It Was Nearly Time to Start Calling People Who Know People…

You may have noticed I didn’t post an email last week.  That’s because there wasn’t any email.

I was calm.  It had happened before with Justin.  Things got moved around.  There was a conference.  Internet was down.  Whatever.  I can miss a week.  I don’t like it, but I can do it.

So I eagerly got on the computer this morning expecting an email and doubly excited to get one.  He has been very consistent—emailing about 8am CA time every Monday.

The refresh button on my email box was nearly worn out by 3:30, and I realized it was later in Peru (I have no idea how much later, Jeff will tell you that I’m terrible at time conversions!) so the chances of hearing from him were getting slimmer to none. 

I had nearly given in to despair when this popped up from Elder Peacock:

Ok so I have no time right now but I'm not dead and I should be able to write tomorrow.  I'm in the offices right now, not to worry though everything is fine and I'm still going to be in Iquitos.  Should have time tomorrow.

It is the most eloquent, beautiful email he’s written to date! 

It’s enough.  All’s good.  See you tomorrow.

P.S. I keep thinking of Jeff’s poor mother.  How did she survive it when her sons served in Europe prior to email?  She had to rely on unreliable letters.  I don’t know how she did it!  Internet is a blessing and a curse!  I love being able to hear from him every week, but she probably didn’t drive herself crazy like me because there wasn’t that weekly expectation. *sigh*

April Fool’s Day?

yeah, it's not celebrated here. Not that I have a cool story there but it's just not.  Anyways, this week was good.

First off, I did not get transferred, neither did Elder Duran.  So we're both here until next transfers and then it's almost for sure that one of the two of us is getting transferred, but in all reality, we have no idea which of us it will be.  There's a couple of weeks before that happens anyways.  And for the record, we actually get to see all of conference this weekend, I didn't really expect to get to see all of it but that should be awesome.

So this week, Pres. Blunck came to Iquitos for a training and at the end of it he answered questions about the mission Iquitos.  When it splits on July 1, we'll stay where we are so the transfers in the middle of June will decide where I go and he doesn't yet know all of who will go and who will stay.  I have a feeling I'm going to be staying in Iquitos.  But when the mission splits, the part in Lima will gain 2 stakes and the mission Iquitos will start opening up areas like crazy and then who knows where I could end up. 

After the training, Pres Blunck asked Elder Duran and I if he could come on splits [splits are when a missionary companionship split up and go with others to a lesson] with us and of course we said yes.  Elder Duran went with Pres and I went with Brother Gibb, who is a friend of Pres Blunck from the states who was visiting and doesn't speak any Spanish.  In all honesty he kinda reminded me of dad with his means of trying to explain himself (ie. asking for a check through gestures and talking louder), it was kinda funny.  But we went to the family that was baptized and not confirmed last week to teach a lesson and it was kinda cool.  I basically taught the whole lesson but at the end I translated his testimony for him. 

The whole time, he was just absolutely amazed by everything.  The homes, the people, the motokars, the buildings, the jungle, and everything else.  I guess being here for a few months I have forgotten that this is not like the US.  I have kinda convinced myself that this is all normal and there's not much different, which is true...for Peru.  But I guess it is a bit of a shock at first coming here and it is impossible to explain the fact that there is a huge city in the middle of the jungle.  It just doesn't translate. 

Also this week was semana santa and it's definitely a lot different here.  On Friday, I went out onto the balcony and looked because I heard like a megaphone outside.  There were just thousands of people in the street walking.  They just walk around all day following a guy dressed up as Jesus and every single one of them is wearing purple.  And then Sunday night just turns into a party...haha not exactly the reverent Easter Sunday I'm used to back home.

Love you guys and thanks for everything,
Elder Peacock

PS no package yet, hopefully next week :)

And Now For the Rest of the Story…

Last week the computer ate Tyler’s letter.  He came up with a solution to the problem by handwriting his original letter and then taking pictures of it to email this week.

