Area: Juliaca Comp.: Elder Ayo
Hey Everyone!
-Birthday! Now that it´s happened I can tell you about it! Elder Ayo and I found this awesome internet café that is really fast (for Perú), so during internet time I downloaded a bunch of Mormon Messages and Conference talks onto my USB and after lunch Elder Stradling and I just lay on our pension´s couches and watched them on her TV for like 3 hours, which was awesome! Then Elder Ayo and I went to this market nearby and bought some things, which I really needed, then we went to our District Meeting and our District Leader Elder Wagner and his comp Elder Bodily bought a cake! Then at our pension´s house, we had another cake for dinner (again)!
-Elder Ayo and I got locked out of our house twice this week, but we don´t have a roof so we just borrow a ladder from our neighbor and climb in from the top. The thing is, the ladder that our neighbor has he made himself out of big sticks and wire hangers, and I was sure Elder Ayo would die. I didn´t get on that thing at all.
-Transfers were this week! Elder Murillo went to Puno, and Elder Stradling is training a new Gringo so he went to Cusco practically all week to pick him up. Elder Ayo doesn´t like that he´s the only Latino now, but it´s ok because my Spanish is getting a lot better!
-I decided that for this transfer I want to get my Spanish down, so I´ve been speaking only in Spanish all week-even when other Gringos talk to me in English. It helps immensely though, and I´m currently at the point where I understand everything and I can say everything that I really need to. I´m still working on that, but it´s coming!
-Our pension wanted to take Elder Ayo and I to this REALLY fancy restaurant, but she didn´t want to take Elder Stradling (I guess) and she didn´t want her husband to know because it was expensive, so we had to do it secretly. It was fun though! And DELICIOUS!
-On Sunday the Elder´s Quorum President found out in Priesthood that no one knows who they are assigned to home teach, so he took a ward list, took out the staple, and gave each person a page. That's like 20 people. That's how many inactives are here!
-Spiritual thought! I´m going to take a break from Conference insights today, since I read a scripture this morning that I really liked--2 Ne 4:26-28. Be happy people!
Anyways, things are good here! Things still surprise me every day, and I see miracles every day! The Church is true!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
Book 10, Chapter 20, Edition There's Nothing Significant About Today 10.20.14
Area: Juliaca Comp: Elder Ayo
Familia!
-Confession time--I got the date wrong last week. I put it as September. D&C 64:10.
-Today's my birthday! So far that doesn't mean anything, but it's only 11:00 in the morning, and I'm going to get your package in like 3 weeks!
-We had a city-wide blackout yesterday, which was interesting. We didn't do a thing differently, it was just dark. But I showered before that happened, which was nice! My shower was still hot! The weirdest thing was church, since the microphone didn't work.
-Our shower head died for like 3 days, so we showered at member's homes, which is really uncomfortable. Elder Ayo and Elder Murillo fixed it, but they cut a lot of wires unneccessarily, and now it's being weird.
-I gave a talk in church yesterday! Which, let me just say, the last time we had church was Fast Sunday and 4 of the 7 testimonies borne were us 4 Elders, and the week before that Elder Stradling and Elder Murillo spoke, and the week before that they didn't have any speakers so they called the missionaries out of the audience to bear testimonies, and the week before that I was still in the CCM. This is a really weak ward. But my talk went well! It was boring, and half plagiarized, but my delivery was good! Especially considering the lack of a microphone! But we only have 50 members of our ward, so it's basically like talking to nobody.
-Spiritual thought! "Choices that aren't inherently evil are insidious when they distract us from our goals"-Quentin L Cook. Maybe it's not bad to play that video game or watch that movie or whatever, but if it distracts us from what's important (scriptures, prayer, church, etc) then just don't do it.
-More things that are ridiculous about Peru!
-They start drinking at 9:00 am every day.
-When you buy a 3 liter (they don't have 2 liters here) bottle of soda, it comes with one cup, which means it's not uncommon for me and Elder Ayo to have to share a cup with 4 or 5 Peruvians, which we hate
-Sometimes cars drive on the wrong side of the road. Like, there's a median and everything, and they just don't care.
Anyways, things are going well here! We have two investigators that we're trying to have a double-baptism the 8th! Things are absolutely ridiculous down here, but really I'm used to it. There are things that I don't even think worth mentioning that you would find completely insane. Have a magical week!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
19-year-old missionary
Familia!
