For our final P-Day we packed, cleaned the cuarto and fixed up our carpeta de area. Later in the night is when it got hard. We said goodbye to a few more people. First, we stopped by Anaximandro and Victoria. They were both so sad that we were leaving them. We giggled a lot, then we shed some tears, and left. Second, we went to say goodbye to Judith, Santos and Francis, but only Blanca (Judith's mom) and Francis were home. We shared a message with them about being firm. They liked it and then Francis treated us to some Inca Cola. It was very sweet.
Lastly, we went to Milagros, Juan Carlos, and Yelena. While we were there, we wrote down our names for Facebook and took a picture. They invited us to eat "brunch" at 8:30am. haha As we were eating, they downloaded the pictures we took and found us on Facebook. It was really cute. They told us that they can't wait until we come back to Peru to visit them after our missions. :)
Then we went home and packed until almost midnight. We couldn't sleep, so we stayed up for a bit more until we stopped thinking about cambios. (transfers)
Martes, 14 Julio 2015 TRANSFER DAY!
We are so lucky. This morning we got a ride to our transfer meeting from Freddy, who is an investigator of the Elders. We had a great conversation about the gospel. Freddy knows more about the Book of Mormon stories than I do. We told him to get baptized. Hopefully he will soon.
We got to the church early and had to wait an hour for the meeting to start. At 11 am, it started, and like always, our zone/sisters were the last ones to find out where we were going.
"Sister Dodson, leaving Pomalca, going to zone Latina, area Villareal as a sister leader with Hna Lofgran!" Another comp from my CCM group! We were so excited!! I am super happy for us, but nervous because we are opening the area, meaning that we don't know the area at all.
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| Hna Dodson and Hna Lofgran |
After the meeting ended the zone leaders came over to help us take our stuff to our cuarto and show us where everything was. Our cuarto is on the third floor and it is cute. :) We live in the same edifice (building) as our pensionista.
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| our new cuarto |
Then we went upstairs to call some people to figure out the area. We also looked in the area book....it was practically empty, so we decided to unpack. After we were unpacked, we grabbed the map, some contact cards and headed out.
It was super windy, so the entire time, we were trying to keep our skirts down. We were giggling a lot! We made some good contacts and we even met a family who wants us to visit them. We are excited to see what we can do to help this area.
Miercoles, 15 Julio 2015
This morning we had our district meeting. Our entire district is North Americans. It is Me and Hna Lofgran (Washington), Elder McKell (Provo, UT), Elder Driggs (Provo, UT - he is just brand new into the mission), Elder Peabody (California) and Elder Romrell (Idaho). On our way to the meeting, our moto got pulled over, which made us late....and that led to our district leader, Elder McKell, calling us to ask us what was going on. They all laughed when they found out.
It was weird to have an all American district, because we would speak in English every once in a while. It was strange. I really like our district. We all get along great!
Once we got home, we went to lunch. We laughed a lot with our pensionista and her husband. Then we went on our search for members. Our first contacts were with some less actives named Evelina (age 70) and Evelina (age 42). They have been inactive for almost 10 years and recently started going again. We talked about prophets and the Book of Mormon. The 42 year old Evelina thanked us for our explanation of some things about the Book of Mormon. Then the 70 year old Evelina told us about some crazy things that had happened years ago when some sister missionaries visited them. Apparently, Evelina had a son that was 7 years old, and a sister missionary really wanted to see him get baptized, so they baptized him a month early because he was "basically" 8 years old. So the baptism was invalid. So after he turned 8, he was baptized again, but then they lost his record, so now he refuses to be baptized again... so now he's not a member, but has been baptized twice!
Later, we went to find the bishop and his wife. They live in a complex and they have their # on the ward directory as 202, so we called the number. A woman answered and yelled, "I'm busy!" and turned off her speaker pad. We thought that maybe that wasn't the right number, because you would think that the bishop's wife would be nicer. Well, as we were walking down the street, we decided to knock a door, which ended up being some members! (the Second Counselor in Bishopric and President of the Young Women). We asked them what room number the bishop lives in and they said it was 202. Hna Lofgran and I busted up laughing, because of what happened earlier.
After leaving their house, a dog in a window almost bit my face. I screamed and jumped at Hna Lofgran to save myself. We giggled for quite a bit after that.
In the night, we ate dinner with our pensionista's husband. He is so funny. We got laughing so hard. He is such a good Grandpa because he teaches important principles in funny ways. My face always hurts after leaving their house, because I laugh and smile so much. I love them.
Jueves, 16 Julio 2015
Today was a good day. In the morning, we went searching for some members from the directory. One of the names that stood out to us was a woman named Rosa Ordinola. At the beginning of our visit, she was a little closed off, but after I shared a few scriptures and some personal experiences, she opened up and invited us to come back to visit her non member husband, and also her daughter-in-law. It is so beautiful to see the spirit touch the hearts of the people.
