March 28, 2016

This week was great! We have a lot of progressing investigators so we are excited for everyone and everything. Plus, it has been rainy and breezy and beautiful. Life is good and God is great. 

Yesterday were elections here in Peru so that means that we didn´t have church! Yep, you heard that right. Church was cancelled because it is a law here that you can´t have meetings or sell alcohol or basically do anything but vote the day of elections. But, we went to work as usual on Sunday and worked the whole day. It was pretty crazy and it looks like we are going to have round two of voting in June so it will be another Sunday without church. I´m not a huge fan, but we are loyal citizens and so we have to cumplir with the law. 

Looks like a woman named Keiko might be the one who wins. We will see, it´s a whole drama and everything. 

We also found a house this week! It is super beautiful and huge! But, it was outside of our budget. I put all my negotiating skills to work and talked the landlord down 100 soles! You would´ve been so proud Dad! We are super excited to move but it might be the first week in May. We will see. Anyways, it has a balcony and two rooms, a bedroom, and a main room. It´s awesome! And I fought super hard for it so it is gratifying to be able to go there.

 - view from the new house!

Today we are going to some waterfalls close by here and I am excited to see what they are all about. 

Sounds like you are all doing well. I am looking forward to talking to you all soon. Have a great week! 

Hermana Fitz

March 21, 2016

Wow! What a week it has been. Week 2  down here in Tarapoto and it has been a dream. Everything is awesome here. And it has been raining basically everyday so it has been nice and cool. Here when it rains our whole area turns into a mud pool so the boots have come in handy. In my other area not so much because it was all sidewalk, but here they work well. 

The people here are a little more educated and well off than the people in Iquitos so I have been learning how to adjust my teaching because I can go a little faster and teach a little more because they understand more. So it´s nice to be challenged in that way. But, they are not as receptive. In Iquitos, if you contact someone 9/10 times they will at least invite you in and listen. Here, they actually say no when you ask them if they want to hear more! It was kind of shocking for me but I am learning to just be bold with inviting people even though they are pretty rude to us here. At least the members are awesome!

- trying, unsuccessfully, to cover naked native lady in pretty mural 

 We are getting more familiar with the area and we are pretty settled in now, but we still have moments of not knowing where in the world we are. On Wednesday we looked for a house that we had service at for almost three hours!! And that morning it was super hot. We called everyone we knew for help, used our map, asked people in the street. Nothing. Never found it. We were dead after that. But, we went back the next day to try again and found it within ten minutes. I guess we were just not meant to find it Wednesday. 

- the street I live on (for now!)

- Tarapoto at night *swoon*

 We are also looking for a new house because we aren´t living in our area and it is a twenty minute walk to our pensionista everyday, three times a day. There are no houses in our area though!! The sisters before us and the sisters before them were looking too but never found anything. We are hoping to find something soon though. Everytime we see a sign For Rent we stop in and look. Sometimes I feel like I´m on House Hunters International taking in the options in Tarapoto , Perú. Diagnostic: Dismal. We found the high priced house number 1 with more than what we need, we found the low priced house number 2 with not enough, we are just waiting for the in budget house number 3 with a few sacrifices that they always end up picking. The search continues.

- Dead after looking for the house for three hours in the sun. 

Also have a knarly sunburn from this day

 Today we are going to watch a movie with the zone and just hang out a little bit. It should be a good day! The zone is awesome here because there are 16 missionaries, including the zone leaders, and half of them are sisters so we have a good time. There are four more elders but they are in a city about two hours away and only come in for one p-day during the change. Girl power!  

Also....my birthday package came!!  They hand out the packages Mondays after internet so it got here last Monday but I wasn´t able to tell you. It was awesome! Thank you so much!!  We have the clings on the window, the lights are up. I love playing with the bead board and  my favorite thing is the hourglass. We use it everyday. My comp likes the Pez and we are going to make the cookies today! My pensionista is excited too! Thank you!! And the shirts are such a blessing. Nice to have some more options!

The garments probably did get here already. The thing is that now that I´m in the jungle and away from the mission office I have to wait until the leaders go to Iquitos for the leader council and pick up all the packages and stuff. They go at the beginning of every month so it should be just a couple more weeks. Thank you!!

Much love to all!

Hermana Fitzpatrick

                 

March 14, 2016

Well, this week was a big one because.... I had changes!!

And... I´m in.... TARAPOTO!!

They called me Monday night and then I left Tuesday in the afternoon. My companion was already here so she picked me up at the airport. I packed all my stuff up Tuesday morning and then went to the airport and I was off! An hour later we landed in Tarapoto and it is BEAUTIFUL!! I am in love with Tarapoto. I am in area Aeropuerto 2 in the same ward as the zone leaders. My companion is Hermana Velasquez and she is from Honduras. She has one change fewer than I. We are both new to the area so they say that we are opening the area again.

Tarapoto is a city on a hill. It isn´t an island like Iquitos so they are able to have more things, like a huge theater, nice supermarkets, American things (!), and cheaper everything. It is the promised land!!

