May 25, 2015

Hello everyone.

Well not really too much to report on for this week. I think I drank some contaminated water or something but let’s just say I’ve been having some stomach problems this week (probably don’t want to hear the details).

Anyway, so basically we couldn’t really leave the house for this week. However, I got some pills from the zone leaders and now I’m better so hopefully this next week should be a lot better.

But to answer your questions, Elder Caprio is actually a zone leader in a zone in Apurimac. Our new zone leader is an Elder named Elder Heslop who I don’t know. Also, we still haven’t had our interviews with the president yet. Most likely we will have them this week, though.

As far as snow, though, Puno very rarely gets snow. This is normally because the winter here is also the dry season so right now it’s pretty dang dusty without rain so I was kinda hoping that we would get snow.

Anyway, so that’s all I got for this week. Glad to hear all is well at home. But I love you all and until next week!

Elder Halverson

May 18, 2015

Man that would be nice. But it won’t be long until we talk face to face. 

Anyway, now for the weekly report. XD Basically, this week has been pretty simple. Today are changes but like I was expecting, I’m staying with my companion. Also, we are losing more missionaries than we are gaining still so they have closed some more sectors; however, I don’t know which ones. Also, talking about the changes, I also don’t know who my new zone leader is because our previous gringo zone leader just ended his mission (along with Elder Nicholls). However, I personally hope that it will be Elder Caprio (my MTC comp) because he is now leaving the office and I personally believe he will be made a zone leader. 

As for the rest of the week, it has been pretty simple. However, some of the less actives we are working with are starting to progress a little. We are still working on getting a wedding date for Ismael and Maria but there is an elderly lady who has been coming to church recently and also wants us to teach her daughter (who is currently recovering from a brain tumor) as well as her granddaughter so that will be pretty cool to do. Also, we are working with another less active/investigator couple who the woman is the sister of our bishop. The cool thing is that her "husband" came to church with her this week. I used quotation marks because like most of the people here they also aren't married... :T  

Anyway, that’s all the dig on the people we are teaching. As far as our weather here, it’s starting to get colder here, in fact it almost snowed here this week. Also, yesterday we had no power for our entire sector so that was pretty interesting. But yea that’s all I got for now but I love you guys and will talk to you next week!

Elder Halverson

May 11, 2015 - Mother's Day Skype!!

Since yesterday was Mother's Day, we got to talk to Chase on the phone for 1 hour 47 minutes! He looks great, he sounds great, he IS great! His testimony is stronger than ever and he loves serving the people of Peru, whom he loves.  Today, he just sent pictures with this message: "yea i got nothin new either but ill send some pics"  LOL

A little bit of Juliaca

Cooking with my comp and pensionista

Puno with the lake (Lake Titicaca)

"The Nerds" playing Dungeons and Dragons for p-day

May 4, 2015

Hello Everyone!

I asked my companion about the volcano in  Argentina and he has heard about it but he said there is nothing over by it. But no we haven’t seen any ash over here. Also, speaking of chuño, yep that’s exactly it. Also the feet that smash it are old lady feet that walk around barefoot all day long and never bathe. Pretty dang nasty stuff. I mainly only ate it in Choquehuanca and I now refuse to eat it saying it’s against the word of wisdom. Basically the best way to explain the flavor is like fresh sweaty gym socks. Basically because of where I live (meaning that because of the altitude here) is why it’s possible to make chuño. When it rains, it is really, really cold (a lot of the time it hails instead of rains) but when the sun is out, we are so close to it that it heats things up really fast and will burn you in no time. It’s actually kinda funny because there is like a 20 degree difference between the shade and sun here. Also, winter here is mainly really cold at night but other than that it’s also a very dry season. So normally the sun is out all day and everything is dry and dead and then at night everything freezes. However, it still doesn’t get as cold here as it does back home. But in our room we do not have a heater or anything so we just bundle up all the time... And sometimes cuddle. Ok, that’s actually not true. 

Anyway as for this week, it went pretty well. We received some new contacting cards that have questions on them (not sure if you have seen them). Anyway, we did an activity with them in a marketplace where we made some posters and set up a desk that have cards, pamphlets, and Liahonas on it. We then began to contact everyone we saw. The cool thing about the activity was all the people that were actually interested who saw what we were doing would come and talk to us so we didn’t have to contact them personally. So now we just have a bunch of people to contact. Other than that we haven’t had any real progression with any of our investigators yet. However, we are starting to work a lot with the leaders of our ward so that it will be able to function better. I also did divisions with my district leader this week which was pretty cool. Also, they have a really warm house. But that’s about all that happened this week.

As for Sunday, I will most likely call you at 3:00 or 4:00 my time (which I think will be during your church hours), but that would be good to have some time with you guys first and then later with everyone. But until then, I love you guys and will talk to you Sunday! 

Elder Halverson