Bucket List: Milk a Cow

I can’t believe it!! I have finally fulfilled my dream of milking a cow!

 It’s been on my bucket list for who knows how long and I did it right here in a beautiful Peruvian field. We wanted to make homemade cheese, because Miguel knows how and we’ve been wanting to do it. So after work, we ventured into the Peruvian outback to find some cows we could buy some milk from. Or rather some cow owners I suppose.

Me and the said cow

It was quite the adventure. Nobody wanted to sell us milk, it was crazy! I didn’t understand why they were so hesitant. We needed 18 liters, but we got 10 here, 5 there etc. And then working out a fair price was crazy too! They usually sell it for .80 a liter, but they were insistent on selling  it to us for 1.50 a liter because we were white. The nerve! Ricardo was able to use the power of “-ita” to knock the price down to 1.30 a liter, but still! 

 

So we sat and watched as a lady milked the cow for the milk we needed to make cheese and then we asked her if we could try milking it. It was sooo fun! It was not what I was expecting at all and it was kind of scary at first. I was super bad at it at first, but I got the hang of it and did … ok. The lady went to town though. She was a pro. Either way, I now can say I have milked a cow, in Peru none the less. Success!

Valentine's Day in Peru

Valentine’s Day in Peru is probably up there in my top three all times Valentine’s days…possibly top 2 (Ok, so I can’t remember any SUPER great Valentine’s days, but I like to think that I’ve had good experiences with this lovely holiday).

Here’s how it happened:

The morning started beautifully. I got mucho amounts of laundry done and hung out, I did Ab Ripper X and I took a cold shower. So Far so Good!

Also, we got two sets of flowers :) Perfect!

Almost no kids showed up today.. maybe like 40 total, which is a lot less than usual. We made them each Valentine’s with really yummy suckers. Brit took the boys to go play futbol and a lot of the girls ended up going with them. Abby and I were left with just one little girl.

I was pretty tired, so I came upstairs, did some blogging and sacked out for a good 20 or so minutes. When I woke up, it was time to go to into Cajamarca. We had with us Alecksi and Ricardo and were going to meet up with Robert, Jorge and Daniel at the movie  theater in the Mall.

We watched a movie called Los Illusianauts. It was Peruvian made and only in Spanish (no subtitles). Even though I didn’t catch all of the dialogue, I know for a fact that it is a movie I will never have the desire to see again. Pretty much it was a cartoon about a boy with deadly flatulence and his friends. Super gross.

Our Movie theater snacks: We go into the Peruvian store and come out with all things American...lame

After the movies we walked over to Capilla Aueropuerto and met some of Ricardo’s family. We waited there until it was time to walk over to the Capilla Pueblo Libre for our first Peruvain YSA dance.

While waiting for the dance we delivered our Valentines to our friends (we gave them homemade chocolate chip cookies!) We also told them all about American Dancing customs….like how you dance in a big circle to the fast songs as opposed to with one partner and you know…just the other basic American customs: Dancing while combing our hair with forks, dancing on our knees at REALLY elegant dances,(girls wear knee length dresses to these dances, and boys cut off their tux pants at the knees) and the really cool kids dance without shoes. We are so bad.

And the dance began! With an opening prayer, spiritual thought and a hymn.

Latin music, Reggatone, Brasilian Music, Columbian Music and a bit of unedited “I Want to Be a Billionaire..” American music.

It was SO much fun! We pretty much got paired up with one partner for most of the night and they taught us the ways of latin dancing..Salsa, Merengue etc.  I asked my partmer where he learned and he said that pretty much everyone is born just knowing, “It’s in my latin blood”. And that’s when I got jealous because this girl has not an ounce of latin blood and even less rhythm so dancing does not come easily for me!

But our friends were more than willing to teach us and help us learn. The last hour of the dance is called “Hora Loca” and it started with confetti being thrown in our faces, balloons and streamers being thrown and an hour of upbeat music where you aren’t allowed to sit down!

