Week 27: The Most Wonderful Family!!

Hello from South America!

So much happened this week. There were lots of ups and lots of downs.. Sunday was a really rough day yet super happy too! We had SO many investigators commit to come to church.. to where we had to ask members to do splits with us to pick up everyone! Sadly each trip we were told last minute that they had work, left, have to clean their house and cook, or wouldn’t come to the door… Haha we asked a little girl if her aunt was home and she said yes and we asked her to go get her and she came back and said, “My aunt says she is not home…” Hmmm haha! So it was rough. We spent money on taxi trips that were a waste and then were late to the church ourselves… BUT, there is a happy story too! The most wonderful family DID come to church!! But I need to start from the beginning…

Life in the mission....

One day we were walking, and walking and walking, appointments falling last minute and everyone we tried to be friends with quickly turned us away saying, “I’m Catholic! But I go to the Evangelico church Wednesday if you want to come..” “So..you’re not Catholic?” “No, I’m Catholic!” Wait what? So confused. So we were walking and walking on the yellow brick road and we saw THE CUTEST puppy in the entire world so of course we stopped and pet it! There was a little girl, her brother and Dad so we asked them about their puppy, its age, breed, if it was Catholic, Evangelico, or Buddhist, etc. After all the rejection earlier I was super scared to talk to them about religion but then realized that’s a little messed up because I’m a missionary and want to tell everyone about our message.. kind of why I am 3,000 miles away.. And if you don’t open your mouth you miss opportunities.. 

So many I can't even!

So we started talking about how we are missionaries and have a beautiful message to share. We talked for a while and then we asked if we could share more about the Gospel with their family one day. Honestly I was expecting (sadly) some show host showing up with a microphone saying, “DENIED!!!” Well, they said YES!! (Pause looking up with the Hallelujah music in the background.) We went to teach them the next day and the entire family including their mom, who is the nicest lady I have ever met, sat and listened to us. At the end of the lesson the dad asked, “When is your church?! We will go as a whole family!” Sunday we didn’t even have to worry about them being ready or getting there! They were all there at the church 10 minutes before, with button up shirts, girls wearing their hair in braids, all lookin sharp! The father excitedly showed us that he has kept the picture of Christ that we gave him in his shirt pocket all during the week, keeping it close to his heart. Their little girl had hers too. :) 

Went all the way to california for a doctors appointment for them to just tell me I need more antibiotics so we decided to make the trip worthwhile during our lunch time and get ice cream

They LOVED church! After our frustrating morning we sat next to them in the church and everything was okay. The talks were all about eternal families and Gospel Principles was about the role of fathers, mothers, and children in the family so they really enjoyed it! After church they reminded US that we are coming Tuesday at 10:00am. I am so excited to share more about the gospel with this family.. I can’t stop thinking about them! I can’t wait to see them Tuesday. Pray for them!

The rest of the week was pretty calm… We had intercambios so I went to California (the name of the sister leaders’ area) for a day, we had a doctors appointment, we witnessed a robbery, preparing for a baptism for THIS WEEK!

Sorry this is a little short.. I’ll write more next week!

He asked me to marry him. I said no mister I'm a sister!!

5 Tender Mercies of the Week…

·         1- Found more roses

·         2- Hna. Aldana has the song “Homeless” on her CD

·         3- It’s almost November which means I am officially allowed to sing Christmas songs.

·         4- Saw a man help a blind man he didn’t know cross the street

·         5- Got to cook in a kitchen!!

·         6- Our investigators (the fam) came to church

Whoops…That was 6…

Advice from Thomas S. Monson

1.       Labor to Learn

2.       Strive to Serve

3.       Think to Thank

4.       Pause to Pray

Taking advantage of kitchen time.

Twas so beautiful... Pinterest worthy!

Week 26: The Worth of Souls Is GREAT

I thought they only had these kind of hotdogs in China!! SO GOOD!!!!!! Yum yum yum

Che! Como te va?

