Last week I learned how to make tamales. Everywhere we went people gave us tamales to eat. Christmas=Tamales Found a family with a pet rabbit- just for Mom.
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Fairly normal week...
Last P-Day had Burger King as a zone and we all wore Burger Kings hats for the day, felt like a little kid again. There have been more and more Catholic "Parades" lately where they just walk down a street carrying an idol and singing with the occasional line of fire crackers. They are small and just obnoxious. Multi zone conference this week and that was a lot of fun. We lasted almost all day. We had some small talks from President Caffaro, the assistants, Hermana Caffaro, and some musical numbers. We received a letter from the first presidency wishing us a Merry Christmas, a letter from a ward in BYUI (mine was from Alex Baker), and we got some Christmas gifts from President and his wife. We got a P90X work out video to do in the morning (chest and back along with a plyometricks one), a mission DVD which had meet the Mormons (English and Spanish) a slide show of pictures from the year, and the two church Christmas videos of this year to share with investigators. We also received a wrapped gift but I am waiting for Christmas Eve or Christmas to open it. To end the conference we watched "Iron Will" the Disney movie... well I read it as it was in Spanish with English subtitles. Not finding many investigators, hit a rough patch but it is a new week and I am having the best day of my life! Ponderize: Numbers 22:22 :D -- Having the best day of his life, Elder Gruber Kind of an interesting week. Last Monday, December 7, was the day of the devil here. People make and buy a lot of Devil piñatas and then at 6 at night, they light them on fire and throw them in the streets. That was fun to walk around and just see piñatas of the devil burning everywhere in the streets. They also had a lot of firecrackers.
Also went around with Elder Zuleta visiting some of his old areas and that was fun to see something new, but generally it was all the same. My new comp arrived this Tuesday at 11 in the morning and Elder Zuleta had left at 7 in the morning- so I had to go over to a members house and just wait. That was really boring and long as I just sat there and read the Liahona as they did other stuff to prep for their day. My new Comp is from Twin falls Idaho and is Elder Henderson. He has been out for 14 months. It is fun to have another American companion, but it makes it so much more difficult to continually speak Spanish in the house, so my Spanish will not be improving as much as it should be :( We did some "Yard Work" service this last Wednesday and it is nothing like yard work service in the states. We were given machetes and went into his backyard to chop down this bamboo type plant. That was cool and we had a lot of fun with that. Had divisions with Elder Alberto this last Wednesday too. He is brand new and only had 4 days in the mission. It was cool to see how far I have come and to teach him new things. December 12 was the day of Virgin Guadalupe and the city went crazy. All day the roads were closed to cars, painting in the streets and putting up banners. At 9 at night the festivities started with a "parade" where they carried this big Idol around. Firecrackers were going off non stop and there were a bunch of fireworks. This lasted for 2 hours. I was on the roof of my house and was able to watch it all. I think it is the best firework show I have seen, not only because they were literally exploding right in front of me in the air, but just the quantity of fireworks too. It was 10X better than any other firework show in the U.S. that I have seen. Yesterday as a zone we went to a street market, all wore red ties, and sang Christmas songs for an hour and passed out pass along cards. That was fun and then in the night there was a stake choir concert that we were able to attend as well. Misc... -installed a pull up bar -changed dinner to breakfast -starting to think in Spanish Ponderize: 1 Timothy 4:12 -- Having the best day of his life, Elder Gruber Went downtown last week to the mission offices for Elder Zuletas final interview and did divisions with Elder Tolson, so we could explore downtown. We found an Applebees, Starbucks, Carl's Jr., DQ, KFC, TGIF, and a Hard Rock Cafe. We ate at KFC and it was just as good as in the states.
I bought an authentic Pancho this week too, it is pretty sweet. Back to a Duo this last week. This last week for food I ate pig skin and Cow hooves. The pig skin was nasty and after one bite I almost threw up. Luckily my companion is awesome and told the comedor that it is best if I don't eat it as it is something I do not normally eat in the US and could make me sick. So she took it away for me... what a blessing. Cow hooves were not good either as they tasted just like the fatty part of meat. This last week we also had two baptisms and I had the opportunity to baptize them both. I was really nervous but everything went well and it was a REALLY COOL experience and can not wait to have more. Also if you watched the Christmas Devotional this last Saturday you would have noticed that I was wearing the exact same tie as President Dieter F. Uchdorf, so I thought that was pretty neat too. Ponderize: Moroni 7:48 -- Having the best day of his life, Elder Gruber |