Peru is no joke

 Yoooooooo whats good friends. Just kinda living the Peruvian life. Its crazy down here lol. 

Motupe is dope. Super pretty little town. The branch is getting better. There are some obvious changes that the missionaries were missing. They were just doing stuff for numbers it seems. For example, theres a kid named Alex that is 9 that we were going to baptize next week. His whole fam are members. His family wanted us to baptize him because his pops didnt feel worthy. The elders before put him on date, but when we found out why they wanted us to baptize him it just didnt feel right. So we talked to the branch president and the dad and the dad is going to work to be worthy to baptize his son. It seems like the elders before never had thought to do this probably just because they wanted to baptize him. The way I see it, it doesnt matter who baptizes him. Its all the same. However, eventually elder O and I will get transfered and leave. His dad wont. So its a no brainer for us to work with his dad to be worthy to baptize him. 

Teaching here is harder than the rest of the mission because not only is every single person catholic, but they also have a cross somewhere up in the mountains close to town that they worship. That is what Motupe is known for. If you look up Motupe Peru odds are the first things you see are the huge catholic cathedral or the cross lol. But we work so very hard every single day. God bless these wonderful people. One legendary thing that is happening next month is a free mass wedding for anyone that wants to get married for free. This is epic. Anyone who has served a mission in south america has faced the problem of marriage "por la ventana" basically a family that have been living together forever, has a bunch of kids, but isnt officially married, so they cant be baptized. We have 5 or 6 families that want to be members but cant because they live together, so were hoping we can get them married next month. Its obviously a super long shot because who knows if they will actually want to get married, but if they do we could have like 30 baptisms (well actually the elders after we get trasnfered probably). We'll see what happens.

I get made fun of every day because I always use the word Español instead of Castellano when I say Spanish. They call it Castellano because they don't like the Spain thpanish or thomething (People from Thpain thpeak with a lithp.) 

Oranges are free from every orange tree. I eat 5 each a day. Lendendary.

The economy here is crazy. We couldn't spend all the money we get each month if we tried. For reference, a 12 pack of diet coke is about 10 cents. A pint of feching good ice cream is like 5 cents. 5 bananas is like 2 cents. I eat so many bananas.

I didnt realize Peru was this humble. We probably taught 60 lessons this week and probably 58 of them were in houses with dirt floors, tin roofs, and no running water. Yet the people always run to the store and buy us an Inka Cola or a Coke. They are so awesome. 

Ill finish with a cool story. The very first person that I contacted fully by myself is named Hermano Ulyses. We met him outside his house, talked for a while, gave him a BOM, read Moronis promise and set up a meeting for 2 days after. When we came to meet with him he saw us coming, stood up and yelled that the book is true. He then proceeded to tell us that "este libro es mejor de la biblia" which means this book is better than the Bible. We obviously had to explain that that was not necesarily true haha. He then gave us a summary of the whole book. He had sat outside all day Wed after we met with him, all day thursday and all day friday up until we came by and had read up until the end of Alma. So cool. What a legend. 

I could go on and on and on about spiritual experiences but the only people that want to hear those are my grandmas haha. The rest of you just want to see pictures of turantulas, iguanas in the church, good food, cool sunsets, and dangerous looking snakes (lmk if he was dangerous or not I dont have google). Heres some flicks.

Have a good week ladies and gentleman

Con amor 

Elder Poh-mahn