Week 8

Greetings from Peru!

         Family, HOW ARE YOU! From your emails you all sound great, Thank you for sending me pictures of my beautiful Utah mountains and the cabin! Dad the house looks beautiful with all of your new flowers! How’s the raspberry garden coming? And I was so excited to hear that the kayaks are out on the lake again!! Thankfully I’ve got the ocean and some distant mountains here… or I would be going crazy.. But then again I get to live in Utah forever pretty much.

            I am writing this and just thinking of a good way to describe everything to you.. It’s crazy to me how fast the weeks go and how much happens in just ONE DAY on a mission! I keep thinking, “What do I tell my family? I JUST talked to them on Monday!” But then I think of my week and look back in my journal and think, “Shoot... what do I NOT tell them so that my letter isn’t equivalent to the last Harry Potter book?!” The struggle is real. Now I understand those returned missionaries who start every conversation with, “When I was a young buck on a mission...” Because these experiences will last a lifetime and there is no way to possibly tell all of it in one email home each week. I can already see myself being one of those moms who, whenever my kids complain or whine about something, I will tell them all about how their mother had to fill a bucket of water each day for the toilet, accidentally brushed my teeth with ants on my toothbrush, closed my eyes every time I ate food because there are black hairs… but I was too hungry to care, etc. Ok I’ll be a cool mom, but if they ever complain about the toilet or something, that’s when I’ll put my foot down.

         Not going to lie.. it’s actually been pretty rad! I feel like a hobo living off the land! I like this experience and wouldn’t want it any other way. Lehi and I now share something in common. As silly as it sounds, one of my favorite verses is in 1 Nephi chapter 2, verse 15.. “And my father dwelt in a tent.” It is such a short verse, yet it has a lot of power behind it. First we have to think about how much time it probably took and how hard it was to engrave writing on gold plates.. so why was it so important to put that one tiny verse in? It shows how much Lehi loves the Lord and this Gospel and how obedient he was. He left the comfort of his home, everything, because the Lord commanded that he do so. I am so grateful for his example! We may leave the comfort of our home but we will be blessed. There is no place better to be than serving our Heavenly Father. I have already seen so many blessings here!

         This week was so much fun! We play futbol (soccer) almost every day either with the district and ward with the assistants, or with our zone. If you look up any picture of Trujillo, Peru and find that picture of the giant yellow cathedral, that’s right next to where we play soccer! Oh! Before I forget, I got my first letter!! From the ONE and ONLY Sydnee Sweet aka the greatest human alive. They were calling names for letters right after soccer and I wasn’t really paying attention because I didn’t think I would get one and then my name was called! Ah it was the BEST! Now I understand why snail mail (llama mail) is so fun. Anyways, so soccer every morning and President wants us to play Tennis this week so that will be fun! I’ll have to remember how haha the last time I played was at the Ranch and before that, was when Evie and I had a class together in Prague! Let’s pray I’m not terrible…oh well.. I’ll just look like a fool haha

         We have a dog! Haha well we call him our dog, but he is a member’s dog that just really loves us for some reason. He follows us everywhere… to people’s homes, he waits outside by the door while we eat dinner, and may or may not have followed us to church.. He looks like a little white fox! Oh, he also followed us into the bakery haha. Anyways besides the point, lessons have been going great! Well one was kind of interesting. We met this guy who is from France, but his step daughter lives here.. He speaks a little Spanish but mostly French. So we taught him and he said he understood it throughout the lesson, but then when we had finished and bore our testimonies he told us that he wasn’t sure why Jesus restored his restaurant on the Earth…. Then with a small game of charades we found out that as we were saying Restauracion (restoration), that means restaurant in French.. He then just argued with us a lot and so we bore our testimonies and thanked him for his time… dang it. But hey, gotta plant these seeds… his heart was just not ready, AND WE DON’T SPEAK FRENCH!! (Ethan where are you with your French?! That’s what you are learning for Tahiti correct?) So anyways that was fun. Right after that though we went and knocked on a door of probably the nicest house in Trujillo. You know, just inspiration… or the fact that they probably had a real working bathroom… just kidding… inspiration..

