It's been an awesome first few weeks in the mission! Pretty much the typical first struggles that missionaries have, hardly (if at all) being able to understand the people, being SUPER tired in the mornings and struggling to stay awake during study, struggling to speak the language and have the confidence to make mistakes, but I am working on it!!
These holidays have been super busy and super weird as far as the missionary work goes. For Christmas we had a multi-zone conference with the mission president and their family which was AWESOME. They strengthened our faith with a beautiful Christmas program and President Strong taught us some real cool doctrine and encouraged us and guided us in the work. Then we had lots of fun Christmas activities led by his family like a white elephant (it turns out 5 soles of bread could feed one missionary for two weeks), gingerbread houses, and other games. Honestly I was longing for home and to be with my family and loved was for the good part of it, but looking back I am so glad that we were able to all come together as a mission family and it makes me happy.
All the people here are so giving, I cannot tell you how many times members have offered us Paneton (fruit bread which is actually amazing) and Hot Chocolate (which is just as good in the summers even though you're trying not to sweat into it) and how many times Elder Peterson and I have said we're afraid we'll get fat if we don't run it off in the morning. Also just a hot tip: if you're eating with members and you say yes when they ask you if you want a little more of something, they'll give you a whole other meal to finish off your meal.
My area is pretty awesome and I've come to love it and the people already. The members always treat us like family and are so warm and welcoming. You do have to watch out for all the dogs on every single street but so far I've only been barked at so it's all good pero ahorita tengo miedo de los perros un poco, lo siento Lucy!
We have a baptism set for this Saturday!! Claudia is an investigator who had already been taught and invited to be baptized by Elder Peterson and his old companion but it is still super exciting for me! Teaching her (and most people honestly) is a little difficult because once you ask someone about something in their life (or some people just any little thing) they'll talk for the rest of the appointment but that just gives me tons of practice to try and understand.
Since the first day I've been really trying to focus on listening to the people, not trying to form my words as their talking or thinking about what to say but rather just listening and understanding and I've seen so much progress already. There are people that I just can. not. understand. no matter how hard I try or focus on their words. But these past few days, I've already been able to get the gist of what they say or ask me or anything and actually make semi-decent conversation which is a huge blessing of the Lord.
Another interesting thing that happened is that we have been visiting with a less active member to try and reactivate him and strengthen him and his family and last week he told us that in the past he had a friend who was into witchcraft and so he started doing it with him and he had these curse rocks or something when the Elders first visited him (which they promptly had him throw away) and could feel an internal struggle in his mind and nightmares of opposition when the Elders were working with him. It was pretty freaky and there's actually a lot of those kind of things down here. Related we were with a member family who told us they were being disturbed by evil spirits or presences in their home and had us bless their home for them. It's super interesting and I don't doubt that there's things like that out there.
Anyways that's almost all the time I've got to write, I hope all of you had an amazing Christmas and that you'll have a safe and joyful new years! Let me know how you're all doing so I can pray for you!
Elder Pollock
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