Iron Man--Found

Iron Man came to the Christmas show in Trujillo.

Elder Thorpe, Elder Meaker and Elder Farnsworth with one of the people they are teaching.

Merry Christmas

I will upload more pictures and updates in the next couple of days but things are a bit hectic right now.  We will be able to Skype with Zac on Christmas day so we are very excited.  In the meantime, he wanted me to be sure and post this picture for all of his friends.

Pictures For Today

Zac was in Trujillo for his P-day today so he was able to spend his email time in one of the faster internet cafes.  Pictures come through much easier in Trujillo. 

Inside the room where they hold church meetings.

Zac eating one of his favorite breakfasts, rice and avocado,
in his breakfast pensionista's kitchen.

Looks so yummy.
(And no, Mormons don't drink regular tea but herbal tea is fine and is
frequently served to the missionaries)

Lunch After the Christmas Show Practice

Practicing for the Christmas Show

The missionaries will be performing a Christmas show for the community in Trujillo next Friday and Saturday.  Zac will be playing the drums (trash cans) for one number and singing in another number. His zone will also be doing a show for Viru and Chao.  Zac will be playing the piano (keyboard most likely) for all of the music in those two shows. The mission president's wife, Sister Marler, posted video of the Christmas show last year so we're hoping she does it again this year.  In the meantime, here is a picture that just appeared on the mission president's blog showing Zac practicing for the song he and some other missionaries will be singing next weekend.  I'm including the caption that is posted on the blog.

Elder Terry, Elder Thorpe, Elder Oviatt, Elder Meaker, Elder Endicott, and Elder Farnsworth, perform a beautiful rendition of Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains.

Multi-Zone Training Conference

I found these pictures on the mission president's blog. Zac is the second person on the right sitting next to his companion, Elder Meaker.

He can be seen a little better in this group picture.  He's in the center right, standing next to President Marler.

The Bustling Town of Chao

State of the art transportation

And you can't have a funeral home without an arcade

Thanksgiving in Peru

Zac's district was happy to get packages from Zac's mom filled with ingredients to make their own American Thanksgiving dinner. It looks like their pensionista let them enjoy it in the restaurant instead of in the kitchen in back. The American elders were very thankful to have a meal from home.

Inca Kola goes well with a Thanksgiving feast

More Waterfall Pictures

Zac was at an internet cafe in Trujillo when he emailed today and the internet was much faster than in Chao. Here are the final waterfall pictures:

Thankful for Letters

Zac finally received some letters through dearelder.com and was so happy to hear from Alice and Olivia.  It looks like it's taking about 6 weeks for  the dearelder letters to come but they do eventually get to him and he really appreciates hearing from friends. He wanted me to be sure and thank Alice and Olivia for taking the time to write and update him on what's happening. He really enjoyed their letters and hopes they will write again soon! One more waterfall picture came through this week.  I have no idea why it's sideways but here it is:

Missionaries Love Packages

Looks like some packages came this week. Zac finally got the Flamin' Hot Cheetos he requested! (We have no explanation for the hats.)

Hike To A Waterfall

On Zac's P-day last week his whole zone took a harrowing ride up a mountain in a vehicle packed with twice as many people as it was built for to hike up to a waterfall. He has more pictures but it takes so long for them to upload that this is all that came through this week.

Thanks Neil! And an attempt at audio . . .

First of all, Zac thanks Neil for his letter and his highly entertaining method of applying postage (ask Neil).  Zac really appreciates physical letters.  So, if you have a chance to send him an old-fashioned letter or note please do.  Here is the address again for letters and/or packages:

Elder Zachary Farnsworth
Peru Trujillo Mission
Avenida Larco 849, Piso 3
Urb. La Merced
Trujillo, La Libertad
PERU

Zac also appreciated the comment posted by the LDSSA which I copied and pasted in my email to him as soon as it was posted. Thanks, Kylee!  Here is a picture of Zac's room:

I don't know what that wire is hanging down but it doesn't look very safe.  I guess they don't have a closet which is why their suit coats are hanging on the bedposts. 

Zac sent audio again this week. I'm attempting to post a portion of what he sent which wasn't meant for the blog but I don't think he'd mind if I posted it. 

First Audio Attempt

Zac's sister, Amanda, created this for the blog.  I think it will work. It's an old picture but we thought it looked much better than staring at his room picture while the audio plays.

Peruvian Treats

This is a picture of me eating what's called a Pela Pop. It's an ice cream thing that is basically frozen banana jello on the outside and vanilla ice cream on the inside. You peel it and it looks like a banana.

