Lots of stuff went on this week, so
I’m just going to give a day by day break down.

Monday: We watched Mulan and Tarzan for P-Day. Then we started getting
ready for the activity we had on Saturday, a campfire and a movie.

Tuesday: We were busy most of the day worrying about and trying to fix the
electricity bill in the Church building. We’re just renting it, but the
owner hasn’t been doing much, so we had to intervene. After a bunch of
mess, we got the bill paid for. But then we found a paper slid under the
door that said we owed 500+ soles in taxes or debt or something. We took
that to the owner, too, but he said they made a mistake because the address
of the Church didn’t match the address on the paper. In the morning, I
handwashed my dress shirts. It went fine. My hands were freezing cold, but
the clothes got cleaned. We also went to pick up the new Elder from the bus
port.

Wednesday: I ate a green apple with peanut butter that my parents sent me a
while back. That was delicious. Then we went to fix the sign with the
Church name we put in the window of the Church. It has been ripping in the
wind. We went to buy nails and borrowed a hammer. We went through the
financial records, too, of the branch. We had very little success during
the day proselyting, but we did find and teach 1 Seventh Day Adventists.
She started singing some of her hymns during the lesson, which was
different. But we decided to sing one of ours, too. We sang We Thank Thee
oh God for a Prophet. She started to tear up. What song would you guys have
sung to an investigator?

Thursday: I finally got the package my parents sent me back in March! It
was in bad shape, but everything was still inside it. We had our Branch
Presidency meeting and talked a lot about the preparations for the Trujillo
Temple Dedication. They’re going to broadcast the dedication in all of the
stake centers in Peru, so we need to get our members ready and everything
to travel to Arequipa. We’re not sure how many will be going, though,
because most aren’t temple worthy, sadly. I ate cow tongue for lunch. That
was different. We only taught 1 lesson. The investigator told us he feels
ready to be baptized and has been for a long time, but he doesn’t want to
be baptized right now. That was kind of frustrating. We invited him to pray
and ask God when he should be baptized, but he didn’t come to Church, so we
haven’t had time to see what God told him.

Friday: Still very little success with our investigators. Nobody has been
home. We bought what we needed for the activity Saturday. Bringing 2
gallons of juice, cookies, popcorn kernals, cups, and wood to the Church
was a lot more of an ordeal than we expected. We went to our room to bring
everything in an old suitcase, but it started to break. So we borrowed a
dolly and rolled everything up to the Church. We found 1 store in all of
Chivay that sells white marshmellows, but it was closed. We looked
everywhere and didn’t find any more, so we were hoping the store’d be open
tomorrow.

Saturday: We were supposed to have a service project in the morning, but
the lady ended up leaving town. We went to clean the Church grounds and get
rid of all the weeds and stuff there. We still weren’t able to find white
marshmellows, so we had to buy colored ones to make the S’mores. Only 2
kids came to seminary, which was a bummer. Then we had the activity. We
watched Meet the Mormons then went to the campfire and had S’mores.
Everyone really enjoyed it. I prepared the campfire, and regretablly, it
took a whole 2 matches to start. I blame it on the lack of oxygen here at
12,000 feet. Plus, I’m out of practice. We quickly cleaned up the Church
for Sunday and went home.

Sunday: Our Branch President was sustained and set apart today! Presidente
Cabrera (1st Counselor to President Zobrist) came to do it. There were only
17 members in sacrament meeting, though, to sustain him. And 10 of them
weren’t part of the branch… But we got him set apart, and now I’m the
branch secretary instead of 1st Counselor. We went to a buffet with
Presidente Cabrera after the meetings. Then the whole afternoon was spent
fixing the financial reports the other Elders didn’t do properly. 8 calls,
3 visits, 1 email, and lots of staples later, everything was finished and
in order. My companion was worrying about being excommunicated for losing
Church money, but I saved him, don’t worry.

And that was just part of my busy week. We’re alive and well here in
Chivay. And we see a lot of progress in the near future. Enjoy your summer
everyone!

-Elder Kehoe