Week 40: Huaca del Sol

Well this was quite the week. Once again with its ups and downs.

On Monday we had a noche de hogar with the family Tufinio, whose daughter is friends with hermana Maylin, who accepted baptism last week, but we still need her parent's approval. We taught the plan of salvation and had some tamales and bread. Later in the week we learned from her friend that her father said no, took her phone away, and prevented her from going to church. Why? Well, the reason we heard was because he thinks the reason she was going to church was to see a boy. Maybe Jesus. But that was super upsetting. We're going to try to talk with her dad this week and even invite him to see for himself what his daughter is doing in the church. We could definitely use the prayers this week!

Well we got threatened twice this week. I saw a piece of paper slide under our door on Monday. It read, "Vete de acá. Vete de acá. 2nd piso," which means 'leave here' in a forceful way. Maybe our neighbors don't like us? The second we got on Thursday read, "Quiero que se vallan por que no se van. Vallanse vallanse," which means 'I want you to leave. Why don't you go? Go away, go away.' The handwriting isn't very good so maybe it's just a child pulling a joke. Please don't freak out over me. I'm going to be fine.

Our DL, Elder Gerber, had his birthday on Tuesday. We were invited to join him and our district at the house of one of his investigators for a party. Elder Siggard came too. Elder Macedo and I had lunch beforehand at our pensionista's, which was chicharron de pollo, (it's just a pile of fried chicken). Little did we know that we'd be receiving the biggest plate of ahí de gallina I've ever seen. I couldn't eat it all because I had to save room for cake, and also because I didn't want to finish it. We all shared our testimonies with the family. They agreed to baptism in December because the parents, Rosa and Johnny, have to get married first. But it was super powerful and they have a strong desire to be baptized and know the church is true. Luckily their house is at the top of the area with a steep hill, so maybe I burned off a few of the excess calories.   

A few weeks ago we got a reference from our zone leaders for a man named David. He has inactive sisters and is currently living with a friend in a different ward, but is going to move to our ward. He has problems with his hearing so we have to speak really slowly and use a white board to explain everything. This week he had time to meet so we went to our church building with his friend and our ward mission leader. He's very receptive to the gospel and asked us about baptism after we assigned him to read 2 Nephi 31. He was a little concerned about the "baptism of fire," but we got that cleared up quickly. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted! We're so happy for him, and he and our ward mission leader are already becoming friends. He's really cool and is greatly interested in the gospel!

This week we had our interviews with presidente. For some reason we only receive the schedule the day before so if you have a lesson at that hour you're going to have to cancel it. Luckily we didn't have anything at that hour. I talked with Hermana Hiatt about Perú and piano while I waited for my turn. All the missionaries in our zone got together to practice a song for the stake music activity on Saturday. Of course we sang a youth song. As many of you know I kind of dislike youth pop music right now because it gets stock in my head and I can't get it out. But I can get over my hate for a day and if I show some backbone and get into it I can have fun. Just as long as it's not "If You Believe" because that one's so darn annoying--and it's "If You Believe." Well at least at first because we changed it to "If You Love Him," which is much more doable for me. Man, I feel so immature.

Saturday night we had the stake activity. They brought in a drum set and a guitar to accompany the youth that played 30 second long songs on the piano. It was pretty cool. Eventually we sang our song, but the music was too loud so you couldn't even hear us. I couldn't even hear myself, so I can only hope it might have sounded halfway decent. Afterwards we kind of just stood around because there was not much for us to do.

On Sunday David and Dante came to church. Milagros was sick so she didn't come, but we offered her a blessing later in the day. People need to have at least 2 church attendances to be baptized, so we'll have to push her baptism back one day to after sacrament meeting next Sunday. We'll probablemente have hers and David's baptisms at the same hour, with Dante the day before (if we can teach him everything before then. We're on a huge time crunch). Later in the afternoon we went to a baptism in Indoamerica. It was for a father and 2 of his sons whose mother is already a member. I taught them once on exchanges. Elder Macedo baptized one of them since he had taught them a lot when he was in that area. It was also a sort of wedding because just the day before the parents had gotten married, so we got to have some cake. Also 2 kids I had taught when I was in Tahuantinsuyo, Rodrigo and Nicolas, were baptized this week!

I had my pday on Tuesday this week so that's why it's a day later than usual. Our zone switched it to Tuesday this week so we could go to the Huaca del Sol, an area with a bunch of desert ruins and museums. We toured the temple where the Moche people used to hold human sacrifices. We were almost late for our tour of the temple as we left the museum, so Elder Barlow, Elder Kennedy and I ran to the tour entrante. It was fun to see 3 white guys just running in white shirts and ties through the barren desert. The tour was about 80 minutes and we got to see the base with a bunch of carvings of slaves, warriors, snakes, and dragons. The incide had rooms where people used to dress up to pretend to be the gods and perform for sacrifices. I'm a big historia guy so this was a great experience and so interesting and fun. All of the elders bought a hat at the gift shop with the face of the most common carving at the temple on it. We then crammed all 16 of us into a tiny bus and had the tightest 40 minute ride of the mission so far. It was fun getting to know some of the other elders better. It was quite the experience and I'm glad we were actually able to do something this pday!

Well we have 3 baptisms this week and I have the faith that all will go well! It was eventful and I probably forgot some stuff that happened, but I'll write those down later. Have a fantastic week!

Elder Jensen

1. At the stake activity
2. A little boy forced me to wear this spiderman mask that was too snall for me
3. Comp photo
4. Huaca del Sol
5. Elder Wride, Siggard, and I trying on hats
6. The mountain
7. (Most of) Zona Esperanza
8. Trujillo
9. Selfie at the base of the temple with Elder Lumbre and Vargas 











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