It's All Good - Field Week 2

Hola Amigos!!

This week definitely felt a lot longer than just 7 days. So many amazing and fun experiences, but also a lot of slow boring moments stretching on and on throughout the day.

So I have language study for the first 12 weeks while I am here. Which means I have 4+ hours of studying every day. Personal, companion, language, and the training program for 12 weeks. This is a lot of studying to do, especially all at once. So multiple days this week I fell asleep during one or more of the studies, which is no bueno!! My goal is to bring the hours slept during study to a zero!!

This week was hard, but I had some cool and fun experiences too.

The dryer we have is kinda wobbly and tends to move, but not that much...at least we thought. So during the day it shook itself in front of the door which happened to be closed. We couldn’t get into the room for a solid minute there. Both Eder Bird and I had our G's in the washer/dryer respectively. We finally got in though, but my arm was all red from pushing through the tiny door crack.

We also had super awesome food this week from members and of course Chef Elder Petersen over here. We had bomb fajitas, Chicken Alfredo, pork tacos, a full T-bone steak, BBQ sandwiches, and some bomb Peruvian food. That day was soo long, but soo fun. It was fast Sunday the next day and normally we fast dinner and breakfast, but we had a dinner appointment. The appointment was sooo early though! So we ended up fasting for close to 26 hours or so by the time we ate dinner on Sunday. That dinner was with the Chielos (or the Peruvian family). I ate sooo much. They only spoke Spanish and were teaching us how to try to roll our Rs and trying to teach us how to cook this meal in 10 minutes. They really are a bomb member family. They never come to church, but their testimonies are awesome. At least what I understood was awesome haha. But anyways I ate soo much of the food, they asked me if I wanted to take the sauce with me and make it at home. I said no, but they forced me to take a picture of it. It’s just sweet and sour sauce haha. The dish was also kind of Asian and they asked if my family was part Asian, I think they were making a joke, or I couldn’t understand them the entire time so my eyes were squinted in concentration. But they were awesome.

Bike day brings miracles.

We are in a large area with a lot of country between towns. It is so nice when we are just driving after or before a dinner appointment and the "rainbow" sunsets happen, or the clouds are dope!! The sky is pretty out here, but this bike day was rough, but also awesome. Elder Brandner’s bike is a street bike and needed a different pump so his is now flat. But we met these awesome ladies, got a referral, and later in the day set 3 baptism dates!!!! Yaga!!! So that is awesome! Be watching for October 10th. Hopefully we get 3 baptisms that Saturday!! 

Yesterday was probably the hardest day so far. I was just super tried. I am tired everyday, but today was just bad. I didn’t have a good attitude, and just felt horrible. We came back from church and did another like 3 hours of studying, and I wasn’t having it. I read "The Miracle of a Mission" and President Hinckley’s testimony. Both of those things made me feel just, . . .  I don’t know how to put it, supported? By the Lord and my family, and friends, and Jesus. They both talk about the power of missions and the gospel in general, and I’ll probably have to read them every time it’s hard, or I won’t make it, haha. After that I ate a bunch of tacos and forgot myself and went to work. Which was hard, but I prayed to be the instrument in His hand. Even though it was a struggle, I forced myself to be positive. To stop being lazy, and go the extra mile. I am really grateful for that experience. We got a whole lot of nothing on Sunday, and I got my first door shut in my face. Let’s go!! We had 3 lessons with Latinos and none of them were home, but we made a fun Spanish video so that was alright!!

Elder Brandner learned that I know a few things about exercise and lifting, and has made it his goal to get swole this transfer. The problem is he knows very little and doesn’t listen to me in how to do it. So we ran every morning, and worked out every night except outbreak days of Sunday and Monday. I’m really happy to be working out again because I thought I would just get all fat and sassy. We also do an ab workout every morning after the run and to be honest they are not hard, but Bird and Brandner are dead after it every day. So sometimes I get the first shower (if I’m not nice and give it to Bird). We even did a ‘lil neck day in memory of Chummers. Bird hated it. But Bird hates working out and would rather eat his Laffy Taffys, but we still love him.

I want to try and share a message in Spanish every week to help me in the language, so here we go:

mi mensaje en español es muy simple. es fácil tener pensamientos negativos, o tener una actitud negativa cuando el trabajo es difícil. pero sé que si nos olvidamos de nosotros mismos, y nuestros sentimientos asustados o cansados, y nos vamos a trabajar. si hacemos esto entonces todos los sentimientos thise serán mejores y usted puede divertirse y disfrutar del trabajo.

Also sorry for not putting the little special things for the past 3 weeks, so here is a list of all of them I think, but I could have missed a few here and there.

los poco cosas especiales de las últimas 3 semanas:

President Hinckley, Elder Holland, videos, tacos, tournaments, Peruvians, epic catches, the country, highways, clouds, being sore, pillow talk, arboletas, Bap dates, chest/tri day, Bike day, working out, niñas, night driving,  soap, smells, letters, fajitas, prayer, sarcasm, slow Spanish, rainbow sunsets, pictures, days, hype, discussions, emotions, honesty, homies, grandmas, grandpas, talking, hand written notes, family, homies again, watches, whiteboards, beds, homies again, forgiveness, visits from friends, hellos, positivity, clothes, toughness, virtue, honesty, wisdom, creation, letters again, ideology, books, eye contact, hot chocolate, a laugh, sprinkler Barlow Park, a "w", reminiscing, BBQs, juice, paninis, words, pictures, lakes

I’m so grateful every time I get an email or message from anyone!! Thank you for supporting me!!

Te amo

-Max

P.S.: Elder Rapp dropped 2 new songs to follow up "I got bit by a bear." If you want it I can share it with you.

P.P.S.: I have already kind of started having a Kentuckian/Indianan accent and that’s siiick!!