Life in Lima

¡Hola! Life’s been pretty good in the Lima CCM. Yesterday was really entertaining. As part of our training, we teach people in some pretty cool little houses designed specifically to harbor our teaching simulations, and the people we teach look suspiciously like our teachers... So we were teaching one guy and we were talking about the gospel and how baptism is a huge step in following Christ, and he said that he’s super addicted to smoking and drinking, and he didn’t know how he could stop. So I offered to give him a blessing, but as soon as I offered, I remembered that this was only a simulation, and that I wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate to give him a blessing. So I told him we’d give him a blessing next time we saw him. It was really funny because I was so confused as to what I should do and he could clearly see it and had to try really hard to hide his amusement (like I said, he looked suspiciously like my teacher, even though he claimed his name was Fernando…). The other day we were driving in Lima and there was a billboard with a picture of a cute little kid in a soccer jersey and holding a soccer ball (sorry, football) and the sign said ‘’¿Deportes?´´ too which someone who totally does not know Spanish said ‘’Why are they going to deport him, he looks so happy!?!?’’ (deportes means sports) On a more spiritual side, I’ve learned a lot this week. I’ve learned that even when you are super tired because you got barely any sleep the night before, when you force yourself to stay awake and study Spanish while praying super hard that you can receive help being awake, you will learn Spanish super-fast, after a little bit you’ll be wider awake than you’d be if you had just woken from a great night’s sleep, and you’ll really feel the spirit. But thankfully you don’t have to be super tired feel the spirit. Sorry, I don’t have any cool pictures for the week except this hibiscus (I think) outside the temple. They have TONS of these around the temple. They also have a cool store near the temple that sells llama ties with Moroni or llamas on them, so in typical Nathan fashion I bought two pink ones. But they have super awesome Christus statues there for 88 soles (3 soles to a dollar), so I had to exercise a bunch of self-control in there. Well, my time’s up today, so adios!