April 13, 2015 ~ Week 41

It is truly amazing as to what can happen in the span of 7 days in the mission Peru, Arequipa.

Monday and Tuesday were normal days however Wednesday at 6 in the morning we received a call from our zone leaders who were in Arequipa because of training and they called us to say that we need to pack up our things for 1 week because we are going to be in Arequipa until the riot settles down.  I was to notify my district that we would be evacuated from Matarani in 1 hour.  The call ended and I started doing my calls, until the Zone Leader called back saying that a man would pick us up in 20 minutes.  

Unshowered, because it’s so uncommon to have water in the 

mornings, we packed our things.  I packed what was most important to me as I grabbed 7 ties, 2 shirts, 2 pants, a sweater, my journals and electronic stuff, not knowing if I would return to my area in a week.

I kind of thought they were playing some kind of joke until 

Panchito showed up.  He is this awesome Peruvian who 

is in a Stake Presidency in Arequipa but he works for the 

mission and helps with emergency transfers.

He shows up and we haul off Nascar style, it was 

incredible how fast he drove.  We got to our 30 minute destination 

in like 15 minutes.  While in the car we saw police men everywhere with riot shields, apparently some war was gonna start in 12 hours. We eventually got in a minivan that took us 12 Elders to Arequipa and Panchito followed behind us with the sister missionaries.  We arrived at the mission home and just settled down for a bit.

President arrived and he split all the missionaries up.  Elder Alvey and  I went to a zone in Arequipa called Manual Prado.  We did divisions for the rest of our time.  We would sleep, 

eat breakfast and dinner in the mission home and work with 

the other elders during the day.  I was paired up with Elder Turnblom for the time being, he is a great Elder from Utah and is 20 years old with 5 months in the mission.

We had a multi zone conference Friday morning.  It was great to see the missionaries from Camana and the zones in Arequipa.

Saturday morning President notified us that only 4 missionaries will return to Mollendo for now; only the missionaries from Matarani. We went back to Matarani Saturday and as of right now the riot over in Matarani has settled down except we don’t have any power or water in our room.  

A nice member who also washes our clothes was kind enough to allow us to shower in her house today.  Some missionary areas have been closed down temporarily and I still see cops everywhere with their tear gas guns or something.

Elder McCook