-Confession time--I got the date wrong last week. I put it as September. D&C 64:10.
-Today's my birthday! So far that doesn't mean anything, but it's only 11:00 in the morning, and I'm going to get your package in like 3 weeks!
-We had a city-wide blackout yesterday, which was interesting. We didn't do a thing differently, it was just dark. But I showered before that happened, which was nice! My shower was still hot! The weirdest thing was church, since the microphone didn't work.
-Our shower head died for like 3 days, so we showered at member's homes, which is really uncomfortable. Elder Ayo and Elder Murillo fixed it, but they cut a lot of wires unneccessarily, and now it's being weird.
-I gave a talk in church yesterday! Which, let me just say, the last time we had church was Fast Sunday and 4 of the 7 testimonies borne were us 4 Elders, and the week before that Elder Stradling and Elder Murillo spoke, and the week before that they didn't have any speakers so they called the missionaries out of the audience to bear testimonies, and the week before that I was still in the CCM. This is a really weak ward. But my talk went well! It was boring, and half plagiarized, but my delivery was good! Especially considering the lack of a microphone! But we only have 50 members of our ward, so it's basically like talking to nobody.
-Spiritual thought! "Choices that aren't inherently evil are insidious when they distract us from our goals"-Quentin L Cook. Maybe it's not bad to play that video game or watch that movie or whatever, but if it distracts us from what's important (scriptures, prayer, church, etc) then just don't do it.
-More things that are ridiculous about Peru!
-They start drinking at 9:00 am every day.
-When you buy a 3 liter (they don't have 2 liters here) bottle of soda, it comes with one cup, which means it's not uncommon for me and Elder Ayo to have to share a cup with 4 or 5 Peruvians, which we hate
-Sometimes cars drive on the wrong side of the road. Like, there's a median and everything, and they just don't care.
Anyways, things are going well here! We have two investigators that we're trying to have a double-baptism the 8th! Things are absolutely ridiculous down here, but really I'm used to it. There are things that I don't even think worth mentioning that you would find completely insane. Have a magical week!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
19-year-old missionary
Monday, October 13, 2014
9/13th General Session of Weekly Emails, General Conference Edition 10.13.14
Area: Juliaca Comp.: Elder Ayo
Hey everyone!
I'm just going to start of with Conference because it was AWESOME. I'd compare it to the Super Bowl if I had ever had an interest in that kind of thing.
-I got to watch it in English, in the High Council room of my Stake Center with all the other Gringos in my zone. We had a "Gringo Party", which essentially means we brought an obscene amount of snack foods (with a focus on snack foods found in the States, como Doritos and Lays and sodas)
-Because we were in the High Council room, we had a table, which was nice because I took a full 26 NOTEBOOK PAGES OF NOTES! Which, depending on how well you know me, you may know that I've never taken notes in my life.
-From what I can remember off the top of my head, there were 2 talks each about the sacrament, raising your kids, prophets, personal revelation, and helping the poor. Those things must be really important right now guys! Get to it!
-I think my spiritual thoughts for a long time are going to be from conference, so be prepared for that. The first one I want to use is from Elder Holland, talking about doing everything you can to help the poor-- "Do everything you can [to help the poor]-nothing we do is but a drop in the ocean, but had we not done it, the ocean would be one drop less." Do service people! Pay fast offerings!
-We moved this week! I'm still not sure why! The new place is 'bigger', but one thing that Peruvians do is they don't finish the building so they don't have to pay taxes on it, so our third story doesn't have a roof. So we don't use it. Also the bathroom is infinitely worse. But the Zone Leaders finally gave Elder Ayo and I beds and desks! So now we're not sleeping and studying on the floor!
-I got bit by 2 dogs this week! Neither broke the skin (don't worry Mom), but they probably would have if I wasn't wearing the gigantic jacket I brought with me. The first dog was big, so I just kind of got out of there, but the second was a little dog and I was already mad so when it bit me I basically threw it and freaked out at it. Oddly satisfying.
-I went on splits with my DL this week! His name's Elder Wagner, and he's awesome. And he really likes to jump things, and there was a drunk passed out on the sidewalk, so we jumped him twice! And the two jumps were hours apart. He was passed out there all day, as far as I could tell.
