Tres Mil Papas (Three Thousand Potatoes): Week 13 "Spiders, Baptisms, and Spider baptisms :)" November 30 - December 6

During the last week Jonah had quite an experience with playing the piano (you can read about it below) so the moral of the story is, In Peru if you let people know that you play the piano be prepared to play frequently and with little notice and if you are not 100% confident in your skills a faithful prayer will go a long way! Jonah tells us about the difficult situations and poverty that face many of the people that he meets and says that he is constantly humbled by their meager ways of living. He is so happy to help and serve the people of Cajamarca, Peru.

Hey everybody! So this week was super great! And full of tons of changes! And super duper stressful! But it was awesome! This week, I've really learned to rely on prayer this week. My own strength is not going to carry me through the mission, and definitely not the rest of my life. Turn to God! He'll help ya out :)

So first, the area closing. The Hermanas always said that they had a tiny area with almost no people to teach. But, as I've learned, the Hermanas can exaggerate sometimes hahaha broma. But anyway, their area is huge! And there's tons of houses. And it's been a ton of work to get to know all of the people they were teaching. And it's even harder because all of them were in love with the Hermanas, so when they found out that they were gone, it was heartwrenching for a lot of them. But we're gonna get them to love us just as much haha. But yeah, now our area is flippin ginormous. We can literally walk for 2 hours in a straight line and still be in our own area. We've got a lot of work to do!

Also, this week, we had our ''5 Semana'' training! In week 7 hahahah! But yeah it was super fantastic. It was just in Cajamarca, rather than in Trujillo which was kind nice cuz we just had to travel 30 minutes instead of 7 hours. So anyway, we had one on one training with the Asistentes and Presidente. Just about mission stuff, but it was so incredibly spiritual. I love the presidency here, they're phenomenal. It was super good to have that. Por fin jaja.

Alsoooo.. we had a stake wide fireside on Saturday with Presidente Marler, and our whole zone (now 30 missionaries instead of 14). It was awesome! And super stressful! Here's the back story. So on Monday of this week, I was asked to play a solo for it. Not a problem, already had something prepared. Then on Wednesday, I was asked to accompany an Hermana on her violin. Not a problem, I can handle this with a couple days of rehearsing together. Then on Friday morning, I was asked to accompany a singing duet. Little nervous at this point. Saturday morning of, I was asked to accompany another singing duet. At this point, I was pretty stressed out. I had never even seen the two new songs until the afternoon of the event, and all three accompanies were pretty tough. So we get to the rehearsal on Saturday late afternoon, and I'm asked to accompany the choir. 3 more songs. And I am just sweating freaking bullets haha. 2 hours to practice my 7 songs, and then showtime haha. But this is where I turned to prayer. Sometimes, it'll seem like the smallest, most insignificant things in the grand scheme of things, but our Heavenly Father is going to listen. And he WILL answer. Everytime. Listen and look for the answer, and it'll be there. Everything went nice and smooth that night. I was tan cochino by the end of the night from all of the sweating, but everything was a-okay and everything was according to plan.

I love this gospel. I love it so much it's crazy haha. We have a Heavenly Father! Literally! A Father in Heaven. And he loves us so much, that despite all of the wars, contentions, presidential elections, and really huge important things, He will take the time to listen to your prayer. And answer it. Even if it's just a couple of dumb songs in a fireside. Talk to him. He'll listen. I love you all! Stay beautiful :) ¡Viva Perú!