Favorite Foods

Today I want to talk write about my favorite foods from Peru and Bolivia. Everyone in Peru LOVES Ceviche. It is a plate made up mostly of raw fish. I had both Ceviche and Ceviche de pota. I wasn’t the biggest Ceviche fan, but that is probably because I don’t care much for seafood in general. Peru did have two plates that I loved, papa a la huancaina and aji de gallina. Papa a la huancaina was potatoes covered in a creamy and spicy yellow sauce with an egg on top. It really tasted good because it was spicy and I love spicy foods. Aji de gallina was basically chicken covered in another creamy and spicy sauce. Basically if it was spicy, I liked it.

Bolivia didn’t have as much variety in foods like Peru did, but it did have one thing that I still salivate for! They are called Saltenas. Saltenas are similar to empanadas, but not nearly as good! Empanadas are dry. Saltenas are filled with similar ingredients but in a soup form! It really is like a yummy soup inside a baked salty/sugary breading. They cost about 3 bolivianos each and I would get them almost every day! Saltenas are so tasty. My favorite type of saltena was pollo picante (spicy chicken). I would also get a fresh fruit drink to wash them down!

Another plus to serving in Bolivia was the mangos and the cherimoya. I could grade either fruit any time from any tree I walked by. They taste so good. The mangos were more sour and the cherimoya more sweet. I usually ate the mangos when they were green before the ripened. They tasted very good with salt on them, super sour! I really miss being able to eat fresh fruit like that!

Today I am taking a short break to write about what I am doing in my life right now. I am at BYU majoring in Statistics with an emphasis on applied and analytical statistics. This is an excellent major for me because it is challenging and helps me develop my mathematical skills. I have loved what I have been taught so far. It is useful information that I plan to carry with me into my career. I have no desire to be a statistician though. I would like to take what I have learned and apply it as a business executive, particularly as a hospital administrator. My end goal is to become a CEO of a hospital. Statistics is my segway into an MBA program. I am also earning a minor in business management while at BYU. All of my Stats and Business classes are incredibly challenging. They all force me to look at things a little differently. My daily schedule from Monday through Friday is:

First, Wake up and go to work at 7:30 in the morning. 

Second, End work at 11:00 am (Monday/Wednesday/Friday) or 1:30 (Tuesday/Thursday) and go to classes until 4:00 pm

Lastly, Watch Kate and do homework from 4:00 to 9:30 pm till Anna gets home from work. 

My days are pretty busy, but I prefer it that way. I am able to get a lot done and feel accomplished. 

At this point in my life I am quite content and happy. I am also glad that Kate is starting to crawl! She scoots backwards mostly, but every once in a while she will take a scoot/slide forward. It is so cute to see how proud of herself she gets when she moves around. All in all, things are good.

This video is of baby kate, she is so dang cute!

And here is a photo of Kate and I!

I will never forget my 'firsts' in Spanish. My first time going to the temple and doing everything in Spanish. My first time praying in Spanish. My first time giving a blessing or performing a baptism or doing a confirmation in Spanish. Even when I had much experience under my belt I always got the jitters before doing something important in another language. My first prayer was memorized! Lucky for me, I had been embarrassed many times before, often because of my own brothers. I was always able to get over the jitters though. I am so grateful than I was never so scared or nervous to the point of not being able to be a productive missionary. I do remember a time when an Elder in my zone was afraid of opening his mouth to speak. He was a new Latin elder. He just couldn't summon the courage to speak with people he didn't know. His companion was struggling with this elder's inability to contact and asked if I would help. I took the opportunity to help and we switched companions for a day. I immediately started to contact people in the streets with this scared elder. I kept on contacting hoping he would gain some courage and maybe do a contact for himself. That didn't happen, so I thought to myself, "What would dad you?" An idea immediately popped into my head. I took the Elder to a park where lots of people were gathered. We saw an old lady on a bench by herself and a group of guys not far away from her joking around. Instead of asking whether or not my companion would like to contact either the woman or the group, which would require a yes or no answer and let him escape, I told him to contact the group of guys while I contacted the woman. I knew what his response would be. "Elder! Can you contact the group? I'll contact the old lady!" I figured a way to get him to want to contact. Now, getting him to do a contact wasn't enough. He needed courage to talk to anybody, not just the easy contacts. Here is where the "what my dad would do" part came to play. I agreed to the Elders terms and told him to walk with me over toward the group and I would contact them while he continued walking past to contact the older woman. As soon as we reached the group of guys I grabbed the Elder and pushed him into the middle of the group of guys and said, "Hey guys my friend here wants to talk to you real quick." I winked at my companion and walked over to the older woman to contact her. While I was contacting the woman I looked over every few seconds to see how the elder was doing. He finished his contact and met up with me. He had a look in his eye I hadn't seen yet, it was confidence. He felt so proud he contacted a group of "scary" guys. For the rest of that day he had no problem contacting people on the street. It just took one moment of courage for him to find his. I was proud of him. Sometimes you just need break the ice and get confident!