Anyways, I think that's all I'm going to mention this week! The mission's awesome! Make sure to help your missionaries! Give them references! Feed them (if they want to be fed)! Have a wonderful week!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
Hey everyone!
I'm just going to start of with Conference because it was AWESOME. I'd compare it to the Super Bowl if I had ever had an interest in that kind of thing.
-I got to watch it in English, in the High Council room of my Stake Center with all the other Gringos in my zone. We had a "Gringo Party", which essentially means we brought an obscene amount of snack foods (with a focus on snack foods found in the States, como Doritos and Lays and sodas)
-Because we were in the High Council room, we had a table, which was nice because I took a full 26 NOTEBOOK PAGES OF NOTES! Which, depending on how well you know me, you may know that I've never taken notes in my life.
-From what I can remember off the top of my head, there were 2 talks each about the sacrament, raising your kids, prophets, personal revelation, and helping the poor. Those things must be really important right now guys! Get to it!
-I think my spiritual thoughts for a long time are going to be from conference, so be prepared for that. The first one I want to use is from Elder Holland, talking about doing everything you can to help the poor-- "Do everything you can [to help the poor]-nothing we do is but a drop in the ocean, but had we not done it, the ocean would be one drop less." Do service people! Pay fast offerings!
-We moved this week! I'm still not sure why! The new place is 'bigger', but one thing that Peruvians do is they don't finish the building so they don't have to pay taxes on it, so our third story doesn't have a roof. So we don't use it. Also the bathroom is infinitely worse. But the Zone Leaders finally gave Elder Ayo and I beds and desks! So now we're not sleeping and studying on the floor!
-I got bit by 2 dogs this week! Neither broke the skin (don't worry Mom), but they probably would have if I wasn't wearing the gigantic jacket I brought with me. The first dog was big, so I just kind of got out of there, but the second was a little dog and I was already mad so when it bit me I basically threw it and freaked out at it. Oddly satisfying.
-I went on splits with my DL this week! His name's Elder Wagner, and he's awesome. And he really likes to jump things, and there was a drunk passed out on the sidewalk, so we jumped him twice! And the two jumps were hours apart. He was passed out there all day, as far as I could tell.
Anyways, I think that's all I'm going to mention this week! The mission's awesome! Make sure to help your missionaries! Give them references! Feed them (if they want to be fed)! Have a wonderful week!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
Monday, October 6, 2014
Season 10 Episode 6, One Fortnight Until My Birthday edition 10.6.14
Area: Juliaca Comp.: Elder Ayo
Hola personas!
-The work is hastening in Juliaca like crazy! In the past week, we got two of our investigators to commit to baptism! And, we had three people contact us on the street! The first was on our way to lunch, Elder Ayo had a feeling we should visit an investigator who is on the way. So we stopped by, and her probably 6 year old daughter answered the door, left for a minute, then told us that "my mom says she's not here", which was a mixture of super hilarious and very depressing. So we started walking away, and her neighbor asked us what church we represent. We told her "We're from the LDS church!" and she said "Great! I want to hear your message!" The next one was a group of kids, who asked us if our church was for kids too. We got them to introduce us to their mom, and now we're teaching them. The third was an extremely old lady that was Catholic or something, and we taught her the Plan of Salvation and it was obvious that she prided herself on her biblical knowledge to the point where we explained the kingdoms of glory and she said "Of course! Just like my pastor taught me!"
-So elections were this weekend, and that meant it was against the law to have church or watch conference at the church buildings. Presidente decided that he wanted us to wait until this coming weekend to watch conference in the church building with our investigators, so that we could have all weekend to proselyte, but Elder Ayo decided that that rule didn't apply to us and the only way I could get out of it was to go on splits with Elder Stradling, while his also not obedient companion watched conference with Elder Ayo. It was actually really fun, since Elder Stradling speaks English, and also since we got to do an exorcism (I believe that kid was possessed but E. Stradling is still skeptical) and we taught a schizophrenic woman. We didn't get much success other than that though, because it was elections and it's against the law not to vote so almost no one was home.
-We had a barbeque! It was good, but strange because they used a vinegar-based barbeque sauce that looks like salad dressing. Also, in this mission, it's against the rules to eat any pig product, lettuce, strawberries, or ceviche. Not that the Latino elders follow that rule either, but really it is more for us (since I've been sick an uncountable number of times already).
