New Companion, Lima, Peru 6/28

More Pictures from Lima, Peru 6/11

First Pictures From Peru, Sent Week 3

Peru MTC, Lima, Week 3

Hi Familia, Glad everyone is doing good, and that's cool Cara got a job. I'm sure Brennan is having a great time with school being out! And ya Jared is getting married next week (If you go to the reception say Gragratulations for me, and tell him I'm happy for him and miss him and that stuff) No, my companion from the Provo MTC is going to the Santa Cruz, Bolivia mission, so in three weeks when we all ship out he'll be gone. I don't know why they call it the CCM, not sure what it stands for, but I get a new companion today, so thats exciting. And ya we have districts and there is 2 zones one zone is for the new people and the other for the older one. The days here;  I get up at 6:30 everyday of course, usually earlier because other people wake me up before that, speaking of  I'm always tired everyday, and I get more tired everyday.  then at 8 am I  have personal study time then at 9 I  have companionship study, then at 10 it's class till 12 which is amuerzo or lunch, then more class were we practice teaching till 3 which is another hour of personal study till 4 which is like gym time basically till 5:30 then more class till cena or dinner then after that more class and teaching, and that how the schedule works everyday sometime we have group meetings and every sunday there is a little fireside.   We went tracting this last saturday again, in the northern part of Lima this time, and we tracted for about 6 and a half hours which feels like a really long day when really no one wants to talk to you, so we tracted from about 9 till 1, and we didnt really have any success.   I totally bombed bearing my testimony to this guy because I forgot a word, and that was a little brutal,  ha ha. So I  sat there for like 15 seconds dying trying to search my mind for the word I needed, but ya anyways.  Then the missionary we were with (whose area it is, so there was 3 of us) we went to a members house for a little bit and that was cool.   You could completely tell the difference of being in that house verses all the other ones we've gone to, it was really interesting to feel that, and it was this single mom with 2 kids and the grandma lived on the house under her and she went to buy  us coke.   The mom cleaned out some glasses for us, and I was handed mine, which still had soap all over it.  I was poured a drink, so I was hoping nothing terrible would happen, ha ha, but there is no way you can turn anything down, when they're trying to be nice to you, so I was just hoping all the soapy coke wouldn't make me sick.   I survived though.   After that we went to lunch back at the stake building ( which is farely new and really nice) and I was just not having the best time that day because  I  get no sleep here so I'm really tired and  all day I'm struggling because I  have no idea pretty much what's  happening with any conversation we were having.  But we went out again after, and we knocked on a few doors and nothing happened (this time it was my companion and I and a teacher for the ccm with us) and we got to the first house that ansered.   It was this really old little lady probably like 4 and a half feet tall, and she let us into her house which didn't even really have a roof.   All dirt floors.   We went into her living room,  which had a tarp pulled over it, and we sat down and we started talking, and the teacher asked if we could offer a prayer with her (which is what he asked at the door) to bless her house and her family and by this time her grandson came home from school so he was there with us, and my teacher offered a prayer and when we were done,  she was just crying, and then we again said we were missionarys and would like to share our message with her and she agreed, and then they looked at me and I was able to share the first part-- to the best of my ability, and I was juat able to do it with flow and I  know it was because the spirit was helping me, and that was a really amazing experience probably the best thing that has happened to me so far on the mission, just being in this little old lady's house and seeing her cry because she felt the spirit ( and I know she did because I felt it and it was just different with her than anybody else we talked to,  and I don't know how to describe it).  She was listenening to everything we were saying and she said she would let the missionaries come in next time they came, and I wish I  could continue teaching her. That was awesome. Well I  have to go, I love you guys!!! Hope you all have a great week