         Nobody answered for a long time. Right when we decided to give up though, a man opened the door and looked at us startled and apologized saying that he didn’t hear us knock! He said that we could come in and we heard other people so we knew it was ok…. Yeah turned out it was the T.V., not people. Then he started leading us up all of these stairs and Hermana Pattillo and I got super nervous just thinking… shoot… what did we just do! ABORT! ABORT! Then we got to the top floor and were relieved to see the sweetest leady ever holding a little baby. The baby’s name is F. And F. is THE CUTEST, THE CHUBBIEST of CHUBBIES BABY EVER!! We taught them and in the first lesson they told us that they had felt that God had abandoned them and they were searching for an answer and then we showed up on their doorstep! We taught them the entire week and they want to be baptized!! Let me say that again... THEY WANT TO BE BAPTIZED! We had a member come with us also to help after they said that they wanted to be baptized because we were panicking that maybe we said something in Spanish like, “If you get baptized, you get a car, and YOU get a car, and even F. GETS A CAR!” haha so we needed to make sure they understood us. And they do! Ah guys they are wonderful. Also, R. (the husband) has such a powerful prayer. We taught him how to pray and at the end we were practically in tears. Haha our first lesson after they said goodbye we just walked down the street and my companion said, “Don’t freak out, don’t freak out they are probably still outside…. Ok NOW freak out!” We were SOO exited! So we are going to continue teaching and I will keep you updated! I feel like every time we are put down, God always lifts us up or shows us tender mercies to keep us going. Even if it’s just something little like when we go and have appointments but then nobody answers their doors and we are discouraged but then a school of kids begin following us and come and hug us. Those tiny little things really keep us going. J

         Haha the kiddos here love the two blondies in the neighborhood! They always give us flowers or just giggle and follow us. It’s the best! The one thing I am still having a hard time getting use to is all of the kissing on the cheeks! That’s how you greet and say goodbye. Basically I don’t have to put any makeup on because all of the old ladies put their blush and lipstick on me! So I’m good to go! Haha the worst is when the guys try to though. The other day, a man came up to us asking if we were Mormons and said that he wanted to learn more. Then as we were talking to him, 2 of his buddies came over and that’s when we realized that they were most likely drunk. One of the guys shook my hand then tried to kiss me and we flipped out and ran. They did not want to hear anything about the church. Later that night though, we had the opportunity to bring two recent converts to the temple for baptisms! Guys it was SO COOL. Their names are M. and L.! It was a pretty great day.

         My favorite day was Sunday though. It was my first time at church because last week all Peru was voting so no churches were allowed to be open. I think I told you in the last letter about our investigator with two 2 month old twins right? Hermana Pattillo and I found her together so she is really one of my first investigators that I have a strong connection with because she has never been taught by other missionaries. Well we invited her and her husband to church! The sacrament passed and I got a little discouraged thinking they weren’t going to come.. BUT THEN A. (the mom) walked in with her two twins!! She was all by herself. (Well I mean without her husband.. we asked a member to walk over with her) It was the greatest moment ever. I kind of just had that moment of, “Oh! So this is the joy that every missionary feels and talks about!” I just felt this unconditional overwhelming love for this person that I have only known for 2 weeks. Her husband is way interested too and they said that they want to work towards baptism! He had something come up so pray that he comes next week! A. loved church. All of the old ladies were swooning over her sons and helping her with them. It was the best day ever.

         I love you guys!! I hope you have a wonderful week. I can’t even begin to describe how grateful I am for you. Not like I didn’t love you before or anything, haha, but I REALLY love you guys!! You guys are pretty chill.. I’m gonna go all missionary on you for a second… because ya know, that’s my full time calling and I hope to keep this awesome calling for eternity.

         Serve someone every single day! There is a reason why we were born in this time and not 500 years ago or whatever.. You showed your exceedingly great faith and good works and made a great impression on our Heavenly Father to be sent here on this Earth at this time. Read the Book of Mormon every day!

Talk to you again in 7 days!!

-- Hermana es-Springer (haha)