General Conference One Week Late

So, we got another audio letter this week.  We love the audio letters but they take forever to transcribe.  I am still working on the transcription from last week's letter. As soon as I can I will post some excerpts.  Here are two pictures of Zac listening to General Conference this past weekend. Every April and October the Church has a conference for the members of the church all over the world. Zac wasn't able to hear it live the first weekend in October because they had Peruvian elections and churches were not allowed to be open that weekend. Even though the English speaking missionaries understand Spanish now with no problem, they gave them the option of watching Conference together in English.  So, here are pictures of them watching it in the Branch President's office:

A Message to Stanford Friends and a Picture

Zac sent an audio letter this week instead of a regular letter so I need to transcribe it before I can post any of it to this blog.  I tried to upload a part of it but I can't figure out how to do it. I'll keep working on it. First, here is a message to all Stanford friends. Zac said, "I can't explain why my Stanford friends need to know this, they just do."  So here is the message:

I bought Shrek in Spanish and my district will be watching Shrek together on our next P-day (October 13).  

So, I am relaying this message hoping someone knows what it means and why it's significant.

Zac sent one picture this week.  It appears to be from the week they went to the beach and saw the dead seal:

And here is an observation from last week's letter:

On the cigarette packs here the government mandates that they put a sticker that says NICOTINA ES TAN ADICTIVA COMO HERO.NA (Nicotine is as addictive as heroin), so there´s that.

So There's That . . .

Zac will keep trying, but the internet connection is so slow that the pictures he tries to send won't go through before his time for emailing is up.  Here is an excerpt from his email today:

This week was a good week.  No sickness to report.  On Monday we went to the beach as a zone.  It was really nice.  There wasn't a single person there, and it was super flat and the water was cool.  We also saw a dead seal chillin' on the shore, so there's that. 

There are gonna be local elections in two weeks, so there have been all these tiny Peruvians marching through the streets with weird mountain music blaring out of megaphones and marching bands that can't play.  We're also going to have to not have church October 5th because of the elections. So we just chill in our house all day.  Double P-day sounds good to me. . . . 

I really miss American food.  I'm almost all out of my snacks so hopefully I have a package tomorrow.  

Our hot water broke and supposedly got fixed but it still doesn't work. So, we'll have cold showers for the foreseeable future. . . .  

People also like to wear clothes with English stuff on it. There was an old lady herding sheep yesterday wearing a beige jacket that said, "Sexy."  And we talked to one guy who was wearing a Cal hat and another who was wearing a Cabela's hat.  There's no chance that any of these people have any idea what their clothes say.   But I digress . . .  

I just checked the mission's blog and found this picture of Zac and his whole zone, Zona Viru. There are 11 zones in the Trujillo mission. Apparently, Elder Uceda from the Quorum of the Seventy visited the mission this week and  met with all of the zones. Elder Uceda and his wife, who both served missions in the mission years ago, are sitting in the front center. Zac's mission president, President Marler, and his wife are on the front row on the left.

Under the Weather

Zac was really sick last week. Feel free to send him belated get well wishes through dearelder.com, the pouch system, or the mailing address listed earlier in this blog.  It may take a bit for him to receive letters and post cards but he really appreciates them. He can't print out emails at the internet cafe so he'd really like some physical letters he can have on hand to refer to when he's missing his friends (which is always!).  Anyway, here's a brief excerpt from his letter this week:

Peruvians think if you are sick and drink something cold you're gonna get worse, and if you drink soda you're basically gonna die.  
In other news, I saw a group of kids playing in the street a few days ago and realized one of the kids was whirling around a dead rat by its tail at the other children.  That must have been why they were running.  So there's that. . . . 
I really miss Mexican food. There's no tortillas or salsa or anything in that family down here. I would kill for Chipotle. 

More New Foods

Here's an excerpt from Zac's email this week:

This week has been pretty good. I feel a lot more comfortable with the area and the people and everything. I´ve bonded a lot more with Elder Meaker. He´s hilarious. We have some pretty interesting intellectual discussions and a lot of not-so-intellectual ones as well haha. This week I ate liver, which I liked until I found out it was liver. I also ate cow stomach, which tasted alright but smelled kinda funny and was too squishy. Didn´t like it. . . . Yesterday Elder Meaker and I were walking through the market on our way to lunch, and we saw this shirtless guy wearing a baby mask beating a bucket with a stick and asking for donations. So there´s that. . . .

Here's a picture of Zac's pensionista, Flor and her husband, Overt.  This is the back of the restaurant where Zac eats lunch and dinner everyday.  You can see Elder Gonzalez's birthday cake that he was able to enjoy after he survived the birthday egging.