Peru MTC, Lima, Week 2

Hi Mom, Last Saturday we went tracting for the first time!  It was really awesome but hard at the same time, because I can't understand anything anyone is saying, and it's really frustrating.  When I can pick out a few words and I know what I want to say but not how to say. So pretty much I did all the intitiating at the door then my companion would take over. Everybody here is Catholic.  We tracted for 4 hours in the morning, and about an hour we had a teacher with us and we knocked on this one guys house(which was like a garage) and he came out and they were talking to him and I couldn't really understand what they were saying, and then my companion looked at me (which means he wants me to talk) and all I know how to do is bear my testimony so I  just bore my testimony to him, and then told him that our message would bless his life (in very broken spanish), and he looked down and nodded and then the teacher asked if we could come in.  We walked into his garage through a little door and then the teacher was talking to him, and then I heard prayer and he just knelt down and then we all did and we said a prayer right there with the guy, and then after he asked him how he felt during the prayer and he said peaceful, and then we shared the book of mormon with him and we all bore testimony of it, and invited him to read it, it was the highlight of my day.  Then after that no one answered to let us into their house.   We did talk to one lady about the book of mormon for about 20 min. outside her house, and I'm not sure what she was saying, but she kept looking at me and asking me stuff and I don't know how to respond and thats really hard. Later in the day we went to visit less active members and we only got into one house (the rest weren't home or moved, etc) and we were with this mother and her son, and after we sat down the father came in, but they were talking to them about prayer and then once again my companion looked at me and since all I know how to do is testify, I  just bore testimony of prayer in my very poor spanish but the spirit was there really strong and there were just looking and me and nodding as I spoke, that was a really great experiance.  But ya it's really hard being surrounded by people and not knowing what their saying.   It all sounds like jibberish except the few words I know. The way people live down here is very poor compared to home, we went to this one house that had newspaper stuffed in the cracks by the door to to keep the air out, the houses are just like on rooftops.   A lot of the houses are connected to shops and so the people on the back side basically live in a garage, no nice painted walls just bare cement, it was a pretty humbling experiance. We are going out again this saturday, and I'm looking forward to it, I  just wish I could speak, it's not hard for me to talk to people like that at their door I  just dont know how to say what I want to say, so learning patience has been a little bit of a struggle, but my spanish does improve a little bit each day and week. How are things going with everyone at home? Is Brennan out of school yet? When are Jennie and Brett going to be there again? Well I love you guys!! I'll write you next week!

Peru MTC, Lima, Week One

Hi, everyone! This first week was pretty crazy here in Peru, still can´t believe I'm in South America! Today was my first p-day here (every Wed.) we went to the temple (it was all in spanish) so that was crazy. They don't take us here, we walk out the front entrance of the MTC (or CCM they call it) and hop on a bus. I felt like I  was in a movie, they drive so crazy here.  Our bus was cutting people off and all sorts of stuff.  The Lima Temple is beautiful!   After that, we walked  thru the city a little bit to get to a store, they give us an hour and a half to shop every week after the temple.   It was weird being on the streets of Lima.   When I was in line at the store (which are similar to what we have back in Utah) I bought some Inca Kola, which is just basically cream soda,  the checker said something to me, but they speak so fast I can´t understand,  so I  just said "si".   Then we had to find another bus to get onto to get back-- here everybody takes  the bus--and they have the bus driver then someone that gets out and yells at every stop for people to get on, and there is a ton of buses.   It's  like they fight for people.   One lady was yelling "mormoneys" at us.   I  guess that's what members are known as down here... Oh yeah,  it's always overcast down here and it looks like it´s going to rain but it never does.   It was only sunny for the first few hours I've been here then it´s been overcast since. It's a little humid too.   All  my papers and things got warped a little bit.   It gets pretty warm at night but apparently South Americans get cold EXTREMELY easy so every time I go to turn the A/C on they get upset.   I  guess I´ll have to get use to it, so pretty much I'm sweating and they´re freezing.   I'd say it's about 70 degrees here right now or so.  We've been practicing teaching every single day and it's really hard because all of the teachers speak little or no English so that doesn't help when I don't know what to say.  It doesn't make me feel very smart because they're just staring at me while I'm trying to figure out what to say. It's a little frustrating honestly, but I guess I've only been speaking  Spanish for a month now so, it'll come. All the verb conjugations are hard to remember when speaking, but I'm working on it every day.   For  us "North Americans" as they call us,  we mostly study spanish so I'd say about 20% gospel and 80%  Spanish as far as what we study.   We eat chicken and rice for every lunch and dinner in different variations;  most of the time it's good, sometime not so much.   I  had to lay off the juice *caugh caugh*.   I´ll be here for 5 more weeks, then I'm off to Cusco.  Elder Nash from the Seventy was here, and since there is only about a 100 missionaries here, he taught our preisthood meeting.   It was really cool.   That night we had a fireside (oh ya he´s been the area authority in this part of south america) and he shook everyones hand.   When it was my turn he shook my hand and asked me where I was going and I said, Cusco.   Then he said "how did you score that mission Elder?" then he stared into my eyes for like 5 seconds, like he could see everything about me, I  felt like,  then he said  " the lord has a lot of confidence in you" so that was awesome.   Sorry I couldn't respond to everything,  I only got a a few sceonds left on my email time. Love you guys!!!!!

