Hey Hey Hey!
Ok, Let’s get one thing out of the way. Peru needs to adopt the "cheaper by the dozen" rule. It’s driving me nuts. We had to by stuff like emergency kits for the whole zone last week and, wow, that principle could really make a difference here. Okay, that’s it.
We had a pretty good week here in La Victoria. Elder Hanke and I started out pretty well, but didn’t end as well this week - kinda the opposite of what happened the week before. We do have some people that are progressing. We are teaching 14 year old Sobeida who had a fecha (baptismal date) for last Sunday but it didn’t go through. She has some family issues there. She is a great girl and completely different from her sisters who are just rude as can be. So, that might happen here in the next few weeks, we are working on it. We have another teenage girl, Sandra, 17 years old, who just sky rocketed with progression in a single week going from very strong Catholic to... I think this stuff is true...still a bit unsure, but came to church yesterday and is doing very well. So she is very hopeful for us in the next few weeks. The Sarate family that we taught last Sunday that we were so excited about was stuff to get in contact this week. We finally taught them again Saturday night, but without the father, just the mother and four daughters. Wow, lots of girls. I hope no one has any bad ideas about us missionaries here. It’s innocent, I promise. But they ALMOST came to church. They didn’t progress much this week, but I still have a lot of hope for them. They have some money struggles as the father bounces around looking for work to provide for food and schooling. But, hopefully something good happens soon. We also had a great lesson with some menos activos Saturday night - the parents with their two young children. We talked about eternal families and then in a spur the moment kind of thing, trying to think of a game to lighten the mood: “Don’t Eat Pete” came to my mind - and changed the whole attitude of the night. It turned out way good and just fun for the family. The best part, something I will never forget, was when their nearly two year old daughter was taking each little cracker, obviously not really knowing how to play...but we kept telling her, eat, eat, keep going, until she got to Pete, or Pablo, and we all screamed at her... "No comas Pablo!" She got scared, dropped the cookie, and started crying. I felt terrible, but could not stop laughing. I always do that - make kids cry on accident. I can’t count how many times I have done that - in the last six weeks alone! But at least it wasn’t JUST my fault this time. But yeah, it was pretty much hilarious. That aside, the family came to church yesterday for the first time in months. My only hope is that when they get to the celestial kingdom and someone asks how they returned to the gospel and then remained faithful Church members is that their answer will be... "No comas Pablo."
Ok, now the big news. CAMBIOS. My dear Elder Hanke is leaving me to go train a new missionary in a neighboring zone here in Chiclayo, Dorado. I am staying here in La Victoria as zone leader and my new companion will be Elder Vasquez. I am really happy about that. He is a good missionary that I have known for a long time and has a very good, humble way about him. So I am looking forward to this change with him. I will miss Elder Hanke, though. This last change was da bomb.com. I am a bit nervous about being in charge of the zone now as senior zone leader. Ya know, technically, this is my first change EVER as senior companion. Because I never was a senior companion before going to the office, then I left the office as junior zone leader. So . . . interesting. Well, I’m out 20 months tomorrow and . . . well, first time as senior comp. Haha. We have a lot of new people coming to the zone, including two new district leaders, one of them Elder Ibarra, the ex-financial secretary that I trained. That will be interesting. There are no new elders, but there will be a new sister, which is kinda nice actually since we can’t do work visits with the sisters anyway - one less thing to worry about. :) So, there is some new stuff for me here in LA Victoria. I talked to Elder Meza again today about Piura Central, and in this last change four people that I was teaching while I was there got baptized since I have been here in La Victoria. That is so awesome!! Two of them being a husband and wife with two young kids. So cool. I guess my wish that I could be part of bringing an entire family came true! So cool. And the two young single girls both got baptized. So the Los Ficus single adult crowd just got a lot more interesting. Anyway, I was very happy to hear about all that.
Glad to hear Jordan and Silverado are winning and loving volleyball. Go Skyhawks! Hey, my good bud Elder Gale sent me a letter recently indicating he will be in town this weekend for the Saves the Day concert. If you guys are going to be around, give him a call. You’d like meeting him. Well I think that is about all I have for this week. I really can’t believe that I have 20 months in the mission =0. That is pretty nuts to me. Time is just going faster and faster. But I am really enjoying it and growing more and more as time goes by. I hope everyone is doing well back home, or wherever ya’ll may be. I am happy to be serving alongside so many friends, and cousins. This Church is true. It is the Savior’s church. It has prophets, apostles, the authority of God, with all the necessary saving ordinances and principles. Live it. Join it. Find everlasting peace through it.
Elder “Got Milk?” Royal
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