                                     Here is a picture of Zac's apartment:

                       And here are pictures of the building where the Church meets:

                                                     Zac with Elder Meaker:

 Finally, here's a quote I got from Elder Gonzalez's blog this week:  "Fun Fact: Peruvians don't have the mouth muscles required to say the word 'Farnsworth.'"

Peruvian Birthday Traditions

We won't hear from Zac again until Monday but in the meantime I found some information from other missionaries in Zac's district this week. A district is a group of 6 missionaries.  Apparently, in Peru it's traditional to have eggs thrown at your head on your birthday.  This is a picture of Zac's district leader, Elder Gonzalez.  It was his birthday this week and he got the full egg treatment.  You can see Zac in the background.

Elder Gonzalez is training Elder Craft who was with Zac in the Peru MTC.  Zac and Elder Craft became very good friends in the MTC so Zac is happy that Elder Craft is in his district.  Here's a picture of Elder Gonzalez with Elder Craft.

And here's a picture of the other 2 elders in Zac's district--Elder McClellan and Elder Muguerza.

They've already had a baptism since Zac arrived in Chao.  Zac is on the far right.

In the Middle of Nowhere

Zac forgot to take his card reader to the internet cafe today so there's no new pictures but I think he'll be sure to send some next Monday.  In the meantime, here's an excerpt from his email today:

Hey guys,

I´m in a little town called Chao, which is a suburb of Viru. It´s basically in the middle of nowhere. We have a little tiny chapel that holds about 70 people (it´s a branch). Church last Sunday was good. . . . I live in a pretty spacious apartment, but there´s nothing in it. We have a bunk bed, a desk, a dresser, and a bathroom. We have warm water. There´s tons of stores everywhere, but just little tiny shops. No big stores like Tottus or anything. The weather is super hot. Chao is a desert. . . .The food in general is really good. We have one pench who fixes us lunch and dinner. She owns a restaurant and we just go in the back to eat. Then we have another pench for breakfast and laundry. I thought she was pretty good, until this morning she gave us gizzard and onion sandwiches. I ate one but I couldn´t make myself eat the second one. Meaker seemed to like it...

Zac's reference to a "pench" is his slang for pensionista.  There are members of the Church in Peru who volunteer to take care of the missionaries by cooking for them and doing their laundry.  A "branch" refers to the size of the congregation.  A full size congregation is referred to as a ward (approximately 300 people).  A congregation not yet big enough for a ward is called a branch. 

Trujillo At Last!

29 new missionaries arrived with Zac in Trujillo on Tuesday, August 26th. After they arrived at the airport a bus took them to see some of the sights.  Here he is in the back of the bus on the left:

They climbed to the top of an ancient temple burial ground from approximately 200-400 A.D. The scaffolding seen in the background on the left is the new temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints scheduled to be finished sometime in 2015.  Zac is in the back on the left:

Then they went to the mission home of the mission president and received instructions on what to expect.  After that they participated in some workshops and waited to find out who their new training companions would be.  Zac is on the right about 4 rows back.  He's wearing a red tie:

 Finally, he found out who would be training him for the next 6 weeks.  It's Elder Meaker from the state of Washington.  Elder Meaker has been in Peru since last December.  Looks like Zac got a haircut before he left Lima!

Zac's P-day will now be on Mondays so there will probably be more pictures and info to post after Zac's email on Monday.

Next Stop Trujillo!

Here is an excerpt from Zac's email this week:

Today is my last P-day until I get one in Trujillo, which I don´t know when that´ll be. . . . Anyway, this morning we went to the temple, and after that we as a district went to Subway with our teacher, Hermano Huita. It was the greatest thing I´ve ever eaten. Made it a combo with a cookie and an Inca Kola. I also got a cool llama hat today that I´ll send a pic of in a week or so. I want you to see if you can find a type of cookie in the states. They´re called "Casinos." Best cookies ever. The ones that are coconut flavored (sabor coco) taste like macaroons. 

They´re super popular in Peru.

Here's a picture of the cookies I think he's talking about:

It's hard to believe that Zac would think Subway is the greatest thing he's ever eaten. (Sorry Jack.) He flies out on Tuesday, August 26, for Trujillo. His mission president's wife is very good about taking pictures when they come out of the airport so I hope to have some pictures of him arriving in Trujillo by this time next week.

Peru Missionary Training Center

In his email this week, Zac said he can't send more pictures until he gets to Trujillo. So, I thought I'd post a few pictures of the missionary training center in Lima where he's living until August 26.

Here's the soccer field where he was pleased to score a goal this week:

And here's a picture of Zac in front of the Lima temple:

Zac said he's starting to think in Spanish which is great but he's very anxious to get to Trujillo so he can get more experience talking to native speakers.  Only 10 more days!