Sunday, April 26, 2015

April 20, 2015

So this week was neat but sorry I used almost all of my time already! I'll tell you the major stuff that happened.

The president came to ayacucho this last week, he has to fly here so it's a big deal. I got a call from the zone leaders at like 7 thirty in the morning to say that he and his wife would be coming in like 30 minutes to inspect our room. I was like whaaaaaat so we cleaned really fast and got dressed before he got there. He came in and it was fine he didn't murder us or anything. They told us to paint the room. Immediately after that we had a conference thing with him and we watched Meet the Mormons. I didn't even cry that much. It was neat.

We were looking for a less active member and we found this lady, so we started talking to her and she tells us she's not from here in Ayacucho so I was like "oh, so are you from Lima?" and she said no and that she's from Pleasant Grove in Utah. So that was like whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttt.

Another super awkward experience. So we were looking for an old investigator that we had never met and we find the house. It was actually like a small store thing and we walk in front of the door. Inside there was this lady like screaming at them asking the people who live there when they're going to pay something. So me and my companion like stood there for a second and then started awkwardly waddling away. We went to the corner of the block and started looking for someone different to look for in our agendas when the lady who was screaming comes out and was like "hey missionaries" turns out she was a member and she explained to us that the people she was screaming at are in debt or something. Then we were like "um ok" and we talked to her for a while and that was the end of that. I did see her at church on sunday. :(

I heard someone listening to my chemical romance during a lesson a few days ago so that was traumatizing.

I gave a talk in church yesterday.

That's mostly it. Have a good day!

I love you,
Elder Mitchell









Friday, April 17, 2015

April 13, 2015

So this week was pretty good. We went to a place called Quinua for p day and that was pretty neat. It was an hour ride to get there in something that's called a convy. It like a small bus but a lot smaller. Also the trip there is extremely windy. Like, back and forth the whole time. Those kinds of things don't really go over well with me and I knew it would be bad so I took 2 Dramamine before the ride. The ride was fine, didn't get sick or anything. We got there and took a bunch of pictures and there were some tourist shops and stuff so I bought some hats. An hour before we left I decided I still didn't want to get sick so I took another Dramamine because you know, you can't get too careful. I started getting really tired on the bus home for some reason. I ended up sleeping the whole time even though it was super noisy, uncomfortable and like 5 o clock in the afternoon. That was weird.

Then I got back and realized that I was absolutely exhausted. I wanted to lay down in the street and take a nap. I came to a spontanious realization that (SURPRISE!!!) Dramamine makes you really tired! So I spend the whole night dragging my feet. I took a nap while my companion got his haircut for like 30 minutes. I was SO TIRED. I was like WHYYYYY DID I DOOO THIIISS.... but it was okay. We found a family to teach and they're good. All new investigators. The dad is all about the Bible so that's fun.

So something else, I want some recipes for stuff I can cook! There's a big market near where we live and I walked past and they have a toooon of fish and they had like shrimp and crab and I was like "I want to buy this stuff and eat it" but I don't know how. ._.
So if you could give me some instruction on how to cook crab, maybe like chinese noodles with the shrimp or something would be chill. I have access to soy sauce and probably whatever I need to cook it. Also I want to make hamburgers sometime. I can buy the ground beef but I don't know what to do with it. Do I need to clean it? A recipe for good hamburger meat would be amazing. I remember you making really good hamburgers with like.... soy sauce... and I don't know but they were really good and I want to try to do that.

Some investigators spent like a whole day digging up potatoes and we went to visit them the night right after they got back and they gave us a big bag of fresh out of the ground potatoes! So my companion was trying to boil them and I just skinned them, cut them into pieces and fried them and ate them with salt and ketchup. It was good. Worth it.

We also found a new restaurant to eat at that was approved by the stake president. It's called the monastary. We went there on Saturday. We like showed up and it was kinda fancy idk and we just kinda stood around like super awkward because we're 2 kids in peru until someone told us to sit down. Turns out they were serving something good here that's called lomos saltado, which is like rice and meat and tomatos and onions and french fries all mixed together. I asked them how much it was and they said 10 soles so I was like flip yes give me that. Turns out it was like a whole meal. First they brought out this seafood soup (with like muscles or something?) Which was super good and they brought out a popular drink here called Chicha morrada. I clarified to make sure it wasn't wine.

Then they brought out the other food and it was all like way good. It only costed 10 soles so I was down with that. That's the equivilent of a little more than 3 dollars, so I think we'll be going back.

