Marcuya Helados, Marcuya Todo!

Hola, familia y amigos míos.

So, before anything else, I found out what almost killed my companion. Maracuyá. It turns out, maracuyá (passion fruit) drops blood pressure, and for him, that can be super dangerous. Más, we had eatten a kind of popsicle that was super concentrated with the maracuyá, so that's what happened. Luckily I didn't have to do CPR, his pulse didn't stop, however it was still pretty frightning.

Transfers aren't this week, but they are next week. Elder Ortega is going to leave, and I'm going to get a new companion. I don't know if I'm going to start training this next transfer, but I expect so, but anything can happen.

Well, this week was better work-wise, we were able to go out and work every day, My companion hasn't been having any problems, but now he's staying away from everything maracuyá.

I'm not going to bore you with the dull day to day things, but there are some thing that were pretty great this week.

On Monday, it was companionship P-day. So what did we do? We made key lime pie. And yes, it was freaking delicious.

So there's an Hermana that lives in our Ward named Emma. She's in her 70s, more or less. I don't know if I've told you about her before, but it's really funny, because she's the type of person that when we go to her house, we don't give the lesson to her, she gives the lesson to us. We went to her house because she'd invited us to have some mazamorra morada y arroz con leche, and we'd brought a scripture about prayer to share with her. I had no idea that a scripture about prayer had so much information about the type of person I'm supposed to marry. Thanks, Hermana Emma!

Sad to say, I don't really have many more experiences to share for this week, and even if I did, I don't have more time. However, I do want to say that the people down here are so awesome, and I've learned no much from the spirit. I love you all, in the most manly sense of the word.

-Elder Dañel Jacobo Esmitho

Habiendo Sido Comisionado . . .

Hello Family! Friends! Pepper!

Well, first off, this week we had our baptism with Hector! YAAAAAAYYY!!!!  Seriously, he's one of my investigators of gold. AND! Now that he's baptized, we have an in to his family. Yay, new investigators!

 

However, other than that, Nothing happened this week, because my companion was sick for three days, and we couldn't do anything. We tried to call people to go on splits, but no one was available, so I spent those three days sitting in my room, practicing solitaire (Using Phase 10 cards).  Seriously though, this week has been the slowest week I've ever had in the mission.

Monday was P-day, like normal, so we went to the Stake Center, ate some chicken, (as always), watched Monster's University, and played some soccer. After P-day was over, we had a family home evening with our pensionista, and made the snickerdoodles from my Christmas package. Yeah, it was about time.

Tuesday was a normal day, nothing to report.

Wednesday, my companion got sick, so we spent the day inside. (Sigh)

Thursday, was our Zone Conference.  We also had the baptismal interview with Hector.

Friday, My companion got sick again.

Saturday in the morning, we had the baptism service for Hector. It was a really good experience, and I felt the spirit really strong.

 

However, when we got back home, my companion had a sudden drop in his blood pressure and almost passed to the other side of the veil. That was just about the scariest moment of my life. Luckily, I remembered a good amount from my EMR class, so I was able to help, and our pensionista was there too, so we were really lucky. He's doing much better now, but he's had issues with this for all of his life. So, that was fun.

 

Sunday was pretty normal, nothing much to report.

Well, that's all the time I have today to write, but I love all of you! Yes, even you.

Until next week,

-Elder Dañel Jacob Smith

Arriba en Llamas! (Not the Animal)

Hello, hello my beloved family and friends!

It's been six months already, so you all have probably forgotten about me.

First off, I am praying fervently for Emily. The other missionaries in my district too.

 

Sand Snowman (Not Daniel's)

You all should feel lucky that you're freezing up there, I'm sure you don't want to be burning your buns off like I am. :P I tried to make a sand snowman, but it didn't work, and I felt sad inside.

 

I have to say that although there is still a lot of dust, the air is a lot clearer here in Happyville. For that, I am super happy.