-They gave us cake at the zone meeting this morning! That just makes me really happy!
-We're moving tomorrow I think! I'm not really sure. I'm confused a lot here.
Anyways, things are going great here! I don't have too many crazy stories! Stay awesome!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
Hola personas!
-The work is hastening in Juliaca like crazy! In the past week, we got two of our investigators to commit to baptism! And, we had three people contact us on the street! The first was on our way to lunch, Elder Ayo had a feeling we should visit an investigator who is on the way. So we stopped by, and her probably 6 year old daughter answered the door, left for a minute, then told us that "my mom says she's not here", which was a mixture of super hilarious and very depressing. So we started walking away, and her neighbor asked us what church we represent. We told her "We're from the LDS church!" and she said "Great! I want to hear your message!" The next one was a group of kids, who asked us if our church was for kids too. We got them to introduce us to their mom, and now we're teaching them. The third was an extremely old lady that was Catholic or something, and we taught her the Plan of Salvation and it was obvious that she prided herself on her biblical knowledge to the point where we explained the kingdoms of glory and she said "Of course! Just like my pastor taught me!"
-So elections were this weekend, and that meant it was against the law to have church or watch conference at the church buildings. Presidente decided that he wanted us to wait until this coming weekend to watch conference in the church building with our investigators, so that we could have all weekend to proselyte, but Elder Ayo decided that that rule didn't apply to us and the only way I could get out of it was to go on splits with Elder Stradling, while his also not obedient companion watched conference with Elder Ayo. It was actually really fun, since Elder Stradling speaks English, and also since we got to do an exorcism (I believe that kid was possessed but E. Stradling is still skeptical) and we taught a schizophrenic woman. We didn't get much success other than that though, because it was elections and it's against the law not to vote so almost no one was home.
-We had a barbeque! It was good, but strange because they used a vinegar-based barbeque sauce that looks like salad dressing. Also, in this mission, it's against the rules to eat any pig product, lettuce, strawberries, or ceviche. Not that the Latino elders follow that rule either, but really it is more for us (since I've been sick an uncountable number of times already).
-They gave us cake at the zone meeting this morning! That just makes me really happy!
-We're moving tomorrow I think! I'm not really sure. I'm confused a lot here.
Anyways, things are going great here! I don't have too many crazy stories! Stay awesome!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
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| CCM district |
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| CCM grounds |
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| Lima Peru temple |
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| Lima Peru temple |
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| At the airport on their way to Cusco |
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| Elder Black (also from AZ) |
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| Elder Bodily getting ready for bed on their second night in Cusco. |
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| Elder Steele and Elder Ayo in front of an Incan tomb. |
Monday, September 29, 2014
Weekly Email Stardate 29.9.14 (9.29.14)
Area: Juliaca Comp.: Elder Ayo
¡Hola todos! I hope everything is going well! Juliaca's such a ridiculous, ridiculous place, but I know that the Lord chose for me to come here (out of every area on earth!) and I honestly love it.
-¡Spiritual thought! Mark 15:34--For the atonement to be truly infinite, Jesus had to experience every bad thing that anyone will ever experience, including not only suffering and physical death, but spiritual death too. For this reason, while Jesus was dying on the cross, the Spirit was removed from him for what I believe is the first time in his life. Imagine how incredibly lonely it would be, to have been betrayed by one of your 12 apostles, to have been denied thrice by your lead apostle, to have none of them with you during Gethsemane (they kind of were but they were asleep) and now no one with him as he died on the cross, causing him to cry out 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' And because he did this selfless, selfless act, we never have to be as lonely as he was then. We have the opportunity to have the companionship of the Spirit with us always, as we live worthy of that privelege and opportunity.
-I went on a treasure hunt! Kind of. The Church gave us this list of very inactive people, which means that they've been inactive for so long that we don't really know if any of their info is still correct. So we have this stack of 20 of them, and we chose one to find and decided to start by going to his last known address, which ended up not even existing. So we asked the poeple who lived around this nonexistent house number if they've ever heard of him, and they referred us to this butcher shop that I would never ever buy meat from. The butcher apparently used to be his friend, and referred us to another address. We went there, and the person there told us to go to this public bathroom he used to frequent, so we went to it and asked the owner of this bathroom and she told us that he really likes this chicken shop down the street so we run down there and walk in and just yell his name and HE WAS THERE! He told us he hadn't gone to church in 25 years, and we asked him if he was interested in hearing our message and he said 'Of course!' So now we have his real information (the only thing that's the same is his name and birthday) and we're teaching him!