Don’t worry, you don’t need your binoculars.  I have typed it out…

REDEMPTION

So, I will first explain what happened with the computer.  I was writing my email and I had about 5 minutes of internet left and I had written probably my longest letter yet.  I turned to talk to another Elder for a second and my elbow/forearm hit the keyboard.  I look back at my screen and all that was left was the first sentence I had written about Quisto Cocha…Yeah, let’s just say I wasn’t too happy about that and not even “undo” could help me out.  So, I threw together a little paragraph with what little time I had left.  Luckily, I came up with a solution, as should be apparent from the fact that you’re reading this.  Mom, you can either just forward/post the pictures or you can type it out if you get bored or happen to have a lot of free time [I type really fast].  Or, maybe Bryce needs to practice his typing skills.  I’m sure he needs to practice his driving skills.

OK, so I’ll start with Quisto Cocha [I googled it, it’s actually Quistococha, one word, see a video HERE.  The music alone is worth the jump].  It’s like a zoo on the river.  There are pumas, leopards, jaguars, monkeys, birds, huge fish and some other cool stuff.  I got my picture taken with a snake which was cool, but sadly the Elder taking pictures might not have ever touched a camera before so I don’t actually have any good pictures.  I do, however, like the picture I sent home of me on the river.  A different Elder took that one.

At the end, we played soccer on the “beach” which was better than soccer on asphalt.  Then I ate some zuri (aka, tree slug for you white folk).  It tasted like coconut.  It had a very tough exterior with a very gushy interior.  Oh, and, it was alive and the head is very crunchy.  I wouldn’t exactly recommend it but it wasn’t the worst experience of my life.

On Thursday night, it was raining pretty hard and when it rains hard here, some of the roads turn into rivers and lakes form in other places.  That doesn’t really have much to do with the story, but whatever.  So, we show up to a house where we have an appointment and have to jump over a lake to get to the door.  I almost made it and only got a little wet.  Elder Duran [who is only a foot shorter than Tyler] didn’t and his shoe is split so he to wet pretty much everywhere, including his foot which is no fun.  Anyway, we knock on the door and the guy answers (with his wife and kids, one of which is a member of the Church) and invites us in.  It was dark because they don’t have light, so we used my flashlight for the lesson, Dad would be proud.  So it was fairly dark but in the middle of the lesson, something ran in between us and back into the house.  The dad gets up, pulls off his shoe and chasses what turned out to be a rat.  His wife proceeded to tell us about how dangerous the rats are and how on the news the other day an entire family died because of rats.  Don’t worry mom, they’re only in the houses on the water so I’m safe.  But after a minute or two, the dad came back.  The rat had been taken care of and we continued with the lesson.  I couldn’t help but think:  “Did that really just happen?”  Probably one of the strangest lessons I’ve taught so far.

Friday might have been the craziest day of my mission so far.  I’ll preface it by saying we’ve had two families:  Family F* and Family S* waiting to get married and baptized for a while.  The F* Family had their wedding scheduled for 11am on Friday morning for about a week and we were just waiting on a birth certificate for the dad of the S* Family (we were scheduled to pick up the birth certificate at 9am on Friday).  With the birth certificate, we could go and schedule their wedding possibly for Friday afternoon.  So, that was our plan.

We went at 9 and had to wait about an hour to get his birth certificate, but after about two months of work, we finally got it!  So, we race over to the municipio (not sure how to say it in English) to schedule their wedding.  The only time that day available was 11:30am.  That gave us no time to go and let anyone know that the wedding was happening so we could only go get everything set with the family and make sure their witnesses were going to be there.  Then we had to race back to the municipio for the wedding we had at 11 for the F* Family.  With everything that we had to do that morning, we didn’t have time to go see if everything was good with them so we were just hoping they’d be there on time.  Timeliness is not common here.  There were only a few minutes late, but brought their witnesses and family and everything.  So, we had their wedding and it was awesome.  Then the other family was there with their witnesses and we had their wedding right after. 

