August 18, 2014

Hello everyone!

I think for the most part I got sick at the beginning because I was adjusting to the food. Now I think it’s because everything we eat is fried in a lake of oil. Especially eggs which we eat like 4 everyday. But I’m trying to eat more fruit and drink more juice and yogurt. I also need more vegetables which I can only get if my pension makes a dish with them. The problem is just where I am I think. We are so far away from everything that it’s hard to get good ingredients. Plus my pension’s family isn’t the richest so it’s hard for them to go to Juliaca where they can buy this stuff. But I’m doing good right now; however, there is a pill called the bomb pill or something and it wipes out anything you might have in your stomach so that would be nice to take when I get back.

We were only able to work for a few days this last week because my companion got back Wednesday night. However, we were able to visit quite a few less actives. We are teaching a less active mother right now and her three daughters. The oldest daughter is active but the 2 younger ones (whose ages are 11 and 8) are not baptized. The mother wants them to be baptized so we have been working hard with them to rescue the mother and baptize her 2 kids. However she is on a trip to Lima and won’t be back for 3 weeks so I probably won’t be here for the baptisms, which is a little sad, especially because the mother said she really wanted me to baptize one. So I may have to wait till my next sector before I get my first baptism. But that’s not a big deal.

We still haven’t been able to get in contact with Delia yet but we'll keep trying. We also went out to the compo (or farmland) with our pension to visit a few less actives, so that was cool. All we were able to do, though, was make appointments for this next week.

I’m in Ayaviri again for this week because my comp had to go back to Lima to finish his papers. The thing with him is he hasn’t had a visa for his whole mission and has been waiting. He basically has been working on a visitor visa this whole time and every few months he’s had to leave the country for a day to get it renewed. But now he will have his visa so this will be the last time.

But that’s it for this week. Also Elder Davis, well now just Blake, is sending me pictures from home and it’s still weird to think that he’s not in the mission anymore. But glad to hear you’re all well and I love you all.

Elder Halverson 

This is Elder Flores, my comp. This is when we went out to the fields to visit some people.

Here are a few more random pictures:

 The streets of Pucara.

Celebration in Pucara. 

Chase's room in Choquehuanca - view 1.

Chase's room in Choquehuanca - view 2. I believe that's Chase's bed on the left -- not made, of course! Notice that there is no heat in the room.

August 11, 2014

Hello Everyone.

Me and my comp are still getting along really well and in these 2 weeks with him I think my Spanish has progressed quite a bit. I can understand basically everything he says. But yea I’m his first American companion and so he has never spoken English before. He has a little more than 14 months right now (about the same time as Elder Nicholls) so he's a pretty experienced missionary. There really isn’t much to say about this week. For most of it I was in bed because I was having stomach problems. However I’m feeling a lot better now.

We had a few lessons with some of our investigators but more than anything we were visiting leaders and finding less actives. For half this week I have to be with the Elders in Ayaviri as well as half of next week. My comp has to go to Lima for his papers and then next week he has to go back to finish them. So I think this change will be going by pretty fast. But yea rather than that not much else has happened this week.

We just had a wicked game of monopoly last night as a zone that I won. XD 

But I love you all and until next week.

Elder Halverson

August 4, 2014

Hello Everyone!

Yes, I now have my new comp! His name is Elder Flores and he is from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Also he doesn’t speak a lick of English. However I do have enough time here now that I can talk and understand Spanish so I can communicate with him. I still am lacking quite a few words and my grammar is not the best but it will only be getting better now that I can only speak Spanish. It’s kinda funny because I’m pretty sure this is the first full week I’ve spoken only Spanish. My zone leader and me are the only 2 English speakers in my zone now and I’ll only see him every week or so. But it’s fun with him, he's a hard worker and we get along good. Also I get the privilege of starting to teach him English so that will be fun. But yea it was nice to have 2 gringo companions because even though my Spanish didn’t progress as much as it could have I also didn’t have to suffer trying to learn the language very much. Also now that I do have a Latin comp my Spanish is good enough to be able to talk with him. The only problem is where I am people have Peruvian hick accents mixed with Kechwa so it can be hard to understand them at times but I’m getting more used to it.

Also we don’t get snow here because winter in Peru is also the dry season. I also miss the storms that we used to get every few days. Also while we were eating at our pensions' house, Mount Pucara caught on fire. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of it but by the time we got back to our house it was only smoking a little. But yea now a big chunk of the mountain is black. The wind was blowing up the mountain, though, so the flames didn’t make it to Pucara.

Ok as far as the work goes, most of this week was visiting members and leaders and making appointments with people because last week my comp was getting ready to go so we didn’t really have much time to work. Also Delia is in another town right now and won’t get back till the middle of august so that is kinda on hold for right now. But yea that’s basically everything that’s going on today. Also, this morning while we were walking home from breakfast, we passed a group of drunk people. A lady starting following us trying to get our attention. She kept telling us to come back and kept calling me che, which in Argentina means dude. I guess she thought I was Argentinean.

But yea I love you all and will write you next week.

Elder Halverson

July 28, 2014

Hello everyone!

My comp has left and is now in Cusco waiting for his flight. It’s a little depressing to watch people leave I noticed. As for this week, I was staying in Pucara for half the week while he was doing his paperwork in Lima and then the rest of the week was just him packing and saying goodbye to people. However, I assisted in the assassination of my pensionista’s chickens. XD I got a nice little video of it but I’ll save that for when I get home.  While I was in Pucara, there was also a party so I got some videos and pictures of it so you can see how a Peruvian party looks.

