I Have No Hair!

[Email dated 2.24.14]

This may have been one of the most stressful weeks of my life and I'm fairly certain that I have pulled out quite a bit of my hair.  Let's just say that it is really hard to get birth certificates here and that’s a very necessary thing to be able to get people married.   And, of course, everyone has to be from some little town on the river that doesn't have a phone number.  Sometimes it’s a little frustrating....  That and there were just a whole lot of other problems and we had quite a few marriages that fell through after spending many hours this week doing paperwork.  Well, at least now we have all of the paperwork ready, right?

Aside from that, there were just some people with problems this week which resulted in quite a bit of time on the phone and a few hours in the clinic.  In all, it was a very busy week on top of teaching and normal missionary responsibilities....probably one of the most tiring weeks as a missionary that I've had up until this point.  But it was still a good week!  I'm still definitely very happy and all is good for me so don't be worried about that, it's just a lot of stuff and I'm definitely figuring out how to organize myself and keep things in order because if it weren't so, I would probably actually go crazy...(I won't though, I promise!)  [This is a good thing!  I’m actually pretty excited for him to learn organization as a life skill.  For all of his intelligence, I have failed miserably to teach him organization, which is a topic I, myself, usually feel quite competent at.]

So If you guys remember last year, I wrote about a holiday called Carnaval where everyone danced around those weird tree things and got each other wet.  Well, this year, it was a lot different.  In Iquitos, it was basically just for kids to play around while the parents watched, but here everyone was just in a huge party and there was a lot of music and alcohol consumption and everyone was outside....it was basically impossible to teach anyone because nobody was home and even if they were, there was no way we'd have been able to hear them or talk to them at all.  So that was a few hours of walking around and not getting much done.  I'm not a fan of holidays here, it's just a lot of noise.  We kept working and all we just didn't get much out of it. 

Here in Pucallpa, there is a stake [geographic organization of congregations] with 8 wards [congregations] and a branch [small congregation].  7 of the wards have 2 companionships and are pretty big.  Our ward is the only one with one companionship and it's tiny.  A lot of people moved a couple of months ago.  It was also closed down to missionaries for like a year with nobody here until October, so the ward needs to be revived out here, especially because of the lack of missionaries for so much time.  The ward just got smaller, so now we’re still trying to get it back to where it was before because it used to be the strongest ward in the stake.  The stake is actually really strong out here though.

Everything is good for me out here and I'm loving life.  The good and the bad is all a part of it and I love it all.  There is nowhere in the world that I would rather be right now. Love you guys!

Elder Peacock

PS Pictures next week!

Note.  So we were a little, um, put out with the lack of detail and/or length from Tyler’s recent emails.  So we might have mentioned that in our letters.  All of them (Jeff, Lisa, Justin).  I think he got the point.  Jeff took a more direct approach by asking specific questions in his email, with Tyler’s responses (Jeff in gray, Tyler in black and Lisa in red):

I think your Mom and I have decided we need to ask more questions to enable us to learn details about your life.   So here goes the standing list of things we’d like to know: 

1. Tell us about your apartment.  My apartment is 2 big rooms-- one with desks, the other with beds and a bathroom.  On the second floor and there is another family with us that I do not know. [I have no idea what he means in the last sentence.   Is it a duplex, their apartment on the bottom and another on the top?  Or, is there a 2nd floor IN his apartment and there is a random family that lives there?  AND.  They’re missionaries!  How come they don’t know them?  Even answers bring questions…]
2. The Branch?  How big?  What do the members do in Pullcapa for employment?  We’re in a ward where the attendance is between 60 and 90 and has the smallest area in the stake.  The members are good but were missing a lot of key callings.  I'm thinking about talking to the stake president to get the boundaries changed a little bit to give us a new part of the area to work in (it`s tiny).  [Wards are organized by geographic boundaries.  There is no paid ministry in the Church so adult members do various jobs, or “callings” to help the Church function.  It’s one of my very favorite aspects of the Church because you get to stretch and grow to fill jobs you’re called to do.  The majority of callings rotate regularly as needed].
3. Elder Limon--Wildcat or Sundevil?  [If you’re from Arizona, you’ll know what this means] Devil
4. How are your clothes/shoes/socks holding up?  Anything you need?  All good.  I've decided my shirt sleeves are too long on my long sleeve white shirt so I’m thinking about getting a new one that fits better and the majority of my white shirts have some kind of stain that won’t come out but nothing huge....
5. Do you have all your suitcases with you now?  I have one suitcase but I’m fine.  [He left with 2, I don’t think he’s had both with him at any one time since he got to Peru…]
6. Are you catching up in your mission journal (since you got all your packages…) I have not gotten around to the journal yet.
7. Any follow-up thoughts and/or discussions about M&D coming to Peru?  Oct/Dec determination yet?.  And the food:  Any different where you are now?  What are you eating these days? I don't know when I'll get home.  Prez doesn't write me back about it and I really had stopped thinking about you guys coming down to get me.  What would our itinerary be like?
8. And the food:  Any different where you are now?  What are you eating these days?  RICE