Christmas 2008

The best christmas I've ever had was in 2008. I was in Huaycan, Peru. My companion, Elder Zambrano, and I had been teaching the Casimiro family for a while. What started out teaching one of the daughters and her inactive father but quickly began teaching the daughter's "husband" as well as the mother of the family. The Casimiros were a great family. We loved spending time with them. We were even allowed to eat with them on sundays once in a while. The mother was a devout catholic and didn't want anything to do with the church, but she loved my companion and I. The daughter, Liz, wanted to get baptized but couldn't because she wasn't legally married to her "husband" William. My companion and I spent many days teaching William and Liz the importance of being legally married and in November of 2008 they were married. Liz was baptized shortly after but William still wasn't sure he could give up his old life to be baptized. Even though he progressed very slowly, my companion and I always took time out of each day to talk to William. Now, back to Christmas. Christmas was definitely not the same as being home. There were no presents and it was the middle of summer! I did, however, receive a surprise christmas gift. The phone rang. It was hermano William. He told me over the phone about his reading of the Book of Mormon and the things he was learning. He told me of a spiritual experience he had just had while reading about faith in Alma and came to the decision he needed to exercise faith and be baptized. I was delighted. I never felt so happy for someone I cared so much about. It was an amazing feeling to hear those words come out of his mouth. It was the best Christmas gift I have ever received. My good friend whom I will never forget made the best decision. I learned that Christmas really wasn't about presents or snow or even Santa Claus! It is really about experiencing the love Christ has for all of us through service.

My first real experience of Peru came right after we landed in Lima and left the airport. All the missionaries were put on a bus that was to take us to the CCM (centro de capacitacion misional). That bus ride was the scariest thing that had happened to me up to that point in my life! I couldn't believe the bus driver was allowed to own a license. He was driving like a maniac. He went up on curbs and sidewalks to get around slower traffic, was constantly accelerating or coming to an abrupt stop, and honked at just about anything that bugged him. Not to mention I was wide eyed staring at the city passing by through the windows wondering what I was doing! It was quite an experience and I was outwardly relieved when we finally pulled into the CCM. Upon arrival we were told what room we were staying in and to go to our rooms and put our luggage away. After that, we were to go directly to a meeting with our CCM president. Our meeting was like any other normal church missionary meeting; however, the exciting part was meeting our new companions, Latin elders from nearby countries. I was paired with Elder Porroa who happened to be from Peru. I had just arrived in country and was now paired with someone with whom I could hardly communicate with. Talk about being thrown right into the fire! However, hindsight is 20/20 and looking back I realize that for me, this was the most excellent start to my mission. It helped me leave everything in my life behind and focus on my purpose for being in Peru. It also helped me to immediately adjust to life in another country speaking another language. Even though everything was a bit shocking at first, it greatly expedited my development as a missionary.

One of my most favorite missionary memories occurred while I was in Lima, Peru. One day while proselyting my companion and I decided to visit a part of our area we rarely had time to go to because it was so far away. While we were walking through the streets I noticed a house and had that little feeling that a member lived there. I thought to myself, "it's probably just my mind making things up". We kept on walking but I couldn't shake the feeling that a member lived in that house. So I decided to follow my instincts and told my companion that we should go knock on the house because I believed a member lived there. He agreed and we headed over. Just for background information sake, houses in Lima were flat roofed so that if the family decided later to add another floor to the house they could. Most of the time the roof was accessed by a stair case and people would do their laundry up there. As we reached the house I told my companion to knock on the door but he hesitated as he was a little self conscious and asked me to knock. I told him to just knock and he again denied. The roof was sticking out over the entry way which was only big enough for one person to stand in. My companion moved out of the way so I could knock on the door and he stood under the roof. I knocked a few times and waited. I noticed that my companion had started to squirm a bit and looked over at him. A steady stream of water was falling on his head and splashing on his jacket. He couldn't look up to see what it was because it would have hit him in the face. Right as this was going on the door opened and I looked at the sister who had opened it. Her eyes got so big when she saw what was happening to my companion said, "Elder! I am so sorry! My dog has this problem and pees off the roof whenever someone knocks on the door!" I heard that and busted a gut laughing as my companion raced pass me into the house to wash off! I must have laughed for the entire day. It was the funniest thing I had seen in a while! Poor elder Arista!

This blog (while created mainly for a class at BYU) is meant for Kate Allen and her future siblings. Here I plan to write about stories that happened to me while on my mission in Peru/Bolivia that I would like to not only remember but share with my posterity. So here goes!
The past few days I've been thinking about PabloFernandez. He lived in Villamontes, Bolivia and was deaf and mute. I remember my very first time teaching him about the church. He couldn't read books, couldn't read lips, and only communicated through sounds his family recognized which had certain meanings and through a Spanish form of charades! So naturally a brand new Bolivian elder and a white guy from the United States were about to have an interesting time teaching this man. I grew up with a down syndrome brother that has a severe speech impediment so I at least was somewhat prepared to teach using charades, but to do charades in Spanish was a whole other ball game! Every lesson involved a lot of pictures and acting out. Even though this was difficult I still felt like my companion and I were able to help Pablo understand our message. An important lesson we taught to Pablo involved the code of health we refer to as the Word of Wisdom which specifically details that as members of the Church we do not drink coffee, alcohol, or use drugs; the three of which Pablo had problems with! We did our best to teach him that he shouldn't use cocaine or drink coffee or alcohol. We felt like he understood the importance of why this was important to become a member of the church. The next day while my companion and I were walking by the local community college we ran into Pablo's two nieces. I had been wondering how well Pablo understood our message from the night before and asked his nieces what they thought. They told me that after we had taught Pablo the word of wisdom and left his shack he went to his truck he slept in, grabbed his cocaine, alcohol, and coffee and through it in the river. Not only did he understand our game of charades, but he understood our message and applied what he learned. He became the watch guard at his families house making sure all inappropriate substances were tossed out! A little while later he was baptized. He will always be one of the most memorable people I have met in my life.