-There's this marketplace here that is very much how I imagine Indian bazaars, and apparently Goodwill takes clothes they can't sell in the States and ships them to 3rd world countries. So these people somehow get these clothes and sell them in these little shops (with the Goodwill tags still on them) for dirt cheap. It's interesting though, since a good amount of these clothes are from American high schools, and I actually saw a guy wearing a letterman jacket from Mom's high school!
-Elections are this weekend, which is crazy. As someone who has lived here for 3 weeks, doesn't watch TV or listen to the radio or read the news or care about this election, I could probably tell you everyone running for every position. They're crazy about elections down here. The craziest part is that it's local election year! It's not even like a Federal election! I don't even understand why people want to be in local government, here in Juliaca like a year ago they didn't like the mayor so they dragged him behind a truck for a couple hours then burned him to death. And Quillabamba killed their mayor like 2 weeks ago! Because gas prices are a little higher than they would like! Anyways, the point is that Perù has a law where you can't hold any public meeting at all on election weekend, which means no church this weekend and Conference next weekend. So don't ruin it for me!
Anyways, everything's going good here! I haven't eaten anything ridiculously gross, I'm safe, and the work is hastening!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
¡Hola todos! I hope everything is going well! Juliaca's such a ridiculous, ridiculous place, but I know that the Lord chose for me to come here (out of every area on earth!) and I honestly love it.
-¡Spiritual thought! Mark 15:34--For the atonement to be truly infinite, Jesus had to experience every bad thing that anyone will ever experience, including not only suffering and physical death, but spiritual death too. For this reason, while Jesus was dying on the cross, the Spirit was removed from him for what I believe is the first time in his life. Imagine how incredibly lonely it would be, to have been betrayed by one of your 12 apostles, to have been denied thrice by your lead apostle, to have none of them with you during Gethsemane (they kind of were but they were asleep) and now no one with him as he died on the cross, causing him to cry out 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' And because he did this selfless, selfless act, we never have to be as lonely as he was then. We have the opportunity to have the companionship of the Spirit with us always, as we live worthy of that privelege and opportunity.
-I went on a treasure hunt! Kind of. The Church gave us this list of very inactive people, which means that they've been inactive for so long that we don't really know if any of their info is still correct. So we have this stack of 20 of them, and we chose one to find and decided to start by going to his last known address, which ended up not even existing. So we asked the poeple who lived around this nonexistent house number if they've ever heard of him, and they referred us to this butcher shop that I would never ever buy meat from. The butcher apparently used to be his friend, and referred us to another address. We went there, and the person there told us to go to this public bathroom he used to frequent, so we went to it and asked the owner of this bathroom and she told us that he really likes this chicken shop down the street so we run down there and walk in and just yell his name and HE WAS THERE! He told us he hadn't gone to church in 25 years, and we asked him if he was interested in hearing our message and he said 'Of course!' So now we have his real information (the only thing that's the same is his name and birthday) and we're teaching him!
-There's this marketplace here that is very much how I imagine Indian bazaars, and apparently Goodwill takes clothes they can't sell in the States and ships them to 3rd world countries. So these people somehow get these clothes and sell them in these little shops (with the Goodwill tags still on them) for dirt cheap. It's interesting though, since a good amount of these clothes are from American high schools, and I actually saw a guy wearing a letterman jacket from Mom's high school!
-Elections are this weekend, which is crazy. As someone who has lived here for 3 weeks, doesn't watch TV or listen to the radio or read the news or care about this election, I could probably tell you everyone running for every position. They're crazy about elections down here. The craziest part is that it's local election year! It's not even like a Federal election! I don't even understand why people want to be in local government, here in Juliaca like a year ago they didn't like the mayor so they dragged him behind a truck for a couple hours then burned him to death. And Quillabamba killed their mayor like 2 weeks ago! Because gas prices are a little higher than they would like! Anyways, the point is that Perù has a law where you can't hold any public meeting at all on election weekend, which means no church this weekend and Conference next weekend. So don't ruin it for me!