Haha I just got laughed at by Hermana Aldana for sitting staring at the heading of this letter for probably a solid 20 minutes with a confused look not knowing what to say.. So much happened this week and I don’t think I have ever been this tired in my entire life.. Bear with me if this is all kind of random.

Hang in there got about 12 more months..

The area and our investigators are great! The people are so nice…the only struggle is dodging all of the food they try to feed us.. The struggle.. We always find some way out. We invited some of our new investigators to baptism and they said yes! We are so so excited!! They are so wonderful and God is so good. The ward is doing great too! I know that our success is because of their faith and unity in the ward. God is not going to give us precious souls if the ward is not strong, so I have been really grateful for this ward and their help.

"This is the wrong house!!" "Hurry just ask for Maria! There is always a Maria!" ..... There was a Maria.

This week I studied 2 things.. DyC 18:10 and the power of the atonement! I’ll start with DyC. This has been my favorite scripture since I was 12.. I think at the time probably because it’s short and I can’t memorize so I felt really cool being able to say the whole scripture by memory haha… But it is so simple and SO important! So it’s good that it is easy to memorize.. Maybe that was God’s idea. The worth of souls is GREAT. Each soul has infinite worth. We are ALL called as missionaries to bring souls home and it can be ANYONE.. a stranger, friend, or a sibling or spouse. The eternal joy is the SAME that the Savior promises in DandC 18:16. The coolest thing that will happen is that if we just remember to be an example there will be souls that we helped and we won’t even realize until the next life. Abinadi’s words resulted in Alma’s conversion which also led to a legacy of Book of Mormon prophets!! I also think that the soul we bring back home could very much be ours as well. We can all be examples and grow our faith every single day to help bring others unto Christ and also ourselves. If God clothes the fields knowing every single lily and takes care of them or if even Christ passes a fig tree in the way and saw that it wasn’t doing very well, not growing fruit, He said unto it, “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever.” And it withered away.. Him having compassion for the poor tree (for me, putting it out of its misery), you can only imagine or I guess not even imagine or comprehend how much love He has for your soul, or your friend’s soul.

This scripture can also help us obtain Christ-like attributes of loving and serving others when we remember that their souls are precious to our Heavenly Father. The reason I studied this verse more this week was because I was caught guilty of judging someone.. There is a lady that my comp has been teaching for a while and when I first met her I was a little judgmental because she is a very strong, tough, frank lady.. Not going to lie she kind of scared me! Well we decided to go teach her this one day, my comp feeling very strongly that we needed to go see her, me thinking in my head, “NONONO.” We walked to her house and I was just dreading it and then DandC 18:10 popped in my head. I think God put it in my mind saying, “Knock it off and remember she is my daughter too.” Well, we got there and we had a lesson planned… But she seemed very grumpy and cold so we decided to just talk to her for a minute. I saw a picture of her holding a baby lion and flipped out and we started asking her some questions about her life! She has traveled SO much! Her apartment is my dream home.. Covered in paintings, TONS of books, pictures etc.. I feel like I was just running around like a kid at Christmas looking at everything saying, “What’s this?!” “Oh that’s from my trip to Asia.” “Who’s that?!” “That’s a painting of my dog’s mother’s mother.” (True story) “You held a baby lion?! How?! Where?! WHEN!!” She then brought out a bunch of photo albums and was laughing and smiling telling us memories. We learned a lot about her.. about her life and a lot of hard trials she has had to go through. She may be tough on the outside, but she truly is the sweetest, most incredibly strong woman I know! We talked about the power of the Atonement and enduring to the end. A lesson I was totally dreading turned into one of the greatest lessons and a moment I will always remember! Her soul is very precious to our Heavenly Father and I can only hope one day I can be as strong as her or have a beautiful soul like hers. Holy cow.

Well I am going to save the other notes for next week haha because I am making this way too long. But read Alma 7! That’s what I studied this week.

