another investigator that's freaking awesome! Her name is Nely. She's like 55. They had just barely found her last week. This week she read the folleto (pamphlet) we left, went to church and, the best part, she told us how last week she straight fasted for 5 days so Paolo Guerrero could play in the World Cup! CHEEHOOO! Talk about dedication to your country! Hahaha pretty lit.

Friday we taught English to one of our investigators. She needed help on her college English homework.. I came in perfect timing on that one.

Saturday, was pretty lit. We are trying to help out the ward more. About 50 people go to church and we`re trying to hype everyone up. We had an activity with the YSA on Saturday at night.. if we wouldn't have been there, nothing would have happened. Everyone would have been sitting on their phones. We ended up organizing volleyball and my team absolutely killed it, only lost once. Everyone had a great time and a bunch of less actives and investigators went. The next day a bunch of them went to church too. Pretty hyped about that.

Last night we got to know a super cool less active member family. Gave the mom and the daughter blessings then taught a lesson, then laughed all night! We all were almost crying laughing it was such a fun time.

Also, pretty cool news.. Saturday while we were doing service, the District Leaders had a meeting. President finally decided to change the schedule to the 7 am wake up time and have to be in the room at 10 pm, lights out at 11 pm schedule. CHEEHOOO! Never been so happy in my life. But wait! There's more! This Saturday we are going to have a "Multi Mission conference" with the North mission and Elder Gary E. Stevenson is coming to talk with Elder Gadoy of the Seventy. Yup. Life's good.

That's about it for this week. Finna finish out these last 5 weeks with fuerza (force)!

El arrepentido (The repentant), Elder Rokovitz

The title, D&C 58:3 - Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.