OK, I’m REALLY far behind now because I haven’t had much time to write, even on P-Day, so I’ve got about 4 weeks to make up (I started with the last email I sent). But today I hope to be able to write everything, and to be able to add pictures I’m going to divide it up by weeks:

Week 2:

First, we went to a sealing! Elder Klein’s converts, Carlos and Karina, were sealed to each other and to their daughters for time and all eternity, meaning that even death won’t separate them. If you were wondering, here’s what an eternal family looks like:

(I wonder if “rabbit ears” exists in heaven, but if we inherited a sense of humor from God, it could be!)

This is the second sealing that I’ve ever been too, and again I was surprised by how quickly these covenants with our Heavenly Father take place. If you think about it, a baptism takes all of 30 seconds but is literally the only way to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven (even Jesus Christ needed to be baptized), and the sealing, the requirement for an eternal family, takes a half-hour (and most of that time is just waiting for all of the people who wanted to be present to show up!). Tiny things really do have a huge significance.

Oh, and who were all the people that showed up? From what I counted, about seven members and nine missionaries!

Why so many missionaries? Well, for one thing, Carlos, Karina, and their family are the best, and then they’re also famous in the mission because Carlos makes metal placas and Karina makes customized ties and skirts!

The temple was also a really cool experience for me because I gained an actual testimony that you can receive guidance when you’re there. I’ve been trying to be better about being more sincere when I teach people about Christ and how much his Gospel has helped me, but I’ve always had trouble. But I went to the temple that day and prayed to be able to be sincere… and it worked!… For about a week. Not really sure what happened there, but I’m glad I could be sincere for at least a few days because I saw several miracles. Here’s one that I shared (Sorry, it’s in Spanish):

“Uno de los milagros fue encontrar a Haydé, a quien encontramos después de casi dos horas sin que una persona nos dejara entrar para enseñarles – honestamente, ¡ni ella nos dejó entrar! Tocamos porque el miembro que me acompañaba conocía a sus hijas, pero no ellas estuvieron y parecía que Haydé no quería nada. Entonces pregunté, ‘¿Le gusta leer?’… ¡y ella dijo que no! En este momento algo me hizo cambiar mi manera de contactar y dije, ‘Tengo un libro que ha cambiado mi vida, y solamente pregunto porque quiero compartirlo con usted.’… El otro milagro allí fue que por quizás primera vez realmente SENTÍ lo que que dije – que el Libro de Mormón había cambiado mi vida y realmente quería compartirlo. Ella también sintió el Espíritu y cambió su actitud, y cuando ofrecí compartir un pequeño mensaje con ella aceptó (¡aunque todavía no nos dejó entrar!). Compartí un poco acerca de cómo el Evangelio ha cambiado mi vida y que Jesucristo le puede dar paz a ella, y al terminar me dijo, ‘¡Mire ésto! Yo estaba muy baja ¡y justo llegaron ustedes para traerme paz!'”

[Google Translate says: One of the miracles was to find Haydé, who we met after almost two hours without a person letting us in to teach them – honestly, she did not let us in either! The member who was with me knew his daughters, but they were not there and it seemed Haydé did not want anything. Then I asked, ‘Do you like to read?’ … and she said no! At this point something made me change my way of contacting and I said, ‘I have a book that has changed my life, and I only ask because I want to share it with you.’ … The other miracle there was that for maybe the first time I really MEANT what I said – that the Book of Mormon had changed my life and I really wanted to share it. She also felt the Spirit and it changed her attitude, and when I offered to share a small message with her she accepted (although she still would not let us in!). I shared a little about how the gospel has changed my life and that Jesus Christ can give her peace, and when I finished he said, ‘Look at this! I was very low and you just came to bring me peace!’]

Soooo… I need to work on getting that ability back!

Anyway, the next interesting thing has to do with my becoming the ugliest, most unfashionable vulture ever:

Elder Klein finished his mission on the 15th of August, so he left behind a whole bunch of stuff in order to pack his bags (looking at the things he left, it’s probably really easy to guess why!). So, like the vultures that we are, the other four of us in the offices starting taking all the leftovers.

Then I got to take everyone who was “dying” to the airport, and I also organized the busses for cambios!

… Talk about some of the 39 most stressful hours of my life! I say, “39 stressful hours” because THAT WAS HOW LONG I HAD TO STAY AWAKE IN ORDER TO DO IT!!!

