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NATHAN BOREN'S BIRTHDAY TODAY RAAAAAAWWWWWW🔥🔥🔥💯💯

Sorry, just had to give that shout out before starting the email. Anyways, this week has been good, so let's get into it...

Monday

Started off the week with the usual Pday shenanigans. We paid for the soccer field, but when we pulled up to play, all who were there were the other Elders and the 14-year-old son of our penchanista. Thankfully, people started to slowly trickle in, but for the first little bit, it was pretty awkward. Elder Baldeon wanted to eat lunch at another Menù in our area instead of our usual spot, but we all vetoed him and went to El Olivar because it's tradition. Rest of Pday was talking to fam until getting back to work again. We spent the rest of the night at our Patriarch’s house, and we were there for like 2 hours while he was just sitting out prophesies or something. I don’t know why, but when I was there, my mind was gone. I was zoned out so hard I think I had an out-of-body experience, but nonetheless, it was cool to talk with him.

Tuesday

This morning we had district council, which was decent. The best part of it was when we all decided to go to Plazavea and grab ice cream because we ended with a lot of extra time. Unfortunately, my ice cream spilled, but that's OK, I only cried a little bit. Elder Baldeon was supposed to have his big 3-hour meeting today, but it got pushed back, and so we ended up just grinding Spanish. I feel like I’ve been already learning a lot more Spanish this transfer, which has been really good for me. We also got distracted and decided to arm wrestle. We arm-wrestled 3 different times and I won all 3! That’s usually not normal for me, so I felt good about that. The most notable lesson from today was with Monica. We moved her baptismal date to next month, which is a little scary, but I still think she'll get baptized nonetheless.

Wednesday

It took us forever to leave the house today because Elder Baldeon had his 3-hour meeting. Well, thankfully, it got cut down to 2 hours, but it was still hecka long. I just spent the time studying Spanish. Well, when his meeting ended, I found myself with my head on my desk and asleep. Not sure how that happened. We got to work and visited our recent convert John, who’s doing well. There’s still some things we need to go over with him again, but he's still awesome. Next, we had this guy named Felix and his family. They’re so cool and very interested in having us over, so I’m excited to see if they go anywhere in the future. After that was Luis, a 16-year-old kid who's trying to read the Bible. We try and teach our lessons with him, but it always turns into a Bible discussion. It’s honestly impressive how diligent he is at reading it. Maybe we can slide in a BOM to his reading studies too.

Thursday

Every Thursday we have weekly planning, which I absolutely despise. I feel like it takes too long, and usually, by the end of the week, we find out that it’s not effective. I feel like we'd be more productive if we cut it shorter and just spent the rest of the time actually leaving the house. Well, I think it made Elder Baldeon upset that I wasn't really helping him, so I had to swallow a bit of my pride and lock in a little bit. After, we went to visit this family whose mom is inactive, but her 13- and 10-year-old sons, named Jared and Caleb, are very interested. Unfortunately, they were busy, but they have a lot of potential, so we’ll come back later. We then went back to Monica’s to teach her the Word of Wisdom. She had questions about coffee, which is normal, and overall, it went well. Later, we had a video call with Melver, this big brown Peruvian bro, who always answers the video call with his shirt off. Kind of random, but he keeps accepting our calls, so we’re gonna keep teaching him. We finished the night going to church to have a meeting with our new ward mission leader and the other Elders about upcoming baptisms. It probably went on a little too long, but it was kinda helpful. Best part about it was buying 2 $3.50 burgers that Elder Robinson always raves about. Well, obviously, it didn’t disappoint.

Friday

Every morning we have oatmeal for breakfast, and soggy oats do fill you up, but they’re not going to make for a happy morning. Well, fortunately, if you sneak in some butter, more milk, oats, cocoa powder, and sugar—you’ve got yourself some no-bake cookies! That’s exactly what I did while Elder Baldeon was showering. I think that he thinks I don’t know how to cook right, because oatmeal isn’t supposed to look like that, but he wasn’t complaining about how it tasted, and neither was I. Also, for lunch, because it was Elder Medina's birthday, we met them at El Olivar to celebrate. I got him a pig dripped out in Peruvian soccer merch, and he seemed to like it. We spent our day of work in our secret area, and with Elder Baldeon, sometimes I feel like a sack of potatoes because sometimes it seems like he doesn’t even know what he’s going to say next in lessons, so he’s impossible to follow, especially in Spanish. But today, I got more opportunities to lead and talk, which felt super nice, and we found some cool people.

Saturday

Honestly, a very bland day. Only notable thing was that night we left early to attend the Saturday session of our stake conference. We also started a district fast for the people we have on date, so we’re hoping that things work out for all of our friends.

Sunday

We were planning on walking to Stake Conference with Jared and Caleb, but that morning, their mom texted us that they didn’t feel comfortable going because their dad came home and is super Catholic. BOOO. And the rest of our friends flaked out on church too, which wasn’t great. That day, when we got to work, we picked up Renzo, who’s this really cool member only a couple of years older than us. He helped us with some lessons, and we visited Monica to ask her why she didn’t come to church. I think it went well, and she’s still really cool; we just need to get her to come each Sunday. We then went to Jared and Caleb’s house, but only Caleb was there. We couldn’t exactly have a lesson with him because he’s 10 and his parents weren’t home, but we asked him how his prayers and scriptures have been, and he’s been doing them both! He’s honestly so lit, but his parents might be a problem. Then later that night, we had family home evening with Renzo and his family, and they’re an awesome group of members, so it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Spiritual thought: Mosiah 24:14

Jesus will visit you in all of your afflictions! If you feel like your burdens are too heavy, turn to him and he will lighten all of them.

Thanks for tuning in! I hope all of you are saying your prayers. Have a good week.

-Elder Mitchell IV

Photos

Me and an idol

A bike that Elder Baldeon thought was hilarious

Someone messed up