Papers Please?!!

Hola familia!

Holy smokes I can’t believe it has been another week since we last talked. So much has happened—I miss being able to tell you all about it as soon as it happens, but I will do my best to tell you now! On Friday the 5th, we had to go to immigration to sign some papers for our residence here. When we arrived they didn't have my papers or passport. So, I followed them all into a waiting room where all the missionaries waited to go get their papers signed. While I was waiting, I was kind of separated from the group because they had forgotten my things at the CCM. About 15 minutes in, I found out that I had to go back to the CCM…alone! That is a whole different experience I will tell you about in a minute. But, because I was separated from the group during the waiting period, I had the chance to talk to this guy and his cousin! (in Spanish by the way). They were Catholics and didn't like the church here because of all the singing and loud stuff?!  I found out that he is a firefighter close to the CCM. He and his cousin really liked what I had to say about our church and wanted to check it out. I didn't know the address to our nearest church so I gave them my email and the address to the CCM.  After I did that, it was time for me to leave. I shook both of their hands and told them we would be in touch.

I was then basically thrown into this car BY MYSELF and got a ride back to the CCM. It was seriously scary though! They had me like sign this piece of blank paper (I think they found it on the street) and then told me to get into the car. I was kind of freaked out. I sat there thinking of weapons that I had and ways to potentially end this man’s life if needs be. The guy was a maniac driving and he went a totally different direction than we had taken to immigration-which didn’t help me stay calm. I then had to go back by myself to sign the papers everyone else did on Monday, luckily that went smoothly.

That next day we went proselyting. It was seriously ridiculous how poor the part of Lima was that we were in. The Lima south mission is sooooo poor. It was easily Guatemala poor, maybe even a little worse. It was like disgusting how many dogs we saw and how many piles of crap that I almost stepped in-some of which I don’t think were just from dogs, if you catch my drift. The companion I was with was an airhead. He would have died like 5 times if I didn’t move him from getting hit by one of those small “tutu” taxis. The people’s addresses were spray painted onto the sides of their houses, like graffiti, so it was really hard to find the less active members; but the people I did talk to were so receptive. They are so willing to take 20 minutes out of their day and listen to you. Not to mention give you the little food that they have—which we couldn’t eat because we did a 24 hour fast this last weekend. I gave out my first Book of Mormon and everything went well with the teaching. It was seriously humbling to see the kind of filth people live in and to see how happy they were. I love you guys so much though. I pray and think about you all so much. I love praying in Spanish. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I am seriously speaking it so well. Teaching is going awesome. I try to help the missionaries in my district that aren’t doing too well. I look forward to every P-day that I get to hop on for an hour and see how you guys are doing. I know you all are doing big things and are becoming the people you need to be. I love you guys and hope you all realize how blessed we are to have the things we do. Since we have so much, we too must serve others.

Yours truly,

Elder Durante