While we dance, people come around offering you small treats on silver platters and if you sit down, you are lazy. Towards the end of the dance, the DJ started playing a slew of popular American music. We of course were rocking out to these songs and singing them at the top of our lungs. The DJ thought it was super hilarious to blast the music and then turn the volume off so that it was just us singing. He did that multiple times. While we were dancing to this English stuff I looked around and found that we were the ONLY ones on the dance floor. Everyone else was sitting and just watching us…laughing of course J But we’re used to that and continued with our interpretive/crazy dancing.

Oh it was sooo fun! We took lots of videos, but alas, they would take forever to upload here, so if you’re curious, find me when I get home and I will show you Stake Dances, Peruvian style.

Also, there is a really formal YSA dance next week…it’s a big deal, and translated into English it’s called Prom!!! And it just so happens that I got asked to it during this dance! At first I didn’t really realize what was going on, but it looks like I’ve got myself a date to the fancy dance!

We came home that night exhausted but happy. It’s how we’ve been ending most of our days recently. I think it means that they day was a grand success!

Hope yours was too!

-Elia

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.

Just Another One Of The Locals

You know that feeling when you think you’ve had the greatest day ever….and then the next day is just as good if not better? Well, here’s the thing. That has pretty much happened every day here in Peru. It just gets better and better and better. Remember how awesome our Friday was? Well Saturday may have topped it.

Here’s why:

We started our morning off with a run into Cajamarca. We’ve come to love the stretch of land from Banos to Cajamarca and were set with our tunes and our tennis’ to take it on on this sunny, Saturday morning. We didn’t have much planned for the day, so we thought we’d stroll through Cajamarca to see what we could find. We found sweet after treat after sweet. Cajamarca is dusted with dozens of quaint little bakeries and panaderias. Each filled to the brim with fresh bread, empanadas, and sweet treats I couldn’t pronounce or prepare if I tried all day. We decided to do a cake walk of our own and stop at every single panaderia that we passed to buy one treat to split. It was so much fun and we tried all sorts of yummy new treats! None of which were very close to the treats we’d find in American bakeries.

After that, we got a nasty bite from the shopping bug and went up to Santa Appolonia to do some shopping in the little shops filled with cool Peruvian things. At this point we were on a time crunch because Liz and Miguel and Alecksi had invited us over for a homemade Peruvain lunch! (Wahoo!) Well, right as we were walking out of our last little shop, guess who we saw!? Our friend Robert (who we had gone out for Pizza with the previous Wednessday). We couldn’t believe that we actually ran into somebody that we knew in Cajamarca!! Awesome. For sure. After chatting with him for a bit, he invited us to come back into Cajamarca that night so that he and Jorge could treat us to one of their favorite Peruvian meals at a really good restaurant. Of course we were down for that, so we rushed off to the Quinde to do some rapid shopping (we needed ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies, and a chicken ) and then bused home.

The second we got home, Brit hopped in the cold shower while Abby and I gathered our things to take a hot shower in Banos (a Saturday tradition, anddd since we were going out that night, we needed to smell about 100 percent better than we smelled at the moment).

On our way down to Liz’s for lunch, a white guy on a bike passed us and said, “Hey, hows it going? You look lost.” I think that would have offended me if I hadn’t been so shocked that a white man in Puylucana was speaking ENGLISH to us. After chatting with him for a bit, we learned that he and his wife are from New Hampshire and that he works in the mines. His wife needs white friends, so stay updated on our new friends Danielle and Charlie.

Meanwhile, lunch at Liz and Miguel’s was incredible!! We had Lomos Saltaba (sp?) and I just about died and went to heaven. So delicious!  Have I mentioned lately how great Liz and her family are? Because we truly love them. Liz then went through and helped us plan our wild adventure into the Amazon jungle and into Cuzco. Let’s just say that we are a little bit more than SO EXCITED for that little adventure of a lifetime!

Since we were supposed to meet up with Robert and Jorje in Cajamarca at 5, we split up to get work done from here. Abby and I went to go shower while Brit went to buy water. We met up with perfect timing and we were Cajamarca bound in no time.

At this point, (and for the past 4 hours) the rain had not stopped pouring on us. So we were wet and quite the sight to see. But Jorge and Robert easily spotted the wet, gringas with brightly colored umbrellas, so we didn’t even have to wait long for them in the giant park.

