Monday, June 21, 2010

Stomach of Iron needed!!!

OK SO FIRST OF ALL HAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPY FATHERS DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


and second of all FELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIZ DIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DE PAAAAAAAAAAAAADRES!

and third of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY FELIZ CUPLIANOS! just wanted to get this one out there because i hate giving late birthdays

OK yeah so here are your answers!

What kind of place do you live in?
we live in a nice apartment (in comparison to what i have seen) and i have really enjoyed being there, haha but i haven't really been there in like a week! oh i wish i could send pics but i dint have the opportunity all of this will be explained latter sorry!

How long were you sick from the food?
Well this will also be explained in my story, but i thinks that i felt good from wed until this morning!

How do you know what meat to eat and what not to eat?
Me, well i don't really i just know i cant eat anything that hasn't been properly cooked so from now on i always wait until after my companion takes a bite. :)

Has your companion been in this area?
Yes he has i think he has been here for the last transfer ( down here they are known as cambiars)

You said your toilet was broken? What does that mean, and do you actually have plumbing?
Yes we do have plumbing the toilet seat cracked in half and so the front part is annoying and occasionally the seat pinches!

When are we going to get some pictures?
siempre proxima semana! :) always next week! but again this will be explained latter!

Where do you go to email?
We come to this large computer/internet store there are probably thirty computer here and everyone from the zone comes and emails here at the same time!

How big is the ward/branch in that area?
In Santiago i think i counted about fifty people including investigators and children.

Are you keeping your journal?
uhhh yes..........and a very poor one which i why i love writing stories whenever i get mail.

Do you guys walk everywhere you go?
Yes we walk everywhere, except when it is really far in which case we either take a taxi or a mototaxi :) mototaxi's are so much funner and a lot cheaper they are like a mortorcycle that has been modified to have three wheels a cab and a seat that comfortable seats two but they are not much bigger than gocarts and alot of the time i have felt like i am in bumper cars at a theme park it is just so strange!

About how far do you walk each day?
We can walk anywhere from three to four miles with taxis without we would have to walk more like 15-20miles.

Does anyone speak English?
Um there are three north American missionaries so yes! other than that the Latino missionaries are supposed to try and learn English according to PMG. ohh we met a boy about 13 who could speak English and i could barely understand him it sounded so foreign to me. even now it is a struggle to write English as you can probably tell by my very poor typing spelling grammar

How are the shin splints?
GONE! WOOHOO!

How do you get your dear elder letters?
every week the mission office sends a package via bus to Inca and the zone leaders pick it up and deliver it to us during email time!

OK only a half hour left and i have to tell you what has been happening all week! UGH!

