Well this week was awesome. It rained pretty much all night
every night. Which is cool because it never rained here. But also dangerous
because the rain can pretty much ruin the entire city and community if there is
too much. But we didn’t let the rain get us down and worked hard all week long.
We realized that we had been kinda slacking on a few things so we got our crap
together this week and went to work HARD. Every single night when we got back
to the room I was just drained and the next morning it seemed like the alarm
was going off too soon. I don’t know where I was getting strength or energy
from but somehow we finished the week and it was definitely a good one.
One thing I forgot to mention last week, so have you seen
those YouTube videos of Christian baptisms where the rebellious little heathens
jump and do a cannon ball into the font? Yeah well that was E last week at his
baptism hahahah. After his baptism they closed the font doors so that his mom
could walk into the font for her baptism and he was just like swimming laps in
the font. Then we finally got him to relax for her baptism and right when they
shut the doors again he just dove in from the top step haha. Then that was
repeated about two more times and we finally got him to get out hahaha.
So I have a new thing to put on the list of weird things
eaten on my mission. Eel. It wasn’t actually too bad haha but it’s definitely
not one of my favorite things I have ever had. Just imagine a really salty
fried fish. (Well I guess most of you are Westbroeks and dump the whole bottle
of salt on anything you eat so it doesn’t really matter) but it was alright
haha.
We did a service project this week and helped a lady move
her house. Yep. We just took that thing right down. I’m a Chapman so I am an
expert in the destruction department so that helped out quite a bit. But she
had a bunch of "shingles" (they are called calaminas and they are
what they use for their roofs down here) in the back and when we lifted up the
last one we found a family of about 10 rats. My companion shot out of there
like a wild bat so I was just stuck there making sure the calamina didn’t fall
and break haha. It was pretty crazy. It took us about 4 hours to get it all
taken down and it was a ton of work. We just put the old material in her new
house which is made out of cement. And then she just gave us a ton of food
haha.
So throughout my mission and especially now that I am a zone
leader I have had a lot of opportunities to deal with different missionaries
and correct or help them with their attitudes and behavior. And it has been
pretty tough and hasn’t always been easy. But I have learned something that I
think applies to all situations, not just missionaries or zone leaders. It is
that the way we react in any situation has to make things better, not worse. For
the person to actually accept our council or what we are saying they need to
feel of our love. And our words and actions need to influence in the person for
the better and not bring out feelings or contention. I was also reading Jeffrey
R. Holland’s new book (thanks mom) and I really liked the talk called
"Remember Lot's Wife" and I recommend it to everyone. We need to
always be looking forward to the hopeful future that the gospel offers us and
not dwell on past mistakes or things we have done.
Anyway I think half of the city of Talara knows about my
birthday on Thursday. I guess that’s a good and a bad thing. I am preparing
myself mentally and physically for that day because I’m sure it will include a
lot of eggs and flour in the head and a few cakes in the face. But Peruvian
birthdays are the best. And just so you all know, I’m bringing the traditions
home with me. Everyone has now been
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