Area: Juliaca Comp.: Elder Ayo
Ok, I'm sorry that this edition is so lame. But it's hard to pass up such a fitting Les Miserables reference, and only once a year is it MOM'S BIRTHDAY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOTHER! I can't believe you're turning 30 again! Thank you for being born! Otherwise I would've had a different mom, and who wants that? Anyways, I hope your birthday's fantastic!
Preface to this letter: Potentially, of the letters you'll get from me, this is the worst one to send home for my mother's birthday. But I'm sitting down at a computer right now, happy and reasonably healthy. And nothing even happened! It's fine! Plus, the people here are SUPER superstitious, so even if they don't believe in our religion, the fact that my nametag says Jesus Christ on it makes me safer than anyone else in the city. Really though, nothing happened.
-Something happened on Tuesday and Wednesday! The Spanish word that they used to describe it means both 'strike' and 'riot', which I think is just a perfect description. It was a strike in that it was pre planned, had a clear purpose, and not even a little bit violent. It was a riot in that it was an angry mob of people travelling through the city, and that it was kind of violent. But not really! Basically what happened is that gas here is $5 a gallon, which compared with the price of living is just ridiculous, so what they decided to do was a forced boycott of roads/vehicles. To accomplish this, they smashed bottles and bricks in lines across the street to act as spike strips, and to anyone stupid enough to drive those two days they did what they could to destroy their car/combi/mototaxi. So on Tuesday I was in a combi, sitting in the front seat (which means I could see everything), and we were driving down the road normally when out of no where there was a line of people across the street holding machetes running straight at us. Within like 3 seconds our driver had made like 5 turns onto some obscure neighborhood street and made us all get out. It was super cool!
-One of the Seventy, Elder Evans, is in charge of the missionary department and came to our mission this week. There was a conference scheduled with him for us on Wednesday in Puno, but we weren't able to leave the city. So that stinks.
-Ok I admit it, I don't really understand Thanksgiving. I was under the impression it's just the 3rd Thursday of November, but apparently Thanksgiving hasn't actually happened yet. Regardless, I've already celebrated it. We ate mashed potatoes with gravy, PB&J's, chips, and beef. And later, Elder Buehner had turkey jerky that he brought from home. It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.
-Spiritual thought! Alma 14:12-13. Here Alma and Amulek are watching a bunch of women and children from the church burn to death, and Amulek asks Alma, "Hey, do you think we'll die?" And Alma responds, "No, we'll live. We've still got stuff to do." Essentially this is my super-lame birthday scripture for Mom, since I still have stuff to do in this life so I can't die. Happy birthday!
Anyways, I hope you guys have a wonderful Thanksgiving and that Mom has a wonderful birthday! Do fun things! Celebrate for me! I'll see you in 20 months!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
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