OK so exactly one week ago everything started a downward spiral with my companion. Ok so before i start that i should say that my companion is amazing that i love him and he felt like he was under a lot of pressure because i was his first hijo (oh trainers are padres and newbies are hijos) anyways we came and emailed and immediately afterward i asked him how did it go and then i see his face with looks completely grief stricken and he just shakes his head as if to say don't ask ( ok so i think that has to be the hardest thing ever to see because it just breaks your heart) but i gave him a little room as we walked with our entire zone over to a soccer field to play some soccer. well by the time we got there other missionaries had notcied but weren't doing anything. so when a north American missionary (ELDER HALL) came over and asked me how it went i told him everything was great with me but i think something happened with my companion, and that i thought it was family related. well he and his companion went straight into Jesus Christ mode and were comforting and got the zone leaders in on it and after a little bit we all played soccer and i think that helped get my companions mind off of his problem, but when we got back to the apartment and went out to teach i could still tell it was eating him up inside. And what made it worse was the next morning i was completely in full blown illness which was lovely:) anyways we were able to go to the district meeting and talk with all the missionaries again and he got a blessing of comfort from the district leader and me, and then they arranged to have a short intercambia tomorrow anyways when we got back to the apartment i died, i fell on the bed and was immobilized by cramps and escapades to the bathroom which was soo much fun for my companion to be stuck in the apartment with me my stomach and his problem and for about five hours i laid there (oh mini story! while i was laying there i was having some pretty wigged out dreams but one that scared me the most was i was sent home and i was kay with it i felt accomplished that i had done everything i had come to do and was satisfied) so in the midst of feeling this strange feeling of accomplishment and dierreah my companion comes in and says he knows that i am not feeling well and that h has some problems but that we needed to get out of the apartment and serve. and when he said that i immediately started feeling better. Personally i think that god made me sick with the exact intent of forcing my companion to evaluate why he was on a mission and i only had the feeling of accomplishment when he had finally made his choice, but that is just me. anyways we went out that night and committed a family of four to baptism and their friend (FAMILIA VARGAS AND HNA PRIORIA) and that put us on top of the world, but when we asked Jesus (a 8 year old investigator his mom is a nonmember but his grandparents are) if he would be baptised he started a silent cry trying to hold back tears, but he said yes, but personally i think he only said yeas because that is what he thought we wanted to hear so we talked to his grandpa to talk to him about it and that he needs a real desire to be baptised and we left with a very hollow feeling. Well the next day was an exchange and we had a lot of success well me and ELDER QUISPE our district leader which was awesome we only had the opportunity to teach 3 families (OH there is a huge difference between areas of this mission! in poverty in education and in acceptance an i had to learn how to teach to this completely different kind of people!) anyways i was a blast and when we me back up to trade back companions i could tell that my companion was doing a little better but not much but he had committed another man to baptism JOSE VERA which was soo cool! and then we went back and taught and did what we could! the next day however is when it really hit him hard in the face, he hadn't been able to sleep at night at all and he really couldn't function and he ran to the phone and called to zone leaders and said he needed them. They showed up in about an hour and we talked the four of us to try and figure out what to do, it kind of felt like an intervention though with missionary motivating scriptures and that but he needed to talk with the president and over the phone wasn't sufficient, (oh everyone talked with president individually over the phone and this is what president said to me sometimes these things happen when there are problems at home and the family needs someone to confide in they tell their missionary who is powerless to do anything and it putts a lot of pressure and stress on the missionary.) so the president arranged for me to be companions with ELDER ARENAS until Monday night and for ELDER NOVOA to be my companions companion. SO i packed a bag full of ....ahh 2 minutes anyways i have enjoyed being a deputy zone leader! we live on the 5th floor and haven't had the opportunity to get my camera sorry with i could say more bye! love you all!!!!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

6/17/10 Letter to Kim from Tyler - Pigs outside!

WOW that sounds interesting, i wonder why everything was going wrong. I am trying to take Job´s attitude with facing troubles like that. God doesn´t give us challenges so that he can sit back and laugh with amusement, no he loves us too much and he gives us challenges that way we have the opportunity to grow and become more Christlike. I know that i have had to really learn and understand how to bear all things with patience in this part of my mission and hope that i can be given the strength to continue on. OH i have had some interesting experiences. we were teaching this one family who are recent converts and they live in this woven bamboo hut and just outside is the pig pen. did you know how extremely loud pigs are? well we are talking to people the pigs are´belching´´ and they are talking softly and at the same time so naturally I'm not getting much out of it, but i did understand that this man has seen angels in his life and they are some pretty interesting stories. but the thing is i don´t know how much to believe. because you don´t really hear much of this in the US and i don´t know maybe it is culture these people really have nothing but family work and church, oh and TV and soccer. did you know most of the bamboo huts here have a TV for watching soccer it is way interesting, any ways I think maybe alot of them are real and that people in the US are simple too plugged in to really notice all of the miracles going on around them, i know that i have really seen the hand of god on my mission much more than before and i don´t know if it is the fact that i have unplugged myself or the fact that I'm a missionary and this is normal. anyways i love you so very very much and hope to hear from you soon! BTW have you had any challenging companions? what did you do? any great companions? why were they great? DEARELDER.COM me the answers! ADIOS! AMOR!

6/14/10 Left CCM - San Isidro, Santiago, Ica Peru- First bout with food!