My comp is doing great! Haha she is the best. President had interviews with the missionaries this past week and I told him I’d be okay if he kept us companions for the rest of her mission.. He laughed… Buuut I’m serious.. haha! She’s super funny too.. and she LOVES Michael Jackson music. I guess she didn’t know that he was a little cray cray and got upset when a member told her the news that he was a little nuts so we walked and she asked me if He was in Heaven and I told her that yes, he is in Heaven and probably not crazy and learning the Gospel! She hopes he is doing alright.

Found a microphone.. You can guess what happened next..

Rap battle rap battle

Well that explains our week! Oh and I also got beat up by a wall haha.. We were walking and this dog started following us and he looked like the ewok scary teddy bears on Star Wars that give me nightmares so I kept looking back at it saying, “Stop following us!!” Then it started walking faster and so I looked back, then whipped back around to see where I was walking and I wore my hair down for once so of course it got in my face and all of a sudden there was a wall. Proof that wearing your hair up is always the better option. It’s not too bad with makeup covering it… Next time we go to soccer though people may ask how Companionship Inventory went… Haha just kidding.

This is called the Peruvian Rat.. Rare species..

Love you guys! Have a great week! Sorry this is everywhere and random.. I’ll just send pictures. They better explain the crazy week!

Love,

Llama Face

My 2 first compies TOGETHER!! So happy to hear from them!!

Thought I was kidding?

This is Brono.. Usually in the cone of shame.

Our service project!! Made cute flowers! I would have loved to have made these for Mickey's first Bday :(

Now we are like all those Pinterest girls!!!!! Yay!!!!!

Look who I found bright and early at Futbol

Hermana Kelley's creations...

The Jello...... Always Jello...

Typical Dinner..

Grammy no want

Cute girls had a slumber party!!!

Someone in the ward found out about my hot chocolate addiction..

Only in our dreams..

The struggle with the hotdog

Week 25: New area!

Feliz Cumpleanos Evie!

Fam!! I am so excited to tell you about my new area! It’s not very far from Buenos Aires.. But I feel like I am in a completely different world.. The first day was super overwhelming. I really missed the dirt roads and sound of the ocean.. Los Cedros is like Lima, America, and Slovakia all put together.. People have really nice houses and decorations on their walls and tile! There is a mall like America with a Dunkin Donuts and… SUBWAY! People live in little apartments like the exact same as the one Evie, James, and I went to for a lunch with the missionaries in Slovakia.. The only thing that reminds me that we are in Peru are the Jello stands on every corner (Peruvians love their Jello) a chifa (Chinese restaurant) every 5 feet, and all the dogs walking around in their sweaters… No joke I swear people just cut off the sleeves of their sweaters and put them on stray dogs.. Poor things.. sometimes their sweaters just do not go with their color fur and it’s just not…working out for them and I want to take the sweater off but that might be a little difficult.. Oh I guess you could say I am in New York too! There are SO many taxis that just honk all day..all night.. I really feel like they have absolutely no reason to honk but do it for fun and to drive me crazy..except I am super grateful for taxis! It’s going to be weird being back in Salt Lake one day and not being able to just wave your hand for a taxi but instead buy a stinking car and all that Jazz ugh I love how simple Peru is..

Anyways back to saying what I was saying before, the first day was rough. It wasn’t like a “Let me go cry in a corner now” kind of feeling but just a sort of “keep walking get through the day if possible” feeling.. Then this guy sang as we walked past, “Hello, is it me you are looking for!” And at first I started getting annoyed and then couldn’t help it and started cracking up haha and my companion did too. I explained to her the song he sang (because she doesn’t speak a lot of English) and she said in Spanish, “We should have given him a Book of Mormon and said no, but you are looking for this!” It was funny haha. I had to keep telling myself, I can get through the next hour..10 min..day.. Or did 5 things I can see, 4 things I can hear, 3 things I can touch, 2 things I can smell or taste, 1 breath. I looked at things around and asked myself, “How does this bear witness of Christ?” “What qualities of this can I use in my life?” I looked at a tall tree, upright, strong, and firmly rooted, with its branches and leaves reaching upward to the sunlight, or saw a rough beaten up dog and what that taught about enduring to the end, or looked around on a crowded bus that gets us from where we are to where we need to be… Anything to keep me in the present and stay calm.. (Oh also the streets here are named after places.. Hong Kong, Budapest, San Francisco, Philadelphia.. I hope you understand the struggle..hahaha). 

