January 11, 2016

¡Hola Familia! 

Another week has come and gone and this week I hit FOUR MONTHS.Whoa! Crazy talk! Time flies when you are having fun and experiencing every emotion known to man. This coming week I will be one fourth of the way done with my mission. Are we hearing that? It´s absolute madness. 

This week was pretty calm but extremely hot. These last couple days have been real cookers. You wake up sweaty, shower sweaty, get dressed sweaty, and just continue to sweat throughout the day. There is no relief. My companion and I each have our own fan and we put them on full blast during study time and still sweat our eyes out. It is weird to think that anything other than sweaty heat even exists. It all seems like an odd fantasy now - having actual weather and such. 

-Can we talk again about how beautiful the sunsets are? 

This is the field in front of my pensionista´s house

 I started my diet this week because the rice is catching up to me, and fast. One sister, who still is convinced I don´t understand Spanish, told my companion in front of me that it is so odd that I have skinny arms and fat legs because usually skinny people have skinny legs too. Heartbreak in the jungle as the truth comes out. I told my pensionista I didn´t want any more rice and she looked at me as if I had pierced her soul. She got over it. Now it´s just chicken, fruits, and vegetables for me. And smoothies. I would never sacrifice my morning smoothie even though I know it is half sugar. 

We did go to Carmencita on Monday with the zone and it was so fun! It was a huge field area with a giant iron platform tower and a pool. We brought a bbq and meat and grilled meat and went up the tower. It overlooked the airport and the area around there and it brought back the memories of my first glimpses of Iquitos. I will never forget landing and looking out the window at straight jungle and thinking ¨What have I done?¨ Actually, I think that´s a thought that has not ceased to be in my mind. It was really beautiful and refreshing to watch other people swim and remember that that was something I used to occasionally do. 

 -grilling it all up in Carmencita

 -The very ¨safe¨ and ¨secure¨ tower that I climbed up and almost peed my pants out of fear

 -taking on the jungle as usual. This time from the air

 Speaking of swimming, this week was the beginning of Carnaval, a month long celebration. It is every Sunday this month culminating to a big celebration in February. They celebrate by throwing things like water balloons and basically anything else that will get you wet - paint, juice, soda. If they can get their hands on it, they will throw it at you. Mostly they just play between themselves though and don´t really involve the missionaries. But, we were walking the other day and all of sudden I felt like I had stepped in mud or something. Then I realized it was a water balloon that a kid had thrown at me that landed a direct hit on my foot. Such an odd sensation to have one foot be soaking wet and the other dry as a bone. Also, the kids all play in the little plastic pools on Sundays. It looked so refreshing yesterday I could´ve just jumped in there with them. 

Also, yesterday and Saturday we didn´t have that much time to work because Elder Uceda came and visited the mission. He burned us but he also inspired me so much. I feel recharged and ready to be better. He is the area president so it was a big deal. He was really nice and told us some hard truths about the missionary work here. We are working as a mission to be better, but it will be hard. We had conferences with him Saturday for four hours and then Sunday for five hours. It seemed like it would be a long time but it went by in a blink. And my trainer who is Sister Training Leader in Pucallpa was here for a leadership council, so I ran into her too! It felt like a weird past life to see her again and hear her voice and everything,but looks like she is doing well. 

Love you all! Hope you have a great week. Stay firm in the faith and be a little better every day. 

Hermana Fitz