¡Hola! ¿Cómo están?

I’ve almost finished a full 2 weeks in the Campo Missional! This past week was really difficult because I’ve been having a lot of trouble understanding everything that’s going on, because we’re really busy. I went on 2 exchanges this week and learned quite a bit about how to survive Peru, but Peru is not easy for a missionary to survive in — I’m always hungry because I never can get enough good food to eat, there are a lot of angry dogs and stairs (yes, angry stairs, too), and I constantly feel like I’m failing my Heavenly Father by not talking enough. And then yesterday a cat got into our cuarto and pooped and peed on the floor! I’m good, but up until Friday it was really difficult.

What did I learn on the exchanges? Well, I learned that I was right, for one thing: Peruvian food isn’t great. Elder Sepulveda, who I was with on Tuesday, introduced me to Aji-no-men, the Peruvian Ramen equivalent (That, I discovered after eating, is carcinogenic! Thanks, Elder Sepulveda!) On Friday, while I was with Elder Toth, I learned a lot more because he spoke English. He didn’t really have a whole lot of other food suggestions, except for a really good bread tienda near the church building. I’m going to have to eat there more often because it’s delicious!

This week I’ve been paying for everything because Elder Terrones is all out of money. I don’t know how he only managed to have 50 centimos left when I had 50 Soles, but if I had any problems with sharing my stuff before, well, I had to drop them. I’m fine with sharing my stuff because mi compañero has given me a lot, but I hope this doesn’t become a reoccuring thing.

Service is really hard here. If I thought it was bad to move someone’s stuff into a truck and then into their new house, I hadn’t seen anything until Wednesday. All the missionaries in this zone helped move a family out of a tiny apartment building (Have you ever tried carrying a refrigerator down stairs designed to barely accomodate a person?! (And then back up, because apparently we weren’t supposed to move it. Oops!)). Then we loaded it all into a truck and moved into their new home. And I thought the apartment was bad! Their new house wasn’t even close to the road, so we had to carry everything up a hill and then up almost 50 steps AND THEN up a LADDER! It was brutal!

Well, I don’t have a whole lot more to talk about. The only thing I want is for people to tell me what they want for Christmas. Anyone want a llama tie, a Peruvian coin purse, Peruvian scripture holders, bookmarks, nice HLJ (Spanish CTR) rings… they’ve got a lot here. I’m not sure I’ll send it in time for this Christmas (I don’t know if I’ll have time until I actually figure out what to do to get it to the US), but they’ve got some cool stuff and it’s REALLY cheap. Just send me an email and I’ll try and get it for you.

For anyone who wants to know a new Spanish word I learned this week: “resbalavisa” (“slippery”)! It still doesn’t beat my favorite Spanish word: “golosinear” (“to go around eating candy”)! So, next Halloween, say, “estoy golosineando” (“I am going around eating candy”)! Or if you’re going around eating candy right now you can use it, too. ¡Hasta Lunes!

Elder Schroeder

P.S.: I included a picture of the poop just for you, Dad. There’s a LOT of dogs around here! The other pictures are to give you an idea of what Machu Picchu looks like. It’s so ghetto!

Hey everyone! My P-Day is now Monday, if anyone cares to know!

I’m not going to have much time to write this week. Usually I try to send at least one personal email to somebody and have been rotating through people, but this week I’m short on time so I won’t be able to do that or mention much about the field.

How is it, you ask? Really, I’m surprised at how much I love it. I have no clue where I am in the mission, but it has a lot of mountains (They’re short mountains, but hiking to the top every day to teach investigators is really difficult! There are muchas escaleras and they are really steep!). The name of the area is Machu Picchu (Not actually Machu Picchu — I wish!) and I’m totally in the ghetto of Lima. One of the families we teach doesn’t have electricity — or at least doesn’t use it — and so I’m glad the flashlight I have is so strong because reading scriptures in Spanish in the dark causes a lot of problems for me! Most places do have electricity — mi cuarto does — but it’s sometimes infrequent, like the hot water. Showering is really sketchy; there are wires everywhere in the bathroom (for heating the water) and I discovered if you touch the shower head after turning on the hot water you get electrocuted! It’s not a lot of electricity; just a tingling sensation in your arm. The switch to turn on the hot water is a different matter. My compañero told me I need to wrap my hand in a towel before I touch it!

