So…About that Date…

[Email dated 7/21/14]

Note:  for some reason this didn’t post originally so it’s out of order. 

This week was pretty much normal.  The attendance in the ward keeps growing and it has about doubled in the last 7 months that I have been here, so that’s good.  We have a bunch of baptisms for this Saturday so I’m pretty excited for that.  

This week we had interviews and room checks with President and Hermana Gomez.  So, the whole day I was going around in a car to all of the rooms in the zone with one of the assistants and it was fairly boring and just hot but fairly interesting.  At the end, I had my interview and now comes the awkward part:  3 months ago when I had my last interview, I had told him that I was going to extend until December and then it was changed a few days later so that I would get home in October.  In my interview, he asked me to extend until December and I said yes...so yeah...SURPRISE!   [Awkward isn’t quite my word for it.]

Anyway, after that the assistants took us to eat some more tacos, which just goes to show that if you’re with a Mexican, the tacos find you.  It’s pretty cool.

On Wednesday, we did service for this family.  The wife was baptized in January and the husband is getting baptized on Saturday!! We were chopping down some trees with an axe.  It was pretty sick and the machete that I have in the picture was for clean up duty when the tree fell.  We're clearing up the lot because they’re going to build their house there.  His name is Martin and he is the coolest guy ever and when I first met him he would just lay down and go to sleep whenever we started talking about God.  Now he is a completely different person.  It is so cool to see and I would bet that i will write more about him next week.

We have another investigator that is supposed to be getting baptized on Saturday as well, but while we were in the sacrament meeting someone stole his motokar and we haven’t been able to talk to him since then.  So, we'll see, but sometimes Satan is just really annoying.  He's a really cool guy that had just finally gotten out of debt too...

Well other than that, I just spent a lot of time in the clinic this week with sick missionaries—that’s just part of the gig.

Love you guys!!

Elder Peacock

Changes

[Email dated Saturday, 7/26/14]

With Elder Romero at the airport

Hey, just so you all know, I’m not being a "chambon" (or, for those of you who don’t know Spanish jungle slang, a disobedient person).  My P-day (personal day) has now changed and my emails may be a little more sporadic in the future.  Let me explain:

So as you all know by now, last week I had my interview with President and he asked me to extend.  What he really did was ask me if I was willing to extend and if there was anything essential that I would have to do in that time.  He asked me to think about it and said that he would also think about it.  So, I figured that there was something that he needed or wanted me to do with that extra time, but I figured that he would want to have me train another new missionary or he would want me to go to another zone as a Zone Leader and needed that extra change for timing. But, I must confess, I didn’t really think too much about it.  

On Monday, everything was going as normal, email in the morning and P-day in the afternoon, etc.  At about 6, we were in the clinic with a sister who had some weird health stuff going on and we were in the waiting room when we got a call from President Gomez.  I left the room for a second and he started out by asking me how my P-day was and then he asked me to be the new assistant [one of two missionaries that serve in the office with the Mission President and help him oversee the mission at large, often referred to as an “AP” or Assistant to the President].  He told me that I would be leaving the next day to go to Iquitos and that was about it for the call.

So yeah, now I'm here in Iquitos in the offices and I will basically always write you now on Saturdays, unless I’m travelling, which will be about half of the time.  So, I can’t really predict what days or what time I’ll always be able to write.  Just assume that it’ll be on Saturdays in the morningish....

I left on Tuesday.  I was leaving at 12ish, so I was in the district meeting for a little bit and when we left I just told everyone that I was going to go and do some marriage paper stuff in the municipality for the wedding that should be starting in about an hour.  I left instructions with my companion to just tell everyone this week that I am in Campo Verde with a member because I wasn’t supposed to really tell anyone out there that I was leaving.  I have called him since and supposedly everyone bought it, which is pretty funny.  One of the missionaries who is finishing their mission actually got to the mission offices yesterday and they didn’t know that I was here.  It was kinda funny.  

With my new companion, Elder Anderson, in the mission office

Since I got here I have been with President every day.  He's been doing interviews and I have been talking to a lot of missionaries and kinda getting to know them because I haven’t been in Iquitos for over a year.  I know like 10% of them, so its a big task because I have to get to know all of them.  So that’s my story.  I’m here in the offices and I will be here for the next 4.5 months until I end in December, which is why President asked me to extend.  My companion is Elder Anderson and I am replacing Elder Thompson, who I had also replaced in Nueva Cajamarca.  There are 3 Secretaries here: Elder Scott, Elder Medina and Elder Zamalloa.  I’m just glad that I wont really be in the offices for that long because I will usually be travelling or doing other things...lots of travelling actually.  After these 2 weeks, I should be travelling for the next 2 or 3 weeks depending on the planning that we will have a little later today. 

While I was here yesterday, Elder Villar and Elder Lee were both here so I got a picture with both of the missionaries that I trained.  I didn’t even know if i was going to get to see Elder Villar again, so that was good.

I love you guys and I won’t really get to see your emails for another week....that’s just what happens when I get an emergency change and my P-day gets changed.  Have a great week!!!

Elder Peacock

PS.  Take a note of the fine selection of ties Elder Peacock is sporting in each of the pictures above.  Each one a candidate in its own right for HAIR TIE.

Tacos!!!

[Email dated 7.14.14]

Hey everyone!

