Oct 6th, 2011

Hello Family and friends

Well this week was a week of a lot of traveling.  I went to the two farthest zones in the mission.  I went to Nazca which is basically like the hottest driest desert in the world.  There its 90 degrees durring the day in the winter.  You can only imagine what it would be like in the summer.  I had a good time there.  It was nice to be in the sun.  It was an 8 hour bus ride to get down there though.  The buses that go long distances in Peru are pretty intense.  They are two storied buses and they are huge.  We sat in the front seats of the second story so we had a panoramic view of everything.  That was neat.  We got to Nazca at about 930 that night and then went straight to the room of the zone leaders to get ready for bed.  It reminded me of
sleeping in Hawaii.  here in Lima it gets really cold at night.  I sleep with 3 big heavy blankets at night.  When i was in Nazca i didn't use anything.  It was nice and warm the whole night.  The next day we did an 8 hour long training with the zone.  Then after that we worked with the zone leaders in their proselyting area and went to bed again. The next day we woke up and studied like normal and then went to the bus station for another 8 hour bus ride.  We got to Lima about 7 that night.  We had to take care of a few things in the office then went home and went to bed to wake up at 300 in the morning the next day to catch an airplane to Ayacucho.  We got to Ayacucho at about 6:15 in the morning.  When we got there my companion and I changed and went for a little run.  Ayacucho is a city that lies at 9000 feet above sea level.  Im way out of shape and I've lived at sea level for the better part of the last two years.  To say the least i was breathless.  We ran to the top of a hill and got a view of the whole city.  It was pretty neat.  Wish i would have taken a Camera.  Supposedly it rains a lot in Ayacucho.  I was really excited because i havent seen rain in over a year.  But it didn't rain.  It was a little disappointing but thats alright.  After the run we got ready and repeated the training
we had done in Nazca.  By about 6 in the afternoon i was losing steam.  We worked with a couple of companionships in their areas for the rest of the day.  at ten thirty exhausted, my head hit the pillow and i instantly fell asleep.  Then we got up the next morning at 5:30 to
catch a plane back to Lima.   That was basically my week.  It was a long one.  I really enjoyed the general conference on Saturday and Sunday. Lots of fantastic messages.  I hope you were all able to watch it.  The talk from Elder Waddell was a lot of what he taught us when he was here.  Interesting.  Well thats all for this week.  Miss and
love you all.

Elder Hesselgesser