We took a Taxi down to San Martin and were pleasantly surprised and treated to a wonderful meal at a comparatively fancy restaurant. We had Papas Fritas, ensalada y Pollo a la brazza (sp?) and we loved every bite of it. 

We had an awesome conversation with our Peruvian friends and it is helping our Spanish improve leaps and bounds. Since we can only communicate with them in Spanish, and awkward silences are not my thing, this forces me to work extra hard on speaking and understanding what they’re saying. By the end of the night I truly felt like we were speaking the same language and that it came so easily. At one point, I completely just asked them a question in English because I had forgotten that they spoke something different from my native tongue. It wasn’t hard or difficult any  more, it was almost (ALMOST) like speaking English to my American friends.

Our lovely new gentleman friends helped us get a bus (and paid for it) and accompanied us all the way to our front door (even though it’s 30+ minutes away from their homes, what gentleman!) We were talking outside for quite some time and we accidently made them miss the bus to take them back to Cajamarca….actually we made them miss it three times!!! By this point, it was too late and no more buses were coming, so we bid our friends adieu as we watched them walk home on a cold, dark night. We felt kind of bad about that J

We came home, made some popcorn and continued planning and preparing our amazing Amazon adventure, and I got to talk to my Pops and Beebs on the phone, always a pleasure.

SO it was a fabulous, fantastic, awesome day! We have big plans for this week too, with our kids, ourselves and our new friends! P.S. It’s Carnaval this week too, pray that we don’t die!

-Elia

A Little Taste Of Home,

I can pass up pie, cut back on cake and even  back out of brownies….but when it comes to a homemade cookie…. Move over, I’m done for. I crave cookies like none other, and when I’m eating them I feel as if I shall never be sad again. OH how I love them.

Well guess what. Peru does not have cookies. Not the cookies you’re thinking of at least. They call crackers cookies. CRACKERS! Tell me I’m not the only one who sees a vast difference between a crunchy, salty, stale-like piece of bread and an ooey-gooey, melt in your mouth cookie?

We decided that for Valentine’s day we wanted to make all of our friends good ol’ American chocolate chip cookies. After searching high and low for a recipe that wouldn’t end disastrous at  our 9000+ ft altitude, we got to work on satisfying my sweet tooth.

We did however have to improvise as brown sugar is nonexistent in Peru  (the sugar is brown here…but not because it’s “brown sugar”) and we could not find baking soda to save our lives!  Chocolate Chips…also a problem easily fixed by chopping up a chocolate bar.

But lo and behold, twas a success worth documenting! We made some tonight to try out our recipe, and tomorrow will be full of baking as well so that we can share our treats with all our new friends who have been OH so good to us. Stay tuned for pictures

///

And since we’re on the topic of things that a girl should never go three months without…. Today we were walking home from church when a sister in our ward (Hermana Rubi) stopped us and asked us if we’d like a piece of her homemade Tres Leches cake. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you have never lived if you have never had a taste of homemade, tres leches cake…Peruvian style. I could have died right then, completely satisfied with life. SO, SO good!!!! And to make sure that I never have to go my whole life with out that little necessity, Hermana Rubi has promised to teach us to make it!

So come find me in Utah when I get back be prepared to have your mind blown.

A Day To Remember

I feel like everyday I start each journal entry with the following line:

I LOVE PERU! Today was the best day ever!!!

Because it's true. Everyday is the best day ever. But today, was EXCEPTIONALLY awesome and here's why.

1. We saw the sun. We haven't seen it in days. It's been raining and raining and raining, but we saw it this morning on our run.

2. We went on one of our “hill run”, straight up and enormous hill and then all the way down the long way followed by P 90 Ab Ripper X. 

3. After a delicious breakfast of eggs, tomato, garlic, gouda and avacado we showered and became clean!

4. We had an awesome day with the ninos. We split up into three teams and did relays. I had team Anaranjado and let me tell you, we were bomb. I loooved my team and they did so well at just about everything (except they pretty much stunk at leap frog :).

