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| Me and Elder Cabrera after walking home in the rain. |
This week was pretty awesome and finished my first cambio/transfers
(every six weeks) in the mission field. It’s kind of crazy because it seems
like I literally just got here the other day hahaha.
This week was pretty fast because the whole week I was looking
forward to watching General Conference this past Saturday and Sunday. Martes/Tuesday
we had a pretty good day, district meeting in the morning and then found a
pretty cool family that seems pretty interested. Also that night we got a call
from some other elders nearby, and they invited us to do service with them
miercoles/Wednesday.
So miercoles/Wednesday, from like 9a – 5:30p we mixed and
poured cement for this miembro/member in their ward (congregation). It was
great because I got to do some physical labor hahaha, and my comp got to hang
out with other elders. Hahaha. It was super fun though, and I’m super grateful
for the guys out at the mine who taught me lots about cement :) The miembro/member
hermano/brother kind of reminded me of Gary Muller—hahaha, super smart guy who
knows what he is doing... but has a bad back and can’t really do everything :) Hahaha
love ya Gary! Hahaha. Anyways, we ran out of sand so we went back the next day,
just for the morning to finish up. Miercoles/Wednesday in the night we went to
the church for Noche de Misional/Mission Night, but the miembros are practicing
for some dance so we just played futsall with the young men for a lil while. Jueves/Thursday
after finishing the cement, the hermana/sister invited us to eat, but we were
like no we have our pensionista that we will go to after we get cleaned up.
Well the hermana/sister insisted we at least eat some sopa/soup, so we did and
then she brought in segundos/seconds and said don’t worry eat. Hahaha so we had
2 lunches. (Lunch is the big meal here, like dinners in America. It usually is
a sopa/soup, a plato de segundos/plate of seconds, which is meat, papas/potatoes,
rice whatever else they cook, and then some lil dessert or fruta/fruit). So
after our pensionista, we were pretty darn full. Hahaha.
We went back to that family we found martes/Tuesday but they
were leaving to the campos/fields so we are going back siguiente martes/next
Tuesday. Viernes/Friday was pretty good, and we went to 2 of our investigadores/investigators
but they were both busy. Hahaha. Silly because we set citas/appointments with
them and then when we get there, they are busy. Oh well. It also rained pretty
good viernes/Friday, and it looked like a monsoon but a little different since
we are so high up in elevation. All the clouds were super low hahaha. After it
cleared up, there was snow in the mountains all around us, so that was kind of
crazy. It’s starting to warm up though so that’s nice.
Sabado/Saturday we went to the ferÃa/market and bought lots
of food, not only for conferencia/conference, but our pensionista told us that
there is going to be a paro (unemployment?). Kind of like a stop to everything,
almost all tiendas/shops close and people like march the streets. I don’t know
why, and our pensionista said she doesn’t know either. It started locally here
today but the nacional/national one is going to start miercoles/Wednesday. She
said the last one was a few years ago and sometimes they last like 30 or 40
days. Hahaha. So we bought food to last us a lil while. We aren’t really sure
what will happen, and we were a lil worried that cambios/transfers wouldn´t
happen if nobody could travel, but so far nothing has happened. We did see lots
of people marching this morning on our way to play football/soccer.
Anyway!, Sabado/Saturday after the ferÃa/market we went to
la estaca/stake center for conferencia/conference. I watched it upstairs in a
room with the 4 other Americans here in PotosÃ. We made some pretty darn good
tacos and had tons of snacks. Hahaha. After the first sabado/Saturday session,
a car crash happened down the road and knocked out all the power for a few
blocks. Around 4:30ish they told us it wasn’t going to come back that day, so
we started calling members to find a place to watch it. We found one guy who
spoke pretty good English and would let us watch it at his house. We watched
most of it, but the Wi-Fi was super bad and then the women’s session started
and it wouldn’t go back. So we missed the last 3 or 4 speakers but it’s all
good. (My companion went with other Latino elders and watched it in Spanish).
