Week 12: Thanksgiving and Transfers

This week started with a trip down to Piura. On the way down we took the VIP bus which has super nice wide seats that are like beds. The 6 hours went quick, I didn't sleep but it was nice and relaxing. Spent one day there, ate Papa Johns which is always delicious and then came back. But on the way back we got the economic bus, which is super small, cramped, hot, and boring. So that was a long 6 hour bus ride. 

Then it was Thursday, aka Thanksgiving. We woke up in the morning knowing that we were going to eat a lot so we went for a run. It was the first time I've worked out, we ran about 2.5 miles. I felt so good after wards. We then played a game of soccer which we called our turkey bowl. Then for lunch we got our food to go, we brought it to our room, cooked stuffing, mashed potatoes, and the pumpkin spice cooks. We had  rice, chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, potato/beet salad, and rolls. I felt pretty bad after wards, me and my comp got sick for about 4 hours after wards, but it was so delicious and worth it. 

The next morning we woke up at 5:30 am to go to the gym. (we can only go to the gym from 6-7 am here, so we rarely go). We ran to the gym, but it was closed so we decided to go for another run. Ran for another 2 miles. Then for that entire day, I could barely move, my legs were super sore and my body was exhausted. But once again, it was worth it. 

This  week we also made some homemade juice. First we made Maracura juice. It is super sour and delicious. But then you add some sugar and it is the most delicious thing ever. Then we made papaya juice too, that was terrible, we ran out of sugar so it was so gross. Another thing I found out this week is that if you add lime to anything is makes it delicious. Its really popular to have red onion and lime on the side of a meal, its so tasty. Then we were at a members for lunch yesterday, on the side was a big bowl of cucumbers. I thought oh no, I hate cucumbers, but I have to eat it otherwise they will hate me. I ate one bite, found out they were soaked in lime juice. I couldn't stop eating them they were so good. Another really famous food here is Paneton, its just bread with chucks of fruit in it. Almost everybody loves it here, they have it at every meal. I tried it, and it is gross. Today for lunch we went to this restaurant, we got a starter soup. In the soup it had a chicken foot, chicken neck, chicken spine, chicken heart, and a chicken liver. It was weird but tasted good. Then had a delicious piece of fish.

On Friday this week we had a talent show with investigators and members, it turned into just a bunch of people dancing. Then we also got transfers this week. Training's are always 2 transfers, so you stay with the same companion and same area, or so I thought. Me and my companion will be switching areas to Triunfo 1. Which is across the street from my area now, it was the zone leaders area, but both of them got replaced. So we are getting 2 new zone leaders that will take over my area. So I'll be training the zone leaders on our old area while figuring out a new area that me and my comp have no idea about. This next week is going to be a lot of fun, but a lot, like a ton of work. But the nicest thing about it all is that we don't have to move rooms, since we would just move across the hall. So after writing today me and my comp have to go pick up the new zone leaders, and 2 Hermanas that are moving into our district. But neither of them have phones so we get to sit at the bus station waiting for them. 

It was a great week full of great times and experiences, many more are to come. I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving and that everyday is the best day ever. 

Love, 

Elder Luke Gruber

Week 11: Peru Gano

This week was a great week, lots of work, lots of fun, and lots of great experiences. It started off with my first exchanges. Where I go and live with another Elder for 24 hours. It was fun to be in a different area and be with a different companion. I learned a lot and found different ways to improve and be better. There were also 3 earthquakes this week. I felt 2 of them, the 3rd I was asleep for. They weren't that big, but you could still fell them. There's rumors going around that there is going to be a big one soon. But I doubt it. 

Then on Wednesday night Peru played New Zealand for the last time, winner goes to the world cup. It was a really big game. Everybody locked themselves in their houses. So we were told just to go to our rooms and study since we weren't allowed to watch the game. But because we have a balcony we made dinner, and studied on the balcony listening to the screams of everybody. It was very obvious when something good went Peru´s way. Peru ended up winning 2-0. When the final whistle blew the small town of Tumbes went absolutely crazy. Everybody flooded the streets screaming, crying, blasting music, for a good hour and a half there was a constant stream of fireworks, cars honking nonstop, people yelling in the streets. It was absolutely crazy. It was super hype. The next day was a ¨national holiday¨ everybody was off of school and work, just everybody celebrating and still going crazy. That was the highlight of the week. 

