Don’t Ask For It if You Don’t Want It

Hey everyone!

On Saturday morning we went with a member of the Church to go and meet a family that lives really far away so that we could teach them.  The family was really cool but to get there we had to go in a bus and then in a motokar.  At the end of the lesson, Elder Villar started talking about the rooster that they had that was right there.  Now for those of you in the states, it is very normal to have multiple roosters in your house here so that wasn’t weird at all.  But he just started talking about how much he likes roosters and that someday he wants to raise them.  So the dad gets up, unties the rooster, and gives it to Elder Villar.  He tells him that he wants him to have it.  Elder Villar kinda tried to say no, but I think he really wanted it.  I was just sitting there shaking my head trying to figure out what in the world was going on. So, I kinda just let it go because it would have been rude to have just straight up said no to the guy at that point...so there we are, 30 minutes from where we live, with a rooster on the side of the road....I literally never would have pictured myself in that situation....but there we were.  

Then we were on the bus on the way back, Elder Villar with a rooster n his lap and really what are we supposed to do with a rooster? It's not like we can put it in our room and it's not like there is much of anything else we could do with it.  So, after the bus ride, we went to take it to a member’s house to leave it there.  Not sure where we go from here.  My suggestion was that we just eat it.  but I guess that won't work...so everyone, I'd like you all to send me some interesting solutions to to this problem!  I'm sure that someone can think of something cool that I can do with it.  

What did we learn? If you don't really want something, don't ask for it because you just might get it.  Like a rooster.  If you talk about how cool a rooster is, his owner might just give it to you.  Such a strange situation.  

Oh, and I gave you all a picture of ziggy zappa.  They’re these giant ants that people eat here.  They’re usually cooked in butter and salt so really, at the end, you don't really taste the ant so much and it's more butter and salt.  It's really like popcorn and it's pretty good, with the coolest name ever.

Love you guys and have a good week

Elder Peacock

PS HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!

Well That Was Stressful

So this week was awesome...kinda.  There were just some really stressful days.

One of the missionaries in my district got sick on Tuesday night and we thought it wasn't anything serious, with just a headache.  But on Wednesday night, he had to go to the hospital because the pain was just getting worse and he really couldn't do anything.  Thursday morning I went out to visit him (20 min drive) to see what was really going on and he was really just in terrible shape.  He couldn’t even open his eyes because he was really sensitive to light and the pain just kept getting worse.  I took him back to the clinic because things were just getting worse.  It was a really long morning and after all of that, He was a little better and finally able to sleep and I left.  The next day, they had kept him for observation and all was good but Friday night he got worse all over again and the doctors had no idea what was wrong.  So, on Saturday morning he got sent to Tarapoto where they have better doctors to see what was going on.  I'm still not 100% sure what's happening with him but that was pretty stressful.  On top of that, he had to leave his companion who has like 2 weeks as a missionary with the other 2 missionaries in that city.  Uh, welcome to the mission? It was really just hard on everyone here especially because that missionary is the only one that actually knows the areas out there because the other 3 are new there... Really hoping he'll be able to come back...

On Saturday we had a baptism.  His name is M* and he's awesome. He had been taught by the missionaries for 16 years (on and off) and all of the members know him.  The rest of his family are already members of the church.  He just always told us he thought we were lying to him (with a hint of sarcasm) and when we asked about his prayers he always said that it was so-so.  But we kept helping him keep going with it and just one day we got there and asked about his prayers and he said it went well. I wasn't really prepared for that so I was just like just asking a little bit about it and he said yeah, I just felt happy and I think it's finally time for me to get baptized...haha well ok if you say so!  But I really just think that even though sometimes it takes a while, the Lord will always answer our prayers.  The Lord had really changed him and from what I know, really had to soften his heart to let him be able to finally feel the desire to join the church.  We always call each other Paisano because he's trying to convince me that he's really from New York...haha I have a hard time believing that but it was awesome.  Also we had the baptism at 7 AM because it was the only time he could do it on Saturday.  Let's just say that river water is really cold at 7 in the morning... but so cool to get to have the baptisms in the river.

Love you guys and hope you all have a great week!

Elder Peacock 

It’s My Birthday!

Hey everyone,

So in case you didn't know, today is my birthday which in the mission doesn't really mean much of anything in all honesty...haha but I'm sure it'll be a great day.

