Elder Schroeder's Mission Blog

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

Happy Halloween to All! (And I got transferred!)

They actually do celebrate Halloween here in Peru, but you have to be careful because apparently some people use this day to worship the devil or something. I don’t think that’s true, but I’m pretty sure that a while back it was and that’s why some people have a problem with it. But at least the little kids still get to golosinear! (According to my dictionary, that means “to go around eating candy”!) I spiced up my room a little bit for the occasion, thanks to the decorations my family sent me:

And then I got transferred to a new area, too!

I pretty much moved  30 minutes away to another part, called Comas, where I’m now in Año Nuevo 2 (And I just might end up staying here through New Year’s!). Here I am with my new companion, Elder Marino:

Two things: Yes, Elder Marino really is that short; and yes, I cannot take selfies. (But I really don’t care about that last one!) I’m happy to have Elder Marino as my companion because it gives me a bit of a break. Back in Villa Hermosa with Elder Rioja, he didn’t like to take initiative to do anything, and I ended up doing a lot because I had to force him. But Elder Marino likes to work and does it well, so I’ll probably enjoy this change!

The last litte thing I wanted to report is about the ward activity Añp Nuevo is going to do tomorrow. Unfortunately, we can’t go (?) but all the preparation that they’ve done is so cool that the four of us (There are four missionaries in this ward; that’s why I’m in Año Nuevo 2) had to take a picture with the banners they made for the four teams:

Apparently the bishop works as a graphic designer, which explains a lot!

But yeah, I don’t know what else to tell you guys. I’ve almost got 13 months now, so I’m on the downhill, and I imagine this will all go by way too fast. I’m just going to keep working, and one day I’m going to wake up and I’ll have a week left. Then it will all hit me and I’ll freak out and work like a loco. But until then I’ll just keep at it. It’s weird: this has been my life for so long that it’s completely normal, and I don’t even realize that I’m a missionary…

— Elder Schroeder

Well, sorry for the lack of an actual email last week. I didn’t really have a whole lot to report, as I said, and I had to take a lot of time preparing my tech. Elder Ushiñahua gave me a little radio and I was getting some conference talks, writing to my mission president about all the things I’ve got to do as District Leader, and a bunch of other stuff. So this week I’ll try to make up for it…

(… But I don’t really have a whole lot to report this week either!)

Well, for starters, tomorrow are cambios, which probably means that I’m off to another area! I’ve already been here for 6 months now and it’s time for me to go. I’ll honestly be a little sad but I have been here for a while. Maybe it’ll do me good to go off to another part (And maybe have a new responsability! Everyone in my district thinks I’m going to be a zone leader, but I doubt it. I don’t have a whole lot of time as a DL and all the ZLs are new, so they’re not being changed out quite yet. Plus I don’t really want to stop being DL! It’s a lot of fun and I’m learning a lot!) Unfortunately, I won’t know until tonight what’s going to happen, but that will be the first thing I mention in my next email!

I admit, it would be really funny if I didn’t leave because everyone’s already saying good-bye to me! I’ve written in so many notebooks and Books of Mormon!

This is only half of the stack! I’ve been working my way through the books every night, but I don’t get far enough because I finish one or two and end up with three more! It’s really great to see that these people really do like me and it gives me the opportunity to write a little something so they remember me (And how to spell my name! My ward mission leader still doesn’t know how to pronounce it correctly! I’ve actually given up and have started telling everyone — ward members, investigators, contacts in the street — that my name is “Élder Shweder” so that they can manage to pronounce it!). What I don’t like is that I NEVER KNOW WHAT THE HECK I SHOULD WRITE!!! I have no clue what to say and it takes too long to write it all! If I make it sound lame or write something dumb, that’s what they’re going to have to remember me by! Luckily I’ve at least figured out Spanish grammer, so I don’t make mistakes (Hopefully!)

Then we had a little fiesta in our district meeting:

(Man, you can tell that summer’s coming! All the whiter people in the district are a little sunburned! It’s starting to get really hot here! And the weather always messes with you! It’ll be raining in the morning but during the day it must be 80 degrees, and at night it drops down to 60 or 50! It’s like being in Colorado! (But with more dogs. And Spanish!))

I made pancakes, which, might I add, is no small feat! When you have no measuring utinsels and the recipe is according to cups and teaspoons, you kind of have to guess it. Then you don’t have syrup! And when you’ve finally finished mixing all the ingredients you have to cook it on an electric stove that you need to unplug every few minutes to maintain the heat and keep it from burning the pancakes. They ended up pretty well, so I’m proud of it, but it was very hectic for a good half-hour!

But not much else to share for this week. Today I should have a party in the branch, so I’ll take some pictures of that, but I’ll keep you all posted! Until next week!

