After studies and doing part of internet time, we went shopping. We walked every aisle in the super and the marcado. Then we went to lunch. Leonardo was there today, but he was more serious and quiet than usual. I think that he just needs to get used to Hna Corona. After lunch, we dropped off our purchases at our cuarto, grabbed our blankets and headed to the beach. We rested and ate chifles (spicy!) and drank orange flavored water. I read the Book of Mormon in English, while Hna Corona wrote in her journal.
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| orange flavored water, chifles and my English Book of Mormon |
After emailing, we went home and cleaned up and were making recuerdos and reading our recuerdos from other people, when I found a "Build-a-Buzz Lightyear" kit in the back of my notebook. So of course, this being an obligation, I built the Buzz. It turned out super adorable!
We went out teaching after that, but all of our appointments fell through, so we just started contacting. One family let us in, but the Dad kept saying, "We are strong Catholics" every time we tried to teach anything. We kept teaching anyways because his wife, his daughter and his grandsons had interest in our message. At the end, we tried to set up an appointment, but the dad and one of the daughters refused to set a time, so we told them that we would just stop by again another day.
We started contacting on another street and every door we knocked on, no one would answer. The best one was, when Hna Corona chose the door, and when she knocked on the door, she commented that the door was really hard. Well, I looked up to see that it was a store or something and there we were, two LDS missionaries knocking on the door of a dance pub. We both started laughing so hard! We laughed forever.
After that, and having no success on that road, we started for another road, when Martin found us and gave us cupcakes. :) Then we started contacting again. As we were at the house of a contact, a huge group of members from Fonavi were walking by. Well, they kidnapped us and took us to the house of the family Arroyo, because it is the birthday of Venessa (the sister of Pres. Arroyo). We were all sitting there, and we needed to leave, but they wouldn't let us go without taking a plate full of food. And they told us that we had to return tomorrow for cake! In the end, we got 2 dinners and really full stomachs!
It was a fun P-Day. Oh yeah, we went to the muelle (wharf) and the woman guarding it, let us in for free because we know her sister and niece really well. A bonus of talking to everyone. Most people know who we are! Gotta love the life of a missionary. Besides the fact that when P-Day comes around, we never know what to do.
Martes, 11 de Noviembre del 2014
We had a district meeting and we showed up 5 minutes late and right before we entered the room, Elder Chavez called, and when we entered the room, he started teasing us by clapping and congratulating us for showing up. haha Well, the meeting was great! The best part was when we were talking about how it's important to know the ages of our investigators, so that we know what church groups they can be a part of, Elder Chavez chimed in and said, "Yeah, but there is the group AS (which stands for Adultos Solteros and is pronounced ass), so all the English speakers busted up laughing and explained to those who didn't understand why we were laughing. It was pretty funny.
After that, we went to lunch and then home to study language. My comp taught me some new stuff and I helped her learn some English. She wanted to learn some "fun things" so I taught her how to say "Dang it" , "I want to sleep" and "he cooked them." I love her accent when she speaks English.
After language study, we went out contacting and teaching. We were out knocking when we knocked on an open door. Well, the woman looked around the corner at us and told us to come in. We walked in and it turned out to be a spa. We both started giggling and explained that we were missionaries and that we didn't mean to knock on her door...but that we would love to visit them in their houses. They denied us, but said that maybe one day they will come visit us at the church.
After knocking on some more doors, we decided to try a different road, so we started knocking on Balta. After being rejected a few times, we went to the cuarto to grab my coat because it was getting a little chilly (70*). Then we went back to work. As we were walking down the road trying to decide what house to go to, we saw a woman sitting alone at a table in her house. Her door was wide open, so we stopped by. She quickly let us in. We got to know her for a few minutes and then we bore testimony that we know that the church is true and could help her. She started crying and explained that she has been having a hard time, and prayed to God to help her find a church to attend. She told us that we were her answer to her prayer. We set up a cita to visit her this week. I really hope that we can find her again, because she is definitely ready to hear our message.
We knocked on her neighbor's door and she gladly accepted us, but she was about to leave. She asked us to return in the morning at 10am. It is such a beautiful thing to feel the spirit radiate from people who are ready to know our truth.
We headed to a house of a contact named Luz. We shared a message about the family. After that, we headed to go teach one of our other contacts, but they weren't home, so we started knocking doors again. As we were passing a house with people outside, I turned to Hna Corona and said, "Let's contact them." We started talking to them and they had tons of interest and questions. We answered their questions and left them with a folleto (pamphlet) and told them to read it and have some more questions ready for us on our next visit. In the beginning of teaching, there were 3 people, and by the end, there were 9!
