Eating suri again…!

Sorry, I know I didn’t write last week. Once again, I didn’t have time. Oh, well. Not a whole lot happened anyway.

Nah, I’m just kidding! A lot of things have happened, but they haven’t really shown fruit until recently! The first is a cool miracle that we saw this past Sunday. We have an investigator named Franz who is preparing himself to be baptized and who has had some difficulties as he’s been progressing. The latest challenge was that he lost his job for a while (But a little miracle gave him another! Right after he listened to us for the first time, the very next day, someone he knew called and asked him to start working immediately!) and now the challenge is that his job is incredibly demanding. He said that he’d been praying to get more work… And now he got it, so much that he works from 7am until 11pm!

When we talked to his family on Sunday morning they said he had been working all night and probably wouldn’t come to church that day, and when they showed up he wasn’t with them. We didn’t really know what to do — he needed to come to church that day so we could finish some of his baptismal preparation — so we each said a prayer… And within 10 minutes he showed up! We just turned around a little later on in the service and he was there! When church ended we had a chance to talk to him and he said, “I can’t miss coming to church to thank God for giving me more work. I ask for more work and look at what happens! I need to thank him properly!” Hopefully he’ll be baptized this week on the 29th with his nephew!

Aside from a few other small miracles all over the place (they’re everywhere if you just look a little bit!) there’s not much else… Except, of course, that we at suri, the giant maggot from the jungle, again, but this time with my new companions. Here they are:

Oh, and just for the record, they were still alive when we ate them!

Here’s Elder Castrejón:

And here´s Elder Klein:

(Having 9 giant maggots wriggling in your hand is a really weird feeling!)

And then I also have a video of when we actually ate them… RAW! If you want to see it I’ll upload it to Google Drive.

But that’s all for this week, folks! I’ll let you know what else happens!

— Elder Schroeder

P.S. If anyone’s got any questions, go ahead and ask them! I’m not really sure what to explain about the mission or about being in the offices, so anything you might want to know about this or anything else, I’m totally willing to explain! But I won’t know what to explain until you tell me!

Finally! I’ve been wanting to send you guys pictures for the last few weeks, but I haven’t been able to do it because I haven’t had time (Last week I didn’t have time to write a weekly email because I was working on P-Day!… I’m pretty sure I’m never going to have a real P-Day until the end of my mission because someone always needs me to do something! (So don’t expect an email every week… Sorry)

But I’m all good here in the offices. I’m liking the work because it allows me to think a little bit about how to make the mission more efficient and productive and with our mission president’s permission we might be able to implement it. Recently I was going around training a couple of zones about how to use the mission database to contact people who have requested missionary visits. We had 1,500 people that hadn’t been visited, let alone contacted! But after the training it’s gone down by the hundreds every week! So seeing the effects of our work has been cool!

Anyway, to catch up on a few things that we’ve had going on lately (But that I haven’t mentioned because I didn’t have pictures):

First, on the last P-Day before all the crazy changes happened, my district and I took some pictures with the shirts we made. They came out pretty well:

… Now I’m all by myself in the offices… Nah, just kidding!

On my first P-Day here in the offices we went to eat at a really nice restaurant and ate about 40 soles of meat! Considering that a decent meal costs about 10 soles, we spent a lot… but it was worth it!

Here I am with my order (It came with it’s own mini-grill because there was so much meat!):

Before you think that I ate it all by myself, I assure you that I shared with Jefferson, our chauffer (Yes, we have chauffers, but it’s because we often have to drive all over the mission to do various things, not because we’re rich!… Especially not after spending 40 soles in one go!)

Here’s Jefferson and Elder Primo, Elder Sánchez, Elder Castrejón, and Elder Klein (in order) (And obviously I’m over there on the end!):

Elder Castrejón and Elder Klein are my companions and Elder Primo and Elder Sánchez are the president’s assistants, but we all have P-Day together because we all live in the same house and often work together, too. It’s a lot more fun!

I suppose the last “interesting” thing is that I’ve been working with the mission phones lately because no one had been doing it for almost 6 months… That took a lot of work! But now I’m on top of it and I took a picture of all the new ones I’m going to ship out:

I’m proud of it!

See you all next week (If I have time to write, I mean…)

— Elder Schroeder

One crazy week…

Well, first I know it’s not normal for me to be writing this on a Saturday… P-Days are supposed to be Mondays, like they have been for the last 21 months! But it seems that a lot of things are going to change from here on out, starting with a few things:

1. I’M EXTENDING MY MISSION!

Ever since I really started to know and like the mission, I’ve always considered extending because, as I’ve mentioned many times, I love being here and doing what I do! The last cambio (ever since May) I’d been thinking a lot more seriously about it because I’m getting close to the end. So I did some fasting and prayer and asked my mission president if I could, and when he told me it was still an option (I thought it was already way too late! I’m a procrastinator…) I took it! If I could do the mission for even longer I would be so happy, but I know I can’t do it forever… so I’m going to take advantage of however much time I can! I didn’t really know what my presidente had in mind for me until Monday, when he told me what my cambio was… And here’s the next big change:

2. I’m the new secretario personal!

Yeah, I know, that’s not really all that interesting or cool. I’m going to be working in the mission offices to organize everything that has to do with visas and other important things to make sure that the government doesn’t kick all of the missionaries out of the country, and it’s an incredible amount of work! That’s actually why I’m taking P-Day on a Saturday — the rest of the week has been so busy after all the cambios that we haven’t had time to take P-Day (Well, they — my companions and the president’s assistants — didn’t have time. I did, so I get two P-Days this week!).

