This week’s been pretty good down here in Perú. I can’t complain about the area (By the way, I realized I need to correct myself: I’m now in Industrial, Zona Santa Isabel, not Zona Comas. Comas was my last zone and I got mixed up!) and it’s good here with my companion. We’ve decided that to relax a little bit at night that we’re going to teach each other different things. I’m teaching him a little bit of martial arts, and he’s teaching me a variety of other “skills”, such as sign language (He doesn’t actually know words, but since we both know the alphabet we write the words out) and how to throw and do tricks with a trompo (a big wooden top):
(The trompo is on the bottom left, in case you didn’t see it)
So that makes our downtime a little more interesting! (If you want to know, I still haven’t mastered the trompo or sign language!)
As I said, it’s been good, but I also feel like I’m dying slowly… I’m on that slow, eventual slide to the end of my mission, and I’m not sure if I’m liking it or not. It’ll be great to be Stateside again, but I’m really going to miss the mission, and the fact that I can’t ever do it again freaks me out! At the same time, I’m struggling a little bit with my companion — he’s having a hard time in the mission and it’s affecting me — and sometimes he makes me feel like it’d be so great to just relax and not do anything without feeling guilty about it. Here in the mission, you’re on the Lord’s time, and it’s also so short that I don’t want to waste it. So I’m there…
The area’s still great! Fanny didn’t get baptized this week like I said because her husband, Alberto, who did get baptized, had an operation, but she’s planning to be baptized in a few weeks, on the 25th. But either way, we still had a baptism! (Sorry that there are a few splotches — it was drizzling. And the red eyes… Well, it was night and the flash did that!):
His name’s also Alberto, and he’s the one there in the middle with his arms open, as if to say, “Look, here I am, about to be baptized!” (He was so thrilled to be baptized! My first day here in the area, we went to visit him and he said, “I’ve been thinking lately and I’ve decided that I want to be baptized!” And ever since then he’s been excitedly preparing, changing his life without us having to do anything!)
And just so you know who these people are (I image someone would like to know why there are three missionaries!):
Back row, left to right: Hermana Lidia (the bishop’s wife), Obispo Orson (the bishop), Alberto, Presidente David (the Elders quorum president), Hermano Dante (the first counselor in the bishopric), and Candy (one of the sisters in the ward)
Front row, left to right: Me (Obviously!), Elder Kilts (Elder Davila’s companion three months ago, when they started teaching Alberto), and Elder Davila
And, of course, something went wrong in this baptism, too! We went to the chapel in the morning to clean everything and get it all ready, so we thought for sure nothing was going to go wrong! But we needed to empty the baptismal font to clean it and add fresh water, and when we tried to do it, the pump that sucks out all the water wasn’t working! We had to call someone to fix it, and then, about 30 minutes before the baptism, we were able to suck out the water, clean the font, and fill it up again! But at least it went wrong before and not during!
So it hasn’t been a very interesting week, as in with dangerous service projects or something along those lines. We did celebrate Elder Vazquez’s year mark in the mission (He’s one of the missionaries in my district):
He didn’t really want a party, but we threw one for him anyway! (It was kind of a lame party because it didn’t really work out: The cake was past it’s expiration date (It made us all sick!), the Coca-Cola we bought was warm, and we didn’t do anything else because we didn’t have anything else we could do! It was so sad that it was funny!) Elder Vazquez didn’t really care, so it all worked out!
Until next week!
— Elder Shweder
(I can’t tell anyone how my name’s actually procounced because they can’t make the noises, so I tell them it’s like this. It’s even worse when I show them my placa — they try to read it, and almost everyone gives up halfway through!)