On Friday we had a service project at a members house. We tore down her house. Half the houses here are just stick walls, with mud/concrete holding the sticks together. So we took crowbars, hammers, and with our hands destroyed their house. It was really fun, and was probably the best workout I've had since being here. It was great. Then we started cutting the bamboo type trees they bought to rebuild the house. Then that night we had a stake movie night to get investigators and members to come and have fun. But the stake chose a really bad movie (the one with Chris Evans and his daughter who is a math genius). It was fun, but the movie was pretty bad. Then on Sunday I was told I had to give a 15 minutes talk in sacrament. So Sunday morning I spent 30 minutes, wrote a good talk. Get to sacrament meeting waiting to be called up, but they never did, so that was nice I didn't have to talk. 

Other than that it was just a lot of work, contacting and teaching lessons. Not a ton of success this week. Today I travel down to Piura for a training tomorrow. So 6 hour bus ride down, then 6 hours back up tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. I love and miss you all so much. Everyday here is the best day ever! 

Love, 

Elder Gruber

Week 10: Amazing Week

This week was an amazing week filled with lots of great experiences, and amazing food. There was a lot of good and strange food. Firstly, I ate a chicken heart, it was in my soup one lunch, it was tasty, just very tough. One lunch the entire lunch was a mountain of white rice with one fried egg on top, it was delicious, but strange. I ate my first of many mango's, our new bishop grows them in his back yard, but they are smaller mango's than in the states, and they eat them like apples here, I struggled to eat is with juice dripping everywhere. I also found strawberry oreo's, never had those before, not sure if they're in the states. Then I also ate a lot of sea food. One lunch we had sea food chowfa, fried rice with different types of sea food (like mini octopus), then today for lunch our district went to a members home and ate ceviche, clams, oysters, and octopus. They live 5 minutes from the coast so it was fresh and absolutely delish! (Although I hear there's not much seafood in Piura, so I have to enjoy it while I can). Also here they have a restaurant called The Crusty Krab (but in Spanish), its a Sponge Bob themed restaurant, so we ate burgers there on Thursday, it tasted so good. Last thing is our lunch for Sunday fell through so on Saturday me and my comp bought a bunch of veggies, and made us a delicious soup, with homemade fruit juice. It was delicious. 

On Thursday we had very few appointments so we went contacting for 4 hours straight (knocking on doors). For four hours we had no success, nobody let us in always saying they were busy and we should come back. Until the very last house we knocked on was this super old man who lived alone and his wife passed away a few years back. So we taught him the plan of salvation. Nothing will probably come out of it, but we were happy to teach a lesson. 

Friday night Peru played New Zealand winner goes to the world cup. The game was at 10:30 pm so all day it was just a lot of drinking and pre game parties. It was hard to work that day. Then we went to bed at 10:30 pm and missed the entire game. But they ended up tying 0-0 (which makes sense because I never woke up to screaming). So they play again Wednesday in Lima, I am excited for that game. Hopefully it will be during the day. 

This week I had a pretty great experience with a bat. A bat flew into and started living with the zone leaders in their room, so my companion grabbed a long match and a can of bug spray and killed the bat with a huge flame thrower. It was a pretty crazy time, the bat fell out of his hole and started burning alive on the floor. 

It was a pretty great week, I love and miss you all so much!!! 

Love, 

Elder Luke Gruber

Week 9: Halloween

This week started with Halloween. Which turned out to be a big dud, nobody celebrates here, it was sad. But I still dressed up, I dressed up like the old guy from Up, wore glasses, my brown pants, tucked my pants into my socks, wore an ugly brown tie, and had a cane. That was about it for Halloween.

The next day was a holiday here, day for the dead or something. Its a two day thing were everybody goes to the cemetery and celebrates for their dead relatives. And my house just happens to be a 30 second walk from the cemetery, they had big tents of food, and flowers, lots of people- so as a zone we went over with cards and handed them out trying to get contacts, but nobody would listen. So after 2 hours we stopped. 

The next day I left Tumbes for the first time, we went to La Cruz to meet up with some other Elders, its a 20 minute taxi ride. Outside of Tumbes is just all rice fields, as far as the eye can see, and a few banana farms. It was actually pretty crazy to see. 