Another Week Gone By

[Email dated 2.17.14]

So,

This week was really busy and full of stuff that happened but I don't know that any of it is actually interesting for you guys.  We had transfers which means a couple of days of sending off missionaries and receiving them. We got one sister in the zone (coming from my first area) who showed up without her suitcase.  That was a bit of a hassle getting the suitcase from Iquitos out here, causing a whole lot of confusion.  She finally got her suitcase two days later.  I felt bad but there was nothing we could really do.  Then our phone broke (it just stopped working...we didn’t do anything) and our phone is somewhat important so we had to find a phone to use in the mean time.  It wasn't really all that much stuff this week and not really any stories to tell you about.  I have like a completely new zone just because they changed the division of the zone so it's all just new people to me that are in the same spot.  It’s been a little confusing but even that is somewhat boring...

We did find out that Elder Grow from the Seventy is going to come out to visit the mission and the stakes and everything out here.  He will also supposedly be in quite a few meetings with us and conduct training—it’s pretty exciting and I might actually get some time to talk to him as a zone leader which would be really interesting and a little scary....

That's about it for this week.

I love you guys and hopefully I’ll have something exciting for next week.

Elder Peacock

P.S.  I always just love those days where I'm in charge of everything and it’s chaos but everyone else is completely oblivious...

He Speaks English!

hey everyone!

As a Zone Leader,  I already know the changes and I know that I'm staying here with Elder Limon.  My Zone, however, just got completely changed, including the boundaries.  I'll have a whole lot of people and areas to get to know so this should be interesting.  It should be a good change, though.

This week was good and we had another baptism, a guy named T*.  The guy is really awesome and probably one of the most prepared people I've ever taught because he was just ready to accept everything and really just wanted to change his life.  Also, he lived in Washington DC for 10 years so he speaks English fluently.  A lot of times I just talk to him in English.  We actually taught him once in English which was pretty weird.  It does not feel natural to do that.  At the baptism we met his son, also named T*, who then went to church the next day and he wants to get baptized too.  It'll be cool because his dad will be able to baptize him at that point.  It'll be really awesome.  

Things are going really well here and I'm excited to be here and keep working!

Love you guys!

Elder Peacock

P.S.  I got my packages, don't worry:   the 2 from Christmas and the
one you sent on the 22nd.  Getting packages is a perk of being a ZL.  I just get it ASAP and don’t  have to worry about it getting stuck anywhere. [Only of course, he JUST got that Christmas package that was sent 3 months ago, but who’s counting?]

P.P.S.  Why does Bryce have my helmet?

[this is in response to this picture of his brother gearing up for broomball last weekend…]

Mom:  Wow! Good eye! His helmet is being recertified... He was wishing he had had little helmets for his knees tho, cuz they got hammered

Elder Peacock:  did he mess up my helmet?  I’d recognize that thing from a mile away

Mom:  What could he possibly do to it that you didn't already do to it on the field!? Haha

Elder Peacock:  well I don’t know....i just love that thing....

[If I time it “just right” we can have a mini conversation while he’s online.  You know, for important things like this.]

Rollin’

Hey everyone!
This week was like the exact opposite of the last week.  Last week we were just so busy doing busy work that we barely had any time to do missionary work and then this week we were basically working the entire week like normal and it was awesome!  Then, this coming week we lose like 3 days going to Iquitos for a meeting with all of the Zone Leaders.  So I guess it's just like always going to be like this.  It's alright, it makes for some more adventures right?

Today I want to tell you guys about like my favorite member ever.  His name is Isaac and he is in a wheelchair.  He has no function in his legs, nor has he ever.  He is the Ward Mission Leader  here and he is the best.  [A Ward Mission Leader is a member of the local congregation and he helps coordinate missionary efforts between the congregation which is organized geographically and the assigned missionaries.]  He always goes around with us to teach, always has referrals for us and is just always willing to help us, we just have to wheel him around, which is fun anyways. 

A few weeks ago, he told us that he would hit his 3 years as a member mark on the 29th and I told him that we were going to get him a cake for that day and he just laughed it off.  Well, we showed up that night with a cake for him!  He is really a great example.  He has had one of the hardest lives of anyone I've ever met and for a long time he was just bitter with the world.  Then everything changed when he joined the church.  He is now probably one of the happiest people that I know.  He has the strongest testimony and drive to do good of anyone that I know.  It really makes me think of the story in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah 24.  Especially verse 14. 

14 And I will also ease the ^aburdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as ^bwitnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their ^cafflictions.

We pass through hard times so that we can know that God will help us.  He is really just a great example for me and I especially love going on splits [when a member of the Church goes with a missionary to a teaching appointment] with him.  Just rolling around the neighborhood with Isaac (his nickname is "chucky" hahahha.

I love you guys and hope you have a great week!!

Elder Peacock