It's been almost two weeks without a p-day. Oh goodness. Sorry 'bout that! Not my fault. This keyboard is horribly broken and typing is super hard right now. yikes.
So... I'm for realz a missionary now! My first area is... Pacasmayo!! This place is super awesome HOLYCRAPIT'SREALLY HARDTO TYPE RIGHTNOW UGH. Look it up online or something. I can't do it justice and right now typing is incredibly frustrating. It's the only area of our mission on the coast that has missionaries, so that kind of rules. It never really gets that hot here because of that. My first companion and trainer is Elder Despain. Guess where he's from?... Salt Lake City. lolz. He's probably Mormon. I'm the only new North American missionary to get a North American trainer. It sure makes learning the language a lot less stressful. He's super awesome. I couldn't be happier about having him as my companion! I'll be here in Pacasmayo for at least three months. New missionaries are with their trainers for two transfers. This place is so cool though! Way more awesome than Lima. I almost just wish I was gonna be here for the whole two years. Being here is unreal. Seriously all the time I'm just thinking to myself that I can't believe a place like this actually exists. It literally doesn't feel like real life. And different sections of the city are so different from each other! We live in a pretty nice area. But there are areas full of houses made of tarps and bamboo and stuff and it's so eye opening. I think tonight we're going to go help a family build their house. How freaking cool is that? Maybe I'll tell you about it next week.
Guess what I did for the first time in two months yesterday?... I went to church!! Finally!! I missed being in a ward or a branch so much. MTC church was super lame. Our branch here seems really awesome. Yesterday was the primary program so that was fun. Oh yeah, also Elder Despain and I were asked to bless the sacrament. Of course that would happen on my first Sunday! It was my first time blessing it in forever, and my first time ever doing it in Spanish. I had to do it twice because I s'pose I messed up the first time. Sounded good to me. But I don't know how it's supposed to sound. The kids in our branch (there are a lot of them) all love us missionaries. They're so funny. They love talking to us and asking us how to say things in English. Mucho fun.
We have a lady who makes all our meals for us here. Three meals a day. I sure love not cooking! We can't cook anyway because we don't have a kitchen. Her name is Mama Nena and she's the best. Even though it's hard for me to understand her. There are some people here who I can understand fairly well, some who I struggle understanding, and others who I can't understand at all. I'm improving every day though, so that's what's important! The people here are generally super nice. We've had a lot of good exeperiences talking to people and teaching them. We have some super awesome investigators too that I think we're really helping. I hope we are. I love them.
So a lil' bit of bad news. Mail here sucks even worse than it did at the MTC. I still get it once a week (tuesdays) and mailing it is a million times more frustrating than before. We get to send two letters for free through the church a month...TWO. And the rest cost over 7 sols each to mail. Which is like three dollars or something. Plus, I have less time to write letters now because p-days are busier... so... I'm gonna have to take back my promise that I'll respond to every letter I get. It's not realistic anymore. Each week I'll just have to pick a couple people to respond to. Sorry! I really want to write you all, but I don't have the time, or the money to do it. However this doesn't mean I want less letters, just so you know. Haha. It'll be like this for the rest of my mission, so that's too bad.
Life as a missionary is kind of awesome. Really tiring, but not horribly difficult. I sure love going to bed every night though. I'm having the coolest experiences ever and growing so much closer to our Father and our Savior and learning to love the people of Peru so much. God is always listening to and answering my prayers. I'm in good hands out here. It's the greatest thing ever to know I have a Father in Heaven I can turn to at literally any moment and ask for help or comfort from. And He always gives it to me.
Yikes I don't really know what else to say. There's so much to tell but you and I are just gonna have to accept the fact that you're not gonna know about every detail of my mission in Peru. I'll have eight years to tell you about my experiences when I get home. And I say that because there's this disease you can get here that basically does nothing except ten years later your heart basically explodes. I'll probably get that I'm assuming. But I got ten more years so no big deal. Psh.
Oh yeah, I saw a really cool thing the other day. Some kid had a Spider-man 4 backpack... Spider-man 4. Y'know, that really great movie THAT DOESN'T EXIST. Haha. I was kinda jealous. P.S. Thanks for the Yellowcard vinyl box set! I can't wait to listen to it (and see it) in two years!! For some reason I was thinking about that a lot yesterday... I like records.
Soo... I gotta go. Someday maybe I'll send you pictures. I dunno how. Maybe I won't. I haven't taken any since I've been here but I have a lot more of the MTC.
I miss you lots! I think about you guys all the time. But I know there is literally nothing more important that I could be doing right now. This is the best thing in the world that I could be doing for myself, and for my family, and for my friends. I know that's true. Missions are the coolest. I wish it was something everyone had the chance to experience. I love you tons! Stay awesome. Until next week :)
I can't believe this is real...
-Elder "I really REALLY hate this keyboard more than almost anything else on the planet" Hemsley
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