Hi Folks! I am alive and well in Peru!
Just sitting here eating some chicken wings!

On Halloween we went proselyting like normal. There were a lot of kids dressed up and in the streets at night, though. They went from little store to little store instead of from house to house. But it’s kind of the same thing because the little stores are their houses… I got some candy from a member in the ward, and it was good. Some gummi candies and suckers. Apparently candy does exist here. I haven’t seen any pumpkins around here, but I’m glad to see you still have the ping pong table. We played ping pong a lot in the CCM and I got pretty good, if I do say so myself. Hopefully it’s still there in 2 years, and I can finally beat Dad.

Yes, my lavandería is someone other than my pensionista. She is the wife of the second counselor in the bishopric.

My clothes are working fine. They still fit, which means I haven’t gained or lost much weight. They don’t seem to be wearing out at all. I always stay warm and cool, so things are good there, too.

Most days we stay busy with lessons with our recent converts, less actives, and investigators. We never track and don’t often get member referrals, so we just teach those that we have. Our focus is to strengthen the ward and rescue the less actives right now, so we aren’t focusing a ton on referrals and new investigators.

That’s a great thought about the Nephites and Lamanites. Another interesting thought: the Nephites focused on the defensive and protecting themselves and the Lamanites focused on the offensive and attacking others. The Nephites had breastplates, arm-shields, shields for their heads (haha, scripture language. The word is “helmet,” Mormon) and thick clothing. All of these things are for protection. They didn’t want to fight and kill. They wanted to stand strong and live. The Lamanites, however, had swords, cimeters, bows and arrows, stones and slings. All items to inflict pain and weapons of death. They were focused on breaking the 6th Commandment and took no thought to protect themselves. When we are focused on protecting ourselves and defending the standards of the Lord, we will have His help and will win. But when we’re going on the offensive and attacking others, whether verbally, physically, or otherwise, we’re going to fail, especially if the people are followers of Christ.

Things were pretty good this week. Pretty average. I saw a drunk man talking to his beer bottle that was sitting on the wall in front of him. That was funny. We found 2 more investigators this week. Our others are progressing, and we should have at least 4 baptisms this month. The ward is taking a bus to Lima the first week of December to go to the Temple, and there is a possibility that we will get to go and be witnesses for a couple sealings. I finished my first transfer of I think 17 this week! I didn’t get transfered, so I’m working here in Hunter for another 6 weeks. I’ll probably stay longer than that, though, and celebrate Christmas here while training another new missionary. The work continues, and the Church is true!

I’ll try to get a picture of me and Peru at some point.

Here is a picture from one of our taxi rides. Sorry you can’t see very well out of the windows. The cars are pretty normal here, but some are pretty old. And pictures of us working in a field with one of our investigators that is scheduled to be married and baptized on the 22 of November.

I always have plenty to eat, my companion is great and we’re always laughing, and the teaching experiences are there.

They have huge bags of rice here. 50 kgs, which according to my calculations, is about 110 lbs. Crazy. I haven’t tried lifting one yet, but I don’t think I could hold it for long. I’m not sure how they get them from wherever in the world they buy it to their house.

My electric razor has been working great, and after not charging it since home, finally died this week. So apparently it has about a 3 month battery life with everyday use. And the outlets here are like the ones in the US, so I didn’t need to use the converter and the razor can use 220V so it charged fine when I need to charge it.

Our area is really big. There is a look out tower in town (Mirador of Sachaca) that I will try to climb sometime and take pictures of most of Arequipa. You can see basically everything from there, and I will point out my area. We walk a lot, but we also take the cambis and taxis occasionally. I agree that a bike would be nice, but as far as I know we’re not allowed to have them.

We have hot showers. The other water is all cold. And the showers are hot because there is an attachment on the nozzle/spout that I think, like Brother Riddle said, electrifies the water and heats it up. We also have a lot of hot drinks. The water is all impure here, so they have to boil everything, and then they drink it while it’s hot. I’m not a huge fan, but I’m growing to like them.

We do have a ward mission leader, but I met him for the first time last week. I think he works away from town or something, so he isn’t usually around to help out. We also have an assistant ward mission leader, which is interesting. I haven’t seen us do anything that would help back home, but I have been thinking about it. Haha, it’s weird to be filling out the same progress reports that the Sisters would bring you Saturday nights.

I tried making German Pancakes in our solar oven this week, but it didn’t work. It didn’t get hot enough to cook them. Then my pensionista moved the pan to the electric oven, which I didn’t know we had, and it worked great. They rose and they freaked out because it was growing taller than the pan. This happened while we were out proselyting, though, so I couldn’t explain to them that that’s supposed to happen and that you eat it when it’s fresh and fluffy. When we got home and looked at it, it was not fluffy, super dense, and did not smell good. We’ll be trying again sometime soon and eating them fresh.

