Pisco

I got my first cambio, and this weekend I packed my bags and said goodbye to Mala. I left this morning and have arrived in Pisco. Fun fact about Pisco, there was a huge earthquake in 2007 of August that leveled the city. There are a bunch of ruins over here, and a lot of dirt. The cool thing is that the church was one of the first aids to help the people of Pisco with water, food, and homes. I've heard many good things about Pisco, and even that the people here like "los hermanitos mormones porque ellos nos ayudaron." My new companion is Elder Dominguez, who is my district leader; and we live with Elder Pompilla and Elder Malqui, our zone leaders. It's hot over here in Pisco.

My Spanish is getting better, and I can understand about 70 percent of what people are saying, excluding slang, and if they talk slow enough. The office finally called me after 3 weeks and said I have two packages waiting, but I have to pay 33 Soles to get them sent. My guess is because there's something valuable and I have to pay extra because of customs, but I don't see how maple syrup and tortillas could be of any value. Good thing is I have them, but I have to pay, which is lame. I'll find out why soon enough.

Important question, did you receive my postcard with my signature? Hopefully you did and everything went well with the new ATM card. I have sufficient funds for now, and I just need to watch what I spend it on. I burned all of the photos I took in Mala on a CD, and I'll send it to you this week if I get the chance. Then you'll have even more photos to see what it was like in Mala.

Just to sum up the last weeks in Mala, we had a bunch of cool things happen. We celebrated Elder Boulton's birthday with the family we live with, and they surprised him with a real pig's head on top of the table. He was blindfolded and wasn't expecting to see that. We had a talent show in our little church with the members, and my companion and I got the chance to sing (as best as we could) some songs with a synthesizer and guitar.

When you get the CD, you'll see more of what I'm talking about. But right now my time is up. I'll talk to you next week, and don't forget to share the photos on the blog! They are really cool. Hopefully everything goes fine with the card, and I'll email you next week.

Emiliano