¡Hola! ¿Cómo están? ¿Qué tal?

This week in the extremely exciting life of Elder Schroeder, I:

Watched a movie I’ve seen so many times that even though it was in Spanish I could quote it in my head: The Emperor’s New Groove (Love that movie!) And it was appropriate for my mission because if you think about it, it’s about ancient Peru (kind of)! (Even in Spanish it still has one of the worst end credits songs ever)

Discovered, while cleaning the NEW house of Roxana, that she is packing heat (She found four little handguns in the bags of miscellaneous stuff she had all over her house! I’ll send a picture of one, but where the heck did she get four police-issue handguns?!)

Realized (again) that this is my life for the next 21 months (It still seems strange that I’m a missionary — I don’t really think about it much…)

Had the Spirit guide our lessons in really weird directions that were actually exactly what our investigators needed (We taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ when our plan was something COMPLETELY different! And it was really good!)

Discovered that this summer is very abnormal. It’s been MUCH colder and cloudier than usual, and I’m (kind of) loving it! (I would like it more if it wasn’t so hot, but at least it’s not hotter like it should be!)

Spent two days being trained in a general broadcast for all the missionaries in the world and being trained in a special mission-wide training session. There was a lot of good advice, and I think it’ll really help me be a better missionary. (Unfortunately we had to work extra hard to make up the difference in our lessons for the week)

Went to the Lima Temple for the sealing of the cousins of Elder Terrones. (Man, that guy can do just about whatever he wants! He can visit his family when the rules say we shouldn’t, he can go to the temple at the drop of a hat, and he can drag me to all of this even though I’m new and should instead be learning how to be a missionary!) I was really surprised at how short the sealing was; I expected it to last about 30 minutes, but really it was only about 5 for the actual ordinance! Who knew you could be sealed as a family for time and all eternity in 5 minutes?! (Sorry, that photo’s a little creepy… His cousin married a man from Italy, in case you were wondering who’s the big white guy next to the small Peruvian woman)

Discovered that I was right about how toxic Peru is. For the past month I’ve had this really bad cough, and a few days ago we confirmed that living here gave me bronchitis! (Ain’t nobody got time for that!) So, yeah, that’s not good…

As for the smaller stuff, I:

Had lots of trouble moving big rocks with a rope…

Didn’t have space to sit in the car properly, so we made do…

Lived off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and oatmeal (again) (*sigh*…)

Other than that, not much is going on around here. It’s pretty routine, but this next week certainly won’t be because I’m going to be the senior companion. It’s part of the training I’m supposed to get in Week 11, and that means I’m in charge of making ALL the decisions, doing ALL the planning, and making sure my companion is doing what he’s supposed to! (Elder Terrones is loving this! He’s intentionally being really difficult! (I’m kind of hating his uselessness right now — at least I do something as the junior companion!)) So I’ll probably have some more to complain, I mean talk, about next week.

— Elder Schroeder

Well, this week was not really all that interesting — lots of walking and Superman… and walking and getting locked out again… and hiking up hills and making mistakes in Spanish… and teaching and getting chewed out by a stranger… and sweating and chasing chickens and spraying poison… and teaching and destroying and rebuilding a house… yeah. Such is the life of a missionary!

On Monday we went to tour a museum of the Inquisition — the thing where they tortured anyone who wasn’t a member of the national church until they confessed their faith was wrong — and we got to see a lot of torture methods (I have pictures!). Then we got to eat lunch! Mmmmm! So appetizing!

After lunch was kind of cool because there was Superman. Well, some Peruvian dressed up as Superman (Woof! Worst Superman costume ever!) for some TV show. Have I mentioned that Peruvian TV shows are pretty bad and really cheesy? ‘Cause they’re awful! So all us “Mormons” got on Peruvian TV and for the next couple days we ran into people that said they’d seen us on TV!

