Hey all!
As you all learned last week, I had my first cambio, or transfer, in my mission! Before I’d been stuck in Machu Picchu teaching the people there and teaching my new companions how to travel around the area and who’s who and all that, but on Tuesday and all throughout this week I took a time warp back to my first week in Machu Picchu, when I had no idea who was who and where we were (Luckily I didn’t have to repeat the part when I couldn’t understand anyone or talk!). I’ve been transferred to an area called Villa Hermosa, which was closed for a few months. Then, one transfer ago, Elder Rodriguez went and opened the area again, and then one transfer later I showed up to help him. It’s a little bit difficult for several reasons:
1) It’s not actually a ward, but a branch, and only about 40 members go to church regularly (And I thought Machu Picchu was bad! At least 100 people showed up there!)
2) The members are a little cold towards us because they felt a little abandoned when the missionaries left 3 months ago, so it’s a little hard to even talk to them.
3) When the missionaries left, so did all the investigators and even some of the members, so we have to contact a lot of people (Neither of us like to contact!) and search for the less-active members that disappeared to try and help them too. Then, of course, we have to strengthen the recent converts too…
4) Our area is HUGE! I thought Machu Picchu was big because we were always finding new areas, but at least I managed to explore all of it before I left. Villa Hermosa is about 3 times bigger! This part, called Collique, is basically an upside-down “V”-shaped valley in between the hills, so we have “that hill” to “that hill over there” for side limits and the 4th zone until the 9th zone (a “zone” is what we’d call a subdivision) of Collique for the upper and lower limits. So, if you think about it, we basically have an area 5 subdivisions up and 5 or 6 subdivisions across! It actually used to be two separate areas at one point!… Thus, lots of walking.
5) The buses that make travel a lot faster only go from the 4th zone to the 7ths, so we have to walk until the 8th and 9th! (Needless to say, my legs are going to be really strong by the time I finish my mission!)
6) As I mentioned, we’re kind of the “uppermost” part of Collique in the “V” valley part, so our area is the furthest from EVERYONE in our Zone! All the other missionaries are closer, but we’re the furthest and Villa Hermosa has had little success, so we’re basically outcasts: The Zone doesn’t really care about us because there are a TON of missionaries in the Zone and we’re really far away from all the activities and other missionaries, so we’re pretty sure if we stopped showing up to Zone meetings no one would even notice. (We’ve decided that Villa Hermosa it’s basically the red-headed stepchild of the Zone and we’re the Zone outcasts)
I’ve attached a picture to kind of give you an idea of how big we’re talking. The red lines are about the limit. If you notice, some of the roads go a little bit further north, and that’s part of our area, too.
So I got here on Tuesday around 1:00 PM (We should have been there a lot earlier but the map was wrong!) and I started getting to know the area and the people, mainly my companion, Elder Rodriguez (I already knew him a little bit because he was my Zone Leader in Machu Picchu for 5 months.
And then I also got to know our roommate, Ashly. Cute, isn’t she?
Elder Rodriguez and his companion found her about 4 weeks ago outside the cuarto because some dogs had been “playing” with her — as in the way animals “play” with their prey before they kill it — and Elder Rodriguez saved her, cleaned her up, took her to a vet, and has been taking care of her ever since. We’re going to keep her until we can find a home for her, but it’s a little tough because she has a LOT of energy (I’ll add a photo of her attacking my camera) and we’re always gone, so she’s really bored all the time and bothers us when we return to the house.
And then I’ve pretty much just been working like we always do. Soooo… that’s basically what I’ve been doing this past week! I’ll try and get some photos so I can show you how it is here (Really, it’s not that different from Machu Picchu…)
¡Chao!
— Elder Schroeder