Noche De Hogar

Oh my goodness,  FHE in Peru is the greatest. I thought I would miss having my Rexburg FHE groups and the friends and fun that come with that , but I’m pretty sure my Peru FHE’s have topped a great deal of my college FHE’s.

So we went to a family in the ward’s home. Dirt floors, tin roof, make-shift walls and couch. We had an opening song and prayer and then we all went around and shared our favorite scripture and why. Ever since our little “We don’t need the Book of Mormon” fiasco that happened on Sunday, I’d been studying specifically about the Book of Mormon and shared a verse about that and bore my testimony. I decided that talking about the church in Spanish is a lot easier than trying to talk about anything else in Spanish, so I totally don’t mind doing stuff like this.

After we all shared our thoughts, we had a closing song and then I said the closing prayer. The man of the house called on me to pray, and then it was time for activity.

We played the funnest game of hot potato I have ever been a part of! Ohhhhh goodness. We sat in a circle passing around a little kids toy ball while one person stood with their eyes clothes chanting “Papas secema, papas secama”  and then when they wanted to stop, they say, “papa secemO” and whoever is holding the ball at that point is the loser. If you lose three times, you get a punishment. Alecksi’s punishment was that he had to go outside and yell at the top of his lungs that his pig died. The older man of the house lost too, so his punishment was “Poor Kitty” so he had to get down on his hands and knees and try to make someone laugh by meowing and pawing at their leg. Ohhh it was hilarious to see this old Peruvain man do this.

We also played, Habla Chanco Habla. That’s where one person is blindfolded in the middle and they spin and whoever they landed on had to honk like a pig and the person in the middle has to guess who it is. Holy cow, it is the most hilarious thing in the world to listen to a 60ish year old Peruvian woman who is missing major teeth, snort like a pig.

Oh good times.

Here’s what else is great, even though FHE didn’t get over til like 9:30, it’s Peruvian custom to feed the guests. So after our games, out came the food! We had yummy popcorn and really good buttered bread along with some AMAZING tea that just warmed our souls. It was called herba lousia I believe and we loooved it dearly.

Noche de Hogar with Peruvian families in their homes, totally one of the things I’ll miss most about Peru.

Creepy Boys and FHE

We had the most awesome FHE last night! We weren’t planning on going out with Liz and Miguel, because they were having FHE at a family in the wards home at seven and we figured it’d go on too late and we wouldn’t be able to catch a Combi/Micro back home.

So we were all snug in our jammies getting ready to put some soup on for dinner when Liz called and said that they have friends with cars who could give us a ride back. So we slurped down some cold soup, doubled up our jackets and headed out into the rain to catch a bus down into Banos. We weren’t seeing any, so we started walking down the road. A truck drove passed us, then turned around and drove up slowly behind us. I yelled, “Creepy boys in truck following us!” and Brittany yelled, “Shortcut!” and instantly bolted across road and down a steep muddy hill. It was dark and raining outside, and the idea of a creepy truck following us didn’t sound very fun, so Abby and I followed suit. Half way down the muddy hill (as we were sinking into the earth and being soaked by the rain) we decided that this was a bad idea, so we headed back up the hill and to the road. Lucky for us (sarcasm), that truck of creepy boys had stopped right there on the road as if to be waiting for us. Silent prayers were said, and voila a Combi (bus) was coming to our rescue that very second, so we hopped on without a second thought.

We ended up having FHE with Hermana Ruby’s family. She has an awesome husband and six great kids. They have a very nice home and lots of nice things. Her husband talked with us quite a bit and was fascinated with the fact that Brittany was from Alaska. We had a lesson (while Hermana Ruby nursed her baby, very publicly… just when you think you’ve gotten used to the extremely public displays of nursing, it surprises you yet again) and some spiritual thoughts and hymns. There was an awkward lull about half way through because one of the little kids had cut open their finger or something, so Miguel asked if we had anything to share. I recited for them some of the scriptures I’ve been memorizing in Spanish and they seemed to be impressed. Liz taught about loving others and then we were fed! We ate banana cake and tuna fish sandwiches. They were so good! After that we played a card game called “nervous hand”. We were laughing all night long. It was so much fun! (P.S. All of the above was in Spanish, because this family …is Peruvian.)

At around 9:45 we said we had to go (strict 10 pm bedtime to adhere to J) and the husband, Fernando gave us a ride home in his car. Which was super nice. 

