I think there was a brain in my soup...

Hola!

Seriously. Most of the time I LOVE the food (rice and limes for daaayyyss!) but this time the soup had some chicken in it and a piece of the meat honestly looked like it was a brain. And the meat definitely didn´t look like it was like part of the chicken breast. Needless to say, I didn´t finish that soup.

Look up granadias. They´re this funny fruit and you have to like swallow the seeds, no chewing, and they´re slimy and kinda look like troll snot from the first Harry Potter movie, but they´re soooo good.

So this week we had to go to Immigrations and Interpol. Which was.... fun :) We´ll go with fun. The immigrations day we had to spend almost six hours sitting and/or standing in line for a lady to do our immigration paperwork for us in like five minutes. At one point I slept for like 20 minutes. #sleepanywhere But luckily we went with all of the Elders and Hermanas that we flew into Peru with, so it was just fun to chat and laugh our heads off. One of the Hermanas, Hermana Mitchell who´s in a different district, and I made up these weird creatures that I´m not going to explain because it would take too long, and frankly, we sound like crazy people. That´s what the CCM does to you, kids. It teaches you to be awesome missionaries, but you completely lose your normal brain in the process :) Interpol day was cool, I guess. One of the Elders who is two weeks ahead of us, Elder Quesne - he´s from England, taught us a bunch of riddles and we just laughed our heads off again. I also got fingerprinted at Interpol, which was kinda cool.

(Kelly here: I think this picture must be from her flight to Peru)

Halloween just wasn´t Halloween, which was sad, but at least I´m missing it because I´m serving a mission in Peru!! We didn´t do anything. Except we gave some of the elders cookies and they gave us some different cookies. Kind of like trick-or-treating, right? :) And it was also some random Peruvian holiday, so we got cupcakes at dinner and traditional foods during lunch. Good stuff.

My teachers are the best people ever. Hermano Davalos FINALLY started speaking to us in English, and we were totally right. He´s practically fluent. He wanted to wait until we were no longer the beginners (which happened this week! I´m now an intermediate! Yay!) and then he´d speak in English to us occasionally. He´s absolutely hilarious. One of the riddle things we´ve been talking about for days is this shape you´re supposed to draw without picking up your pencil or tracing over a line that´s already been drawn, and Elder Budden (the solo Iquitos missionary in our district) says it´s possible, but we´re all fairly certain he´s lying to us, and when we asked Hermano Davalos he was like "It´s impossible. I spent my WHOLE CHILDHOOD trying to figure that out!".  Well, it was much funnier in person, promise :) And we´re the last district he´s ever going to work with! His contract here ends as soon as we all leave for the field.

Hermana Villanueva, our afternoon teacher, is just the cutest person ever. I love her to death. There just aren´t words (or time, frankly) to write about how hilarious and amazing she is. But trust me, she´s the best! I have a picture of me and her at the temple, hopefully I can get it to upload today, but it´ll be sent eventually.

Hermana Villanueva and Hermana Hill

Pdays here are awesome. We wake up earlier than normal, go to the temple, and then we can shop around Lima for a few hours. Which is slightly scary, and I don´t love the bus systems here, but at least we always have like 6 elders walking with us who are overly concerned with our well-being. It´s really sweet, actually. They´re amazing missionaries. I know I´ve said it before and I´ll probably keep saying it, but my district it THE BEST. And I love all of them so much!

So, I´ve seen about a million and four Spider-Man things here. Posters, magazines, action figures, etc. and it´s my favorite. I don´t know why Lima seems to have a thing for my main man, Spider-Man, but I´m super loving it. They also have fake Christmas trees and decorations for sale now! I. Love. Christmas.

'Merica

A couple of you asked, so here´s the weather report. It´s never very hot, maybe like in the 70´s at the very hottest, and that´s only happened a few times. It doesn´t really rain in Lima, but occasionally it "mists" which is kind of what their rain is, but it just feels like you´re walking through a spray bottle mist. It´s not very humid, kind of perfect actually, but my hair is still trying to get used to the slight humidity. Messy hair for the win!

So, other random thoughts before I get to the spiritual stuff.

I miss jeans and American food. I miss music. The hermanas in our room that are in the other district, Hermana Christianson y Hermana Mitchell, left sticky notes all over my mirror and it absolutely made my whole day. They're so funny and I wish they were going to Cusco with us! Piura is lucky to have them though! We got new Elders and Hermanas yesterday, so we´re officially not the newbies! So weird, but so exciting.

Hermana Russell and Hermana Hill

Hermana Russell and Hermana Hill

So in our investigator's lessons this week, one time I spoke Spanish without even realizing it because it was entirely the gift of tongues. Spanish is crazy hard for me, and the only way I´m doing any of this is with the Lord´s help. I know that this church is true and I´m thankful every minute of every day that I made the decision to serve a mission. It´s hard, don´t get me wrong. I cry a lot (for every reason possible - I´m the cryer, remember?) and I´m tired constantly, Spanish isn´t coming quite as fast as I wish it would, but I´m also happier than I ever expected I would be. I LOVE this gospel!

I´m also already losing my English, so don´t judge if there are typos or grammar mistakes. I can´t speak Spanish, but I´m already losing my English. It´s a fun conundrum. (Does that word even fit in that sentence??)

Te amo!

Hermana Hill