OH MAN OH MAH IT IS SO
GOSH DARN HOT HERE HOLY HECKING GOODNESS.
I forgot how to swear I
think.
Hello my
FAMIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY!!!! How are you?! I shall await your response with much
excitement about three weeks or so from now.
But anywayz, for realz,
for serious it’s ridiculously hot here. Somehow it has gotten even hotter
this past week. Look, we're nine days away from Winter here in Peru, and
its hotter than the hottest summer day back home. Unpleasant. But who's
complaining?... Me, a little bit. Ha. But I'm having a grand ol' time out here
in Peru. It feels so grand.
I guess I should break
the big news to you... Last night the dreaded call came... I'm staying in
Olmos!! Woo! Yay a billion times! Elder Villatoro is... also staying here!
Gonna pwn some Gentiles with the gospel this transfer. Way st0ked! I love it
here. Which isn't really true, but I do love a lot of the people here and I
just don't want to leave them <3
Its been a pretty good
week. One of the better weeks we've had in Olmos I'd say. Yesterday was the
last official day of the transfer, so I added up our total numbers, and
compared them with my past transfers, and to my absolute horror I discovered
that this past transfer actually hasn't been so bad. Oh wait, did I say
absolute "horror"? I meant... surprise. Wow! I thought we weren't
doing so good this past transfer, but comparing our numbers to other transfers,
we're actually just about average. It wasn't even my worst transfer. Not even
second worst. Maybe third worst. Haha. But I only have five total, which makes
it my third best as well. I dunno, I think just it being my first time ever
being Senior Companion my perception was skewed and I put heavy expectations
upon myself, but really, we did pretty good, which made me way happy. This
transfer's gonna be even better!!
Last Monday after
e-mailing you guyz I went out and bought myself a zampoña, which is another
Peruvian instrument with a buncha different tubes that you blow into that are
all different notes. I dunno, Google it. Don't really know how to play it. But
this makes my third instrument that I've bought since coming out here. The
first was the quena. Second, I bought a cheap harmonica a few weeks back, and
finally this zampoña. I can't play any of them. Haha. I can play the quena a
little bit. The quena reminds me of that one episode of South Park where
everyone hates all the Peruvian flute bands and they capture them all and lock
them up or something and then without the Peruvian flute bands playing their
music all the time the world got attacked by giant... hamsters? I don't
remember. And it turns out the only thing keeping the hamsters from attacking
the world before was the music of the Peruvian flute bands. I'm just trying to
learn the quena (the Peruvian flute) to save your butts. Learning very slowly.
Hermana Rosa has a ton of
photos of all the past elders who have been here put up on her wall in her
house, and last week I also paid to get a bunch of photos printed out to give
to her, and now there are finally beautiful photos of Elder Hemsley up on her
wall too. Awh :) Way, way stoked to get to spend another month and a half with
the Perez Arce family!
So... is school already
out?! Or is it ending this week?! Ridiculous. How has a whole school year
already gone by?? Heck, a Ricks College school year ended months ago! The time
flies my friends. Soon I shall be home eating a mountain of McDonald's chicken
mcnuggets making myself horribly, horribly sick once again. Very soon...
I kind of love your mail,
and Mom I love that you're still sending me Mitchell's and Porter's updates!
They are the best ever to read! Porter's last (well, most recent one that I've
read) was absolutely hilarious and it was something I could definitely relate
too. It’s so weird and so cool how even in completely different parts of the
world with completely different cultures we're able to have so many of the same
or similar experiences. The mission is too rad!! I can't even begin to explain
how awesome it is. Just... everyone needs to be a missionary.
Anyway this week we had
some pretty good visits. We finally were able to find Sandy again, that girl I
told you about a long while back who's way mega Catholic but at the same time
super awesome receptive. She's still cool, hopefully we'll be able to start
visiting her again. Another good visit with Silvia too! She told us she loved
her experience at church and that she wants to put some time aside every
week to go to church from here on out! So awesome!! However... she didn't
go to church on Sunday because she slept in. Haha, ugh. I was also so sure we'd
be able to get her to commit to a baptismal date this past week, but it just
didn't happen. She doesn't want to commit yet, but she's awesome, and with
patience I know it'll happen! We also had another visit with Julian Castro, and
we talked some more about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, and he told us
that even though he's never read the Book of Mormon, he's sure that's its true
because of what it says in John 10:16. So rad! So we gave him a Book and he's
gonna start reading it. Left him 3 Nephi 11 to read. Chyeah.
