¡Felices Pascuas! Hope it was good for you all, ’cause I had a really good one too! I don’t know why, but this Sunday it just kind of hit home everything Christ did for me when he suffered in the garden of Gethsemane and then was tortured on the cross just so that we could live with our Heavenly Father again. I can’t really explain it, but I know that He did it because He loves us so much. It’s a very special feeling, and it’s even more special now that I’m actually serving a mission as a representative of Him. Makes you think a little bit more, y’know?

This week wasn’t all that interesting for me, but I’ll tell you about it anyway because it’ll kind of give you guys a better idea of the normal mission life and the things we have to worry about when we’re not doing something crazy like eating orange bananas.  Yeah, they have orange bananas here! I didn’t know they came in any color except yellow!

Monday started out a little bittersweet because Elder Pastenes finished his mission, so he left and we spent the morning taking photos and helping him pack (And waiting like vultures to claim all the stuff he didn’t want. I scored some sweaters, a towel, a pair of pants, and a jug of chicha morada — a strange drink they make down here out of the juice of purple corn — that had fermented! I don’t really need any of it, but… free stuff is free stuff! (And no, I didn’t drink the chicha!)).

Then he was off to go resume his life while Elder Mayta and I were left to continue the missionary work here… Until I got sick later that night. I don’t really know exactly what I had, but I DO know that my head felt like it wanted to explode all evening and night — it hurt so bad I couldn’t sleep at all — and I must have gotten food poisoning because I threw up about every two hours. I threw up everything I’d eaten Monday around 3:00 AM on Tuesday, and then I kept throwing up until Wednesday, even though I didn’t have anything left to throw up except the water I’d been drinking. The torture finally ended around noon on Wednesday and I just rested until I could leave the house to work on Thursday. On the plus side I think I lost about 5 pounds in a 24-hour period, but they were some of the worst hours of my life, so I don’t recommend that weight-loss process. It’s hard when you can’t eat anything except chicken-foot soup.

Thursday was one of the most stressful mornings of my life because the night before, around 10 PM, our mission president called us to invite us to lunch Thursday — and there was almost no reason for it! He just said he was going to be eating at a nice restaurant in our area and we were invited. Of course we didn’t turn down the offer, but it was really scary because all Thursday morning we were kind of worried we’d done something wrong. I’ve read a quote that describes why pretty well:

“I need to talk to you”: The phrase that makes you remember everything bad you’ve ever done in your life.

But it turns out we really didn’t need to worry, because we went to a really nice restaurant (I ate steak!) and there was no secret motive or something like that. We ate ice cream afterwards, Presidente paid for everything, and we got to work like ususal. So that was both very stressful and a stress reliever!

I wish we could eat more at restaurants because on Friday Elder Mayta REALLY ticked off one of the members in our ward! We ate lunch at her house and she made us a Peruvian dish (that I liked), but it had this strange meat that Elder Mayta couldn’t eat because he thought it was nasty. I’ll admit it was a little tough (turns out it was some sort of animal intestine!), but I ate it just fine. But when Elder Mayta told the sister that he couldn’t eat the meat she got ticked, told him off, and was in a bad mood for the rest of the meal. Even her husband agreed it was a little poorly cooked, but I still think Elder Mayta should have just eaten it because I worry that we’ll suffer her wrath every time we eat at her house now — and we’re going there this Wednesday!

That pretty much sums everything up for this week. I don’t have a whole lot else, but hopefully next week I will!

— Elder Schroeder

Hello to everyone from down here in Peru!

Since I’ve heard I’m getting a lot of new fans (Not really, but I’m not sure what to call them… Bored people?) who didn’t get some of my first several emails, I figured it might be good that everyone knows what my email is (Because I’m pretty sure I told a few people the wrong one…) It’s alexander.schroeder@myLDSmail.net, and if you have any questions for me or a cool story to share, feel free to email me — Right now, I almost have no clue about what’s going on back in the States and all! (Do we have a new President yet? I don’t remember when that’ll be decided!)