After that, we had a lesson with Luis y Janeth. We were very direct with them about marriage. We told them to pray about marriage with specific dates in mind, because Luis wants to wait 5 years and Janeth wants to get married tomorrow. I told them to think of five different dates, one for each year, and then ask God which date would be best. And then listen for the answer. They agreed to do it. We are going to return and see what is going to happen with them.
Miercoles, 12 de Noviembre del 2014
We went out teaching this morning and we taught a woman named Gladys (the neighbor from yesterday). The entire time that we were teaching her about the great apostasy and Joseph Smith, she kept saying that she was grateful that we have the Catholic church, because everyone knows that when Jesus comes again, he will only take the Catholics with him. She also said that she was grateful that we were in her house teaching her more. We tried over and over again to let her know that our church is not the Catholic church, but she just refused to hear it. We set up another cita and left her a pamphlet to read about our church. We will know if she actually reads it, depending on what she says to us the next time we visit, because if she reads it, she will find out that we are Mormons. haha
I am actualy really excited to see what happens with her next time.
After that, we headed to visit Oscar. He is really cool and really Catholic. He has potential though.
After lunch, we were walking around in an area in Pimentel called Barrio Chino. This area is poor and the people are so humble. As we were walking past a house with a bunch of children in the yard, a young man (22 yrs old) came up to us and asked us if our church was on Manco Capac. We told him that it was and asked him if he had visited before. He explained that he hadn't, but that a tall white girl had invited him to go to church and that she would teach him music...I never remembered Hna Kingsford telling him that before, but then we figured out that he was talking about the Jenna, the American. That was cool to see that she had been doing missionary work. She had given them a pass along card, so they had directions to our church.
After that, we went and taught Rosa and her husband ended up being there, too. We taught Lesson 2 again, because Juan (the husband) and the daughter-in-law, Yessenia, hadn't heard it. Well, they were all really into it, and at the end of the lesson, we found out that Juan has Sundays off, so we set up a cita for Sunday.
Then we went and taught Keith, the "spouse" of Karla, the recent convert. I really hope that he progresses, because I want their family to be sealed in the temple. During the lesson, we got a call from Pres. Vigo asking if we were going to the Noche Misional. We told him that we were and headed over to the church. We didn't stay very long, because we had another cita, but when we got to the cita, they were busy, so we rescheduled and went back to the activity.
The members were complaining that there wasn't very many people at the activity. They asked us if we had invited the members in Pimentel to come. When we told them that that wasn't our responsibility, they asked us where all the investigators were. We told them that they couldn't come. Then the members said that they needed more people at the activities. We told them that they needed to help us invite people. They told us that there are families in Las Dunas that need visits. Las Dunas is more than 20 minutes from our area...so we told the members that our area is huge and that we already don't have enough time to cover our areas of Pimentel and Fonavi...so if you know people that need visits, set up citas with them and let us know when we can visit, or you can go and visit them, too. We then explained that the missionaries are here to support them, but this isn't our Rama. Missionaries get changed often, so you need to be visiting them, too. We need to help each other. Then Hno Monja said, "That is right. These poor missionaries try to find people to help them, but no one helps them....because everyone says that they are too busy." We told the members that if they want growth, they are going to have to help us out.
Jueves, 13 de Noviembre del 2014
This morning, all of our citas fell through, so we started contacting all the houses we could. We were at a house and we had knocked twice, and no one answered, but we could hear someone inside, so I started knocking again....but my mind got distracted by the story Hna Corona was telling me, that I didn't realize that the whole time I was listening, I was still knocking. Then we heard someone yell in an irritated voice, "Quien?" (Who!?) Well, if you say missionaries, they don't answer because most of the time, they think that we are missionaries from Testigos de Jehovah...so then they just yell that they are busy....so I politely responded, "Buenas" and with that, there was no answer and no response. Hna Corona thought that was hilarious that this woman screamed to us and that I answered her by saying, "Buenas." (Good!)
Well, at the next house, there was light music playing so I told Hna Corona that someone was probably home there. We knocked and a man answered. Before we could introduce ourselves, he said to come in and walked away. Knowing of our rule of not entering a house when a woman isn't present, we just stayed outside by the door. We taught him for 5 minutes as we stood there by the door. Then we gave him a pass along card and set up a cita with him. He is really cool. I'm excited to teach him again. He seems to be a very dedicated person.
