Hola Familia!
This week has been so crazy I don't know where to start. So on the flight to the Peru CCM there were 42 elders and 6 or 7 sisters. The majority of them are going to Trujillo North or Lima West. They told us this group was the largest group of North Americans this year so that’s exciting. The group before us had like 20 total and the group before that had 4 total…so they were pretty excited to have us. So the 20 that have been here for 3 weeks already have been a huge help with answering our questions and what not.
So out of our group that flew down together there are 4 districts. All of my district is going to Lima West except for 3 sisters who are going to Trujillo North. I am in a trio and my companions are Elder Probert and Elder Parker, from Orem and West Jordan. My whole district is from Utah except for 2 from Arizona.
How the MTC is set up is there are 3 buildings. One has our district rooms and dorms upstairs. One is the office building for president, the managers and staff. And one has the cafeteria downstairs and an auditorium upstairs. It’s a really nice campus. All of the rooms have woodwork and trim that’s similar to a church building. The bathroom countertops are granite, so it's definitely super nice. It feels more like a sanctuary than a prison.
There are almost constantly sirens screaming from outside the walls. They actually woke us up this morning at like 6 haha. President and Hermana Moore are amazing. They personally greeted all of us and gave us our name badges the morning after we got here. It's cool being at such a small MTC because we get to have a lot of interaction with the president. He's always walking around and asking
us how we are and stuff. Sunday was really cool because it was all in English which was so nice to actually understand. Anyway he did a presentation on temple preparation and it was so good.
Also we have a branch presidency, they are all Americans working at the area office (I think its called that) right next to the CCM. One is Austraulian and he is the area doctor for the South America Northwest Area (I think its called). It includes Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela and Bolivia. So he's like the head medical guy, it's pretty cool. And his wife is the choir director and its so funny listening to her speak Spanish in an Australian accent haha.
Our district has 2 teachers, one in the morning - Hermano Quispitupac, and one in the evening - Hermana Rivera. They are native Peruvians and they're so good, but they speak Spanish 90 percent of the time which is really confusing sometimes. President told us that last week they had 2 teaching positions open and they had 120 applications. So that tells you how good the teachers must be and how strong the church is here.
We play soccer every day after lunch for physical activity. They have a nice turf soccer field. They switch up the schedule so sometimes we play against the Latinos and other times not. Some of them are so good but most are average.
There are elders here from all over South America: Uruguay, Argentina, Ecuador, but a lot from Peru too. Everyone that goes to a mission in Peru or Bolivia comes here I think.
We taught our first lesson in Spanish on Friday. It was so hard haha. We basically just read our notes. But they have these "Casitas" which are litte buildings on the campus where we go and teach. We teach "Sonia" who is actually really Hermana Rivera. We teach a lesson almost everyday.
The Latinos are really funny. They always ask me if I'm Calvin Harris (the DJ) haha. And one called me Martin Harris as well. One experience I had talking to the Latinos.... one said something and
I didn’t understand what he said because he said it so fast and so I tried to say repita (repeat) but I accidentally said arrepentir which means repent. The group of latinos laughed so hard, it was fun.
The food here is so good. For breakfast there is always yogurt (raspberry) and other stuff, usually always eggs. For lunch and dinner there is always always always rice. Arroz arroz arroz. And most of the time potatoes with the rice. Haha it’s a lot of carbs. And chicken a lot, but also beef. One time we had lasagna which was exciting. But it had potatoes in it, I don’t think that’s normal.
We had a devotional last night which some guy, I don't know who he was because it was all in Spanish, they had headphones and a translator but it was still hard to understand. But the choir sang at it. We sang Love One Another in Spanish.
It rained the other night which was really surprising because I thought it never rained here.
Anyways that’s about all I have, ask me some questions! Love you all, see you next week.
-Elder Harris
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| Mis companeros |
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| Airport |
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| District Elders at the Open Bay Window |
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| Cafeteria |
Love these pictures!
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