Week Six: In the Field!

I´m alive!!!!
Story time, here we go:

So on Saturday morning, I had to wake up at 2:45 to get ready and leave for the airport at 3:30.

The plane landed in Trujillo around 7. The Mission President and his wife (The Marlers) picked us up in a charter bus and took us to a local chapel to drop off our things. (There are pictures on their blog at KurtandKathyMarler.blogspot.com)

We ate breakfast in the cultural hall and then we each had an interview with President Marler. He is incredibly great. We talked about my family, the gospel, and folk music because he is a fan as well.

Then we all walked to the mission home for lunch.  The mission home is super nice and has a really nice guitar so I played that until I had a blister on my finger.

Then, we walked back to the chapel where all of the trainiers were waiting for us.  One by one, they called out the names of the new missionary and then announced their area and companion.
My companion is......Elder Leavitt (pronounced Leh-vit). I know that I said that like everyone´s first companion is a Latino but Elder Leavitt is a redhead from Utah, haha.

The view from our window

Our area is Cartavio. Cartavio is a small pueblito about an hour north of Trujillo.  Elder Leavitt has been on his mission for seven months and he has spent all seven in Cartavio.  Therefore, he knows like every person and street which is really helpful.  He will be training me in Cartavio until February. After that, he will probably leave and I will stay here with a new companion. It is really weird that I am going to be in one place for that long. We are excited for "Christmas in Cartavio."

Cartavio is a very small dirt town that is centered around two factories.  (See if it is on Google maps). One is a milk factory and the other is a sugar factory.  Everyone in the town works for either the milk factory, the sugar factory, or owns a small shop.  The people are really humble and friendly.  When we are walking from one appointment to another, people often yell "Elderes!" They are all really shocked that there are two gringoes in Cartavio.  Kids especially like to talk to us.

We have a "pensionista" that cooks all three meals a day for us. She owns a small restaurant and we live in a room right above it.  It´s like Wizards of Waverly Place except we are South American missionaries instead of New Yorker wizards.

We have a decent size room with two beds, two desks, and a small bathroom.  When the restaurant is using water, we don´t have any. And even when we do, we don´t have hot water.  We keep two big five gallon buckets in the shower full of water to shower with when we dont have any water.  We are real Cartavians, we are fitting right in.

The temple in progress

After the taxi, bus and then mototaxi that it took to get here, I threw my things in the room and we got to work. We went to the houses of our investigators to apologize for missed appointments and to introduce me.

On Sunday, we went to church and then spent the whole day proselyting. I will write more about my schedule later.

Today is Pday! So Mondays will be when I email. The time will change but it should almost always be Monday. Today, I bought a speaker so that I could listen to music because man I missed that. Then, we took a bus to Chiclin to get lunch with the district leader.  Then as a district we made a cake which is in the oven while I am writing from this internet cafe. And since we are allowed to watch Disney, Pixar or Dreamworks movies, we are watching Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 tonight.

Dont worry about my Spanish because my companion is American. He is fully fluent and I am already expected to teach half of the lesson. Elder Leavitt is fantastic.  He is super obedient, super diligent, and super patient.  I expect to be fluent by the end of my training.

I want to write a lot more about our investigators and the members but I dont have time so expect that to be almost all of the next email.

Tomorrow, we are going to meet with the zone leaders and the have all of my letters :)

I love it here and I love you all there,

Elder Gonzalez

Our room