Hello again! Almost got seven months here in Peru!

I know you’re all dying to know what interesting stuff happened this week. The problem is there’s not much that’s really interesting, just new.

Take Monday, for example. For P-Day, we went to the center of Lima to go see a (kind of) cool history museum and buy all kinds of tourist junk. Some of the stuff was kind of boring, like the Peruvian paintings (Sorry, I really don’t understand art; what’s the point of looking at a bunch of paintings of dying people? (That’s basically what all the paintings were.) There were some that were interesting, but not a lot — I could have gone through that room in about 30 seconds and still get my fill of weird paintings).

There were also some more interesting stuff, like the cool bottles of the ancient groups that lived in Peru.  It must have been pretty sweet for these people to drink water (or maybe alcoholic chicha juice) out of a screaming monkey jug! (My question is if anyone sells replicas so I can have one…)

Then there was also the room with all the gold artifacts, and even if the Conquistadors took most of the gold stuff (And then lost it in the ocean during pirate attacks), there were still some cool things, like a Tumi.

Something I learned: Tumis are not little pendant things like I thought they were. They’re actually sacrificial knives used by the Incans! (I still don’t really see where they’d grip it…)

They also had a section devoted to more recent things, such as the progression of Peruvian money. Kind of cool to think that they used to use huge coins.  Given that it’s about 3.5 inches across it’s probably better that they changed it.

Then it was time to buy tourist junk! I didn’t really buy anything, but I’m kind of wishing I’d bought a mask.  Elder Hovenden found one in some store that I didn’t go to, but on the plus side we’ll probably go to the center of Lima several more times before I finish my mission!

On Thursday we might have been contacting in an area that wasn’t ours, but I figure it’s all good — It’s still the Lord’s work! And even though a lot of people were willing to listen to us, I learned something that made me do a double-take: Someone we’d talked with and taught about 4 months ago died recently. We only went to his casa once, but he was actually pretty cool — he prayed with a lot of intent and had a lot of respect for our message and for us — but he had a HUGE drinking problem that made it a little difficult to teach him much. Turns out we ran into his mom, who told us he died from alcohol poisoning. A part of me wonders if maybe we could have done something to help him stop drinking, and for that I feel a little guilty, but I’d rather not dwell on it too much.

Then, on Sunday, I accidentally said a bad word (maybe). See, my Spanish teachers taught me that “cinta” means “tape”, which it does. It turns out here it has a slang term that refers to a pregnant woman in a very rude way! So I guess I’ve accidentally insulted a few people when I meant to talk about tape… Dumb Spanish!

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll try to find a way to spice it all up next week! ¡Chao!

— Elder Schroeder

Hey all! ¿Qué tal?

As I promised last week, I’ve attached some pictures of me with the machete!

I wish I could have gotten better ones (i.e. closer), but the only person who could take pictures was 8-year-old Jasmine, and her camera experience is somewhat lacking (See the one she took when she got ahold of my camera a little after Christmas).

But hey, at least now I have proof and if you zoom in I look pretty cool!

This week wasn’t all that interesting or anything. We did the usual stuff, and since we’ve now been forbidden by our Zone Leaders to do service projects (because the water doesn’t work after 10 AM) we didn’t do anything sketchy or dangerous on Wednesday (Unless you count cleaning the bathroom, which I would because it was pretty bad! It was so dirty that in the time it took me to clean it, Elder Mayta cleaned the other six rooms of our cuarto!).

Also, for those of you who heard about the earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador, we also had an earthquake on Thursday and it was so bad the ceiling in our cuarto cracked and water started dripping in! No, just kidding! (The ceiling was because the people above us forgot to turn off the water) Here they have “temblores”, or tremors, because they’re not big enough to be called earthquakes. I’ve experienced about three in all of my mission, but I hadn’t actually felt one until Thursday. It was actually kind of cool and scary: we were up in one of the highest hills in our area teaching a lesson and off in the distance I heard this rumbling noise and then the little stool I was sitting on began to vibrate. It didn’t really click with me that it was a temblor until our ex-ward mission leader, Cristian, said, “Whoa! ¡Temblor!” So that was cool, but that’s about all that happened this week.

Well, I guess I’ll let you know how next week goes next week (Kind of a “Duh!” phrase), and until then cuídense!

— Elder Schroeder

(Or, Elder Shoroerder, as they put on my KFC receipt) (I’m pretty sure the woman gave up after the “sh” noise and just put a bunch of “o”s, “e”s, “d”s, and “r”s until it seemed right)

It’s official: I forgot what week I’m in any more. So I’ll just stick to months and stuff.

