AND EVERYBODY KNOWS....

Aaaand we're back! Hope y’all have had a good week! Here's what things have looked like in another week in Peru...

Monday

For our first P-day with the new district, we all got together and played soccer with each other and some of our other friends. It was a lot of fun, but oh my gosh, I suck at soccer. I can confidently hold my own in any sport besides soccer—I'm the worst at it. It was still a lot of fun, and the new people in our district are awesome, so it's going to be a lot of fun with them. After playing for a bit, we went to lunch together, and then it was just a regular P-day filled with emails and calling home.

Tuesday

We had "Zone Conference" in the morning, and the reason I put it in quotes is because it was nothing like last time. It was online, only with our zone, the President wasn’t even there, and it was about 5 hours shorter (which I wasn't complaining about). There was probably something important that I got out of it, but I don't really remember. After that, it was just another regular day of work.

Wednesday

In the morning, we woke up and headed over to the ZL's area because we had exchanges, and I got paired up with Elder Cuela. Physically, we were exact opposites. He's brown—I'm white. I'm 6'4"—he's 5'3". I've got the voice of Morgan Freeman—he's got the voice of Mickey Mouse. Also, half of the day, he, his companion, and even Elder Wilkens all had a two-and-a-half-hour Zoom meeting with the President because they’re all leaders in some way. I was the only one left out! During that time, Elder Cuela had me create a Book of Mormon that had my testimony written in it, and also it had scriptures written down and marked about faith, repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost. I was really proud of it, actually. When we went to work, I ended up giving it to someone we were teaching! Only thing was that he couldn't read, but when Elder Cuela had me give it away, I didn't know how to remind him of that. Later that night, we went to visit with some members, and at that point, my energy level was drained, so I was kind of zoned out and playing with their kid while trying to look like I understood what was happening. Well, we ended up giving that kid a blessing, so I just went with it. But when we sat back down, Elder Cuela asked me if I could dedicate the house! I was so shocked. I said the prayer the best I could in Spanish, but I was just not expecting to be asked that.

Thursday

It always takes us forever to leave the house on Thursdays, so we were mostly working at night. We had a lesson with this girl we have on date named Rocio, who’s really cool, but she just needs to get to church. Then we got a call from someone we found a couple of weeks ago, so we met him on the street. Well, he followed us around for about over an hour, yapping about who knows what in Spanish, and whenever we tried to talk to teach him something, he'd just yap some more. It got to the point where I just zoned out to my happy place, nodding my head and smiling every time we caught eyes.

Friday

We had a lesson with this lady named Marilou, who we had met with before and thought had a lot of potential, and in this lesson, we put her on date! After that, we headed over to the hidden part of our area, and this was only my second time going. We found so many cool people there! I don't know why that place is so exciting, but I just want to knock on every door and talk about Jesus with them all. Then we had a lesson with this bro named Gino, who we had met with last time we were over there. He and his mom are so nice to us! The lesson went really well, and after, they offered to give us food. We sat and talked with him for a while and learned just how cool of a dude he is. Unfortunately, he's planning on pulling an Irish goodbye in two weeks and moving to Italy without telling anyone he knows! I don't know why he told us, but the point is that we probably can't baptize him, which is sad.

Saturday

Unfortunately, we got ghosted again, so things were pretty slow. We did have a lesson with Amparo, who we have on date, but she hasn't come to church yet, so we don't know what to do with her. We also had a lesson with Andre, a 10-year-old recent convert. After the lesson, we asked if they had any questions, and he asked us if it's really true that angels in the Bible have a million eyes. What's funny is that this isn’t the first time he’s brought this up. One time his mom asked why women couldn't have the priesthood, and before we could answer, Andre said, "Well, I heard that if an angel has one eye, then it's a good angel." That has been an inside joke that Elder Wilkens and I have hung onto. Just at random times, we yell, "AND EVERYBODY KNOWS that if it has ONE EYE, then it's a good angel." We also almost got hit by a car! We were crossing the street, and our view was blocked, but this car was coming at us full speed in reverse. We would've gotten hit, but someone called out to us, saying, "Elders!" We couldn't even see where they were or who said it. I'd like to think a one-eyed angel saved our lives that day.

TLDR: Accidentally dedicated a house, explored more of our hidden area, got saved by a one-eyed angel.

Spiritual Thought: This week I've been reading about King Benjamin, and his chapters in the Book of Mormon are so good! I love his humility, and we truly are in debt for everything with God. Sharing more gratitude is something I've been working on.

Thanks for tuning in! Love y’all, and I hope you have a good week!

-Elder Mitchell IV

Photos (sorry, you only get 2):

Marilou's baptismal date

Hidden area