Tuesday, April 30, 2013

2013-04-30 LAST p-day in Lima, Peru MTC


cool tree at MTC
Hey Everybody,
Don’t send stuff to the Peru MTC anymore.  I leave on Sunday morning for Bolivia.  I’m super excited but I won’t get anything here at the MTC. 

P-days are awesome and people here do some strange things.  It is totally normal for people to carry on a conversation with someone on the street from their window even if it’s a third story window.  Also if you knock on a door they yell, “Who is it?” instead of answering it.  The people are really nice and honest.  I bought some churros from a street vendor and he gave me money back when I accidently overpaid.  They only cost like 50 cents and they are huge.  It’s pretty awesome.

My district is pretty much the best ever.  I really am going to miss them.  Every night after we are ready for bed we get together and talk about the gospel.  It is great and I’m constantly surprised by how insightful everyone is. 
super soft fuzzy flower on cool tree

I had a great experience giving one of the sisters in my district a blessing of comfort yesterday.  She just wanted one before we leave for the field.  It was the first time I’ve given a blessing and truly felt guided by the Spirit.  Great experience and I need to figure out what I did right there so I can always have that happen.

Mom, you’ll probably like to know that I’m singing with another guy and a couple girls tomorrow as a special musical number for when Elder Weddle comes to speak to us.  The song is If Any of You Lack Wisdom. (from James 1:5-6)

Teaching the guard is a great experience.  It’s not going very well though.  He is a committed Jehovah’s Witness.  Our plan was to get him to give the Book of Mormon a chance and just read and pray about it and we know if he did he would feel the Spirit.  Unfortunately, he said he’s already done that and didn’t feel anything.  That was a hard thing to have an answer for.  Especially with our poor Spanish.  We are meeting with him again, but it is frustrating that even though he is trying to do what’s right he’s too stubborn to figure out what exactly that is. 
guard 'hut'
Sorry the letter is short but I’ve got to go.  I hope everyone is having a wonderful time at home.

Love, 
Elder Howlett

P.S. Here’s what I wrote down about going proselyting.  (transcribed by mom)  It was awesome but we won’t be going this Saturday as originally planned because we will be preparing to leave the next day.  We don’t know why our group was bumped a couple days early.

"After we made it up to the block houses, we knocked on the door of a nonmember who the member with us knew.  She didn’t really want us to come in at first but eventually let us after we visited on the porch for a while.  It turns out that her daughter is taking lessons from the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  The local missionary did almost all of the teaching once we were inside.  She was really hard to understand because she was shy and talked very softly.  When it was time for the closing prayer she chose me to say it.  Turned out that wanting me to say the prayer was common among everyone.  As we walked between the three houses that the member wanted us to visit, the missionary would point at someone outside and tell me and my Latino companion to go contact them.  It was pretty uncomfortable to just go start talking to someone on the street.  I was very impressed though, every single person we spoke with let us talk for a while and gave us their information so the missionaries could visit them.  It would have been so different in the US.  I was amazed by how receptive they all were to the gospel.  Everyone wanted us to come into their home and say a prayer for their family.  The pace of life here is much slower.  Almost everyone was outside their homes visiting and the kids all were playing on the dirt path that was between homes.  The kids were all excited to see me (a giant white guy) and I guess there are no ‘stranger danger’ rules here because as we walked on the path, the kids would all run up and hold my hand or grab my leg.  One little girl grabbed my hand and dragged me closer to my companion so she could get his hand too so we could swing her back and forth as we walked.  At one of the lessons we taught, a six-year-old boy played with my watch on my wrist for 5 minutes and then ran off somewhere.  He came back with a toy Ben10 watch to show me.  It turns out that I don’t know how to say a lot to little kids, so anytime any of them showed my anything, I said “Chevere” (cool).  I definitely need to work on my Spanish. "
 


a box of snacks Elder Howlett likes to buy and eat

Elder Howlett even found NESQUIK cereal that mom loves and can't buy in the US!