WEEK 9: BAGUA GRANDE

December 3, 2018

Hey fam, today was a really good p-day. We played soccer in Bagua Grande today, and it was literally so hot, like holy that was hot. I've never sweat so much in my life on the real, even the sweat of football and rugby combined don't add up to one week in Bagua Grande. After soccer we went to the zone leaders apartment and had a meeting and everything, but we played Uno and that was way fun. They play Uno different here - if you have the exact match of a card, then you can place it on the pile at anytime and then the circle starts over from the person that placed the card. Uno really be a different game down here. And they make custom cards like the switch hands card, where you trade cards with someone. Uno be the best down here. Oh, also, I bought my first soccer jersey, and it's a pretty basic Peru jersey, because Guerrero is pretty mainstream - he's basically like Lebron here ahahah. Hey Mama, sorry I couldn't talk for long. My companion is from Lima, and he has one little brother, who's also on a mission, and he is so nice and patient with Spanish. He's so funny too. Sometimes he has a hard time with the walking but he's amazing. Yo brukkas, Elder Moran was talking about this game on the computer called Wolf team. He was talking it up about how tight it was so ya'll should look it up. I don't know if its cool or if its dumb but let me know. We had a family night with a newly converted family today, and they have 2 of the cutest little girls I've ever seen. One is named Lluvia, pronounced 'Jooviah', which means rain in Spanish, she's tiny probably 2 years old, and has blonde hair, and she always steals my and Elder Moran's water bottles. Our mission has a goal of 305 baptisms this month. To do that, Elder Moran and I need 5 baptisms, so pray for us. I just want to spread the Gospel to everyone. Love you all.

December 4, 2018

Today was a hard day, Spanish is a little difficult, and it's real hot here. There are a couple investigators that we thought were progressing that aren't, and that's kind of hard to see, especially because I can't say everything I want to say, because of Spanish. I was pretty discouraged today, and we were walking to our next lesson, and I was wondering why a mission was so hard. Why can't I teach the people so they want to get baptized in one lesson. Then I remembered a talk that I saw in the CCM by Elder Holland. Look this talk up, because its my favorite video, try and find the one with the Jesus Bible video over Elder Holland's voice.

In his talk, he says that we question why is this mission hard? Why is life so difficult? But then he says, why should life be easy for us, when Salvation is not a cheap experience? The Savior went through 100,000,000 million times pain what we will ever feel in our entire lives, so why should we never feel pain? Why should we ever think that life is not hard, that life is easy because it was never easy for Him. This talk is amazing, so search up 'salvation is not a cheap experience'. I love this work, and I want to walk in the heat and teach people the same lessons over and over, and have a hard time with the language, and go through difficulties, because I know this is where I'm supposed to be. And I know God will strengthen me in all things. I love you all and gn.

December 5, 2018

Wow, today was a tough day. Our investigators are amazing and I love them so much, but I don't know if we're reaching them the way we need to and should. My Spanish knowledge is so little, I don't know what I should do. My Spanish knowledge is too little to teach the way I want to. This is tough, but the Lord will help me. I just want to say to the people 'Come unto Christ and be saved and become happy and partake of this amazing fruit of eternal life, the Atonement, and the Love of God', but I can't fully in Spanish. I love this work, and I love you mama, thanks for listening, sometimes I just have to vent for a bit. Love you.

December 7, 2018

I didn't write yesterday because I was sick out of my mind with a fever, but this is what happened in the last few days. I tried a mango for the first time, and they are so good, holy, they taste like the love of angels. I love this work, and I love the people here. Yesterday I was a walking zombie, because I was tripping with a fever and a cough, but I said to myself, 'If God can heal all of these people, and He is all powerful, He can heal me too.' I had faith that He would make it easier, and He did, plain and simple. I was still really sick, like way sick, but I stumbled along, and we taught some really important lessons. All of our appointments were on different sides of the city too, so we were walking about 2 miles to each lesson, or something like that. It was a hard day, but the Lord helped me through it. When we got back to the cuarto, I just passed out on my bed, ahahahaah. I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling soooo much better, and I woke up to a monsoon outside our cuarto. We have metal siding and concrete for a roof, so the light bulbs were dripping water. It was nice to hear rain again, that was pretty great. 

Our pensionista has about 100 pets. There's 2 dogs named Nusta and Feo. Feo is 'ugly' in Spanish, and both dogs run out to us whenever we're relatively close to el cuarto. She has a parrott named Pepito, and he talks in Spanish, and does cat-calls. She has a turtle, a bunccccchhhh of guinea pigs (for eating of course), and a thousand chicken-like things that are pretty weird. I love hermana herlinda´s cooking. Love you all.

Oh and mama, I was feeling pretty lonely yesterday because I was so sick, but The Lord helped me in all things. The Lord blesses his servants. Love you.

December 9, 2018

Bagua Grande is the best. A couple nights ago our power went out in our room at about 3:30 at night, so both of our fans stopped. I woke up soaking wet with sweat, freaking out of claustrophobia. I went to the fridge to find cold water, but the fridge was out too. That was one of the worst nights of my life ahahahah.. It was so hot and there was no way to escape it. They have a saying in Spanish here that basically means 'a dog that barks, never bites', and this is so true. The big dogs that always bark at you and growl and get up close to you never actually try and bite you, but the dogs you gotta watch out for are the ones that are silent. They´ll try and sneak up and kind of army-crawl up to you, then they'll start running at you. And you always gotta listen behind you because there's always stealth bomber dogs. It's the weirdest thing. 

The people from the city in Bagua Grande have motorbikes and mototaxis, but the people from the rice fields and the coco tree farms have motorbikes with a truck bed on the back. They don't really have any cars here, only the richest people have them, and there's no rich people in Bagua Grande. Everyone knows how to drive motorbikes so well though. I've seen kids that look about 7 years old driving a mototaxi through downtown with their mom nursing a baby in the backseat. Its way funny to think that the people of Bagua Grande don't know how to drive a car, but they know how to drive motos. Life is good here. I love you all, and thanks for praying for me.