So this week we had interviews with President Gomez.  Sister Gomez went to our room to check it out.  She told me that she found the blog and loves it, especially the part where I talked about cleaning...haha. Apparently Mom thinks I didn't clean before the mission [oops, caught!  I didn’t think he’d read those parts until he got back].  Anyone who knows me well knows that I have always been a very clean person and that I would never allow any part of my life have any dust....ever.....ok, maybe a little bit of an exaggeration.  But Mom, she wanted to give you props for the blog, and she gave me props for the cleanliness of my room!  And then she backhanded it by telling me that my wife will need me to be better about cleaning...why is there even any conversation about me having a wife?  That is very premature!  

They invited us to go and eat with them so I thought that was pretty cool to just get to kinda hang out with them in a little bit less formal of a setting.  In all honesty, they reminded me a lot of Grandpa George and Grandma Nancy.  It was kinda weird, Sister Gomez getting on the serving staff because they took forever, and stopping the car to go and get a banana filled with cheese and peanuts because it looked good...it was funny.  And Prez is a little bit more laid back but always just seems to know what’s going on and what everyone needs. They're really awesome.

Still just working hard here with Elder Villar and things are going well.  My district grew and it's just a lot more stressful having more people to take care of especially with one sick and one area with 0 investigators...

I love you guys and I've gotta go.  Everyone eat some cake for me today!!

Elder Peacock

Deathbed Repentance

by Lisa/Tyler’s Mom

I swore I was over it.  No more packages.  But it’s my baby’s birthday tomorrow and I can’t not send a package.  He’ll spend the whole of his 20th year in another hemisphere.

So here I am putting together a package of junk that he doesn’t need and he’ll probably never see.

Oh how I envy mothers of domestic missionaries.

*Sigh*

Sometimes It’s Bigger Than It Looks

Hey everyone,

So this time I think I actually got the pictures to send.  On Wednesdays, we always have service activities in the morning and this week this couple in the branch asked us to "subir" [English: to lift up] some things for them.  We were in their apartment with them and we thought that meant like some furniture up to the 3rd floor where they live...turns out that meant to carry some sand bags up a mountain for them...Haha.  Afterwards they told me that they were vague on purpose because they thought we wouldn't do it.  So yeah, 50 pounds of sand up a mountain. I was absolutely exhausted by the time we got to the top.  And the bar is one of those steel rods that you use to just make holes.  Looking up at the mountain from the bottom It looks pretty tall.  It feels a lot taller when you're carrying 50 pounds of sand up it and a steel rod.  I really loved it because it kinda took me back to summer workouts for football with the hill and weights and everything.  It was pretty cool, but it killed.

Conference was the best but a really stressful experience as well.  [General Conference occurs twice a year.  The leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints speak on inspired topics to a world wide membership via satellite.  We just exceeded 15 million members!  I can remember when we hit 10 million!  You can listen or view the talks HERE].

We were told that we were going to watch it in Nueva on Sunday all week so we went around telling everyone that and that it would start at 11.   So come Sunday morning, the signal wasn't working so we had to change it to go to Moyobamba (we could have stayed much closer 30 min v. 1hr but nobody wanted to listen to me)  but we had to run around like crazy people that morning to try to tell everyone that we were changing it and everyone was just mad at us (like I could control that) and then all the members that were already there just wanted to know why the missionaries were taking so long instead of helping us. 

It was just a very stressful morning but, the Sunday morning session may have been the best full session of conference that I've ever seen.  I really loved all of those talks.  My take away from conference is that a lot of times we see the Gospel as a way to not have problems in our lives but really that's not even what it is.  It really is just the power and the ability to be able to overcome the problems that are going to come in life.  So when we're doing what we're supposed to, we don't have to be surprised when problems come, we just have to keep doing what we're supposed to be doing.  That's really the only way that we'll be able to overcome those things.  When trials come, get closer to God, don't get further away.

I love being a missionary and love being here.

Love you guys,

Elder Peacock

PS I’ve been a missionary for 11 months today

PPS Transfers today

PPPS 1 week until my Birthday....how am I supposed to be a 20 year old?