Working on my tan can't you tell??

Well that feeling didn’t last thankfully because that people here are AWESOME! Holy cow the ward is so strong and united..everyone calls or comes up to the missionaries asking if they can come teach with us or we pass members on the street and they say they are heading out to go home teaching, visit teaching..? I don’t remember the way that is said but I think it’s right? Sounds weird. But anyways, they are so great about fulfilling callings etc! And I just came into an area with more than 15 investigators and we received 10 more this week! Seriously everyone just says stuff like, “Come in! I’m baking a cake and you can help and also teach me about God!” You think I’m kidding and putting the cherries on top but I’m not.. We literally taught a lady the restoration of the Gospel while decorating a cake.. She listened and we made the frosting and decorated. Twas a masterpiece…need a medal to put on my wall as one of my life accomplishments.. Because we all remember my terrible stage at age 12 of wanting to be a cake decorator and how that turned out haha. 

The daily look

Oh also our pensionista/landlord/mom is a professional cake decorator! She’s so awesome! We live with her family in this house that has this cabin feel plus Downton Abbey and Pride and Prejudice…you know.. The plates on the walls, that painting of an apple and a banana (super artsy).. Then you’ve got a 3-course meal at 1, tea (herbal Louisa) at night..fancy stuff. I’m really wishing I took those etiquette church mutual classes serious now.. all I know is “Pinkies up!” from Spongebob.. (Just kidding I promise mom and dad) I’m getting really good at eating noodles with a spoon politely! Anyways, the family is so great. You’ve got Grammy and Grandpa, Kelly (the mom) and her two daughters! The best way I can help you imagine the scene is if we were in the scene from Pride and Prejudice looking through the windows of all the rooms and you would first look into our window on the 3^rd floor and see Hna. Springer and Hna. Aldana planning for the next day probably laughing about one of the adventures of the day (really funny one I’ll tell next week if I remember) then the next floor you’d see one of the girls, probably listening to their super cool music that we don’t listen to (but that’s ok because Hna. Aldana has the same taste in music as the fam so we are best friends). Then the next window would be Hna. Kelly baking or decorating a cake, and finally Granny probably doing the chacha or watching futbol (or popping bubble wrap..she loves it!) and Gramps snoozing outside on the chair. It is such a fun homey feel. I am really happy here! Haha they are so funny and happy people.

The fam

The sleepy spot

Our cute room!

I love my sweet companion! You will too from these letters.. Holy cow she is the best! She is from Argentina and is such a hard worker. She’s been a convert for 3 years so she really loves missionary work and has such a strong testimony. We actually were already friends because we were in the same zone and I helped her with English once so when we found out we were companions we were super excited! She’s super super sweet.. She’s that person that peole would say if she doesn’t make it to Heaven then none of us have a chance haha… I’m actually praying that we are stuck companions for like 6 months haha not sure if she would like that very much but I’d be happy! She’s also really helping me with Spanish. She speaks very clear and my Spanish has gone up from just one week with her! So all is well.. You will probably meet her one day we already planned a trip to Argentina and Utah hah.

My beautiful compie Hermana Aldana!

Well I don’t think there is anything else for now! Can’t wait to read all about your week! Oh! This week I read the talk, “The Infinite Power of Hope,” by President Uchtdorf! Read it, it is really good! I think I have always just focused on Faith and Charity and skipped over Hope and realize now from this talk and studying this week how big of role Hope has! Faith HOPE and Charity are Best Buds.. complimenting each other and grow together! “The brighter our hope, the greater our faith, the stronger our hope, the purer our charity.. The things we HOPE for lead us to faith, the things we HOPE in lead us to charity..” Hope holds it all together! Ok well I love you! Have a great week! Read the Book of Mormon every day and serve others every day without recognition.

The study spot

Siempre,

Hermana Primavera-er