On Tuesday we got locked out (AGAIN!!!) Elder Terrones REALLY needs a better way to remember the keys! This is seriously the third or fourth time! Getting back in was an adventure; we’re just lucky our window is already broken and someone happened to leave a pole lying around (I’ll send a picture of this, too)! Needless to say, we were a little late to our next appointment…

On Tuesday I also made a pretty funny mistake in Spanish– luckily it was only during a practice! We were practicing something about the need to be chaste and I, as the investigator, said, “La Biblia dice que no debemos ser adulterios” (“The Bible says that we shouldn’t be adulterers”) — or, at least, that’s what I tried to say. In reality, I used “adultos” (“adults”), not “adulterios”! Elder Terrones took it in stride; he responded with, “Bueno, hermano, necesitamos arrepentirnos, porque somos adultos” (“Well, Brother, we need to repent because we’re adults”)! It was really funny for us, but maybe you just had to be there.

Wednesday marked 100 DAYS IN THE MISSION for me (About 630 left!), and I spent an hour of it being yelled at by an investigator named Patricia. I was on splits with another missionary and we were late to the appointment. So Patricia (who’s a little loco) chewed us out for an hour about how we should be on time and give her money (because she doesn’t have any) and shouldn’t be hypocrites. Really she just used us as an outlet to vent her frustration about the problems in her life. That was kind of new.

Thursday we chased chickens all morning. Roxana, the woman I baptized two weeks ago, REALLY needs a new house because she practically lives in a dump. So on Thursday we went over to help her move the stuff out of her house — including the chickens she kept! The problem is the chickens have a lot of places to hide in a ramshackle house like hers, and they’re fast little suckers! And then when we’d finally get all but one, another few would escape and we’d have to hunt them down! When we finally got all the chickens and her important stuff moved out, Elder Terrones and I went through her house and sprayed poison all over the place to kill the bugs; we didn’t want surprises on Saturday while we were destroying and rebuilding her house. The liquid we used was scary! It had legit white steam/smoke like those crazy sciencey concoctions in movies!

Then on Saturday came the actual destruction and reconstruction. Luckily we had pretty much the entire ward helping us, but she had so much junk in her house that it took a full day — 7 AM until 9 PM — to get everything out! I’ll send some before-and-after photos, because it’s really cool what we did. The house isn’t completely done — we still need to do some plumbing and need to put an actual floor down — but the change is incredible!

Don’t have much else to share about this week. Hopefully everything’s good with everyone, and I’ll share some more stories about walking and walking and walking and teaching somewhere in between all the walking!

— Elder Schroeder

Sorry about the cliffhanger last week, everyone! I ran out of time to write it because I wanted to share my spiritual experience, but this week I should be able to get it all written and add some pictures, too!

Anyway, the baptism was really great and cool and also kind of funny. This hermana, Roxana, has 4 kids under the age of 10, and it was a struggle to keep her son, Irving, from spouting random stuff and trying to eat the cake we’d brought for refreshments (it was also Roxana’s birthday!) (That was probably the hardest moment of my fast that Sunday, right there.) Irving is 5, and he’s completely loco! And then there’s the baby, Estin… yeah, it was a little rowdy.

I gave a good little spiritual thought about baptism, and it was in really good Spanish (I think!). Then the baptism was the really cool and funny part. When I went to say the prayer (I don’t know what you call it) to begin the baptism, everything went dead silent. Irving, Estin, and even other noises that had been happening just moments before stopped during the prayer and actual baptism, and resumed almost immediately after. You could really feel the Spirit.

Then I think I ruined it (or she did, I’m not sure). See, I held her back as she went under the water, but she didn’t go under the water all the way because she didn’t bend her knees! (I had told her before that she needed to, but I think she was (understandably) a little apprehensive!) I didn’t really know what to do, so I shoved her under the water with my other hand! I really shouldn’t laugh about it, but she hadn’t been prepared for that so she flailed around a little bit while I brought her back up! (Maybe that’s why her face is a little grumpy in the picture Elder Terrones took afterward!) I’m glad I was able to keep a straight face because I almost couldn’t stop myself from laughing! So, yeah; that’s my first baptism!