Anyway, this week was pretty chevere. For P-Day my zone and I went and climbed this HUUUUUGE hill in my area to go see the ocean and the other side of the mission. My area extends from basically the chapel up into a range of massive, mountainous hills; on the other side of these hills is the other part of the mission. It’s kind of like the mission divide because there’s no road to go over the hills, so you’d have to go around if you went by car! We got some pretty sweet fotos of all the pretty foliage.

Or rocks.  Yeah, that was about it.

This place is pretty much all rock, dust, and dirt! Seriously, now when I play Settlers of Catan, every Rock tile is going to make me think of this area!

The top was pretty cool, despite what you’d think with all the rocks and dirt. I got some fotos of Comas (the area on the other side).

If it wasn’t for all the smog, you’d actually be able to tell that there’s the ocean way in the distance (that part that seems like a mountain in the top left is actually an island).

And then, because of the strong wind at the top and the rocky terrain, we had a lot of fun taking dramatic fotos. I’ll include a few of me. I didn’t really feel my inner peace here with the 200 foot drop behind me, but… Photo op!

The other picture would have been a lot more dramatic if my shirt had been tucked in! With the wind blowing it, it makes me look like I’m pregnant or something!

And we also took a picture of us as a zone around the Peruvian flag (Well, not all the zone. There are actually 6 more of us, but these are the tough ones who actually lasted until the top of the hill).

That was probably the most interesting part of the week. There’s not a whole lot else that happened, but I’ll put some of the more interesting stuff:

Wednesday I killed about 30 flies with a Tithing pamphlet because we had the window open and were eating our food and the flies just KEPT ON COMING! We closed the window and I killed everything that was left. That was really satisfying — flies are annoying!

Saturday Elder Rodriguez (one of our zone leaders) was visiting our area for a day to see how it is and we kind of got locked outside because our key stopped working (we think we bent it or something), so we bought some crackers and trained a few of the dogs outside my apartment to sit when commanded to. That was a little new.

On Saturday we also had a cool spiritual experience. Elder Pastenes went with our ward mission leader to a part of our area called Amazonas and contacted a bunch of new people in the hills there, and one of the families we’d seen before! It was during our first or second week as companions: we were waiting for one of our investigators outside her house, looking around at all the people down below (her house is kind of up in the hills), and we saw this family. We were really far away, but Elder Pastenes said, “We need to talk to this family”. Well, he finally did, and it turns out they’re really open and willing to listen because they’d been looking for the true church this whole time!

Man, Saturday’s just FULL of stuff; we also had a wedding AND a baptism!

We’ve been working for a long time with this young couple, Melvin and Yhamiley, trying to get them married so we could baptize Yhamiley (Melvin’s already a member, but he’s less-active). We kept having slight problems with it all, but finally managed to get everything in order and they got married and, a few hours later, we baptized Yhamiley! (I’ll send the fotos in a separate email because I don’t have space in this one!)

Well, that pretty much sums it up. Here’s to more success and more interesting stories for next week! ¡Cuídense!

— Elder Schroeder

Weeeeelllll… Not much to report from down here. It’s actually been a little different this week, but not in an interesting way: We spent a lot of time setting up a wedding for one of our families so that they can get married the 19th of this month and then we can baptize them! (Well, her; the soon-to-be husband’s already a member.) And that might sound kind of interesting, but this “wedding” is just going to be them signing papers so they’re legally married and stuff. Soooo… Not going to bore you guys with that!

As for more interesting stuff… Yeah, I don’t really have much until Saturday, when we had FIVE BAPTISMS! We baptized the Trujillo family that I talked about last week, and it’s really awesome because it was just a really great experience! (Except for the hour before and 30 minutes after it should have started, because during this time we were looking for baptismal clothing for all of them; we only had two jumpsuits for the parents! Eventually Elder Rodriguez, one of the other missionaries, gave some of his white button-up shirts to the three kids and some white pants that they rolled up so they weren’t too long so they hade white clothing. It looked a little ridiculous, but it worked!) Of course we have pictures, and the cool part is I got to baptize the parents, Jesus and Vilma!

