Pampa Michi

Monday was actually a pretty fun day! We went to Pampa Michi! Pampa Michi is this little village where everything is all dirt with huts of straw. They talk to you in a different language and make you wear dresses (in the heat)! There are a lot of animals there. Funny thing, the snake I was holding with Elder Barahona tried to bite his face and if I wouldn't have been holding the head, he would have gotten bit. Haha, dang snakes! Elder Bell and I got flung around by this overweight lady in this cultural dance thing. It was cool. Then we went to a waterfall called "La Encantada" that is close to El Tirol. It was nice but not as pretty as some, but definitely still enjoyable. After the waterfall we went back to Hermano Henry's recreational place and played volleyball. Tuesday we had a zone meeting and we learned some pretty awesome things, but I don't really remember right now. We spent time working really hard the rest of the day.

  

Wednesday we had a pretty good day of lessons! We have a new couple named Edwin and Sonia.  It is really, really cool to see how Edwin is changing and understanding the things that we are teaching him. For example, he really did not want to follow the word of wisdom, but as we began to teach him he was like "wow, that is really cool—that's right!"  It is just really cool to see how people change when they apply the things that we are teaching. Thursday we did some service for Jose Wanambal—we basically dug trenches and replaced a water pipe. No one on the block had water so we needed to fix that. Everything is going really well. I really did not want Elder Barahona to leave. I know that he has his own mission to get started on but I have really enjoyed this time with him. Friday was Elder Barahona's last day of proselyting. There was a little going away party at Hermana Alicia's house. He and Elder Garcia left Saturday morning. Elder Garcia went home and Elder Barahona went back to Huancayo. His calling was supposed to be waiting for him at his house, but I got an email that it had not yet arrived. I look forward to seeing where he will serve.

Church went well on Sunday. We ended up going to my ward even though I am here with Elder Bell in La Merced. We had five investigators at church – Jersey, Kevin (his little brother), and his sister came today too! It was super cool and they learned a lot. Jose Wanambal and Malangali, his wife also both came. That was all awesome.

I forgot to tell you that one day after Elder Bell and I left his ward council, we were going to head back up to visit someone to see if they had a chance to go to church. Before we went up this little passageway, Elder Bell stopped me and said "hey, so I have heard that people get mugged in this area, so we just kind of need to be careful!"  He asked me "do you feel OK? Do you feel like we're good?"  I said "yeah, I feel fine?!?  Do you feel OK?"  He then explained that they come in pairs... There will be two coming down the stairs and two coming up the stairs if there is a problem. We started walking up and then suddenly we heard this loud whistle. I said "did you hear that?"  Elder Bell said "ya". We kept walking up the stairs and out of nowhere these two guys started walking down. We kind of hesitated for a minute and I said "all right, just keep walking". We freaking just bolted and blew by them. Nothing happened; really they were just punky men. It was just kind of crazy how out of nowhere, two guys start coming down the stairs and one was coming up behind us also. Well, I love you all and will write you next week!