Anyway…

Elder Klein had warned me that the day of cambios was by far the worst, and I believed him: My first day in the offices, he had stayed up for two days straight without sleeping and you could tell. Since we almost always send the U.S. missionaries home around midnight I actually planned my day using my Agenda with reversed times; instead of planning for “12pm” I scheduled for “12am”:

Each of the names on there are the missionaries and when their flights left, which should have all gone according to plan…

Here’s one of the pictures I took while we were checking in. You tell me if it was going according to plan or not:

Luckily no one missed their flight, but it was close! I’m not sure how, but they made it!

After that I took the next missionary to the airport, Elder Seminario, and picked up all the new missionaries that were coming in from Mexico (Apparently the CCM here in Peru isn’t big enough, so the 13 Elders that came from the U.S. went there instead.) This was by far the easiest part, but it’s going to mean a lot of work for me; normally the missionaries go through the Interpol process when they go through the CCM, but now I’ll have to do it at 6:00am… I’ve already realized that being sercretario personal means working 24-hour days (Or maybe even more!)… Luckily I’m not having too much trouble! There are some days when I’ve almost fallen asleep in lessons or during the car ride, but other than that I handle it just fine. I suppose it’s good practice for college!

For some reazon, I was confident that no one would miss their flight, despite the odds. The most stressful part was when I was organizing everything for the busses. Here we’ve been trying busses to take missionaries around the mission for their cambios, so we hire two busses that go around the mission (which is in a U-shape), each starting at one end and ending at the other, and the missionaries that need to get on climb on the bus, stick their luggage below, and get off when they get to their new zone. Here’s a map so you have an idea of what I’m talking about:

I should have known that we would have problems, simply because I had to work with more than 150 other people to do this. In a perfect world everyone would get on the right bus and get off at the right stop, but I know our mission isn’t in that world! Luckily it all worked out in the end!

The last part was taking Hermana Garibay to the airport at 6pm, and when I got back a little after 11pm I was finally able to sleep after 39 hours of work!… I I slept so hard that I didn’t wake up until 10am and even then it was hard. Elder Primo, one of the assistants, even shook me and yelled my name and I didn’t do anything, so I guess I was really tired!

So, because Elder Klein left, Elder Castrejón and I got a new companion: Elder Hewitson. The poor guy showed up only to:

* Watch Elder Castrejón and me work on a million things at once during cambios

* Watch me go to the airport

* Stay in the house until 11am because I slept in until 10

* Carry a microwave down from one of the biggest cerros I have climbed:

We met a new family that recently moved into our area, but the husband fell down while he was moving some things and hurt his back so much that he can’t move. So we helped out a little bit! (But seriously, that hill was ridiculous! They literally lived in the top of the hill and moved all the way to the bottom!) But we’re obviously very happy to help out a little bit – they’re going through some really hard times right now. It always feels good to help people.

Anyway, to finish things up, I had more days staying up really late (New record: 3 days of work with only 5 hours of sleep somewhere in there!), some crazy coordinating to do, and a baptism!

The baptism, obviously, was the best part! About six weeks ago we met a less-active member named Hanssel who hadn’t gone to church for several years, ever since his grandmother, who was a member, had died. Elder Primo had talked to him when he took them in his taxi and he lived in our area, Payet, so we visited him. We taught him about repentance and how Christ’s sacrifice lets us return to God and he immediately began to change his life, bringing his parents with him! His father, David, was a member, but his mother, Ana, had never decided to be baptized. When we started teaching them, she decided that she did and was baptized on the 19th. Here are the three of them:

It was really cool to see that because they had lost their way a little bit with all the things that happened to them over the years, but when we brought the Gospel back into their lives they immediately accepted it! They’re the best!

Now for the craziness: Apparently, the other missionaries in Peru have to come here to Lima to do some of the paperwork for their visas (I’ve never really thought about that before because I live and work in Lima, so it’s all somewhat close for me). Two missionaries from Piura had come in from their mission to do their work but one accidentally left his passport on the plane. By the time he realized it, the plane had already gone to Colombia, so he missed his return flight to Piura and had to stay here in the offices with us until they left at 5am the next day! Since I’m the secretary, I had to be in charge of that, so I stayed up until 2am to see them off. It’s just part of the job, but I never imagined something like that would happen! The phone call that I got to set it all up was the most confusing thing: the person calling just told me that two missionaries had gotten stuck here in Lima and needed a place to stay for the night, so they asked if they could stay in our offices! I had no clue what was going on!

Anyway, that’s all. Finally caught up! I’ll let you know how next week goes!

– Elder Schroeder