Ghosted

Que tal amigos y familia! It's been a pretty basic week, so we're just gonna get right into things.

Monday

We had to wake up early and head to the airport so I could finally get my bag that's been lost for a month. We thought it'd be a long wait, but we basically just walked right in and grabbed it. Elder and Hermana Black were the senior missionaries that were helping us, and after I got my bag, they bought us lunch, and I got to eat a real American hamburger. It was a really good morning. When we got back, we went to the Peruvian version of Walmart to grab groceries for the week but also stuff to celebrate Elder Wilken's one-year mark that was coming up. After that, it was a very chill P-day talking to a lot of family and taking a lot of naps.

Wednesday

We had to wake up early because I had a training meeting that I needed to go to with President and the APs. This time I kind of knew what to expect—the message will be good, but it's going to be really long, and I won't understand most of it. And it definitely met my expectations. I got a lot out of it, but I'm still working on my testimony about 7-hour long meetings. After the meeting, we got back and started working again. We had a lesson with this guy that I found on an exchange named Enrique, and he is super cool! His sister is living in the States and has actually met with the missionaries, so Enrique knows who we are and was very interested to talk with us. The lesson went super well too, and so I think he has a lot of potential. After that lesson, me and Elder Wilkens went to buy the last couple things we wanted because it was his one-year mark, and so we were gonna party. We got back to the house and started to make no-bake cookies, except Peruvians don't believe in measuring tools, so we accidentally almost used a mountain of sugar. Thankfully, we're not dumb, and the cookies actually turned out super good. Along with the cookies, we had pizza, soda, cake, ice cream, and six bags of Takis. It was phenomenal. For as long as we could, we just partied and then ended the night by watching half of Meet the Mormons before we had to go to bed.

Thursday

It was another very basic day. Every Thursday, we have some meetings in the morning and also have to do weekly planning, so it usually takes a while to get out of the house. It was just another day of finding people and seeing if any of our lessons that we made last week would actually happen. In all honesty, most of them don't, but that's just kind of how it is. We're trying to give everyone we found last week a couple tries before we feel like we need to drop them. Anyway, towards the end of the night, we were just walking until this guy was yelling at us from across the street to come over to him. He is actually someone we dropped a couple weeks ago named Dennis. I didn't know what was going on, but he led us over to this taxi where his mom came out with some other friends and family, and there was obviously something up with her. We got led to their house, and Dennis was yapping about how we share messages about the Gospel and that the mom needed to listen to us so that she could be blessed. He went on for like ten minutes explaining that before we finally had the opportunity to talk for ourselves. The entire time, the mom was just so out of it, and I had no idea what was up with her. Elder Wilkens explained that we could offer her a priesthood blessing, and she said that's what she wanted. We gave her the blessing and then taught her a quick lesson, and it was honestly so cool because as we were teaching the lesson, she already seemed to be more awake and better. Anyway, we'll be trying to meet with them again, but the whole thing was just kind of crazy.

Friday

We had a lot of meetings in the morning, so once again we didn't start working until pretty late. Nothing super notable except we had like three different run-ins with some non-friendly dogs. One of them—I just walked past this corner, and this giant dog was already running full speed towards me, chasing after something. I didn't see it coming, and it just ran right in between my legs, but oh my gosh, I thought I was gonna die. That dog could've easily knocked me down with how fast it was going, and luckily it was focused on something else because he didn't look super friendly either.

Saturday

Unfortunately, the weekend was pretty slow. Our six-hour day was booked with lessons and backup lessons for the entire day, but not one of them happened! It was honestly so brutal, and me and Elder Wilkens were losing motivation having literally no one answer their door for six hours. Even the stores that we teach at were all closed when we went to them. Also, I convinced Elder Wilkens that we should buy ingredients for no-bake cookies again because the last ones we had were so good.

Sunday

I wish I could say that Sunday was any different. I don't know what we're doing wrong, but no one decided to come to church, no one answered their phones, and no one answered their doors. Maybe it was good that people coming to church wasn't so bad because I had to give a talk in Spanish. The day before, I just wrote down word for word what I was gonna say and then just gave my testimony. It was only five minutes, so it was actually pretty easy, and I'd say I probably gave a solid deacon-level talk in Spanish, so I'll take it. Once we got to work, we just passed time by asking each other questions and hoping that people would answer their door. We found some pretty cool people during the day, but it was tough not having an actual lesson. Well, we drowned our sorrows by making a double batch of our cookies, so it wasn't all bad. By next week, we'll have a lot of good lessons.

TL;DR: A lot of meetings, huge party for Wilken's one year, and we got ghosted by literally everybody.

Spiritual thought: My topic for my talk was on the power of prayer, and the scripture I shared was 3 Nephi 14:7-8. What I like about it is that Heavenly Father already knows what our needs and wants are, but this scripture explains that we need to exercise our faith by asking and seeking for answers rather than just sitting and hoping for them to come.

Anyways, I hope you all have a good week. Thanks for all the support on the other side. Recuerden que Dios les ama muchísimo! Peace out.

Elder Mitchell IV

Photos:

Some of our food from our party

Dinner with members

Kings

No-bake cookies