Other than this, mi cuarto is nice: tile floors, iron doors, plenty of space for two people, a dresser and closet for my stuff, and a working toilet (I’ll include a picture or two). Depending on what room you’re in, it either smells like cat pee, cat, unidentified, dirt, or laundry soap, so that keeps things interesting (And, no, we don’t have a cat. They just use the landing outside our apartment as a toilet and the window is a little broken, so the smell comes in).

My compañero is Elder Terrones — obviously Latino — and is really awesome. Because he’s in charge of training me he calls me “hijo mio” (“my son”) which should give you an idea of what he’s like. He obviously speaks Spanish fluently, is from an area from Peru called Trujillo, has been on his mission for 10 months (Yikes! I’m a little nervous about this!), and is really fun, loving, and happy. He’s been teaching the lessons because my Spanish isn’t very good, but he understands this and is willing to work with me and has been a huge help in developing my Spanish. I’m glad he speaks Spanish with enough emphasis on each word that I can understand him, because otherwise I would be hosed! I’ll include a picture of him (Picture 5038)

My Spanish… stinks. I can understand a lot of what is said now (unless they talk really fast, slur words, or use words I don’t know) but my speaking is awful. I have a lot of trouble with conjugation and knowing words because I speak Gospel Spanish (I only really know words related to church stuff) and conjugation in Spanish is MUCH different than in English. I’ve never thought about language so much than when I’m trying to learn another! One of the most recent thoughts I had was, “How do I understand what people are saying in English? In Spanish I translate the words into English and THEN know what they mean, but then… how do I know what they mean in English? Do I think of a picture in my mind or feel what they’re talking about or…! I had this thought in church on Sunday and nearly blew my own mind! Something cool I’m starting to notice, though: I’m beginning to associate Spanish words with things the way I do in English! I realized I could understand people if I stopped thinking about the English translation of what they said! I don’t know how, but maybe Spanish is starting to click!

I miss you all! I don’t think I’ve said that in many previous emails because, well, I haven’t really missed you (Don’t take that the wrong way! I just mean I wasn’t homesick or anything!). Then I had a dream yesterday that I came home and I realized how much I miss everything. I’m still OK but I think it finally sank in that I’m going to be here for another 22.5 months. Crazy! Well, gotta wrap up; ¡Hasta lunes!

Elder Schroeder

[The mission president sent these photos of Elder Schroeder with his district]

¡Hola, todos! ¿Què tal?

Not much has happened this week (outside of the norm, I mean). I just had my last P-Day with my CCM district (*sniff*) because we’re all going to our missions next Tuesday! I’ll be sad to see a lot of them go, but I found out just about everyone is planning to go to BYU Provo for school when they finish their mission, so if I end up going there I might see them again! (The odds aren’t very good, but that’s OK!)

Yesterday marked 700-days-left on the mission — still a ways off, but again: not really much happened this week so it felt like a milestone.

Well, I’m off to continue my P-Day and relax a little bit! If anyone has any questions, feel free to send me an email and I’ll get back to you (And yes, Mom, I AM taking my vitamins and oils!). And if anyone wants some cool Peruvian stuff, let me know and I’ll try and get it for you — everything is really cheap down here! Llama ties are $5! Any guy knows you can’t get a good tie that cheap in the States! Anyway, ¡hasta luego! (And watch out while you sleep, as Elder Parker discovered!)

Elder Schroeder

Hey all!

Not much to report here – unless you count three earthquakes, inventing a new Spanish word, granades, proselyting, and lots of ninjas.

I’ll start with the earthquakes. Earthquakes are supposed to be really common around here, and they weren’t lying – three in one week is impressive! The earthquakes, on the other hand… really boring. The first one I completely missed because of the ninjas (I’ll explain later). The second one was so slight only people who were standing up felt anything, and unfortunately I was sitting in class at the time… And the third one shook the house I was teaching my maestra (teacher, female) in. Of course, the houses are so thin you can’t knock on the door too hard or the house will fall over, so… still not impressive. At least I felt it! (Everyone in my family knows what quote goes here!)