So this week was great.  Last week when we were in Iquitos, we went to Prez’s house because he lent us a machine to make tortillas.  I didn’t even know that you needed a machine to do it!  So we had that and we had planned an activity to make tacos with the ward and more or less teach them how to do it.  We tried to make a really big deal out of all of this so that people would attend because, really, the ward needs a lot of help because there isn’t much going on and it’s not in great shape.  We actually had a great turnout and it went really well and the tacos were really good!  And, now I know how to make tortillas which is something quite useful to know.  I was in charge of making the guacamole and flipping the tortillas.  I also ground the corn to make the masa which was all really interesting.  But, the best part of the activity was that we put on some talks from general authorities while we were doing some cooking stuff and the members reacted really well to it.  The Stake President (who is a really cool guy) asked us for the videos because they’re pretty awesome.  They’re actually the ones that Justin gave me before I left.  This Sunday we had the highest attendance of any Sunday since I’ve been here.  Also, the tacos tasted really good.  

Also, we finally got out to Campo Verde this week to be in their council and to go and visit a few people with them.  It was really interesting.  We talked to the ex branch president who is a really smart guy but doesn’t go to church and he just had an attitude of "I know everything" as we talked to him.  A little bit has to do with the fact that were just young kids, even if my comp is 27...but it’s kinda just sad to see that someone that "knows" so much and just doesn’t want to act for reason X and Y.  He even said that him not going to church is part of God’s plan for him so that later on he can testify that you can come back....that makes no sense to me at all.  God never wants us to distance ourselves from Him.  Once we're in the pathway, there is no leaving it. 

This week we’re going to take all of the missionaries out to Campo Verde for a few hours to help them prep for their conference.

Love you guys!!

Elder Peacock

[PS.  Somehow I think we got shorted on the pictures that he meant to send last week but forgot his camera….call me greedy, I like pictures]

Happy 4th of July

[Email dated 7/7/14]

I had a lot of pictures for this week to send you guys, but I forgot my camera in my room....whoops.

I had a pretty good food day on the 4th of July because I am an expert chef [who knew?].  For breakfast, I made french toast with real maple syrup on it.  At lunch, a member gave us a really good steak with this creamy sauce on it.  At night, I made western bacon cheeseburgers which were pretty delicious.  Turns out that cooking isn’t really all that hard [go figure!].  It may not be gourmet but it sure tasted good.  And we’re going to keep going with the good food because today we’re going to make some tacos with handmade tortillas and everything. [Tortillas are not very common in Peru.] And, if you all can believe it, I’m actually losing weight! haha 

So yeah, this week we went to Iquitos so we really didn’t have too much time here in Pucallpa and we didn’t actually get out to Campo Verde because we had a couple of things fall through.  This week we should be getting out there and it'll be interesting for sure.  While in Iquitos, we did a lot of stuff because usually we don’t have much of anything to do other than just follow around other missionaries.  This time we had to print off some maps of the areas and the wards which took a couple hours to be able to get all of the divisions done correctly. Then, the other day we were there, President asked me to take a missionary to the clinic which was another few hours and it was a lot busier than usual which was nice.  

So that’s about all that I have for you guys and I will have pictures for next week. I would say that I promise.....but really anything could happen....haha love you mom!!!

Elder Peacock

Green Field

[Email dated 6/30/14]

Hey everyone!!

So this week was good, Elder Romero and I are working really hard and things are going pretty well in our area.  The attendance in the ward is going up, which is good because it’s a really small ward and we really have to get it up quick.  We’re also working on some stuff to get better coordination between the wards and the missionaries, so we’re participating in high council meetings [High Councils are the leadership councils for an area] and bishop meetings [leadership for a congregation] and all kinds of meetings and getting some cool stuff set up for the wards in the future.  The idea is that we want a system that will be based on the members, ward [congregation] and stake [area] instead of on the missionaries.  It’s not all that complicated, it just takes some time to set it up, but we're really excited about it.  

Also, due to some visa problems, some missionaries have had to leave the mission and we had to close an area (Campo Verde, or in English Green Field)  in our zone for a couple of months.  As a result, Elder Romero and I had to head out to that branch and take out all of the stuff that they had in their room and bring it to our room.  So, in our room we now have 6 desks 2 fridges, and  lots of little things that are very useful.  [Gee, it’d be great to see a picture of that!  I have been requesting pictures of his living arrangements repeatedly—almost every other week for 18 months now…never happens] It was a lot of work with two trips out there, equating to a total of 9 hours of carrying stuff and sitting in a car.  But, by the end, we got it all out.  Now it’s probable that I will head out to that branch to work once a week to help out the members.  So, I basically just got an area that is way bigger than this one and we kind of have both of them...more or less. It’s kinda ours by default because we're the zone Leaders but it’ll be fun and a good way to mix it up. 

Also this week we had a training with President Gomez which was good.  In the afternoon during the training, I went with Sister Gomez and one of the assistants to do surprise room checks when the missionaries weren’t there.  We ended with my room and mom, I think you would be proud because of all of the rooms that we saw, my room was definitely the cleanest!! haha I was really surprised by that and I bet you are too!! [The other ones must have been REALLY bad.  Just sayin’]

Love you guys!!

Elder Peacock

P.S.  Since you asked directly, yes I will be coming home on October 21st. [He mentioned the date in an aside a few weeks ago and we’ve been trying to nail him down ever since.  He’s wiggly, that one!  We were so surprised because it was a full 6 weeks earlier than the first date he gave us—we’re so excited!]