Soooo… What exciting stuff happened this week…

Well, really there’s not a whole lot that’s different this week, either. I’m doing pretty well and I’ve been working hard, walking a lot and teaching so much that I’m starting to have dreams where I teach again. Apparently I’m talking in my sleep because I wake up my companion every once in a while! It’s really weird for me when I have these dreams because I’ll wake up and I’ll have no idea what happened, but I remember that I need to teach and I’m all disoriented, and then the next rooster starts crowing and I realize that’s what woke me up. (When’s the next big holiday? I’m ready for the families to start eating all the dumb birds!)

I guess I lied when I said not much was different. This week there were some problems in Brisas, the upper part of our area that’s up in the hills, because the lights went out and apparently some drug dealers moved into the area. Apparently there were some problems with people going around robbing, so we started avoiding the area in the night-time so we don’t accidentally run into some shady characters on drugs and all that.

On Wednesday the crazy service projects started again. We spent a lot of time moving a huge pile of rocks outside of Roxana’s house (That wasn’t much fun), but before that was pretty great because there were poisionous maggots in the tree outside (That’s not the great part; just wait). Because of this, she wanted us to cut off some of the branches which, in the U.S., would require something like a handsaw or giant clippers, right? Well, I’m in Peru, and they tend to do things a little differently, even though Roxana has a handsaw and an axe. What did she give us? Oh, just a rusty two-foot machete. And while it may not have been as effective as a saw, we used it. Why? BECAUSE WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD PASS UP THE CHANCE TO USE A MACHETE?! (In case you can’t tell, I was pretty pumped about that) And I thought destroying furniture with an axe was fun! I was just disappointed she didn’t have more branches to cut off! (Unfortunately, the robbers took my camera, so I don’t have any photos (Yeah, kidding! I just forgot my SD card; I’ll send the photos next week))

On Saturday I was pretty happy because we got to watch Meet the Mormons (Or Conozca a los Mormones for us, since it was in Spanish) instead of walking around trying to find people to teach. We did that since Sunday we didn’t have church — everyone was out voting for who will be the next Presidente of Peru! So that was a nice break, and for those who haven’t seen it yet I recommend it because it’s pretty good and helps explain some of our beliefs with some pretty cool examples of Mormons (Like a championship kick-boxer!).

Well, that’s it for this week. ¡Hasta luego!

— Elder Schroeder

I’ve (almost) completed 6 MONTHS in my mission! That’s a fourth of the mission! I can’t believe how time flies! Of course, I still have 18 months left, but I still can’t believe it’s ONE-FOURTH OF MY MISSION! Every day, week, and month is so similar that the time just passes  and I don’t even notice it! Before I know it I’ll have a year!

And, sorry all, but this week was pretty basic, so I don’t have ANYTHING interesting to share. The only part that was different was giving NINE blessings of health — and eight of those were one family! I don’t know what bug’s been going around, but it was pretty cool to be able to use the power of God to help other people get well.

Then, of course, we had General Conference, when the prophet and 12 apostles share guidance they’ve received for our day and also messages to help us understand better the principles of the gospel. It was a little weird to listen in Spanish because the translation really loses a lot; it’s the exact same words, but you don’t get the emotion that some of them (*cough* Elder Holland *cough*) show when they share their messages. Thankfully the Spirit’s still the same, so it was good. I would share some of my favorite quotes, but I’m not really sure what was actually said in English and I’m still not very good at translating (One of these days! C’mon, Gift of Tongues!).

This week I realized just how far I’ve come in my Spanish. I still can’t really translate, as I said, and I KNOW I make a TON of mistakes when I’m talking (Dumb conjugations! Why does it have to be different for EVERYTHING*?!), but I’m actually able to understand and talk!

I’ve been in the same area, Machu Picchu, for all of my mission up to now, and when I first started I had no clue what a lot of the people here were saying because I didn’t know the words and everyone has a personal accent, some of which are difficult to understand. However, now I understand almost everything, speak almost fluently, and don’t need to think as much to understand. In the beginning I had to focus a LOT to understand anything! Now it’s more like reflex. Even the accents that were most difficult for me in the beginning are easy to understand now! So I’m definitely making progress… and, of course, being blessed!

Well, that’s all I’ve got. I don’t even have any pictures to share! Again, sorry, but next week should be better!

— Elder Schroeder

* i.e. “to think” is “pensar”, and “I think”, “you think”, and “he / she / it thinks” (Not much change there) are “yo pienso”, “tu piensas”, and “usted (you formal) / el / ella piensa”. WHY?!