We decorated our score sheets/banners to promote team spirit

Here's what we played: (I had to make up spanish names for all of them...so they're kind of odd :)

-Piedras y cucharas:  Where you carry a rock on a spoon and run with it.

-Salta como un conejo: Sack race

-Lava Caliente: Where you have to get from start to finish using only two pieces of paper and without touching the ground

-Matematicas Maestria (something like that): See which team could complete the most math flash cards in two minutes. Abby TOTALLY cheated for her team, but it was needed :)

-Rana Rapido: Leap Frog

The kids loved it and totally got into it. And my team came in second place overall! I was so proud :)

After all the points were tallied up, we gave out the trophies. By this time it was only about 2pm, so we still had another hour with the kids, but we were worn out! So we sat and let the girls braid our hair while we read stories. 

Tender Mercy: It didn't rain one single drop during our whole time outside. Seriously this is remarkable and we were so grateful. However, the moment our festivities ended today, the rain came, and it poured and poured and poured! Coincidence? I think not.

5. We went to a bake-sale-ish type fundraiser. We didn't know what was going on really and ended up sitting around for two and a half hours (when in reality, we could have been in and out in 10 minutes) Oh well! We got these yummy fried things called Picadoras? Something like that. They were delicious!

6. While we were sitting and waiting during the aforementioned bake sale, we met three new friends. Jorge, Robert y Charlie. Robert and Charlie were both R.M's studying in Cajamarca. Kayla Starbuck, if you're reading this, tell your brother that I met a boy who served with him! Jorge! 

We found out that they are going to the same YSA convention later this month as us, and we decided that we wanted to make friends with them, and so we did! It was so fun talking to them, and then it was time to go. So they left and then we left maybe 30 seconds later.

This is where the story gets good.

7. While we were walking out, we noticed that it was a little after six, which is about the time places to eat start opening in Banos, so we decided we wanted to treat ourselves to Pizza! Brittany says, "Lets invite our new friends!" who at this point were several hundred feet in front of us. Without much thought, Brittany runs down the road to stop our friends and invite them to pizza. As she was leaving she yelled to us, "Is it, 'Nosotros Pizza Comer?' " Before we could tell her that, no, that is not how you properly invite someone to eat pizza, she was off and running.

Me and Abby started busting up laughing. Then we noticed that we were right in the middle of a bus stop with people all around us. And guess what? They were all cracking up too! There was a tall, white, blonde girl blabbing off some random Spanish words and running down the side walk after three Peruvian guys. EVERYONE was laughing. I was dying. 

8. Well, a minute or two later, Brittany returned! With our new Peruvian friends! They had miraculously been able to decipher her message and off we went to get pizza. The pizza cost us about ten bucks, and it was probably half as good as a $5 Little Caesars Hot and Ready. Peru and pizza? Not the best combination, but it was so much fun! 

And here's what else, we're counting it as a date. Now, don't get too excited, because 1. We Planned it 2. We were Paired off (well not really, but there were three girls and three boys) and 3. We Paid for it. 

So the three P's of a date were there....but we were the boys in the situation. But we justified it because we're south of the equator, things are all sorts of scrambled up down here :)

Over all, it was a way fun day! We loved every minute of it!

Also, Happy Birthday Trav! We have a present for you, but didn't have time to ship it off to you today!
-Elia

Death By Way of Confession

If I happen to die during my time here, I blame it purely on our night of confessions.

I know I’ve mentioned this hundreds of times. But our house is covered in mold. Mainly our ceilings. Black mold, green mold, grey mold, fuzzy mold, And to be honest, it scares me to death! I’ve been reading up/studying it and have found that when you breathe in mold it begins to colonize in your lungs and grow there!  And then I’m sure, shortly after… you die. I also read that you are a bit safer if you don’t disrupt the mold by trying to scrape/scrub it off. Brittany however is just itching to get to work on the ceiling and take off that mold in any way that she can. So I have had to sit her down and make her PINKY PROMISE not to disturb the mold. And she has obliged, because she knows how much I would really love to not die!

This picture does not do it justice. It was taken on our first day here. Since then, it has multiplied 100 fold. No joke.

