Elder Schroeder's Mission Blog

Well… I hope no one actually expected much of me as district leader, because I’m not doing great… I mean, I guess I like being DL, but you get tired of being scolded by your Zone Leaders every day for not doing the stuff you didn’t know you were supposed to do, and then this week was REALLY busy and we didn’t do very well, so I had to listen to 15 minutes of THAT…

Yeahhh………

I suppose it would be better if I wasn’t basically doing everything on my own– my companion still doesn’t know the area or the people, so he doesn’t help me plan for the day… or the week… or contact people… or start lessons… or end lessons on time… So I’m just kind of doing everything solo, but I admit I kind of like the responsibility because at least I feel useful, and I get to do some pretty cool stuff, like teaching my district and practicing how to teach well. It’s true what my last companion said: You learn a lot more when you’re forced to do it (As long as you don’t give up, that is…). But at least my companion’s cool! He’s a little weird, but he’s pretty funny and he’ll help me a lot.

This week was really just a really crazy way to start being DL and leading my area for several reasons. First, we went and finally got everything ready for a wedding — we married a family so that we could baptize the wife, Flor.

So that was cool, but it took so much time to do all of it! We had to take an hour-long bus ride to get there, and we went there and back three times in two days! And I’ll tell you: It was a pain in the butt to try and organize all of the changes with other missionaries, because, as with everything else, I basically had to do all of it! But it was worth it because we baptized her the next day.

And if I thought the water was cold in my first baptism, I learned pretty quick to appreciate even slightly-heated-by-the-hot-air water, because it’s better than refrigerated-by-the-night water! Poor Flor was so cold that she was shivering like a chihuahua– she couldn’t even keep her hands still long enough to plug her nose, so she swallowed a bit of water! When we posed for the photo after the baptism she looked so ridiculously cold that I made a face.

But at least we’re all good now!

Well, that’s all I’ve got to report this week, aside from a few problems with interviews (I do the interviews for baptisms now, as a DL, and I TOTALLY bombed two of them! Augggh!), losing the rest of my district (The Sisters got off at the wrong bus stop and none of us knew it until 5 minutes later!), and other things like that. But at least it keeps life interesting!

¡Chao!
— Elder Schroeder

Check out this juice box they have here! I first saw it and I thought, “Mom needs to see this!” So here it is:

Well, this is the end of my 5th transfer in the mission field, but my companion isn’t the only thing that’s changed this week, either! I’m still going to be here in Villa Hermosa, but Elder Rodriguez is being transferred back to Canto Grande, where I started in Machu Picchu and he was my zone leader! We’re both disappointed about that because he really doesn’t want to leave this area the way it is; it’s a branch that doesn’t have a lot of active church-goers because a whole bunch went inactive all at once and REALLY needs some help! He trusts that I can help it and things like that, but I understand how he feels because you want to be right there just to be sure! Then we’re both disappointed because we had a really good time as companions — he’s pretty much the only companion I’ve had so far that was a really good friend, and after this he’s going to finish and it’s likely that we’re not going to be able to see each other again because, well, he lives in Chile! We had a lot of fun as companions, but he’s needed somewhere else to help out another weak branch, so it’s all good! We still have Facebook and stuff!

Oh, and this change is also going to be a little different because I’m going to be a district leader! I’m not entirely sure who’s in my district because they got changed around a little, but I know I’m going to be in charge of one of the companionships of sister missionaries (Which, honestly, I’d rather not have because I’ve heard that sister missionaries complain a LOT (Because they’re women and are more open in what they say, not because they’re bad or anything! Us guys just kind of keep it to ourselves, so it’s a little easier! I don’t want to offend anyone! Seriously!)) But yeah, there’s that, too.

As for this week, we’ve just been working hard and trying to help everyone we can around here, and when we have some free time we do kind-of-dumb stuff like share martial arts stuff we know and have a practice fight (I have a bruise on my knee that I thought was dirt because it covers ALL of it a dark purple!). It’s really cool some of the stuff my companion learned!

We also tried to make videos of us running around our apartment as if it was a first-pèrson shooter video game, like HALO or Call of Duty. Mine didn’t really work out so well because I put it a little too low, but Elder Rodriguez turned out looking like some sort of cyborg:

Or maybe a blue ninja cyclops:

So that was fun!

