Week 24

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 24 (11/17/14)

Well this was the week that I was waiting for since I got in the field: My first Baptism!!!!

So we had a couple in our branch where the guy, Necker, was a less-active member and the girl, Brenda, wasn't a member. About a month ago, they had a baby girl, before they were able to get married. So out of nowhere, about 3 weeks ago, Brenda shows up at church and tells a member that she wants to get baptized. So the member calls us up and tells her that we need to teach her right away.

On a slight side note, this month of November is the 70th anniversary of the creation of Chocope, so there are a huge amount of festivities going on, with concerts like every other day, fireworks all the time, stores selling random items, and trampolines and jumper slides throughout the plaza.

With the festivities of Chocope, there was a day called "Matrimonio Masivo" where they marry a whole bunch of couples for free. So we took the opportunity to use that day to get them married to meet with the requirement to get baptized. But the problem was it was Friday and the marriage was on Wednesday and all of the city offices are closed on Saturday and Sunday. Through a few miracles, we were able to get all of the papers in by Tuesday (a day late) and we were ready for the wedding on Wednesday.

So everything turned out perfect with the wedding and the couple was really happy with everything, so now it was time to prepare for the baptism on Saturday.

We were visiting that family at least once a day to get Brenda ready for her baptism, and the day finally came where I was able to baptize her. It only took two dunks, but it all turned out great.

Elder Terry, Brenda holding her daughter, and Elder Cuevas

Brenda's Family

Everyone who attended the baptism

The next day, my companion was able to confirm her as a member of the church and give her the gift of the Holy Ghost, which he had never done before. Also throughout all of this, Necker was also reactivated back in the church.

My companion and I have been able to see all of the blessings that they have just started to receive by making this wonderful choice. Their family has grown way closer together and they have all gotten closer to God.

Here is a picture of my finger and how it is progressing.

Well that's about it for this week, and let the work keep on progressing!

Elder Terry

Week 23

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 23 (11/10/14)

Well that was a very exciting and interesting week, and Mom, you might want to skip over this email... (you'll see)

Well something huge happened this week that hasn't happened in our zone for almost 50 years. We had a lightning storm! It was hilarious because that same day is a holiday for Catholics where they have Jesus on a cross and parade him around our city. So we started seeing the lightning flashes around 6, but we thought they were just fireworks. But by 7 it was raining, and it rained hard! Probably more hard than I've seen in a while. By this time, all of the Catholics were running around screaming, and some of them praying thinking it was the end of the world (because most had never seen a thunder storm) and my companion and I were just laughing the whole time.

The problem with the storm was that Peruvian houses weren't made for that, with their houses made out of only concrete bricks. So our room got a little water leakage and got a little bit of our stuff wet. So I thought it would be a good idea to use a fan to dry it off and when I was moving the fan, my finger got caught in the blade, and I got a few cuts and a bruised nail.

The day I smash my finger in a spinning fan

A few days later

It didn't hurt too bad the moment of, but after about an hour, there was this constant pain, and I couldn't sleep at all that night. But I took some Ibuprofen and it went away. We made sure to keep it from getting infected, so I'm not going to loose the finger, but I am going to lose the nail. That is probably the most serious injury I've had that I can remember. But you don't need to worry, the nail looks like it will fall off within the next week, and it hasn't stopped me from serving the Lord.

Other than that, we are planning on having an important week, with a marriage on Wednesday and her baptism on Saturday, which might be my first baptism!

Today for P-day, our zone went over to El Museo de Cao, which is a museum that is located in our proselyting area and has a mummy of the Señora de Cao, which was one of the worlds first woman leaders.

Well that was pretty much it for this week, I will talk back next week and hope I don't get any more injuries.

Elder Terry

Week 22

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 22 (11/3/14)

Week 22 over, and today marks exactly 5 months from flying over here to Peru! It definitely does not feel like that much time has past!

Well this week was really interesting.

Last P-day, we went over to Ascope, where the rest of our district is, and toured an abandoned cemetery. Yup we dug up a few graves, found a bunch of bones, and smashed every bottle we found. But afterward, we all went to go play pool in a really sketchy looking pool hall with graffiti on the walls and dents in the shape of pool balls, but it was a lot of fun.

