First Transfer Down

Well, I made it through my first transfer in the field! It was hard, and felt long but when I look back on it, it doesn’t feel that long... anyways.. I’m staying here in Talara so nothing changed, except my whole zone left! Haha!  My companion is the new DL and we have 2 new missionaries in our district. FINALLY NOT THE YOUNGEST! 

haha yes, this Thanksgiving I had a lot of things that I was more grateful for not just "my family".  My Pensionista cooks rice and soup every day. Sometimes we have chicken and other times we have the plants I tell you about. About every 2 weeks she makes us spaghetti and that’s bomb. But my favorite thing she makes is the fried bananas. Ahh . . . they’re so good. We eat a ton of vegetables and she gives us a side of onions and tomatoes every day - and she puts all sorts of vegetables in our soup.

We’re not going to Piura for Christmas,  we’re just staying in Talara and 2 other zones (Tumbes and Sullana) are coming to us. It’s a little unfortunate, but that’s alright.  I don’t know how skype is gonna work, but I’ll figure something out this week :) 

This week was pretty slow.. not much happened.  Last p day, we had a water balloon fight with our zone. We filled up like 300 balloons and just went wild. It was amazing!  I felt like I was back at home with my homies :) 

Tuesday was great.  A funny story - we were at this house talking to one of our part member families, and they have this little boy named Maurcelo.  He’s about 3 and just such a funny kid. He has so much energy ALL THE TIME!  Anyways.. we were talking to his brother and all of a sudden he drops his pants and starts peeing on me!  I got out of the way pretty quick but it wasn’t in time to get away from the drop fire.  Don’t worry, I changed.  :)   Later that night, we went out to the Polleria – it’s like a chicken dinner place. E Martinez, Harold, and I bought some chicken and... it’s crazy that this shocks me every time but they just give us like literal chickens! We just eat it. I don’t know.  It’s cheap – like chickens for 21 soles. That’s like 7 or 8 bucks. It wasn’t great, none of the meat here is. I feel like I’m becoming a vegetarian.

Later that night, our power and water shut off again. Luckily it wasn’t for 5 days this time... it comes on about every 2 days and then shuts off again. Soo we haven’t had much this week, but were surviving :) It’s horrible in the night time cause its literally pitch black.

On Thursday I went on exchanges with Elder Hamblin. IN MY AREA! So I add to direct everything, lead the conversations and lessons - it was super hard but I felt like a real missionary. Not just a "follower missionary". We got up super early and ran to the beach and we just chilled and had some time to just think. It was so great.

We visited this family and they made us "the drink". haha we call it RiceDirtMilk. It’s 1 word :) We didn’t get to have turkey for our Thanksgiving but we had chicken :) It was good enough. haha no, they don’t celebrate it here. They barely celebrate anything here. 

Friday was great. We worked HARD. Another funny story but first some background info. So how we get around the city is by Motos. It’s a motorcycle with like a carriage hooked on the back. They’re pretty fun. Anyways.. Harold’s pants got hooked on something and when he was getting out, the door wouldn’t open, so he gave it a good push and not only did he break the door, his pants ripped all the way down the side! Hahahaha!  The best part is that he wasn’t wearing underwear! Hahaha! We felt bad and we took a moto back to his house to change. We laughed pretty hard though. As for the man with the broken door, he wasn’t to happy.... 

Saturday we had a service project for the family Celi. They’re awesome, they have 4 girls and they’re awesome. Mijel, Pierina, Gasa, and Annabelle. We pruned their trees for them.. which is ironic because the tree was dead. Like straight dead. 

Church wasn’t great this week. Not very many people showed up.  It’s such a horrible feeling because we work so hard and these people tell us they want to come to church and they just don’t end up coming. I think we had 2 investigators.  So we’re working really hard on finding new people now. We are contacting everyone and asking everyone for references. Also, our baptism dates on the 6th are a bust now. Blanca and Alonso are having some problems with coming to church because they can’t close down their shop on Sundays. We’re trying to think of some ideas that can help them... but were hoping for the 20th. 

That’s about all for this week. like I said, not much happened. But I love being a missionary. I swear every day gets easier, and better. I wouldn’t trade this experience or this opportunity for anything. Thank you again for the support. Seriously.

I love you guys, miss you! Hope you have a great week! 

- Elder Harris