— Elder Schroeder

Hey all! Sorry that this week my email will be a little shorter than in the past because I’ve been busy today with other Internety stuff — downloading videos, emailing my friends from the mission so we can share photos, stuff like that — and I didn’t really have much to report to begin with, but next time I’ll share a little bit! Chao!

— Elder Schroeder

ONE YEAR DOWN, ONE YEAR LEFT!

I’m not exactly sure if I should celebrate or cry that I’ve already finished half my mission. When I had 11 months I was honestly a little scared to think about it, but now that it’s come around I’m not sure what to feel. The end of my mission is going to come at one time or another — and right now I don’t want it to — but I imagine that by the end of two years I’ll be quite ready to get back. There is, of course, the constant longing for good food for breakfast and dinner (The members always cook really good lunch!), and I won’t miss having to ride buses to get everywhere. Then it’ll be nice to relax a little bit and have actual free days, not just P-Days.

… But even if I don’t want to have finished a year, I admit that the fiesta was awesome!

One of my zone leaders, Elder Stoker, did a work visit that day, which is why he was there and not my companion, Elder Rioja. Towards the end of the night we went to visit a family (Hermano Alexis, Hermana Janet, and their kids, Diana and Roguel) who told us to pass by, saying that we could eat some banana pancakes for dinner, which would have been pretty great because I didn’t even know you could even make pancakes out of bananas! So we went and I had no clue that they were going to throw a party (As can be seen by the lower-quality photos; my camera died in the middle, so I had to copy the pictures from Alexis’s cell phone!). So we:

Burned my tie (I didn’t really want to follow the tradition of burning a tie at six months, a shirt at one year, pants at 18 months, and your suit at 24 months, but I have a lot of ugly ties (Thanks to you, Dad, and the bad taste of whoever gave you those ties!) and they handed me a bottle of lighter fluid, so what else was I supposed to do?!)

Made me a grave

Had some fun with swords and masks

And then ate cake (After they’d shoved my face in it and we’d finished throwing frosting at each other!)

It was pretty great!

… But aside from that not much else to mention. We haven’t done any dangerous service projects recently, everyone here’s pretty good, and I’m just getting ready to leave my area because I’ve already got six months here, so I’m pretty sure I’m gone. If I don’t leave I’d be really happy because I really love the members here (Who else would shove cake frosting in my ear?!), but, like I said at the beginning, I can’t stay here forever! Gotta change something!

Here’s wishing you all a good week and a happy whatever-Peruvian-holiday-it-was-this-week!

— Elder Schroeder

364 DAYS LEFT…

General Conference is always awesome for us missionaries ’cause it gives us a little bit of a break. We just kind of bring people to the chapel so they can watch it and learn something. In fact, my schedule for Saturday was basically this:

8:00 — Personal Study
9:00 — Companionship Study
10:00 — Call and look for everyone who said they’d come to conference with us
11:00 — Watch conference
1:00 — Go back to my area (We watched conference in the stake center, which is 30 minutes away from my area!)
1:30 — Eat lunch
2:30 — Go back to the stake center
3:00 — Watch conference
5:00 — Call people to invite them to eat pizza with us and come to the last session
5:30 — Eat pizza (!)
6:30 — Call people again
7:00 — Watch conference
9:00 — Go back to my area to sleep

And I don’t know what it was, but this time the talks were AWESOME! Saturday night I wanted to stay up and keep listening to conference talks because it was so good!… Then our neighbors had to ruin it all by having a party from midnight until 4 AM, meaning I didn’t sleep much… On the plus side, I slept really well Sunday!

And, unfortunately, that’s about everything interesting that I have to report. So I guess I’ll just stick some pictures in here:

Here’s my district:

(From left to right, top to bottom: Elder Seminario, Elder Gil, Elder Rioja, Me, some random woman walking by, Hermana Gonzales, Hermana Lopez, Hermana Manrique, Hermana Gilson)

And then here’s me messing around with the Color Accent function in my camera. I’ve decided this will be my album cover for The Greatest Mission Hits of Elder Schroeder!

The last thing is that I got my first dog bite! I’ve been bitten before, but I’m not sure those really counted because some of the dogs had a muzzle and just kind of squeezed my leg a little because of that, and others didn’t actually leave a mark! And then the first dog that actually bites me is a tiny little white dog, not even something scary or intimidating! I’ll admit that I really wanted to punt that dumb little thing, but I decided not to because it’s about a foot tall and I figured if I did kick it I might send it flying! (And then the mission rules say we shouldn’t do anything that hurts animals, so I guess I’d sin by kicking it…)

But yeah, that’s it! I’ll let you know what’s going on next week, and hopefully it’s a little more interesting!

— Elder Schroeder

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