An Earthquake, Bubbles, and Sickness

5 August 2013

So my parents asked me to talk first a little bit about our Preparation Day activities. On our P-Day, sometimes we go shopping for food. If we get the chance, we like to go to Tottus, the only real grocery store in Peru. I still haven't had the opportunity to go, but from what I've heard it's like Walmart. The only bad thing is that it's kind of far away from where we live. When we do buy food, it's usually from a little tienda (shop) or market because they are everywhere. There are 3 little tiendas (shops) within a couple of blocks from our house, as well as a botica (drugstore). At the markets we will buy fruit or veggies. Sometimes, Hermana Juanita will give us a bag of fruit. Sometimes on P-days, we will get our money from her that she would have spent on our meal for that day and use it to buy food from a restaurant. We have gone to the airport a couple of times to eat and send letters because it's super close to our apartment. At the airport, we can eat McDonalds, Papa Johns, Dunkin' Donuts and lots of other fast foods. In Peru, there are actually lots of fast food restaurants like Papa Johns, Burger King, McDonalds, etc. It's interesting to me.

On P-Day, we also do our laundry. In my apartment, we have a washing machine, so we wash our own clothes and hang them up to dry. In other areas, usually they have a member that does their laundry. In one area, they just got a person that has a dryer, which is crazy for out here. So how you do your laundry just depends on which area you are in.

We are allowed to listen to church music, so I listen pretty much every day. We can't have earbuds or headphones, so I hook my old iPod to some speakers, which are sweet. As far as playing the piano, I have some sheet music from home that is awesome, but there aren't very many pianos here. In my ward, we only have one piano, and it's electric and located in the chapel. In one of the other meetinghouses that I've been in, they had a real piano in their chapel and I totally sat down to play. I have only had the opportunity to play the piano a couple of times since I got here, which sucks. Today is our P-Day outside of our mission, so I'm going to buy an instrument of some sort to play on so I can express myself musically, because I'm dying! Super excited to see what I can find!

So there was an earthquake here a couple of weeks ago, but at the time, me and my companions were doing an exchange in another area (because they are Sister Training Leaders and they go out and train the other sisters in the mission twice per week), and we were sitting outside near a bunch of construction. We felt something like a little rumble for about two seconds, but we just thought it was the construction. Sister Agle was still back in our area and she said all the buildings were swaying, but we didn't have any swaying where we were at.

This week, I didn't eat anything super weird or super yummy, except Hermana Juanita's really good soup. Here, they often serve soup before a meal, and the soup is always really great. Yesterday, she made a chicken and rice dish. The chicken was kind of gross, but the rice was super-duper yummy, like Cafe Rio-delicious.

The worst part about this past week was that me and my companions have all been super sick. Last Monday, I started to get a sore throat and it quickly developed into the worst cold that I've had in years. However, rather than rest, I decided to try and work through it because I didn't want to make my companions stay in with me and miss our citas (appointments). Therefore, Tuesday and Wednesday sucked!! On Thursday, I got out of bed, told them I really needed to sleep, and then I spent most of the day inside. Blah! I still have the cold, but I'm starting to get better now. On the other hand, Hermana Agle ate something bad or had a bug that made her throw up for two or three days. On Saturday night, I threw up too... so that was fun. Yesterday, I went to church and that was all I could do. Now, Hermana Mangum and Hermana Agle have got my cold, and yesterday afternoon, Hermana Solis threw up too. On the bright side, we are all feeling pretty good today, and hopefully it stays that way!

Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls

This week, we had a noche de talentos (talent night), and our zone was in charge of everything. We had one skit planned and practiced along with a song. Every companionship had to have 2 things prepared, and no one else had even practiced anything. Therefore, the night came and we started an hour late and it was crazy. Our skit was about Death trying to take a kid, but he called on a bunch of his super heroes to save him. There was Superman, Batman, Iron Man, Harry Potter, and lots of others. I was Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls. All of the heroes come to save the kid, but they run away when Death confronts them. In the end, the missionaries come and save the day. When the missionaries appear, Death runs away because they are representatives of Jesus Christ and He overcame death. That was the highlight of the show. I took some pics, but I forgot to put my memory card in before and so I can't get them off my camera to send you. Sorry!

On Saturday, we did a service project and spent 6 hours painting a school. It lasted too long because pretty much only the missionaries showed up to do it. It was fun, just super cold! 

So yeah, this week was really interesting and out of the normal. Hopefully next week will be better, especially since our Mission President set a goal for all companionships to have 3 baptisms this month... I don't know how we're going to do it, but with faith, we'll see what happens.