I didn’t really take pictures of what you asked, but I have some pictures of the farms I walk by and cows.

Also, we had 2 baptisms this weekend! 2 little girls from a family of investigators were baptized. One 12 year old and one 8 year old. I baptized the 8 year old. It was a great experience. Not many people were at the baptismal service, but there were enough there to make it a spiritual experience for them and a nice welcome into the church. Their parents aren’t married, so they can’t be baptized yet, but we have done all the paperwork and everything so that they can be married on November 22 and then baptized. The work of the Lord is moving forward! And before the baptism we (actually my companion) baked a cake. My companion apparently worked in a bakery for some time before the mission. When he was making it, he was just throwing a bunch of stuff in a bowl and mixing it with his hands. I didn’t think it would work at all. But we put it in a pan, put it in the oven of the lady that washes our clothes (which is really conveniente, by the way) and waited. And it turned out great! Except for the one corner that burned on the bottom. We scraped off the crispy part, put some caramel on top with some sprinkles, and it was good! We brought it to the baptism and ate it along with some juice after the baptism.

For the baptism, the family lives far away from the chapel, so we went in a taxi to pick them up. There are 5 of them in the family. So we squeezed 8 people and a baby into a car the size of the Pickle [Hyundai Accent]. That was fun.

I just have one picture this week. It’s of a river that runs through the city with the volcano Misti in the background.

We had a good week this week. We got to study more this week, which we don’t usually have time for, so that was nice. I got to read more in the Book of Mormon in Spanish, we practiced teaching some lessons, watched some videos about how to improve as missionaries, and I helped my companion with his English.

My Spanish continues to improve. I can understand a lot, usually even when they speak quickly. I am getting better at talking, too. I need to look up more words in my dictionary so I can increase my vocabulary and use different verbs, but it’s going well. We might be starting an English class for my ward that I will be teaching. Don’t know what I’ll teach, but we’ll see what happens.

As far as my personal supplies go, I’m doing alright. The big bottle of shampoo and hand sanitizer and hair gel have all lasted so far. I have sun screen. My first space pen ink cartridge ran out this week, so I replaced it with the extra one I brought. My waterproof notebooks are working great. I always have it on me, along with my space pen, my flashlight, my wallet, money, my Missionary Agenda, my Missionary Manual, and as soon as I get the paracord, I will make a lanyard that I carry as well.

I got a calling in my Zone. I am the piano player… I only play the right hand, because I haven’t practiced enough to play with both, but I can play just about any hymn with just the right hand, so that’s good. I’m surprised no one else knows how to play. I play every Tuesday and Thursday during our Zone and District meetings. During Sacrament Meeting, we sing along with the recorded hymns on CD because our chapel is tiny and doesn’t have a piano.

I had to teach Gospel Principles this week, in Spanish, without my companion. My first time ever being in that class, and I’m teaching it, in a foreign language. That was interesting. I think they understood what I was trying to teach. We talked about lesson 6, the Fall of Adam and Eve.

Everyone here has backpacks and not shoulder bags, so I think I’ll look for a backpack somewhere and keep my shoulder bag to use in college when I get home.

We had a good week! We were able to watch Conference this weekend, and they set up a room for us to listen to it in English, so that was great. The first native Spanish speaker we listened to in Spanish, but it was hard to follow and understand everything he was saying, so I’m glad the whole thing wasn’t like that. I learned a lot. And the 10 hours passed by really quick. We didn’t have many lessons those days because we were traveling to and from the Stake Center and the Conferenece was a lot of the day.

We have a current investigator that has a lot of religious questions, so I like to teach her and help her understand more. We taught the Word of Wisdom (haha, I wanted to write Palabra de Sabiduría) and also why there are so many different churches (the Restoration). We wanted to give her a Book of Mormon to read because she said that she wanted to know if it was true or not. We didn’t have one on us, so I said we’d return to our room, grab one, and bring it back. And I was willing to do that even though there are, literally, over 160 stairs to get up to her house. We walked down them, back to our room, back to the stairs, up the stairs, and to her house, and gave her the book. She seemed really happy to have it. One of the scriptures that I shared with her that I think might’ve helped her understand a little bit more why we have the Book of Mormon and the Bible was Mormon 7:8-9. It talks about the record of the Jews (the Bible) and this record (the Book of Mormon). And it clearly says, if you believe that record (the Bible) you will believe this record (the Book of Mormon). The two book work together perfectly and testify of each other. And through both books, we can come closer to Christ.

For P-Day last week we went to the Plaza de Armas. We happened to run into a bunch of the other missionaries that were with me in the MTC, so it was fun to see and talk to them. We also went to basically a flea market with tons of little shops and walked around. You can buy just about anything here for pretty cheap. Today I think we are going to stay here in Hunter and do something as a zone.

Elder Kehoe

These photos are of my pensionista in our little kitchen and of the street outside my house. Any more requests?