Glimpses at Life in Nueva Cajamarca

Extracts from letters received from Elder Peacock this week:

“I guess I’ll tell you about the food here, it’s a lot of rice.  I know I’m thinking really far ahead, but when I get home, I don’t want to see rice for 2 weeks…at least.  So, for breakfast, I eat with my “pensionista” (aka the lady who makes us food).  She’ll make an egg thing or cereal with yogurt, bananas, fruit salad, pancakes and once she tried (unsuccessfully) to make french toast.  But she always gives us Ecco or Kimbo which is a cebada [English: barley] drink.  When I first saw it in Iquitos, I was 100% sure that it was coffee, but it isn’t.  At first I could not drink it [observant members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abstain from coffee].    Later I figured out if I put in 1/2 a spoon of cebada and 6 spoons of sugar, then it’s doable.  Still not a huge fan.  Lunch is with the members and it’s really about always the same:  rice and chicken.  Sometimes with a little bit of other stuff like potatoes or bananas or “salad”.  Salad is cucumbers and tomatoes with lime juice.  Then dinner we’re with our pensionista again and it’s basically the same as lunch, just smaller.  I’m usually not even hungry for dinner though.”

“It’s nice having a pensionista though, even if she is just trying to get me fat.”

Mother’s comments:  Top two least favorite vegetables on Tyler’s list:  tomatoes, cucumbers. Maybe he likes them now.  We have penionistas in America too.  They’re called “MOMs”.

“We have a cement floor right now which is basically impossible to keep clean.  I would sweep & mop and it would look just about the same as it did before I started.  It was very frustrating.  Apparently, the secret is to clean it with gasoline…who’da thought?  But then we found out that nobody had ever even sealed the floor, so that didn’t help.  I sealed it.  It was a project, but it looks much better now.  There really is just a lot of dust here though.  When I got here, this place was a sty.  There are 3 rooms (bedroom, study room, “kitchen”) and everything was all over the place, but I threw away mountains of stuff and organized just about everything.  You’d be so proud mom.”

Mother’s comments:  This paragraph is an absolute testament to how transforming a mission is for a young man.  Of my three sons, this one by far had no interest in tidiness or cleanliness or organization or, well, you get the idea.  That he has spent so much thought and effort on this floor and in organizing the apartment is absolutely contrary to everything I know about this person who is my son.  And, where did he come up with the idea to clean with gasoline and why did he have gasoline in the first place?  These are questions I will likely never know the answer to, I suspect.  There’s just so much wrong in this paragraph I hardly know where to begin.  My very foundation has been shaken.

“You may remember my watch situation?  Well, the watch I came here with broke and nobody could fix it, so I bought one.  Like a week later it broke.  Then Elder Bravo gave me one of those cheap digital watches, which is cool.  Well, not too long later, the band broke.  I took it to this guy in Iquitos and got a new band put on.  Well, fast forward  2 months(ish) and I’m in N.C. and, the band breaks again.  But here, I don’t know a watch guy to fix it.  So, I may have made one of the coolest things ever.  Cutting a hole in a part o fhte band, I put a think rope in it and tied it off.  On the other side I put my keys.  So now I have a pocket watchy keychain.  It’s awesome.  Best part?  I think I have found the best way to have a watch but not have a ridiculous tan line on my wrist.  Isn’t that cool?  I know you’re jealous/proud of that :)  And I know I could buy a new watch, but this one is cooler than anything I could buy and I’m 98% sure that it won’t break.  That % is not an approximation either.  That’s the exact percentage that it is.  I calculated it with some really complex equations.”

Mother’s comment:  OK, maybe not ENTIRELY transformed.

And, this piece of art:

“Don’t worry, I’ll carry a rock around with me for the dogs now :)”

which relates to THIS POST.

“I’ve decided that hard work is a mindset.  If you decide to focus on what’s at hand, you’ll do it and do it well.  If you focus on being somewhere else, you’ll never get anything done.  So really, if you want to be good at something, just focus on it and then your actions will follow.”

Elder Peacock, et. al.

Treasure Hunt

[Email dated 9.30.13]

So this week was pretty cool.  I heard my letters got home so that's good.   If you didn't get a letter and wanted one, well maybe you should write me!

Anyways, so this week we had a baptism of W*.  He's 16 and awesome.  He basically doesn't have much of a family and it's kinda sad but he just accepted everything and changed everything that he was supposed to and was just one of those really prepared investigators. 

