Microwaves

                                                                                                   January 27, 2014

I miss microwaves. Dang. Warm food...instantly. Mmmm.

Well, I did a really bad job at writing down the things I wanted to email about. And by that I mean I didn't write anything down hahaha. But, it was a good week! We have been focusing a good portion of our efforts on Ezequiel and Milagros. We are set to baptize them this Saturday! After them, we will most likely be baptizing their grandma and their aunt. I'm so excited for them. Such a cool family!

So this week, Elder Murphy got a recipe for his dad for mashed potatoes. Long story short, we bought all the ingredients, 2 kilos of mashed potatoes, and got buuuuuck. They were sooooo dang good. We also
had steak with them, which was incredible. We cooked that exact meal after church at the house of Luis. Luis is an investigator of the hermanas. He is super rad and loves all of the missionaries. Not sure why he hasn't been baptized yet haha. He has like a million church attendances. Anyway, the sisters also had another one of their
investigators there. We cooked and ate and it was awesome!

Flip...I really can't remember the funny things that happened.

I just remembered one. So, remember how we were hiding pomelos in Elder Sotelo's stuff? Well we had been stockpiling them in one of his suitcases. We were going to call him when we moved out and tell him to
look inside. Long story short, he found them one morning this week hahahaha. Like 20 dang pomelos! We ended up drawing faces on them and making arms and legs for them. We have Pedro Pomelo, who ended up
losing a leg and gaining an eye patch so now his name is Pedro Pirata Pomelo. Then his wife (who he really doesn't like) is named Pabla Pomelo. She really just annoys him more than anything. I will have to take pictures for y'all.

What else...my Spanish is getting better! I'm understanding and talking with people waaaaay better than I was before! El don de lenguas, yanno. Transfers are on Tuesday...so...I think Elder Murphy and I are staying here, but you really can't be sure with President Heyman. He has been making transfers like crazy and I think we have
some big changes coming to our zone, due to a couple things going on with a few missionaries. By the way, our zone is a district and a zone rolled into one. It's weird. But yeah. As of last Monday, we were the best zone in the mission. Haciendo PERCHA. That's slang for doing work.

Straight walking my feet off, though. Not sure how much we walk, but needless to say my calves are toned and handsome as ever. On Sunday we went to get Ezequiel and Milagros for church. Ezequiel was like...oh I don't have any shoes. So we said great! We'll drop off Milagros and the Benitez family and we will get some shoes and bring them to you. He was lying, but we did it anyway haha. So we went to the church, which takes about a half hour from their house. Then we went to the pension, which is like another 10 minutes. Then we got some shoes and flip flops and went back to Ezequiel's house, which is another half hour. Then when we got there, he had his shoes on, but we still pulled out all of the shoes and asked him which ones he wanted haha. Poofta, nada mas. Poofta is a word that one of Elder Sotelo's Australian companions uses. It just means a dummy. Long story short, we walked back to the church again and got there just in time for sacrament. Ended up being a great day, though!

My apologies for not writing down the things we did! We had some good lessons and have been doing some good
work with the members. Or at least trying to haha.

One cool thing I noticed this week. Obedience really does bring
blessings. I have been trying to be more obedient to the little things
that we're supposed to do as missionaries. As I have done that, I have
been able to experience the gift of tongues, amongst other blessings.
I know that as long as we are doing our best to be the best we can be,
we will receive blessings. It's really simple but very powerful.
Anyway, I love you all so much! Cochinitos Mojados 2k14! Estamos en su
ciudad, mira su espalda! Haciendo percha cada día, siempre caminando,
siempre transpirando. Love you allllll soooooo muuuuch.

Love,
Elder Sipple


PS - Mom, that package is seriously unreal. The other elders are
always asking for a little American candy haha. The Pop Tarts have
been a huge blessing. The Kool Aid, Crystal Light, dang. We are going
to get wiiiiiild with that package. You're the best! Those Jolley
Rancher crunchy then chewy things are amazing too. The Peruvians love
them too. De diez!! De diez pretty much just means like perfect, 10
out of 10. Goodbye! I will send pictures later today.

Our steak and mashed potatoes dinner. So delicious, so American. I look like one of the Latinos.

Funny story. We were walking in the barrio and all of these drunk people were outside their house listening to music. One approached us and asked for a prayer. We told him we would pray for him tonight, So we kept walking and another one stumbled up to us haha. He could barely walk or talk. He was mumbling about the aboriginal people in Argentina and Paraguay. Elder Murphy was like, "Hey! Do you want a picture with Elder Sipple?!" and the guy goes, "SIIIIII!!" He was so stoked haha. So at first he had his arm around me, then was just full on bear-hugging me. We were laughing so hard. The bear hug is on a video I have, so you'll have to wait two years. Anyway, super funny and random. Also another time, these guys in the park called us over. They were high as knives and just smoking a ton of weed right there. They had cartons of wine and were just absolutely gone haha. Stuff like that happens all the time. So weird.

                                         

Typical neighborhood street. This one is a little nicer, though.

Eating at la casa de la Familia Ohando. We had gizo, which is super common here. Meat, noodles, and sauce. 

We live on the top 

After Elder Sotelo found all of the pomelos, I made this beautiful arrangement for our meal.