It has been pretty stressful this week trying to get to know the area and figure out where all the people we are teaching live. Tarapoto is a district with branches and so the areas here are a lot bigger than the ones in Iquitos. Also, there are mountains!! They are gorgeous! And I love seeing them from the window in our house. Iquitos is super flat and all paved streets basically, but here a lot of the streets are dirt and they are just on the mountain so there is a lot of walking up and down. I got pretty tired this week with all the walking. The climate is awesome because it is fresh and cool, at least in comparison to Iquitos. It is so beautiful I wish I could describe it or send pictures that do it justice, but I can´t.

We spent the whole week trying to find everyone and just, walking, walking, walking. The members here are amazing too! They are stronger than the members in my other stake! The ward council just took action and people actually do what they are assigned to do! It´s incredible. I am astounded and so happy. I never want to leave Tarapoto. And there are waterfalls and a castle here so we are going to go eventually for a P-Day. It is a fairyland here. Things are cheaper, so we eat really yummy food. We just eat a massive plate of fruit with yogurt for dinner and we have salads everyday. It is the best! You really don´t even know how happy I am to be here.

My birthday was nice. It was district conference so we had an awesome meeting and then a good lunch. We bought a cake on Saturday and ate it Sunday from this ritzy bakery. Tres leches! So yummy. Other than that nothing. The members don´t know me here so nobody really did anything for me but they were really sweet when they found out that it was my birthday. And President and Hermana Gomez were there for the district conference so they wished me a happy birthday too.

-the extent of the birthday celebrations with my new companion

It has been a humbling week, but I am super happy. I also have 6 months in the mission now. WOW. Time flies. Just this change and one more and I´m at the halfway. It´s pretty wild.

I also finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish this week. I had the goal to finish it before my birthday and I finished it on the twelfth so that was cool. I have a newfound love for that book and I know it is true. I know that it is the word of God and that Joseph Smith translated it through the power of God. I appreciate so much the clarity of the Book of Mormon and I know that the restored gospel is true.

I feel so blessed to be able to share that testimony every day. I love you all and I will give more info on Tarapoto as we go. So happy!!

Hermana Fitzpatrick

March 7, 2016

Hola!!

- Happy Birthday Russy!

I am writing again from the slowest internet in Punchana. It might be my last time coming here. Changes are tonight so I will find out tonight if I stay or go. I am pretty calm either way. I have been in this area my entire mission and at this point I can´t really imagine going anywhere else. But, it is all about where the Lord wants me. We will see.

- Cynthia and Alvaro, two of my converts here!

- Going out to work with Alonzo. We are getting him ready for the mission! 

This is the biggest street in our area.

 This week in food - my pensionista sells juice and chaufa for breakfast in the mornings and this week started selling anticuchos in the afternoon too. It is skewered cow heart and we have been eating quite a bit of it. I really like it. It´s like beef strips with a different flavor. Also, realized this week that what I thought was beef this whole time I have been here has not been beef! I thought the red meat down here in Peru was just of lower quality or something but we had it again this week and my companion asked me ¨Do you know what this is?´´ I said ¨Yes, beef¨ and she said ¨No, it´s the ligature¨ so, there we have it. That´s why the meat was so tough and weird tasting this whole time. Learning something new constantly.  I also learned how to make mayonnaise which I will definitely be doing when I get home because I literally eat everything with mayo and it is so yummy and I have no regrets about it. I will have to teach you all the ways of the Peruvian casera. 

This Tuesday the motokaristas went on strike because new police inspections for motokars are taking all their salary. So, on Tuesday we had no transport. The strike started the night before with groups of mototaxis zooming down the streets and waking us up every once in a while with all their racket. Then, on Tuesday we had to go to our zone meeting and we had to walk. Normally, the meeting is in the stake center, which is central to all the areas but, for some reason unknown to me, the zone leaders sent us to the Amazonas chapel which is the chapel farthest away from everyone. And we had to walk. So we sacrificed our studies to walk out there. The strike meant that everyone threw glass and burned things and put barriers in the street so that not even the people with their own motos could pass by. It was pretty crazy. But, it just lasted Tuesday and Wednesday we were reunited with our beloved motokar once again.

- the closest I will ever get to riding on a moto. The ladies ride on the back of the motos like this. Sidesaddle. Pretty scary but they must have really good balance because I have never seen them fall. 

On Wednesday this week we got home a little after nine after a lesson and I went to open the door, when I realized I didn´t have the keys to the apartment! I had never forgotten them before but I left them inside the house that day! We yelled below for the landlady but she didn´t hear us. We were so desperate that I even thought about scaling the wall to try and get the keys from the window, but our landlady´s son finally answered his cell phone and we got in. It was a close call for sure. 

This week classes started here. Here school vacations are from December to March. It was odd for me to see the school in front of our house start to receive students again because I was here when the classes ended too. I have been in this area for such a long time but I have grown so much. I think about when I got here and it feels like yesterday but I also feel like a completely different person than who I was when I got here. I hope for the better. Who knows what the rest of my mission has in store for me. I have experienced so much in this little area and grown to love the people here so much. I don´t know when I will leave but I know it will be hard to do whenever that time comes. 

Much love from Iquitos,

Hermana Fitzpatrick