However, him being 16, he doesn't have the greatest memory all of the time.  So we had his interview this week and because we’re out in the middle of nowhere, it's a bit of a time drain for the Zone Leaders to get out here to do an interview.  So, when we got out to his house to go with him to his interview, well, he wasn't there... We went everywhere that we thought he could be and asked everyone that knows him (which is a lot of people out by where he lives), but nobody knew.  So the Zone Leaders were already waiting for us so we kinda just had to find him because if not, they'd lose at least 2 hours and maybe not be able to do the interview this week.

By this time, we had looked everywhere he would logically be. Then the thought came to mind: he went to go and work in the workshop of this one member.  That really didn't make any sense because I didn’t think it was what he would be doing.  But we just went out that way and when we get out to the workshop/house, we don't even have to knock the door because W* was just outside walking back and we're like....what?  He had gone to the river to swim!  I was just like, “Cool man, let's go they're waiting for us”. 

In all honesty, if we hadn't gone to that exact place at that exact time we wouldn't have been able to find him. The Spirit didn't tell us that he was going to be walking back at that time. Nor did it tell us that he was swimming in the river.  But it told us what we needed to to be able to find him.  It put us in the right place at the right time.  It didn’t save us from running around with our heads cut off for like 20 minutes.  Sometimes we have to work and suffer before the Lord will just tell us where to go because sometimes we really just don't have the answer, nor could we have possibly had the answer.  The Lord will always just get us what we need and get us where we need to go.  It was cool and there was a similar experience on Saturday for his baptism but I don't think I'll have time to talk about that one too. 

So I guess the wards are all getting split and changed up [in his stake back home—we are organized geographically and sometimes it’s necessary to adjust boundaries.  We become comfortable in our ward/congregation families, so change is always difficult]. It's sad but also a good thing.  Change is good and just take it on the run.  That includes you Bryce.  The girls are gonna follow a good lookin’ guy like you even if you're in another stake so don't worry about them. Everything works out, there are no coincidences, God knows best.  I don't know that I can say too much more about that.  Even though right now it doesn't affect me all that much, it is weird to know that I won't be going back to the same ward I left from...

Anyways, Love you guys and hope you all have a great week!!

Elder Peacock

Hope

[Email dated 9.23.13]

hey everyone,

So things are the same ol’, same ol’ here in Nueva Cajamarca.  Still working hard here with Elder Villar and things are going relatively well.  

So once again, I feel like I have run out of things to say, but luckily, pictures are worth a thousand words and I've got one of those for you...reminds me of the turkey leg from Disneyland [November 2012- last hurrah with our Payne friends before Tyler left, see above], but this is much better.  It's the leg of majaz which is some jungle thing that looks like a giant guinea pig...haha  [See picture below courtesy of Google Images]

This week was a little tough but we did find this family from a referral who had listened to the missionaries before but did not progress.  But they've been through a lot of stuff in the past years that has really changed everything for them.  Now they see the importance and are much more willing to act than they were before.  Sometimes the Lord lets us fall, so that he can lift us up higher.

From what I keep hearing at home, there are some really tough things going on in the lives of a lot of people and I think it's always like that in any group of people, it just seems a little bit more prominent right now and it really is just a part of life.  There are always ups and there are always downs, so we can't be surprised when things are going good that something goes wrong.  The most important thing to really do is just to stay positive and have hope that things will get better.  They always do get better it's just that sometimes you have to wait a little bit.  Just remember that things will get better and then go to work and do what you're supposed to.  I've seen so many people that just don't have hope.  When things go bad, it's the end of the world and when things go good, they can't figure out why it's not always like that.  Also people need to remember that people can change.  Everyone really just needs to be a little more positive and understand that a lot of things are going to happen in life so just be happy about it.  That's really the only thing we can do, just be happy. If you think you can't control your happiness, you're very wrong.  Just choose to be happy and it'll happen.  One of my favorite scriptures (I have a lot of favorite scriptures right now) is Juan 14:26:  

“But the ^aComforter, which is the ^bHoly Ghost, whom the Father will send in my ^cname, he shall ^dteach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

What God gives us won't really make sense to the world but that's because he is not of this world.  

Things are really awesome down here and I really am happy and loving what I'm doing.  Send me some questions so I can have something a little more interesting to write you about next week.  Some of you should be getting some letters in the weeks that are coming, I just sent a bunch to mom so that should be coming.

Love you guys and have a great week!

Elder Peacock