But seriously, it’s a lot of work being here in the offices! The idea in the mission is that the office workers don’t do anything (Basically, we think they’re lazy because they aren’t always out finding and teaching investigators — most of the day we’re in the offices), but it’s completely false! I’ve especially seen this this past week, when there have been meetings every day and I’ve had to be trained by my companions at the same time. Some days we’ve worked from 10am until 6 or 7pm in the offices or running errands around Lima (Not even taking time to eat lunch!) before going to our area to find and teach people until 10:30pm. On the way back to the cuarto we usually stop by the offices to finish something else up, and we finish the day by planning with the assistants until 11:30 at night!

I really like how we work almost 100% in the mission (before, my companions and I would have from 10pm until 11:30 to do our own things, leaving us these few hours when we didn’t focus so much on the mission), but the work is very different. I’m going to miss being a normal missionary because it’s a little more public, but I suppose working in the background a little more is a good way to humble myself!

3. I’m in a trio!

As I’ve already mentioned a little, this Tuesday I was changed and left my old area and my companion (My “son”!) and moved to Independencia to work in the offices with the other two oficinistas, Elder Klein (who’s training me to replace him as secretario personal) and Elder Castrejon. It’s interesting to be in a trio again (I was in a trio for a few weeks when I was starting the mission), and it’ll be cool again, especially because I have a lot more experience!

I suppose that’s all the news for right now! From here on until the end of my mission it seems like I’ll be in the offices, and that probably means that I’ll be taking my P-Days on Wednesdays! I’ll write about the other interesting stuff that’s going on as I get more into this new job! ¡Hasta luego!

— Elder Schroeder

Ya vienen los cambios… (¡Quizás mi último cambio de área!)

Well, I still don’t know what the cambios are going to be this time, but I’m almost 100% sure that I’m going to another area… and it’s very likely that that will be where I “die”! I’m kind of disappointed that I’ll probably be leaving my companion — Elder Pereira has been a really awesome companion and a great friend, but now that I’ve finished training him he (should!) be ready to guide the area by himself. I’ll be sad to leave Industrial, too, because I really like the ward and it’s been fun, but I can’t stay here forever! (And then it’s entirely possible that I don’t even go anywhere! Who knows?!)

Anyway, highlights of this week:

First, of course, is that Ruth was baptized on Saturday!

(She’s the girl there in the middle in white!)

I haven’t mentioned her much (I know I really should have, but I didn’t…), but we’ve been teaching her for about a month; she’s the girl I mentioned in my last report, about how we found her one day because she asked us if we could visit her, and last week she had shared her testimony! Well, as I said, we had been teaching her and her mom, Carolina, (she’s the woman to Ruth’s left, behind me) and her brother (the boy next to me) for a little while now but for a variety of reasons Ruth hadn’t felt ready to be baptized. Well, about two weeks ago she had prayed and asked if she should be baptized, and the next day (Sunday) woke up and couldn’t get the thought of baptism out of her head!* When we saw her at church that day, she told us, “Hey, I want to be baptized and I want to serve a mission!” (She had just heard about the mission in her Sunday school class!)… My companion and I just stood there a second, both of us trying to figure out what to say next! “Ummm… OK! When would be good?” So we planned everything so she could be baptized the 1st, and it was awesome!

It’s always something really special when someone you know decides to be baptized and make that promise with our Heavenly Father and our Savior! Carolina was crying, she was so happy, and she’s also preparing to be baptized a little bit further on! Baptisms always improve every week!

*Another cool thing about this miracle: For a while now, I have been praying every night for Ruth, Carolina, and all the other investigators that we are teaching, hoping that He would help them to overcome their problems and doubts and help them to choose to follow the Gospel — and it happened! It’s not anything new to know that God answers prayers, but it’s always great to see that he does it so personally, especially when we truthfully don’t deserve it!

I suppose the last little thing was our family home evening that we did with a family in the ward. We finished it, everything normal, and I expected that the compartir would be some crackers or something, like always… I was wrong! It was the dreaded TOCOSH!!! For those of you who don’t know, tocosh is what happens when you throw a sack of potatoes in a hole full of water and let it sit for a few months. Then you take it out, clean it off a little, and eat it! If you think that’s unappetizing, wait until you smell it — it smells like a sewer! Here’s Elder Pereira’s face when he tried it:

I’ve already eaten tocosh once, when my district and I punished ourselves for being late to the district meeting and/or forgetting our stuff, but my poor companion hasn’t ever had the pleasure! He almost threw up, and we didn’t even eat tocosh by itself (like I had tried before) — we ate a much tastier kind, mixed with cinnamon and sugar!

It’s been a pretty good week, and next week I might have changed areas and/or companions! I’ll let you know! ¡Chao!

— Elder Schroeder