Then that night all of our appointments fell through, we weren't sure where to go, after thinking about it we felt we should try and stop by one of our investigators homes. We had failed about the last 7 times we stopped by, but he happened to be home. We taught him and set a baptism date on him. We hope we will be able to teach him soon again.  

Friday night we had a karaoke night and invited all our converts and investigators. It was just ok, nothing special, I sang 2 songs, photograph by Ed Sheeran, and Viva mi Vida. Then Sunday we finally got a new bishop in our ward. Our old bishop had been there for over 8 years and a lot of people were not a big fan of him. Apparently we have about 250-300 members in our ward, but only 60 are active. So we are hoping the new bishop will actually help us out. 

Then that after noon we had another awesome experience. We were walking around failing to find anybody, we kinda felt like we should stop by a members home and just see how they were doing. When we got there we found out their daughter was pretty sick, so we were able to give her a blessing. I know that the spirit guided us there so that we could help her out. 

A funny story, we were walking around knocking on doors, this old lady opens the door, sees its the missionaries. She whispers ¨No esta¨ (which means not here) and said that repeatedly while shutting the door on us. It was pretty funny. But I actually liked it. I wish more people would say no or reject us. Because everybody always says yes they want to hear our message but their to busy so they tell us to come back, we set a date to come back but they just keep setting more and more dates for us to come back. We know they don't want to hear us but we waste a lot of time on these fake appointments. 

Today we went to Agua Verde, the town 30 minutes north that borders Ecuador. We went there to a big market, touched the sign to Ecuador (we weren't allowed to enter) then just walked around for about an hour then went back. Wasn't anything too cool, but it was something different and fun to do. That was about all for this week. Love and miss you all. 

Love, 

Elder Luke Gruber

Week 8: Multi-Zone Conference and Baptism

Hey all, this week was a really long week. It feels like a century since last Monday. And from when I wake up to when I go to bed is also a century. Not necessary in a bad way, just long. The days are very draining, not really physically but mentally. I get about 9 hours of sleep a night but I'm still constantly tired. I think because it's a lot of Spanish, so my brain is constantly translating and figuring out what others are saying and then how to respond. Its a lot of work but I'm loving it. 

This is my average day: I wake up between 6:30 to 7:30 am (depending on the day) then get ready for the day (shower, eat, "workout," study, plan). At 10 I leave the apartment. From 10-1 I normally have some sort of meeting or planning or activity. At 1 is lunch, then from 2- 4 its language study and companion study. Then from 4-10 I'm outside working. We normally have appointments or people we want to visit (those normally only work out about 20% of the time). Then we try to find any investigator, convert or member that is home. And during that time we will do some door contacting. Then at 10pm we return to the apartment and get ready for bed. Then wake up and repeat. Most travelling is done on foot even though my area is pretty big. Its a 45 minute walk from the top of the area to the bottom (and it is filled will hills which only makes it more exciting). If we are late, or need to go somewhere far we will take a moto, (a three wheel motorcycle taxi) for 2-3 soles you can get anywhere. I actually taught a lesson in the back of a moto. The investigator couldn't let us in so we went to the back of his moto and taught the restoration. 

This week we also had our multi-zone with the president. It was from 9 am to 5 pm, of talks and lessons, it was long but really fun and spiritual. 

Then on Saturday I had my first baptism. I baptized a boy, Luis, 12 years old. I taught him two times my first week and when we asked- he chose me to baptism him, which was super cool. My companion baptized his sister, and we are hoping to baptize their mom and younger sister this week or next week. 

The food here in the field is not very good. Lunch is always rice, a small piece of chicken, some gross sauce, some cooked vegetable (gross) and some type of juice (sometimes its good, sometimes its not). Its gotten really old, really fast. Members also love to offer me food in their homes. 9 times out of 10 I don't want it but I have to take it cause they get really offended when I turn them down (I learned that one the hard way). Most of the time my companion will eat most of what is given to me so I don't have too (we just make sure the member isn't looking). But even though I don't eat a lot here I'm very rarely hungry. That is all for this week, I'm loving everyday, its always the best day ever. 

Love and miss you all a ton, 

Elder Gruber

Pictures from leaving the CCM, airport food, travel to Piura, 

night at the mission home, ride to my area, terrain, and apartment.