So, Monday. After Internet, we went back to the room and got ready for the... belaria de Kamerson... (basically, everyone comes to the persons house who died, and lights candles and sees the body). So, we went, and it was seriously awful. I was doing all right, up until the point when I saw his mom, and his grandparents. Boom, I totally lost it. Some of the members were coming over, like, "Dude. It's okay." But yeah. It was rough. It was just really sad. But, we went back to our room that night, and were eating cake and celebrating Garcias birthday... boom, the LZ's call.. Emergency Change Garcia, 9:30 the next morning. WHAT?!?! So, he didn't even have time to say bye to people. And, he left! I cried. It was a bummer. He was like, my best friend, and we've been at each others side for like... 4 months now! So it was kinda a bummer... But, that's the mission! But, he went to Juliaca, and so that's why it says FIP Garcia... Freeze in Peace... hahaha. Poor guy.
So, the next day was Kamerson's funeral. It was good, the branch came together to help, and it ended up a good experience.. just kinda different for me. I guess I'm not accostumed to Peruvian funerals. But, Tuesday in the night, my new companion, Elder Arce came. He is from Bolivia, but was serving in Venezuala, but they took out all the foreigners from there, so he had to come here! He's pretty cool, but he does his stuff really different than me a little... so we gotta get accustomed to each other I think. But I'm senior comp! Which I think he doesn't like much since he was a zone leader in his other mission... but that's okay haha. We get along well.
The rest of the week was good, but Saturday, Ximena got baptized! It was good. It was what we call "noche blanca" because there were 8 baptisms in our district! There were like, 16 or something in the whole zone. It was awesome. I sent a few pictures. The branch also is doing better from last week... a lot of the people were willing to forgive and forget.. only a few that we need to go and do a couple of visits.. but that's okay! I'm relieved that it wasn't a lot worse. We just keep on moving forward! Yan still has a date to be baptized, but it's gonna be in like... April.. We're working on it. Karina is gonna be rescued this week too, which is cool. We went with her family yesterday to the cemetary to visit her moms tombstone. It was a good experience, we talked about the plan of salvation a little... it was a good day haha.
But yeah. I don't have too much to say... haha. Sorry, this week was fast, I'm trying to upload fotos for my family and everything. All is well in La Joya! I'm stoked out of my SKULL for Conference. You guys don't even understand. Seriously. It's gonna be sweet. Oh, I don't have a change too. Today was changes. So... I'm gonna be in La Joya for like, 6 months, if not more.. but I'm stoked. I love it here. Yesterday in church, I got up to speak for a sec about family history, and I just LOVE the way the branch all looks at me, just grinning, cuz they know I'm a goofball. I just love our branch, they are all so friendly and fun, and I feel so blessed to be here! You all should be super duper jealous! Anyways, thats all for this week! Until the next one, keep being awesome, love and miss you all!
Elder Richman