Pucallpa is Awesome

Pucallpa is awesome!!! It’s just like Iquitos but its not city, its more jungle and my are is huge!! I have two wards, Viste Alegre and Centenario. I’m on the edge of the city so and the end of my area its just jungle. There is a lagoon on the outskirts of my area, im going to go and take pictures one day. We live in the center of Viste Alegre and to get to the end where the jungle is it takes, 45 minutes by moto. The chapel isn’t even in my area, we have to travel 15 minutes in moto to get there.

My companion is Elder Nieto. He is from Chimbote Peru. He has 6 months in the mission, he is a nice guy and humble but we don’t get along. He is a little anti social and he doesn’t want to work. The first night he told me he wasn’t going to work on weekends because he likes sitting in member’s houses. I told him that wasn’t going to happen. I think I will be using my patients this change.

The area is cool and the members are awesome. On Sunday we have to do interchanges with members so we can go to both wards. Right now we have a couple people progressing for baptism. We will see how it goes with them. I’m still getting to know the area and I still feel lost.

Our room is really nice, it has tile floor and walls. When I got here it was a mess, I had to clean it, here in the jungle its a rule that we have to have two fans in our room, we only have one and it was my companions so I had to go buy one so I could sleep at night. It’s hot here but the rainy season is starting so it rains a lot, I think in the 4 days I have been here it has rained 3 days. We don’t have a pensionista now but we found one. The bishop’s wife is going to do it, she is nice. When November starts she is going to do it, I hope she cooks good, they haven’t giving me anything gross to eat yet... yet, im sure something is waiting for me.

The weirdest thing that did happen to me is we live in kind of like a duplex, one side is us and one side are members, but we have a front yard with a gate, in the front yard there two dogs and a monkey, a little baby monkey that’s in a cage and when the dogs are put away we can play with it but when they are out the monkey has to be in the cage. So the other day we come to the room and the member comes out and says oh elders the monkey got out of the cage and the dogs were out. The dogs starting playing rough with the monkey and the monkey died. The members said “elder ridge can you dig a grave for him”, I was like ya that’s fine. So on Saturday I had to dig a grave and bury a monkey. Not that many people can say that they have done that. I took pictures of it so I will have to send you some.

They really accept us here, every door we knock on they say come in, we are always teaching but the people that progress is different. A lot of people are not married here, they just live together. If there was a mass marriage we can baptized a lot of families. I’m trying to work really hard to get a family baptized.