Wednesday, October 8, 2014

October 8, 2014




Hello family,

So thanks for all the emails! rofl

So much has happened and I don't have any idea how to start anything anywhere but I guess I'll try.

Monday I woke up at 4:30 am to take Elder W-- to the reception desk so he could leave to bolivia. We said goodbye to our teachers and to each other and got on a bus to the airport at 11 am. The flight was at 3. Everything went fine, we had someone with us to show us what to do. There were about 20 of us going to Lima South. The flight was 6 hours. I taught the guy in front of me about the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy. He was drunk but he was asking questions so I figured it was good practice. Also note that all of this and everything until now has been entirely in spanish. Anyways, I also talked to the guy next to me who was an asthetic surgeon and he was traveling to Bolivia for a conference. I told him about how I'm a missionary and he asked for how many days I would be in Peru I said two years and he was very suprised lol. Then I told him that I'm 18 and he told me Im too young lolol.

I also talked to a guy before the flight for a good 10 minutes because he had questions about the church and stuff and the conversation with another missionary wasn't going so well because his spanish was not sufficient.

We got to Peru at 9 and didn't get out of the airport til at least 10 30 because one kid left his bag on the plane AND he had a crapload of magic herbal medication that his parents gave him and he had a hard time getting through customs with a bag full of drugs. The mission presidents wife took all of it anyways because we're not allowed to have ANYTHING except Ibuprofin and pepto bismol. She'll give us back everything we had to give her, which was all my mucinex and stuff. I don't really care, it's so we don't get even sicker than we have to.

Anyways, after we got out of the airport we met up with the assistants to the president and another adult leader person who put us all on a bus and drove us to a hotel to stay the night. We got to sleep around midnight and we woke up at 5 am the next day, so that was great. Then in the morning we all got on another bus which took us to a chapel in Lima where the mission president talked to us for a really long time and interviewed each of us. Hopefully you got the email with the pictures of us from him. He talked to us for like 8 hours until 4 pm. Then a bunch of latinos and trainers came in and they matched us up with our companion and told us where we were going. Im in an area called Pachacamac or something. I'll ask my companion when I'm almost done what it's called because he's sleeping against the wall right now lolol.

Anyways, we went outside and caught a taxi and he drove us for an hour to our house. We got out and went inside. My companion is like way chill, def my fav person here. He doesn't really know any English but that's ok because I know Spanish. His name is Elder Riveros, he's Chilean. We taught 3 appointments last night, 2 of which were inactives because 80% of the people here are inactive.

I know you want to hear this a lot, but this is one of the more dangerous missions. I was told that Lima South is a dangerous mission but this one is especially far out there lololol. We aren't allowed to carry more than 20 soles at a time because we might get robbed. I can't take my camera out anywhere because it will get stolen so all of the pictures I have are of the inside of the house. We take buses all the time. They're way sketchy, they accelerate a ton and then slow down and they're totally packed all the time but we need to take one in between most appointments. We're in a videogame cafe thing right now and the owner is a member so we're here for free so that's good.

There are dogs EVERYWHERE. No joke, there's like 8 dogs living on every block. There is so much poop everywhere it's insane and they tear through the trash. This place is so filthy and dry, there are not plants. All of the plants are like cactus or whatever and they are covered in dirt.The plants literally have to live with no sun or water, so there just aren't any. The houses are all falling apart. They all used to have third floors but now they're all two story houses with a ton of broken wood and bricks on the roof.

Everyone is very, very poor. Last night we taught a guy who only owned 2 chairs, and we had a member with us so two of us were on chairs and the other two sat on random box things or whatever. It was so dark we couldn't read the Book of Mormon hardly because of his one light.

For dinner we had rolls and ham and for breakfast we had yogurt and cereal. We have a pension for lunch that we pay every 2 weeks. I have another p day on Monday so you'll get another email if you guys have questions. The spanish is getting very good considering i have to speak it literally all the time and listen and understand so that's happening. I got the camera cord on Thursday so that's good. Also this keyboard totally sucks so sorry for spelling and typing errors.

I am pretty thoroughly convinced that this is the best mission in the world, so sorry to everyone everywhere else. I'll try to think of more stuff to put in the next email. None of the people here get married, so that makes it all hard. And nobody cares about keeping the sabbath day holy so I don't understand how we get any baptisms, but whatever.

I love you guys,

Elder Mitchell




  












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