february 27, 2012 - 6 Months

Some of the "weird traditions" of Peru - As Elder Pinegar says - Piura Feb 2012

6 month tie burning (glad to see the paper on the ground)Feb 25, 2012

Ready for ignition - Piura Peru Feb 25, 2012

Yeah, so this week was a little crazy, but it was all good. We all have been enjoying ourselves here, and working hard. We had to drop a bunch of investigators because they weren´t progressing, I don't know if I was more mad or what but that's the mish right? Anyways, so church was chevre. We had 2 investigators that came, to end the dry streak of nobody that would go. This family I hope to see progress, I talked with the dad who was drunk later that night and just listened to him bash the church  and all the missionaries that are here. He kept calling me rich and a little more. I got a little frustrated, but I kept my cool. He harassed me about my clothing and apparel, so I kindly took off my tie and set it on his lap, telling him that he could have it as a gift......that's when the la boca se caó and he started to listen a little bit..

Yeah, so today we had changes, and I thought that if anybody was going to go, it was to be me. But apparently not. My companion is going and I am staying here another month and a half. This week has been good! I hope you got the email about the change of addresses (for sending packages). As for now, that's all that happened this week haha! keep it real fam, and Bek! happy birthday next week! Be good and don't get in any car accidents. (Bekah turns 16 March 8)

Love,
Elder Pinegar

February 20, 2012 -

Piura Peru Elders--Feb 2012

P-day in Piura Feb 20, 2012

hey fam!!!

so I guess that a lot is going on. Nice to hear that life is giving us the switchside a bit. Glad to hear that basically everyone is getting married haha yeah....cool to hear that Mandy (Alex's cousin) got married. Good for her. Give her my saludos. I'm glad that Nick's got my back! Tell him thanks for that. Ya know helping me out a bit since I'm like 3000 miles away haha... lejos ya i know! and for the DeMilles, great for them. (Alex's cousin Emma is engaged too!)

Yeah on a more happy note. were doing good here, but it's just a little bit dry on baptisims, no ay nadie que wants to come to the church......but we keep the chin up and walk with a strut, we know that God's got our back. As for my companion, we are doin good, but Elder Stephenson, the elder that I have been with since day one, got changed this week. He's going to be the new financial secretary. So I'm guess that if you want to send packages, you'll need to send them with his name instead of the name Elder Swazy....but I'll give you a little bit more on that in the next letter.

Thanks for all the support that you give me. I don't know what I'd do without you guys......yeah I complete 6 months this week haha kinda crazy but muy pronto será un año and yeah but its all chevre and what not haha. Just know that you guys are always in the back of my head. I love you all, and when I have a down day, I just think of ya´ll and what family means! Thanks for every thing. and yeah I got the package with the pics, I loved it! Thanks for being the best!!!!

Love, Elder Pinegar

February 13, 2012 - Espanol--Good thing there's Google to translate & DAD!

así es la vida! ya entonces, pienso que escribiré todo mi mensaje en
español hoy. muy bien, voy empezar de principio. esta semana fue muy
difícil, estábamos enseñando alguien que habíamos encontrado durante
EL EXPO S.U.D. él se llama David. tiene 18 años e esta estudiando para
ser abogado. Es una persona muy inteligente y vi un poco de mi miso en
él. él esta siempre preguntando porque algo es así o porque tenemos
que creer en esta forma. pudimos hablar con el como intelectuales. le
gusta bastante a leer filosofía,  y tiene una mente muy abierta. ya
entonces, él pareció a entender todo lo que estábamos hablando. le
enseñamos todo la semana, y el sábado pasado tuvo su entrevista con el
líder del districto. Él pasó y estaba muy animado para su bautismo. yo
también estaba animado porque él quería que yo le bautizo. ya entonces
pasó la noche todo tranquilo, mañana vino y la iglesia empezó a las 9
en punto. cada vez antes él fue muy puntual, sentimos que algo fue
incorrecto. fuimos a su casa media hora lejos de la iglesia y tocamos
su puerta. el abrió la puerta y apareció un poco desanimado. nos dijo
que no creó nada y que no había encontrado una respuesta. este es
cuando mi corazón empezó dolor. Entonces, no tuvimos el bautismo que
estábamos pensando y fuimos al cuarto un poco triste. Esto fue mi
semana, pero espero éxito esta semana y tengo un sonriso en mi cara
porque sé que ay mas, y buscaremos los demás personas que estén
esperándonos