Ok let's get to the good stuff! So we decided that we needed to move rooms because my old companion with his old companion got robbed when they were there, so we felt it unsafe to live there. We spent the whole week packing and preparing for the move, which we did on Friday. Here are some pics of what went down:

Old room emptied out

All our stuff waiting to be moved

My companion and I on the 3rd floor 

Moving it all of our stuff on a Peruvian tricycle

Our new room all set up

It was great! We had a total of 7 people to help us and a member that helped us find the room and got us the tricycle to move everything. Our new room is better in almost every way. It's a lot bigger, it's safer, and we are a lot closer to everything.

On Saturday, we went proselyting in Casa Grande (we go to a different area about every Saturday morning) and my companion found a nice graffiti:

Cool graffiti

Also, I was in the mission home today because apparently we are in the cleanest zone in the mission and we had a whole bunch of Papa John's pizza which was really great. Afterward, all of the sisters in the mission came over and I met Hermana Smith who you were talking about before. (Sister Smith's father, Charlie, and my dad grew up together in HB and even served their missions at the same time and were in the MTC together. Darin went to Taiwan and Charlie went to Italy).

Elder Terry and Sister Smith (middle) in the mission home

Well I'm out of time for this week. I'll talk back soon!

Elder Terry

Week 21

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 21 (10/27/14)

And it came to pass that twenty and one weeks were completed since Elder Terry had departed from his home in the land Bountiful in the area of California.

Haha well this week just flew by again, so there's not a whole lot to report on this week.

Let's see... P-day this week was great. We literally just slept the whole day and caught up on our energy for the week which I hear is not really common to do.

So far, things are going great with my new companion. It was our first whole week that we had without any changes or interruptions to Lima. Elder Cuevas is really funny and it's a nice break to be able to speak English for a change, but I feel like my Spanish skills are kind of slowing down a little.

Throughout this week, we decided to visit a few of the outlier cities that we have in our area, which are many. This week, we visited Farías, Sintuco, Mocollope, and La Constancia. Each of the towns are so small, I don't even know how they function, but it is great to see how humble and nice a lot of the people are to two strange gringos wandering their town. Each of the towns has about 3 members in each of them, which left us with some time to wander the town and get to know the people.

As a zone, we are all working really hard to raise our church attendance. Our attendance was around 25 when I started here, and just this last week, we got 35 people that showed up. We are also working to clean up our directory, because like a third of the people don't even live in our area anymore.

Well the work of salvation presses onward in the small town of Chocope and it is great. Until next week!

Elder Terry

Week 20

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 20 (10/20/14)

That finishes up my 20th week in the mission, and the 2nd week with my new comp, even though I technically wasn't with him the whole week, but I'll get to that later.

So last Monday, I did my emails in Trujillo and got to eat in McDonald's which is almost exactly like the McDonald's in the states, except with no sales tax. So after that we bought a few souveneir type things and head back to Chocope.

But on the bus, we got a phone call and found out that my companion needed to go to Lima to do some more visa stuff, because they didn't do it correctly when he was in the CCM. So I got to spend almost the whole week in Casa Grande with the Zone Leaders and it was pretty cool. I got to know a new area a little and got to see how other missionaries work to help me improve. We also saw a dead body while we were walking aroun which was pretty cool.

So my companion and I returned Friday afternoon and I found out that someone stole my companion's phone so now we are phoneless and probably aren't going to get a new one for about a month.

That's about all I have for this week, and here are some photo's that I took the past few weeks, because I forgot my memory the last 2 times. The first one is me and my new companion, the next 2 are our branch at some activities, and the last one is more sugar cane burning.

Elder Cuevas and Elder Terry

Chocope Branch

Chocope Branch

Sugar Cane Burning

Well I'll talk back next week!

Elder Terry

Week 19

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 19 (10/13/14)

And that ends my 19th week in the mission and my 1st week with my new companion!

