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

February 29, 2016

Hola All! 

Last week of the transfer here and I´m am wondering how I almost have six months here. It feels like a long time and it is starting to feel like a really long time that I have been in this area. It´s weird to think my entire mission so far I have only been in one area. I think it is the most likely thing that I will be transferred next week, but you never know. 

This week was really rainy. Right now we are in an internet cafe in the city because the one in our zone is closed and it is raining hard outside. I am feeling better but this week I had parasites again so that was a little rough. But at least this time I knew it wasn´t normal so I didn´t let it get out of hand. I am all better now though. Who knows what makes me sick out here. Probably everything. 

There have been several missionaries with dengue so the mission sent people to fumigate all the houses. We had to make sure nothing that was going to touch our skin was in sight and couldn´t go in the house for a couple hours and when we went back in it smelled awful and it killed all the spiders and everything from the ceiling and made it fall over everything! We had just cleaned but we had to clean everything again! But at least we have some more protection from dengue and zika. 

Once every transfer we have exchanges with the Sister Training Leader and I had one this week in my area with Hna. Willes. She´s from Carlsbad! She´s really cool and I learned a lot from the visit and I am excited to keep working and pushing myself to improve. It was nice to finally be able to speak English but it was also a mix because we both realized we have forgotten a lot of English. 

Speaking of English, we were also invited to teach an English class this week. It wasn´t really clear what was going to happen so we just showed up and it was a huge room full of young children, but also old people and a teacher. He told the class that we were there to teach them culture and made them applaud us like fifty times! He made them applaud us being there, applaud us when we stood up, applaud our punctuality, applaud our happiness, and applaud every five minutes when we talked. I just pronounced in English a couple phrases and then we taught them the first lesson. It was awesome because we had like 50 contacts in one and we had a lesson too! Then people wrote down their address on a piece of paper if they wanted us to visit them and we had a ton of names! It was really cool. 

Yesterday we also had a special conference because the stake president was released and we have a new stake president. Elder Uceda came back to choose the new president and it was a great meeting. He talked about the Sabbath day and really burned everyone. It was a little hard to hear but it was good. The new president is a young man, he has a young family with one two year old baby boy. It was odd to see a stake president like that but I know the Lord calls his servants here and I hope that he will be a blessing to the people of Iquitos. 

We ate paneton again this week with chocolate! They are really cheap now because they are getting rid of all the ones that they didn't sell for Christmas and New Year's. Love that stuff! Literally can´t get enough so I bought a whole one just for me. 

Hope you have a great week! And find the person who broke through the wall, how bizarre! I am so grateful to have an eternal family and love each and every one of you so much. 

Con mucho amor, 

Hermana Fitzpatrick

February 22, 2016

Wellll another week in the jungle paradise of Iquitos. This week zoomed by and I can´t believe I almost have six months on the mish! Super crazy. 

So proud of everyone! It sounds like it was a week full of good news. Congrats to Allie and Hannah and Nicole!! They are going to love BYU, I know it. And Mikey too!! He could surpass me but that´s ok he deserves it. 

The internet is finally (relatively) fast so I can send pictures! 

This week it has been raining almost every day so it is really fun. There have been a couple days where we have had to run home in the rain. After literally two minutes in the rain we are already soaked and we get home and have to change everything. It makes it kind of an adventure to go out and preach the gospel. The rain makes it hard to teach though. The roofs are just corrugated steel and so the rain pounds on the steel and you can´t hear anything. We had one lesson and they asked me to give the prayer and we were already huddled in a little circle to be able to hear one another but I still had to yell the prayer and everyone started laughing. It was not the most effective lesson I´ve taught. 

- soaked after literally two minutes in the rain

- when you are already soaked from walking, nothing left to do but play in the rain 

This week we have also been receiving a lot of food from the people we go and visit. They always invite us to have a glass of soda or aguaje, my favorite. Sometimes we eat strange things, like soda crackers with straight up butter on it like jam. It´s nice though that they always want to treat us so kindly. People really have strong positive connections and memories with the missionaries and it is nice to be an inheritor of that and I hope to leave the kind of impressions so that other missionaries will receive blessings because of the relationship of trust I left with the people here. One thing I´ve learned a lot about in the mission is that people just want to be heard, they want to feel understood and feel like someone is listening. If not by the missionaries, by Heavenly Father. 

We also found a burger place that we like a lot and we have gone there several times. One of the members noticed we like it so they invited us to an appointment and bought us burgers. The guy that makes the burgers told them, ¨Oh, I know how the Hermanas like their burgers, don´t worry!¨ It´s a dream come true, I have always wanted to have my favorite restaurant where the people know my usual order and it´s all happening people! His name is Paloma too so that´s also fun. 