Oh, and the chicken foot last week? It wasn't all that bad. It was like a chicken lollypop that had fingers, and was slimy.

And did I burn a tie? Yes, yes I did. For my six months, Me, my companion, and one of the pre-missionaries in our ward celebrated with the tie burning and PIZZA. It was epic. Enclosed is a photo of me squirting rubbing alcohol onto the burning tie. :D It was an epic night, and super fun.

 

 

It's time for a story! 

So, me and my companion were going out to Plaza Vea (a super market) to buy some medicine for his eyes. On the way back, we saw a swarm of the Jehovah's witnesses. I thought to myself, oh shoot, we're probably going to half to talk to one of them. I was right. One of them eagerly stopped us to tell us about the kingdom of Jehovah in the earth. I have to congratulate them for their eagerness. The thing is, she kept talking... and talking... and reading weird scriptures from their translation of the bible... and talking some more. The thing is, whenever we tried to read a scripture, or share our opinions, she shut us down... and kept talking. This one Jehovah's Witness was talking at us for at least 45 minutes. The best part however, is that she gave us TEN pamphlets. TEN OF THEM.  Later I got a chance to look through them and see all the false doctrine, but it was an... experience. I feel a lot less inclined to listen to them because they refuse to listen to us. I was actually pretty impressed with her knowledge of her Bible though. Good work, I guess.

 

 

So we had a pretty cool experience this past week. We were in a lesson with Hector again, he had almost all the lessons at this point, and a plentitude of assistances, the only thing he was really missing was the date for his baptism. So, we were teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and after we had finished talking about baptism, he started expressing his feelings of how he wanted to be baptized, but didn't feel ready. I explained to him the importance of baptism, and how he is ready to be baptized. I felt an impression of the spirit to invite him to be baptized this same week... and he accepted. I saw the look on his face was a mixture of amazement and excitement that he could do it so soon. It's so cool to see how the spirit can touch the lives of these people, and the part most important is that the Lord doesn't need people to be perfect to be baptized. What he needs is people who understand and want to be baptized.

So that's the good news for this week, we're going to have a baptism this Saturday. :D

Well, those are the three big experiences for this week. Sad to say, I'm almost out of time, so be good all!! I love you and I'm praying for you!

With pantalones,

-Elder Dañel Jacob Smith

Patas de Pollo

Hey, y'all!! 

 

It's your favorite time of the week, Email time!!  And, I was so astounded that dad was the one to write me that I fell off my chair. (Sorry Dad)

First off to answer a few questions!

No, bug repellant does NOTHING. These are SUPER mosquitoes. And SUPER mosquitoes means SUPER itchy.

Yes, our new pensionista still makes all of our food for us. However, we have to do our own laundry in the washing machine upstairs.

 

Is it cleaner in Villa Alegre? Is it cleaner? Ha! Yes. Yes it is. I guess the richer the people are, the cleaner they're required to be.

Sad to say, but we still don't use bikes. That is the bike of our pensionista's son. No, we're still going on foot.

 

Christmas Dinner with our Mission

 

Elder Ortega is from Chile, he's 25 years old, he's allergic to bananas and shellfish. He really likes to talk, which helps me out a bit in the lessons. His favorite color is red, and he is addicted to chocolate. He also suffers from low blood sugar, so he has to eat something about every hour and a half.

Yep, we've got people to teach. The most notable, and probably our closest to baptism is Hector. He's 22, he's coming to church regularly, he has had a few of the lessons too. The only thing he's really missing is going under the water.

Anyway, I've enclosed a photo of the greatest thing ever. 

That was a lie, it's a picture of me eating chicken feet! It's pretty gross, and a little bit slimy. It's like a chicken flavored lolly-pop.

So, the notable occurrences of this past week are as follows: 

On Monday, we had our P-day, we watched Madagascar 3, played some volleyball and Futbol, and it was pretty fun. Other than that, no pasa nada.