finalmente, les amo con todo mi corazón. cada día oro para vosotros ;)


That's life!  I will write my letter in Spanish today. Well, first off,  this week was very difficult. We're teaching someone who we had found during THE EXPO S.U.D.  David is 18 and is studying to be a lawyer. He is a very intelligent person and I saw some of my myself in him. He is always asking why something is so or why we believe this way. He likes to read philosophy and has an open mind. He seemed to understand everything we were talking about. We taught all week and on Saturday had his baptismal interview with the district leader. He was very excited for his baptism. I was also encouraged that he wanted me to baptize him.  It was a quiet night, morning came and church began at 9 o'clock. Each time before he was very punctual. We could feel that something wasn't right. We went to his house a half an hour away from the church and knocked on his door. He opened the door and was a little discouraged. He told us he did not believe anything and had not found an answer. This is when my heart began to ache. We were sad for him and didn't have the baptism we had been planning. 

 That was my week. We hope to have success during the coming week. I have a smile on my face and I know there are other people that are waiting for the message we have to offer.

I did splits with a North American this week and worked hard. 

Finally, I love you with all my heart. I pray for you every day.

Love Elder Pinegar
(Alex's pensionista family communicated with us this past week. They said he was kind, sweet, nice and very helpful.  It was a surprise to us to have them call Jared's skype through gmail. They are very happy to have the Elders living with them.)  

February 6, 2012 - EXPO S.U.D. & Out of His Comfort Zone

Remember this picture from Jan, 2012? The explanation is below!

Preaching on the streets at the EXPO S.U.D. - Feb 2012 La Union

Teaching about Mormonism at the EXPO S.U.D. - Feb 2012 La Union

Dear Familia,

So the reason I was dressed up like a Bible is because we had something called the EXPO S.U.D. (santos de los ultimos días). So we have been planning this for months with the ward, something to draw attention to the church here in The Union.  Basically what it was was that we had leccions in the street with people that were passing by. I never ever thought I would be the person to absolutely cut someone's walkway off and talk to them about God....Yeah I did that several times during this event. So we had a giant Bible and Book of Mormon, we walked around with this and told people what we believe. I thought that no one was going to show up to help us, but a lot of women members showed up.  So I sent some pics and what not about this. It turned out to be a huge success!

My comp, hes from Lima and was born and raised in the church, basically grew up how I did. He's 20 years old and is great. we have exactly the same amount of time here.

Not a ton of stuff happened this week, other than the EXPO,  but I can say that we've had the best numbers Ive ever had in the mission before. So that means we're working, working and playing haha we do it both. And yes mother and father, I'm following the rules geez ;) haha We went exploring for p- day and made slingshots, so that's what were holding in these pictures.

Love,
Elder Pinegar

Homemade Slingshots on P-day- Feb 6, 2012 La Union

Looks like the Missionaries are the tourist attraction - Feb 6, 2012 La Union

Enjoying P-day with more missionaries - Feb 6, 2012 - La Union

Jan 30, 2012 - The work is slow but we will have Exito!

Dear Familia,

This week went good. It was kind of hard considering we had absolutely none of our investigators asistir to church,but it's all good. We did a ton of street contacting and of the whole week, we only found 10 that night....progress...slowly.  I'm doing good. Me and my comp are perfect, We think the same. We're gonna have ´exito (success) here. Yeah, the highlight of the week is that we had a baptism. We want to baptize people who will stay active in the Gospel.

