December 1, 2014 ~ Week 22

Well last week was thanksgiving.  Honestly I almost forgot, until one of the sister missionaries in my zone from Las Vegas wanted to have a feast within the zone.  There are 14 missionaries in my zone, about half of them have never had a thanksgiving meal in their life.  We decided to change that tradition and bring an American holiday to Peru, and that’s what we did.  We planned the meal all out and our pentionista helped cook. We had a bomb thanksgiving meal! There was Turkey, mashed potatoes, vegetables and some cherry cobbler as well!  For a Peruvian Thanksgiving it was actually very good!  And at last, finally a meal without rice, but that short lived moment came to a close when Elder Atencio and I ate dinner 5 hours later and had a plateful of rice.

Every Wednesday at the church we have English class.  Yes I have been teaching English.  Maestro McCook right?  That’s Spanish for master by the way.

Anyways, my partner to teach English class with is Elder Andersen, who I have known since the Lima CCM days.  During English class I have come to realize that the two favorite words in English that our students (that age range from 15 to 25, also we always have a 70 year old member that comes every week with his little notebook and he takes notes, he is so cute) use are: Dance and Happy. So for almost every example we use it includes the words dance and happy.  They are used so much to the point that me and Elder Andersen broke out and did a little dance while singing Safety Dance by Men Without Hats. It was awesome and priceless.

As me and Elder Atencio were teaching this last week in our area we had an appointment and once we finished it we checked the time and our next appointment should have started like right then and there. Yet we were far away from where we needed to be.  Our area is so huge that I couldn’t even walk to the end of it if I wanted to.  Thankfully we had Rafael Florez with us, (a 15 year old jovencito) who lives in our area. He told us he had a short cut and to follow him.  This short cut was more of a joke then a short cut as we hiked straight up a dirt mountain.  With my shoes sinking in the sand, Elder Atencio and I could not stop laughing because Rafael kept on slipping and falling.  But once we made it to the peak of the mountain we had to stop and take photos because the sight was so sweet.  It was awesome to see all the lights on at night, and to see pretty much an overview of Camana.  We eventually made it to our next appointment and were only a little late but covered in a lot of dirt.

The showers in the morning are still very cold by the way; I have to psyche myself up before hopping in the cold shower.

Chao Chao!

Elder McCook

Words of the week: dance-bailar

                             happy- feliz

                             youth-joven

                             día de acción de gracias- thanksgiving