The only other thing different that happened is that we had some really weird circumstances in our district and had to do some strange companionships to make sure we visited all the appointments the six of us had. I worked with Elder Ortega, a new missionary who’s only been in the mission a few months, so I was senior companion for a day! It wasn’t as hard as I expected because Elder Ortega is awesome — he actually knows how to teach and stuff!

Well, not much else to share this week, but this next week I’ll have a little bit more to share about being district leader and having a new companion! ¡Chao!

— Elder Schroeder

WHY DID YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE PRESIDENT, ELDER RODRIGUEZ?!?!

This past week, our mission president taught us that the Gift of Prophecy is not only for prophets and apostles — every person can prophesy if they do it through the guidance of the Spirit! That’s really cool, but of course my companion accidentally used it to trash our week a little bit! On Tuesday we went and died during our workout with the nutritionist (The excercises we do are so hard!) and afterward Elder Rodriguez said to me: “Siento que va a pasar algo hoy. Algo diferente” (“I feel like something is going to happen today. Something different”). Then we rode in a convee to our cuarto and when we got there we realized we didn’t have the keys! At first we figured we’d just left them in the house — as you know from some of my previous emails, we’ve needed to break in a few times because we’ve forgotten them before — but we couldn’t break in because there wasn’t an open window! Eventually we got in by climbing up a ladder to the window without glass that looks to the inside of the landlady’s house:

That was sketchy because the top of the ladder was about 4 feet away from the window, so we had to grab the bottom and jump up! (And, of course, this was after we’d just done a bunch of arm, leg, and core excersises and we were DEAD!)

Then we had a work visit from one of our leaders later, so we knew we had to do something to get the door opened. The problem was we hadn’t forgotten the keys: they’d fallen out of my companion’s pocket while we were in the convee and were long gone! So my companion tried to open the door by brute force and brains: Removing the hinges and pushing the door.

That didn’t really work, so we put the hinges back and when our zone leader came over we just climbed through the window again.

Then on Wednesday we lost the cell phone! So this week was a little more difficult than usual…

But it was still pretty good because at least it was interesting!

— Elder Schroeder

Well, before I talk about this week, I promised photos from my companion’s birthday last Sunday, so I’ll include them here:

We started the day making pancakes for breakfast in a member’s house (And no, we weren’t being lazy or anything by not working until after lunch! It was a holiday because everyone needed to go and vote for the next president of Peru, so everyone was forbidden to have any sort of political or religious meetings, so we were told to NOT do anything!)

After lunch came the first of FOUR cakes that we ate. We still don’t know what animal is supposed to be on top. I think it’s a bear, the member that gave it to us thinks it’s a lion, and my companion thinks it’s a pig — to help you remember to not eat TOO much!

Funny story: We have a member who’s a nutritionist and has been training us HARD in the morning because everyone in my district is fat (Except for me — we measured and I’m only 14% fat in total! The problem is it’s all in my stomach, so I look fat even if I’m not 🙁  ) Anyway, we thought it would be funny if we gave the rest of the cake we had to her… and she ate a fourth of it while we were talking to her after the workout!

… I don’t know what this picture is. Let’s never mention it again.

Later, the ward (actually a branch) threw a little party for my companion! Something else funny: the cake the Relief Society president bought was coffee flavored! I think it’s kind of funny that a bunch of Mormons celebrated with coffee-flavored cake, but I hope we didn’t sin by doing it! (Note: Cake #2!)

Cake #3…

… And then Cake #4! Man, I didn’t want to even LOOK at cake for a week after this! (OK, not true; this cake was so good that we came over the following two nights to finish it!)

So I’d say my companion had a pretty good birthday! I just had a really good day!

One-third of my mission complete!

This week was pretty good but it started out being really difficult because of my companion. We’ve never fought or argued or anything like that because we’re both really good friends and think a lot alike, but this week he was a little depressed because he’s had a lot of problems in his mission and it’s been kind of tough. He doesn’t normally act like it all bothers him, but really he’s struggling a little to be motivated, especially because he think’s he’s cursed to have sad birthdays — It’s happened for almost 4 years in a row — and since his birthday was the 5th he expected a bad week.