While waiting for our companions to come to the house we
were at, we talked with the guy and turns out he was on a mission in Peru
Chiclayo!! Ya!! So I asked him if he knew an Elder Lamb, and he said of course.
Hahaha so that was pretty cool. His name is or I guess was Elder Leniz and from
what I could gather, he came home early. Anyways I told him about Ethan and
then he looked him up on Facebook.
Well it started raining pretty hard and our companions
showed up super soaked. We started walking down to a place where there’s
usually tons of trufes (like buses), but literally there were none. We waited
for nearly 20 minutes and not one trufe passed, and we were pretty soaked. Hahaha.
We started laughing and walking home and Elder Cabrera was like, "stuff
that only happens to missionaries." Hahaha. It was pretty funny. Nobody
else was walking; they were just standing in the lil shades of buildings and
looking at us like we were crazy. Hahaha. There was one part that the water was
like 5 or 6 inches deep, and we were so soaked that we didn’t even care. After
a few steps, Elder Cabrera started running through it, so of course, I did the
same. We were freezing and soaked to the bone but laughing and just having a
blast. I know kind of crazy. Hahaha. Well, we finally got home and sipped some
mate and warmed up hahaha.
The next day there was power at la estaca/stake center again,
and I made some pretty bomb panqueques/pancakes for the first session. The
second session we sipped mate and ate lots of snacks. Conference was awesome
because not only did we have awesome food (physically) but we also feasted
spiritually. I tried to only take notes on things I felt and learned from the
Spirit and not so much from the speaker. It was pretty cool. I loved the talks
about taking the name of the Lord upon us, doing what He would say and do,
because that is literally what I’m doing. These talks helped me remember that I
am called to be a representative of Jesus Christ, and I need to show love and
help others the same way He did and would.
After conference, we went to the Flia Copa (who we go to
each Domingo/Sunday). We had an awesome Noche de Hogar/Family Night about the
Atonement, and I felt the Spirit really strong. Afterwards, we made some pretty
darn good cookies. Hahaha. We also got the call from the zone leaders telling
us all the cambios/transfers. Me and Elder Cabrera are staying together as
expected. The rest of the night Elder Cabrera was on the phone with different
elders talking about who is where and with who. It was pretty funny to see how
excited everybody is and was for cambios/transfers.
Today we played basketball with some guys that were pretty
tall and pretty darn good. We played elders versus them, and we lost each time
but it was lots of fun. Other than that not much happened today. Tomorrow
morning people leave for their new areas. This week went by super fast.
I know President Russell M. Nelson is our living prophet
today and when he speaks, we need to ACT. That’s something they told us at the
CCM (missionary training center), and I really love it. It’s great to listen
and all but after listening, we need to act--following the things he says--because
really they are the things the Lord is telling us. I know that to be true. I
love being a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
the true church upon the earth with Jesus Christ leading us. I know He does and
if we choose to follow Him we can find true eternal happiness and overcome any
challenges or struggles we are faced with.
Love ya guys!
Elder Sorensen
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| Helping pour cement outside a member's house. |
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| Pic 4 & 5: The view of the rain
from our back lil patio. Usually you can see tons of mountains, but you couldnt see any of them. |
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| Pic of snow in the mountains as we were walking to a members house. |
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| Us gringos and one Latino elder who speaks English watching General Conference at the house of a past elder who was in Chiclayo Peru. |
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Pics of me and Elder Cabrera after finally making it home
after walking
like an hour in the pouring rain!
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| Elder Cabrera cooked these up, but ate them all while i was showering and getting ready. So i didn't eat any. I thought he was going to eat them later. Oh well, i kinda wanted to try them. |
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| Watching General Conference at the Stake Center in Potosi. |
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| Me and Hermana Copa making galletas/cookies. |
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| Cookies turned out pretty good. |