Cambios y borrachos

  This last week we had transfers and I'm in Cusco now!! Everyone says Puno is the worst part of the mission, but I miss it a little haha. The city of Cusco is huge and just on a mountain, so all the streets are super steep and some of the houses are...really fun to get to. 

     The first day I got to my sector which is called Santiago, we were walking down a street and a drunk guy screamed at us that we were a cult from Utah and so we smiled and waved at him. Not even 2 minutes later a drunk lady tripped over a bucket and laid on the floor laughing while we passed her. 

      A couple days ago a guy walked up to us at the church and his eyes were super bloodshot and he said "quien es José smith" (who is joseph smith) in a super aggressive sounding voice and so we told him he was a prophet and he told us that we were exactly right and that we are angels sent from God. He then told us that he's an inactive member and he wants to change, which is super cool, but what isn't cool is that he kept screaming "Vive Jose Smith!!!" "Vive Thomas S. Monson!!!" Everyone already thinks we're a cult so that did not help our image haha. He was on repeat for most of the interaction he would just say "sabes que, les digo una cosa" (you know what, let me tell you something) then say something random or compliment us,but he kept saying the same things over and over. When he left, he started crying for no reason whatsoever and it sounded super fake and he started blowing kisses at us. Then he left yelling Vive Jose Smith again. He also had puke on his shirt, so I think he was on something.

      We were up on a mountain one day and we saw an ice-cream machine, so we asked the guy how much it is and he said 4 soles. It's usually 1 in other stores so we asked him why it's so expensive, and he told us that usually its 1 but because we were rich and white he raised the price. We walked away and he yelled 3 at us but for some reason we didn't pay that amazing price either.

     We were on a bus going to the middle of nowhere one day and a guy asked us in plain English "do you...know what...doing?" We told him, "yeah we live here" and he said "I dont think so" so we tried explaining that we're missionaries, but he wouldn't believe us no matter what we said and he kept trying to help us get back to the city so that we could get to our real home. I'm glad he was so concerned for us haha.

     Saturday night we got a call from one of our friends and he told us that he couldn't sleep because he has so many sins and he had been drinking. We talked to him for a while until he calmed down, then we had to be in a phone call with all the leaders because my companion is the district leader. When we got off of that call we had 12 missed calls from our friend. The next morning he called us and said that he's going to church. He came 30 minutes early super hungover and smelled like puke, but he was there. I had to bear my testimony because the bishops here always make the new missionaries in the sector talk (I was lucky it landed on fast Sunday) and I walked up to the front row to wait for my turn and all the sudden our friend sits down next to me and told me he was going to bear his testimony as well. I got nervous because this was his first time at church and he was still a little off from drinking the night before, so I made him tell me what he was going to say before he went up (in the nicest way I could.) Literally all he said was that it was his first time at church and it seems really nice...solid testimony. 

      This place is awesome but there's an insane amount of drinking and partying so I'm in for a fun time haha.