In Spanish class with Hermano Flores, we invented the word “fiestar”: to party. We asked him what “to party” was in Spanish and he told us there wasn’t one. Then pure genius happened and Elder Willard decided he would use “fiestar”, creating the newest Spanish word! It actually works with most, if not all, of the Spanish rules we’ve learned about, and thus we are on a quest to educate everyone we can about “fiestar”! Sorry, typo up there: I meant “granadillas”. I told Kyra about these in my email to her, so I’m just going to quote my description of this fruit here:

“Halloween was the day I ate a granadilla. I don’t know if they have them outside of Perù, but I recommend trying it at least once because it is an unforgettable experience. A granadilla tastes pretty good – kind of like an orange mixed with pomegranate – but it is “the single most unappetizing fruit I have ever had,” to quote myself when I had finished it. It looks like an orange with a point on one end, but once you peel off the rind it’s basically a sac of seeds and juice. Then you’re supposed to poke a hole in the sac, scoop around the inside with a spoon to loosen the seeds, and then use the spoon to dig out the seeds (make sure not to bite them). The reason this is so disgusting is because the juice inside has the exact same consistency as snot, so it feels like eating a spoonful of snot and seeds… and the seeds-juice-sac combo looks like eating an eggsac. I ate it as a dare, but it’s really not that bad once you get past the looks. The problem was everyone at the table was so disgusted that I ate it, meaning their faces were HILARIOUS, which, of course, made me laugh while a strand of snot juice hung from my mouth and made them more disgusted and made me laugh harder… Good times! Seriously, if you do ever find one and decide to try it, make sure you get a video of everyone’s reactions when they first see it and when they try to eat it because it is seriously disgusting! (The funny part is the granadilla tasted better than the other cafeteria food!)”

Halloween was also the day we went proselyting. We left for a section of Lima East around noon and when we got there were paired with another Elder from the CCM and an Elder from Lima East. I was paired with an Elder (whose name escapes me at the moment) who didn’t speak much English – he’s a Latino – and the first hour was really difficult because I couldn’t understand ANYONE except Elder Alder, who I was also paired with. Then I guess I got used to the speed – or developed the Gift of the Interpretation of Tongues for a few hours – because at the end I could actually understand almost every sentence that was spoken! It was a really awesome experience, especially because I didn’t hyave to say much. We just walked around to every house, gave the person a pass-along card, and asked if they wanted to have the missionaries come by sometime next week. I think it was the best way to improve my Spanish because I could just focus on understanding rather than how to say what I want!

Lima East is an interesting place. I was told it was “the nicest mission in Lima” and if that’s true… I’m in serious trouble! Either that or we went to the most ghetto part in all of Lima East, because it was an actual shantytown. Most of the houses were wooden-plank walls with a tin roof built on a dirt road along the side of a mountain! It was such a bizarre – yet interesting – sight that I was constantly looking around at everything! I wish I could have gotten a picture because I simply cannot describe it in words. I’ll probably get plenty of pictures of shantytowns like that one in Lima North!

The ninjas came on Halloween night. A few people decided to go trick-or-treating along the hallway, but that got old pretty fast because no one had any candy to give away. Around 11:00 PM, however, everyone in the district planned a quest to retrieve the janitor’s
keys Elder Willard had seen a few days earlier. They were hanging in a closet on the first floor, and everyone dressed up as ninjas (wrapped a T-shirt around our heads) to go retrieve them. We basically creeped downstairs and then walked down the hallway, opened the closet, took the keys, and then used them to unlock the padlock on my closet (I’d lost my keys and couldn’t get it to open). It wasn’t very exciting, but now I know how to make a ninja hood! I’ll include a picture of me wearing it and a few others of the Lima Temple and the CCM.

Hasta luego!
Elder Schroeder

Me with the ninja hood:

From left to right: Elders Pierce, Bly, Willard, and Alder in ninja attire:

The goal of our mission:

And our shared room: