Weeeeeell… Just livin’ here in Peru and all.

This week’s been good because we married and baptized a family, which is always really great (And also means lots of photos!). So here we go:

First, a picture of the happy couple:

“Awwwww! How cute!”

…But we Elders had to coolify it up a little bit.

One of the ideas we got from a sister in our branch is that we could bring some of the swords from an activity the Primary did recently and we could salute all the couples as they walked through. So we got together a few other missionaries and we stood there with the swords for everyone.

We were probably the coolest Elders in the wedding, if I do say so myself.

Then, of course, the baptism! I would have liked to be the one to baptize them, of course, but since we can’t do that now they chose the branch president. We were hoping that, because it was hot, the water would be at least a little warmer than the frigid ice water that it normally is, but… no luck. At least it was hot outside!

But yeah, so we’re all pretty good here, with cool pictures of us with swords and things like that. But by far the coolest part is seeing how the family we baptized, William and Maria, have changed. In their baptism, they both bore their testimonies about how they felt now. Maria went first and said something short and sweet about how, when we started teaching her the Gospel, she just felt… freer. She felt like all of this let her leave behind some weight that she didn’t realize that she had before, and when she said this I realized that she reall did seem… freer. There’s always something different about people when they change and start to follow Christ, and I could actually see that she seemed lighter and more free.

William did something that I haven’t seen before, but still something that I thought was really cool. He started by bearing a short little testimony, and then said a prayer out loud, in front of everyone, in which he promised to God that he would be faithful and would be obedient, but he asked that He would help him to do it. That was interesting, but I liked it a lot (Maybe it’s because we did the sword, knight-like thing in the wedding!).

But yeah, it’s all good here. We’re just working hard to try and help some other people to see this light that William and Maria have found.

— Elder Schroeder

Well, I’m writing this email a little late because we went to sign the marriage papers so some of our investigators, William and Maria, can get married and then baptized! It should be really great, but I feel like I wasted the only free day I have in buses, and now I have to get back to work for another week, but without much of a rest. Oh, well, at least I know I’m not actually “wasting” it! Here they are after we went and signed everything:

Anyway, the rest of this week has been pretty interesting because there are a LOT of changes! I wasn’t able to write about any of them last week because we didn’t know any of them until 11:00 at night last Monday! I knew I was getting a new companion, and we guessed that Elder Ortega, Elder Torres, and Hermana Meza would leave, but that was about it. Turns out we were right: the two Elders left, Hermana Meza left (And her companion, Sister Manrique, cried when I called to tell her!), and then our presidente decided to:

Combine two of the areas in my district, Casuarinas 1 and 2, into one area, leaving the other two Elders, Elder Seminario and Elder Gil, as companions!

Divide the area of the Sisters, Collique, into two areas, now Collique 1 and Collique 2, and put two more Sisters in the new area! The Sisters that are going to open the area are Hermana Lopez, a Sister that’s just about to finish her mission, with a newbie, Hermana Gonzales that she’s training (And despite her last name, Hermana Gonzales is actually gringa and as such doesn’t speak very well yet)!

Hermana Meza was replaced by Hermana Gilson

I got a new companion: Elder Rioja! (The first time they told us over the phone, we heard it wrong and we thought they said, “Elder Frijoles”! Well, poor guy if he has that name! If you don’t get the joke, put it in Google Translate). But no, it’s Rioja, and he’s only been in the mission six months, meaning this is my first time being the most experienced companion!

He’s pretty cool, but I obviously don’t know him very well, so I’ll get to know him better and can tell you more about him later on.

Tuesday was when we actually did all these changes, and it caused a bit of a problem because I, as district leader, needed to help the Sisters in the new area to get to their house and get all their stuff set up. The problem is that they moved into the house where the other Elders lived before Casuarinas got combined, so it was a DISASTER! The six of us — my companion and I and the four Hermanas — ended up cleaning the place for two hours to get it all nice and clean! Luckily we didn’t have any appointments, but the rest of the week I’ve been doing a lot of running around trying to get everything firgured out for all the area changes. At least I’m not a Zone Leader — They were the ones that had to find houses for the new people in the entire zone and move all the furniture around!

Then, of course, a dog almost fell on me. That was also new.

We went to try and find a family that we talked to a while back while we didn’t have any appointments. So we knocked on the door and started talking with the son when all of a sudden I hear a loud THUD off to my side, and when I look there’s a dog on its stomach in the sand next to me, with it’s legs splayed out kind of like a smashed spider. I thought that was a little strange… and then I realized that the dog hadn’t been there before! It’s not uncommon for Peruvians to put their dogs on the roof because then they can’t really go anywhere and they don’t cause problems or make messes in the house. This dog must have gotten a little too close to the edge of the cement roof — Of the second story! — and slipped and fell right next to me! I’m just glad it didn’t fall on me because it was a pretty big dog (Although it probably would have made for a better story!) and the next time when we visited the family I made sure to be protected by the roof before I knocked!

Well, I hope everyone else is good and that life is at least interesting. I await someone’s joke about how it’s raining cats and dogs here!

— Elder Schroeder

NOW I have 11 months in the mission! It’s official!

