July 7, 2014

drum roll............................i had cambios!!  i am now in the ward chinchaysuyo in the zone tahauntinsuyo (pronounced tie-wan-tin-sue-yo).  it is about 5 minutes from independencia and our stake center is the mission offices which is pretty cool because i will be able to get letters and packages faster haha.  my new companion is hermana L and she was actually companions with hermana S in the ccm!! so she has 3 months in the mission.  she is from the jungle near iquitos and is great.  our area is up on top of a big hill and when its not foggy you can see the ocean!!  its such an awesome view! but because we are so close to the ocean IT IS FREEZING! literally im not joking IT IS FREEZING!! it is sooooooo humid that you can see the water in the air and its like we are walking through clouds and water all the time.  and i was definitely spoiled in my last area because here we are definitely living in a 3rd world apartment.  we have a tin roof over where we sleep and over the room where we study (which doesnt help with the cold) and the rooms arent connected so you have to walk out into the hallway to go from the bedroom to the study room and to the bathroom and... in the hallway there is no roof haha i feel like i am camping.  and im sooooo cold always! but i am learning to deal with it.  and the shower does this really cool thing.  we have hot water for 4 minutes if all the other lights in the house are off but when we hit 5 minutes the power goes out which means that we dont have hot water either (because its an eletric shower heater thing).  but at least we have water.  in my old area the problem wasnt that we didnt have hot water, it was that we literally didnt have water for 2 weeks.  like we turned on the water and nothing came out.  at least here we have water all the time but its just not always hot.  ahhh the joys of the mission.  haha but really i am loving it here and its teaching me a lot about adapting to different situations.  i feel like i could live just about anywhere now and be fine. 

we live above a member family who is awesome!! the mom is our pensionista and so we eat breakfast and dinner with her.   she is the best.  last night she made us pancakes!! i about died.

and HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!! my favorite holiday!  well they dont celebrate it here obviously but i definitely wore red white and blue and sang the national anthem all day.  it was very different than any other 4th of july i have had because it was freezing but i still had a good time in my own little world haha.  

i love you all and i am loving my time here.  i am so grateful to be serving the lord and to be experiencing life as a peruvian haha.  its the best.  im grateful to be serving here in chinchaysuyo and i know that this is where the lord needs me right now.  i cant wait to see what is to come.  i love you all and hope you have an awesome week in the heat!

xoxo hermana murdock