5th Week Update: Oct. 31st, 2013

My Last Week in the M.T.C.

Well this week has been one of the best but hardest weeks of my life. I absolutely love my new Latino district.  My new compañero is Elder Mendoza from Mexico. 

They called us to be the ZONE LEADERS of the Latinos. It is so scary being in charge of so many Latinos and we have so many extra meetings every single day and so many more responsibilities.  We have to organize every meeting and we have to speak on Sunday and it´s just a lot to take in but it's definitely an awesome experience having a leadership position so early.

The Latino District

Elder Mendoza speaks just a little English, but he is very patient with me and helps my learning so much. I now speak more Spanish in the day than English and my brain feels fried at the end of every day, but it definitely has been a beneficial experience for me. 

Elder Pincock and Elder Mendoza

The harderst part of being a zone leader is the meetings with the branch presidents and mission president because they use so many hard spanish words that I'm not used to hearing and they always ask me questions since I'm the only gringo in the leadership meetings but like I said it's been a great experience and an awesome way to advance my service to The Lord. 

I've made so many friends with all The Latinos and they love all the stupid Spanish songs that I make up. I made one about ¨Castidad´´ (punishment) which always makes them laugh and now they all sing it! 

I leave for Huancayo this Saturday instead of this upcoming Tuesday and I'm excited to get out in the field.  I can't believe it's finally here! I'm going to miss all my friends here so much. They have made me do my hyenna laugh a couple times and all the Latinos think it's so funny. 

I love the culture of The Latinos and they have so much love for everybody. We took all our group pictures so hopefully I'll be able to send those soon! Thanks so much for all the support and love from everybody. I'm not exactly sure what day my P-Day will be but I'll find out next week in Huancayo!

 

 

Love, Elder Pincock

 

Tenga Fe

4th Week Update- Oct. 22nd

THIS WAS A BIG WEEK!

First off,  WRECK EM TECH! I'm so pumped that we're in the top 10 now that's awesome! 

This past week has been incredible here at the C.C.M. Presidente Cardon is trying something new because he sees a lot of potential in our group and has given us the option for us to switch to a Latino district and have a Latino compañero for the last two weeks. At first, about 20 out of our 38 planned on switching to the Latino district, but for some reason they only allowed 4 of us to move up and I made the cut! So, I will be switching rooms, compañeros, y districtos mañana. It's been a huge blessing feeling like I'm still progressing so fast and all of my teachers were happy for me that I'm switching to the advanced class! 

This is the Lima Missionary Training Center

This past Saturday we went out proselyting for the first time as a practice for about 6 hours. I was with Elder Flores from Argentina and we went with a local member of the church in the Canto Grande district in northern Lima. It was an amazing and humbling experience. I saw at least 100 stray dogs that just lived on the street, so many kids playing futbol with a ball that's probably older than I am, and every person had a smile on their face. We talked to about 6 people. It was kinda hard for me to understand Elder Flores perfectly but I got the majority of what he was saying and we talked for over an hour. 

Caleb sent me this picture but I don't know who this elder is

We did have a really funny experience, though,  but it still makes me cringe even just thinking about it... We stopped by a local members house and he was completely deaf in one ear and his other ear he could hear about 3% of what a normal person does, so we literally had to take turns cupping our hand around his ear and yelling the entire time. I mean literally yelling it was so awkward! The first time I got closer to introduce myself. I felt weird getting too close and still didn't yell as loud as I need to so he leaned closer and some of his disgusting ear hairs touched my lips and I almost threw up.... his ear had so much hair and earwax in it I wasn't surprised he couldn't hear anything! After brushing my teeth with hand sanitizer, I felt fine though. 

Today during P Day while getting on the bus to go to Metro it was the most packed it had ever been. There was probably room for 5 more people, but we fit all 13 of us inside. Plus, there was a lady breastfeeding like it was no big deal so it was the most awkward bus ride of my life. 

Two days ago during dinner I embarrassed myself so bad... I walked up to our table and there was a single Latino sitting there. Elder Gonzalez from our district was talking about a sock that he was missing because we played flag football with our socks that day. So, I asked the Latino ''Es blanco?'' talking about the sock. Turns out I heard the conversation completely wrong and the Latino thought I was asking if he was white and he couldn't sit with us if he wasn't white so he got up and left... Then we went and tried to explain that I was talking about a sock and I put my foot on the table and pointed to my sock and tried so hard while speaking horrible spanish..then after about 5 minutes of me looking like and idiot he said ''It's ok I can speak English too, and I'm just messing with you'' in a perfect English accent. So Elder Gonzalez apparently planned it before I got there and made me look like an idiot but it was a pretty good joke I have to admit... 

Again I am not sure who this Elder is

Oh and one more thing, we convinced the new North Americans that they have to take their mattresses to the secretary office to ''register'' them and they believed us,  so about 20 North Americans carried their mattresses to the secretary office for no reason. It was so funny! 

Thanks to all who have continued writing me every week and I hope to keep hearing more and more from all of you!

 

Love, Elder Pincock

 

No se preocupe, se feliz.