Anyways, last night was a night to remember (and it will be, because we got it all on video). We were whipping egg whites (by hand) to try and make them into some sort of dessert, but we were not having very much success. So I whipped out my video camera and asked the other girls questions and what not about our time here. While we were talking, Abby let a confession slip. 

We were telling our video diary about the mold, and Brittany was telling it about how I would not let her touch the mold. Then Abby says, “We’ll blame it on Feliciana!” I didn’t really catch on to what was going on until the confession totally slipped out.

Here’s what it is: That morning, Abigail had run upstairs (where our bedrooms are) to grab something and found Feliciana, with a broom in hand, scraping mold off of the ceiling!!! AKA: Horribly disrupting the mold and sending it into the air where it could oh so easily find it’s way right into my lungs!!!!

Abigail was shocked when she saw this and needed to tell somebody, so she told Brittany and made her promise not to tell me. How sweet is that? She knew that I would be totally freaked out if I knew that Feliciana was taking a broom to the moldy ceiling every day! So she didn’t tell me, until it slipped out last night.  Brittany topped it off with her line of the night, “Yeah Noelle, you were going to be saved by ignorance, but now that you know… you’re going to die”

And it was downhill from there. As soon as Abigail’s confession slipped out, Brittany says, “Wait I have one! Yesterday, when I took the chicken out of our fridge for dinner… it dropped all over the floor! But we still ate it!”

Then Abigail replied, “Remember when Pedro gave us those chocolates? Well… I dropped those all over the floor!” And then went on and on from there (most confessions of which cannot be posted here J )

So we’re a bit worse off than I thought we were…but alas, we’re still up and kicking and having a great time!

Also, have I mentioned lately how great Abigail and Brittany are? Cause they are purely amazing. We are 3 COMPLETELY different people. The more we get to know each other and see each other in different situations the more we realize how opposite we are. But the compilation of the three of us is something beautiful. We truly complement each other so nicely.  And I love them!

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! 

Our Fabulous Fast Sunday

Today was our first Fast Sunday in Peru. It was awesome! Saturday afternoon we had a nice lunch of egg sandwiches and we broke our fast today with a nice pot of Almost Pasta Faju.

I woke up surprisingly early (6:50am) Sunday morning and I decided that since I had the time, I was going to try and look nice. So for the first time since I’ve been here, I broke out the curling iron and the blush and got to work. I listened to a John Bytheway talk (The Best Three Hours of the Week) while I got ready and church hymns were playing in the other room. The sun was shining and we even had time to walk (30 min) down the hill into Banos for church. 

I can't figure out how to turn the picture...sorry!

   Creeper SideNote: I was singing church hymns while we were walking to church and I was so caught up in what a great morning I was having that I almost didn’t notice the 3 creeper men who were driving super slowly beside us while we were walking. We said hello and I went back to singing my hymns, and the men kept driving right next to us calling to us and saying who knows what. It was rather unnerving and I wasn’t a fan…after a few silent prayers and what seemed like forever, the creepy men drove off and left us alone. But on the other hand.... we looked super cute, can you blame them? Just kidding :)

My mom made this dress for me before I left!

So we get to church and have a lovely meeting. The three of us had talked about whether or not we’d bear our testimonies and in what language we’d do so. We decided to make it a goal to be prepared to bear it by next month’s Testimony meeting. Well guess what. I have sort of a confession that you musn’t judge me for. I don’t believe I’ve ever borne my testimony in Sacrament meeting. Like ever. And if I have, I sure can’t remember it. Sure I’ve given dozens of talks that have all ended with my testimony and when I was Relief Society president I bore my testimony hundreds of times for different occasions. I’ve also done so at Girls Camps, Youth Conferences, small social settings etc. Just never during Fast and Testimony meeting. Weird huh? Last night I was trying to figure out why I hadn’t done so yet. I’m not terribly afraid of speaking in public, so that didn’t really add up.