This week the gas station that is on the corner of our street finally opened. It was quite the event. I didn´t realize it would be so spectacular, but they had like a red carpet and fancy dinner and models and motos with huge ribbons. We didn´t realize what was going on, but the night before it opened we just saw a huge line of motocars, that extended probably a half mile away from the gas station. We asked some people what was going on and they told us the gas station was opening and that they would be giving out free hats, t shirts, cups etc. It was insane. They were there all night and then in the morning they lined up again to get gas this time. It was crazy and we had to pass the line every time we wanted to go anywhere. But we have a gas station! We were excited because it was going to have a mini mart too but they changed it last minute to a repair shop so boooo!

- the line of motos that extended down the block and right in front of our house

We got the Liahona for this month and, after looking for what I wanted my new agenda cover to be, I read it. I really enjoyed the article by Elder Christofferson about finding our lives by losing them in Christ and I have been thinking a lot about that. I see a lot of sacrifices that people make to follow Christ. At first, it made me uncomfortable to invite people to do things I knew would be difficult for them - like leave a job that requires them to work on Sunday, or pay tithing when they make very little - but I have learned and I have seen that the Lord blesses us for our sacrifices when we put him first in our lives. It still isn´t easy to extend those invitations, but I have learned I can do it with the faith that I know the Lord will provide for them if they make that sacrifice. When we lose the lives we knew before, we find a better one in Christ. 

I know the church is true and that Heavenly Father is aware of us and loves us infinitely. I have been thinking about that too with the article about the mother learning about gospel truths through motherhood. Her story about the iron and her daughter has been on my mind a lot this week. I love it a lot. 

I love you all so much, I hope that this week is just as good for you. I will be going to another stake conference this week because we are getting a new stake president. It´s not a normal conference and there are a lot of rumors floating around that we have been hearing a lot about, but we will see how it goes. Elder Uceda will be here again this week to call the new stake president so that´ll be fun. 

Love you!

Hermana Fitzpatrick

- the umsha from carnaval a couple weeks ago! 

Everyone grabbed the little plastic things and fruit when it fell

February 15, 2016

Hi all!

Don´t have a lot of time to write because the internet has been painfully slow today but I´m doing well and we had a good week this week.

It has finally been raining this week! It is so nice to at least have brief moments of relief from the heat. We were coming out of an appointment one day and it started pouring! We got so soaked. I was in a white shirt too and it went completely see through! Luckily I had put on my undershirt that day so I was saved but it was a close one. When it pours the kids all play in the rain outside. I think the parents use it as a chance to not bathe them another day.

In other news, I´m gaining so much weight! I can´t stop! Ahh The rice really catches up fast. I eat so little in comparison to the other people here and I am still climbing quickly. What can a girl do? Looks like I will be coming home with my rice pouch in tow.

This week we were with an investigator and we asked him if he had prayed since the last time we had met. He said he had and we asked how it went, if he felt that he had recieved an answer. He said he had and that he had found what he was looking for. We were so excited and asked what he had been looking for. He told us he had lost his cellphone memory and that he found it! My comp started uncontrollably laughing and I was at a loss for words. It was just a classic moment. Things like that just seem to happen all the time to us. The things people tell us in lessons just make us laugh sometimes.

Yesterday was just one of those days where we didn´t find anyone in their house because Valentine´s Day is just another excuse to drink. It was pretty crazy but we finally found some people to teach.

Sorry nothing spectacular this week, not a ton to report. Another week in the jungle. Also sorry, no photos, the internet is way too slow this week.

Love you!

Hermana Fitzpatrick

February 8, 2016

Ahhhh! Internet is so slow this week! Sorry!

This week was insane as usual andddd TODAY I have FIVE MONTHS on the mission. That is absolutely crazy times ten and I do not feel like I have that long, but such it is.

This week in food:

We had delicious empanadas again but this time the casing was completely fried yucca with mixed veggies and chicken inside. It was so yummy and I actually really like yucca. We have it in basically everything - as a side with chicken, in soups (yes they eat soup here, we actually have soup quite a bit, you just sit there sweating eating your soup and drinking your tea. It´s an odd experience to say the least), and straight up little fried yucca balls that are like salted grapefruit cereal. We also had dinner with a member and they served us the basics - a pile of rice, regional chicken, and potatoes, and an egg. But this egg was different because it was an egg that had not yet been ejected by the chicken so it cooked within the chicken. My comp got an egg that was basically fully formed and she had to break the skin seal around it that had not yet become the shell. Mine, on the other hand, seemed like it was just a yolk, but it was the early stages of the egg. Very strange. 10/10 Would not repeat. We had the whole life cycle on our plates!

This Sunday was also Carnaval! It was insane as to be expected. So insane, in fact, we were not allowed to leave our houses. We went to church and then straight home, where we stayed until Monday morning. It was the first day I have actually not proselyted. It was so odd. We went home after church and slept and studied and just chilled basically. I took a three hour nap without waking and slept the full hours during the night. It was the first time I´ve actually caught up on my sleep!

