MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Today is Christmas Eve and I'm not gonna lie, it feels nothing like Christmas down here in Peru, haha. The only thing that is different is everyone waits until midnight and then everyone shoots off a ton of fireworks and then after that everyone opens their presents and has a huge party and gets drunk, haha. I hope that everyone back home has a very Merry Christmas tomorrow. I heard that the firework show puts the fourth of July to shame. That is what Elder Topham told me, so I'm pretty excited for tonight. 

Well the highlight of this past week was the 3 baptisms of a family of Venezuelans that we had: Hendry, Noenis, and Valeria. It was incredible. After the Christmas thing half of the ward went and we all crammed in the baptismal room, about 50 of us, and had the baptism. It was awesome! 

Last week Elder Topham and I found Enieda who is from Venezuela and Gladys. Our other investigator is Elizabeth and they all have dates for January so that's dope. 

I just want to express how grateful I am for my Savior Jesus Christ and how He is changing my life. Nothing else. He is changing me into a man of God and I can't give enough thanks to Him. Well I hope everyone enjoys the holidays and all. Merry Christmas!

Surquillo

Hope Everyone at home is doing well and enjoying Christmas time. 

This past week was pretty chill. My new area is Surquillo, and it is just weird. The zone leaders were in Surco but they moved areas to Surquillo to help them out because there hasn't been a baptism there for awhile. There are weird people, weird dogs, weird stores and just weird everything. We also have part of Miraflores in our area and this part looks like the states and feels like the states, but we do most of our contacting in Surquillo. 

The first day there was this Peruvian, handicapped man that ran up to me and was trying to steal my backpack and my water bottle and then he just started hugging me and he wouldn't stop. Another day we found this dude that was drunk out of his mind and he kept telling me that he knew 5 different languages and he was trying to teach us about the Holy Ghost. He followed us around for like an hour, and he would just talk to everyone that passed him, haha. It was pretty fun. We finally lost him until we were taking the bus home and he somehow got on the same bus as us. He was mad at us because we told him we had to leave him because we had a lesson, but he told us that we were lying and then told us how we needed to go to Rome and preach the gospel there, haha. Hopefully we don't find him there. 

Last Wednesday was the mission Christmas activity and we all went to Chosica which is the green part of the mission. We played a bunch of games and then some soccer and other sports. We all got these really cool floral ties with a picture of President Amato and his wife on the back. It was A GREAT DAY. 

Christmas Activity in Chosica

Well Elder Topham is my new comp and he's pretty great. He's really funny and man he's a dang good zone leader. He's teaching me how to be a great zone leader and I am grateful for him as my companion. 

Elder Topham

I just want to say that I am super grateful to be out here serving the Lord. There is no other place I would rather be right now in my life. Yeah a lot of days are tough but those days I just remember how there are people that honestly have a harder life than me and whose situation is probably a lot worse than mine. I have also found that when I can turn my self over to the Lord and do as He did and act as He did, that's when I really enjoy the work. I want people to be as happy as I am, and I want to spread this happiness to them. 

I hope everyone has a great week.

Emergency Transfers Part II

Well this past week had its ups and downs. 

Ma rugby ball :)

Last P-day we went to the stake center and Elder Gonzalez made some Mexican tacos that were super good and we balled up. 

Last Thursday I went on splits with our zone leader, Elder Giles, in our area. We tried a new way of contacting where we talked more about Jesus with the people instead of just inviting them to the church, and boy it sure worked. We found 5 new people, so we now have 8 people with dates. There were some lessons that he took out with people that he shouldn't have and I have no idea why he did, haha; probably because he goes home in a week and he wanted to help us find people. 

But anyways, we had the baptism for Emilio this week. So we are at the church building filling up the font and Elder Pierce and Elder Gonzalez were getting the clothes and buying the cake.......... and then I get the call. Emilio told us that he had talked to his dad and that his dad said it was best to have his baptism with all of his family present and that he needed to respect the word of his dad. The thing is his family is in Venezuela and his dad is in Ecuador. We were pretty let down and sad. 

Nefi

We are going to have the baptism of Olga this Saturday so that should be good. 

GINO

So on Saturday morning, Elder Pierce and I were getting ready for the day and then the assistants start calling us and Elder Madruga says, "Hey I've got some news for you guys. Put me on speaker."  I thought to myself, oh they have the marriage papers for the Venezuelans ready, and I told him that Elder Pierce was showering. He then says, "You're going to be a zone leader in Surco and and Elder Pierce is going to train a new missionary in Surco as well." I was totally shocked and I was like, "What?" The funny thing was that Elder Pierce would always joke around about going to Surco to train because Surco is one of the nicest areas in the mission and it's like the states kind of. 

Surco

So I said, "Elder Pierce you're going to Surco." And he's like, "Bro no way, stop teasing me." and I say, "No really, you're gonna train too!" And he wouldn't believe me. It was pretty funny.  So after writing today, Elder Pierce and I are leaving so that's crazy. I am going to be with Elder Topham from Oklahoma. I know him a little bit and he has red hair, so two, red headed zone leaders, haha. Hope you all have a great week!

Omar would go contacting with us all the time.

Blur

I don't really remember what happened last week; it all went by super fast. 

Well for p-day... our ward mission leader Alejandro, who acts like a teenage boy, lol, is going to Mexico for his mission. We got permission from President Amato to go to Surco, the rich part of our area, to eat at this Mexican Restaurant, Tacon Madres and flip it was good! Elder Gonzalez is from Mexico as well, so he was freaking out when we went.  I got this chimichanga that was so good. 

Tacon Madres con Un Mexicano

Last Tuesday was Gino's birthday so we had a family night with him and his mom. We bought a huge 3 leches cake and went got pizza. 

On Thursday we had a branch activity and we watched Ephraim's Rescue. It was nice to watch that movie here in the mission. So the thing is, doing activities down here is a little difficult. A lot of the times the missionaries are the ones that have to do everything and set everything up and yeah, it's a little frustrating. So in the branch council yesterday, we had a good talk with everyone about how everybody needs to help us and we shouldn't be doing it all on our own. Hopefully we can start changing things. 

Yesterday we were able to get Gino's mom, Olga, to Sacrament Meeting, so she has 2 attendances. We are going to have her baptism on the 15th of this month. Miguel found new work and he is working on Sundays now. He was already struggling with keeping his commitments so this makes it worse. The thing is, his spouse Michele always keeps her commitments and comes to church. We are going to work something out so that we can baptize them both, haha. We are still waiting for their papers so we'll see what happens. 

Un Perro Muerto

Emilio didn't come yesterday because he was sick but he already has 3 attendances and he always does his stuff. Our goal is to have his baptism this week on Saturday, so pray that we can baptize him this week! 

We also had a reference from a member, named Sheyla. We had a lesson with her and she accepted to be baptized for the 29th. We still need to get the baptismal permission from her parents so we're going to work on that this week. 

Full size chancho

On Saturday we had this service project for the World Christmas Day of Service and there were so many mosquitos. It was insane and my legs got destroyed, holy cow. I have never been bitten so bad in my life. I just hope I don't get some disease form the weird Peruvian mosquitos, lol. Hope y'all have a good week! 

Servicio

Elder Shockley