Hey hey hey
Ok, so it’s been a CRAZZZZZY WEEK (and all those Z’s don’t stand for sleeping). In fact I am very tired. First off, today we went to Gocta, the nearby waterfall, which is apparently the third biggest waterfall in the world. IT WAS SO AWESOME!!! (Side note – I HATE Reggaton. IT’s music, and it’s terrible. Just thought I would add that…as it’s playing over the speakers in the internet café.) Ya pues, so Gocta was awesome. And I’ll have you know that hike was no pushover. Once we embarked for the waterfall it was about two and half hours walking through the most beautiful scenery you’ve ever seen…some real thick green jungly type stuff. I got plenty of pictures but nothing as good as actually seeing it. Dang cool. The waterfall was amazing and we were able to get pretty close, which resulted in us getting slightly wet by the mist, but on the plus side we had ponchos which were pretty much ineffective. Good stuff. So that was cool. The walk back was torture. Another two and a half hours back when the body is pretty much ready to just take a nap. It was fun but it definitely puts you to a physical limit. At least I can say I did it, and without crying (too much). And, I only slipped and fell in the mud four times. Not a bad number compared to the number the three other elders with me had: 0. (Yeah, that would be zero.)
Alright so last week was pretty much the best week we have had here so far. We decided after having about 15 members show up to church the week before that we needed to actually take focus OFF investigators and put it ON the members. I know, weird. I have never physically worked before in my mission like we are working now. We pretty much spend half the day if not a bit more looking for members and teaching them as if they were investigators, leaving them reading assignments and the whole nine yards in an attempt to give much needed help to these members. We are doing a lot of service projects, too – for members and investigators. And…..WE BOUGHT MACHETES! YES!! Everyday here in Chachapoyas I just feel like my mission is more and more complete. I just never know what new thing we are gonna do here. So we bought machetes to help people cut their grass and do all sorts of yard type clean up. So that’s my new favorite hobby – service. Have I done any good in the world today? Oh you can bet your bottom dollar I have. We are having a lot of fun with that and have even more stuff set up for this week. Service is just the best. It looks like all that border line child abuse yard work I had to do when I was younger is paying off. It’s awesome because the Latinos seem to have an idea that Americans have never used their hands to do anything besides eat pizza and play with electronic devices – so they are totally down with seeing us completely own hard physical work. “Look! Those guys are from a different country and are helping that lady clean up the grass and bushes! Wow!” So thanks Dad for teaching me to do yard work. Oh, and good ole Uncle Dan too, of course, who made me and Cody worked until we started whining and dropping wheel barrows full of grass and dirt – and then took us for In N Out and a movie.
Sorry, there is just so much that happened this week. We had an investigator schedule us for one day in the afternoon, and when we showed up she had just happened to have two other missionaries there from another church. That was a tad awkward. She pretty much made a little lunch of hot chocolate and bread, and then left the four of us there to eat together. Not really sure where she was going with that but it sure made for an awkward visit. They gave us a little folleto, or, uh, newspaper thing to read and study about their religion. I read it. They have some interesting ideas. But thanks to that old lady we met her granddaughter – Cecilia who is about 35 years old, has two young kids, and is now one of our best investigators. So I guess it did have a purpose after all.
This past Sunday was easily one of the best Sundays I have been a part of my entire mission. We visited about 10 people in the morning before going over there. I have never had investigators ready an hour early – but it happened with two of them – Cecilia, with her two young children, and Sheyla Mori, who is also about the same age and came with her 13 year old son. Besides them we had Lucero and her 13 year old daughter come as well, also progressing investigators. The talks and classes all went over smoothly and everything was just great. There were about 45 people there in total, a great boost from the previous 15 or so from the prior week, and there were a lot of less actives that showed up as well. So church was pretty awesome. I was extremely happy with how everything went down - and that the missionaries didn’t have to give all the talks and what not. The members did a great job yesterday with teaching and fellow shipping and it was just great. One of our investigators, Sheyla, Luceros other daughter, was sick and couldn’t go, but her mom told her about a dream she had about picking up her cell phone after getting a text message and it said, “Sheyla, I want you to pray, pray, pray, not ‘rezar.” I don’t know what rezar is in English, but it’s pretty much recited praying. So it was kind of interesting to hear about that. She has come a long way, actually. She is kind of proud to be honest, but she is a lot nicer with us now and is doing well. It’s driving me nuts that this family isn’t getting baptized yet, but we’ll see. We have other people that are just doing great. Celcilia really liked church and her young kids LOVED IT. They asked if they could come back every week and I said no. Then I said I was just kidding. They are really cool. So we are doing well here in Chachapoyas and I am just loving life right now.
Oh and I forgot to do this last week. I’d like to send a shout out for all the birthday cards I received. If I remember well...thinking off the top of my head so if I forget anyone, I AM SORRY. But thanks to the fam, of course, the Barlows, the Stewarts, the Flaggs, the Footes, Nalani, the Zafratos (did I spell that right?) and...I hope that’s all of them. If I remember bien that should be it - well, and a host of youth there who signed those cards. And of course, Chad Lewis. Haha. If someone can tell him thanks in Spanish that would be cool, because I think he wrote happy birthday in Chinese. Tell Jordan congrats on a great volleyball season. Too bad Silverado lost that close match to Vegas, but it sounds like they played their hearts out. And Jordan, awesome making all conference. He be da man. Anyway, life is good, and I am just loving being in Peru as a missionary. I completed 22 months yesterday. Wow. I don’t even know what to say about that. It’s crazy talk I tell ya. My testimony grows more each day, I love this church. I love Peru. I love being a missionary, and I love having this gospel in my life and knowing that Jesus Christ is my Savior. I especially love being able to spread that good news to other people. This Church is most definitely true.
Love,
Elder "Crazy Machete Handling Man" Royal
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