Elder Schroeder's Mission Blog

Well, nearly 7 months down! (And 6 months here in Machu Picchu! Probably means next week I’ll be transferred to a new area!) Normally I’d be really excited to go to another area and get some new experiences, except now we’re finally starting to get somewhere with some of our investigators! Two of them, Jacky and Ricardo, are finally going to get married so we can baptize them, but if I go now I’ll miss it! Oh, well. I guess that’s just the mission life…

Well, not much to report here, so I’ll try to spice it up a little…

“Good morning, all, and welcome to Elder Schroeder Central, your source for all the crazy events in the life of an American missionary in Peru! This week we’ve got a little bit of everything, from cucarachas to testifying of the truth! (Unfortunately, that’s about as interesting as it gets, but stay tuned anyway!)

“On Tuesday Elder Schroeder “single-handedly saved mission work in Machu Picchu of Lima, Peru” — at least, according to him. According to the report, Elder Schroeder and his companion, Elder Mayta, left their apartment at around 7:45 AM to go buy breakfast at a tienda nearby. Upon returning to the house, however, they realized they couldn’t get in because Elder Mayta had forgotten the keys — both the one to enter the black door below AND the door to the apartment! And while it is true that Elder Schroeder and Elder Terrones (Elder Schroeder’s first companion) already figured out how to open the door to their room: They just bust out the cardboard where the pane is missing and then open the window, stick a big rod of metal through, and jiggle the latch until it opens. Lucky for them they figured that out a while back, or they would’ve had a LOT of trouble (They’re quite prone to forgetting the keys!)

“However, Elders Schroeder and Mayta had ALSO forgotten the key to the bottom door, the one behind Elder Schroeder in the photo below.

“So the problem they had is how to get the first door unlocked, because there’s not really a broken window to stick their arm through! So Elder Schroeder had to use his ninja skills to climb the black door, grab the small gate on the second floor, and then heave himself over the short wall above to get the door open. ‘That was pretty tough,’ said Elder Schroeder. ‘I’d just finished doing 50 push-ups during my exercises, and even if that’s not my best it made climbing the door a lot more difficult. I probably looked more like a beached whale than a ninja when I went over that little wall up next to the gate!’ Well, that may be true, but at least it let him open the doors so they could return to their room to do some studying and retrieve their scriptures!

“In mission news, Elder Schroeder got a chance to testify of the prophet to a skeptical investigator. On Thursday he and his companion were off contacting new people in some hill in their area (‘There are so many that we’ve lost count!’ says Elder Schroeder) and encountered a woman who was willing to listen to their message. They taught about the restoration of the complete truth through the prophet Joseph Smith, but when they explained that there is still a prophet today she said, ‘I don’t believe this man could be a prophet, because he doesn’t actually do the work of God. If he did, he would come and visit here, where there are lots of poor families and children who need his help. He isn’t a real prophet.’

“According to our sources, Elder Schroeder couldn’t just let that fly. ‘I don’t even remember what I said,’ he says. ‘I just remember that I testified that I knew he was a real prophet, even if he didn’t visit every part of the world, because I had felt it.’ Apparently she felt it, too, because she seemed quite willing after to accept it.

“Then Friday we received reports of strange cucaracha attacks, including one instance in which Elder Schroeder encountered one in his shoe! ‘I didn’t really know what was going on, but I felt something in the toe of my shoe while I was walking. I took it off and a cucaracha fell out!’ Normally the missionaries don’t have much trouble with bugs, but I guess Elder Schroeder needs to start checking his shoes!

“Well, that’s all we’ve got for you this week! Be sure to tune into Elder Schroeder Central next week for a whole new list of this week’s adventures in the life of an American missionary in Peru!”

— Elder Schroeder

Hello again! Almost got seven months here in Peru!

I know you’re all dying to know what interesting stuff happened this week. The problem is there’s not much that’s really interesting, just new.

