Week 35: Eight Months

Hey everybody, 

Wow how time flies, yesterday was 8 months in the mission. That is crazy and this Sunday is Skype!!!!! YAYY. This week was as really good week. It started with an intercambio with Elder Newell, Tuesday morning, we ate crepes with a member. Then on the way back to Pueblo Nuevo Tuesday my comp and I got thrown into the trunk of a car (they fit three in the front 2 seats, 3 in the back seats, and 2 or 3 in the trunk). It was very tight and then our car broke down half way so we waited for another car to come, and we got thrown into an even smaller trunk. Two huge gringos shouldn't be put in 1 trunk, but we survived. 

Wednesday we had an open chapel in Paita. On Saturday morning had a super awesome service project. We woke up at 5:30 then went and for 3 hours we torn down this members house, we started off by ripping off his tin roof, then removing the doors and windows, then with hammers, sticks, and our feet we took down the walls. They were made of sticks and mud, so it was just a matter of strength and destruction. It was super fun and dangerous. The hand of the Lord saved us a few times.

 Then we made American pancakes with syrup on Saturday and it was super delicious!! Funniest moment of the week was in church this week we sang a Christmas hymn as the closing hymn of sacrament meeting, it was super funny nobody even batted an eye. My comp and I lost it. But in good news, our investigator Pierina is progressing really well and will hopefully be baptized on the 19th if she gets permission from her mother!!! 

Today we went to Piura bought material to make some awesome ties! Then ate at Chili's and drank venti caramel frapps!!! That is about it for the week!  Next week are transfers,  we will see what happens, I just really hope I stay here, I don't want to leave, I am loving Pueblo Nuevo!!! 

Love, 

Elder Luke Gruber

Week 34: Gift of Tongues

Hey everybody, 

Yes this week I received a miracle through the gift of tongues. Probably just not the way you are thinking. I was on exchanges with the zone leaders and we went and taught a lesson, the lady came out from the back with a plate of strawberries (one of my least favorite fruit), covered in a soy sauce tasting syrup. It was an absolutely disgusting plate of food, my mouth threw up a little just looking at it. But by a miracle I was able to clean the plate and not upset the investigator.

Another miracle that happened this week was my comp and I were contacting and looking for new people to teach. When my companion had the random thought to visit an old investigator he had only heard of before. He didn't know where she lived, what her name was, or anything about her. But we followed the spirit, and with a lot of help we were able to find her house. It was crazy how much the spirit impacted us in that moment. The investigators name is Pierina and should hopefully be baptized in 3 weeks if she gets permission from her parents. 

That was about it for the week, here are just some other funny stories. On Sunday we had a member bring a baby chicken to church with her, it was in her little bag, and in the middle of sacrament meeting we just heard chirping coming from her bag. Then later on Sunday, we saw a super drunk guy buy an old fish from the market, and with out cooking it, cleaning it or anything just started biting off chunks and eating this raw, warm fish. It was disgusting. There was also a big strike and people burnt tires in the middle of the highway and shut down our little town and nobody could leave or come in. We also found a guy who told us he didn't know how to read, but about five minutes later I forgot and asked him to read a scripture for us, it was really embarrassing and my companion laughed for a while after we left the lesson.

It was the best week ever! Many more adventures to come! 

Love, 

Elder Luke Gruber

Week 33: Still Broken Door

Whatz up everybody, this week was an awesome week. It was pretty average. We tried to get somebody to come and fix our door, but ever day we would wait and wait and wait and he would never show up, so as of now we still use fishing line to open our door. Then when anybody found out our door was broken they would look at their keys and be like, I have one that looks like yours, and then proceed to try all of their keys in our door. They figure if the key looks similar it should also work. Another cool thing about Peru, is that they don't use stop lights, or even stop signs. The way it works is the first person to honk has the right of way. So as a car approaches an intersection, he just honks about 3-4 times and zooms through the intersection because he had the right of way (and nobody honked back), its dangerous but yet again Peruvians aren't the smartest people. Also here in the small town I live in (pueblo nuevo), everybody rides around on horse buggies. There are more horses than cars or motorcycles. They just ride their horse buggies to their farm, and drive them back, which means the streets are full of horse crap, and you always have to watch where you walk. Me and my comp also went contacting with a Ukulele, he would play The Spirit of God while I sang and then would teach people a short lesson, it was fun and people were willing to listen to 2 white gringos sing bad Spanish. That's about it for the week, everyday here is the best day ever!! 

Love, 

Elder Luke Gruber! 

Week 32: Broken Key

This week started when a lady came knocking on our door (knowing it was two gringo missionaries) then told us how her daughter needed this illegal medicine from Mexico, and knows where to get it. So we just sat there not knowing what to do, she never asked for help, just stated that she needed this drug, we kinda assumed she wanted us to pay for it, so we just told her it might help her baby and she should buy it, then she left. 

We also had a few more days without water, so we had to travel to Piata to shower. Then we had a super fun service project just leveling some guys back yard so he could build on it. Then Saturday is when things went crazy, we spent all day from 3 to 9 walking every part of our area trying to get some of our investigators to attend church, we passed by every investigator, convert,and a lot of members, we only got into 3 houses, and the longest appointment was 15 minutes. So we were dead tired from walking and were hot, so at 9 we go to the room to pick up some money and go buy dinner, but our door is crap and you have to use the force of God to open it, so this time the key gave up and snapped in half. We had absolutely no way to get into our room. So we rush to get a copy made, the store is closed, but luckily to drunk "angels" were sitting outside and told us where the guy lived,so we rushed to his house. He brought us back to his store and at 9:30 he made us 2 copies. We thought all was good, but turns out the keys didn't work, we ended up breaking the lock, with the help of our neighbor, we credit carded our door open (with a knife and a metal rod). The only problem is if we left our room, we couldn't close our door or we would be locked out again. So we spent all of Sunday just in our room since we couldn't leave, we had a member deliver us lunch, then Sunday night we had to leave to go to Piata- so we had a brilliant idea of tying string to the door handle inside,and bringing it around the door, so from the outside we pull the string and it opens the door,and so as of right now anybody who sees the string can break into our room. It was a very stressful weekend with our door. Tonight or tomorrow we should hopefully be getting a new lock installed on our door. Then today for p-day we played soccer on the beach as a zone, and explored the area of Piata. 

Love, 

Elder Luke Gruber