Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Another week, another letter!

Hello everybody in the world!

Happy birthday Keegan! It's the best time of the yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrakjsdñfklajsñdklfjaklñsdfasd. Whoa I didn't even know I could type these ññññññññ. Also happy birthday Okeefe yesterday, and Tyler last Sunday! I don't actually remember everyone in the world's birthday, so don't expect happy birthday shoutouts from me ever. I know Hunter's birthday was sometime this month. So happy late birthday dewd! And happy birthday Bryn on Friday! Goodness, October is ridiculous.

For some reason we have to e-mail in the morning today, so I can't even tell you about what I did on p-day today because I haven't done it yet. This place is confusing.

Anywayz, not much has really happened since last time. That's kind of a lie. We did go proselyting for five hours on Saturday. That went really well. Started out really slow. Elder Paredes and I started out in a really poor area (huge culture shock all over again) where we really didn't get any success. We were up on a really steep hill in the middle of Lima with super long steep staircases going uphill between the houses. These houses didn't even have real roofs on them. They were made of cardboard and whatever else they could find. I also had a tough time trying to figure out what was a house and what wasn't. A lot of the time the building was both the family's house and their family store. We hardly got to talk to anyone there. We made our way down the hill to a more wealthy area with houses that actually looked like houses. We talked to a bunch of people down there. We didn't get into any houses, but we talked to a lot of people. Probably the best experience of the day was when we approached a woman at the park. It was later in the day so I was feeling a little more comfortable with my Spanish and everything. Elder Paredes still led the conversation, but I was able to speak more than usual. This lady was very receptive to what we had to say. We told her where the church was and when it starts and she told us she'd go on Sunday (the next day). Partway through a man walked up and joined her. I don't know if he was her husband or what, I totally missed that. He came right about when we were talking about when church was and he said he couldn't go because he had work. As we spoke to them more he was basically like ''wait... what time is your church at again?'' He was getting interested. I spoke to them and explained that I'm still learning the language, and they pretty much said it was fine and that they could understand me, and I bore my testimony about prayer and the scriptures and explained that I'm in Peru because these things have blessed my life and I want to share them with the whole world. These people were awesome. Elder Paredes gave the lady a Book of Mormon and she reassured us that she promised she would be at church the next day. I think the man wanted to too but he didn't say he'd for sure be there. They both seemed touched that we would want to invite them to come to our church. So that was an awesome experience.

We also spoke to a guy who was working in his bakery/store (we were hungry and wanted bread) and he was really interested in what we had to say too. So interested that he was being distracted from helping customers, which I felt kind of bad about, but it was a good talk. haha. He was interested in coming to church too.

Those were the highlights. We spoke to a lot of people. On Monday night Elder Paredes flew off to Mexico. I miss that guy! He's going to change so many lives. On Sunday he was talking about how he was going to Mexico so soon and he was so excited he was almost in tears. He has such a strong desire to go spread the gospel to the world. He's one of the best examples I've ever had. He's going to do amazing things out there in Mexico. I'm so blessed to have had him as a companion.

We get new Latin companions tomorrow or late tonight or something. I dunno. I never know what's going on here.

I finished the Book of Mormon on Sunday! Took me 18 days. Wow! I got a ton out of it. I thought the 19 day challenge was kind of unrealistic (actually I still do, because I was reading the Book of Mormon at times when I wasn't supposed to. Which by the way, it sounds really stupid to me that there's ever a time when we aren't supposed to be reading it.) but I did it and I really enjoyed it. Also I burned through two yellow highlighters and now I need a new one or ten. I'm reading the Pearl of Great Price next and then the New Testament. So that's cool I s'pose.

For some reason Elder Marker and I are getting moved to a new district. We're the only ones leaving our district and we are not happy about it. Why??! I've given up on trying to make sense of the things that happen here.

Congrats on Sam becoming a Deacon and Dad getting called to the High Council! High Council sounds like something from Star Wars so that makes it especially cool. Also the hymn Battle Hymn of the Republic always always always reminds me of Star Wars just because of the title. Random.

Thanks for sending me Mitchell's and Porter's letters! I love reading them. Good to hear mission experiences from other people I know. Love it.

So, apparently back home I had this habit of writing songs that were totally fictional or at least exaggerated truth and then later on in my life what I wrote about comes true. The whole song ''Game Over: Continue?'' was a totally made up story that more or less really happened to me later in my life. In the song ''Looking Back'' there's a line that goes ''now I just can't wait until I fall asleep, because in every dream I'm with you.'' That line is basically exactly how I feel now about all of you guys back home. I literally can't wait to get to sleep at night after a long day because it means I have a chance to be with my family and friends again in my dreams. It's weird, it's like I can relate really well to my own lyrics or something. Odd. Next thing you know I'm going to be dating a 500 pound 23 year old girl, or my horse is going to get shot and killed by dirty bandits, or it's really going to be Keegan's birthday or something (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!?!?!?!!!!1). Anyway, I really miss writing and playing music a whole lot.

Well, I gotta go now. I definitely had more to say but I can't remember what it was and also I have 29 seconds of e-mail left. I love you all mucho! I miss you tons and I can't wait to e-mail again next week. buh-bye!

Love,
Your best friend in the whole entire world,
-Elder Victor

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