Week 20: Santa Rosa de Lima

September 28, 2022

K this week has been very eventful, to say the very least. It starts with transfers last Tuesday. We showed up to the offices around 10am; the offices are where we group up with our new companions, grab whatever we need in terms of resources for the house (water filter, plates, books, etc.), and then take off to our new area. My companion, Elder Ellsworth, shows up around 1pm, tells me we're opening an area in Santa Rosa de Lima, and also buying a house. So right off the bat we got a lot to do. Opening an area is kinda crazy. So we get to the house and it's brand new, fresh concrete, hardly anything in the house. So we spend the rest of the day unpacking everything; our luggage, the fridge, the pila, everything. Next day we meet with the owner and we're like alright so we're renting the house. We negotiate the terms, all that, sign the contract, cool, we're legal now. Also by the way you guys are a little early so the house is not hooked up to the grid, but we'll hook you up to our house through a cable running between the two. So now we've got what we call the "death cable" running through our window spliced directly to the breaker box right next to the back door. So that's super cool. We should be hooked up to the grid by the end of this week though. Emphasis on should. Also with having a new house, there's no leftover food from the previous missionaries, so we spent almost the rest of our money to get us to the 30th, which is when the secretaries throw more money on the mission card. 2 more days, we've got cereal and 2 more pounds of beans. Alright so Thursday rolls around, and we're both completely new to the area, so the only thing we can really do is start exploring and mapping out the area. Pretty cool. Santa Rosa de Lima is a tiny town, but we cover a very large area entailing many smaller groupings of houses surrounded by coffee fields or raw jungle. We don't have bikes or anything either, so we just walk everywhere. Thankfully, there's a few nice people here and they'll stop on the side of the road and give us a ride. Usually just to practice their English but hey, we still get where we're going. Friday we did exchanges we did exchanges with the other missionaries in the area. There's six of us in the branch of Santa Rosa. Elder Marker and his greeny, Elder Carter, in Nueva Santa Rosa. I went with them for the day. And there's Elders Marcia and Thompson is Casillas, Elder Ellsworth went with them for the day to show them around that area. When I was with Elders Marker and Carter, there were these kids who challenged us to a game of basketball, so we said if we win they have to listen to our message. So we played 3 games and won 2 of them, then we shared our message and invited them to church on Sunday (didn't see any of them there). Some context, we played on a dirty, wet, concrete floor wearing dress shoes ( = no grip). All of us are at least 6' and these guys are on average 5'4" . It was interesting, but really fun. Saturday we had a planned branch activity at 6 to play soccer, but it started raining. Fun fact: if it starts raining, everyone cancels everything. People here are a little superstitious and think that if their out in the rain they're going to get sick. But they have umbrellas . So it ended up just being us 6 Elders and 2 younger investigators, pretty fun, but I'm horrible at soccer, especially when I'm up against people who play their whole lives. Still fun. We get home Saturday night and crash. Sunday we go to church nice and early, it's in Nueva Santa Rosa, so we take a tuk there. They're everywhere around here. But Church was good, it's just a branch for now, and there was hardly anyone. Even though in our area book we have like 200 members registered, but I guess almost nobody goes to church. Part of it is because some people live really far, and almost nobody has a mode of transportation. Another part is because some people use covid as an excuse. Some people work on Sundays. The rain . We have a lot of work to do with them. K so when we got home Sunday, we realized the door frames were almost green . Yeah, they were almost completely covered in mold. The concrete was still curating so it was very humid in the house. But we found amazing, kind people who are were so ready to receive our message of the restored gospel, and that was my favorite part of this week. So Monday we had our district council, and then went to war against the mold. We also took down a hornets nest by the front door while we were at it. Tuesday we were ready to work a normal day for once, but after we go somewhere for lunch. Big mistake, we left the umbrellas at home... during rainy season... in a jungle . So we got completely soaked on the way back to the house. Also the small road to our house turned into a river, so we had to wade through that to get in the house. Fun day. But then we went and visited our friends from Sunday, and they even fed us! We talked for a while and then shared another message with them. They're awesome. We're meeting them again on Friday to teach the Plan of Salvation and invite them to watch general conference. Super excited for that by the way. All of you should listen. It's super good. Then today we hung out and played sports with the district. Easy day, plenty of rest. I'm having a blast here. I honestly wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I'm loving the work, we get plenty of goofing off time, even the hard parts don't seem that hard. Everything just kinda goes perfect here. Gracias a Dios . Everyone says that here.

Spiritual thought:

Life's hard, and it's far too short to waste any of it hating, holding grudges, despising others, anything of the sort. Bad things happen, but there's always a positive. Always. Everyone perceives things differently, and this is ultimately what forms someone's individual reality. I don't know about you guys, but I'm looking to live a good life, built on positivity and hard work. Life is what you make it, so make it a good one.

Also I really want to emphasize how awesome general conference is. Even if you aren't a member of any church, there's so much we can learn there. It's this Saturday and Sunday. If you do t k ow what it is ask around. Super awesome stuff always.

I'm going to bed

~Elder Owens~

My companion Elder Ellsworth and I.