Asi es la Vida de Jamie...: Still Bleeding True Blue!

When I was packing to leave on my mission, it said to bring a t-shirt for gym clothes. So I did. I brought one. It was a shirt I actually got for free 3 years ago. I got it because I decided to donate blood. It was the first and only time I have done it in my life. But from that experience I got a shirt that has gone with me to all ends of the earth and back.

(And by ends of the earth I mean Peru!)

Remember this shirt???

Well, here is a look back at some of my awesome P-Days with my awesome "I Bleed True Blue" shirt!

Starting from the beginning....

I was in Monsefú for this pic! My trainer, Hna Lopez and I, got the same hats, for only 5 soles! (That's like 2 bucks. Score!)

Notice how my shirt still is quite blue.

And then watch how it fades over time...

I'm giving Hna Choto a piggyback ride after teaching our Latino companions how to play kick ball, which is an awesome American pastime, and now an awesome Peruvian missionary P-Day activity :)

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures with me and my shirt in my second area, La Cria.

But I did wear it...I think. Moving on...

Tumán!

So we had an awesome P-day as a zone where we went to see the place where they dug up what is called "El Señor de Sipan" (Think Emperor's New Groove sort of dealio.)

Yes, that is an awkward picture of me.

At the end of the museum place, they had a bunch of artifacts we could play with (they were probably replicas, but still cool).

So I'm being cool and pretending to drink out of an ancient water bottle :)

After the museum, we got to walk around and actually see where they found the tombs of the Señor de Sipan. And we ran across a tree that looked like a bridge. So, what do 14 missionaries do when they come across something like that? They take a picture on it.

And then....they jump off it.

I think it's a pretty epic picture of Eld Ruiz and Eld Karl. Notice me, in the shirt, off watching the crazy elders jump off the tree :)

Of course, I waited around until everyone had jumped off or climbed down. Then I gave my camera to my companion, Hna Machuca, and she some how ended up taking this epic picture of me. I think it's amazing, with the sepia and the trees...it just looks awesome!

Afterwards, I took a picture of the awesome earrings that I bought there.

It was the first time I had worn dangly earrings since I started my mission.

But don't worry, I didn't go tracting with them :)

And the shirt was just as awesome as ever.

Then, about a month and a half later,

I found out I was being transferred out of Tumán.

So, on my last P-Day in Tumán, of course I had to take some epic pictures...and yes, wear my shirt.

This is what the chapel looked like in Tumán. It was a house that we met in. I grew to love it.

I saw "grew" because the first couple of weeks I had a headache after church.

Why?

Just imagine listening to people speaking into a microphone while in a cement room with cement floors, walls and ceilings.

Does that make anyone else's head hurt??

But I really did grow to love it, and I cried when I found out I was leaving it.

(P.S.-So Tumán is an actual ward...the reason they don't really have a chapel is that there is a huge sugar factory that owns pretty much all of Tumán and for some reason or another the Church can't buy land there yet. They would have to rent it, but I'm pretty sure the Church doesn't want to build a chapel on rented land. Or something like that. So in the meantime, we have our "home chapel")

Back to my last P-Day...so I got transferred at the beginning of October, and my birthday is at the end of October. But, I didn't want to not celebrate my birthday with people I knew and loved, so I made myself a cake and we celebrated my birthday!

In true Peruvian style,

I got a raw egg smashed on my head and my cake smashed in my face.

It was okay though, because it was also Eld Ruiz's birthday,

and I got to smash the egg on his head. SO FUN!!!

I only got a little bit of egg on my shirt!

You shoulda seen the other guy though...his shirt was a mess!

After I got cleaned up, we went to go play volleyball at the church. Yarek wanted to play, but he's 3. And the rest of us...are older than 3. So while it wasn't my turn to play, I played ball with him.

I love this picture :)

I ended up being transferred to Guadalupe

where my True Blue shirt invariably followed me.

One of our first P-Days was a trip to Pacasmayo, where I was truly introduced to the ocean for the first time in my life. I loved it!

There was a pile of rocks, so of course my companion, Hna Westman, and I had to take Ariel pictures!

While this isn't a complete replica of an Ariel picture, I think it turned out super well! I told Hna Westman she had to make sure I didn't look fat or weird at all....I think she did a spectacular job!