Wednesday, July 30, 2014

DIA DE INDEPENDENCIA - 7/28/14

 28 de Julio 2014 - DIA DE INDEPENDENCIA
I LOVE PERU! VIVA EL PERU! Today is Dia de Independencia!
Well hello there family! Love you guys tons! This last week has been a pretty great week! Lots is happening here in the mission! It's an amazing time to be a missionary!
 
Four Elders and a dummy in Castillo
Tuesday morning was kind of crazy. In this ward it's kind of hard to track down the keys for the church when we have to have a district meeting. Even if we call and locate them the night before and schedule a time to go and pick them up. So anyways, Tuesday we left on the search for the keys at 9 am and finally had them by 10 am because we had a district meeting that started at 10:30 in the church. Well it was supposed to start at 10:30. But at 10 am we got a phone call from Piura saying that the people were coming with our giant jugs of filtered water for the month of July. No joke, 3 weeks late. jaja. It was pretty good that it came when it did though, because we were down to about 2 liters of water. But no, we have water and are good for another month--no worries! But by the time they finally got done with all of that, it was 11:30 before we could start the district meeting. It was a pretty sweet district meeting though! The theme was helping people make and keep commitments. We were able to talk about that, and I think we all left a little bit determined to improve.
 
Me with the younger brother of my previous companion, Elder I.
His family is here visiting his grandparents in La Union.
That afternoon we started a visita de trabajo I was with Elder C, from Argentina, and Elder C and Elder S stayed in our area. It went pretty well. It was fun working with Elder C. Another cool thing was that I got to go and get to know La Arena which is a little city about 15 minutes from La Unión that is part of the other elders area. It was kind of fun working there!

Wednesday morning we had a pretty un-normal experience. We went to visit a less active member. And when we knock on the door, the less active member's wife, who is not a member, opens the door crying and invites us in and tells us that her husband is super duper sick and asked if we could pray for him. He was having trouble breathing and he would go for like 30 seconds without breathing at all and then gasp for air. So Elder C and I gave him a blessing and then waited there with them until the doctors arrived and took control of the situation. Kind of scary. But I'm glad that we were able to help out in some sort of way.

That afternoon once I was back with Elder S we went to visit a less active member and as soon as that was over we returned to our apartment because I wasn't feeling super well. I had a super horrible stomach pain. It was honestly so horrible. But anyway, that night I ended up going to bed at like 6 and didn't wake up again until the next morning at about 8 in the morning. That was some much needed sleep. And luckily when I woke up I was feeling better again and was able to get back to work!

Thursday was the 24th of July. It was pretty cool. Except for the fact that it wasn't cool at all—in comparison to the U.S. that is. Holidays are some of the things that I miss most about home! 

Friday morning I took one of the coldest showers of my life. No joke. I honestly don't know how that wasn't ice. It was sooooooooooooooooooooooo cold. It was probably one of the fastest showers of my life as well! jaja 

That afternoon we went to eat lunch and we ate Aji de Gallina. It was super funny because the meal was super spicy. It really didn't bother me that much. I learned how to eat spicy food when I was with Elder G from Mexico. But Elder S and Elder C aren't too big of fans. Elder C and I were eating pretty normal, and Elder C was sweating bullets shoveling food into his mouth because he just wanted to finish eating it and not have to be in pain anymore and Elder S pretty much had tears running down his face and was sitting there asking us if he could drink our juice because he had already drunk all of his. It was so funny. Elder C and I couldn't stop laughing.

That night we had a pretty sweet lesson with a kid named J. He is 15 years old and he was baptized about 7 months ago. He has tattoos on his arms and he comes to church every once in a while, but it was the first time that we have been able to get ahold of him to teach him in my entire time here. And when we started to get to know him he wasn't very open to talking to us. But we decided to show him pictures of our families and talk about the importance of our families. And as we started talking about that he started to open up to us and share about how just a couple of years ago he lost his dad in an accident. Plan of Salvation was perfect! I love the gospel. And then after that lesson, he ended up coming to church on Sunday! Pretty cool.

Saturday was transfers notification day! But that night we found out that no one here in our district has transfers and the four of us are all staying here for at least six more weeks! I'm pretty excited about that!

This last week has been a little bit crazy because it's Independence Day here in Peru. And the schools have been super busy. So unfortunately we weren't able to teach E N this week because she teaches school and was super busy. But the good news is that she came to church on Sunday! And she has a baptismal date for this Saturday! Hopefully everything will work out and she will be able to! Because she is SOOOOOOOOOO ready! 

Well I don't have tons of time, but I have tons of love for all of you! Thanks for everything! I love you guys! Being a missionary is the best! The church is true! No doubts!


Elder Baker

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