As for this week, I don’t have a whole lot to mention. Until next week!

— Elder Schroeder

¡Feliz año nuevo, todos!

It’s been pretty good here in Peru. My only problem is really the weather: how hot it is, and being under it. On Tuesday I got really sick and didn’t do much, so that was nice. Of course, that means that my companion (It’s still Elder Terrones) went out with some members from the ward while leaving one of them, Alfredo, to babysit me (more or less), and, of course, that was the day my companion finally got one of our families to commit to a marriage date: January 28!

I’m a little disappointed to have missed that, but I got to practice my Spanish a lot with Alfredo. He’s really cool: he played professional video games before his time in the Church (he’s only been a member for two years or so), and yes, I know that only really me or Zack or any other boy cares about being able to play video games for a living, but that’s not the coolest part. See, he played video games and made a lot of money doing it — About 2000 Soles (or 635 dollars) for a few hours on Sundays! — but that was the problem: the tournaments were on Sundays. So he stopped playing professional and joined the Church! A cushy job like that isn’t easy to give up — He had sponsors and fans and everything! — but he did it to join the Church and be obedient! Awesome!

As for the weather, well… It’s hot. Every day I wish it would be cloudy, because when it’s not I’ve got sweat stains where my bag strap is and I’m constantly using my shirt sleeve to keep the sweat out of my face. And heaven help anyone near me when I lift up my arms!

This week was awesome because I had some really cool experiences on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday morning I wasn’t feeling so great — I was really tired because the night before (New Year’s Eve / New Year’s) involved a lot of really loud fireworks at midnight that went on for 15 MINUTES! I didn’t sleep very well and Elder Terrones was a little grumpy too, and I just felt really down about everything — our lack of success, being sick, and, most importantly, not knowing if our lack of success was my fault somehow or just a trial to go through.

I didn’t really know what to do about all of this, so I just prayed; all morning, for almost 30 or 45 minutes, I just prayed for SOMETHING to let me know what to do about, well, everything. And then, while I was showering, I remembered a scripture in the Book of Mormon. In a part of the Book of Mormon, Alma, the prophet, was having trouble in the Church and didn’t know what to do, so he prayed to know what to do. I looked it up during my personal study and found it: Mosiah 26:13-14:

“And now the spirit of Alma was again troubled; and he went and inquired of the Lord what he should do concerning this matter, for he feared that he should do wrong in the sight of God. And it came to pass that after he had poured out his whole soul to God, the voice of the Lord came to him.”

I read it and realized that I’d prayed like Alma — with everything I could. And what’s interesting is I received the impression to look for the footnote for “Revelation, Divine.” There, I again felt I should go to a scripture listed there: Doctrine and Covenants 6. And here I received my answer. I read D&C 6 until verse 35. And then I started crying, because it was EXACTLY what I needed to hear:

“Behold, I do not condemn you; go your ways and sin no more; perform with soberness the work which I have commanded you.”

Right when I’d been feeling like I was failing my Heavenly Father, like I was messing up, He told me, plain and simple, that I wasn’t; I just needed to do what I’d been told. And even more importantly, He didn’t condemn me for when I mess up or when I can’t talk to people because what I did was enough.

What was really cool was what happened with that later. We lost the keys to our cuarto (AGAIN!) and thought they might be at the house of one of our recent converts, Danitza. We went there and the keys weren’t there (Because they were actually in our cuarto!) but we talked to Danitza and she admitted to us that she really felt like no one understood her. So I shared my experience from that morning, and SHE cried, because she realized that Heavenly Father DID understand!

And, of course, Sunday was spiritual because I got to baptize Hermana Roxanna! I’ll share the details next time, because I don’t have any more! Until then!

— Elder Schroeder