When our travel group of elders arrived in Atlanta, we immediately grabbed some Panda Express because we figured there wouldn't be any more Pand Express in Peru. When we finished eating, we decided to call our parents using the airport phones since the MTC told us we were allowed to talk to them. After a brief talk with my mom and dad for 20 minutes, I had to hang up and head to my gate to depart for Peru. All of us were cramped in one huge line trying to get inside of the plane, and this next plane ride was going to be 7 hours instead of 5.
When we got inside of the plane, I was surprised at how large it was inside. There were 3 columns of seats inside the plane, which meant two walkways inside to relieve our legs. Us Elders didn't get to sit all next to each other, but we were relatively close. It was nice trying out my first international flight to a different country. Flying Delta International surprised me because they had complementary meals and drinks, which meant I didn't have to spend a dollar to eat. The only downside was having to sit inside of a plane for nearly 7 hours as we flew over Florida, the Pacific Ocean, Cuba, Mexico, and Ecuador. I had thought that our trip to Peru would be easy and without grabbing attention, but it just so happened we were seated next to a large convoy of Baptist members going on a mission trip to Peru for 2 weeks. They were nice, but they just wanted to keep poking at us nearly the whole 7 hours, and contend with us missionaries why we believe in the Book of Mormon, and try to prove us wrong. Good times.
When we finally arrived at the airport in Lima, we got off of the plane and had to haul our carry-ons through the airport, and attempt to decipher all the signs and commands spoken in Spanish to exit the place. It was HOT inside of that airport wearing our suitcoats and hauling luggage, but we all were glad to leave that airplane. When we got past the line of people getting through the first checkpoint, about 10 minutes had passed, and we then ended up waiting another 45 minutes for our heavy duty luggage to arrive on the conveyor belts. When all of us missionaries finally got our luggage and passed through customs, and found our ride to depart, another 20 minutes passed by. Add on to that the 45 minute drive to the CCM, and ridiculous amounts of time had passed. I don't recall how long everything took, but I do remember that we had arrived in Lima at about 10:50, and arrived at the CCM at about 2am. We were greeted by the older North American missionaries at the front gate, and they helped us carry our luggage, and get settled. I was just glad to finally get some sleep, even though it was 2am, and we were scheduled to wake up at 6:30am.
The next morning us new missionaries from the US had orientation meeting after meeting. Luckily our CCM President Groeberg allowed us to just unpack and settle down for the rest of the day. I quickly discovered that here in the Peru CCM, things were a lot more relaxed here because there weren't as many missionaries here compared to Provo. Here in Peru it's under 100, but Provo was easily over 2,000. I had met my first latino companion Elder Zárate, who replaced my old companion Elder VanDuyn. Long story short, he was a bit shy and timid, but he was an awesome companion because he knew a lot about the gospel and how to teach.
Three minutes left to type, so I´ll sum up a few weeks worth in this last paragraph. All we basically do here is learn how to speak Spanish correctly, and how to teach the Gospel lessons to people. We get 1 hour of sports time, which means soccer, soccer and more soccer. Every meal here was basically chicken and rice disguised in many different forms, which got old fast. A lot of the new missionaries had diaherria for the first week when they arrived, including myself. We also went to go visit families who were inactive in the church on Saturdays and go proselyting and teach real people in the streets, which helped me learn a lot. 30 seconds left, so I will tell more about my new companion and what has passed since then next time.
Emiliano
No comments:
Post a Comment