Anyways, everything's going good here! I haven't eaten anything ridiculously gross, I'm safe, and the work is hastening!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
Monday, September 22, 2014
Episode 9 Versiculo 22, The One Where I Can Kind Of Breathe Again Edition 9.22.14
Area: Juliaca Comp.: Elder Ayo
Personas!
Sorry about that email last week, that was kind of a mess. And along with that, I don't remember exactly what I said, so if I repeat things then that's why, so sorry in advance!
-Juliaca! My home for the next 10 weeks! It's an interesting place. First off, it's called the 'city of the winds', so Hey Dad! We're practically in the same mission! Give or take a hemisphere and a language and years and years. It's an interesting place though! It's close enough to Lago Titicaca to be freezing cold, but not close enough for us to see it. All of the vehicles here are either taxi's, mototaxi's, combi's, those bike/cart things Nacho Libre rides, or giant dump trucks, which is interesting. A mototaxi is essentially a motorcycle on three wheels with a thin plastic cab wrapped around it. They're from India, and they're tiny and fascinating and EVERYWHERE. Combi's are basically those big 12 seater Astrovans, but they take out all the seats on one side (so instead of rows of three seats it's rows of 2 seats and room for people to stand). They're crazy because no one cares about personal space here, and they PACK those things. I counted one time because I couldn't believe how full it was, and we had 27 people on one of them. So Juliaca has some interesting city planners (or whoever chooses what roads are made of), because they decided to make the streets here out of a 50/50 mixture of dirt and trash. Which that, combined with the rain every day and the massive dump trucks means that the streets here are excrutiatingly bumpy. Really though, they've made it look like it should be a Call of Duty map. In fact, Google street view it--the part I live in is right near the Parroquia Pueblo de Dios iglesia. Also significant about Juliaca is that it drinks more per day (on average) than the rest of Peru drinks per day. It's kind of hilarious to see the borrachos around here though, it makes for some good stories. So also I´m convinced that the Cusco mission is like Texas in that it's a different country from Peru in all but name. Anywhere else you go in Peru, almost everyone you meet will be Catholic, but in Juliaca they're extremely traditionalist to the point where they wear the same type of clothes that the ancient Inca's wore, and THEY'RE PAGAN. I found a mission in South America that isn't high-baptizing, and it's mine! Yay me! Even like the people in our tiny, tiny ward still do pagan traditions. Crazy.
-There's more KFC's here than in the US, along with Pizza Hut. There's also a fair amount of McDonald's here.
-Don't get me wrong, I love my mission, but by far the worst thing here is the food. It doesn't even taste that bad, but it's the same 3 times a day and each meal is more than I can eat for a day. I've started pulling every trick in the book--'fasting' excessively, shoving food in a napkin in my pocket, feeding it to the dog--really, it's hard.
-We're not allowed to tell people how long we've been out, other than 'a little less than a year' or 'a little over a year', which makes it much harder to apologize for my Spanish.
-Spanish! It's hard. Whatever language they taught me in the CCM I'm fluent in, but Spanish I can't understand a word of.
-Origin of the word 'Gringo'! Supposedly--don't take my word on this. So apparently during the Mexican-American war, the Americans wore green and the Mexicans weren't very good at English so they kept yelling "Green! Go!" as an attempt to convince the US to give up or something. I don't know if that's true, but that's what my pension told me and I think it's hilarious.
-I ate cow stomach! It was hard. They didn't even tell me it was cow stomach, and with every bite I threw up in my mouth and had to catch it. Horrible.
-So I don't know how many people are supposed to be in Ward Council, but yesterday we had 18. Including a child, one member's spouse, and a non-member who's never talked to the missionaries and just decided to go to church for the first time yesterday.
Anyways, this place is ridiculous, but it's an adventure! Really though, it's awesome!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
Personas!
Sorry about that email last week, that was kind of a mess. And along with that, I don't remember exactly what I said, so if I repeat things then that's why, so sorry in advance!
