March 17th and 24th update

March 17th, 2014

Hello Everyone!

Well this week was a little crazy with the transfers. I ended up getting transfered to my new area called Chupaca 2! I'm on the outskirts of Huancayo, and my area is so much prettier and cleaner. 

My zone is Tambo, and it's kinda crazy the shoes I have to fill right now.. It turns out that my area is brand new and was opened 6 weeks ago, and two people from the office left to go open this area. One of the Assitants to the President and the Health Secretary. Well, the Old Assistant finished his mission here in Chupaca, and now I'm with Elder Allred who was the Health Secretary! 

Its a little scary replacing somebody that was an assistant to the president and all that, but it's an awesome experience to be here with Elder Allred. He was born in Guatemala, but was adopted when he was 11 so he came from Utah, but he speaks perfect Spanish and English. We never talk in English which is funny. I'm at the point where I'm definitely more comfortable talking in Spanish than in English. 

Our area is another big one just like my old area, and there are 4 missionaries here in Chupaca. We get up a lot earlier to go play basketball outside the church every morning which is fun but more tiring.. Since it's a new area, we don't have a lot of "investigadores," so we're working really hard and walking like crazy to find new people to teach. 

I'm really happy to be here, and it's a lot less colder, but it's not hot either. It's like a perfect temperature most of the time which I'm pretty happy about! Our zone has 8 Elders and 8 sisters which is kinda crazy because before we only had 2 sisters in our entire zone. 

My old area in Marcavalle is actually openening Marcavalle 2 because we had so much success in our area which is pretty awesome! Everything is great here, and we'll be having a lot better P-days every week so hopefully starting next week I'll be able to send good pictures of Huancayo! 

Love and miss you all, 

Elder Pincock

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March 24th, 2014

Hello Everyone,

This week went by super fast, and time just keeps passing by faster and faster. Tomorrow I'll have 6 months here in Peru which is just crazy! I'm happy that I'm in a good area, and every Saturday theres like a huge fair and hundreds of tents that sell the most random and crazy things. 

One had just huge mesh bags filled with about 20 live guinea pigs and I accidentally stepped on one of them… haha! Another tent sells bags of leaves and I asked my companion what they were and it turns out it's the leaves that make cocaine... They sell them just normal and super cheap out on the street and theres always a huge line to buy some, haha! So that was something new to me.. 

Today we're having a Zone P-Day and my zone changed to Mantaro. Actually just the Zone Leaders changed. They are really good. They rented two soccer fields today with fake grass and everything and we'll be playing all day with 3 zones. All the Elders in Huancayo will be there so I'm pretty excited! 

I ended up buying some chavitos which are like the soccer pants they use here... I'll try and send pictures next week! 

Our area is great, but we're just in a tough area because Chupaca has a ton of success, but our area is like all the outskirts and not as much success... We're working really hard and visiting all the tiny towns surrounding our area so we're staying really busy here. We've been getting up at 6 a.m. to play soccer. Now the members are coming to the church in the mornings to play soccer with us which has been really fun! 

I've been reading Jesus the Christ a lot lately, and even though its a huge and difficult book to read, I'm actually understanding everything and learning so much it's crazy. I read today about how Christ was tempted just like us, and that he did have the ability to sin, and give in to temptation but he never did. He could have failed his mission, but he didn't. He also wasn't born with all his knowledge, he had to study and pray and strive to learn, and that's how he could teach so well and with so many parables. 

A verse I want to share with you guys this week is one of my favorites and its in Mark 8:35 "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it"

I love and miss you guys like crazy and hope all is well back home!

Elder Pincock

March 3rd and 10th update

March 3, 2014

Hola Amigos,

This week went by super fast and the time keeps passing by faster and faster every day. The transfers are coming up this next week 12 of March and so it'll be a hectic week here. We found out that sister missionaries won't be coming this transfer so we ended up wasting so much time looking for a new apartment for them for no reason.. but in the end I'm happy because it will be a little less stressfull for the transfers. It looks like I'll probably be leaving Marcavalle this next transfer because I've been here for a while but we won't know anything until the night before the transfers. 

Matching at Church! 

We had a great week and had two baptisms! Jhonn Pando and Faviola Castro and they are both 18. I baptized Faviola and my companion baptized Jhonn. The service went great but everybody was super late as usual but everything ended up working out great. 

The funniest thing that happened this week was while we were walking a dog started barking and following us so I threw a pear at it, but missed big time and it ended up bouncing into somebody's front door that was open. The lady came out screaming at us so we ran off laughing super hard…  A couple days later while we were looking for a new room for the sister missionaries we ended up calling some numbers from ads on the street.  Sure enough one of them was the lady that the pear flew into her house and was super mad at us. When we met her for our appointment she started yelling at us again so we just ran off laughing super hard hahaha 

 

I love and miss all of you like crazy and I hope all is well this upcoming week!

Love, Elder Pincock

Pictures of Marcavalle

March 10th 

Hola Amigos!

Transfers are this week and it looks like most likely I'll be leaving, which is kinda exciting but at the same time makes me a little sad because I just love the people here and I've gotten really close with a lot of the members and the people that we have baptized. 

Also, my companion Elder Lopez and I get along super well and we are so much alike. I don't know if I'll get a companion this good for a really long time. 

We gave talks this week in church and it was pretty cool. In Elder Lopez's talk he quoted Dad about how Dad always says that everything that we believe is in the Bible! I've always believed him, but just never knew where in the Bible everything was. That's why I love studying and finding new things all the time that are in the Bible and that only we do in our church which really strengthens my testimony. 

This week ended up being a little crazy and hectic, but we had a baptism! Jhonatan Arrendondo who is the cousin of Kenyi that we baptized here a little over 2 months ago. He's 23 and studies physcology and a lot of other sciences. I love teaching really educated people because we can always help them with all their questions and doubts and I can learn so much by teaching people like him. 

I feel really lucky and blessed to finish my time here in Marcavalle with 3 baptisms. The youth in the church here has grown so much! Nine out of my 10 baptisms are all in the youth program and it's awesome to watch them grow and all become such great friends. 

Today is probably our last P day together and the Elderes in Junin and San Pedro de Cajas came to our area and so we'll play soccer all day which should be fun since we have 8 missionaries here today and plus all the guys in the branch are coming! 

The Pizza I made! 

This week will have a lot of changes.

You're all in my prayers and I love and miss you all so much!

Elder Pincock