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!

Visited the 5,000 year old city of Caral which is about 120 miles from Lima.  It is believed to be the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. It's more than 1,000 years older than Machu Picchu of the Incas.