Transfers for Elder Gaibor

Building Materials in Lima

Dear Family,

Short letters are just fine, no se preocupe. I use that phrase probably a thousand times a day. The women in the ward are all super accommodating and usually they worry over the small things just to make the missionaries comfortable. This week Surprise! Elder Gaibor had changes. For changes, we find out immediately after writing home, and then you spend about half of Pday packing and the other half visiting members and converts. Well Elder Gaibor packed in about 40 minute, super-fast, but the whole ward was on a camping day trip and so we didn’t get to see hardly anyone. Our pensionista was home, and so we visited with her a while and watched a church film, but the whole ward got back around 9 at night, time to get going back to the room. There were pictures and speeches with the family and two convert families that happened to stop by at the pensionista house, and then it happened. We were shaking hands with all l of the people before leaving and Erika (convert of 3 days) up and hugs him....awkward. Yeah well at least it wasn’t with besitos, that’s how everyone else greets here and would have been a little more disastrous. We left quickly and the Lopez family explained that missionaries can´t do that kind of stuff, all is well in Zion again.

Elder Gaibor and Elder Nelson with member

We went to the offices the next morning at about 6 to meet our new companions. Mine is Elder De Leon, from Guatemala, and the Lima West mission. He was serving in one of the two stakes that got added to Lima North in the split. He has 17 months in the mission, but does everything just a touch different because he’s been in a different mission for almost a year and a half. He’s 22, to complete 23 next month, and was a personal trainer before his mission. He is about a head shorter than me, served in a red zone, or super dangerous part of Lima, for 4 months or so, but nothing ever happened to him.

Elder Gaibor leaving Magnolias

This week we had a blitz in Valle Sagrado, one of the areas in our zone. All ten of the missionaries in our zone headed up to valle sagrado to work in their area for a couple of hours. To do that, they split everyone up and put us with members and the missionaries from that area. We visited members, menos activos and converts. I was put with Elder Dansie and a ward missionary. Yep, two gringos and a member. That’s mostly because valle sagrado can be dangerous at night, but we were in a safer sector of the area, but we told Elder Dansie that if he spoke any English we would probably get robbed, so we did alright speaking just Spanish (he’s newer, so he prefers to speak English still). The first house we visited wasn’t home, but the second was a family preparing to get sealed in a few months. They haven’t been to church in three weeks because of the health of their little girl thats about to complete 8 years. I ended up acting as senior companion for the visits, something I’ve never done before. Things went really smoothly, and I felt super strongly when I bore testimony that the last thing that they should do when they are in difficult times is stop going to church. They committed to go again and we were actually pretty good friends by the end of the lesson. I will be checking with the elders from there to see if they went to church. 

After that we booked it to the Ostos Family. We had introduced the civil marriage idea earlier in the week, and we met with them in order to collect copes of their DNI (ID) or birth certificates. By some miracle, they had birth certificates there, so we took copies of those with us. If all goes smoothly, they should get married the 23rd of this month. If they get married, we are prepping them to get baptized the next day in the church, but if not, we´ll have to wait until next month. They’re really great, and full of faith. There’s a dispute right now over the title to their house, and it’s costing them some money, but they say that even though work is tight, they’ll be able to pull together the 60 dollars or so necessary to get married..

As for the questions, some people have heat in their houses, but the majority don´t, and it’s not the temperature that is cold, it’s the humidity. It mists so hard that the ground is wet like it’s been raining, and the people here call it rain haha, not a drop in the air, just particles.

Elder DeLeon

Kolby should still know the names of the months in spanish haha, and we don´t have daylight savings...how did you change the clock? I have one of the bags, and I use it every single day, the other one is okay, but mostly just for PDAYS. As for Kolby driving to AFY...that’s okay, Dallin and I drove to 49 degrees north haha. Trust in between parents and their youth is a good thing. Everyone has running water and we just recently got a water heater attachment for our shower, though if you put the water too hot it trips the breaker and it goes cold AND dark. The walls of nicer houses are of cement forms over bricks, and the houses in the hills are plywood no mas, just like if Kolby were to build a shed in the back yard out of plywood and two by 4s, with a dirt floor. My shoes are champs and will likely last the mission given I don´t stop taking care of them. I´m acclimated now, and nothing really affects me physically except for fasting. We walk about 10K every day and so fasting really does a number. There are commitment issues yes, most often that we commit them to come ot church and they don´t becasue its cold in the early morning. There literally are fair weather saints here, but I don’t blame them sometimes its absolutely frigid...at 50 degrees and misting heavily haha, I’ve turned into a wimp. Maybe I should apply to BYU Hawaii later.

I love you all and I love the work, I won´t stop being strong in the gospel, ever, and I expect the same from eeahc one of you. Keep working hard at those covenants!

Love,

Elder Nelson

PS the picture of the flags is Peru, and then Ecuador and the US as roofing material on the hillside. Not sure if I should be upset or compassionate.