Motokar Getaway

As a few of you may have commented, I did not write anyone last week.  I didn’t forget, I just didn’t actually have a chance to write last week because we were in Moyobamba and Tarapoto.  It was really weird to have to report our key indicators on Sunday because we only were in our area for 2 hours last week.  It was a nice change from being in the offices all the time. 

Last Tuesday we left to go to Tarapoto and Moyobamba for a couple of trainings and a District Conference in Moyobamba on Sunday.  We were in Tarapoto, working with the Zone Leaders, when we had a very interesting encounter.  We were going by motokar to a place that none of us knew so the motokarista pulled over to ask someone for directions.  Two seconds later he pops back over to the moto being held up by his collar by another man.  The other guy was just yelling at him and I really don’t know a lot of bad words in Spanish, but I knew that that guy was using a lot of them and after about 3 seconds it was readily apparent that the guy had been drinking fairly heavily....

So, we were just sitting there not really having anything to do when all of a sudden, the drunk guy looks over at us and yells "hermanos!!" He continues to tell us that he was Mormon (all of the drunk people tell us that) and starts talking to us when out of nowhere he grabs the motokarista and starts yelling at him again.  During this whole thing, the other missionary companionship is in another motokar just watching this all happen--just kinda weirded out and confused, but laughing at the same time.  Our motokarista got back onto his moto, backed it up and started to go, but the drunk guy was just holding on.  Motokars don’t really have powerful engines, so we couldn’t keep going.  I took the guy’s hand off of the motokar and we took off.  The drunk guy took off at a full sprint, caught up to the moto and jumped on the  back of it just yelling again.  I thought he was about to hit me for pulling his hand off. 

Both of the motos stopped and we all got off to try to just calm things down, but the drunk guy thought that we wanted to fight him.  He started to take his shirt off but it got stuck and we were just there watching the guy struggling with his shirt stuck over his head.  So we just got back on the moto and took off, but he caught the other moto before they could leave, after giving up on taking his shirt off.  Then he commenced to yell at them, asking to talk to us.  At that moment, we had turned around and went flying by.  He chased us, but wasn’t able to catch us, thereby freeing the other companionship to be able to take off.  

We all came away unscathed and, just so you know mom, I was never in any danger.  My comp and I are approximately 95% larger than any of the Peruvians.  Also, one of the missionaries in the other moto was a sniper on a SWAT team before his mission, so I don’t think there was ever much danger....we were just laughing the whole time....so yeah, then we were in Tarapoto for 2 more days working.

When we were heading out to Moyobamba (it's a 2 hour car ride), it was a little bit windy so one of the hermanas with us got a little car sick and just let it go out the window.  It was just really funny because it’s the first time that a sister had ever gone anywhere with president and his wife and she just had to throw up on the first trip....haha there’s a picture for you guys too. [Poor thing!  I apologize to her family (if they see this) for my son’s sense of humor!  I’m not really sure the re-enactment was necessary, so I left the picture kind of small.] 

When we got out to Moyo, we did more training and went out working  with missionaries in their areas and it was pretty cool.  On Saturday, we went to this place with natural pools with President and Hermana Gomez in the morning.  We had District Conference the rest of the time through Sunday morning.  I got to see a lot of the members from Nueva Cajamarca and a lot of my converts out there as well.  It was actually really cool to get to see all of them and they’re really close to being able to get the chapel built out there too if they just keep going where they’re at right now.  

In the afternoon, I got to go out to Nueva Cajamarca again.  I was with President, Hermana Gomez and Hermana Simonson, so Hermana Gomez had 1.5 companions and I only had half. [I read this sentence several times and still don’t think I quite understand the math.]

We went out to Nueva Cajamarca to eat lunch with a family that was baptized about 2 weeks before I got there the first time [a year ago], and they are one of the coolest families ever.  I also got to go out and work in my old area for a few hours.  It was a really cool afternoon and I loved it.  Got to see some really cool people and I got to show the missionaries there what I had learned because it is a really different area and you have to work differently.  It was a great week out there.  We got back on Monday, a full week outside of the city.

This week had more training and visits with missionaries.  It’s a good experience, but a little weird to give the same training every time, even though it is always a little different.  Things are going really well and I’m having a great time out here.  Love you guys!! This week I'm heading back out to Pucallpa, it should be good.

Elder Peacock

[Mom/Editor note:  The Spanish syntax is getting deep, even when he’s writing in English!  And, he has forgotten how to capitalize.  Took me forever to “translate” this email.]