Elder Jonah Babbel is serving in the Trujillo North Mission in Peru.
(The birthplace to over 3000 varieties of Potatoes)
Jonah Left to the Lima CCM (Missionary Training Center) on September the 8th.
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| The Babbel Family at the Boise Airport with Elder Babbel (Jonah) |
There were some tender goodbyes at the airport as Elder Babbel will be serving his mission for 2 years! Wow - That is a long time.
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Gabriel and Jonah - One last hug
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Jonah had a great flight and met up with a couple of other Elders that were also traveling to the Lima Peru CCM. He flew from Boise to Salt Lake City and then on to Atlanta and finally to Lima. After arriving in Lima he was able to send the a quick email to let us know he made it safely there.
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| Going to catch some zzz's on the flight |
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| Meeting some other Elders |
September 9th - Jonah's first day at the CCM in Lima and he runs into a familiar face. Elder Jack Greene from Arizona. He is the son of Erin Greene one of Leslie's roommates from BYU!
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| Jonah and Elder Jack Greene (from AZ) |
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| 1 hour of Futbol daily - mandatory in Peru |
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| Elder Wynn and Elder Babbel |
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| Jonah in front of the Lima Peru Temple |
Jonah sent his first email on September 16th it is published below:
Hey all! The CCM has been super awesome for my first week. We got here at about 3am, after the longest flight of my entire life, and the most intense bus ride. Lima traffic really does live up to its name. There's a whole bunch of lines on the road and nobody even pays attention to them. You literally force your way through into the lanes and everyone honks constantly. Honking isn't really used for when you're mad, but more to let people know that you are there in the middle of the road, stopped, and faced the wrong direction. Anyway, we got there at 3am, had a short orientation, got our room numbers, and got into bed at around 4am. We were up the same day (haha) at 7. The one thing I'm learning at the CCM is that they don't ever wastes time. We went straight into a Spanglish Devotional with some orientation videos, and we kinda sorta taught an "investidagor", but as a class. We were then assigned compañeros and received our name tags. That was actually one of the coolest moments, putting the name tag on for the first time. I got put into a trio with Elder Wynn and Elder Herde (definitely not a latino lol). We are all three going to Trujillo Norte and actually we're the only ones in the CCM going there ahora. Everything wasn't great the first day though...some Latinos were trying to talk to me in the dinner line, but I had no idea what they were saying..and then I spilled some muy caliente sopa on my hands and it hurt really bad. I kinda teared up a little because I was missing everybody (especially you Mom <3) and plus it hurt my hand like super bad. But I mostly got over it because Elder Wynn is super empathetic and Elder Herde is total cheeseball and can make anybody laugh just by talking. I went to bed thinking that most of the day blew chunks, but I felt comforted for some reason. I think its all of the prayers that we receive everyday, especially those that are coming from el templo. Oh yeah, that same day, our companionship got split up, so now I'm with Elder Wynn only, and then Elder Wynn got made the District Leader (phew).
I kinda forgot to write in my journal on Thursday so let's just assume that all we did that day was go to Spanish Class.
On Friday though, Elder Wynn y I taught our first "investigador"....completely in Spanish. They get you going right off the bat, and it was brutal. We mostly were just searching for words and saying "Lo siento", but strangely we could still feel the Spirit. We also went to Immagracion and got to drive through an hour of rush hour Lima traffico. It was basically a roller coaster except not actually safe. Immagracion was muy loco and nobody speaks a lick of English, and it's probably hilarious how white all the misionarios are.
On Saturday, we learned how to say an entire prayer in Spanish! It was Elder Wynn and my idea to not say any more english prayers for the rest of the mission pero sometimes its dificil to say what you want..so there sometimes Spanglish instead of English. We taught our investigador again, but we used wayyyyy too many notes, so it just seemed uninspired. We were trying to find the golden region between personal revelation and planning. Oh yeah also there was a super massive spider we found....on Elder Wynn's back. It was seriously huge and I feel bad because instead of getting it off of him, I just ran away lol. I'm not good with spiders. Luckily, that was the first bug we had even seen the whole entire time in Peru, which is super surprising, and flippin awesome.
Sunday was my favorite day up until that point because we weren't in class for 4-5 hours (no joke, it's that much). We had an English sacrament meeting (thank the high heavens), and just devotional after devotional. Sometimes its kind of a spiritual overload, and you can't help but just smile all the time and get excited about serving and helping people and sharing the word of God and loving everybody and getting lost in the work and oh my goodness its just awesome sometimes. We have a district planning meeting once a day from 9pm to 9:30pm and for some reason, we could not stop laughing. About anything. Elder Herde is seriously soooo funny, and he wears this ballin Harry Potter glasses and says the funniest things. We seriously laughed till we cried for a solid 15 minutes in our 30 minute planning session. Whoops haha :)
On Monday, Elder Wynn and I taught Kathleen (nuestro investigador) and we did it without any notes. Like none. It was so intense. El dan del Espiritu Santo es real. Gift of tongues haha. But for real, we bore our testimonies, and the fire was burning in our chests and it was just incredible to teach someone something that we knew could bring them so much happiness. Well...I guess our investigador isn't actually a real investigador, but still, it's fantastic. Hahaha on a totally related side note, Elder Phillips, an Elder in our district who is as redneck as I'll get out, told us about the inconvenience of the short toilets in Peru. Apparently his dad is a plumber and so he knows all about the upcoming innovations in toilet technology. He said, and I quote, "Oh! And the elongated heated seats? Now that´s some fine livin!". It was perfect haha.
On Wednesday, we didn't teach any lessons, but we had a super sweet devotional with an area 70, which was the
bomb.com. I had to use a headset because Latinos talk so dang fast, but the Spanish is definitely coming.
Today, P-Day, is my favorite day. We went to the temple and had a session in Spanish which was super tough but the same spirit was there for sure. Then I got a couple Peru llama ties which are the bombdiggity, and I will definitely be wearing them a bunch. Oh yeah, we have physical activity everyday for an hour and all we do is play futbol. It is my fav. You have to build Latino trust (scoring a goal, juking someone, assisting a Latino for a goal, etc.) in order for the Latinos to even pass to you. But I've already scored several goals, and I've almost achieved true Latino status on the soccer field. Not gonna lie, I'm breaking ankles and cranking some good ones out there :) I'll send next week anywhere from 1 till 5 Central time, so if you want to chat, I'll be on around then every Wednesday
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