Going to Lima! / Doble Dragon

A lot happened this week and sooooo much is about to happen. This week I went to the hospital in Puno because I've had insane stomach problems so they will let me know if I have an infection or not, but the good thing is I'm totally fine now, but we'll see what happens. I wasn't able to work Tuesday (shout out to Elder Hatfield for being my sick buddy while we made our companions work in Yunguyo) because my stomach was literally tearing itself apart so all I could do was just lay down it hurt so bad. I threw up that morning too, this is called the Double Dragon. I don't need to explain why its called that I hope. BUT I'm doing awesome now and we're going to Lima! 

All the new missionaries still have documents and legal stuff to fill out sooo we're going to Cusco tomorrow morning and then from there we fly to Lima. 14 hours of traveling yay!!! I don't have any stories about investigators because we barely got to work this week, we had two conferences, one was about new changes in the mission, longer P-day:) etc. Super cool conference, there weren't any gigantic changes but they were changes that I totally agreed with 100%. There's like a billion numbers that we have to fill out about our work and now there's like 4 to focus more on teaching repentance and baptizing. The other conference was Friday and it was with President Herrera. His message was the best, he told us that if you measure your success by your numbers you're doing it so wrong. You are successful if you have knowledge, work with 100% effort, have a positive attitude, and obedience. This helped me a lot because Yunguyo is definetely not the most successful place in the world, it's super hard and sometimes I don't consider myself successful, but now I'm rethinking everything and it's awesome. Super nice to have an interview with the President as well, super cool guy and I'm grateful for everything that him and his wife do. Like his wife heard I was terribly sick and bought me a bunch of healthy food:,) 

Alright so that's what happened and now here's what's going to happen...I have to pack for two weeks, I leave for Lima tomorrow morning super early with all the other newer missionaries, my companion goes to Cusco Friday to start all his stuff about going home. I come back to Puno Friday, not Yunguyo because Elder Wells and I don't have companions for the weekend because they are going home. (This is so boring sorry everyone) So I will work with Elder Wells In Puno until Monday, we will have a meeting in the morning about all the new changes anddddd I either wait for my companion OR if I train a new missionary I have to travel back to Cusco to get him. SO next Monday I will let all you guys know where I'm going, who my companion is and all that good stuff. Sorry this email was so boring I promise next week will be crazy exciting haha. Other than that we played soccer today and we finally found a pension so that's awesome because I hate cooking. I hope you all have an awesome week!!! Super excited for what's to come!! 

Count your blessings

Very humbling week. We're starting to find a lot of people to teach lately which is awesome. We saw a lady, her name is Julia, pushing her handicapped son while carrying a bunch of stuff on her back (including a baby) so we ran up to her to help her, we introduced ourselves as usual and all that good stuff and decided to help her all the way to her house. It took about an hour because she lives in the outskirts of Yunguyo where all the farms are and houses made of clay and grass. She told us that she pushes her son everyday into the city to buy the food that they need, and you have to keep in mind that we don't have that many roads here so she has to push the wheelchair through lots of dirt and mud. When we got to their house, she told us that they don't have any light for the house right now as well. It upset me like everytime she talked I was like my goodness I'm spoiled haha. But that awesome thing was is that she was sooo happy. These people are the best people to teach, all they care about is their family and being happy with what they have.

 Yah so that experience slapped me across the face with reality, which I really enjoyed, it's so nice being able to spend all my time helping these people. I don't complain about anything anymore. I eat the chicken feet like it's a double double in n out burger now ;). 

Another humbling experience- there's a man in the ward that blesses the sacrament every single Sunday, but we just found out that he lives in the straight boonies of Yunguyo, 3 hours walking distance from the church. This man wakes up at 6 every sunday to walk 3 hours to the church building to bless the sacrament and is always on time. He doesn't use transportation or anything because he doesn't have the money. Like my goodness dude I hope you get 1000000 blessings. Yah so awesome week, I'm learning a ton. This morning we went to a neighbouring town called Desaguadero, half of it is in Bolivia and the other half is in Peru. I feel like I'm serving in Bolivia I've met so many people from Bolivia and the culture is over here too haha. Hope you all have an awesome week! Enjoy the rain California! Isaiah 41:10-13 

10 ¶Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

 11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish.

 12 Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, eventhem that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought.

 13 For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.

Cow Stomach

This week flew by! Probably the fastest week so far. Happy 16th Morgan!!! Hope it's awesome! Stay away from boys. This week was very uneventful and just filled with walking a thousand miles in the rain and mud contacting with very little success but I loved it!! Yunguyo is turning super green and it's getting very pretty. Everyone is on vacation in Puno until March so when we knock doors like 1/15 are actually home so it's pretty dang hard right now we're doing the best we can. My companion goes home in 3 weeks so I'm excited to see what happens this next change. I'm really hoping to stay in Yunguyo for at least one more change, there's so much work to do here and I feel like I gotta do it all haha.