I think before my mission, I had only been present for one actual wedding and in about one hour I attended two.  Crazy.

That night, we had the baptism of the F* Family and spent a good part of the afternoon getting that set up and everything with only a few hours of proselytizing.  A large portion of the ward [congregation] was there, which was awesome and we had asked the Elder’s Quorum President [a priesthood leader] to give a short message.  He asked for a reference and we gave him 2 Nephi 31.  His message was exactly that.  He read 2 Nephi 31…all of it. [It is typical to use a few verses and then elaborate in your own words]  Haha, it was kind of funny for Elder Duran and me.  But, the baptism was awesome and the that family is the best!  There was a huge party for them and the Relief Society [women’s organization] after, something about the anniversary of the Relief Society.  But yeah, there was a nice, big party for them, which was awesome.

The next night we had the baptism for the S* Family.  They’re a little bit unpredictable sometimes.  We called at 5pm to check up on them for their 7 o’clock baptism.  The dad was in San Juan working.  San Juan is about 15 minutes away by moto and like an hour walking, and he basically walks everywhere, so that kinda scared us especially because he was still working.  He assured us that he’d be there by 6:30 though, so we just had to take his word for it.  They were only like 10 minutes late, but that meant that they were actually 20 minutes early for their baptism, which was one of the biggest surprises because it’s not really like them!  But I’ll take it!  Their service was awesome and there were a good number of members [of the Church] there because this family had waited about two months after their original baptism date because of the birth certificate issue, so they really are already part of the ward.

After the baptism, we had a cake with a bride and groom on top for the family and I made Elder Duran take a picture with it because he’s going to be married in about a year.  I mean he gets home in 10 months, so that gives him 2 months to find a wife.  Plenty of time, right?  Haha. That is not serious at all.

As many of you know, baptism is only the first part of the ordinance.  On Sunday, they were confirmed and received the gift of the Holy Ghost.  Well, we get to our first Sacrament Meeting about 10 minutes before the meeting and had talked to our Ward Mission Leader about going and reminding the F* Family and bringing them to church.  He shows up about 5 minutes later without them, so we go and look for them but they weren’t home.  We found out later that on Friday after their baptism, a relative of theirs let them stay in a hotel of theirs in Nauta, which is a good 2 hours away and they just didn’t get back in time.  They got there about an hour and a half late, so they’re just going to wait a week, which was very stressful.  Luckily, the other family was already in the chapel when we got there so there no problems there.

All in all, it was a very stressful weekend, but probably one of the best ones so far.  And hopefully you can read this letter and it makes up for me not really being able to send that email.  For the record, you did get a lot more detail with this letter than you would have with the mail.  And I just want you all to know that the Church is true and Christ really is our Savior and Redeemer and that because of what He did for us, we can all live together in happiness para siempre.

See HERE for the English version of Alma 26:12.

The Computer Ate My Letter

[It was going to be a good one too!]

Hey everybody,

So this week was a good week.  On our Pday last week we went to Quisto Cocha which is basically a zoo but in a cool area on the river, that's where that picture of me on the river is.  I got to play with a snake and eat zuri which is a tree slug and tastes like coconut.  

So mom I have to apologize, I finished my letter and almost all of it got deleted and I have no more time left today so I'll have to tell you about everything that happened this week next week, which really is a bummer because I had a lot to tell you this week.  We had the wedding of two families that we had waited forever for and then the baptisms of those families this week.  It was really awesome crazy and busy.  I even had another awesome story about a rat in a lesson but I'll have to tell you about that next week.  I'm really sorry, it was a good letter too.  I do love you guys and I'll tell you about change next week too.  I promise to have a really long letter next week for you guys.

[No picture is complete without the obligatory missionary “thumbs up”.  Why is that?]

