Truco O Dulce

BIRTHDAY SHOUTOUT TO MELINDA MITCHELL RAWWWWW
My mom just had her birthday this last Halloween and I can't think of a more wholesome angel who's been born on this earth than her!
Alright, let's get into this week...

Monday
For Pday, we played soccer (what a surprise), but it was actually a lot of fun because lots of people pulled up. I don't like playing when there's just a few of us because soccer is the only sport where I'm scared of the ball. We were going to have lunch as a district, but we're all broke, so we just went our separate ways instead. When we got back to the house, we took cold showers because our water heater is broken, which is devastating! We then called our family and slept before ending Pday. For our hour of proselyting, we just hit a few contacts before running into a member and talking with her for a while. Well, as we were talking to her, the power went out in the entire city, and it was literally pitch black! Very fitting for the week of Halloween, it was honestly pretty spooky since we had a long walk back to the house.

Tuesday
Today we woke up early because we had Zone Conference! The first hour of Zone Conference was super good and inspiring. The next 6 hours, I was losing my mind. It was good though, I understood a lot more of what was going on since the last time, so at least I'm making good Spanish progress. We had a few good lessons after. First was with Nilton and Vanessa; they're very interested in what we believe in, but I also think it's because they're interested in religion in general. I'm not sure how many commitments we can have them do, but we'll keep meeting with them. Then we had Luis, a 16-year-old who's trying to read through the whole Bible. I'm surprised that he's actually making progress and made it to Leviticus. He mostly just wants to read the Bible with us, and so that's what we've been doing, and then we sneak in a few principles every now and then to teach him.

Wednesday
Woke up, exercised, cold shower, soggy oats. The day wasn't anything special after that. We headed to the secret area, and not a lot of our lessons happened, but we found a few new people, which is exciting. At night, we had a lesson with this awesome family, and the mom of the wife was there, who is actually a member! I think she's a little inactive, but that doesn't matter. We invited them to church, and the mom just said that they'll all go, which was awesome.

Thursday
It was an interesting day but not a lot happened at the same time. We started the day with meetings and weekly planning that probably lasted a little too long. When we got to work, it was pretty bland too, just went to the secret area again to try and meet with the people we found the day before. I was very curious to see what a Peruvian Halloween was like once it hit nighttime. Well, by the time we got back to our main area, it was costumes, kids, and candy. Exactly what you'd see in the States. Really the only difference was that the houses didn't pass out candy, but the stores did. We figured during these hours no one was going to want to hear about Jesus on the streets, so we visited some members. We were also passing out the sweetest candy in the world—pictures of Jesus! I don't think the kids liked it as much though. We visited Crazy Carolina for a little bit, and it was a full-on fiesta over there with beverages, snacks, and all. We took some pictures and passed out some more cards before leaving and calling it a night.

Friday
Today we had exchanges, and I was with Elder Robinson, staying in my area. My last exchange with him, we spent so much money and ate so much junk food, and this exchange was no different. When we got out to work, we saw that one of the Edificios was open, which are these big apartment buildings that have a lot of people in them, but you can't enter without a key. I've always wanted to go in and knock doors, but the problem is that if the door shuts, you also can't leave without a key. We knocked on about an entire floor of doors, but no one answered, sadly. So, we ran back to the gate before someone closed it and made it just in time before anyone did. Well, we were blessed for our efforts because right after that, we found this lady on the streets who lives in one of the Edificios! We had a really good day of work having Renzo with us all day, who's a member, and contacting a lot of people.
Story time: At the end of the day, we went to our usual salchipapa place. Well, the salchipapa place didn't have any seats or tables outside, and the big door was only half open. We were desperate for our food, so we peeped under the half-open door, and they took our order like usual and slid under two stools for us to sit on. As we were waiting, these official-looking city workers came up and posted this big sign on one of the doors, and with the other that was half open, they shut it all away. We read the sign, and it said that they were shutting down the salchipapa place for health reasons... but we were already waiting for our order. Like nothing happened, the salchipapa lady opened the door back up, took her stools, gave us our food, and left saying nothing about the big sign. Well, we ate our food anyways, and I'm not dead yet, so we call it a win. Wild though.

Saturday
Pretty bland day. We had this dog follow us for a couple of hours, so I named him Burley. I've named just about every dog in Deporte; it's honestly kinda wild. For like the 4th day in a row, we went to our hidden area, and I'm kinda starting to get sick of that place, especially since we haven't had a ton of success lately. We had a member with us all day, but only for a couple of lessons. After, we visited a family of members in the Edificios. They're awesome, so I'm excited to work with them later.

Sunday
Unfortunately, the family we invited earlier in the week had something come up, and so church was a bust. Me and Elder Baldeon both got up and shared our testimonies for fast Sunday, which was fun. Then we broke our fast at our usual member's house on Sunday that has like 7 dogs. Nothing like breaking your fast while smelling dog pee. They're a super nice family, but holy cow, sometimes I can't stand their house. We then had this really strong family of members help us go to some of their references. Only one ended up being home, but we had an awesome lesson. Then it was working like normal until at night, we had a little Noche de Hogar with this other family of members. He ended up just giving us mission advice, and it was honestly very inspiring hearing about his mission and what I could be doing better, so it was honestly awesome.

Spiritual Thought: I've definitely learned on the mission that keeping your focus on the right thing is the key to having success and staying happy. I know that if I always have my mission purpose in mind and am thinking about Jesus, things are going to be alright. The same principle applies to life; focus on what you need to, but make sure Jesus and His restored Gospel are still always being prioritized.

Thanks for tuning in. I hope all of you have a good week!

-Elder Mitchell IV

Photos:

Soccer gang
Black out food
Elder Baldeon's gains
My Halloween mask
Waiting for Health Code violated Salchipapas




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