-Juliaca! My home for the next 10 weeks! It's an interesting place. First off, it's called the 'city of the winds', so Hey Dad! We're practically in the same mission! Give or take a hemisphere and a language and years and years. It's an interesting place though! It's close enough to Lago Titicaca to be freezing cold, but not close enough for us to see it. All of the vehicles here are either taxi's, mototaxi's, combi's, those bike/cart things Nacho Libre rides, or giant dump trucks, which is interesting. A mototaxi is essentially a motorcycle on three wheels with a thin plastic cab wrapped around it. They're from India, and they're tiny and fascinating and EVERYWHERE. Combi's are basically those big 12 seater Astrovans, but they take out all the seats on one side (so instead of rows of three seats it's rows of 2 seats and room for people to stand). They're crazy because no one cares about personal space here, and they PACK those things. I counted one time because I couldn't believe how full it was, and we had 27 people on one of them. So Juliaca has some interesting city planners (or whoever chooses what roads are made of), because they decided to make the streets here out of a 50/50 mixture of dirt and trash. Which that, combined with the rain every day and the massive dump trucks means that the streets here are excrutiatingly bumpy. Really though, they've made it look like it should be a Call of Duty map. In fact, Google street view it--the part I live in is right near the Parroquia Pueblo de Dios iglesia. Also significant about Juliaca is that it drinks more per day (on average) than the rest of Peru drinks per day. It's kind of hilarious to see the borrachos around here though, it makes for some good stories. So also I´m convinced that the Cusco mission is like Texas in that it's a different country from Peru in all but name. Anywhere else you go in Peru, almost everyone you meet will be Catholic, but in Juliaca they're extremely traditionalist to the point where they wear the same type of clothes that the ancient Inca's wore, and THEY'RE PAGAN. I found a mission in South America that isn't high-baptizing, and it's mine! Yay me! Even like the people in our tiny, tiny ward still do pagan traditions. Crazy.
-There's more KFC's here than in the US, along with Pizza Hut. There's also a fair amount of McDonald's here.
-Don't get me wrong, I love my mission, but by far the worst thing here is the food. It doesn't even taste that bad, but it's the same 3 times a day and each meal is more than I can eat for a day. I've started pulling every trick in the book--'fasting' excessively, shoving food in a napkin in my pocket, feeding it to the dog--really, it's hard.
-We're not allowed to tell people how long we've been out, other than 'a little less than a year' or 'a little over a year', which makes it much harder to apologize for my Spanish.
-Spanish! It's hard. Whatever language they taught me in the CCM I'm fluent in, but Spanish I can't understand a word of.
-Origin of the word 'Gringo'! Supposedly--don't take my word on this. So apparently during the Mexican-American war, the Americans wore green and the Mexicans weren't very good at English so they kept yelling "Green! Go!" as an attempt to convince the US to give up or something. I don't know if that's true, but that's what my pension told me and I think it's hilarious.
-I ate cow stomach! It was hard. They didn't even tell me it was cow stomach, and with every bite I threw up in my mouth and had to catch it. Horrible.
-So I don't know how many people are supposed to be in Ward Council, but yesterday we had 18. Including a child, one member's spouse, and a non-member who's never talked to the missionaries and just decided to go to church for the first time yesterday.
Anyways, this place is ridiculous, but it's an adventure! Really though, it's awesome!
Sincerely,
Elder Steele
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Chapter 9 Verse 15--Campo edition! 9.15.14
Area: Juliaca Comp.: Elder Ayo
I'm a field missionary now! Crazy!
First off, my new email time is 45 minutes, so I don't know how many emails I'll be able to write....