So this week was really interesting. My new companion came in, and as I said before, his name is Elder Cuevas. He literally lived within an hour from me in Downy area in California, and knows Huntington Beach really well, so we have a lot to talk about. As you may have noticed, he doesn't have a gringo last name, and that's because both of his parents were born in Mexico and moved to the United States. So he is fluent in both English and Spanish which makes him the best kind of companion to have. It's also a nice break to step away from speaking Spanish all of the time and relax with a little English.

This past week has been really nice because we have been really busy working with all of the members and getting eveyone to seminary and institute. It's a nice change, because Elder Fernandez was what the call here, really tronqui, which is like homesick or just ready to head home. So with him we kind of slowed down, but things are picking back up, and we have a lot of really good plans for raising our church attendance.

For the past two days, we were able to watch General Conference. But what made it really fun, was that I got to watch it all in Spanish. It was really difficult, especially when you hear them start talking in English and then have the Spanish translation voice take over, and I really wanted to hear their voices in English. But it was a really great experience to go through all of that in Spanish. It was the first time that I really payed attention and took notes of everything from General Conference, and I really feel like I learned a lot from it. I loved the new feature they had where some of the speakers were able to share their message in their native toungue, and it was great to hear the ones that were directly in Spanish.

Well that's all I have for this week, and I will talk back the next!


Elder Terry

Week 18

LETTER FROM JORDAN - WEEK 18 (10/6/14)

And that finishes week 18 and the end of my 3rd change here in Perú. Also, I just passed the 4 month mark, which means I am officially 1/6th of the way done, with only 20 months remaining.

That's enough numbers for now. Yesterday, my companion, trainer, and padre, Elder Fernandez, left our area to head to the mission home after serving for over 25 months. He heads home around 5p tonight and will arrive back in Bolivia tomorrow at 2am.

It has been a very interesting 12 weeks with him. As trainer, he helped me learn all of the ins and outs of mission life and helped me get accustomed to this new experience that I will go through for another 20 months. He was a great guy and although he was a little lazy, he helped me greatly learn how to best teach all of our investigators and less-active members, and I wish him luck in his studies, and in the rest of his life.

So this week was a lot of fun. We had a few activities as a branch for my companion heading home, including a beach party on Wednesday that was a lot of fun. We had a great lunch cooked by some of the members, we played some volleyball which is a really common sport here, we burried a few people in sand, and had a few sand fights. You know, your typical beach party. It made me feel at home.

Other than that, we had a farewell activity on Saturday, where all of the members got to share their testimonies and thank Elder Fernandez for all of his work.

Because my companion left on Sunday, and I don't get a new one until Tuesday morning, I am currently staying in the zone leader's house and I get to spend some time with them. Yesterday, they called and announced who all of the new companions would be, and I found out that I would get to be with Elder Cuevas. I don't know much else other than his name, but from the other missionaries, they have told me that he's a clown, so we'll see how that's going to go.

Oh also, yesterday (October 5th) was the huge election day for all of Perú, so the past few weeks have been locaso with all of the political parties' campain songs and parades. It is nothing like I had ever seen in the States. Also, there is a law throughout all of Perú that says no one can have any type of meetings within 24 hours of elections to prevent people from voting in huge groups and forcing people to vote for a specific person. Because of this, we couldn't broadcast the church's General Conference, and we will end up watching it this Saturday and Sunday in our area's stake center.

Q: Are the people nice in Peru?
A: So the people here in Perú are way nicer than they are in the States (everyone refers to eachother as brother and sister on a regular basis) so we are entered into their houses relatively easily. Also Peruvians treat guests great, like they give them the best seats in the house, and they love to leave us with fruits like apples and mandarin oranges.

Q: What is the best thing you could focus on to prepare for a mission?
A: Something that would have helped me a lot would be learning how to recognize the Spirit. They way that missionaries teach is way different than it has been. Everything we do is based upon the Spirit. This has honestly been the hardest thing for me to do while I've been here. Learning the language and the doctrine is the easy stuff. Figuring out what and how to teach is difficult. If there's a way to get everyone to learn how to recognize the Spirit, it will help them greatly on their missions.

Well this week was really eventful and I don't have time to get to all of the details, so I am going to end this email here, and I'll talk back soon!


Elder Terry