I’ve also got this photo that we took outside with the flash, but it’s not as good because we look like we’re all posessed or something (Especially me! What the heck?! Do I just open my eyes really big or something?!)

(Elder Mayta really needs to smile when we take photos!)

Well, not much else going on here, so I guess we’ll just have to hope for some more adventures in this upcoming week! Hopefully they won’t involve lots of dangerous ladders or parakeet attacks!

— Elder Schroeder

This week’s been pretty great here in Peru. We were a little behind on some of our goals (like the number of lessons we need to teach and stuff) because it’s been a little abnormal (But in a good way!).

On Monday we went to a part of Lima called Plaza Norte, which was REALLY weird because it’s like a nice American mall — I’m used to dirty, open-air markets and stuff! We ate Chili’s, and I don’t know if it’s just the fact that Peruvian hamburgers are terrible or just that I’ve been living off bread and chicken and rice for months now, but the hamburger I ate was AMAZING! (*sniff* I miss the U.S….)

Plaza Norte was also really cool because you could buy crazy stuff from other parts of Peru; there are a few little shops that sell souvenirs from the selva (“jungle”), like dried-piranha-head necklaces (If you put the head facing forward it looks like a piranha is coming out of your chest!), dried alligators (That was a little weird, but cool), and blow-dart guns (I would have totally bought some of them if I actually had money! We didn’t have time to go take any out of the bank before!). So that was great and disappointing at the same time.

Tuesday we had a little bit of a shock when our Zone Leaders told us we were going to have another companion and become a trio. So now there’s three of us: Me, Elder Pastenes, and Elder Mayta!

I’ll include a picture from Friday, when we ate chicken foot. The chicken foot was actually pretty tasty! You just have to make sure you bite at the knuckles so you can bite off part of the toe and then chew until there’s only bone left!

Wednesday was less great because I discovered a strange lump on the back of my head, and THEN discovered it was oozing pus! (Sorry, TMI) Turns out it was a maggot from a bug bite — there are insects here that bite and then lay eggs in animals! No, I’m kidding! (Although I actually know people who had that problem!) It was some sort of infected pore, so now I’ve got to put some antibacterial cream on it every night — or rather, my companions do! (They REALLY don’t like it!)

(I’ll be nice and not include a picture of it!)

OK, now for something a little less gross and a little more spiritual: We’re going to have a baptism this Saturday! We’ve been working with the Trujillo family for about a month and they’re ready to be baptized! It’s really great because they even came to church yesterday when they also had a mandatory school appointment at the same time! The mother, Vilma, had a problem with that because it’s not like they would be choosing to do something unworthy for the Sabbath Day by going and it was something that they would be ticketed for if they didn’t attend, but her husband, Jesus, has a LOT of faith! We told him that it was a commandment to attend church and if he went he would be blessed — and then he turned to Vilma and said, “We’re going to church on Sunday, because it’s more important”! (This family is really awesome! We taught them the Word of Wisdom, about how they can’t drink coffee because it’s addictive, and when we asked Jesus if he had any coffee in his house his kids ran and got it all and he told us to take it! Then, when we taught about the importance of paying tithing, Jesus and Vilma said they would, and when we asked why Jesus said, “It says we need to in the scriptures, so we will”! IT’S SO AWESOME!!!)

And then on Sunday I completed 5 months in my mission! 5 down, 19 left!

Now, for suffering through my nasty infection story and happy rant, here are some pictures of interesting stuff…

1) Remember the parrot that bit Elder Pastenes from last week’s email?

2) Elder Mayta with his PLATA $$$ ¡Qué pituco!

3) And, just ’cause (I don’t remeber exactly what happened…)

¡Tengan un buen día!
— Elder Schroeder