All About Peru

Hola familia!

This week has been a crazy one! I´ll try to get it all in one email. On Monday I flew with my MTC district overnight to Peru, I talked to my first Peruvian person on the flight down and I was surprised that I could actually hold a conversation kind of! Luckily the guy was really nice and helped me out whenever I was struggling. We got to Peru around 7 in the morning and immediately went to the mission offices where we met President and Sister Godfrey. If you saw the photo they sent of me with them, President Godfrey is not very tall, and neither are many Peruvians, I´m pretty huge in Peruvian terms. We then met our companions, my companion´s name is Elder Mendoza, he is from Trujilo Peru and is a recent convert to the church. He celebrated 2 years being baptized in the church recently, he is 26 years old. None of his family are members but they all support him serving a mission. He also understands limited English, which means that I am in Espanol todo dia cada dia. It´s been hard, the first days I could not understand Peruvian Spanish. But little by little I´m starting to understand and communicate more with my companion and with members. The gift of Tongues is definitely a real thing, I could not speak this language were it not for the Lord´s hand in my life everyday.

A little about Lima, Lima is really dusty, it like never rains here so all the streets are really dusty and if there is something green growing, it is usually because someone is taking care of it. Also the traffic here is crazy. There are a lot of taxis, a lot of mototaxis, which are basically motorcycles converted into three-wheelers so they can carry people, and buses. To get any distance in Lima, you have to use one of the three usually, I have used all three and man it´s scary. Also I didn´t get a chance to take photos this week but I will try for next week. The food here is delicious - we ate at a members house for the first time this week and she fed us rice, french fries (papas fritas) and meat, I also ate duck this week which tasted not bad actually. Our area is also the smallest in the mission, and super flat! I was expecting mountains everyday, but my companion says I´m gonna get them later in the mission.

We´ve been visiting a lot of members this week, the people here are super kind, they´ve welcomed us into their home and helped us find references and people to teach. I´ve had a chance to meet members who have some incredible stories.

Another crazy thing is that we were walking to the chapel for Priesthood session of conference and a member pulled up and offered us a ride. Turns out he is a seventy! I forget his name but that was pretty cool!

The highlight of this week was definitely General Conference. I listened to all the sessions except Priesthood in Spanish, I did not understand all of it but I did get quite a bit. Our zone went to the chapel to watch. I really liked Elder Hollands talk from Saturday morning I think and President Uchtdorf´s talk from Priesthood session about light. The opportunity to hear living prophets and apostles speak is such a blessing, I was sad to hear of Elder Hales passing. If you didn´t get the chance to hear a session of General Conference, I invite you to read them in the Ensign (or Liahona) next month. Yo se que los palabras del profetas y apóstoles vivientes puede traer paz y gozo en nuestras vidas, ellos son testigos de Dios. 

I love you guys!

Also -- Our zone is Comas and our ward is San Augustin

(Side note from Janine -- I stalked Sam on Google Maps -- here's what I found)

Sam's church is down this street (street view doesn't go down here)

Sam lives in one of these buildings to the left