 I did have a cool experience with Elder Stevens from my group in the MTC. We were doing splits in Ilave and there is a little pueblo (town) across a bridge that has never been contacted yet so Elder Stevens and I decided we should go across and get some contacts and see what happens, we were walking along the bridge and it was so dang gorgeous cause the sun was setting and the sky was purple so Elder Stevens and I weren't talking but as we got to the end we both got the impression at the same time to stop and pray to ask what we should do because it's an unfamiliar area. After we prayed we started to walk one way but we got like 5 steps and an old lady started to talk to us. Yah she started talking to us first. That doesn't happen to two white dudes in Peru haha. She said that it's getting late and that we shouldn't be over here right now. Usually we would be like yah whatever you're crazy but we literally prayed 10 seconds before so we listened to everything she said and obeyed perfectly hahaha. So we turned around and started walking back across the bridge and I looked back and the police were coming back from the direction we were gonna go so it just gave me so much comfort that our prayer was answered somehow. We didn't ask for protection or anything crazy we just asked that we'd know what to do. I don't know what could've happened if we kept going but I knew that Heavenly Father used that kind old lady to guide us and keep us safe.

I ate cow stomach this week that was weird, we pension in an amazing restruant for lunch now and they gave me food so I just starting eating without asking my companion what it was, I thought it was like squid or something and I was actually enjoying it. After I finished I asked and the answer was gross but I already finished so that was cool haha. Always ask after you finish the food. We also played basketball with the branch which was a terrible idea I'm still not used to the atltitude, I was dying after 5 minutes and all these old dudes were destroying me it just wasn't the greatest haha. I hope you all have an awesome week!!! "En todo vivir, divertanse y rian. La vida es para disfrutar y no tan solo tolerarla."----Gordan B. Hinkley 

I'm still cold

THANK YOU MINT CANYON FOR MY PACKAGE! There's no skittles here so it was very nice to eat some haha. Also I jam out to the disney cd you guys gave me everyday so thank you so much that package made my week so much better.

 Elder Cubillas was buying something at a little shop so I decided to talk to the lady who was running it and try to contact because we're not having a lot of success lately so I just talk to everyone I can. It's a good thing because now we're teaching their entire family and they're awesome. They're so faithful and they were involved in a religion that believed in a white Christ that visited the Americas...like how easy is that to just give them a book that proves it haha. I really hope we can help them progress and hopefully have baptisms. The Grandma speaks Aimara which is hard but what's awesome is that they speak very fromal and very simple spanish which I can understand 100%. It's just a perfect family to teach so I'm loving it. 

On Friday we went on splits with the zone leaders again in Puno which was sooo much fun but so cold. I've never seen so much water in my life it rained so hard. I've also never seen 8 lightning bolts at the same time so that was new. Elder Castañeda (a zone leader) and I tried new methods of contacting that we've heard from other missionaries and surprisingly they worked insanely well. The first is when we're knocking on doors and just straight up ask the person if they want their home and their family blessed. Every single person said yes and invited us in and we said a prayer blessing the home and the family and every time the Spirit was so strong that they'd want to know more about us and our religion and what we do and boom next appointment set. The other we do because so many people just say "I'm Catholic" when we try to talk to them so we tell them right after that we have a message about the Virgen Mary and then they invite us in. We start talking about the Virgen Mary but then slowly switch and start talking about her son Jesus Christ and it works so well. We got so many new investigators for Puno this way it was crazy. 

We pension in a restaurant owned by a member's cousin now and oh my gosh what a fantastic idea. Every day we just eat the best of the best Peruvian food now so that's a blast and I'll probably get fat soon the amount of food we eat is insane. My custom scripture cases are finally finished and I'm pretty proud of my idea for them hahaha. There are some very talented people in this world. Hope you all had a good week! Pics are of Yunguyo/Lake Titicaca 

ALMA 48:17
17 Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men.

Estoy Mojado y Tengo Frió

Pretty normal week except for thousands of fireworks again on New Years. Teaching wise, it's been very difficult lately. None of our investigators are really progressing and lately it's been really hard to find anyone new to teach. At times it's frustrating but I could be planting so many seeds I have no idea. And then I also remember that my mission is fulfilling prophecy in the Book of Mormon about the descendants of the Lamanites receiving the Gospel which is super cool. (Helaman 15:11-16) 

I've been trying to learn Aymara and Quechua lately so I can talk to the older people but oh my goodness those languages are impossible, all I hear when they speak is their mouth clicking and popping it's such a strange language. The culture here is awesome though I love it. The amount of Incan inspired things is crazy. Yesterday, (new year's day) there was a giant parade and dancing in the plazas and everyone was wearing the coolest clothing. It made me want to watch the Book of Life haha. Last week we ate Calzones in Puno which was the greatest food I've eaten on my mission so far. 

It's been freezing and cold and rainy and miserable lately which also means there's never any light, but it's so much different than California so I'm enjoying it. We only have a penisonista for lunch so I found a gold mine of cereal in this little store cause no one eats cereal here. So now I'm livin it up every morning eating Spanish coco puffs with chocolate milk. 

My spanish is still improving every day, now it just depends on who's talking to me that I can understand. Some people are just plain impossible to understand cause the Peruvian way to speak spanish is just not to open your mouth I guess. Some people I can understand 100%, it just really depends on the person now. I'm cold and wet but I'm loving it here, my companion goes home in 5 weeks so he's a little trunky Elder right now but I make him work harder than he wants too. I hope I stay here a lot longer than expected because I feel like there's so much work to be done here, I just need more time. Hope you all had an awesome new years. Crazy that it's 2017 already. I've heard this awesome quote many times on my mission- "I'm away from my family for 2 years so that others can be with theirs for eternity" 2017 will be the longest year of my mission and I'm sure it'll be awesome, love you all and have a good week! Proverbs 3:5-6