Take Monday, for example. For P-Day, we went to the center of Lima to go see a (kind of) cool history museum and buy all kinds of tourist junk. Some of the stuff was kind of boring, like the Peruvian paintings (Sorry, I really don’t understand art; what’s the point of looking at a bunch of paintings of dying people? (That’s basically what all the paintings were.) There were some that were interesting, but not a lot — I could have gone through that room in about 30 seconds and still get my fill of weird paintings).

There were also some more interesting stuff, like the cool bottles of the ancient groups that lived in Peru.  It must have been pretty sweet for these people to drink water (or maybe alcoholic chicha juice) out of a screaming monkey jug! (My question is if anyone sells replicas so I can have one…)

Then there was also the room with all the gold artifacts, and even if the Conquistadors took most of the gold stuff (And then lost it in the ocean during pirate attacks), there were still some cool things, like a Tumi.

Something I learned: Tumis are not little pendant things like I thought they were. They’re actually sacrificial knives used by the Incans! (I still don’t really see where they’d grip it…)

They also had a section devoted to more recent things, such as the progression of Peruvian money. Kind of cool to think that they used to use huge coins.  Given that it’s about 3.5 inches across it’s probably better that they changed it.

Then it was time to buy tourist junk! I didn’t really buy anything, but I’m kind of wishing I’d bought a mask.  Elder Hovenden found one in some store that I didn’t go to, but on the plus side we’ll probably go to the center of Lima several more times before I finish my mission!

On Thursday we might have been contacting in an area that wasn’t ours, but I figure it’s all good — It’s still the Lord’s work! And even though a lot of people were willing to listen to us, I learned something that made me do a double-take: Someone we’d talked with and taught about 4 months ago died recently. We only went to his casa once, but he was actually pretty cool — he prayed with a lot of intent and had a lot of respect for our message and for us — but he had a HUGE drinking problem that made it a little difficult to teach him much. Turns out we ran into his mom, who told us he died from alcohol poisoning. A part of me wonders if maybe we could have done something to help him stop drinking, and for that I feel a little guilty, but I’d rather not dwell on it too much.

Then, on Sunday, I accidentally said a bad word (maybe). See, my Spanish teachers taught me that “cinta” means “tape”, which it does. It turns out here it has a slang term that refers to a pregnant woman in a very rude way! So I guess I’ve accidentally insulted a few people when I meant to talk about tape… Dumb Spanish!

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll try to find a way to spice it all up next week! ¡Chao!

— Elder Schroeder

Hey all! ¿Qué tal?

As I promised last week, I’ve attached some pictures of me with the machete!

I wish I could have gotten better ones (i.e. closer), but the only person who could take pictures was 8-year-old Jasmine, and her camera experience is somewhat lacking (See the one she took when she got ahold of my camera a little after Christmas).

But hey, at least now I have proof and if you zoom in I look pretty cool!

This week wasn’t all that interesting or anything. We did the usual stuff, and since we’ve now been forbidden by our Zone Leaders to do service projects (because the water doesn’t work after 10 AM) we didn’t do anything sketchy or dangerous on Wednesday (Unless you count cleaning the bathroom, which I would because it was pretty bad! It was so dirty that in the time it took me to clean it, Elder Mayta cleaned the other six rooms of our cuarto!).

Also, for those of you who heard about the earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador, we also had an earthquake on Thursday and it was so bad the ceiling in our cuarto cracked and water started dripping in! No, just kidding! (The ceiling was because the people above us forgot to turn off the water) Here they have “temblores”, or tremors, because they’re not big enough to be called earthquakes. I’ve experienced about three in all of my mission, but I hadn’t actually felt one until Thursday. It was actually kind of cool and scary: we were up in one of the highest hills in our area teaching a lesson and off in the distance I heard this rumbling noise and then the little stool I was sitting on began to vibrate. It didn’t really click with me that it was a temblor until our ex-ward mission leader, Cristian, said, “Whoa! ¡Temblor!” So that was cool, but that’s about all that happened this week.

Well, I guess I’ll let you know how next week goes next week (Kind of a “Duh!” phrase), and until then cuídense!

