Monday, February 12, 2018

Week 62 - Buses, More Buses, Carnival and a Baptism



Buenos Dias,

This has been one crazy week here in Los Baños del Inca... or maybe it would be better said in Trujillo, Celendin, and trapped in our room. This was a very out of the ordinary week here in Cajamarca. Monday morning about midday we took a bus to Trujillo. The bus ride can range anywhere between 6-8 hours... and usually it is super luxury and comfy, but for us... we had the nice cramped bus without air-conditioning nor windows. I think everyone was just about cooked alive by the time we arrived to Trujillo ha-ha. It was still a great time though. The entire zone in one little bus. We spent the night at the Temple facility in Trujillo and Monday morning we had an awesome conference with President Marble and 2 other zones. We talked about the importance of following through what we commit to do. How can we expect our investigators to do what we invite them to if we ourselves are not disciplined? After our conference we went to a Temple session as a zone followed by an overnight return trip to Cajamarca... in the same tiny hot bus. Hahaha. A little miserable was the bus ride but the conference and temple visit was awesome. Wednesday we spent the day proselyting in Los Baños del Inca and yet again Thursday morning we took a nice bus ride to Celendin to do a baptismal interview and to be there for the service as well. Celendin is the most isolated part of the entire mission, being 3 hours away from Cajamarca, which is already 3 hours away from the rest of the mission in Trujillo. We spent Thursday proselyting in Celendin and Friday we got to see the baptismal service of Sister Nelida. Celendin is a tiny little branch and so they do not baptize in the church rather they usually baptize in a river or during the rainy season in whatever body of water they can find. This Friday they baptized in a hotels swimming pool. Although the service was beautiful... the water was not... it was a nice shade of dark green full of bugs and algae... I guess it is the spiritual cleansing and not the physically being clean that matters. Well the service was on Friday and in the evening we returned to Baños. Why the service was on a Friday? Well it is because Saturday was one of the big days of Carnival here in Cajamarca. I believe it is a celebration before the beginning of the Catholic lent, but it is really just an excuse to throw paint, water, or even burnt oil and food at any passerby of the opposite sex. There is also a huge parade and lots of friends taking advantage of the time to get a little drunk and make it nice and dangerous for the missionaries. This means Saturday from the moment we woke up until the moment we went to bed we did not have permission to leave our rooms... It got nice and boring. It was pretty fun though to see, from our balcony, all the crazy painted cars and people dressed up as all sorts of things. Today as well was a big carnival day where they even cut the power so people would not have excuses to stay at home... We try to avoid most of the Carnival shenanigans but it would be a lie to say a few water balloons were not tossed from our balcony.  Also our pensionista, her daughter, and her niece got us nice and wet on our way to lunch. With buckets and buckets and buckets of water. It is all in good fun though and other than being a little bored in our rooms carnival is a great fun for everyone. Well this has been a great week and hopefully we can survive the rest of carnival... literally no one is safe... even the stake president got soaked by his neighbor while he was in his suite. He was opening up the door to let us in for lunch and the neighbors came out of nowhere to surprise him. Oh well welcome to Cajamarca. 

Love Elder Vassau

Photos from Temple and my companion and I soaking wet before lunch






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