On Tuesday was our district meeting. The rest of the day we spent in lessons.

On Wednesday we had interviews with our mission president, like he does every 3-4 months. So, that took up most of the day. Other than that there was mission correlation and ward council.

 

Picture of our choir from December with our Mission President and his wife.

Thursday was the same as always. However, about halfway through the day, we had divisions with our district leader. That went until Friday morning.

Friday was the end of divisions. Other than that, not much happened. However, we did find two new investigators from contacting, so that was pretty cool.

Saturday was boring, because we didn't have hardly any lessons.

On Sunday was Sacrament meeting, and some lessons. Pretty ordinary week, right?

One thing that we've been doing recently is we've been working a lot with the ward missionaries, most of which are young men preparing for their missions, so that's been pretty alright. This accomplishes two things. Number one, we have more lessons with members present, and that's always fantastic. Two, we're helping in the preparation of these new missionaries.

It's always really cool to see the light in people's eyes change when talking about the gospel. The other day, we were at the house of one of our investigating families. The lesson we were teaching was the plan of salvation, and the thing with this family is that their dad had passed away. When we told them that they could live together forever with their dad, Their whole expression changed. It was really cool. 

 

 

It's also interesting to think about how these things that are so well known to us are something completely new to them. I guess that's why we're here, right? To share with these people the things that we have, and they don't.

As always, I'm continually praying for you all, Emily now as well. 

 

Remember that the shortest way between two points is Parkour. Have fun, and keep on keeping on!

From your favorite Eldersito,

-Elder Dañel Jacobo Esmito

 

P.S. Here are a few more photos taken in December

 

Missionary Choir that I sang in

Another choir performance

Yet, another choir performance

Photo from our trip to the fountains at Parque de la Reserva

 

Surco? Donde esta Surco?

Hello Friends and Family! 

First off, Let's answer a few questions.

Nope, I'm not used to the humidity. I am currently dying of heat. I sleep okay, it's just super hot. 

 

Bugs, Ha! Bugs, HA! Yes there are lots of bugs. The mosquitoes make a meal of me every night. They especially like my feet.

And now the bigger news. I've been transferred! I am no longer in Stake Vitarte, San Francisco Ward, but now I am in Stake Surco, Villa Alegre Ward. Yes, that's right, I live in Happyville (Villa Alegre).  Another thing is that I went from one of the poorest areas in the mission to one of the richest, so there's a huge contrast between the two. The only thing is that the people aren't as receptive here, so we're going to have to work really hard.

Villa Allegre

So that's the first piece of news. The second is that I have a new companion, Elder Ortega. Elder Ortega is from Chile, He's 25, he has about the same time in the mission as I do. 

This week was mostly spent getting to know my new area. It's a lot bigger than my area in San Francisco and the people have so much money. The houses are huge, and really nice. I even saw a personal swimming pool.

 

This is our room in my new apartment

Our Study Area

Patio

So, the only other thing that happened was that we had Stake Conference. So, I got to see how gigantic the Stake is. I've also heard that our ward is huge too, so I guess I'll see next week.

Oh, and it was my companion's six months, so we burned his tie. So that was fun. Pics included.

 

 

Sad to say, that's about all the time I have this week.  But I'm praying for you all!

Until next week,

-Elder Dañel Jacob Smith

Migraciones . . . Todo el Dia

Hola, friends and fam! 

You should know that you are officially reading an email for a real live Peruvian. That's right, I'M LEGAL. I finally have all the right paperwork to be a citizen of Peru. Yeah, it only took like eight months.

 

Anyway, before I talk about anything else, here are the answers to last week's questions.

1. The language is coming along fine and dandy. I can write, speak, understand and read in Spanish. I still have a long list of things I'm missing, but I have Spanish at about 80%ish.

2. Yes, we are still having English classes. However, I won't be teaching them anymore because... (Drumroll) I have transfers this week! (Probably. I still haven't received the call about where I'm going, because they always call the night before the change, but all things are pointing to a transfer and I'm going to be leaving this area.)