Well from now on I'm pretty sure my P-days will be Monday from now until i return from my mission so that might make it a little bit easier on the email front as for letters i received dads first Dear elder before i left and am anxiously waiting for the others.? It sounds like a lot has been going on at home and sorry its been so long since the last email this week has been completely crazy!? Well i am in my new area. I am serving in the San Isidro, Santiago, Ica, Peru portion of my mission.? It took about five hours on a bus a overnight stay with our zone leaders and a 45 min taxi ride but i made it safe and sound! I love it here. The people are not a crazy as the people in Lima and i heard that it is the same with all of the provinces,? but the people here have absolutely nothing, i picture it kind of like the St David/Benson area small area with a bunch of houses the size of grandmas shed all sharing walls.  I have taught lessons in houses made out of woven bamboo and a dirt floor and have had a lot of times when I have said wow people actually live like this! Poverty is extreme but the people are happy and ready for the gospel, we keep finding a ton of people that would like to listen to us and it is way exciting, my new companion is ELder Rodas from Equador, he is an amazing elder he has only been on his mission since December but he is such a great missionary.? The language is as always a challenge, because the people here speak different than they do in the city of Lima, i think that it isn't so much as different words as it is that they say things differently.? Teaching has also been an interesting experience, the people here are not very educated especially the elderly.? talking to some of them about the gospel is very challenging because we will talk about how God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost are different people for a half hour not because they don't believe it simply because they don't understand and it takes a lot of patience especially when you don't know the language and have only one way to explain something but my companion has been a great help to me, the children are easier to teach because most of them are becoming more educated which i think is amazing, oh wow my zone leader just handed me 8 letters all from AZ WOOOHOOO! I'm looking forward to tonight! and will try and write back soon!? anyways my story ok so the people here are impoverished right but somehow they manage to have food, and i mean a lot of food.? most of the people here either work in the store or in the fields which i have no idea what they do but it is always store field or factory.? so our lunch appointment forgot and didn't prepare anything so we went back and had some rolls in our apartment and went back out to teach this part member family.? well they had prepared a feast they set us down and gave us a bowl of soup each and we ate and talked and i was full of rolls and soup and was ready to go when they brought out the main course, it was a giant plate stacked two inches deep with rice topped with potatoes and peppers and sauce.? I about died trying to eat all of it because if you don't eat it it goes to waste because they wont eat it if they give it to someone so I'm dieing and just as i finish my companion is about a fourth of the way through and he says I'm sorry i haven't been feeling well so do you mind if i can take this with us?? I was flabbergasted i didn't know you could do that here i ate until i was literally feeling ill and he just casually takes it with us.? ugh after that i had to go back to our room and lie down for a minute while my companion called the president and talked to him about how sick he was and i passed out for what was probably an hour and then we went back out teaching.? that night for dinner we were at this other house and were served a giant soup.? well i wasn't hungry but i started at it when my companion said STOP! and he pointed at the meat in my soup and said we can't eat this and he tells the woman and hear i am with ten spoonfuls of this bad meat and what not inside of me freaking out thinking i just got a virus and now I'm going to die great at least I'm dieing of my mission.? well today i am reaping the rewards of my meals i think i have literally dropped a depth charge into my bowels and have had a lovely time on our broken toilet.? Sorry i can't give you pictures i forgot my camera you will just have to be patient as i try and figure everything out.? I think that this next week will be amazing and hope to get more letters soon.? Don't  forget that you don't need an immediate response from me before you write again writing letters is a good way to make sure your doing something important with your week, if you need a recap of how i feel about letters and missionaries just ask SAMANTHA MANNES if she doesn't hate me too much! LOVE YOU ALL SOO VERY VERY MUCH!

June 2, 2010 - Hard experiences - more growth!

