¡Churro!

This week has gone by so fast, but we have done so much.  The mission is nothing like what I expected; it is so much more.  The work, the struggles, the blessing, all make me thank God at the end of the day.  This week was filled with service, and it is always done with a machete.  We started this with some service for a member named Pedro.  Pedro and his family are awesome, both him and his wife are return missionaries, and they still give so much to the building up of the kingdom.  We tore down one of his adobe walls in his "backyard" area.  Almost all the homes here are made of adobe, and it is basically mud with a bit of goop to hold it together.  It isn't pretty but it is a very cost effective way of building.  The service was super dirty, and thus super fun.  Later that same day we went to a little farm village out side of Pueblo Nuevo called Charcape.  We went there just to contact for a few hours and we ended up teaching 4 lessons.  Every house except for one let us in for a lesson, it was a miracle.  The first man we taught, his name is Victor, is super funny.  When we approached him, he was chewing down on some coca leaves he had in his hat and asked us so many questions about the gospel.  We asked him if he lived alone and he explained about how his family lives else where and his parents died a while ago. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation, and I love when investigators get super into the lessons. On our way back to our room that night a lady started yelling "churro" at us, I kept turning around and would start to walk towards her, but Elder Palacios would stop me.  He told me that she wasn't selling churros, but that churro was like guapo [ means - handsome] and that she was hitting on me.  I was upset, because I really wanted a churro.

The next day we had mini inter cambios [changes] and went to Ciudad de Dios for a day.  I was paired with Elder Quiroz, who is an excellent missionary, but super quirky.  There area has a casa capilla [chapel] and they share the house with another companionship of elders.  A casa capilla is when the house of the missionaries is also the chapel for sacrament, because the area (member wise) is small.  We worked hard that day and extended 4 baptismal invitations just in the afternoon.

On Friday all the missionaries from Ciudad de Dios and Elder Palacios and I did a large service project for our branch.  A man in our Rama [Branch] needed a new floor, a new roof, and needed his walls redone.  It was so much fun working with members.  My favorite part was painting the walls with Hno. Huaman (pronounced kinda like Roman).  He is such a hard worker and worked the whole day with us, without shoes.  At the end of the day we were all crazy dirty and only had a couple of hours for missionary work.  Elder Palacios and I decided to go to Quember (another small farming village) about 15 minutes out of Pueblo Nuevo.  We taught them a solid lesson about the Sabbath day and then after ward they wanted us to play cards with them.  We usually don't do stay long after lessons, but they were our only appointment for the day.  It is a lot of fun to really get to love a family and feel comfortable in their home.  Afterwards I gave Rosa and Heber (the kids) glow sticks and we tried to find a moto taxi to get us home.  Mom might not like me saying this, but there wasn't one, and since it is against the mission rules to walk home in the dark, without street lights, we hitch hiked.  Rosa and Heber helped us flag down a car and Elder Palacios and I went home in the back of an old pickup truck.  They didn't even charge us anything for the ride, people here are so nice and always willing to help when they can.

On a note about food.  I helped carry some bags of rice this week(in my shirt and tie) and they are so heavy.  I always get dirty/dusty some how even when I am in my shirt and tie down here.  We walked by a butcher shop while contacting the other day and it almost made me vegetarian (that's all I will say about that).  I continue to have new food every week, this week was cau cau pronounced cow cow), which ironically is cow intestine.  It looks kind of like calamari, but it is not as good.  Also Peruvians cook EVERYTHING with oil.  If you want to know what a Peruvian dish looks like fill a plate all the way with rice, then cook whatever else you want to eat in oil and put it on top.

I am not sure if I mentioned this earlier but we have hot water now!  It is a miracle.  I never knew how much of a blessing hot water is until now.  Also I never knew how much of a blessing Liahonas/Ensigns are until I came out here.  I love reading articles and giving out Liahonas, I don't know what it is but people are instantly drawn to them here.  It is a sign that this church is true when we can freely give away proof of a prophet everyday.

I do not have much time left, but I need to explain these photos a little.  We went sandboarding as a zone today, and that is why this email is a tad late.  It was a lot of fun, especially because we have a great zone.  I went barefoot, which was great until I realized how hot the sand was.  Luckily there was a lagoon near by where we could relax after the heat.

I love you all, keep sending me the great emails.

Te Amo

Elder Perryman