Elder Luke Christensen **** Huancayo Peru Mission: I'm in Huanuco Just for Me

Well family and friends,

I realized I have an awful English vocab. jaja (not in bad words. I just don't really remember English words.) It seems to be getting worse!

I have about a year left in the mission!! haha crazy right. It's flying. My hump day is September 8th, but I think my release day is somewhere around August 10 or 16, 2017! The mission is crazy, and it's going by crazy fast!

I have had a great week. First off, we got to go to Real Plaza. Real Plaza is just like a crappy Peruvian version of a mall. It is super small in Huanuco, but, I mean, it has escalators, so that's cool! I haven't seen one of those in almost a year! So Elder Schully and I went up and down like 3 or 4 times just cuz I won't see another one again in a really long time. I also was able to hold a Guitar Hero controller. jaja!!! IT WAS SO AWESOME! I cleaned a part off and then I kissed it! haha I was so tempted to play it, but I prayed for help and the tempation went away! That was probably the hardest thing that I have had to do in my whole mission!! That was harder than 3 months in Carhuamayo. jaja! Really, I'm just kidding! But, we also got to browse through all of the stores. They are not that cool. But, I did see a really cool TV that I had never seen before. And now I kind of want it. It also had a snowboarding movie, called The Art of Flight, playing. I was so happy to see some snowboarding. Then we went and ate grilled chicken with potatoes. I didn't eat the potatoes. After last Monday I will never eat another potatoe again!

Selfie in a nice mall restroom!

Eating a hamburger at the mall! It was soooo good!

Luke hadn't had a hamburger for a long time!

Luke at Real Plaza.

He found a Guitar Hero .... he's obviously missed his Xbox

Luke and his "babes"!

So that was Monday. The rest of the week I was super happy, even though it was an awful week of work. We had a ton of lessons, about 26, but we had 3 people kick us out of their house, and like another 5 people open the door and close it right away! Then we came to a house, it's address was Jr Progreso 666 (sounds a little scary, huh!). I walked over and contacted it just to see what was up in the house. I knocked on the door and they didn't answer, so I rang the door bell like 2 times. Finally this old man walked out, he was so furious at us. He asked us, "what is with your awful manners in ringing my door bell?" He said that two times then yelled the third one. Then my comp started to talk. He said, "we are missionaries. and we are here to help you to learn about the gospel". Then the dude was so furious! He then asked me very angry, "WHY DID YOU RING MY DOORBELL?" so I said, "WHY DO YOU HAVE A DOORBELL", then he stopped! and I said we are here to save you, so why are you treating us so awful? He then said "I don't care about God!!" and slammed the door! After that I just started laughing! That normally would make us feel bad, but i just started laughing, even my comp was laughing. In fact, I am still laughing about it. I've never been treated quite like that!

It's hard here in Pedro Puelles. And I have come to the conclusion that this area is for me to learn. It is for me to learn patience and also for me to be able to realize what I really want most in life. I have an hour or more a day of just meditation. I really do love reading and pondering about the gospel, what it does for us, why I'm here and what I'm learning. I really love the mission just because it is helping me change so much spiritually and mentally. I'm learning and I'm growing through the trials that we are facing here, it's hard. It's hard for many reasons, one, because not one person in this whole dang area wants to listen to us. It just makes me a little bit sad that no one wants to listen to us. Most don't even give us a chance. We are teaching some really cool and great people, but they won't ever come to church and they can't progress if they don't go to church. I just wish they could see the whole picture like we see it, then they would give everything to have what we have in the gospel. My comp and I are really helping the ward out though, and I'm sure that is partly why we are here too. They (the leaders) are really changing so fast. That makes me happy to see them do things the way they really need to be done. Funny when you grow up around it all of your life you take so many things for granted in the church, just knowing the week to week running of the church seems so simple, but not to these people here. I don't have any other cool stories or people to write about. I'm out of time so next week I'll tell you about a guy named Raul. I will explain his story. He is a less active and I leave a message with him every time we see him, and I feel like it's changing me. This guy is litterally changing my life and changing my attitude with his stories. That's all for this week. So, until next week ...

Love you all,

Elder Christensen