… He really shouldn’t have because he (And I, too!) got a smack upside the head from life! On Wednesday we ran into this guy on the street (Rather, this guy ran after us!) and asked us to come visit him the next day. It was a little weird because it came from nowhere and he acted a little sketchy — kind of like a guy on a date when he first meets his date’s dad: talking really fast, acting like he didn’t know what to do with his hands, and answering questions with short, respectful phrases like, “Yes, sir” and, “No, sir”! Then we learned he lived in an area that’s a little sketchy and we got a little more curious — not exactly worried because we both practiced martial arts and it would be in broad daylight — but it was certainly strange.

So we went to visit him on Thursday and the first thing we noticed about the house is that it was at a 45-degree angle! When his mom, Emilia, invited us in we had to bend over to pass through the door, and we found out it was because the front wall was falling over and she couldn’t fix it! It turns out that was just the beginning of her tale of woe: Her 18-year-old son that asked us to pass by is a drug addict, her two middle kids had trouble in school and are now studying in a special school that costs a lot (“But at least they’ll get an education,” she says!), and her youngest kid is Autistic and lives with his abusive dad, who left Emilia to care for the other three by herself. Her house is made of scrap wood and metal that she could scavenge and is destroying itself, but she doesn’t have the strength to fix it herself, her TV broke and she traded it for a tiny, less-broken radio to entertain her kids, and she works 2 hours away and makes only about 10 Sols every day (For a reference, it costs about 1 Sol to take an hour-long bus ride). Soooo… her life is really sad

… And she’s one of the happiest people I’ve ever taught! I don’t know how she does it, but she’s constantly laughing about how bad everything is and she doesn’t let any of it bother her! I know she really is worried about all of it, but she knows that it will all work out in the end! That’s some impressive faith! We’re both hoping she progresses quickly!

Well, this week I’m also a little short on time so I can’t send any of the photos from Elder Rodriguez’s birthday parties (Yes, plural!) but I’ll send them next week!

— Elder Schroeder

Not really an eventful week down here in South America, just the norm. Of course, since I’m gringo (that’s the term for white people down here) strange things occasionally happen.

For example, last P-Day we were walking to the Internet hub where we write emails to everyone when a woman in the street called us and asked us for help. She was obviously very drunk and asked us to help her get to her house. We’d kind of be jerks not to (Even if it’s her fault she can’t find it!) and so we started to walk with her to her house. She didn’t really remember where it was, just the way to get there, and it took a while because she walked, well, like a drunk lady and kept stopping every 20 feet or so to say something wierd like, “Ustedes no son de aquí” (“You’re not from around here) or, “¿Ustedes son testigos de Jehova? ¡Por esto no me gustan los testigos!” (“You’re Jehova’s Witnesses? Because of this I don’t like the Witnesses!”). Of course we explained a little bit about how we are from the U.S. and Chile (Elder Rodriguez is Chilean) and we’re missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but she was so loopy she didn’t really process anything. We eventually stopped helping her when she started getting really irritated with us because we didn’t say, “hi” to some random woman in the street: “¡Deben saludar a los peruanos! ¡¿Ustedes son mejores que ellos?!” In the end she got so angry that she just wandered off, so I guess she made it to the house eventually…

As I mentioned last week (And several other times before…), there are a lot of drunk people around here. It’s gotten to the point that when we returned to our cuarto after lunch the other day we found a drunk guy passed out on the steps in front of the house below us (We live on the 2nd story) and we had to ask ourselves if he was there when we left in the morning! We kind of knew the guy (He’s Angel, the drunk brother of Kathy from last week’s email), and we didn’t really think we needed to do much for him, especially since he was already in front of his mom’s house and was REALLY drunk, so we figured it might just be safer to leave him how he was.

Tuesday I got interviewed because — You guessed it! — I’m gringo. We were talking to someone we ran into and all of a sudden a guy and a girl walk up to us and begin talking with us out of nowhere! They introduced themselves and then the guy told us he’d been looking for us ever since he recieved a phone call from a cousin/friend/someone that there was a gringo wandering around the 8th Zone in Collique (Obviously me!) with a slightly-less gringo (My companion). So they went looking until they found us (A task that’s not very difficult — You just have to look for the only person with blonde hair in all of Collique!).

