Elder Parker Spanbauer: Week 31 Arica

Oct 12, 2015

So this has been my first week here in Arica.... and I have already had some weird experiences but that’s what makes the mission all the more fun! It has been kind of tough because before I got here there was a "Las Acacias A" sector and a "Las Acacias B" sector. Our pension had four elders in it before I came and I was looking forward to it. Apparently now a rule came out that missions cant have more than 200 missionaries so they had to start closing sectors and make two sectors into one. Elder Francis and I have basically two sectors to work in now and now it is just the two of us in the pension. Its kinda lame but I’m happy. As far as the pension.... Uh... its really old. I guess missionaries have been staying in our pension for over 12 years.... so it was a dump when I arrived. We had to spend one morning just cleaning inside of the pension because we had pension inspections. Now the inside is clean but the backyard is a mess. We have a room in the backyard that is just filled with thousands of ties!!! I actually found some cool ones in there. Our pension is famous in the mission... everyone refers to it as the "tie pension". I love it though. Our mamita is amazing!!! She cooks super well and made me empanadas my second day! She is super nice and now I’m in a ward, which is a lot different, but it’s awesome. There are some awesome people in the ward and bishop is super cool. I got here and there are only a few investigators that we have. There is a family named the familia Julca and they are all ready to get baptized but the parents are waiting to get their visa to be married. They are from Peru and dad is a super humble guy. He was hit by a car like 5 months ago and was sent skidding down the street like 30 feet. It caused a little bit of brain damage to the point where we have to talk slowly and sometimes repeat things. I love him and this family so much. We are helping them work towards marriage and eventually baptism. We also have a 10-year-old girl named Mikaela that wants to get baptized and her brother and older sister got baptized recently. Their mom however doesn’t want to be baptized because she believes she is a lost cause. She works in a bar and is like always drunk. What she doesn’t know is that I’m going to baptize her haha. We have a family home evening tonight with them and we are going to talk more about it with them. My companion is good but just has a hard time leading the sector because he has only been here for one cambio (6 weeks). Elder Francis is more of a shy guy so it forces me to be more outgoing and fearless. It truly is my time to sparkle and shine! I’m super good at contacting now, well.... at least I think I am haha. I love talking to strangers!

So my first day here we went to a house and found a drunk man outside sitting on a wooden stool. He looked as if he was praying. My companion tried getting his attention but he just did not budge. Then his wife came walking out drunker than a really drunk person.... oh crap... here we go. She then started telling us that we had to come inside with her and that she wanted to talk to us. We simply said we cant and this made her mad. She then tried grabbing my hand and I quickly pulled a bukalow just barely avoiding her deathly grasp. She then creepily pointed at us and kept saying come in, come in... She would not stop!!! Then she started crying and then started yelling. She kept saying how beautiful we were and started touching my companions face hahahaha. I was trying not to laugh. Then she came up to me and gave me a hug and would not let go. It was crazy!!! We finally said we had to go and took off. I love the mission. Also, a prostitute lady asked me if I was single and then blew kisses at me... Arica is pretty awesome hahahahahaha.

Elder Spanbauer