— Elder Schroeder

(Or, Elder Shoroerder, as they put on my KFC receipt) (I’m pretty sure the woman gave up after the “sh” noise and just put a bunch of “o”s, “e”s, “d”s, and “r”s until it seemed right)

It’s official: I forgot what week I’m in any more. So I’ll just stick to months and stuff.

Soooo… What exciting stuff happened this week…

Well, really there’s not a whole lot that’s different this week, either. I’m doing pretty well and I’ve been working hard, walking a lot and teaching so much that I’m starting to have dreams where I teach again. Apparently I’m talking in my sleep because I wake up my companion every once in a while! It’s really weird for me when I have these dreams because I’ll wake up and I’ll have no idea what happened, but I remember that I need to teach and I’m all disoriented, and then the next rooster starts crowing and I realize that’s what woke me up. (When’s the next big holiday? I’m ready for the families to start eating all the dumb birds!)

I guess I lied when I said not much was different. This week there were some problems in Brisas, the upper part of our area that’s up in the hills, because the lights went out and apparently some drug dealers moved into the area. Apparently there were some problems with people going around robbing, so we started avoiding the area in the night-time so we don’t accidentally run into some shady characters on drugs and all that.

On Wednesday the crazy service projects started again. We spent a lot of time moving a huge pile of rocks outside of Roxana’s house (That wasn’t much fun), but before that was pretty great because there were poisionous maggots in the tree outside (That’s not the great part; just wait). Because of this, she wanted us to cut off some of the branches which, in the U.S., would require something like a handsaw or giant clippers, right? Well, I’m in Peru, and they tend to do things a little differently, even though Roxana has a handsaw and an axe. What did she give us? Oh, just a rusty two-foot machete. And while it may not have been as effective as a saw, we used it. Why? BECAUSE WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD PASS UP THE CHANCE TO USE A MACHETE?! (In case you can’t tell, I was pretty pumped about that) And I thought destroying furniture with an axe was fun! I was just disappointed she didn’t have more branches to cut off! (Unfortunately, the robbers took my camera, so I don’t have any photos (Yeah, kidding! I just forgot my SD card; I’ll send the photos next week))

On Saturday I was pretty happy because we got to watch Meet the Mormons (Or Conozca a los Mormones for us, since it was in Spanish) instead of walking around trying to find people to teach. We did that since Sunday we didn’t have church — everyone was out voting for who will be the next Presidente of Peru! So that was a nice break, and for those who haven’t seen it yet I recommend it because it’s pretty good and helps explain some of our beliefs with some pretty cool examples of Mormons (Like a championship kick-boxer!).

Well, that’s it for this week. ¡Hasta luego!

— Elder Schroeder

I’ve (almost) completed 6 MONTHS in my mission! That’s a fourth of the mission! I can’t believe how time flies! Of course, I still have 18 months left, but I still can’t believe it’s ONE-FOURTH OF MY MISSION! Every day, week, and month is so similar that the time just passes  and I don’t even notice it! Before I know it I’ll have a year!

And, sorry all, but this week was pretty basic, so I don’t have ANYTHING interesting to share. The only part that was different was giving NINE blessings of health — and eight of those were one family! I don’t know what bug’s been going around, but it was pretty cool to be able to use the power of God to help other people get well.

Then, of course, we had General Conference, when the prophet and 12 apostles share guidance they’ve received for our day and also messages to help us understand better the principles of the gospel. It was a little weird to listen in Spanish because the translation really loses a lot; it’s the exact same words, but you don’t get the emotion that some of them (*cough* Elder Holland *cough*) show when they share their messages. Thankfully the Spirit’s still the same, so it was good. I would share some of my favorite quotes, but I’m not really sure what was actually said in English and I’m still not very good at translating (One of these days! C’mon, Gift of Tongues!).

This week I realized just how far I’ve come in my Spanish. I still can’t really translate, as I said, and I KNOW I make a TON of mistakes when I’m talking (Dumb conjugations! Why does it have to be different for EVERYTHING*?!), but I’m actually able to understand and talk!