Turns out this guy, Brian, was a student studying English, and his homework was to interview someone who spoke English, so he’d been asking people if they spoke English or knew someone who did, and then he found us! The interview was basically what you’d expect from someone in the U.S. who was in a Spanish class and had to interview someone who spoke Spanish: Really basic, easy questions about me and why I’m here and stuff (And since I’m here as a missionary, and they recorded the whole thing and are going to show it to the class, I might end up with a lot of missionary opportunities!). The last question was a little wierd because Brian asked me if I like the idea of Civil Union, but it was good. After the interview we talked and we’re planning to visit Brian this week to teach him!

Friday was difficult, only becasue it was SO COLD! We went back to the cuarto to put on our coats because we were FREEZING! And then, well, we’re guys and we look cool, so we took a picture.

But seriously, winter has definitely started! When we wake up it’s so cold that we get out of bed and run to put on a jacket and socks! Then sometimes we start fires (Partly because it’s so cold and partly because we’re guys and we like playing with fire!)

Hey, it doesn’t say we shouldn’t do stuff like that in the mission rules, and we never do anything dumb! (Well, that’s not true, but the part about the rules is!)

Not really much else to share here, so I guess I’ll let you all know what happens this week! Hopefully something interesting!

— Elder Schroeder

P.S. Here’s some other interesting photos I took recently. Enjoy!

The view from our cuarto one day:

How we do things in Peru:

And a picture of the smoking monkey Elder Rodriguez has:

Well, nothing new to report this week. Later!

Nah, I’m just kidding! There’s always something interesting around here, even if it only means eating wierd fruit.  See my picture below.

If you ask me, it’s basically a cross between a banana and a caterpillar, and if you mix that idea with a little bit of lemon you also get the idea of what it tasted like!

This week was a little sad because we gave away Ashly. She can’t live with us because we’re missionaries and we’re always gone, so we’ve been looking for a home for her and finally found one. It’ll be good for her, but this week it was a little weird to open the door to our apartment without something attacking our pant legs. Elder Rodriguez was the most sad because she’d lived with him for about a month.

But, it’s all good and we’re pretty much used to the life around here.

… Well, we were until Tuesday, when we ended up as life consultants for seven people!

It started after we came back from lunch and passed by a family to see how they were because we’d received a call from them. When we got there, we discovered:

* one drunk person (Kathy)
* one absent person (German)
* one crazy drunk person (Angel)
* one normal person (Kathy’s mother)
* and then, several hours later, one dying person (also German)

Turns out Angel, Kathy’s brother, had come over to visit and he and Kathy had been drinking a little. When German, Kathy’s husband, saw this, he got angry at Kathy becuase she’d promised to stop drinking (but obviously hadn’t kept that) and then left the house. So we got there to find Kathy crying, Angel trying to confort her by saying he’d perform an exorcism on German, and Kathy’s mom trying to help them both. We got there and, with the help of Kathy’s mom, tried to get everything straightened out, and a few hours later German came back… and then had a fever so high he was dilusional. Soooo… that was kind of new!

After that we went to visit a mother who’d asked us to come to her house to correct her 10-year-old son by teaching him about the Bible (That was pretty much how she phrased it (Obviously NOT in English!)). The funny thing is she’s not even Mormon! So we taught her son a part of one of the lessons and I guess we’ll go visit her again or something! (I’m still kind of wierded out about this…)

The last lesson we taught was the longest and also kind of funny (In a not-funny way). We went to visit an investigator to find that she’d been yelling at both of her kids because they weren’t doing well in school. (They both refused to do their homework and didn’t pay attention in class, so they kind of deserved it) So we had a talk with them and then told them to go and apologize to their mother. Elder Rodriguez and I both thought it’d be great: The mom would accept their apology, they’d all hug and cry, and then we could leave them in peace.

So the kids slowly went up to her and one of them said, “Mamá… ¡perdóname!” …Then the next part did not go according to plan. The mom yelled, “¡No!” and then proceeded to rant about how she wouldn’t forgive them until they actually started to behave and listen to her and do their homework and how much she was sacrificing for them and how they never showed gratitude and… ON AND ON SHE WENT! It got to the point when one of the kids looked at us as if to ask if we were sure this was a good idea, but we didn’t really know what to do because she was in full rant mode. When she finally calmed down we talked with her and the kids and finally got everything sorted out: with the family hugging and crying and all that.