Elder Peacock

P.S.  [Extracted from other emails to family members…]

Regarding the picture of alligator last week:  yes that was alligator meat, we ate it cooked and it looks like chicken cooked.  It's a firm meat with a flavor crossed between chicken and fish. I loved it. The picture was taken before it was cooked [apparently, no frosting involved.]  It cooked before eaten don't worry.  

Everything tastes like chicken.

Apologize to Eva for me [the kids all cried looking at the pictures of the cute little critters he’s been eating].

Happy Easter to you all too! They celebrate a week of it here....Semana Santa...Has nothing to do with santa clause.

btw changes today and I had a dream that we’re both staying put.

More Fun with Food

Hey everybody,

So honestly at this point, I still don't know what I'm going to write about...The week started off with a couple of days of still not being able to really leave the room which was no fun.  By Wednesday we could go out as long as it wasn't raining because apparently rain causes infection? I guess it's a good thing I'm not a doctor.  So we went out in the morning and are out for a little while and then out of nowhere the sky became completely covered by clouds and it starts raining about as hard as I've seen it here. We were right next to the house of the ward mission leader so we had to go and stay in there until the rain stopped....just when I thought I was going to get out and get to work.  But then we did get to go back out that afternoon and night because it had stopped raining.

But this week in all honesty was somewhat frustrating.  A whole lot of knocking doors and a whole lot of people that aren't there for appointments that we have with them. It's definitely a different culture here as far as schedules and timing goes.  Not a lot of people are very precise with their schedules "oh yeah, we'll be here at that time, we're always here..."  haha somewhat frustrating and makes it a whole lot harder to plan.  Also about 75% of the time we find women and children which wouldn't be a problem but we're not allowed to teach them or even go in unless there is an adult man there too and they're working more often than not.  Also, everyone here takes trips to work or just to take a trip for about half of the year....what is that? I've still yet to figure out why you would live here with your family when you have to go back to Lima for like half of the year to work. I mean why not just live in Lima? everything is cheaper there anyways...

So we were in a lesson yesterday with a guy whose wife and kids are members and we invited him to baptism and he said yes but he wanted to wait and give it some time to see if the path that his family was on was really the path God wanted him to follow.  We then asked him how he thought he could know it was the path that God wanted him to follow and he said 2 things: prayer and repentance.  So we talked about how if he wanted to know that it was the path he needed to ask God and that in order to fully repent he needed to be baptized and we said it in a much more eloquent manner but I'm short on time and I have another point to make.  If you ever want to know if you're doing the right thing or following the path God wants you to, ask him and repent.  This investigator who is not very religious knew that and it was awesome.  Repent and you'll receive the spirit more strongly and be able to recognize the promptings of the spirit more easily.  This is by no means directed at anyone or anything in specific, just a general statement that hopefully will help someone out there receive an answer to a question.

Also, that is alligator [picture above—what is that white stuff?  Is it frosting?  cream cheese? Is it an alligator cake?  This is a mystery to me!] that I ate and that is a turtle leg [the first picture above] and there was also a head [below] that you should be able to see.  Happy St Patty's day? Eat green :)

Love,
Elder Peacock

Captivity Take 2

So they burned his neck again.  The other half this time.  So I can only leave if we have the people to divide, but pretty much the whole time we couldn't divide because the people who usually do and are awesome are about to leave on missions so they're a little preoccupied with the whole mission thing and interviews and whatnot.  So, it's been a rough couple of days.  yesterday we went to church and came home and that was it...let's just say I've read the entire standard works a couple of times, my shoes have never been shinier, and my desk is now more organized than anything I've ever owned before. 

The picture was not my idea nor does it even have our whole zone...but that's what I had...Like our jerseys?

No baptisms again this week but we're really only waiting on paperwork so a couple of families can get married.  One of them is still waiting on a birth certificate, but we just have to wait for it.  We think the other one is going to get done this week.  And, we think we have another one to get started on with the guy that was in the hammock.  Really, with all three of these families I really feel like all we've had to do is tell them what they should be doing and then they're on top of it and just so prepared. 

