2013-04-23



Elder Cruz--roommate

Elder Rojas--roommate

Good Morning everyone,

I’ve got a lot to say and not a lot of time so here we go.  First, if you have questions you want me to answer, if you put them separately in your letter it will be much easier for me to remember to answer them.   

 

Last week p-day for lunch we had Chinese food.  I don’t know if it was a holiday or what but the cafeteria was all decorated Chinesely and the food servers were dressed up.  It was pretty weird to see in Peru.  Also there are weird fruits here called grenadillas.  You can crack the shell like an egg and then inside is slimy silver fruit and seeds.  The seeds are too hard to chew so you just have to swallow them.  Look up a picture, they are orange on the outside.

grenadillas

 

Also, we got awesome news this week.  Elder Bednar is coming to speak here today!  It’s just for us so there will be fewer than 80 people there for his 3 hour talk.  I’m very excited and it starts in less than an hour now.

Proselyting was awesome!  And I definitely got to go to the coolest place.  I don’t have a picture because we couldn’t bring cameras, but it was at the very top of a mountain that was just dirt.  The houses are concrete block built on the side of the mountain and all painted bright colors.  It’s crazy that people live in 20 foot by 30 foot concrete blocks. 



MTC grounds

We left the MTC by bus and went to a chapel where we met with local missionaries and ward members.  Driving here is crazy!  At one point we were driving through a small street barely wide enough for the bus when I guess the bus driver realized that we went the wrong way or something.  He threw the bus in reverse and we drove 4 blocks in reverse down a street probably 6 feet wider than the bus. That didn’t stop little motorcycles from passing us going both directions though.  They’d just drive on the sidewalk if they couldn’t fit on the street.  Then later in a downtown area the bus slammed on its brakes and we stopped within a foot of hitting an at-least-80-year-old lady who was hobbling across the street.  It was like a cartoon and it took her probably two full minutes to cross the road.  Our teacher said that every single day multiple people get hit by cars and I understand why. 

 

Elder Tarqui

Elder Tarqui was my Latino companion and at the church we got a local missionary and a ward member to go with us.  It’s a good thing because there is no way we could have found our way to where we went without them.  We took a bus up to the end of the road on the mountain and then walked up like 30 flights of stairs on the side of the mountain.  Weirdest sight to see all those stairs in the middle of nowhere.  Sorry, Elder Bednar is early and they just said we have to leave.

love,

Elder Howlett

 

view from balcony above cafeteria

additionally,

Hello everyone,

Elder Bednar just finished speaking and then we had lunch but I get 15 minutes now to write some more.  Since we sat for about 15 minutes in the auditorium waiting for Elder Bednar, I thought it would be a good idea to write out about the proselytizing and then just send you a picture of the paper.  Unfortunately I don’t have that paper now and don’t have time to get it.  I’ll send that next week.  In short though, it was a great experience with very receptive people.  I learned that I definitely need to work on my Spanish some more though.

Hermanas that flew in at the same time as Elder Howlett

 Listening to Elder Bednar was awesome.  It lasted for about 3 and a half hours with his wife and Elder Waddell of the 70 speaking for less than 30 min of it.  It was very interactive.  He asked us lots of questions and then spent about an hour and a half allowing us to ask questions which he then taught about.  It was a pretty neat experience to do that with an Apostle in such a small group.  He said it had been a long time since he’d taught that small of a group.  He is a funny guy.  He did a cookie monster impersonation and he doesn’t speak Spanish but would throw in the Spanish words he did know.  He probably said "now let me explain porque" at least a dozen times. Afterward we all got to shake his hand.  It was amazing how fast 3 and a half hours flew by.   I couldn’t believe it when he started wrapping up.  When Apostles bear their testimonies about Christ, it always makes me wonder how they gained that special witness of Him.

cool flower at MTC

I had an awesome experience last night.  While we were in class my teacher told me and Elder Potts we were on exchanges to teach that night.  So we grabbed our scriptures and went with one of the teachers to teach.  We teach every day at this time to one of the teachers there who mimics a person they taught on their mission.  However this time he pointed to the guard shack by the MTC gate and told us to go knock.  We were confused because we had never done it in that way before.  We went there and knocked and a guard came out and we told him we had a message for him and started teaching him.  We weren’t sure what the deal was during the entire lesson.  During the lesson he quizzed us on the Bible quite a bit.  Made me realize that I need to know the Bible better than I do now.  Overall though the lesson went very well.  We got the chance to explain the Book of Mormon, go over Moroni’s promise and bear testimony.  Afterward we asked our teachers what had just happened.  They thought it was really funny to put us in an awkward situation.  They said that he’s not a member and that he is preparing to be a Pastor in the Jehovah’s Witness church.  We were the first people to teach him about the Church.  It was neat and even though we thought it was a practice we were glad that we had made a follow up visit.  I’ll have to let you know how our teaching of our first real investigator goes.  

Also I got letters from Miranda, Grandma, Adri, Matt’s blog, and Shanlee via dear elder.  Thanks and I’ll tell you more next week.

Love,

Elder Howlett