Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Elder Jones week 32

Hey! So my new area is in Rimac! The only other Zone with houses on the side of hills! except these hills are a lot taller and the houses reach a lot higher up. My area is completely flat though but I have a really great view. My new companion is Elder Membrillo, from Trujillo, Peru. He has even less time than I do in the mission! He`s also relatively new in Rimac so niether of us know very many people here. 
 
My ward is the best.  Rimac 2nd ward.  The people are all so nice and the leaders know what they`re doing and know their responsibilities.  They have an efficient ward council.  In my mission I`ve always met people that remind me of people from home and the Relief Society president is exactly the same as mom.
 
I really like my new area. It`s a lot calmer and quieter.  It reminds me of Italy.  The people aren`t suffering as much here and there`s a lot more infrastructure.  It`s not rich, but it`s more comfortable. We have activities in our ward every week and two days a week we offer classes.  I teach English lessons one day and piano lessons another day, while my companion teaches guitar lessons, and one of our recent converts, Angel, is a professional artist and he teaches art classes.  The church has a piano but no one knows how to play it so now I play piano in sacrament!  
 
There are so many people to teach here, and it`s almost impossible to not teach with a member here.  Every morning this week we`ve had to go to the hospital to get some tests done for my companion because something's going on with his stomach and no one knows what.  I really hope he doesn`t go home because he`s such a good missionary.  So yea, I`m really happy here.  This week was mostly getting to know people.  
 
There`s a young woman in our ward that has been investigating the church for over a year and has wanted to get baptized but can`t because she doesn`t have the permission of her grandparents who she lives with, and basically the goal we`ve had is to start to gain the trust of her grandparents, and the grandpa really likes music and coincidentally he has a keyboard and a guitar.  So when we visited them yesterday my companion played something from the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the guitar and I played "Clocks" from Coldplay on the piano because that's the only song I know how to play without sheet music, and it turns out that he really likes American music, and he wanted us to play more and we told him that we`d like to play more but first we have a message we`d like to share with you and your family, so he sat in on a lesson with us and later we played more on his keyboard and guitar and he`s going to come to church on Sunday!  So I think the most important thing I learned from this is that missionaries aren`t robots and everything we do has to do with building a relationship of trust. Also thanks to Jacob West for teaching me "Clocks" on the piano.  
 
I`m really excited to be able to serve here.  This computer isn`t working very well so I`ll have to send pictures next week.  Also I finished the "My Family" book with pictures and stories and everything and I feel really good having that completed.  I hope you guys have a great week! 

Elder Jones      

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