But I did realize a subconscious fear I had. All those other occasions I had borne my testimony gave me something to base my testimony off of, a starting point for it if you will. So I knew how to start, what to testify of etc. I had always heard that your testimony shouldn’t be a “Thank-imony”, or a story time, or a confession, the list goes on and on. I think that I’ve always been afraid that if I did get up during Fast and Testimony meeting, I’d do one of the aforementioned “No-No’s” and be judged for it. Which isn’t a good excuse at all, but it’s the best I could come up with.

Well then it’s a good thing that my Spanish is still so basic that I couldn’t do any of those if I tried. All I know how to say are the basic, simple truths that I know to be true.

So, when there was an awkward lull (after the whole bishopric and both sets of missionaries had already gone), I hopped up and took my way to the stand. I bore my simple testimony and sat down. Not sure exactly what I had said, or if any of it made any sense, but I felt good. A little ironic that the first time I bore my testimony in Fast and Testimony meeting, and I didn’t even do it in my own language? Yes, definitely. But I think it was exactly what I needed. I was able to bear testimony of the basic, simple truths that I knew with all my heart to be true. Going home and bearing testimony in English sounds like a BREEEZE. I don’t think I’ll ever have a problem with that again.

As soon as I sat down, several others made their way to the stand and there wasn’t a single other awkward lull from that point on!

I had noticed that Miguel (who speaks English and Spanish) was smiling/laughing the whole time while I was up there, so I was anxious to ask him afterwards if what I said made any sense and why he was laughing.

He told me that he understood me perfectly and that I “spoke like a real Peruvian” and that he was smiling/laughing because he was in shock. He said he had no idea I could speak Spanish like that! That was pretty comforting to hear. Although I’m pretty positive that I didn’t speak perfectly.

Also, after church, the bishop asked if we’d like callings in the church. I told him that I’d love one…but I don’t really speak Spanish. He said, not to worry, we’ll put you with the ninos. Haha so stay tuned for updates on that. Also, the Relief Society President wants us to go visiting teaching. Awesome, no? I’m so excited for all of these and other recent developments that I simply don’t have time to write about now.

Ahhh such an awesome day. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Hope yours was too!

-Elia

Also, so I don’t forget I’ll try and remember what I said here. (Is it bad to do that?)

Buenas Dias Hermanos y Hermanos!
Mi espanol no es Bueno… pero quiero compartir con Uds las cosas de mi Corazon y yo se que puedo hacerlo con la ayuda del espiritu.

Creo en Dios, mi Padre Eterno y en su hijo JesuCristo. Yo se que JesuCristo es mi hermano y mi amigo. Yo se que me conoce. El sabe mi nombre y las ganas de mi corazon. Sabe cuando tengo miedo y cuando tengo gozo. 

Yo se que el Libro de Mormon es la palabra de dios y puedo estar cerca de Dios cuando lo leo.  Yo se  que mi familia puede estar juntos para siempre. Creo en el Espiritu Santo.
En el nombre de JesuCristo..Amen.

And I think that’s about the jist of it! Feel free to help with my grammar and sentence structure, because the people here are too nice to correct me when I say something wrong...so I'm afraid I'll never learn!

Peruvian Family Reunion

Today, a family reunion was held in our home… we really had no idea what was going on, we just knew that Feliciana and Melchora were cooking up a storm with all sorts of fancy food and that our kids were not being allowed to come eat or play with us.

Well at around 1:30 a family of 10 or so Peruanos (Old and Young) came and sat themselves at our finely set table (we brought out the good stuff, nice plates and lacey table cloths!). After figuring out that we were allowed to eat with them, we were treated to the Peruvian meal of a life time! I wish I could tell you the names of all the dishes, but I have no idea… I do know that it had 7 courses, 4 of which contained potatoes, all cooked differently, and one course that was fried guinea pig and another that was pig intestines!

Egg and potato soup. So good!

Rice, Potatoes and Guinea Pig. Also Delicious

Potatoes with pig intestines and onion, chili pepper salsa. My personal favorite.

Dessert!

Giant corn

We ate like queens today as we crashed this Peruvian Reunion. At first I kind of felt bad because we didn’t help out a whole lot with the cooking or the cleaning, and we didn’t even know these people, but we justified it by the fact that we were the entertainment for the afternoon. They had a great time laughing and things that we said, or rather tried to say. They also loved watching us try the guinea pig and took pictures of us while we ate it! We made some awesome friends and loved talking to them! They were visiting from Lima and we just loved them!