I haven't gotten many letters yet, because they had to cancel the cars that we go in cause there's a strike! As for Cancun, I'm glad that you guys are doing good.....without me, but I'm doing alright. That's the week in a nutshell. Love you guys and you're always in my mind... and yes I'll be thinking if I need anything to communicate (on Mother's Day).

Much luv.yours truly
E Pinegar

*We just received Alex's memory card full of pics from Nov-Jan 2011-2012. You can view them on his web page under photos--on the flckr site.

Jan 23, 2012 - A New Companion & Teaching English

Elder Delgado & Elder Pinegar exploring in the Chacra outside of La Union Jan 23, 2012

 

 

Alex's P-day artwork - Jan 2012

To all the fam at home!!!

First off,  I would like to give a very belated thank you to all those who have sent me gifts through the mail carrier, especialmente grandpa for the marshmallow guns and granny for the spices. I have yet to have a guerra con las pistolas pero muy pronto voy hacerla. The spices are wonderful and the canlela (cinnamon) is awesome!

 As for this week, yeah, its been little bit crazy getting a new companion and saying goodbye to the ancient ones. So first off, I wanna say that my new companion is basically a perfect match! We have the same interests and like to talk about the same things. This 6 weeks is gonna fly, cause we push
each other to do better. Our teaching methods are a little bit different, but that's all good, we can work that out. He is from Lima and se llama Elder Delgado. I call him skinny haha but he is basically professional at beat box and we do little raps in Spanish and English haha yeah-- the kind of burra (noise) que mi papa no le gusta haha.

We're working hard and getting things done. Two days ago, we found a woman that has edad of 22 años. She seems really interested and attended the clases de ingles that -- yes -- I'm teaching haha. They call me maestro and what not!

Oh, one more thing, there was a death in the ward, and it was interesting to see a catholic and LDS mix because 80% of the people are catholic here. The chapel was the most llena (full) that I have ever seen,  and the bishop spoke about the life and how they needed to be baptised and humble themselves. Pretty direct but it's good, cause if you're not here,  you end up talking about the chakra (farm) or problems with other things that really aren't that important.  As for Elder Castillo, he went to Tumbes, basically hell on earth especially in el verano (summer) haha, but he kept saying that he wanted to go there.  So I guess that's good.  He was always good to me and was a good companion that I truly do respect.

As for the fam at home, I love ya! and Mom and Dad, enjoy yourselves in Cancun.......just know that when your walking in the sand, picture me without water, sweating, gasping for breath and speaking perfect Spanish ( I wish), but at least I understand and what not!

Love,
Elder Pinegar
** The pics posted are Elder Pinegar & Elder Delgado in their best "thug" poses...we'll be waiting for the ties and white shirt next :)

Jan 16, 2012 - He's staying in La Union--but with who???

The "Moto" - La Union's Taxi Cab

This week we were able to email back and forth live!! Pretty fun to get a couple questions answered, even if it was an English/Spanish mix.

Alright, so tio answer the first question, no I don't have a microwave, but my pensionista si tiene.

We drink juice and bottled water. My pensionista always whips up a mean glass of juice. It's probolemete 10x better than anything I've ever had in the states.

As for pics, I took the risk and sent home my memory card.  I'm hoping that you all will get it and that you can read the pics.  It has some virus or format or something, but Shark can fix it. I couldn't make
a copy of it either cause the computer couldn't read it. Yeah and for pics of Piura. I'm an hour and a half south of piura and yes, we had cambios (changes) this week. I don't know who will be my new companion, but I know that I'm in The Union. I'll let ya know more about this next coming week! Yeah, The Union is doing good. I'm going to finish up a piece of art this week of some Mexican that I've been painting that will be sweet! (a member has is an artist has been teaching him on p-days).

**More pics are on flckr so check that out--