I’ve been in the same area, Machu Picchu, for all of my mission up to now, and when I first started I had no clue what a lot of the people here were saying because I didn’t know the words and everyone has a personal accent, some of which are difficult to understand. However, now I understand almost everything, speak almost fluently, and don’t need to think as much to understand. In the beginning I had to focus a LOT to understand anything! Now it’s more like reflex. Even the accents that were most difficult for me in the beginning are easy to understand now! So I’m definitely making progress… and, of course, being blessed!

Well, that’s all I’ve got. I don’t even have any pictures to share! Again, sorry, but next week should be better!

— Elder Schroeder

* i.e. “to think” is “pensar”, and “I think”, “you think”, and “he / she / it thinks” (Not much change there) are “yo pienso”, “tu piensas”, and “usted (you formal) / el / ella piensa”. WHY?!

¡Felices Pascuas! Hope it was good for you all, ’cause I had a really good one too! I don’t know why, but this Sunday it just kind of hit home everything Christ did for me when he suffered in the garden of Gethsemane and then was tortured on the cross just so that we could live with our Heavenly Father again. I can’t really explain it, but I know that He did it because He loves us so much. It’s a very special feeling, and it’s even more special now that I’m actually serving a mission as a representative of Him. Makes you think a little bit more, y’know?

This week wasn’t all that interesting for me, but I’ll tell you about it anyway because it’ll kind of give you guys a better idea of the normal mission life and the things we have to worry about when we’re not doing something crazy like eating orange bananas.  Yeah, they have orange bananas here! I didn’t know they came in any color except yellow!

Monday started out a little bittersweet because Elder Pastenes finished his mission, so he left and we spent the morning taking photos and helping him pack (And waiting like vultures to claim all the stuff he didn’t want. I scored some sweaters, a towel, a pair of pants, and a jug of chicha morada — a strange drink they make down here out of the juice of purple corn — that had fermented! I don’t really need any of it, but… free stuff is free stuff! (And no, I didn’t drink the chicha!)).

Then he was off to go resume his life while Elder Mayta and I were left to continue the missionary work here… Until I got sick later that night. I don’t really know exactly what I had, but I DO know that my head felt like it wanted to explode all evening and night — it hurt so bad I couldn’t sleep at all — and I must have gotten food poisoning because I threw up about every two hours. I threw up everything I’d eaten Monday around 3:00 AM on Tuesday, and then I kept throwing up until Wednesday, even though I didn’t have anything left to throw up except the water I’d been drinking. The torture finally ended around noon on Wednesday and I just rested until I could leave the house to work on Thursday. On the plus side I think I lost about 5 pounds in a 24-hour period, but they were some of the worst hours of my life, so I don’t recommend that weight-loss process. It’s hard when you can’t eat anything except chicken-foot soup.

Thursday was one of the most stressful mornings of my life because the night before, around 10 PM, our mission president called us to invite us to lunch Thursday — and there was almost no reason for it! He just said he was going to be eating at a nice restaurant in our area and we were invited. Of course we didn’t turn down the offer, but it was really scary because all Thursday morning we were kind of worried we’d done something wrong. I’ve read a quote that describes why pretty well:

“I need to talk to you”: The phrase that makes you remember everything bad you’ve ever done in your life.

But it turns out we really didn’t need to worry, because we went to a really nice restaurant (I ate steak!) and there was no secret motive or something like that. We ate ice cream afterwards, Presidente paid for everything, and we got to work like ususal. So that was both very stressful and a stress reliever!

I wish we could eat more at restaurants because on Friday Elder Mayta REALLY ticked off one of the members in our ward! We ate lunch at her house and she made us a Peruvian dish (that I liked), but it had this strange meat that Elder Mayta couldn’t eat because he thought it was nasty. I’ll admit it was a little tough (turns out it was some sort of animal intestine!), but I ate it just fine. But when Elder Mayta told the sister that he couldn’t eat the meat she got ticked, told him off, and was in a bad mood for the rest of the meal. Even her husband agreed it was a little poorly cooked, but I still think Elder Mayta should have just eaten it because I worry that we’ll suffer her wrath every time we eat at her house now — and we’re going there this Wednesday!