It was so, so, much fun! We’re so lucky to have Liz and Miguel help us get involved with things. They are so awesome and way too good to us! 

Who Says You Can't Have It All

I do.

Here's Why:

Yesterday (Monday) we had the most perfect day in the whole world….almost. At around 3 o clock, I was ready to pack my bags and leave Peru for good. I was done.

Here’s what happened. It was the perfect morning where we went on our run without being viciously terrorized by one single dog (see previous post). We got all our shopping done for the week and we sat outside and basked in the beautiful sun while we prepared the day’s lesson.  

Today’s lunch menu consisted of lentils AND a fried egg. My favorite lunch by far. Melchora even let me get two helpings of lentils! My favorite little boy Antony (who only comes on occasion) was there that morning, happy as ever.

 Life was so good!

Until one punk kid came and ruined everything. 

He was maybe 15 or 16 (it’s hard to tell ages cause lots of people are short). He had a leather jacket and a mohawk with stairsteps shaved on either side of his head. All he needed was gages and a tongue piercing. Anyways, some of my little boys were playing outside and before I knew it, that punk was chucking rocks and throwing punches at my ninos. Now, my little ninos were at fault as well I’m sure, they were spitting and trying to fight back. But I was so stinking mad at this punk kid (I think his name is Jose) and one of my older boys (Luis) who were just being big, fat bullies. I was super disappointed in Luis, because I really like him and he has potential.  Long story short after much loud talking at them and trying to hold back my kids and lock them in the center, I finally got the boys to leave. I was exhausted though. I had crying boys, I had yelling  boys, I had angry boys trying to get past me and find a way back outside. Keep in mind that all of this was going on in a different language.

Finally 3 o clock came and the kids left. I went upstairs and laid on my bed, so exhausted. We had plans to go see a waterfall with our friends at 3:30 and I just did not want to go. 

Well after about 15 minutes of wallowing and napping, I hopped out of bed and we headed down into Banos to meet up with our friends. We ended up going to Cajamarca and had an amazing time! We had our first red meat in a long, long time and ate some amazing hamburgers. Later that night (like at 8ish, our friends (Liz, Miguel, Pedro and Alecksi) came over for FHE or Hogar Noche.. (I think). It was so much fun, we did it half in English and half in Spanish. We played Nertz, ate popcorn, had an awesome discussion on the scriptures and Liz and Miguel brought us some awesome sweet bread that was SO good!
 

Cajamarca

Three of our AMAZING new friends

Cajamarca is an interesting city

We died and went to heaven whilst eating this burgers!

FHE!

After our friends left we just basked in how great that day had been. The three of us stayed up and told embarrassing stories and laughed all night long. Finally we popped in a chick flick and hit the hay.

It was a nearly perfect day. It had a fantastic beginning, an amazing ending and just a minor bump in the road somewhere down the middle.

Sheer Exhaustion and Our Very First FHE

We had our first FHE this past Monday. It was an exhausting day to say the least. We sorted through lentils for hours ran around with the kids and then had to go into Cajamarca (a huge city) and try and figure out what the man who took us was saying. When we talk to any adults, like Hermano Sandro, they usually direct their words to me, so I am in charge of trying to figure out what they say and then try to figure out an appropriate response.

After about an hour of that, I feel like I have just sat in the testing center for 3 hours taking a test that I knew nothing about, yet I needed to try super hard because my life and two other lives depended on it. It is the most mentally exhausting and draining thing I have ever done. 

 As soon as we got off the bus from Cajamarca I found a chair and just sat. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, and when I went to offer a prayer on our dinner I couldn’t even find the correct English words to begin the prayer. I felt as if my brain had literally turned to mush.

After a lovely dinner of dry fish, celery, bean sprouts and mushrooms  we went upstairs to our bedroom for FHE. We wanted to sing our opening song in Castellano so we went to LDS.org and just picked a random one. It happened to be “Lead Kindly Light” Appropriate song for our situation? I think so! “The night is dark and I am far from home, lead thou me on.” We then read out of the second half of 2^nd Nephi 4 and applied what we read to ourselves and found ways that we could use it to improve our time here. For our closing song we sang, “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go Dear Lord” I’ve come to LOVE the words in all three verses.

For activity we accidentally stayed up all night to tell each other about our past and current love life situations. Without giving too much away, lets just say that I have never laughed harder in my entire life. Turns out we've all been in the same boat in multiple ways and we're a lot more alike than we thought. Perfect way to end an exhausting day.