Hola mi familia!
Wow I bet you didnt think that i was going to be writing you so quickly eh¿ Holy cow I just realized that these keyboards are in Español... so if you see some weird characters you can blame it on el donde de lenguas :)
The flight to Peru was very long, (Seven hours!) but it seemed to pass by quickly. I was able to sit by a man on our connecting flight to Atlanta. He was a very niceguy from Virginia, I was hoping for a chance to speak about the gospel, but the oportunity didn{t seem to present itself so we parted ways before I could mention anything about the church. Later, while I was sitting on our other flight to lima, I was able so sit closer to a few of the other missionaries in our flight group. They were so bold about sharing the gospel! I realized that I just needed to take a leap of faith and begin to share, we don{t come on our missions to make pleasant conversation, we come to share the gospel! Which is boss, but its also a little scary. Anyway, I began to jump into a couple of conversations and immediatley I knew that this was what I was supposed to be doing. Most people weren{t super receptive, but we had some good discussions and at least shared what we knew to be the truth (sowing seeds baby). There was one guy we were talking to who was from lima, he had grabbed some sick lids from the states and was trying to be cool, but the moment one of the Elders in our travel group (elder frampton) began to talk to him it was evident that he was interested! Elder Frampton gave him some foyettas (pamphlets) and began to explain the church to him. He need help with words frequently and I was totally able to help him. I´ve come to realize that I am one of the best Spanish speakers here (besides the natives of course) which really surprised me because I thought that I was terrible back in Provo. The guy said that he would check out the church in Lima and we were all VERY happy about that.
When we landed in Lima, the plane descended through some really thick fog. We couldn´t see the city until we were probably only a couple thousand feet above the ground. It was night time but you could see that there are a lot of people living here. We landed and went through imigration (I had to explain to the hombre at the kiosk that I was here with a religious visa, not a temporary tourist visa.) He kept asking "tourist sí¿" and I was like, " NO! Religioso vea aqui!" Pointing at my visa stamp. Eventually he figured it out and i was able to make it through.
The airport was really very nice, super inviting, lots of advertisements for American products like Sprite and Samsung products Hyundai cars etc. But! It was totally hilarious, the only songs they were playing in the little airport shops were "hips don´t lie" and " livin´the vida loca" and old 80´s rock like " we built this city on rock n´roll" Idk it was just funny
Then we loaded up on some big tour buses ( i think all in all about 30 missionaries were able to get their visas and come) and drove to the CCM. It was about a 45 minute drive to the CCM and our driver drove like a crazy person. It was so interesting to see the city though. Its not a very pretty part of the city we drove through. lots of old apartment/shops. They all look the same, and they are definitely not in good condition. Some of them have collapsed roofs, and the side streets that i could see while we were speeding by looked pretty sketch. Interesting though, tons of houses have Peruvian flags on top of their crumbling roofs, lots of patriotism here in Peru.
Well we got to the CCM and crashed, From what I have seen, and the breakfast we had this morning, its pretty nice here! I had to get my hair cut, which was odd because I got my hair cut in Provo 4 days ago, but that was ok, she tried to go over it with clippers and couldn´t grab any hair.
What else what else, Oh! my companions name is elder Milan¿ I think, I forgot my shcedule in the room. He is from Chile and I have said three words to him maybe. But he seems very nice. I felt so bad last night, crawling into bed at 2:30 and I have the squeakiest bed so he was probably super bugged. But Im sure that we will become good amigos in the future!
Im sorry to everyone that i wasn{t able to respond too in provo, you are going to have to wait for a little while to get a letter from peru, but let it be known I love you all very much!
One great thing here is that the marine layer is present for most of the day, so its not very bright. There is still some irritation in my eye when I look into the light. I took my last steriod drop today and I hope that my pupil will continue to close up over these next 6 semanas so the bright sun in Cusco isn{t to bothersome.
K i have to go, but a few quick things, packages are no bueno here, so pls dont send packages until i get to the field. Besides that I love you! my Pday is Wed. talk to you soon
elder Neff
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