Week 99

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 99 (4/25/16)

Well there goes another week here in the mission!

The work is going great right now. It seems that we are being giving more less-active member to visit and we are helping a lot of them go to church for the first time in a while. Having investigators and less-actives go to church is one of the coolest things because many people let us in their house's but when they go to church they are really showing their desires to come unto Christ or at least to investigate the church a little.

Here are some pictures that I took of a few things from this week.

As part of our area, we not only proselyte in San Pedro, but we also go to a nearby town called Chocofán. There we have some of the first members in all of our branch and they continue faithful in the church. We caught a lizard in their house while we were there too:

San Pedro is actually really famous for their lizards. They actually have a special dish called "ceviche de lagartija" (it's a lizard ceviche if you want to look it up) typical to San Pedro, which I have still yet to try. Here is the family that live there: Sindulfo with his wife Carmen and also their great granddaughter Yazumi (the lizard's tail fell off)

The people here are so great!

Also I was able to snap some pics of the San Pedro Market which is in the center of our city.

Here Supermarkets aren't very common, so people daily go to the market to get all of their food. It's pretty cool to walk through these, with meat hanging on hooks and everyone trying to get you to buy from their booth. There's also a large variety of fruits here:

I was also able to take some opportune pictures in our area.
Another sunset, with the Pacasmayo Cement factory on the side:

Also a nice close up picture of a butterfly:

I'm pretty used to pulling out my camera now in the right moments.

Well, that's about it for this week and looking forward to another!

Elder Terry

Week 98

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 98 (4/18/16)

Wow. I always thought this point of the mission would never approach, but here it is!

Well today are the last transfers that I am going to have and it looks like I'm staying here in San Pedro with Elder Connelly. I was a little scared that they might transfer me for my last six weeks, but it looks like I get to serve these people a little bit more! It's weird to think I only have the time I had in the MTC remaining for my mission, which means I have to make this time well worth it.

One of the sisters in our district and in our branch, Hermana South, also went home this week. My companion and I both saw her start her mission in the same zone as us and she has also been in my district in Central Zone for a little bit and now finished up here in San Pedro. Her parents came to pick her up with a branch activity Saturday night, and going to church Sunday morning. She left with her parents to visit all of her areas and to some historic Peruvian sites. It was a pleasure to meet them:

(those are 2 random kids from our branch)

Well that's all I have for this week, so until the next!

Elder Terry

Week 97

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 97 (4/11/16)

Well that's one less week that I have here at the service of the Lord and this really has been another amazing week here in the mission, and enjoying every minute of it!

Well last Monday, we went climbed a hill to go see the iconic mark of Guadalupe, "La Virgen de Guadalupe." It's a statue of a virgin situated on top of a hill in the middle of the city of Guadalupe. It wasn't too high up but you could get a great view up there. A great way to spend an only Elders P-day:
Part of the trail:

The statue of the virgin with a baby in her arms:

The view at the top:

My companion, one of the zone leaders Elder Mendez, and I:

In the plaza de armas of Guadalupe:

It was also a really interesting week because of a random rainstorm in all of the cities in our zone. Out of nowhere in the middle of the night it just started pouring rain like it never does in Perú, and it wasn't only rain but with lightning and thunder and everything. Apparently this hasn't happened here for over 20 years! Kind of reminds me of last year when I was in Chocope and the same thing happened. Good memories.

Also, this week we were in elections for Peru's next President and they've finaled it down to 2 people now, a woman from Japan, and a half Peruvian half American man. It made it kind of hard to visit because every one was out voting. If you don't vote here, they send you a fine which is pretty interesting.

Also today for P-day we climbed another hill! We climbed the hill of Chepén which is right next to Guadalupe, but this hill was a lot bigger! Chepén is where Elder Smith is right now. Along the trail they had nice statues of Jesus and how he suffered on the trail:

The view from up top:

Selfie:

3 cross statues:

Resurrected Jesus with his metal heart:

Elder Smith doing the karate kid:

And a pretty cool Atonement statue:

Well, that's about it for this week and this will be the last week of the second to last transfer in the mission!

Until the next!
Elder Terry

Week 96

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 96 (4/4/16)

Well I am left with very little time to write, but this has been a pretty amazing week.

Nothing too momentous to comment on, but this week we were able to watch general conference! We go to our district center to watch the first session on Saturday, but it turned out that the building was closed and no one was going to come over to open the church for some reason. But thank goodness that the Bentleys were there! We have senior missionaries that live in Pacasmayo, who when they heard that the church wasn't opened, invited us all to their house to watch the session. Because of technical difficulties and rushed time, we were only able to watch the first session in Spanish.

But we pretty much got to spend the whole day in the Bentley's house. They made us lunch and we stayed to watch the second session in English, because they got the church building open by then to watch it in Spanish. We then ate dinner with them and got to check out the sunset on Pacasmayo Beach and stayed in their house for the Priesthood session. The Bentley's are so awesome!

On Sunday we were able to watch Conference in our own church building while all of the members watched it in Spanish and we went on the secretary's computer to watch it in English. Overall, the conference was amazing! It was the 10 fastest hours I've gone through in a while! It was amazing to listen to all of the prophets and especially our beloved President Monson, with his short but powerful message. I got a "you can do it" type attitude out of all of the talks and loved the concept that they talked about choosing to be happy and not finding faults in others. I have learned a lot and am planning on re-listening to all of the talks in these next few months. We also were able to get a member that has been less-active for over 25 years to go to church for the first time in a while! It is amazing to be a part of the change in the people here!

Well that's about it for this week, and I'll leave you off with this picture:

(see if you can find the white dog)

Elder Terry