Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Elder Adam's June 29th email

Dear Family,

We've got some more transfers coming up today, and I'm pretty convinced that I'm going to get transferred. I've been here in Pucallpa for about 6 months, which is pretty long for a missionary to be in an area. However, there have been rare occasions missionaries that have stayed in an area for 9 months before they move, so we'll see what kind of stuff happens.

Last Wednesday, the entire city of Pucallpa (and every other city in the jungle, I hear) celebrated a huge holiday called San Juan, which is supposed to celebrate the life of John the Baptist. The people here celebrated it with a popular dish called "Juanes", which is rice, chicken, and olives rolled up and tied up into a little bag made of tree leaves. We got a few ourselves and they tasted pretty good! Most people aren't a fan of the olives, especially the white people (gringos). The olives are so infamous with the gringos, that they've earned the nickname "Matagringos", which more or less means "Gringo's Death". I thought they tasted really good, though. Maybe I'm just crazy or something.

Our area, which is party-central for the people in Pucallpa, was SUPER crowded for the holiday! It was more crowded than Disneyland! We had no trouble talking to people that day. The city closed the biggest street so people can lay out their posessions to sell. I didn't look much, but I did see some pretty cool things people were selling, like Amazonian paintings. They celebrate that every year down here, so I'll get to see it again next time!

That's pretty much all that happened down here. This week, we got a good amount of people to come to church. There's one elderly couple we're teaching that are super excited to be baptized in the church, named Juan and Lila. We got to get them married before we can baptize them, though. We're currently working on that.

How has everyone been up there? Looks like my family is turning famous! I hope you all have a fun, busy week! 

Love,
Elder Dixon

P.S. This picture I'm sending is a picture of me, Elder Haymond, Elder Manrique, and Elder Figueroa with our Juanes that we were given that day.

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