Food & Baptism

Hey Mom and Dad,

Great to hear that you two actually tried some sushi to eat, and now you know why I love it so much. Speaking of food, I do have a list of favorite foods. Number one would have to be "tallarín rojo con pollo y papa huancaína." It's basically spaghetti with chicken in this red spicy sauce with potatoes covered in this yellow sauce of goodness. They have the same thing but with green sauce, but I prefer the red tallarín. Next would have to be "pollo a la brasa" which is basically chicken cooked over fire in rotary served with french fries. It's good stuff, but the ketchup here has more of a sweet taste than in the states. People eat so much chicken here it's not even funny. My companion tells me that in Iquitos where the jungle is at they eat the crazy stuff like turtles, paranas, monkies (the smaller monkies), fruits I never even knew existed, and a bunch of fish.

The only out of the ordinary stuff I've eaten is ceviche, which is basically raw fish cooked with lemon and spices. There are many different types of ceviche because you can eat ceviche de pescado, mariscos, pulpo, etc. I've eaten the muscles, the fish, and even octopus which is actually very chewey. It was kind of unsettling at first because when I forked a piece of octopus, you could see the tentacle suction cups. I've also eaten crab and crab soup. That stuff is delicious, but I needed help breaking open their shell, but one of the members of the church told me "just use your teeth, like this," and then he broke open their claws with his molars. Crazy.

Well our baptism was a success, and I got to perform it. Her name is Lady Martinez who is 15 years old. She wanted to throw herself in the water really quickly so I just let her drop. Water splashed, but it was success. My companion and I accidentally flooded the stake center because we left the water switch on, and we thought that it would automatically turn off because in Lima that's what happens, but we were wrong. So for 4 hours my companion and I desperately swept the water out of the doors and mopped the floors with our bare feet. Luckily nobody could tell that the stake center was flooded just hours before the baptism was held, but the only bad thing is that the stake president's office was flooded with water. If I had the keys we would have cleaned his office, but we didn't. We didn't say a thing, so I think we're fine because he wasn't mad at all, just a bit puzzled.

Well my time is up so I need to wrap up this email. That's really cool that Romney signed a book for Dad in La Jolla. It's always in La Jolla. I'll be sure to write that letter to Abuelita, but please send me Abuelito Hector's address too because I don't have it. Take care you two, and I will talk to you later. Love you both, and goodbye.

Elder Emiliano Leon