Week 9: Beach Day!

Well, this week was great! Honestly I don’t remember much of it because it went so fast. That’s why the good ole missionary planners are a missionary’s best friend. Seriously, how did I get through life without a planner. Haha just kidding. I’m really happy. It is probably the greatest thing in the world waking up every day knowing what you are supposed to do and serving Heavenly Father every single day. I know it will get hard! I’ve never been more tired in my entire life… But then I’ve also never slept better haha! My comp and I have more than once fallen asleep right in the middle of our prayer on our knees and wake up an hour later because of a charley horse because of kneeling for so long and the light that is still on.

This week we finally played some tennis and it was so much fun! We got up at 5:30 and played at a nearby court with the assistants and our other two hermanas in the area! My serve was actually not too bad but they still crushed us. The two Elders played tennis for Pleasant Grove and Bountiful sooo…yeah we were pretty bad haha. We still get up for soccer and Hermana Pattillo and I are doing a 30 day abs challenge every day to have a 6 pack hahaha.

Well it’s been an interesting week here in Peru! But before we get into all that I want to share with you what I have been studying. This week I decided to study grace. Holy cow! God is so cool. Mosto f what I am going to share comes from a talk by Brad Wilcox called “His Grace is Sufficient.” Please take the time to read it through AT LEAST twice. There is a scripture in 2 Nephi 25:23 that explains we are saved by grace AFTER all we can do. But how do we know when we have done enough? “Christ is not waiting at the finish line once we have done ‘all we can do’ He is with us every step of the way…Grace is NOT the booster engine that kicks in once our fuel supply is exhausted. Rather, it’s our constant energy source. It’s not the light at the end of the tunnel but the Light that moves us through the tunnel. Grace is not achieved somewhere down the road. It’s received right here and right now. It’s not a finishing touch, it’s the finisher’s touch.” –B. Wilcox. So everyone receives grace. We will ALL be resurrected because of the gift of grace. So what’s the catch? What’s our part? Brad Wilcox uses an awesome analogy of a mother paying for piano lessons for her child. But I’ll let you read it. [Note from Carly: Brother Wilcox wrote a picture book with this analogy called Practicing for Heaven: The Parable of the Piano Lessons. Here’s a link! (shameless Deseret Book plug)] But in short, when someone first starts to learn piano, do you expect them to be perfect? No. Does Christ expect us to be perfect? No. All He expects is for us to KEEP TRYING. He knows we are going to hit wrong notes, to mess up. But don’t quit, don’t give up. We don’t become professional piano players in one day, week, or even years…it takes a lifetime. Grace is the chance we have to be changed so that one day we will be comfortable in the presence of God. And that is the ultimate goal. “Jesus Christ doesn’t make up the difference. Grace is NOT about filling the gaps. It’s about filling us.” Also another great quote, “A life impacted by Grace, begins to look like Christ’s life.” –Brett Sanders.

So today we went to the beach with the zone and some other missioanries and President! We played soccer, baseball and tossed the football! At the end we made sand castles, the elders raced in the sand, and we all just soaked it in. I absolutely LOVE the ocean! It is still my life goal to live close to it one day. I was sitting down you know just doing some soul searching (haha just kidding) and President came and talked to me and said that I can work for him after the mission in Cali haha! We will see. Very tempting.

The rest of the week was great. The highlight of our week is that we are watching our Pensionista’s house (about 5 minutes away) while she is out of town and we have been able to use her kitchen! We were all excited to cook…then we realized that we don’t know how to so we have been living off avocados. One night we couldn’t go proselyte because of the Peru soccer game so everyone was drunk so we went and bought peanuts and tried to blend peanut butter. It was interesting but good! We forgot salt. We made no-bake cookies and studied scriptures so it was pretty fun. Oh really quick, so we have to feed our pensionista’s fish…We couldn’t find food for them se we called her and asked. She said, “Oh yeah open the fridge it’s in a small bag!” We then grabbed the only small bag we saw which was a bag of chicken liver. We said all we found was liver and she said, “No yeah that’s what they eat.” It was probably the most disturbing thing I have ever seen. I will never look at fish the same again…And all of my Lake Powell fears of fish are true…Because obviously if fish eat liver they will eat toes in the water too!

Anyways… I will have to catch up more next week. But this week was great. We had some of our investigators come to Church and lessons are awesome. Spanish is great. I have a good story to tell next week…haha…Love you guys! Sorry this is everywhere and a little confusing! I kind of blanked on what to say. I love your emails. Keep serving others!

Hurrah for Israel!