WEEK 11: BAGUA GRANDE

December 17, 2018

Today was a good p-day. We woke up, washed all of our shirts by hand, then we we played soccer with all of the Elders from Bagua Chica. Soccer is fun i guess, but I'm really missing football, or even basketball. One of the Elders in Bagua Grande has a rugby ball, but he never brings it on p-days. After soccer we went to this restaurant that served only meat, I was in heaven. They have giant pieces of chicken and sausage and a huge steak, and it was soooo good. For once in my life I ate something other than rice. It was so good, and when you guys come to Peru on vacation, we'll have to go to this place. Its' like McDonalds here, there's so many. It was a good p-day. Hey mama thanks for all that you do, I'm so excited to Facetime you guys next week. I'm so pumped to see you guys and show you my language abililty. Love you all so much mama.

December 22, 2018

Hey mama, thanks so much for all of the Christmas stuff you sent me, I had a cup of hot chocolate the other day and it was like I was home again hahahaha.. no, it literally was like that. It was the best cup of hot chocolate that I've ever had in my life, wow. Sorry I haven't written that much this week, everythings been so crazy, we had intercambios the other day and I was with a gringo companion, Elder Norman. I hope I never have a gringo companion actually, because I need to learn Spanish and I love being able to communicate only in Spanish. Our area, Bagua grande 1 is really popping off. I've been in 2 other areas, and they are good missionaries, but the Lord is blessing Elder Moran and I in our area. We really have been working so hard, and our efforts are showing. We have 7 people with a baptismal dates for the 29th of December. We've really been busting our butts and I've never been so happy. The only time I'm sad and missing y'all is when we're not working hard, so we try to do every possible thing that we can and work the hardest that we can. Mama I'm so excited to Facetime y'all this week. I hope you all have a good Christmas, Christmas break was always the besssstttt. Holy, I loved chilling and doing nothing and having snow everywhere. I miss snow and being cold, but Christmas is going to be great here. Love you all, and I'll write a ton more this next week.

December 23, 2018

We just found out we are gonna have a pday tomorrowwwwwww. I'm so happy I'm going to talk to you guys tomorrow before Christmasssssss. Love you guys so much. This week has been crazy busy. Yesterday we had a huge Chocolatada at the chapel (its not a church because it's just a building with a chapel and a parking lot) but we had sooooooo many investigators at the Chocolatada and there were tons of new people we had never seen before. We got so much information and addresses from people and that was wayyy nice to have so many people in one place. We have so many good investigators that are progressing. We have Imelda and her family of 3 kids, Miguel, a 15 year old boy who will be a good priesthood holder, Yunsu, and Yerson, who is a single mom. We have been teaching them and they're going to get baptized on the 29th of December. We have Maria and Ayda, Ayda is the mother of Maria, and Maria is a single mother of 2 little tiny daughters. They were progressing so good, but they needed to come to church today to get baptized this next week, and they didn't so we are down 2 baptisms, which is super sad. We have hermana Felicia whos another old lady who should be getting baptized this week too. We have a ton of old ladies, and we're trying to find more priesthood holders. We have so many people that are lined up to get baptized in January, but we need to reach our goal of at least 5 baptisms this month. Our mission goal is 305 baptisms as an entire mission, and we need to get 27 bapstisms as a zone, and Elder Moran and I need to get 5 or 6 baptisms to reach this goal. We've been working hard, but we need to keep working and working. I almost forgot it was christmas, we been grinding so hard I forgot it was Christmas. All I want for Christmas is our people to get baptized and to have all of these blessings in their lives. Chocolatadas are so nuts here, they get a huge 10 gallon pot and fill it with water, and the members make a big fire in the church parking lot, and they put the pot on top of the fire so it's hot. Then they take pure cocoa and mix it with sugar and and then you have like 10 gallons of hot chocolate. It's not like our hot chocolate, its like a little more bitter (kind of like Mexican hot chocolate you know, Kim). But it's way good. I don't know why they like to make hot chocolate though because its already so hot here, and you just sweat more when you drink it. The members here are super nice and they love helping us out with stuff, but there's really not a ton of members. Every time we come to church, we bring more investigators than there are current members, so that's hard. The members are so sick though, our branch president is a rice farmer, and he drives 15 minutes in his truck motorcycle every time he goes to the church. I love the people, but it's hard to grow a branch, when there's basically no members. We are trying out here, and I love this area, it so beautiful. Tonight werre gonna travel to Chiclayo on a bus with beds, so thats pretty sick. I can't wait to Facetime y'all tomorrow. Love you all so much.