Week 37 -- First Week Training

Well yet another week flown by here in Urcos and being a missionary!! Cant believe it!! But this week was super awesome with starting the training of a new missionary and help him understand the importance of the mission and the details of each thing. So my companion or (mi hijo) my son, as they say here in the mission when you train is Elder Palacios! Here is a super cool guy and really willing to get things done. He is from Bolivia Santa Cruz, and it is just an awesome time showing him Urcos and the mission life. But we are having a great time already, I really enjoy getting out to work with him and it is great.....just trying to help the good ole branch of Urcos each and every day with the help of my companion.

So that was the fun part of the week, to receive my new companion and get to work in Urcos again haha. Also this week, a member of the branch passed away and he was a member from about 2 years ago.....but he was old....like 88 years old. So we attended his viewing and his funeral to help support the family of the members and the family of this brother are members too. So we spent the day doing that....it was sad, but we know that he is in a better place waiting for his family in the future. So it was a different experience with the funeral than normal.....because here in Peru they do it different. Basically they take the casquet? I dont remember how to spell that. But they take the body by hand or on shoulders and have  abig parade to the cemetery. Kinda like the cars in the states when we go to the cemetery. But we did our best to support the family and support the branch in all we could do. So not much else happened, just super excited to see what is next for Elder Palacios and I, so we will see what we can accomplish this week!!! Well until next week!!

My kid, my son, mi hijo Elder Palacios and me

Views right above Urcos

I wanted to take a picture with some dancer guys for some festivals that are going on right now for the Señor de Ccoyollritty! (Catholic saint thing)

Me saying goodbye to Elder Damazo.

Also got to see my daddy Elder Martinez and my other companion Elder Quispe in the terminal

Week 36 -- Getting a Greenie!

Well, this week was kinda crazy and it was very hard in the same time.....but today are transfers!!! And it looks like I am going to stay in Urcos for awhile longer!! But my companion Elder Damazo is leaving the area after only just 1 change together. But he is going to Puno, and he is kinda happy and sad, he doesn't want to leave the area. But one more thing......I am training! So I will receive a new companion that is starting the mission, and I don't know who it is yet but Wednesday I will know. So right now, I am a little confused and not sure what I will do, to have a newbie as a companion. He might be a Latino or Gringo, but we will see! I will let you all know next week!

But this last week of the change had a lot of complications in it, and it was really hard for me to work with my companion at the beginning of the week. So this is what happened, my companion was getting very angry at me and we had some problems here for awhile. So I had to call our Mission President because it was getting that bad, I am not going to tell the details, because all is better now. So we had to talk to President and get things fixed, and we did, we worked really hard at the end of the week and got a lot of things done. So this week it really tested my patience and trying to work with a companion that maybe we don't get along. But don't worry everyone, we are moving along now, and now we are joking around a lot and are having a great time together.

And not much really happened, just working hard in Urcos, and now I will be here for at least 2 more transfers. I really wanted to stay for awhile longer, and now I can see what we can do more to help the branch here and get more progress. And other really awesome news!! The family from Lucre, ALL ATTENDED church yesterday and they loved it!! So we are super excited to see what we can do this week and see them progress toward baptism soon!! So just moving along here in Urcos, lots of changes, but should be awesome in the weeks to come! Until next week!!
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Sorry everyone. My adapter for my SD card isn't working for some reason, so I will send all my pictures next week to you guys....so don't worry. I will have lots of new pictures next week too. So sorry again, hope you all enjoy my update for the week and have a great week everyone!!

Week 35 -- Mother's Day Skype

Hey everyone, not too long after I got to talk to most of you guys in Skype yesterday!! haha It was awesome to see all of you guys and see how things are going, and I am missing home like crazy, just know that I miss you guys. The kids have grown up so much already, and seems like life is just rolling on while Im here. But things are going good here, we are entering into week 6 of the transfer and we have no idea what will happen with Urcos. But we are going to work hard this week and see what we can accomplish this week.

Not much really happened this week besides Skyping with you guys and just working as usual, I honestly was just wanting to skype all week and shouldve been more focused during the week. But also that I got SUPER sick this week, and it sucked. It was the worst that I have been in  years, and I just felt horrible. So we were going from Urcos to Cusco for a meeting and out of nowhere, I started to puke like crazy. I got sick on the bus like 4 times, so yeah not fun on a bus either if you were wondering. Then I bought medicine and that came up too after a second, and I just felt horrible for like 3 days. I didnt have much strength to do things, and I just slept most of the day honestly because I felt so bad. But they think that it was food that I ate, some kind of cheese maybe or something wasnt washed right.......but it doesnt matter, I am better now and things are good.

