Mission and Adventures in Peru: March 7th

Pueblito Arequipa

*This post was transcribed from a voice recording. I apologize for any misspelled names or locations.

Hello Family,

How you doing?

All right so this week was awesome. It is the fourth-week of this transfer, and yea it is going by super fast.

So this week for P-Day we bowled in a bowling alley in the mall. It was really small about half the size of normal. It had strings for all of the pins so when they fell down they just pulled the strings to come back up. It was really fun; we celebrated a birthday party for one Elder. After we went to a market called Avaleno. We looked around at all the fake stuff they had and found some pretty cool real stuff.

After that we came back to our area and had some family home evenings. They turned out to be really cool. We had one with the Vega family. We taught about the Book of Mormon (Spanish version) and how important it is in our life and how if we just read it that everything will be better. A lot of times we just don’t read because we are lazy or we just don’t see the importance. It is really important and it is just what we need to do.

On Tuesday we had our district meeting. We also moved some Elders from their house. We moved all their stuff from one house to the other in less than an hour. Then we came back and we had an awesome night. We taught the Ochone family. We had a noche de hogar (family night) were we taught about patience. Then we went to Carlos and Cristina’s after that. They are doing really well. They are the couple we are trying to help get married.

Noche de Hogar

On Wednesday we went up to the Parerras family. They live up in a remote area called Los Olivos. It was about a 30 min walk away. They don’t have water or electricity but they are happy. We went and talked to them, the wife has been a member for a long time. In this area there is a lot of fighting and contention up there with the people that own the land and the people that live there.

That night we had a cool lesson with the Allupanki family. We taught about doing the little things in life and how they can make a difference. It was cool even though they are an inactive family they still need help. It is cool to see what the gospel can bring to their lives. That was a really cool day.

Then on Thursday we had divisions. So Elder Montas he came with me, he is from Colombia. I did divisions with him before in Moquegua about 5-6 months ago. It was a very long night, the last time we went to this area no one was home and so we walked around all night and it was terrible, but it was better this time. We were able to visit a bunch of families and it was really cool. I was glad to do divisions with him. It was a cool experience and I learned a lot from him. He is super happy and is always smiling. That is a good attribute that I need to work on.

Friday I ate dirt, this thing called Chalko. Yea it is like this clay that they have in the desert. They add water and salt to it. You eat it with a potato, just a hard boiled potato. Yea I guess you could say that it is pretty good. I don’t know how to explain it. So that was a cool experience.

We had to go around and get all the new cell phones for all the areas. We took a taxi around for like three hours to all the areas to get all the phones out. Then we came back and ate lunch. We had lamb and it was in this really greasy sauce. Then we went and made apple pie.

After we went and had Chuno is like a freeze dried potato. It is a potato that they smash with their feet and leave out to mold. Then it is hard as a rock. They then put them in water and cook them. It is like a little black condensed potato after they cook. It’s alright, you can get it down with cheese, and the cheese here is not my favorite haha.

We had an awesome lesson with a member and two of his friends. Wow it was amazing to teach a little family the importance of the gospel and how we can live with families forever. That was really cool and they had a lot of hope after that lesson. Hopefully we will be able to teach them more. They were Raul and Cynthia. Afterwards we had a board activity it started at 7 or at least that is when it was suppose to start but on Peruvian time it was about an hour to an hour and a half later. So we started at 8:30. It was a cool activity. Not a lot of people showed up but it will be better next week.

Saturday we did service (Spanish version). A lot of time with service we just move a pile of dirt to another pile of dirt. This time we moved a pile of bricks to another place. We came back from that and went up to the Parerras family again and met with a friend she is an evangelist. You can tell that she knew what we were talking about is true and that it has a whole bunch of meaning to her but she was fighting it. I know that if she prays that everything will go right.

Then we woke up on Sunday, studied and then went to church. We had a whole bunch of less active members come to church. I wasn’t expecting that at all. Then I had the chance out of all the hundred people in church they picked me to direct the hymns (Spanish version). I don’t know why haha.

Then we came back and had a lesson with Gunner. He is a good investigator but has gotten less interested. It is sad to see his desires fade. We will just have to keep teaching him. He needs to read the Book of Mormon and everything will turn out good.

Yea that is about the week.

Tomorrow we are going to go and look around the markets and see what we can find. I love you guys so much. Miss you guys and will see you soon. Peace out.

Chou Bye,

Elder Cooley