Well, I’ve finally figured out what my release date is:
NOVEMBER 5, 2017!
That’s both thrilling and horrifying. On one hand, being in the field is starting to take more of a toll on me and I’ll be very happy to be coming back, but, as you know, it’s also very stressful to think about… I feel like a broken record saying that again, but, well…
Aaaaaaanyway, on to some more interesting stuff…
I suppose it’s about time that I explain my job, now that I have almost an entire cambio doing it. As secretario personal, I’m in charge of:
* Transportation for the missionaries that are entering the field and “dying” – organizing buses and taxis, ordering plane flights, etc.
* Preparing everything for the “dying” missionaries
* Wasting hours of my life at a time in lines to do paperwork… Or, I mean…
* Legal paperwork for the extranjeros (I forgot that word in English…) which, in Perú, are their Carnés de extranjería, their Prórrogas de residencia, and working with their passports and documentation. To do this I have to be a legal representative for about half the mission, so that’s kind of cool… (Don’t cross me or I’ll kick you out of the country! Nah, just kidding!)
* Organizing the phones – Making sure every area has a cell phone, replacing lost or broken phones, getting new phones for new areas, charging people for breaking or losing their phones, etc. This is stressful because everyone wants and needs a phone right now, but I have to get everything from the area offices rather than the mission offices… They don’t always do it that quickly.
* Doing other little miscellaneous tasks for Presidente Godfrey
It’s a lot of work, especially because I need to be really organized to keep track of everything. It’s a lot of pressure because if I mess something up we can have pretty big problems… But that hasn’t really happened to me yet, so we’re fine. However, all the work I have means that my schedule is never routine, so it keeps me on my toes while making me change things (like when my P-Day is). So that’s what I’m up to around here.
As for our area, we’re doing really well! Even though we only work as “real” missionaries from 5:00 PM, we’re having some good success and two people decided they wanted to be baptized! Their names are Keisy and Franz. Here they are in between the three of us:
Keisy is Franz’s nephew who was going to be baptized about a month ago, but he got scared because the water was cold, and in the end he didn’t. However, since his baptism we’ve also been teaching Franz, who we got to know when he went to Keisy’s almost-baptism… And then they got baptized together! It was special because Keisy’s mom (Franz’s sister) was so happy that her son and brother had gotten baptized that she was in tears. The Gospel is awesome!
More exciting news: We also have three other people that are going to be baptized tomorrow! I’ll explain more about them next week (Stay tuned!).
Other than enjoying the actual mission work, we’ve been doing a few other things as well. Well, OK, really just one thing: Eating!
Here we are, just in a normal restaurant:
(Sorry, I don’t have many pictures — there’s not really anything interesting to take pictures of, so I’ve only got pictures of P-Days… And we don’t do much on P-Days either…!)
Anyway, hopefully I’ll have something else to report next week… namely, baptisms and the stories behind them, but I suppose something funny would also be good. ¡Hasta luego!
Élder Schroeder
Secretario Personal
Misión Perú Lima Norte
Mobile: 972-606-816
Av. Carlos Izaguirre 124, Independencia, Lima
(Pretty awesome, right?! This is the official signature that I put on all the emails I send out!)