How different are the keyboards? way different mast of the keys are in the same place but there are different letters like ñ and other things are rearranged so it is definitely taken getting used to! Have i found anyone to alter my clothes yet? NO I'm waiting for the field when have time to take it and pick it up and get measured. other than that i have no idea where other than maybe a dry cleaners. How is the language barrier? I'm knocking holes in it, i have officially gone for like a full 24 hours without being lost at any point during the day! Me and my companion can communicate kind of it depends on how patient he is and how focused i am but we manage. Were you able to go out on Friday? yes we were able to go out on Friday and it was definitely different from my other experiences. When is my departure date? Next Tuesday is my next P-day so write early and i leave wed morning! ;) Any rumbling in Peru? YES! we have experienced a minor earthquake and that one i didn´t even feel but the people in the cafeteria said the tables were bouncing and the windows were pulsating. I still haven´t received any of your letters yet however i do have to say i am sorry to SAMANTHA MANNES because i had just wrote a pretty decently long letter calling her and Lance and Leslie to repentance for not writing me and had just put it in the mail and sent it off when two hours later i got a letter from Sam so SAM I AM SORRY and i wrote you a pretty good make up letter that i put in the mail but wont be sent till next Monday, so when you get this one try and read it and laugh at my pettiness! but it is still necessary for lance and Leslie to read it so share it with the world. and i will thank you mom for hopefully relaying the message! ;) Okay my story about this Saturday is kind of a gut wrenching one because of how sad it was, but i was able to grow a lot from it and i think that i now have some idea of what really happens out in the real world. so we headed back out to Callao but were in a different part of Callao and this time instead of going with a teacher and a member we had the magnificent pleasure of proselyting with the brand new bishop of this ward. so we went out with him and he and my companion hit it off really well telling jokes and laughing, so i was feeling sort of like a third wheel in a foreign country where no one would talk to me but i had hope we would be able to get in and teach a lesson and feel the spirit! well this brand new bishop thought that this time to proselyte would be an excellent time to find out who the inactive members of his ward are so we would show up at the door and he would talk to the members for about ten minutes on the doorstep and then look at us and say they have a message to share with you. well i have no idea what the needs of these people are you were talking Spanish at high speed and i got nothing out if it, so i wait for my companion to bear his testimony, OK going to church OK that easy i can do that so i bear my testimony and then the bishop thanks then for their time and starts walking away and I'm thinking what the heck is going on we are supposed to be going out and teaching people and getting commitment to return to church and blah blah blah well this continues FOREVER and it honestly felt like we were making mandated office visits to bear a two sentence  testimony and move on, it was awful and i really struggled with feeling any unity with my companion or the spirit and so i returned to the CCM in a depressed funk. well thanks to some of the people in my district they were able to get me to smile but i really was trying to figure out why i couldn´t feel the spirit and why my companionship and speaking ability tanked. Well I prayed really really hard and this is the response that i hear'felt'thought ´´you are in a different country speaking a different language and have had the blessing of my spirit and strength continually with you and yet you feel robbed when you don´t have an amazing proselyting experience every single time´´ well after feeling that i put myself in the right frame of mind and being grateful for everything! i have even had a fast to try and improve my companionship and it has worked! i know God is real! no time love you by looking forward to my DEARELDER:COM letters

May 26, 2010 New Companion in CCM from Bolivia

how are things in Peru? things are great.... Have i received any letters yet? no..... any recommendations right now? no... Have i been drinking the water? yes and no the ccm has clean water everywhere else does not. How did my follow ups go? didn´t have any. and my new companion well..... ok those are the short straight forward answers and i just wanted to tell you straight off because they have a new computer system that absolutely sucks can´t push enter right click or send home pictures and i was really looking forward to sending some cool pictures! oh well things have been great here in Peru i sent off Elder Tapuy and was a little sad but i know that he is ready to serve the people of Bolivia La Paz! We had one of the most amazing P-Days ever we were able to go on a tour of Lima and see a lot of historical sights as well as go to the beach and to the Inca mart which is basically three city blocks of straight up small street vender type stores, and McDonalds! No i haven´t received any of your letters yet it is taking a really long time and i feel bad because i think i lied to you, but i found out how to work the system really easy while i am here in Peru and it is through that DEARELDER.com apparently you write and they drop it off in the church pouch because they are right across the street from the CCM and they forward it to any church office building and then they deliver it to us, it is free from what i understand and if you right me i will get it not the next day but the following Friday whenever that is like if you right Monday it might come that Friday or the next it basically just skimms a couple days off of the top. but they apparently will all ways be able to find me through that and i will be changing addresses again shortly!!! I really can get my hands on anything if i really want to but it is all the Peru version so anything American would be nice. It was a really sad and a really long Saturday since we were the only 18 people in the entire ccm that had been there for more than three - four days we were unable to go proselyting, but this Saturday we are headed back to Callao! woot woot! i am so excited! Ok my new companion is Elder Tellez (tey yez) he is from Santa Cruz Bolivia and he is was cool. He really slurs all of his words to gether so he is next to impossible for anyone(North American) to understand and the other thing is he can´t understand me, all the other Latinos can just not him which frustrates me. oh well. oh he also has a lack of understanding of companions, this one time i was in the bathroom and when i came out he was gone, i checked all the classrooms went back to the bathroom to make sure he wasn´t there and then found him walking around outside. he had just decide to go off on his own, and again today when i got back from migrations i found him alone in the distributions center down here. i asked him where his companions were (he was in a trio) and he said that they had left. HELLO YOU HAVE TO GO WITH THEM! oh well this will be an interesting three weeks. other than that all is going well, i officially have been working out enough to get shin splits and have dropped a good couple of inches i wanted to send a picture of how baggy everything is but the program changed and the timer is back! ugh! oh well i know god is with me i just need to have patience and endure to the end of my 9week stay in the MTCs ugh! love you all hope to get some letters soon! oh this was a great letter btw but I'm serious about dear elder give it a shot!