Now the good part! At least in my opinion. My companion's name is Elder Ayo. He's Ecuadorian and SUPER awesome! He's been out for 18 months already, and he's obviously a Latino. But he's great. We're stationed in Juliaca, which is near Puno and Lake Titicaca. We're in the coldest part of the mission, which kind of sucks. Also Cusco is 11,000 feet, which is about the height of Mount Timpanogos, and Juliaca's at 12,000 feet. So breathing's really fun! But I'm adjusting. The only real side effect is that I sound like Darth Vader 24/7, which is actually really cool. We get 3 meals a day from our pensionista, which I actually really hate. Like, her food's good and all, but I feel bad because the only payment she gets is reimbursement for the food cost. Also she gives us so much! I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I decided to be healthy when I entered the CCM, and I lost like 15 pounds, which is great except now my stomach is the size of a baseball and they're feeding me basketball sized portions. On my first full day here (Friday), for lunch she gave us this plate of rice and quinoa, and I was trying to eat it all but I was having a very hard time, so I told the other gringo (oh yeah we live with a companionship of another Latino and another Gringo) that I couldn't make it and he told me I had to so I said a prayer that I could just possibly do this and I had the strangest tender mercy of my life happen--I was about halfway through my plate and my stomach was about to burst and I threw up. Which I count as a tender mercy for 3 reasons-1. I didn't have to finish, 2. My stomach was empty, and 3. it gave me the opportunity to tell our pensionista that I couldn't possibly eat that much ever again. So that's good! So we spent the first two days of the field in Cusco getting trained and stuff, and the AP's told us that there are 5 (unofficial) things that need to happen before you're a real missionary, which are: Chuno (look it up), double-headed dragon, crap your pants, get bitten by a dog, and Plano Alto (which is where Juliaca is). I've so far done 2.5 of them, so that's good! So me and my comp are opening a new area, so we didn't have an area book or investigators or anything so we've been contacting and it's awesome! We have 1 investigator family and we're teaching a couple more Wednesday! The only thing is that activity in our mission is like 25%, so Presidente wants that to rise more than he wants membership to rise, so before someone can be baptized they have to come to all 3 hours of church 3 times, they have to pay fast offerings, and one other thing... Sorry, this email is really scattered (a million things have happened and also altitude). Anyways, our apartment is interesting. There's mission standards for the worst apartment you can have and ours breaks it--we don't have beds, dressers, lights, hot water, or desks, and my companion's super mad and now the ZL's are finding a new apartment for us I guess. It's fun though! For showers we heat water in our neighbor's stove then pour it over ourselves with a pitcher! Fun stuff! Anyways, there's a million other things and I can't remember one.
Adios!
Elder Steele
I'm a field missionary now! Crazy!
First off, my new email time is 45 minutes, so I don't know how many emails I'll be able to write....
Now the good part! At least in my opinion. My companion's name is Elder Ayo. He's Ecuadorian and SUPER awesome! He's been out for 18 months already, and he's obviously a Latino. But he's great. We're stationed in Juliaca, which is near Puno and Lake Titicaca. We're in the coldest part of the mission, which kind of sucks. Also Cusco is 11,000 feet, which is about the height of Mount Timpanogos, and Juliaca's at 12,000 feet. So breathing's really fun! But I'm adjusting. The only real side effect is that I sound like Darth Vader 24/7, which is actually really cool. We get 3 meals a day from our pensionista, which I actually really hate. Like, her food's good and all, but I feel bad because the only payment she gets is reimbursement for the food cost. Also she gives us so much! I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I decided to be healthy when I entered the CCM, and I lost like 15 pounds, which is great except now my stomach is the size of a baseball and they're feeding me basketball sized portions. On my first full day here (Friday), for lunch she gave us this plate of rice and quinoa, and I was trying to eat it all but I was having a very hard time, so I told the other gringo (oh yeah we live with a companionship of another Latino and another Gringo) that I couldn't make it and he told me I had to so I said a prayer that I could just possibly do this and I had the strangest tender mercy of my life happen--I was about halfway through my plate and my stomach was about to burst and I threw up. Which I count as a tender mercy for 3 reasons-1. I didn't have to finish, 2. My stomach was empty, and 3. it gave me the opportunity to tell our pensionista that I couldn't possibly eat that much ever again. So that's good! So we spent the first two days of the field in Cusco getting trained and stuff, and the AP's told us that there are 5 (unofficial) things that need to happen before you're a real missionary, which are: Chuno (look it up), double-headed dragon, crap your pants, get bitten by a dog, and Plano Alto (which is where Juliaca is). I've so far done 2.5 of them, so that's good! So me and my comp are opening a new area, so we didn't have an area book or investigators or anything so we've been contacting and it's awesome! We have 1 investigator family and we're teaching a couple more Wednesday! The only thing is that activity in our mission is like 25%, so Presidente wants that to rise more than he wants membership to rise, so before someone can be baptized they have to come to all 3 hours of church 3 times, they have to pay fast offerings, and one other thing... Sorry, this email is really scattered (a million things have happened and also altitude). Anyways, our apartment is interesting. There's mission standards for the worst apartment you can have and ours breaks it--we don't have beds, dressers, lights, hot water, or desks, and my companion's super mad and now the ZL's are finding a new apartment for us I guess. It's fun though! For showers we heat water in our neighbor's stove then pour it over ourselves with a pitcher! Fun stuff! Anyways, there's a million other things and I can't remember one.
Adios!
Elder Steele
President and Sister Harbertson
All the missionaries from the CCM that went to Cusco together.
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