Tres Mil Papas (Three Thousand Potatoes): Week 17 "Almost done with training wut-wut :)" December 28

It's 2016 and apparently the Peruvians know how to ring in the new year. Jonah said that the Peruvians like to have a lot of fun on New Years Eve (or so he hears, the missionaries need to be in their apartments by 9:00pm) He said the fireworks woke them up at midnight and went on for 30 minutes non-stop. President and Sister Marler came to visit the missionaries last week in Cajamarca and there were some great teaching moments and he also enjoyed a good old American burger. It looks like he may be saying goodbye to Elder Salinas as his training will be coming to a close soon. He has been a great companion and friend for Jonah, he will be missed.

Hey everybody! This past week was super way cool! We had the way awesome experience of having Presidente, su esposa, y los Asistentes in Cajamarca with us! They are just so fantastic :) Oh yeah, also apparently it was New Years or something, jaja we had to be in our rooms at 9 o´clock so yeah pretty much normal :) But yeah it was a great week.

On PDay we got to go the mall, which strangely resembles the Boise Mall jaja. Everything is American Brands, and it's way cleaner than everything else, and they have American Restaurants. The most important part :) So we went to Longhorns as a District. And I got the ''Americana''....it was beautiful. I'm actually quite surprised that I didn't cry jaja. It was a huge burger with lettuce, tomato, fries, bacon, pepperjack cheese, and good ol' american grease. And I had a rootbeer with it :) That was a great day jaja.

On New Years Day, we had our zone training with the whole zone, Presidente and Sister Marler, and the Assistants. We learned about rocks in our shoes, what is keeping us from really running. We can all kind of think about this in our own lives, what is holding us back from really living happily or progressing (spiritually or temporally). It can be anything, from exercising or going on a diet, or learning to forgive someone that has done you wrong. We literally put rocks in our shoes during the training though to kind of put it into literal terms. But yeah the training was like 4 hours so it got pretty uncomfortable by the end of the time (my rocks were stinkin huge lol), but when we took them out of our shoes, it was literally the best feeling of relief and comfort in my life jaaj. But we can feel something equal or maybe even better with our literal rocks in our shoes. So this is my challenge for all of you this new year: to feel around in your shoes, realize that we all really do have some rocks in there, and then do something to take them out. Whatever that might be for you, just try it. Don't let some dumb rocks in your shoes hold you back from your potential. Let's all run without rocks this year :)

I love you all so much!! Well next, week is cambios, so I'm not sure who my companion is going to be as of right now. It's pretty exciting, especially since I'll be done with my training yeahhhhh :) So until next week I guess! Chau-chau! Viva Perù!