With the family that we think will be ready this week, we were walking at the end of our area in like the middle of January-- going to an appointment that we had, and it was scorching hot.  This guy stopped us and asked Elder Duran if he was from Honduras or Guatemala.  Well, it was neither, but nobody knows about El Salvador here.  He asked us to wait there for a second and he left...about 30 seconds later he comes back with some cokes.  He then tells us that his brother joined the church a while back and was living in the same home at that time so this guy (Dimitrow) had heard a little bit of it and wanted to know more.  So we came back and the whole family instantly knew it was true.  It's like they already knew, we were just reminding them what they had forgotten. That family is awesome and I'm sure I've mentioned them before but I thought I'd just throw this out with a little bit of hindsight.

It is so easy to see the people that are prepared for the gospel.  We teach plenty of people that don't accept it, but when we find the ones that are willing to accept it it's completely different.  They're so much more accepting and just want to do the things that they should and they really don't have any problems with changing their lives.  That's not to say that if someone doesn't instantly accept everything that we teach that they're not ready and that we're not going back but it's just awesome to see how prepared that some people really are to accept this gospel and to really change their lives.  God really is not far from each one of us.  That includes you.  I'm talking to all of you and each of you individually.  God knows and loves you and that's why we have this gospel and this church and most importantly our Savior Jesus Christ. 

Love you guys and thanks for everything!

Also shout out to mom! I've heard lots of good things about the blog!

Thanks, love you!!

Tortuga, Mono y Cui

Hey!

So this week was pretty good.  On Tuesday night, Elder Duran had to go to the doctor for a checkup on his neck so we had to divide for a few hours.  So I went with the bishop's son to an appointment with a guy who lives with all members and we had been teaching for like 2 weeks.  We talk to his wife who is a member and apparently, his job called that morning and he is now in Yurimaguas for who knows how long to work and left that same morning in a boat to travel 3 days on the river...haha, what the heck! 

We were going back to meet Elder Duran at 9 back at the house and we were far away so we took a motokar.  So I get out and everything is normal and so I pay the motokarista and start talking to him.  It starts to sprinkle a little, I didn't think much of it so we keep talking and about 5 seconds after it started sprinkling I was in the middle of a torrential downpour.  But I was talking to the guy so I talked to him for a little bit longer, invited him to church, and other missionary stuff and then jumped over the river that had already formed between me and the sidewalk to get to the house....I was absolutely drenched.  In the space of about 30 seconds, I went from completely dry to absolutely soaked.

Then (I think it was Wednesday), we had an appointment with a family that we've been teaching for a while that should have a baptism in 2 weeks and they're pretty much always there...nobody...

So we go to find this reference that we received that is supposedly always home....nobody....

So we start walking and we're in an area that we've walked through about a thousand times.  We stop at this house that we'd passed a hundred times and knock on the door that was open, this guy (named Alan) appears in a hammock that I thought was empty.  He invites us in and we start talking.  He explains that he is always working during the day and that it was a freak occurrence that he was there in the day.  We've taught him a couple times since then and he really loves to learn and he's really excited about everything, and wants us to teach his wife as well.  So I think it's safe to say we didn't expect to find him that day, but that's where we were supposed to be.  Sometimes we don't understand why things happen but the Lord always has a plan and His hand really is in all things.  Sometimes we just need some patience and perseverance.

Also, the title of the email...All three were consumed this week.  Grilled Cui (Guinea Pig) and then one meal with this awesome family who knew I wanted to eat some interesting stuff gave us Monkey soup and turtle with veggies.  Honestly it was all delicious. 

And yes in the soup, that is a monkey hand...no i didn't actually eat the hand.

And the turtle (pictured) was about what you’d expect. Guinea pig was like better chicken.

Love you guys!
Elder Peacock

[Mom’s note:  This email inspired some gastronomical one-upmanship from the elder elders at my house.  See HERE.  If you dare.]