Well, I’ve had a tough week. Thanksgiving was kind of a disaster, I’m struggling a lot in my area, and I’m trying to keep everyone happy in my district but they’re all kind of discouraged.

… After reading all that, I realized it makes me sound like I’m worse off than I actually am! I’m fine, but just kind of stressed, as you can see from that disaster that I wrote up there. 🙂

Anyway, starting with Tuesday, I accidentally stepped on a dog! It was playing with me by biting my leg (not hard), so when I moved my leg a little I stepped on its leg! That’s when it started whining and biting my finger because my hand was the closest thing to its mouth! It got me pretty good, although you don’t really see it in the picture.

… But either way it was kind of funny!

As I said, Thanksgiving was tough because I didn’t have much food and you can’t really buy much variety here in the stores, so I just got some crackers, bread, a mango, a chocolate bar, and chocolate milk and called it good.

But later in the day we decided to decorate for Christmas because, well, Thanksgiving’s over and what else are we going to do?!

And then we had a little party with hymns as the party music. AWWWWW; YEAH!

But that’s all the time I’ve got for today! Next week’ll be better, and I’ll let you know what other interesting stuff happens!

— Elder Schroeder

To start this thing off, I think I’m going to ask that you forgive my grammar and spelling mistakes because I’m using a computer from 1990 and the letters aren’t very clear on the screen, so I’m just kind of going by what it seems like to me. I really miss having a computer… I’ve only got an hour and a half to do everything, and I miss having a computer that actually works well…

I think Thanksgiving is this week, but I have to admit that I’m not exactly sure. They don’t celebrate it here in Peru, so I’m just going according to what my calendar says. I want to do something cool, but I’ll admit I don’t have any ideas — food is kind of expensive, and everything I buy I would have to buy today. Maybe I’ll just buy a liter of ice cream and eat it all — you get just as full as if you’d had eaten turkey, pie, mashed potatoes, and stuffing! (The only problem is that it has absolutely no nutrients whatsoever! But at least it’s not GMO!)

This week was a little interesting, with a few milestones, strange events, and some cool spiritual experiences, so I’ll consider it a success.

First, I finished the Green Book! I don’t actually know what it’s called, or why it’s called the Green Book (it’s actually white, but with a little bit of green on the front and the spine), but it’s the book I use to study Spanish. I’ve been working through it and would have finished it a long time ago if I actually had time to study Spanish! But I finally finished all the practices and stuff, so the only thing left to do is read the dictionary to learn how to say the stuff I want. The grammar is really hard, but the thing that stops me from being able to express myself are the words. I have to use the same words for every situation (For example, in English I can say, “my arm hurts” and, “my arm aches” and it’s basically the same, but with a slight difference. In Spanish, I can only say it one way, and it’s limiting!)

As for strange events, the first is that I had to do a couple of unplanned acts for the ward talent show we had. First they told us about five minutes before that the performers still hadn’t shown up, so we had to sing “I Am a Child of God” in Spanish, Portugues, and English, and after that I decided to to a kata (a martial arts performance) because we had investigatores and had to make a good impression, so I filled some time with that. I was really rusty with the English!

The other interesting event was that I was walking down the street and out of nowhere some guy walked up to me and asked me why I wanted to kick him out of my country. I was a little confused until I realized that Trump is President now, so I had to explain that I didn’t do anything!

But yeah, that’s it for this week because I’m out of time. ¡Hasta luego!

— Elder Schroeder

I know I’m not going to tell you a whole lot about my week this time, and I’m sorry for that, but I’ve seriously got a lot of work to do here. We’ve only got one day to use the computer and today’s time is extra short because we’re going to the Center of Lima (For the last time!) and it takes a while to get there. But I’ll try and make it interesting! (Honestly, I’ve started feeling like I’m becoming more boring or something because I can’t even make myself laugh with my stories anymore!)

Anyway, this week we did a service project as a district: carrying big bags of sand (Or, in the Hermanas’ case, little bags of sand!) so that one of our converts can start building more of her house. Here we are after the service (And after the sun finished charring me! I had raccoon eyes for three days!).

(From left to right: Hermana Hicken, Hermana Cárdenas, Elder Hurtado, Elder Marino, Elder Escobar, and me)

The only other interesting thing that happened this week is that we did a blitz, which is when all the missionaries in the district go to one area and contact people like crazy! We went to all three of the areas in my district and spent about 4.5 hours doing nothing but knocking on doors and talking to people (And the total number of people we talked to: 123! In 4.5 hours!). It was really cool because my companion and I found three guys that have some potential, but didn’t seem like it when we first talked to them. We introduced ourselves and everything and started to talk to them, but they weren’t really interested in talking about the Gospel — more about the U.S. and Trump becoming President and stuff like that. But as we started talking about the economy and things, we began to see that they were really worried about their families because sometimes they don’t have work and don’t know what to do to feed their wives and kids. So we talked to them a little about how our Heavenly Father helps us if we are obedient to Him because He didn’t just send us here to this earth to suffer, work, and die, but enjoy life so we can learn and grow. After that they were a lot more interested and said we could visit another time!… Unfortunately we can’t because we found them while we were in the Hermanas’ area (dang it!), but hopefully they can teach them!

Next week, I promise I’ll write some more and have some better pictures, but for now… ¡Chao!

— Elder Shwider

Yep… Así es…

Well, this week had it’s share of interesting activities, but it’s also been really tough because it’s just been discouraging. My area is the first area that has actually been legit city (At least partly), meaning that there are actual buildings and streets and stuff. But here in Peru, the only people that live in flat areas in real buildings are those that can afford it, and that means that, in Peruvian terms, they’re rich. Soooo… They don’t want to listen to us because they think they’re good! So we don’t have anyone to teach and spend all day contacting in the hills, because at least those people want to listen to us! It’s been tough.

But, not going to bore you with that stuff! We’ve had a couple interesting experiences recently, and it’s been kind of fun. The first is that we lost the keys (AGAIN!) and figure it all out a keymaker had to come, break into our house, take the doorhandle,  and switch it all out. So now we can get in, but that was interesting! Here’s a picture of the door:

It’s almost scary to see the way that Peruvians do their jobs and make their houses and stuff! They’ve got this kind of “do-it-yourself” mentality and if they need something, they figure out how to fix it by themselves. It’s only when they can’t that they call someone! The guy came in, popped off a few screws, and then forced the door to open by wedging a screwdriver inside! I’m proud to say that I’ve started learning a few things from them, so hopefully I can save some money when I get back! They really are creative here!

Then I’ve got another interesting story about Peruvian creativity, but this one kind of messed up our day. We went to a new part of our area that we’ve never gone before to do some contacting, and we found that a few “Mormon missionaries” had gone up there about a month before, and both, like my companion, had placas that said “Elder Marino”! Then these missionaries, after learning when the people weren’t home, came back and robbed the houses! Sooooo… they were all a little cold towards us… Hopefully we can gain their trust a little bit in the future!

But that’s all the time I’ve got for today. Thanks, folks, you’ve been great, I’ll be here all week! (‘Cause almost nothing changes here!) See you all later!

— Elder Schroeder