That pretty much sums everything up for this week. I don’t have a whole lot else, but hopefully next week I will!

— Elder Schroeder

Hello to everyone from down here in Peru!

Since I’ve heard I’m getting a lot of new fans (Not really, but I’m not sure what to call them… Bored people?) who didn’t get some of my first several emails, I figured it might be good that everyone knows what my email is (Because I’m pretty sure I told a few people the wrong one…) It’s alexander.schroeder@myLDSmail.net, and if you have any questions for me or a cool story to share, feel free to email me — Right now, I almost have no clue about what’s going on back in the States and all! (Do we have a new President yet? I don’t remember when that’ll be decided!)

Anyway, this week was pretty chevere. For P-Day my zone and I went and climbed this HUUUUUGE hill in my area to go see the ocean and the other side of the mission. My area extends from basically the chapel up into a range of massive, mountainous hills; on the other side of these hills is the other part of the mission. It’s kind of like the mission divide because there’s no road to go over the hills, so you’d have to go around if you went by car! We got some pretty sweet fotos of all the pretty foliage.

Or rocks.  Yeah, that was about it.

This place is pretty much all rock, dust, and dirt! Seriously, now when I play Settlers of Catan, every Rock tile is going to make me think of this area!

The top was pretty cool, despite what you’d think with all the rocks and dirt. I got some fotos of Comas (the area on the other side).

If it wasn’t for all the smog, you’d actually be able to tell that there’s the ocean way in the distance (that part that seems like a mountain in the top left is actually an island).

And then, because of the strong wind at the top and the rocky terrain, we had a lot of fun taking dramatic fotos. I’ll include a few of me. I didn’t really feel my inner peace here with the 200 foot drop behind me, but… Photo op!

The other picture would have been a lot more dramatic if my shirt had been tucked in! With the wind blowing it, it makes me look like I’m pregnant or something!

And we also took a picture of us as a zone around the Peruvian flag (Well, not all the zone. There are actually 6 more of us, but these are the tough ones who actually lasted until the top of the hill).

That was probably the most interesting part of the week. There’s not a whole lot else that happened, but I’ll put some of the more interesting stuff:

Wednesday I killed about 30 flies with a Tithing pamphlet because we had the window open and were eating our food and the flies just KEPT ON COMING! We closed the window and I killed everything that was left. That was really satisfying — flies are annoying!

Saturday Elder Rodriguez (one of our zone leaders) was visiting our area for a day to see how it is and we kind of got locked outside because our key stopped working (we think we bent it or something), so we bought some crackers and trained a few of the dogs outside my apartment to sit when commanded to. That was a little new.

On Saturday we also had a cool spiritual experience. Elder Pastenes went with our ward mission leader to a part of our area called Amazonas and contacted a bunch of new people in the hills there, and one of the families we’d seen before! It was during our first or second week as companions: we were waiting for one of our investigators outside her house, looking around at all the people down below (her house is kind of up in the hills), and we saw this family. We were really far away, but Elder Pastenes said, “We need to talk to this family”. Well, he finally did, and it turns out they’re really open and willing to listen because they’d been looking for the true church this whole time!

Man, Saturday’s just FULL of stuff; we also had a wedding AND a baptism!

We’ve been working for a long time with this young couple, Melvin and Yhamiley, trying to get them married so we could baptize Yhamiley (Melvin’s already a member, but he’s less-active). We kept having slight problems with it all, but finally managed to get everything in order and they got married and, a few hours later, we baptized Yhamiley! (I’ll send the fotos in a separate email because I don’t have space in this one!)

Well, that pretty much sums it up. Here’s to more success and more interesting stories for next week! ¡Cuídense!

