The In"Peru"ving Missionary

Well, I'm still here in Peru. This past week has felt like a month, but then again it feels like I was just barely in the MTC two days ago. Almost a month in the real mission, and this past week my body let me know just how different things are here. It's been rough health wise considering the amount of walking we do, up mountains and basically hiking trails. That combined with this new food and the air here lead me to a very low point physically this past week.  However, I believe the worst is behind me now, and I am on the healing stretch. I was expecting this of course, and it is a good thing to realize that things will always get better. This is the message I wanted to share with you today, that no matter how bad the situation you are currently in, it WILL get better. My cousin is now in her mission and it saddens me because I know somewhat of what she is about to go through, but I'm also very happy because I know she will pull through to the better part and be...

What a week it has been, but of course I've wanted to say that every week I've been here. I have to say it's fun being a gringo here in Peru. The tallest person I've met here is about as tall as one of my sisters. Combine that with my gringo companion who is 6'4'' and 280 lb and we make an odd sight in the street. However, this just means we can be better ejemplos with all the attention we get.  This week we had interviews with President. The mission home is pretty much the only building with AC here, so it was awesome to just wait for our turn. We also had lunch there, half a pizza, and me and my companion drank about 3 litros of Inka Kola. During my interview, President wanted us to share the trailer for this next general conference, and it is a powerful video. I would ask that you share it with everyone that you can, because it causes great excitement. What do you think will be different in this General Conference? I've never been more excited to...

Yesterday was my first day as an official missionary, and I cannot begin to express how different this is than the MTC so I do not think I will. I am no longer able to just ask if I can speak English to people because they do not know it at all. Everything is just perfectly disorienting. I cannot even figure out how to change the keyboard to English so I can type can{t correctly with an apostrophe.  My companions name is Elder Whitmer, been out 20 months, and is apparently the largest missionary in the mission, like an NFL linebacker and of course is a gringo as well. Yesterday we were transported to the mission home at around 5 in the morning and at 12[30 or so our new companions came.  Now I am serving in the Laderas de Villa mission zone which is in Lima, so Im still stuck in the city, but more like suburbs than skyscrapers here. The dogs are still prevalent and Im starting to learn a different language other than English or Spanish, the missionary language. Planning...

Yesterday was my first day as an official missionary, and I cannot begin to express how different this is than the MTC so I do not think I will. I am no longer able to just ask if I can speak English to people because they do not know it at all. Everything is just perfectly disorienting. I cannot even figure out how to change the keyboard to English so I can type can{t correctly with an apostrophe.  My companions name is Elder Whitmer, been out 20 months, and is apparently the largest missionary in the mission, like an NFL linebacker and of course is a gringo as well. Yesterday we were transported to the mission home at around 5 in the morning and at 12[30 or so our new companions came.  Now I am serving in the Laderas de Villa mission zone which is in Lima, so Im still stuck in the city, but more like suburbs than skyscrapers here. The dogs are still prevalent and Im starting to learn a different language other than English or Spanish, the missionary language. Planning...