We watched the Carnaval festivities from the balcony and we had a front row seat because our street had a lot of craziness. People just had full barrels of water and threw buckets on the motos that passed by, poured buckets on each other, danced, threw water balloons, and colored everyone with colored clay that they put on their faces and hands and colored the water to throw on people. It was a very wet and colorful display. Also, Saturday they set up umshas, which are huge palm trees that they cut down and put up in front of their houses. They braid the leaves and make a little structure up top and hang all sorts of things - mostly plastic bins and containers and buckets of all sorts, fabrics, toys, fruits, etc. They erect the tree in front of their house and then Sunday in the late afternoon they all dance around the tree hacking it with an ax every once in a while until the tree collapses. Then, everyone rushes the fallen tree and collects whatever treasure they can and takes it for themselves. It was absolute madness. I could not believe it. I felt like I was living in a movie, it was crazy. It was kind of like an amazonian piñata.

That was pretty much our week. We also have heard about Zika momma.They have the fumigation every three months so they should be coming around again soon. Apparently we are on alert in Perú, they thought someone brought it in from Venezuela but it was a false alarm. Who knows. It´s hard to be in the loop when you can´t watch the news or read the newspaper. They had an announcement in our zone meeting that was like ya it´s really scary, and you are going to think you have dengue but it is really going to cause scary birth defects for your future children. Solution? None offered, we were just reminded of the rule of putting on repellent everyday, which I do anyways. I have already gone through four bottles. Whoo!

As for my testimony, it has definitely changed. I feel so much more confident in my beliefs now and I have seen how this gospel changes lives. I will be forever grateful for this experience. I think not having the priesthood hasn´t really been an issue for me here. There are frustrating times, when you can´t find someone to give a blessing, you can´t be a witness and no one else showed up, coordinating so that priesthood will be present. And there are kind of awkward times when you ask them who they want to baptize them and they say you--. But, mostly I have seen the power of the priesthood and I am grateful for it. Mostly the mission has made me reflect on how great it was to have the priesthood in our home and how I miss getting blessings from Dad or having a Bishop who I could rely on.

Also this week it finally rained! So much! For three days. It was so nice because it has been sumamente recontra hot!

Love you all so much!

¡Hasta el siguiente!

Hermana Fitz

February 1, 2016

Ahhh Maddie!! I´m so happy for that little chica. She is going to make miracles happen out there. 

Well familia, I´m in Clavero again for this change and I am still with Hna. Laura. It feels weird because I´m kind of getting up there as far as time on the mission goes and I have only been in one area but I like the area too so it´s a conflict there. I will hit 6 months at the end of this transfer! It actually blows my mind how fast time goes. I am almost one third of the way done with the mish! Can you believe it?

This week we were going to help set up a wedding for a less active on Wednesday for service, but when we got there everything was already set up so they had us make the salad. Salad here is a loose term for any vegetable drenched in vinegar and lemon juice. This was onion salad which is literally just straight up onion in lemon juice. We cut so much onion and I have never cried so much chopping onion! Tears were literally rolling down my face and my companion was like ¨Don´t worry, we are almost done!¨ As huge fat tears were streaming out. After that the bride came in and asked if we knew how to do makeup and hair. She had nothing! And she had to leave in a half an hour. So my comp did her hair while I did her makeup. I don´t even know how to do makeup, but I threw something on there. It was a surreal moment to be doing someone´s wedding makeup when I can´t even put makeup on my own face. I´m not really sure how it turned out. She had to run out of the house to go get married. Odd happenings.

This week we also learned more about some of the myths and traditions here. There are a lot of tribal histories and tales. One is this spirit called Tunche. He is basically all evil and would be kind of like the boogie monster. The babies here wear little beaded bracelets to keep them safe from bad spirits. The pink dolphin, el buffeo, also supposedly transforms into a beautiful man at night and lures women into the river never to be heard from again. There is a lot of spirity stuff that happens. Oh, and also one of our less actives this week told us his dad is a shaman and makes a hallucinagetic drink that brings all the spirits of the plants together so that you can see the future and the past. I had to do the old ¨ummm, sure, ya, ok¨ and try to get back on topic. 

Oh and this week is the last week of Carnaval so this Sunday is going to be CRAZY. Every Sunday has been getting a little bit crazier and next Sunday is the culminating day. Yesterday it was pretty crazy too though. People just stand on the side of the streets with buckets and water balloons and throw them at motos passing by. It doesn´t matter who passes by. Usually they leave the missionaries alone but yesterday we were going to the Family History Center in a moto with a recent convert and all of a sudden we felt a sudden rush of cold. It took me a second to realize what happened but then I realized that someone had thrown a bucket of water at as. When it hits you as you drive past it´s like water whiplash to the face. We all laughed and were soaking but dried off doing the work of salvation!

My pensionista made empanadas this week and they were so yummy!! They are like the ones Hna. Neumiller makes! I also learned how to make leche asada so I will teach you all when I get back. This week I´m going to learn how to make arroz chaufa! 

Love you all!! Choose the right and don´t look back. 

Hermana Fitz