Elder Mason Shoaf: 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!