3. It is very hot here and it is veeeeeery humid. In the afternoon, when I step out of the shower, I immediately start sweating again. (Pleasant, right?)

4. And no, the buildings are not air conditioned. However, cardboard walls do provide for really good ventilation. Our apartment is concrete, so it usually is pretty cool in the mornings.

5. But the afternoon and at night, it's always pretty hot. We sleep with a fan on at night because it gets so hot.

6. For proselyting, I try and always wear a short sleeve shirt if I can, because the sun is relentlessly hot.

7. We had a really good experience in a family home evening with a family in our ward who are only partially members. We had two return missionaries with us, one who served in Mexico, the other in Utah (Salt Lake City).   We all expressed our testimonies of the church. It was really spiritually potent, and a little hard to explain.

8. Wow, my faith has increased tenfold. One of the biggest things about a mission is that your own personal testimony is one of the first things that changes. With all the experiences I've had, and all of the miracles I've seen, my testimony has grown more than I could have imagined.

That's all the questions from last week. Now, Vamos a explicar un poco mas acerca de la tema de este e-mail.

On Tuesday, I had to wake up a five in the morning to go to La Molina, because I had to go to Migraciones (Immigrations). We waited at La Molina for about 45 minutes for the van to get there.

 

 

Then we went on a 2 hour ride to the immigrations office. 

 

 

At the office, we did a lot of sitting, waiting, some fingerprinting, and some document signing, but after about three hours, the process was complete, And I got my little card that says that I'm allowed to live in the country. I also got my passport stamped with my visa, so everything's official. After that, we headed over to a Burger King, and had (almost) American Hamburgers. 

 

 

After that, we had a two hour ride back to La Molina, then we headed back to our area. So, that was the big adventure this week.

Well, that's all I have time to write this week, but I love you all! Stay safe and watch out for chipmunks.

With lots of love,

-Elder Dañel Jacob Smith

Hey! That Thing's On Fire! Oh Wait, No, the Police Put It Out!

Hola! Hey, everyone!

So, this week was pretty fun with New Years Eve and everything. And I can honestly say that NOW I have never seen more fireworks in my life than what I saw this New Year's Eve. The people down here take their pyrotechnics seriously.

...But there was something else more interesting that happened on New Years. 

Apparently, it's a tradition down here to make big scarecrow type things, consisting of old clothing and wood shavings, and putting them out into the street at midnight on New Year's Eve, covering them with gasoline and lighting them on fire. It looks pretty gruesome, because it looks like there are a bunch of people lying in the streets ON FIRE. 

 

 

There were two burning in the street in front of my apartment, and one ready to start, until du-du-du-duh-bah-dah!! The police, with a huge truck which had a giant water tank and giant hose drove by and put the two out. Right behind, a police truck stopped at the one that was ready to light, took the doll, threw it in the back of the truck, and drove away. Thank you, Municipality of Santa Anita!

 

 

Other than this, our week was pretty boring. Because of the fiestas, booze, and possibly illegal amounts of fireworks, no one wanted to receive us, even the members. The only things that really happened this week were that we had our English classes. Other than that, It was really just knocking on doors, attempting to contact in the streets, and crying . . . (Not really).

I have been eating A LOT of paneton recently. It isn't that I like it, because I don't really like it. It's that I can't say no when I'm offered. 

 

 

We really didn't have many lessons this week. I'd like to share more about what's happening, but nothing's happening. If you have any questions, write me and I can respond to those.

And yes, I think that transfers are going to be this coming week. And I'm almost positive that I'm going to be moving to a new area.  

Oh, and Elder Salazar was asking me if they sold Books of Mormon like the originals, with the brown cover, the type that doesn't have verses, etc., like the kind in the time of Joseph Smith?

I love you all, thanks for all your support! Until next week,

-Elder Dañel Jacob Smith