First Letter From Peru

Ola Familia! 

I made it Peru safely. I don't know how to send letters right now so i'm using the email. I woke up at 1:30 yesterday morning, after falling asleep at 12.30. It took a long time to get packed up. Before I left, that night, we sang God Be With You Till We Meet Again, and I wrote down the lyrics to Amazing Grace and we sang that after too. It was awesome and sad at the same time i'm going to miss all those Elders from my first district. So we got to the airport around 4 or so and waited for the plane to come, then we went to Dallas, then off to Miami, where we had a 2 hour layover (Oh ya i got bodyscanned at Salt Lake Airport, so that's not good), Then it was about a 5 hour or so flight to Lima, we got here about 10:30. i got through customs and everthing fine, then we had to find the driver, who didn't speak any english. Then we started driving to the MTC, Lima looks like it just went through a war, there is trash all over the streets, people just throw stuff out off the car right in front of you, traffic rules don't really seem to apply here either, i thought were going to run over some people several times. All the houses and everything are really differant, some have bare staircases, they'll be several differant in a building and none of them will match, it looks like a nuke just went of and all the buildings are just bare. Very differant from South Jordan. So we got to the MTC, which has abouyt 15ft. walls around it, it is al lot smaller only 3 buildings to it, but it's only about ten years old so everything is still brand new and it's really nice! Especially the showers! When i first walked into the room I woke up the 2 Elders who were sleeping, that was interesting, their both from Bolivia, they spoke a little english so that helped, Latin people like to touch you when they talk to you, the one had his hand on my arm and the other on my shoulder the whole time, then i asked where the baño was (bathroom) and as we walked to it he had his had on my arm the whole time, it was interesting. It's nice tho, my original companion showed up an hour later, and we share the same room again so that's nice. My companion arrived today, Elder Mayta (pronounced My-Tuh) from Lima, he doesn't speak any english, so it's been interesting. oh ya there is only about a hundred Elders and Sisters here give or take, but all the "native" Elders are so friendly and nice to you, I'm really tired had about 3 hours of sleep the past 2 days. The food here is really good, not really sure wat it is, but it tastes good, appaerntly they switch off chicken and rice combinations, and if you eat to much rice and drink no juice (by the way this is REAL juice) you get constapated, and if you have to much juice you get the runs, so hopefully I figure out how to balance that. And I hope my Spanish we come along a lot faster now, I know it will. Anyways that's all for me, what's going on at home, I sent some pictures to you, and what was this massive garage sell for? I hope everybody is doing good. I love you Mom.Dad,Cara,Brennan, Jennie(and others not sure who will get this). And i'll find out how to send letters, i'll talk to you in a week, my time on the computer is running out! 

Love, Aaron

Goodbye Provo MTC, Hello Lima, Peru!

As of last night, Aaron is officially in Peru! We're not exactly sure what's going on with the e-mail situation, but hopefully we'll get a letter sometime next week. We're all excited to hear what it's like at the MTC in Lima.

Aaron sent out one last letter before he left the States, and this time we were lucky enough to get some pictures. (Some of them have lines down the middle from being folded.)

Elder Hinton (by window) and Elder Pearson, the roommates. Elder Hinton is also the District Leader

Yep, it's official now!

Elder Okasaki and Elder Ortega from the same District

The whole District at the temple

Their desk

Their room (At least they keep it clean, right?)

His first companion, Elder Tolson

In class - lots to learn!