Elder Ball in Peru Lima North

Taylor overlooking the City Lights in Peru! Wow! Que loco! So this week was very crazy! We left the airport Monday night at midnight, and arrived in Peru at 6 am... I was running off of two hours of sleep the first day we were here! Crazy! Leaving Mexico was a little bit of both happy and sad. I really enjoyed our district, and we had such a great time, great leaders, great teachers, and loved all of the stuff I learned! We were sad to leave each other, but it is all for the better! We had a crazy takeoff, it took forever! And the landing was in the low clouds... Scary! But we made it safe, and drove straight to the Mission home! (After we left Elders Olsen and Morris, going to Lima East.) We had some breakfast, had some training, had some introductions, and in total we had 11 Gringos, I think... 8 from My district! We then sat in the chapel, had the new missionaries on the one side, the Trainers on the other, he called us up one by one and...

Heidi here!  I received a phone call from Taylor at 10:00 PM Monday the 14th of August while he was at the Mexico City Airport!  He was letting me know he was on his way to Lima Peru. He sounded just wonderful, excited, and so prepared to get serving.  It was so good to hear his voice after 6 weeks! His preparation days will now be on Monday, so I'll look forward to being able to post all of his letters/pictures then. The following day, I received an email from the Mission Office in Lima with a few pictures and a letter home he had written.  He looks so tired, the poor thing!  I guess that's what an all night flight will do to you! Let the adventure REALLY begin! Taylor with President and Sister Godfrey Elder Ball after a LONG plane ride New Peru Lima North Missionaries with President and Sister Godfrey  Taylor's letter home: Hola Familia! How's everything going? We are all set up now, except for our companions, zone, ...

Sorry for the cheesy title, but I can't wait! I leave this next Monday to head on out to Peru! I leave this Monday at 12:30 AM, so technically Tuesday, but we leave the MTC at 8:00 Monday! I already have my filter water bottle!  This last week has been interesting! It really has all of the sudden turned into week one again! We are going over every part of Preach my Gospel, like we did on week one, and we are learning how to start our first lessons... Like we did on week one! We are learning how to make a plan for a lesson... Like week one... But it's all good stuff! And much more fun now that I can talk in much better Spanish than in week one! That’s probably why we are doing it all over! Haha! We really lucked out on with all of our teachers and leaders at the CCM! Presidente Lyons again has been such an amazing example! His wife has been super sick, and is going into surgery this week. He really appreciates all of the support he gets! He is so busy… he has to help hi...

Well, this week was interesting!  We had a lot of changing around! First we moved classrooms! It was mega sad! We had a beautiful view of these mountains, a little area outside on the grass, trees, birds, sun, the bathrooms were right there… It was fantastic! And now that the number of people here at the CCM is 650, they had to move a lot of people around! Now we are in the middle of the John Taylor building, which is in the middle of a long hallway with the drinking fountain at the end, the windows are blurred out (we can only see another building anyway), it has more mosquitoes, and is so large for 12 people it echoes! But we are doing alright now, and there are way worse things to worry about! But, having to walk for 5 minutes to get to the bathroom isn't very fun! The big change this week was our houses. In our house, we had two rooms (a total of 8 people from our district) and 3 rooms of another district. The other three have been kind of annoying, but I can sleep thr...

¡Hola! Well, We are halfway through the CCM! It's going great here! It's just beginning to look the same! So This weekend is Peruvian Independence day! We can't wait! We are going all out on Chokies (Chips ahoy), Krispy Kream's, Gudu Cubos (Starbursts), Pake Taxos (Chex Mix Mexican style), and we are going to play UNO until 10:35! Rebels! But I mean, we have to party for our independence day since we missed the 4th! We are thinking of bringing the flag with us to all of our classes! It will be fun! Today is our first P-Day, and it's weird not having to go to class! We went to the temple two times in a row, and didn't have any P-Day the first week. So now we are just taking the whole day to take siestas! We are going to go play some beach volleyball in a little bit!  We have been joking around this whole time calling it the CCEmbassy. It really doesn't feel too much like mexico in here. We have pretty much everything we had back home, and th...

Hola! Wow! This has been such an amazing experience here! I'm sorry for all of the typos there probably are, I cant see anything since the computers can only autocorrect spanish here! Haha! Well, even though the days are starting to be the same every day, its been so wonderful! We have two spanish teachers, Hermanas Corea and Sausedo. They are really making us speak spanish at every moment we can! We go to language usually in the morning and during the evening every day! Hablemos en español cada dia, cada momento! It's so crazy how the gift of tongues allows me to keep on top of spanish here! We have probably the worst accents on the face of the planet, we don't know how to have daily conversation, but we all can pray and testify in awesome spanish! Not a person here is afraid to do either! It has been so fantastic to see the blessings that come! But it is still a lot of work, and our days are packed with spanish! In the CCM we have our teachers become investiga...

Wow! There is so much going on down here! I just can't even believe how crazy it is to jump right into spanish nearly 24/7! So far we have only sung one hymn in english, prayed once in english, and asked a few questions in english! We have amazing teachers, amazing leaders, and an amazing branch presidency! There are so many different and new things that I was able to learn this week, both spiritually (in spanish of course..) and new spanish words! The plane ride here was great, and I actually became pretty good friends with an Elder Powell, who we met at the airport, going to Lima North, we walked together bought breakfast, and now he is our District leader! So week one is over and I am already Zone leader for Zone 11! District 11C (And no not in the hunger games, we do not have any hunger here!) We have an amazing little district 11C, which is super fun to say in spanish by the way! And I just feel like it is such a great opportunity to be able to help out our zone and dist...