Wednesday, September 11, 2013

I don't wanna be a bishop!!!

Phew! First off, sorry! Power was out in Quillabamba on Monday, so we couldn't email. Also, my letters are FINALLY starting to come through! So, thanks! Monday, I got 13 letters haha! I feel so full of your love I don't think I could take one more bite. Mmm! But, no. Keep writing me.
So last Monday, we bunked our beds, and we finally got a fan. That may be the best thing that has ever happened in my life. Now, I can FINALLY sleep in peace. And study. Basically, my whole life is more comfortable, and less sweaty now, which is always a beautiful thing. 

So, question. What's going on with the US and Syria right now? I don't know why everyone has lacked telling me about this, but I'm a teensy bit out of the loop. But, to give you an idea of how frustrating it is, I'll give you the dialogue I've been having this week. Me: "Hi, I'm Elder Richman. I'm from the USA!" Random Peruvian: "Oh yeah? Did you hear about the war? Everyone thinks World War 3 is going to start, they're going to bomb Syria....blah blah blah...."  Me: "........what?" So yeah, if anyone would like to enlighten me a bit, that'd be super cool.

So, I did exchanges with Elder Mendez, my zone leader, on Wednesday. He's from Mexico, and he is super awesome haha. He's like... 27 or something though haha. But, it was a good day. I learned a lot, and taught a lot, so it was really good. It was the first time I've done exchanges with a Latino, so they're trust me with the language now! Haha. 

Our investigators are all right. We were on splits on Sunday, and I went and met with the familia Quispe, and I was pretty bold and straight up with them. I told them that they needed to read and pray, or they weren't ever going to get their answer if this gospel is true. So, I got them to commit to try to read at least one verse every day, and then to pray. We'll see. We still can't seem to find Guillermo... but yeah. Another new investigator, Benedicta, has a fecha for the end of this month, so we're working with her. She's an old investigator, but she is interested again, so that's good.

So, this Thursday, we went to Palma Real. So, to give you an idea, Quillabamba is the main city, then you drive 30 minutes into the jungle, to get to Echarati. THEN, you drive another 1 1/2 to go to Palma. But, we had a reference there, and we wanted to go. The problem is, when we asked about Palma, we had two responses that we heard from different people. "Yeah, it's normal there, don't stress." and "Yeah, go if you wanna die." Terrorism.... uh... más adentro (I don't remember the English for it... sorry.) is pretty prevelent, so we were worried... but it was awesome! I loved it there. All of the people were happy to listen to our message, and the town just had such an awesome feeling. But, from what we could figure, we were the first missionaries to ever go there. So, that's cool! We're going again today to work with some of our contacts. I'll let ya'll know.

Um... Sunday, was not a happy day for me, at least in the morning. We have some problems with the leadership here not helping us, but I won't go into that, but, Sunday, we had no leaders... so... I got to preside, and direct the Sacrament Meeting! I don't wanna do it again. But, I was frustrated about that. But, I taught a lesson about the Millenium in Sunday School, and it went well, and the rest of the day was very successful, so all in all it was good haha. 

Wow, this letter is long... I'm keeping going. Sorry.

Oh! Just something interesting. I can't remember the word for it, but we were talking to a member this week, and they had a woven box thing that was shaking, so we asked what was in it. They told us to go look at it. Basically, it was like a 2 foot tall rat, and it was inside huffing and growling... so we asked what it was for, and they told us they were going to sell it was a pet. I was seriously busting up, cuz they were like, "When it's trained, it's like a puppy!" Nah. It's just a giant rat. But, it was only a baby, so they showed us its mom (who they had in the freezer cuz they were going to eat her... ughhhhhh) and it was like seriously 3 1/2 feet long. Giant pet rat. Welcome to Peru!

Um... this Monday, the power was out, but we went and had a picnic as a zone at a river, then played football, and soccer. So, I was pretty tired by the end of the day, but on yesterday, we went to Abel's in the morning to celebrate his wife's birthday. They made me hold the legs of a chicken while they killed it... I didn't like that... but later, we tried to catch their rooster to kill it... after an hour of running through the rainforest, tripping, falling, grabbing thorns, and ultimately failing, I would have been more than happy to kill the stinking thing... but, like I said. We failed, But! I am quite sore today. Haha. 
September 11, 2013

So, I just have a few more minutes. Funny things that happened this morning. While we were walking to the internet cafe, I stopped to turn around to look for something, and some little 4 foot tall abuelita (like.. little old lady..) ran into me, and then started rambling away at me in Quechua, then walked away. It was just really funny for me. Also, we got the priviledge of sitting in the front seat on our drive here today. Usually we sit in the back, but I never want to sit in the front again. This is how I imagine the driving test to become one of the drivers is.

"You are driving, and go to pass a car, and when you are side by side, another car is coming towards you in your lane. Do you:
A. Slow down and give right of way
B. Speed up
C. Never Surrender
D. Both B and C."

The correct answer is D.

Anyways. This was long. Sorry. Hope all is well back home. Love and miss you all! But, I'm doing good! President Harbertson is coming tomorrow to give us some training, so I'm excited for that! The work is moving along. Maybe not so much with our investigators right now, but I feel like the group here is really starting to strengthen, which is really good. I know this is where I need to be! Until next week! Hope to hear from you. Thanks for your support!

Elder Richman

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