Today, I thought I'd upload a lot of the pictures I've been meaning to send for the last few months, but never got around to. Here's me in the CCM, with the district that's two weeks "younger" than me. I led them out of the walls for their first P-Day. We became good friends, and it turned out they all liked the show Community back home, which was one of my favorites. You can see in Elder Hoffman's hand that "nectar of Peru", Inca Cola. Man, I'm going to miss it when I return.
I had a wonderful relationship with the Latinos for my last two weeks of the CCM. Every time they saw me, they'd raise up on their toes and mimick my goofy walk, calling delightedly, "Pinguino!!!", meaning penguin. This was only one of their many nicknames for me- they also called me Happy Feet and Siempre Feliz, turning their mouths into an overblown smile. This one used to come in to our dorm and sit on the foot of my bed and sing English rock and pop songs with me- he'd memorized all the words, not knowing the meaning of any of it, haha. He gave me as a gift at the end the video of the Restoration, which has proved super useful.
Ah, reminiscing. Fast forward to last week. Here I am in the first baptism I got to perform! Her name's Melody, and she's actually the daughter of a sister in the ward. Usually, missionaries don't perform these, but her dad's not a member and is usually drunk, so she asked me. She's an absolute nut, and usually after visiting her, she's latched to our feet. A little while later, we realize we've been pick-pocketed and our pen or agenda is missing. Though in this picture, she's a little tame, haha. She was a little nervous for the service, and afterward at the party she was quiet.
Here's last P-Day. This is why I didn't have a blog post last week. We went to the Corona del Inca, or the Crown of the Inca. It was straight up Weathertop from Lord of the Rings. We hiked up to the top, preaching to some sheep along the way. At the top, one of the elders bellowed out the scripture we all had to memorize for our last multi-zone conference down to the village below. We all followed it up with a thunderous, AMEN!!!!!
That's all for this week, but I'll have more stories to come! We have some awesome investigators I want to talk about in the following email!