Not much new that happened besides strange problems like that. We helped one woman make shoes (Everything here is made by the people, and it’s actually pretty interesting: The woman took some pre-cut shoe material, sewed it up with some super-duty thread, folded it and twisted it a bit, and in the end it was a shoe!) and we also had some drunks fighting in the street outside our cuarto at 2:00 AM (That tends to happen a lot around here). So life’s pretty good here in Peru!

— Elder Schroeder

Hey all!

As you all learned last week, I had my first cambio, or transfer, in my mission! Before I’d been stuck in Machu Picchu teaching the people there and teaching my new companions how to travel around the area and who’s who and all that, but on Tuesday and all throughout this week I took a time warp back to my first week in Machu Picchu, when I had no idea who was who and where we were (Luckily I didn’t have to repeat the part when I couldn’t understand anyone or talk!). I’ve been transferred to an area called Villa Hermosa, which was closed for a few months. Then, one transfer ago, Elder Rodriguez went and opened the area again, and then one transfer later I showed up to help him. It’s a little bit difficult for several reasons:

1) It’s not actually a ward, but a branch, and only about 40 members go to church regularly (And I thought Machu Picchu was bad! At least 100 people showed up there!)

2) The members are a little cold towards us because they felt a little abandoned when the missionaries left 3 months ago, so it’s a little hard to even talk to them.

3) When the missionaries left, so did all the investigators and even some of the members, so we have to contact a lot of people (Neither of us like to contact!) and search for the less-active members that disappeared to try and help them too. Then, of course, we have to strengthen the recent converts too…

4) Our area is HUGE! I thought Machu Picchu was big because we were always finding new areas, but at least I managed to explore all of it before I left. Villa Hermosa is about 3 times bigger! This part, called Collique, is basically an upside-down “V”-shaped valley in between the hills, so we have “that hill” to “that hill over there” for side limits and the 4th zone until the 9th zone (a “zone” is what we’d call a subdivision) of Collique for the upper and lower limits. So, if you think about it, we basically have an area 5 subdivisions up and 5 or 6 subdivisions across! It actually used to be two separate areas at one point!… Thus, lots of walking.

5) The buses that make travel a lot faster only go from the 4th zone to the 7ths, so we have to walk until the 8th and 9th! (Needless to say, my legs are going to be really strong by the time I finish my mission!)

6) As I mentioned, we’re kind of the “uppermost” part of Collique in the “V” valley part, so our area is the furthest from EVERYONE in our Zone! All the other missionaries are closer, but we’re the furthest and Villa Hermosa has had little success, so we’re basically outcasts: The Zone doesn’t really care about us because there are a TON of missionaries in the Zone and we’re really far away from all the activities and other missionaries, so we’re pretty sure if we stopped showing up to Zone meetings no one would even notice. (We’ve decided that Villa Hermosa it’s basically the red-headed stepchild of the Zone and we’re the Zone outcasts)

I’ve attached a picture to kind of give you an idea of how big we’re talking. The red lines are about the limit. If you notice, some of the roads go a little bit further north, and that’s part of our area, too.

So I got here on Tuesday around 1:00 PM (We should have been there a lot earlier but the map was wrong!) and I started getting to know the area and the people, mainly my companion, Elder Rodriguez (I already knew him a little bit because he was my Zone Leader in Machu Picchu for 5 months.

And then I also got to know our roommate, Ashly.  Cute, isn’t she?

Elder Rodriguez and his companion found her about 4 weeks ago outside the cuarto because some dogs had been “playing” with her — as in the way animals “play” with their prey before they kill it — and Elder Rodriguez saved her, cleaned her up, took her to a vet, and has been taking care of her ever since. We’re going to keep her until we can find a home for her, but it’s a little tough because she has a LOT of energy (I’ll add a photo of her attacking my camera) and we’re always gone, so she’s really bored all the time and bothers us when we return to the house.

And then I’ve pretty much just been working like we always do. Soooo… that’s basically what I’ve been doing this past week! I’ll try and get some photos so I can show you how it is here (Really, it’s not that different from Machu Picchu…)

¡Chao!
— Elder Schroeder

Hey all! I’m still here in Peru! (17 more months to go! Man, time flies!)

