Christmas Skype!

For Pday we went to this giant cave called Huagapo with the entire zone. It was really fun. I finally got to use my head lamp, which was cool. Afterwards we played Frisbee and took some pictures with an alpaca that was there. We had a really good time!

Huagapo Cave

On Tuesday Elder Calle and I gave the zone training on the law of consecration. We wanted the missionaries to focus on doing things because it is the right thing to do. After the training everybody went to their respective areas. I did divisions with Elder Turin in Junín, which is about an hour outside of Tarma. It rained all day and is freezing. It's right next to Cerro de Pasco. My shoes and socks were completely soaked! This has definitely made me a little more humble and I realized how many blessings I have in Tarma. To be honest, this area is just kind of rough. It was neat to go about and help the people here today. It was muddy, muddy, muddy because of all the rain but things went well.

Wednesday divisions ended and I went back to Tarma. Elder Calle Skyped with his family and then we had a primary/branch activity. Elder Calle dressed up in a giant Barney costume and I dressed up in a giant Winnie the Pooh costume. The kids went nuts when they saw us and it was really fun.

On Christmas Eve we couldn't really find anything to do because everybody was with family and didn't want to meet with us. Elder Calle and I walked around the entire day wearing our Christmas beanies that we got from the Christmas zone conference. Everybody looked at us kind of funny. We went to the Villegas family for dinner but they started cooking really late so we only got to eat panaton and hot chocolate. Panaton is like that really dry fruit cake that they eat here. They gave us gifts, which was very kind! A bit later we went to our pensionista's and had some turkey. This year was definitely better than my Christmas last year.

Merry Christmas! On Christmas morning I started off by opening the awesome gifts that you sent me. Thank you very, very, very much! Later we went around to companionships here in Tarma and handed out little bags of chocolates as gifts. We then went and picked up Elder Delgado and Elder Alfonzo from Cerro. Elder Alfonzo came down to perform a baptism. We had lunch and then went to Palca to visit the entire Osorio family. They are the family that is going to be married in January and get baptized. We shared a video with them and Luke 2:10-11. After we got back from Palca, we went out to eat dinner as a district and I had chicken, steak and french fries; and then we rushed over to the Villegas family and they gave us food that they prepared for us yesterday. They made it so that we could take it back to our place to eat it and it was really, really cool. I bought Elder Calle a beanie that he liked and wanted for Christmas and he bought me dinner.

The gift of water to the zone (and 2 lollipops)

Saturday I talked to you all on Skype and it was great to see you guys! As you know we were in the church and we kind of had to scramble at the last minute to find a laptop to talk to you guys with because the computer we had decided to spaz out and stop working. Wendy, one of our new investigators, let us borrow her laptop. We also taught her a lesson that night so everything worked out well.

Sunday was the last day this year that we will attend church at 10:00 AM. This next year we switched to 2:00 PM. The Osorio family from Palca came to church and they are doing great. We went and taught them after church as well. Kennedy (kind of an eternal investigator whose family are all members) came to church and we visited with him after church also. We taught him an awesome lesson and he said that he felt really good about attending church all three hours instead of going to work. He drives back-and-forth to Huancayo for work. He is usually pretty busy but he stayed today and he was happy. We had a good branch council, we had an assistance of 88, and it was a good day.

By the way, I got your other package on Saturday after we Skyped. I have been giving the things out to everyone like crazy. Everyone loves the ornaments you sent for them. Thank you for thinking of them. COOL STORY—your stickers went to a family that the sisters are teaching and I guess the dad has a bad drinking problem but his little girl used a package of those manger stickers to make her dad a New Year's present. It struck the dad really hard that his little girl was learning so much about Christ and I guess he is listening a lot better now to the sisters and hasn't drank as much. Super cool! I was super excited and happy that I got to talk to you all! I really miss you so much and you all look great! Love you!!