Anyway, as for the changes my entire district has changes except for me. So when I do leave here I will have had the same time here as Elder Nicholls. Also my new comp is a Latino but that’s all I know so far. He won’t get here till tomorrow or Wednesday. But yea that’s basically it. Also, the main reason I want to leave is because I don’t really know the mission, I only know my little sector. But the nice thing is that I do feel like the branch has progressed quite a bit. They are starting to do a lot more stuff on their own. Also today and tomorrow is the Peruvian independence day but I’m not sure if they have any festivities for it.

But yea that’s basically all that’s happened here. It’s good to hear from you. I LOVE YOU!!!  Until next week.

Love you all.

Elder Halverson

 Chase and Elder Davis

 Lobo came to visit again.

 The chicken after all the dirty work was over

This is just how it looks this time of the year (brown)

 Fireworks at the party

 Peruvian party

 More Peruvian party

This is a little clay house I got for only 20 soles (like 7 dollars)

July 21, 2014

Hello family,

I was able to get some fruit, I’m mainly just eating bananas and oranges; however, we also ate a pineapple at lunch. They have a ton of fruit in the markets so it wasn't a problem to find some. Also, they have a lot of fruit I've never even heard of.

This last week was a little crazy because there was a lot going on. First off, it was a little hard to do work because there was a gigantic market that filled all the streets in Pucara. They actually had to make a detour road for cars to go all the way around the city. Also, tomorrow there is going to be a party in the plaza in Pucara. We also had a multi-zone conference with the president in Tinajani. It was pretty fun. Each pair of zone leaders from the 2 zones had to come up with a game. One was we were separated into 2 teams and we had to figure out how to cross a river without touching the water before the other team. It took a lot of rocks. Also, the president and his wife were on my team so that was pretty funny especially because the president’s wife ended up falling into the river.

The second activity was we had to search a valley that had a flag for every companionship hidden. So whichever team found all their flags first won. All we had to help was a little map with a circle in the area that your flag was hidden. All in all it was a really fun activity.

We also got our first rain fall for 4 months and a little bit of snow today. It has been cold though because it’s been really cloudy and windy. I also went to my first Peruvian funeral this week. The guy was a member but he was around 90 years old and couldn’t even leave his bed so it was his time. It was a little weird though because one of the sisters wanted us to sing hymns in front of everyone. Lastly, on Saturday, we did invasions in my district which, if you don’t know what those are, it’s when all the missionaries in your zone come and contact everywhere for references. So everyone figured out how difficult this place really is. Out of everyone, we only had one actual lesson. Everyone else just didn’t want to talk or said come back later. But, it was still a cool experience.

This is now my comp’s last week here. He is in Lima now to get his visa canceled and is coming back on Wednesday only to leave again on Sunday. Anyway, so right now I’m staying with the elders in Pucara. Today for p-day we had it as a zone and so we climbed the mountain again, just this time everything is yellow instead of green. It’s pretty crazy to compare my pictures from the both times I’ve gone up there. Afterwards, we just played soccer with some guys.

Changes are next week so we will see if I get a change and leave with my comp but who knows what will happen. Anyway, that’s about it for me.  Until next week.

I love you all very much!

Elder Halverson

July 14, 2014

Well, once again we just had a normal week with nothing special in it. A lot of people were busy, there was a party, and a giant market in Pucara, as well as the world cup final. It was funny, we watched it in a little restaurant and there were a lot of people there watching it, too. I felt like it was only me, my district leader, and his comp voting for Germany XD even though they are both Latinos. At half time, we went to the house of the owner of the other companion’s house to watch the rest because he has dish. They are actually their investigators as well but the dad was swearing a ton, according to my comp, about the game. Especially because Germany won. They are a really nice family though and he is super good at ceramics. He made me this really cool Spanish looking house for really cheap. I’m going to pick it up tomorrow and I’ll send you a pic of it next week.

I can buy fruit here but only once a week so I think I’ll start getting some on those days. Also, it’s not that I get a lack of food because I fill myself up, it’s just that the food here doesn’t really have the nutrition I need, especially because half the plate is rice. So yea some fruit would do me good. Everyone tells me if I go to Puerto in Madre de Dios, which is all jungle, that I would get fat. Apparently everyone invites you to fruit and you just eat a lot of food that super fattening. That would probably be good for me right now but the only problem is that it’s insanely hot and humid.

But yea we actually met Delia by knocking doors and contacting when I was with Nichols. However we couldn’t make appointments with her for a long time so we ended up dropping her. We visited her again when I got my new comp and then in a lesson we asked if she would get baptized and she accepted and since then she has just kept progressing. It’s still hard to make appointments with her because of her work but we pass by her house every night we can.

But yea, that’s about it for this week. Anyway I love you all and until next week.

Love, 

Elder Halverson

July 7, 2014

Sadly, I don’t really have much to write this week. Seriously nothing really happened. But I’m sure there will be several times like that every now and then.

We are planning on getting Delia and her kids baptized this week, so hopefully if all goes according as planned, we will finally be able to do that. But yea other than that nothing has changed.

My comp now has 3 weeks left before he goes home and he actually got his flight plans today. So yea he is only "a little trunky” right now. We are also kinda hoping that we will both get changes. I think I’m starting to suffer from malnutrition in this place. At least like 3 times a week we eat noodles with an egg and then we just put some ketchup on top.  The only thing that keeps my pants up is my hip bones so I started to use my suspenders that I brought. XD I know I should save my package when it gets here to savor it a bit but I feel like I’ll probably eat the whole thing in a day at this point.

Anyway glad to hear that everyone is doing well. You know our ward will probably end up having around 5 missionaries out by the time I get home. Elder Davis says there are around 20 missionaries in his ward out right now but he is from Utah where they have wards of around 300 people. XD

Anyway I can’t think of anything else to say so I guess that’s all for this week.

Love you all,

Elder Halverson