— Elder Schroeder

Weeeeelllll… Not much to report from down here. It’s actually been a little different this week, but not in an interesting way: We spent a lot of time setting up a wedding for one of our families so that they can get married the 19th of this month and then we can baptize them! (Well, her; the soon-to-be husband’s already a member.) And that might sound kind of interesting, but this “wedding” is just going to be them signing papers so they’re legally married and stuff. Soooo… Not going to bore you guys with that!

As for more interesting stuff… Yeah, I don’t really have much until Saturday, when we had FIVE BAPTISMS! We baptized the Trujillo family that I talked about last week, and it’s really awesome because it was just a really great experience! (Except for the hour before and 30 minutes after it should have started, because during this time we were looking for baptismal clothing for all of them; we only had two jumpsuits for the parents! Eventually Elder Rodriguez, one of the other missionaries, gave some of his white button-up shirts to the three kids and some white pants that they rolled up so they weren’t too long so they hade white clothing. It looked a little ridiculous, but it worked!) Of course we have pictures, and the cool part is I got to baptize the parents, Jesus and Vilma!

I’ve also got this photo that we took outside with the flash, but it’s not as good because we look like we’re all posessed or something (Especially me! What the heck?! Do I just open my eyes really big or something?!)

(Elder Mayta really needs to smile when we take photos!)

Well, not much else going on here, so I guess we’ll just have to hope for some more adventures in this upcoming week! Hopefully they won’t involve lots of dangerous ladders or parakeet attacks!

— Elder Schroeder

This week’s been pretty great here in Peru. We were a little behind on some of our goals (like the number of lessons we need to teach and stuff) because it’s been a little abnormal (But in a good way!).

On Monday we went to a part of Lima called Plaza Norte, which was REALLY weird because it’s like a nice American mall — I’m used to dirty, open-air markets and stuff! We ate Chili’s, and I don’t know if it’s just the fact that Peruvian hamburgers are terrible or just that I’ve been living off bread and chicken and rice for months now, but the hamburger I ate was AMAZING! (*sniff* I miss the U.S….)

Plaza Norte was also really cool because you could buy crazy stuff from other parts of Peru; there are a few little shops that sell souvenirs from the selva (“jungle”), like dried-piranha-head necklaces (If you put the head facing forward it looks like a piranha is coming out of your chest!), dried alligators (That was a little weird, but cool), and blow-dart guns (I would have totally bought some of them if I actually had money! We didn’t have time to go take any out of the bank before!). So that was great and disappointing at the same time.

Tuesday we had a little bit of a shock when our Zone Leaders told us we were going to have another companion and become a trio. So now there’s three of us: Me, Elder Pastenes, and Elder Mayta!

I’ll include a picture from Friday, when we ate chicken foot. The chicken foot was actually pretty tasty! You just have to make sure you bite at the knuckles so you can bite off part of the toe and then chew until there’s only bone left!

Wednesday was less great because I discovered a strange lump on the back of my head, and THEN discovered it was oozing pus! (Sorry, TMI) Turns out it was a maggot from a bug bite — there are insects here that bite and then lay eggs in animals! No, I’m kidding! (Although I actually know people who had that problem!) It was some sort of infected pore, so now I’ve got to put some antibacterial cream on it every night — or rather, my companions do! (They REALLY don’t like it!)

(I’ll be nice and not include a picture of it!)

OK, now for something a little less gross and a little more spiritual: We’re going to have a baptism this Saturday! We’ve been working with the Trujillo family for about a month and they’re ready to be baptized! It’s really great because they even came to church yesterday when they also had a mandatory school appointment at the same time! The mother, Vilma, had a problem with that because it’s not like they would be choosing to do something unworthy for the Sabbath Day by going and it was something that they would be ticketed for if they didn’t attend, but her husband, Jesus, has a LOT of faith! We told him that it was a commandment to attend church and if he went he would be blessed — and then he turned to Vilma and said, “We’re going to church on Sunday, because it’s more important”! (This family is really awesome! We taught them the Word of Wisdom, about how they can’t drink coffee because it’s addictive, and when we asked Jesus if he had any coffee in his house his kids ran and got it all and he told us to take it! Then, when we taught about the importance of paying tithing, Jesus and Vilma said they would, and when we asked why Jesus said, “It says we need to in the scriptures, so we will”! IT’S SO AWESOME!!!)