Later, after lunch, we went searching for a recent convert named Guiliana. We found her, and her friend, Sayuri, was over and Sayuri had some questions about the church. We started with a prayer and we taught about the Restoration. She was really interested. She said that she would try to go to church with Guiliana on Sunday. Sayuri is from Santa Rosa (right outside of Pimentel and on the way to Monsefu) You could see it in her face that the spirit touched her heart. She even opened up and shared some personal experiences that she had been praying about. It was very special to have her trust us so openly, because she let us know that she has never told anyone what she was telling us.
After that, we picked up Daniela, a member, that we met on Wednesday. She took us to some houses of some members. At one point, she told us that she was going to try and introduce us to the First Counselor in the Bishopric. She said his name was Julio and that he works a lot. As we were approaching his house, I asked what Julio's job was and Daniela told me that he was a doctor. I immediately knew that it was Dr. Julio who helped me when I had my ear infection. Well, his brother answered the door. He let us in and gave each of us a cup of Coca Cola and called for Julio to come downstairs. When Dr. Julio saw me, he lit up and said, "Oh good! You are still alive!" haha He is excited to have me in his ward and I am super excited to have him in my ward! He is a great guy.
Later in the night, we visited the Bishop's parents and it turns out that the Bishop lives in 101, so we rang the doorbell and Carolina, the Bishop's wife, let us right in. She was really nice and very helpful. She helped us go through a list of members to know if they were active or inactive.
We ate dinner with Arsenia and her grandchild. They are so cute. I really love this place.
Viernes, 17 de Julio 2015
This morning we had a pretty unsuccessful planning session, since we hardly know anyone, but we made some plans to help us with the area.
After lunch, we went out visiting. Ingrit, a recently returned inactive, came out visiting with us. She is 19 years old and she helped us get to know a few more members. Then it was time for our cita with Evelina. When we showed up, Evelina (42 yr old) introduced us to a friend. Her friend lives in a different area, but we taught her a little something and then read 3 Nephi 27. Everyone there loved it. It made them all open up more with us and they bore their testimonies. It was a long lesson, but it was a really good discussion!
After that, we visited a woman named Paola. She is a young mom of a four year old and a 4 month old baby. She is really receptive to the gospel, but her husband isn't receptive at all. She isn't willing to progress because she wants to keep the unity with her husband. He works in a far away city and comes home every 15 days for a week, so we are going to try really hard to visit them when he is home.
Ingrit helped us out a lot at our visits today by baring her testimony. She has been to the States a lot because she has a sister that married a North American and lives in Utah. She let me know that her family is going up to Utah in Agosto until Novembre, and that when they are there, they want to come by and meet my family. haha I agree!
Sabado, 18 Julio 2015
This morning we met Bishop Garcia. He and his Counselors are big guys on campus. They all have intense jobs, so they are always super busy. It was a miracle that we found him.
In the afternoon, we went visiting with the Relief Society President. As we were sitting in her house waiting for her to get ready, we got talking to some men that were sitting on her couch. Their names are Eddie and Alan. We were trying to get to know them, but they kept lying. When we asked them if they were friends, one said, "brother" and the other said "cousin". I got a confused look on my face and they both started laughing. We kept getting different answers whenever we asked them a question. By the end, we were all laughing really hard.
For quite some time, we didn't find anyone in their homes. We ended up finding a member named Esther and her two sons, ages 8 and 7. When we entered her house, we both felt a strong feeling that we need to help this family. We found out that her husband is not a member. We shared a scripture with her and that helped us gain her confidence. She invited us over for a FHE and also to cook something with her one day. We ended our visit with a prayer and the 7 year old offered it. He said the cutest thing. He said, "Please make the sisters stay here for one more year."
After that, Mily, the Relief Society Pres. introduced us to an older woman named Francisca, but everyone calls her "Paquita". She is a return missionary and she asked for some pamphlets to give out to some friends. I am excited to work with her. Then we dropped Mily off at her house. She lives below our cuarto.
In the night, we had a sweet tender experience. We taught a less active and her grandchildren. Her grandchildren are part of the Church MMM (Misionero Mundial). They are always out to win discussions about Gospel topics. We taught a little lesson and afterwards, I decided to have the kids bring over a hymn book that they were looking at, and we sang the hymn, "Families Can Be Together Forever". The kids loved it and begged their Grandma Virginia to bring them to her church tomorrow. Hopefully they go. :)
Domingo, 19 Julio 2015
Well....they didn't come to church...:(
At church, we introduced ourselves a few times and the sisters in the ward are excited to work with us. They are all really sweet sisters.
After church, we talked with Dr. Julio and the Patriarch. The Patriarch has family in the States (in Utah) and he said that when he goes to visit them in Oct. that he wants to get together to do something! haha We talked to them for a while and then we left to go and find some references from Paquita. Today she walked up to us and gave us a list of 13 names of friends that she wants us to meet and visit.
We ended up finding a few of them before lunch. They are all old, but really nice. After lunch and studies, we went out teaching. We ended up not finding anyone. We literally walked for 5 hours and no one let us into their houses. We found people, but we had to set a different cita because we caught them in the middle of something.
We reported our numbers at 8:15pm during dinner and then we went home and planned our P-Day. We talked about experiences in life. It was nice to get to know each other a little more.
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| Hna Wood :) I love her!! |
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