23 November 2009

As to the gospel videos, I normally don’t use them much, I let some of the members use them, and they are way cool to use in the Family Home Evenings we have. And I want to plan a Movie Night for the young men and women so that they can bring their friends to watch the Testaments or maybe The Other Side of Heaven if I can get permission. And actually that would be awesome if you could get the new Gospel Art book, cause I think that would help a lot, again, especially in the FHE.
As for P-day, normally we hardly do anything because we can’t leave the zone, or even our sector without permission, and because they want the zone to be more united, we generally just play soccer in the institute building, and once every change we go visit somewhere in Lima as a zone. But normally we spend the time sleeping or playing around with the pension and the bishop. Card games, chess, checkers, magic tricks, whatever. As to the ward missionaries… they don’t help… they don’t even come to the baptisms, just the ward mission leader. We should have a meeting for half an hour after church every Sunday, but we just end up waiting the whole time, as one by one they sneak out or tell us one of their excuses. The bishop is stuck in his wheelchair, he doesn’t work anymore but he’s a pretty good bishop as far as I can tell. And I should be able to tell considering I live with him. But I guess he should be, he’s been bishop for nine years now in this ward. His wife is our pensionista, we live on the second floor, we spend a lot of time with him and his family, and I will definitely miss that when I leave the ward, cause most of the missionaries don’t have good relationships with their bishops.
Educational system… they have primary and secondary. Primary has 6 grades and secondary has 5, and sometimes they have kindergarden, but I’ve never heard of pre-school here. Its weird because most of the schools just look like big houses, and normally they are privately owned, but there are a few public schools that are a lot bigger, like a middle school from the States. As to the average day of the average man… get in the bus, waste an hour or 2 traveling, get to work, work for about 8 hours, go home for another 2 hours on the bus, eat and drink. Its not all that different but to me it seems that they are so much lazier.

Oh, and we baptized Poala Velasquez this week, the single mom, and it was freaking amazing because it was the first time we actually had the support of the ward. The relief Society came to see her and give a message and a little welcome, and I was so surprised because normally its just the missionaries, some investigators, the ward mission leader, and the bishop. I even think that they’ll do their visits to help her stay active. Its really weird that I’m so excited about something so little.

I'll write you a little more about the average life in lima next week, sorry but the time went by pretty fast. Love you guys!!