And then on Sunday I completed 5 months in my mission! 5 down, 19 left!

Now, for suffering through my nasty infection story and happy rant, here are some pictures of interesting stuff…

1) Remember the parrot that bit Elder Pastenes from last week’s email?

2) Elder Mayta with his PLATA $$$ ¡Qué pituco!

3) And, just ’cause (I don’t remeber exactly what happened…)

¡Tengan un buen día!
— Elder Schroeder

Hey, all! This week was pretty normal for us — Although probably really strange for the rest of you if I was to put it all in this email! — but there were, as always, some interesting parts, too. The life of a missionary is never dull!

On Thursday we went to the temple in Lima… and Elder Pastenes forgot his recommend! Since we only realized this when we got there, we decided to try and get Cristian, our ward mission leader, to bring it for us! We ended up waiting for almost the entire day on the temple grounds, but eventually Cristian showed up and we managed to do a quick session before we left. It really wasn’t bad, because being a missionary at the temple is like being a celebrity: all the people there are members and know missionaries, so we got a lot of people shaking our hands and calling, “¡Elderes!”

Also on Thursday I bought a Book of Mormon in Quechua, the language of the Incas, the ancient inhabitants of Peru. I’ll include a photo of me attempting to read it. Take a look at the words. Yeah… Glad I only have to learn Spanish!

Saturday was a little crazy and dangerous. My companion ended up getting attacked by a parrot and it bit him pretty good, so now he’s got a bit of a gash in his thumb. That thing just latched on to his finger and wouldn’t let go! (Really, it was all Elder Pastenes’s fault. Every time before when we’d gone over he’d bothered the bird because he wanted to hold it… Yeah, that didn’t go so well!)

And now I’ve got another entry for the “Most Dangerous Service Projects”. Right up there with “moving couches to the second story with rope while standing on the roof”, we’ve now got “standing on a ladder that’s on a very thin tin roof and leaning way over to cut bricks off the side of the house next door”. And, as the lightest, I was chosen to be the one to climb the ladder. Word of advice for missionaries: It’s actually safer to be fat!

“About three stories up in the air with only a wobbly, handmade ladder on a thin tin roof to keep me from falling… Time for a selfie!”

As for the more spiritual stuff, while we were waiting at the temple I found a really great article in the Liahona (For those who don’t know, it’s the magazine the Church publishes for countries outside the U.S.) that perfectly describes how it is to be a missionary:

“A Mission Was Better Than Expected”

“As a young man, I looked forward to the day when I would serve a full-time mission. When I finally entered the mission field, I discovered that missionary service was not what I had expected—it was better. It was harder than I thought, but the satisfaction that came from doing what the Lord asked of me was indescribable.

“Never before had I experienced the joy of helping someone attend church. Never before had I felt the thrill of hearing someone say, ‘Sure, come on in’ so that they could hear the restored gospel. Never before had I sensed the reality of the power that came as we declared repentance. Never before had I prayed with such real intent. Never before had an hour of scripture study gone by so fast. Never before had I been brought to tears by the realization of my imperfections. Never before had I experienced the devastation that comes with the words, ‘Elders, please don’t come by my house anymore.’ Never before had I gotten a blister on my foot the size of my thumb. Never before had I felt so protected. Never before had I felt so much responsibility for my actions because I wore the name ‘Jesus Christ’ on my chest.

“Never before had I been so close to my Heavenly Father as I came to be during my full-time mission.”

That’s exactly how I feel now! I really can’t say it better myself, because all the things that he said are so true for me too (Except for the blister part! Let’s hope that never happens!)! The mission is so awesome, even if it kills me most of the time!

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now! ¡Hasta luego!

— Elder Schroeder