We had another visit with
a family who we've been visiting ever since I first got to Olmos. A lady named
Maritza, and her daughter Laury, who's like 15. We read the intro to the Book
of Mormon with them, and Laury had some doubts about the part where Joseph
Smith says that the Book of Mormon is the most correct of any book on Earth. We
did our best to explain it, and how even though we know that the Bible is the
word of God, that over time and, by the fault of man, some things have been
lost or changed, and the Bible in its current state is incomplete. There are
tons of references in the Bible to other books that are not found in the Bible.
Where'd they go? Lost. And plenty of things that just don't make sense. What
happened to Enoch? Anyway, she told us that she understood, but I feel
like she was left with a bit of doubt. Eh... We're not perfect missionaries,
but we do what we can. The most important thing, and the reason they still have
doubts, is that the Book of Mormon contains the promise that if we read it,
ponder its words, and then pray and ask God if the book is true, that we will
receive an answer by the power of the Holy Ghost. They still have doubts
because they've never prayed about it, even though we've invited them to do it
like infinity times. But they're a good family and they do have sincere desires
to learn more. The main problem here is that people don't keep their
commitments to read or to pray or to come to church. If they don't do their
part, they won't be able to progress or feel the Spirit.
One of the highlights of
the week (which was actually really annoying and dumb, but funny...) was when
we knocked on the door of this lady who we had an appointment with. Her little
daughter greeted us through the front window, and we asked her to go get her
mom so that we could visit them. She called her mom, and after a short wait she
says to us "my mom says she's not home." Hahahaha. DANGIT. Such a
common occurrence too.
One of the awkward
experiences of the week was when we went to visit a girl, and during the lesson
we were talking about the Creation or something, and she stopped and asked us
what we thought about the theory of evolution and if humans came from monkeys and
that kinda stuff. Without giving me a chance to open my mouth, my comp just
blurts out "Oh, that's false." Uh?! Then goes on this thing about how
we shouldn't believe in science or something like that. But it gets even
better: without anyone even bringing up the subject, he goes on to say,
"and about the dinosaurs; I'm pretty sure they didn't really exist... I
mean, they've discovered fossils and stuff, but I dunno... Maybe they're from
another planet or something."................ Are you serious? Please,
please, just can somebody shove a shotgun barrel up my eyeball and pull the
trigger?! Haha wow I have never been so embarrassed to be someone's comp
before. I felt so bad about that lesson. Just for those of you who don't know,
we as members of the Church of Jesus Christ, do not believe that
dinosaurs are from a different planet. Hahaha. And seriously? Science is such a
blessing in our lives. All the life-saving medications we have, all the
technology we have is thanks to wonders of science. I've never really
understood the whole "religion and science can't coexist" idea. To
me, science has always seemed to just help prove to me the genius of God. Of
how everything He created just works so amazingly, and makes so much sense. And
I'm not gonna claim that I know much about how the earth was formed, but the
Bible itself says that God created animals before He created man. Monkeys, or
their ancestors, did exist before humans. Not saying anything more, but just...
Science is not something we need to avoid and fight against and disbelieve.
Personal opinions of a dumb kid named Victor Hemsley.
Anyway, today is some
festival (well, actually the whole month is this ongoing festival) and we're
gonna go out and see what's happening after we send off these e-mails. On
Tuesday there was this big Pro-Green event in the main plaza. What is this,
Eugene?! Freaking hippies...
Well... what else? Uh,
well, William got called as the new branch Mission Leader! Kinda sick.
He's still new in the church and he's prepping for his own mission. Radical
City! Wasn't Dad mission leader once upon a time? Neato neato neato.
I swear I had some more
stuff to tell you guys, but I can't remember. So I'm gonna finish this one up.
Checkit, the frontman of
The Killers says 'hi':
Muuuuuuuuusic! I figure
that Cove Reber is a member of the Church, which makes it okay for me to listen
to Saosin every single day, right? Haha. And Christian Jacobs is Mormon so that
means I can also listen to The Aquabats 24/4, right? And Travis Barker used to
be in The Aquabats, so that means I can listen to blink-182, right?!?! Nahh,
I'm not listening to any of those. But seriously there is a decent amount of
members of the Church who play in bands that I like. Still working on plenty of
songs of my own. Stay tuned in two years! (I still have two years left, right?)
Aight, I gotta get out of
here. I'll write again next week!
Buckets of love and
illegal kisses!
-Elder Hemsley
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