Side note, we asked Melchora if we could help her with anything. She promptly told us to go upstairs and not come down until we looked pretty. Apparently she doesn’t dig our make-up free, pony tail look. Oh well!

Once My Pet, Now On My Plate

Have I ever mentioned that Hannah (My little sister) got two sweet little guinea pigs for Christmas? They have names. They have personalities. I loved them before I left them to come to Peru.

Have I also ever mentioned that Peruvians are famous for eating these little rodents?

 Confession: I ate a guinea pig today! Even Bigger Confession: I liked it!

 That’s right. I ate Cuy Frito or Fried Guinea Pig. There wasn’t a whole lot of meat on there and it wasn’t amazing, but it was just fun to experience something crazy. Their little feet and claws were still perfectly in tact and some still had the heads on. I’m not sure if we were supposed to eat the skin or not… so at first I did… and I ate quite a bit of it. Then I realized that none of the natives around me had eaten theirs and then I felt silly. Whoops!

"Today I Don't Feel Like Doing Anything"

Don’t judge us for the following events that transpired.

Wednesday morning we woke up and decided that it was time for us to explore the natural hot springs in Banos and take our first hot shower. But we were feeling kind of lazy, so we power walked instead of doing our usual run. We showered a most amazing shower (it reminded me so much of the showers that you go to when you’re camping. Dirty stall, but the warm water is so amazing!). We then took the bus back up and it was downhill from there.

We didn’t feel like doing anything! We had some stuff planned for the kids that day, but didn’t do a single thing we planned. Instead we just let them color and do puzzles and pretty much whatever they wanted. But it was so nice and relaxing! 

After the kids left, I had serious plans to do some studying, cleaning, laundering etc. Here’s what we did instead.

We watched a whole movie. Letters to Juliet.

Then, we started another movie. 10 Things I Hate About You.

It was dirty, so we turned it off and started… yes ANOTHER MOVIE. Enchanted.    

                 

As we were watching it, there was a knock on our door and it was Pedro. He had brought us Torta and Chocolates! So we went down stairs and ATE and hung out with him for a couple hours.

Then we went back upstairs and watched Enchanted for the rest of the night.

We literally did nothing productive that day. Don’t worry, it gets worse. Check out what we ate.

Breakfast: Sweet Bread.

Lunch: Fried Speghetti and Rice

Snack: Tea and Popcorn with Cinnamon Sugar

Snack: Chocolate Cake with lots of frosting         

Snack: Sweet Bread and Milk. Normal Bread and cheese

Snack: Graham Crackers

Dinner: Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Cake with lots of frosting (and lots of it)

Snack: Half an avocado

Shoot We Should have Eaten Something of Substance Today: Leftover Chicken Quinoa Soup

Lets Just Try One Piece of Chocolate: 15 pieces of fancy chocolate

I Need to Get This Chocolate Taste Out Of My Mouth: More Sweet Bread

Are you judging us right now? You probably should be. But we don’t regret it one bit. It was a GLORIOUS DAY! Every girls dream come true. Filled with warm showers, chick flicks, chocolate, cake and a slumber party. 

Although, last night for scripture study, we read Mosiah 4:30 and decided that starting the next morning, we were going to exercise some serious self control.  Our new phrase (that we stole from that verse) is: Oh Man, Remember!

Meaning, when we’re craving some of that cake that’s tempting us (one in the fridge, one in the freezer) we say to each other, “Oh Man, Remember!” Remember how sick we felt going to bed that night? Remember how chubby and sluggish we felt waking up the next morning? Remember how nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels???

Oh yeah. We remember. And we’re determined to be better.

So determined, that we woke up the next morning (at 7:30) and went on a super steep uphill run, followed by a nice run down the mountain and did P90 Ab Ripper X. We were then sweaty and nasty and ready to submit ourselves to an ice cold shower when just as I was about to hop in the shower, I discovered that our water had been turned off. Just our luck. So we stink, but we are well on our way to being sugar free and fit for life!

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.