Week in Review - June 15, 2015 - June 21, 2015

Elder Holmes was able to attend the temple dedication via Satellite
for the new Trujillo, Peru temple. These are his temple recommend and handkerchief 

Well, I will need to let you all know... this week was one for the books, a bunch of stuff happened this week, and so as I have before I will go through it all one day at a time!

June 15th, 2015

Well, today was P-Day, and in the first part of today we had to move the sisters room, and uninstall a few of their things that are property of the mission.  Like their smoke detector and the water heater for their shower head.  Yes, I did the two, but it was all good.... But when we were doing that, I accidentally left my phone in the room of the sisters when I was reinstalling the new smoke detector.  Whoops.  Normally if president calls the missionaries for assignments like district leader or to train he does it the Monday night before the transfer... So I wasn't freaking out to bad, but of course... President liked to change things up.  He called my phone at lunch time... The sisters picked up.  Uh oh.... Sisters on the other side... I'm sure that looked great!  But basically i had to call president later in the day and found out that I will be training in the mission!  A New missionary!  Woo hoo!  I will leave tomorrow morning with the other missionaries that are in Huanuco that will be training as well...

Elder Holmes and Elder Cano

June 16th, 2015Ok, today was those goodbyes.  And after 9 hours of traveling to Huancayo, (normally it is only 5 or 6, but we were stuck in Ambo for like 3 hours, so that added some time to our journey.  I can tell you that I bought so much food on this trip, especially when I got stuck in there for 3 hours!  Ajhhjhhhh.  So, after all of this we arrived in the Mission Office at 8 PM, we got some dinner, Pizza Hut Wraps and Pizza, and I can tell you right now, that pizza destroyed all the missionaries!  All the bathrooms were loaded with missionaries... such a change in diet... I was so messed up.,  I needed my rice to get back to normal.  Haha. 

Capacitador means Trainer

June 17th, 2015

Ok, so this morning we had a training as the new trainers of the new missionaries.  Just a quick little meeting to remember how our training was, and to improve upon the experience that we had when we were learning how to be missionaries.  So, they all walked in, I still didn't know who was mine, until President did the role call, and assigned everyone to their companion.  My New Companion is Elder Cano, and he is from Lima, Peru, and is a super cool guy!  And guess what?  He knows a bit of English.  Yup, we are talking English now, so he can practice.  Woo hoo!  So cool!  After the training, we had some Burger

King for Lunch.  No Joke.  There is Burger king here!  and I got to eat the lettuce!  Woo hoo!  Yum yum!   

June 18th, 2015

Always wear your seatbelt! So glad he did and all is okay!

Ok, so today in the Mission Office we are still here, because it would take like 9 hours to travel back to Huanuco, so we hung out until the morning in the office.  I happened to snag a New DVD Player for our room, woo hoo, and placed a new order for the Scripture Case for the Book of Mormon that is always in my hands.  I will have a flag of California on the back, that will look very nice there.  Ok, so we waited until 10:30 to leave, and was all good, then on the way something happened.  My companion and I were in our car all calm and all, and then it began to rain on the road.  No big deal, but I forgot how crazy our taxi drivers are, and we were sleeping for a bit, then about 20 seconds before something, my companion and I woke up, it was really weird... Then we realized in a few seconds that we got into an accident.  My taxi driver was hydroplaning and we hit a concrete pole.  From the concrete pole which we totally riped out of the ground, we went in reverse off

the road as you can see in the other photo.  Backwards.. It was awesome!  We are all ok, there was no problems what so ever with us, but more then all it was because we were using our seatbelts!  My agenda and a few things in my front shirt pouch pocket went flying out to the back seat, but its all good. After that i looked at my companion which only has a few hours in the mission, looked at him and said, Welcome to the mission Elder!  hhahahahahhaa... You should be able to take the picture and put it into your GPS Software I left behind to see exactly where the accident was.  We changed cars, and it was all good, luckily we were traveling as a caravan with a few other cars to Huanuco and the missionaries, so we quickly loaded up into another car. 

After this lovely 10 hours of driving, car accident, and being stuck in Ambo for 3 hours, I was able to get our bags dropped off in our room, then pick up food, and off to the English Class.  Yup, that was a short lesson!°

June 20th, 2015

Today the main event was the Cultural Event going on in Trujillo, Peru, In Preparation for the Dedication of the Temple,. President Uchtdorf and Elder Bednar, their wives and a few cronies here from Peru where there to see the Activities.  We got to see them here as well in the Stake Center on the projectors as long as we brought some less active and investigators to watch.  It was really cool, dances from different parts of Northern Peru where this temple will be serving.  You can look it up on LDS.org and watch this part for free.  It was soo cool!

June 21th, 2015

Up close of the handkerchief that they handed out.

Today was the Temple Dedication of Trujillo, Peru!  Only those with Recommends to Enter the Temple could enter the Stake Centers here in Peru to watch the Dedication and participate in the dedication.  The little kids of 8 years or older could enter, but they still needed a little card, which I was able to snag one as a little recuerdo. [??]  As you can see from the photo I also got a white handkerchief which we use as part of the ushering in of a new temple.  Temple number 146.  Woo hoo!  I will admit though, we lost power in the chapel from 15 minutes before the dedication until 5 minutes after it starts.... As this is an extension of the temple for this activity, the doors were locked and nobody could leave.. it was a very interesting experience.  A super full stake center, which a bunch of quiet and confused people.  But, we only missed the prayer.  President Uchtdorf, Elder Bednar, Pres. Uceda, and a few others were there, one of which will be visiting the mission in a bout 1 week.  His name is Elder Waddell.  Uhh... Oh yea, the dedication was in English with a Spanish translator translating President Uchtdorf and the rest.  He even tried to speak a bit of Spanish.  Sorry Pres, only German is for ya... hahaha...

So, that was this week!  Loaded with adventures, and fun things to do.  I celebrated fathers day as a new dad in the mission.  I'm training!  And  had a car accident (I only told you guys in trust, something that I do want in the blog just so people know that when you use your seat belts it really does do its job, and here as missionaries, we are protected!)
Pizza Hut, English Class, and more.  I guess you could say it was a loaded week, and I am a bit tired... We will see what adventures this week brings!

Elder Holmes
Huanuco, Peru