We had an interchange with the zone leaders this week and I stayed in my area so we were totally lost. Also I was with another white kid from colorado so we were a gringo companionship for a day, which is weird. Turns out he was pretty sick and we walked for like 4 hours nonstop so I felt bad for him. I've been speaking english to my companion on accident after the interchange because I got used to speaking english I don't even know. just fyi he doesn't know any english.

We had 8 investigators with a baptismal date that went to church yesterday which was the best thing ever. I had a cold for all of last week so we never went running but we went again this morning. We wake up at 6 am to go running sometimes and we run like freakin' 3 miles and it totally kills me. I've lost a lot of weight. Like a lot a lot. I weighed myself in Pachacamac and I knew I was getting fat, which was correct because I weighed 85 kilograms which is like 187 pounds. I weighed myself again a few weeks ago and it said 80, which is like 175 or something so I lost over 10 pounds. I feel even skinnier now and it's weird for me to take off my shirt because I not obese any more :D I'll have to weigh myself again soon.

ALSO a story I forgot to tell you that was super awkward. Back in Pachacamac we went to a kfc one time. I ordered the food and the lady asked if I wanted a drink, I said yes and she asked what I wanted. I looked at the fountain behind her and saw that they had 7up. So I was like whatever so I translated it and said "siete oop" like with an attempted accent. She looked at me like I was a freakin' idiot and said "seven up?" And that was probably the most humiliating thing ever in my life because turns out they don't translate things like that.

Things are going really well. My companion is way chill. He tells me I'm very serious but maybe he doesn't understand my sarcasm when I tell him weird jokes.
That's pretty much everything that happened this week. I'm feeling pretty good. I think the president is going to fly down here this next week, so that's happening.

I love you guys!
Elder Mitchell










Sunday, April 12, 2015

April 6, 2015 "I. Just. Can't. Even."


So this week was totally like a;ldhgzlidhgaoinfglaksdhfi!!!!

So first of all, it was holy week. Like whateeevverrr that is. Turns out it's a weeklong Christmas party here in Ayacucho. Seriously it was insane. The population like doubled. People come from all over the world for holy week in ayacucho and I just wanted to preach the gospel. It was pretty hard. We didn't teach very much. All of the lessons fell through and the people were all very very busy.

The biggest thing that happened was conference. On Saturday morning we left the room at like 10 AM and walked to the stake center. It's probably less than 2 miles away but that's normal. We got there and there were a TON of people. You could probably look up "Semana santa ayachucho peru plaza alameda" and find insane videos about what was going on there. The stake center is RIGHT next to this plaza. They were doing the running of the bulls when I got there. THERE WERE BULLS RUNNING AROUND!!! I was like whaaatt and there were like a ton of people on horses and there were crates and crates and crates and crates of alcohol. The people were almost building houses of beer I couldn't even believe it. There were kids walking around with beer bottles and cans in their hands trying to sell it. And it was only 10 AM!! We went into the conference and we were quarantined there until after the priesthood session. We sent members out to buy us water so we wouldn't die. We had to leave though to get back to our rooms so we left at 8:30 and missed the last hour of the preisthood session so that maybe it would be less crazy outside. The whole church building was shaking from the music outside for the whole 10 hours that we were there. Some members gave us lunch, so that was good I guess.

When we left it was tooootallll anarchy outside. I can't even explain what was going on. There were people dancing, throwing up, peeing, sleeping, kissing and EVERYONE was drinking. It smelled so bad like alcohol and poop. The ground was literally wet, probably mostly beer but I'm not going to guess what else. There were glass bottles everywhere and broken glass and the music was way way way loud and everyone was singing and dancing and I'm like a ginger gringo in a suit standing in the middle of it. The zone leaders were so stressed out that something bad was going to happen. I felt bad for them.

Anyways. We still have 10 investigators with baptismal dates, so that's exciting. 8 of them aren't going to happen until 2 couples get married. We invited 5 more people to get baptized last night and they all accepted and it was a super spiritual experience. We talked about the anoment for a while and that always brings the spirit, then I started helping them to understand that they would have to be baptized by someone with the priesthood. So I started talking about Joseph Smith to go over the restoration a little bit but my companion started talking about agency for like 15 minutes and I was like whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattt are you doing. He told me after that he wanted them to have a broader perspective and that he was applying what he learned from general conference so I thought that was pretty hilarious. They're excited to watch the Joseph Smith video this week. The parents aren't married so that's another trial. Nobody is married >.>

Anyways conference was really good. My testimony is stronger even though I guess I'm a latter day hipocrite and I probably wasn't ready to go leave on a mission after I got rekt by Elder Ballard. I did get to watch it in english just fyi.

I love you team!
Elder Mitchell