Cambios, bearded fish and aji charapita

Hola Familia y Amigos!

A lot has happened this week. We had cambios [transfers] and I am training!  Woot Woot!  My new comp is from El Salvador and she is super cute; she´s 19. She already has 6 weeks in the mission field so I am just finishing up her training. She didn´t get her Visa in time to come here right after the CCM so she started her mission in El Salvador. She is super hard to understand at times because her accent is really different. She is really patient with me; which is great.

They cut my area in half and brought in 2 more sisters. We were in the CCM together but they were in the other white people district. They don´t speak a ton of Spanish but enough to get by; just like me. At times it is really funny to think that last week I was being trained and this week I am training. The other sisters need a lot of help too because I know their area and they don´t. I love helping everybody. The only sad part is we are out of people to baptize.

This month we had 4 baptisms and a wedding and now I get to find new people! We have 5 investigators that we are teaching right now. Hopefully we will get a baptism date this week. There are a ton of prepared people in this area.

Also I went house shopping for the new sisters. We found them a house and all their stuff is in it. They have beds and everything but they are missing mattresses. Right now they are sleeping in my house. It’s fun to have slumber parties. We speak mostly in Spanish because my comp doesn’t speak any English… at all.

How was Thanksgiving? [Haley is confused] Eat lots of food? Here we had a meeting and I got banana bread. That was pretty cool!  

Also this week we got caught in 2 freak rain storms. We were soaked to the bone in less than 2 minutes. Luckily we were headed home both times so we got to change really fast.

This week I ate a fish. I don’t remember what it was called but it lives in the Amazon River and it has a beard. It was almost like a catfish. It had its head still on and all of its fins. My comp couldn’t eat it but I thought it was delish. 

Peruvian Chili

I also ate aji charapita. It’s a tiny pepper. I normally crush it up into whatever I am eating and it’s just fine. This time I ate the pepper. I just about died. My face was red and I was crying and my throat was on fire. I took a drink of chichi-which is a drink made of corn-and that just made it worse. Then I ate a ¼ cup of sugar. That killed the flames but there was a lingering burn all day. I am sooo going to bring these little guys home. They have a good flavor when you crush them in your food. They should put a warning on those babies.  After I ate it I felt like a deserved a “Here’s your sign” award.  Also ate tacacho this week. It’s a ball of grilled banana and bacon. It’s really good. They are pretty big and my comp ate 4. I thought she was going to die. She could hardly walk after because she was so full. I thought it was very funny…she did not.

Lots of love!

Drama in the Amazon

(Note from dad:  I try not to edit Haley’s posts too much, but you can tell her Spanish is getting better…because her English is getting worse.)

The mission is great. We are having so much success right now. Crazy story!

Stock photo of a motokar

We have an investigator named Gressy. She had a date for yesterday to get baptized and she was going to get married on Saturday. Friday night we had a Joseph Smith night and watched the hour long movie (really cool in Spanish).  While we were in the church, her fiancé’s little brother came in to play soccer. He left the motokar outside the church. Ten minutes playing and the motokar got stolen. It was a huge source of income for the family and they don´t have much.

Saturday, we went to make sure that they were still going to have a wedding and to make sure Henry (the little brother) was OK. We got there and everybody was getting ready for the wedding and making jokes about the stolen motokar. We were helping with the cake when the robbers showed up asking for ransom.

We left.

The family didn´t have the money for the ransom so they don´t have transportation or 1/2 their income. When they got to the church for the wedding they were so happy and excited. The only problem was, we didn´t have a judge. We called and called and called but nobody answered. Finally, we get a hold of Hna Inez, the lady who helps with weddings.  It turns out that the mother of the judge died 20 minutes before the wedding and he wasn´t going to come. They were sending another judge. Two hours after the wedding was supposed to start a judge came. He was a little tipsy.

After all of that, they were finally married and we got super cute pictures. 

Sunday morning and we have 2 baptisms scheduled; one for Gressy and the other for our golden Graciela. Graciela showed up 40 minutes late and the ward mission leader didn´t have white pants. We ran all over town looking for Elders with white pants. Finally found them and then go back to the church. Sacrament is starting in 20 minutes and we are still waiting to start the baptism. We get everybody ready and realize that Gressy isn´t there. SHE DIDN’T SHOW UP! We are all sorts of upset and after church we go to find Gressy. Turns out that she had a C section when her baby was born but they didn´t do a great job of making sure everything was in the right order and she wore heels at her wedding; the poor girl couldn´t even stand. Her date got moved to this Saturday.  

Crazy right? Wow! This week coming up is going to be nuts too. Pray for us.

Getting harder to translate

Helping fix a house that was damaged in a storm.

The rainy season started early this year so it rains every day. Usually not for very long; but it rained for 6 hours yesterday. It’s really nice when it’s cloudy because it’s not so hot; when the sun is out it is murder. So grateful we have a fan.  It’s gonna be a beast for our lessons in the river.

Cool thing! I taught a lesson on the river the other day. In a floating house!

I have a lot of mosquito bites which is not cool. I decided I’m going to play connect the dots with itch cream. I got vitamins from Hna Gomez so I´m getting all the nutrients I need. I have a cold but it’s not bad. Hna Orellana tells me I have a cold because I sleep with the fan on. I told her it’s because I can’t sleep in the buff. I had to explain with sleeping in the buff was. Awkward...

My comp speaks pretty good English. She has been watching Friends since she was 5. It’s not translated, but they have Spanish subtitles. Eventually, she got to the point where she didn’t have to read the subtitles any more. Chevre no? [I can’t find a translation for that?!?] Right now we speak a little more English because we are prepping her for her English test. All the Latin missionaries get to take a test to get into BYU. I think that she will pass. I asked her why she never spoke in English before now and she told me that she didn’t want to ruin my Spanish and sometimes I talk too fast.

About my visa…I have no idea my status. I don’t have a visa but I haven’t had to go back to Lima yet. All the older missionaries have a Peruvian ID that they have to carry with them. I don’t have that yet.

My new comp will get here on the 20th. I don’t know who she will be but she will finish my training. As soon as my training is finished I will train somebody else. This transfer on the 20th there will be 6 new Latinas and 2 new Americans. This will continue until we get a temple in Iquitos. The church owns some land here and depending on whether or not we can get priesthood and tithing we will get a temple or a church building. No se.

I ate alligator!!  SO good.

Guess what! Mariela accepted a date! She is getting baptized on the 16th. This week we have 2 baptisms. One of the women has been going to church for 4 years but has never taken the discussions. She is from Lima but her daughter is having a baby so she is staying here to help out. We were eating dinner at her sister’s house and we felt impressed to talk to her. She told us she wanted to be baptized. She has 2 lessons but she is so ready for baptism.

Our other investigator we have been teaching the whole time I’ve been here. She and her boyfriend are getting married this week and then she is getting baptized.