CAMBIOS!!! Well, not for me.

P-day activities, transfers, and a new companion.

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Glynis here: Jacob's letter this week was wonderful to hear. This is a tough week for us, as his birthday is this Thursday. If any of you want to drop him a birthday e-mail, I know he would love it. His address is: jacob.neves@myldsmail.net.

He also gave us some follow up to the baptism from last week in his letter to Timothy. Apparently, the mother he baptized 7 times last week got sick because of the filthy water. She's ok, now, but that was not exactly what I needed to hear!

Anyway, on with the missionary adventures!

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Hey guys!

This week was very big, so here we go! For P-day this last week, we went to the riverbank. Not the Amazon, a river called Nanay. While we were there, we played with our Trompos. If you don't know what those are, it's basically the national toy of Peru. It's like a top that you wrap up with string and throw all around. Anyway, we were over playing by the river, and it was so cool! The sun was starting to set and it was so pretty. While we were there I saw a pink dolphin! Seriously, in the rivers here there are blind, pink dolphins. One of them was really close to the shore and we saw it. That was really cool!

We went home that night and the mission president, Presidente Li, called my companion personally to tell him that he would be having a transfer. We got kind of scared because the mission is so big, and the president never calls the missionaries personally, but he did that night. It turns out that Elder Sindayen was transferred to the Iquitos Stake in Cambio. So, he's right next door now. He got called to be the Zone Leader of that zone, so that is awesome! We packed up all his stuff, and then the next day headed to the mission office in the morning.

I got my new companion, Elder Quezada at the same time. He's pretty cool, not gonna lie! He has a little more than a year in the mission, and he'll be finishing my last few weeks of training. He is from Chile, which basically means that everyone here hates him. All the investigators, and all the members of the ward, apparently, Chileans and Peruvians hate each other with a burning passion. They'll always ask him where he's from and he says, "Chile," and they are like, "Oh... Chile... que bein." It's seriously so funny! Every single person has the same reaction to his nationality.

We were also put in charge of one new missionary named Elder Knowlton, from Utah. He was fresh from the CCM and he would be staying with us for a few days while he waiting for his flight to the city Pucalpa. It was so cool to see his face when it started raining. When it rains here, it RAINS! I mean, the streets are flooded and the motokarr's are driving basically through a river. I've gotten used to it, but Elder Knowlton thought it was so weird. He was so interested in everything! I helped him understand the people because he can't speak Spanish, yet. (By the way, I forgot to mention that my companion doesn't speak any English, but I'm going to teach him!)

A lot of the members and investigators were pretty sad that Elder Sindayen was sent to Cambio, but they understood that that's how the mission works. We visited most of the members of the ward to introduce my new companion. The funny thing is that he is my second trainer. He is training me still, but I am the one directing the area, because he doesn't know it. It's pretty cool! Something really awesome that happened is that my new companion had a dream about me 2 weeks ago. While he was in his last area, he had a dream about him and a missionary teaching people on a wooden bridge over a river. Well, that's our area! He told me that the missionary he saw was me! So that was super cool. He had a dream that we were going to be companions. That is such a testimony to me that this work is from God.

On November 1st, we didn't have a whole lot of success. It turns out that not only Mexico celebrates Dia De Los Muertos; Peru does too. It's not as extravagant, but everyone was out in the cemeteries putting food and flowers by the graves. So, we didn't find a whole lot of people that day. Still, it was cool to see some of the culture of Peru.

On Saturday, we had the baptismal interviews for both Octavio and Alexandre. The plan was to baptize them both this coming Saturday, November 10, but we got a notice from our president that we can't baptize Alexandre without his parents, too. The Church can't be established on the backs of just children, because if they don't have anyone to take them to church, they are just going to become inactive. We completely understand what our president told us, but still it feels horrible to tell someone who really wants to be baptized that we can't do it. I just hope that he doesn't lose his desire to be baptized. We are going to try to teach his parents more. Typically, they don't like to listen to us, but if we are going to baptize him, we need to get to them, too. So, that is now our number one priority. The good news is that we can still baptize Octavio, because he's older. We are now preparing for that for this next Saturday, the 10th of November. It's going to be so good! He's a golden investigator, for sure! He loves learning about the gospel, and he adores the Book of Mormon. I can't wait to see him receive the priesthood and to be able to help his mom! It's going to be so cool!

That's about it for this week. I love you guys!

Elder Neves & Elder Quezada

A giant snail found in the apartment.

Look how huge!