I’ve had a pretty good week so far, but something that makes me a little sad is that I’m going to be transferred! I’ve been here in Machu Picchu (Not the Machu Picchu!) for about 6 months now, and apparently my mission president decided I’m due for a change! I’m a little sad to leave because I really have grown to love the people here (The hills and dogs and dog poop… not so much!), but I’d have to leave at some point, so I’m excited for a new start — almost literally!

I’m going to be with Elder Rodriguez , my old zone leader (That’s pretty cool!), and he just opened this area, which means he started teaching people in this part of Lima about one change cycle earlier! That’ll be interesting!

I forgot to mention this last week (It takes a lot of thinking to write in third-person about my life!), but I baptized someone! Her name’s Elda, and she’s a pretty cool person (I think) (I’ll explain about this later). Elder Pastenes (my previous companion) met her before he finished his mission and took us to visit her so we’d know where her house was. She’s kind of interesting because she’s about 50 years old and lives alone at the top of the hill — she’s never been married, never had kids, and doesn’t even have a job! All day long she works on her house, either inside or out, fixing it up and digging a massive hole out front! (I’m still not quite sure what its purpose is, but she must have something planned!)

We found out that the reason for her loneliness is because she has a hard time trusting people; apparently she used to be fine until someone robbed her of EVERYTHING she had about ten years ago, and ever since then she’s had a hard time opening up to people (It was a bit of a struggle for us to teach her when we didn’t know much about her and when she clammed up every time we asked her about herself!) and trusting them. She eventually came to trust us and the Church.  She wanted to know all of the legal stuff for a baptism (we had to explain that there weren’t any!) and I got to baptize her!

The only problems were that I had to do it twice because she didn’t go all the way under the first time, the water was FREEZING, and we had a grand total of SIX PEOPLE (!!!) at the baptism: Me, Elder Mayta, Elda, James, Helena, and Alexandra. Where the heck was everyone that said they’d come?!

And then Elda forgot her towel, so I gave her mine to use and had to use my backup… it’s literally a dishrag! (And remember, the water was COLD!)

But, all in all, it was pretty good, so I can’t complain too much!

Then I also got to explore a little bit more of Machu Picchu and decided to talk to people in this giant hill that’s right where the boundary line between our area and the next area is. We crossed the line by ONE house and ran into members that told us we were in the wrong area! So we just decided to follow the boundary up until we came to the top of the hill, knocking on doors as we went. And, of course, right before I leave I discover all the good people! We met a lot of humble people that want to listen and follow Christ. Normally you encounter two kinds of people in the hills: Poor humble people or poor lazy people (“Do we really have to go ALL THE WAY down the hill to go to church? Can’t I just pray in my house and we’ll call it good?”)

Then, when we had talked to the people in the last house at the top of the hill, we realized we couldn’t really go down the way we got up, so we just went over the top to another hill nearby! It was kind of interesting to see all the rugged, untouched dirt and rocks where people hadn’t managed to build houses yet, and we had a lot of trouble with loose dirt and rocks trying to kill us (If we slipped we’d pretty much slide all the way to the bottom!), so that kept stuff exciting. I’m just really disappointed that I didn’t bring my camera!

On Saturday we went to visit a family that we’re trying to marry only to discover that the “husband” didn’t want to get married any more and had fled the house! So we did our best to comfort the wife, who’d been dealing with this side of her husband for the last 13 years and broke down and cried while we were there. It’s really sad to see just how much a bad father can ruin a family: This woman, Jacky, has been waiting for him to change for 13 years and really wants to have a stable family (but can’t without him) and his three sons are all really hurt by the fact that their dad isn’t a good father, although they show it in different ways: One wants to leave and go live with his grandmother, one is just angry all the time, and the youngest tries to make a joke out of it — in school the other day he stood on his stool and yelled that he was willing to buy a new dad from someone because his dad ran away from the rest of family. Hopefully it will get better, but if not I’m out 100 soles ’cause I already paid for their wedding (We needed to pay by a certain day and they didn’t have the money, so I just paid the rest)!

So, yeah, that’s what I’ve got going on this week. Sorry I don’t have stuff a little more interesting, but to make up for it I’ve added a picture of the stowaway I discovered when I went to pack up my stuff. (I don’t even know what a spider would eat in there! There’s not a whole lot of bugs!)

— Elder Schroeder