Mission and Adventures in Peru: Crawfish Soup, Ice Cream Beans, French Fries, etc.

Hola Familia,

Aplao

My week has been pretty good. The family I was working with in my old area has been baptized and so four people were baptized how awesome.

Aplao is crazy. It is everything that you would think Peru to be and overall it is awesome. The work here is really different. We are just trying to get the members to come to church let alone investigators. Wow it is tough but I am up for the challenge. We travel every single day on buses to go to one lesson. We travel about four hours a day on buses, but it is good. Our area is about five hours from one end to the other. We are the in the northern area of the mission.

My week has been awesome. Made pancakes twice this week and they were so good. It reminded me of home. They were nice and thick. The syrup turned out really good.

Making Pancakes

There is a city in our area that everyone believes is haunted by witches ha ha. Then one day we went and I got to MILK cows, how awesome is that. I was the best gringo the first time milking cows ha ha. It was really fun. Then we made homemade French fries. The one picture of wheat is when we helped a mom and her daughter get the wheat out of the stalk.

Harvesting Wheat

Story of the week:

100 Year Old House

We went one day to find a member of the presidency. He lives about an hour drive in bus then an hour and half walking to get to his house. It was nuts. We dropped down into this valley and he lives right on the river. His house is 100 years old.

We found an old basket to get across the river before there was a bridge so we all had to go on it and it was awesome. So after traveling, we got to his house and made crawfish soup using the crawfish that he caught earlier in the morning. I know how to gut a crawfish now and make a soup that is delicious. Luckily he took us back to the road in his three-wheeler trailer thing ha ha.

Using the awesome basket across the river

Crawfish Soup

The branch is tiny here. The six missionaries here are in charge of doing pretty much everything. This Sunday we had to get all the tithing donations for the year and pass them out to all the members and set up interviews and bring them to their interviews. We teach the classes, clean the church, set up activities, and everything. But I love it so much. It is absolutely amazing and I couldn’t ask for anything else.

My companion is doing all right; he is just so lazy and only wants to leave the area. I am working with him, trying to help him see the light and understand just how necessary this work is. I have had a ton of time to study, which is really nice, but I am just trying to get him to be more obedient and do the work. But it is a good challenge and I have learned a ton.

Overall this week has been awesome, and I love this area and the mission so much. Thank you for all your support and everything that you all do for me. Have a great week.

I love you all,

Elder Cooley

Questions:

1.How long to you have to email each week?

I have two hours each week to email.

2. Were you guys every able to baptize that girl?

We were not able to seal the deal ha ha.

3. Does Aplao have farming, ranching or both?

Aplao has everything, from rice, potatoes, fruit, chemicals for the fields, and animals. It just has everything agricultural.