And not much else happened besides getting sick and working after, and just continuing to work. We still dont have any progress with that family in Lucre yet but we will see what happens again this week. No one else is really progressing, but Week 6 we hope will make a change and we will see more time here in Urcos to help out the members and everyone. Well, until Christmas to skype again, but next week for email!!

Week 34

Hey everyone....wow another week. It just seemed like I emailed, but hey not complaining. But this week was an interesting week, full of things to do, but oddly enough I wasn't in Urcos almost all week. But we tried to work a lot, but we had a lot of things to do outside of the city itself of Urcos this week.

But I got to work in Cusco for companion exchanges, and work with Elder Nielson, who is a pretty cool guy. He works super hard and we had a great time just chatting and getting to know each other more. He is from California and has a little more time than I do here, but he is excellent at teaching, and I learned a lot from him. Really on how to focus on what people say and just be yourself with all the people here. Also we had a Multi Zone Conference and it is always fun to go to those and see old friends, Elders and Sisters that I have gotten to know during my time here. I got to see Elder Quispe and Elder Martinez, they are just great.....always joking around with me though. But this conference was different, with President basically just burning us on the problems of the mission, So we got a lot of "direct" talk from him to help us really see why we are here, and maybe that our purpose in the mission has changed, and to be adults in all the things we do. So needless to say, it was good to get a lot of stuff to improve on, but we all felt so bad because we were getting burned so bad. haha

Also this week, we went to Lucre to work in the little pueblo there on Thursday. Sadly that family we wanted to teach wasn't there, but ended up only for a short FHE. We don't know what is going on, but we are definitely going to teach them this week and help them change all the things they want to do for the Lord. After, we just stayed there for the branch activity in Lucre. Turned out fairly well with 40 or so people there, but we enjoyed the company of investigators, friends, and many members. Just hanging out and eating fried fish, potatoes, and other delicious Peruvian food. And the funny thing is that we played volleyball and no one wanted to play against me. And everyone wanted to be on my team, it was kinda funny, just because everyone here is so short and I am almost double some of the members here haha. But it was fun, enjoying our time with the branch. And to finish the week, we started to give local English classes, and no one really showed up this week but we are going to post a bunch of flyers in town and hope to see more next week. But it should be fun helping the Latinos learn English....ahah

So basically, I wasn't in Urcos all week, I literally didn't sleep in my own bed all week only Saturday, Sunday, and today.....I missed my bed. But everything was fun, Elder Damazo and I are still working through things, trying to help the branch and really see progress here in Urcos!! Well talk to you guys from the family Sunday!!! See ya!

Elder Damazo and I climbed a hill near our Branch President's house. The views here are amazing.

I'm wearing a sun hat. So what?

At the branch activity in Lucre playing volleyball.

Our pensionista's daughter eating green noodles.

The graffiti says "Don't throw trash, penalty of massacre."

We found some frogs.

Week 33

Whooh.....another week down in the good ole sector of Urcos!! haha But it is going well with everything and things are picking up in a sense. Still cant believe how fast the time is going here and how much time I have here in Peru! Almost 8 months now. Wow! But this week, Elder Damazo and I are trying to work a lot on our companionship, we aren't always in agreement with things but he and I are working stuff out to really help our area. Also this week we are focusing a lot on the members of the branch, having Family Home Evenings with many families, and always passing by the families to visit them. So we are trying to do that to really fortify the members here. Our investigators are few and far between but this week we found an amazing family. So basically what happened is that we go to a pueblo with our President of the Branch and he gave us a reference of a family that is soooo ready to hear the Gospel. They told us that they sought advice from our branch president and are willing to change everything in their lives for Christ. And that is exactly what we want to do and help them, so we are hoping for the best.

Also this week, I cut my hair and am trying to do something different than just a buzz every 4 weeks.. So pictures to come. And today Elder Damazo and I are visiting Sicuani and we are going to visit all the members and people here that I worked with in the past. So I am super excited to see people after awhile in Urcos. But everything else is going well, just working hard and doing all I can to help the area, our companionship, and also myself in particular.

Also Mothers Day is in 2 weeks May 10!!! So I can skype you guys and I am super excited to talk to all of you guys and see how things are going. I almost forgot until yesterday someone said, yeah Mothers Day is in 2 weeks and then it clicked in my head. So I am super excited.....let me know when all of you guys can do it and where so I can plan ahead here! Well, until next week!!!

A painting in Urcos

Oops! I ate the Kraps!

Never will I forget the tie that Todd gave me...haha. Never will I trade it!!

I'm trying out something new with my hair. We'll see how it goes.