Anyway, this week I killed my companion, Elder Ushiñahua! Well, technically he’s not dead because he’s going home tomorrow, but today he’s going to have lunch with our president, have his final interview, and get ready to leave. Then he comes back until tomorrow morning and before he leaves in a plane and goes to his house. It’s made this week very interesting because we kept having to do stuff to prepare him to leave — Once he leaves, he can’t come back very easily, and if he forgets something it’s mine! He’s been really good by leaving me his radio and a few sweaters (And no, it’s not that he forgot them! He’s just a really awesome guy!)

This week we also went to the templo, which was a really nice spiritual experience up until life attacked a few hours later. We had to buy a bunch of stuff for our district and we both ran out of money! I got it all back because they all paid me for it, but now I have to pay for my companion’s taxi, so I’m back to zero! But it’s all good, because my companion that’s coming owes me 150 soles for the wedding I paid for!

But anyway, here we are at the temple!

Then, because my companion and a few other people from my district are leaving, we made sweaters as a district! I’m pretty happy with them (I just wish they had a zipper in the front!):

If you’re wondering about the symbols, we chose the symbols from “Avatar: The Last Airbender” for the elements (fire, water, and air). Kind of nerdy, I guess, but you have to admit that they’re cool symbols! The sisters say that they chose water for baptism, the other elders chose air for agency or the freedom to choose, and my companion and I chose fire for the Holy Ghost (I just chose fire ’cause it looks cool, but I guess you could take it that way too!)

But… man! I’m kind of bummed this week because of the changes this time! I really like my district as it is because everyone is really awesome — they work hard, they’re funny, they put up with me and help me out a LOT, and Elder Ushiñahua is an awesome companion. And then I’m also going to be losing Elder Rodriguez, my previous companion. I started my mission with him as my zone leader, then he came here to Villa Hermosa, then I came here, and then he left when Elder Ushiñahua came! But we still kept in touch up until now, because now he’s going back to his house! I’m happy for him and all, but he’s the best friend I have in the mission and I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye because he already left! Hopefully my district, Elder Ushiñahua, and Elder Rodriguez will keep writing me, but I’m still a little bummed. It would be a little easier if all of them were from the U.S. and not from little cities in freaking SOUTH AMERICA so I could visit them or something after the mission! But I’ll just keep marching on and content myself with email…

Well, I guess I’ll finish this up with an awesome picture that we took before my companion left:

— Elder Schroeder

One more day and I’ll have finished 11 months in the mission… That’s kind of weird to say…

This week was pretty normal, as far as you can get with a companion who’s dying (finishing, for those of you that don’t know mission slang). He’s spent some time packing and preparing himself to leave, so I’ve got some funny pictures of him as he took all his stuff out and put it back so it was all nice and orderly! It’s like when you clean your room and find a whole bunch of cool stuff that you forgot about!

But anyway, this week we didn’t really see anything very interesting as far as pictures go.  I have a few from our district (without the Hermanas, anyway), eating 2.5 liters (about 0.6 gallons) of ice cream…

But this week we’ve seen a couple of miracles and it’s been pretty cool to see the hand of God in our lives. Here are some of the more recent ones:

We were looking for a person we received as a reference and ended up teaching one of his neighbors, Abraham. He was just chilling in his house with his family, and his son in the other room had some crazy music from the jungles of Peru playing really loud in the background. So we taught Abraham about the Restoration of the Gospel, and right when we got to the part about Joseph Smith’s first vision — the part, as any missionary knows, that brings the Spirit more strongly than any other — the music in the background disappeared for the entire story! And when we moved on to the rest of the lesson the music came back, but you could barely hear it! It was really cool!

About a week ago we went to visit a less-active sister in the area, named Haydé, that hadn’t come to church for a while because her whole family has a lot of problems with their house: the people that live near her weren’t letting them have any water for a long time, and they had to build two other houses for her family, to name a few of the things. But we went to visit her and helped her remember that she needs the help of her Heavenly Father if she’s actually going to overcome these problems, and in the end not only she came to church but the rest of her family that also haven’t been coming for a while! And they came this week, too! It’s a good feeling to know that when we teach with the Spirit we can actually touch people!

This happened a little while back, but I didn’t mention it. Last week I sent some of my pictures from our service project when we were mining the hill. Anyway, to do this we have to use a few interesting tools, like a barreta, which is basically a giant solid-steel spike that you thrust into the rock to break it, and a comba, which is a massive hammer. Here is a picture of my companion holding it up. We had to take this picture quick because it weighs about 20 pounds!

Anyway, I was using the comba and I was trying to break a giant rock that we’d managed to cut out of the hill with the barretas. The rock was, obviously, very hard, and in one particular swing the comba actually rebounded off the rock and would have nailed me in the head if I hadn’t had some divine intervention! I don’t really know how (Because the comba was so heavy that I didn’t have any strength left in my arms to stop it after the rebound!), but the comba stopped just before it would have hit me! (I decided to stop for a little while after that…!)

But anyway, that’s how my week’s been! Hopefully it’ll all keep being good until my companion dies, too! (He’s really excited! Only 1 week!)

— Elder Schroeder