After lunch, we headed to Fonavi. Our first visit was with Alindor, the husband of Norma. We were very direct with him and told him that he needed to do his part in his conversion. He accepted our challenges, so now we pray that he will do his part so that he can know the truth of our teachings.
Then we went and visited with the familia Leyton. The only people there were Papa Leyton y Clara. As we were talking, we decided that Clara needed to make us arroz con leche...she said that she would. So after we gave our message, we went to another cita, and then we returned and ate arroz con leche. It was really yummy! Thank you Clara!
We tried our last citas in Fonavi, but no one was home, so we headed back to Pimentel. We tried to stop and visit Augusto and Cynthia but they were "busy" so we are going to try and stop by another time.
After that, we decided to return to a contact's house from Sunday, because the couple (Sonia y Santiago) wanted us to meet their daughter. So we stopped by and she happened to be there, so we went in and were getting to know her. When her mom, Sonia, came in, we started teaching about prophets. Evelin, the daughter, is super Catholic, super religious and super spiritual. At the end of our message, we scheduled another cita for Monday and told them that they need to read the pamphlet, and that will explain some more. They seem super interested. I am excited to be teaching them. Hna Corona and I both feel something special about them.
After that, we headed to dinner. Chela was asking questions about the LDS church. She asked about the Book of Mormon and so I pulled out my Book of Mormon and Bible and let her look at them. She read some pages from the Book of Mormon. We gave her and her son, Alonzo, a pamphlet to read also. When we left, we looked inside the window and we could see that Alonzo was already reading the pamphlet. :) I really hope at some point that we can help them understand and know that the church is true. I am super excited about all that has been happening with them.
All night, we were planning what we could say to Chela and her family about the church. We decided that we would have a Family Home Evening with them. We don't know when, but we will make it happen. :)
Viernes, 14 de Noviembre del 2014
Well, we had our planning for the week today. During the meeting, we needed to decide on a date for Alindor to set as a goal for his baptism. He is being pressured by his family, so we don't want to add more pressure on him, so we decided to pray about two different dates...and we both feel that the 6th of Deciembre is the day we are going to offer to him tomorrow. We hope that he will accept it and prepare for that day.
After planning, we went out teaching. Our first cita fell through, so we were knocking doors. One of the first doors that we knocked on let us in. We just thought that they were interested in hearing our message...but turns out they were die hard Christians and were asking us a lot of basic questions to test our knowledge and beliefs. We were very straight forward in all our answers. They told us that they really enjoyed our time and told us to come back if we wanted to share some more. We plan on teaching them about the Apostasy and the Restoration the next time. Hopefully their hearts will listen to us. They told us that they have a lot of respect for us. We were laughing a lot at the end, so I think we left a good impression with them. The dad also commented that he likes the way we teach and that we teach with power. :)
After that, we headed to our next cita, which fell through too, so we knocked on more doors....and this time....lucky, lucky us...we knocked on a door that actually answered. Well this woman started fighting with us about tons of things in the Bible. We just stayed silent until she gave us a chance to speak. Then we shared what we believe....and then she told us to wait a second at the door as she ran to get her Bible. It was at that moment, that we realized what situation we were into. We were talking to a Testigo de Jehova. They are the hardest to teach, because they all have the entire Bible memorized. As we waited at the door, Hna Corona said, "Dang it. Testigos." Haha Well, she returned and told us to enter her house. We knew that this was going to take a while, and we had a citas at two houses down the road in 7 minutes. The woman then spent all this time trying to prove to us that the Catholic church was wrong. We stopped her from talking for a second to let her know that we completely agree with her and then she was confused. She asked us what church we were from, so we told her The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints...and right after that, she completley dropped her fight and was super friendly. We chatted for a minute and she wanted me to offer a prayer, so I did and then we left. That experience was the best lesson I have ever had with a Testigo. Probably because she didn't realize that we were Mormons. haha
After that, we taught Marta (mama) and Bryan (12 yr old son). We were teaching them about the apostasy, when Bryan excused himself and we could hear him digging around in the freezer. We assumed that he was taking an experiment out of the freezer. Nope. He returned with a bowl of ice cream. What?! He couldn't just wait until our lesson was over in 5 minutes? Apparently not. haha It was actually really funny. We left that lesson giggling at the fact that he got up right in the middle of our lesson to get ice cream. The best part was, that he offered to get us some, too. We politely denied and then he said, "You can have some. There is still some left." We busted up, because the way he said it sounded like there was only a couple bites left. haha
Then we went and taught Elba. She loves our lessons and our teaching style. I really hope she can progress.
Then we contacted one more house before dinner. Well, they shut the door on us because they were "already Catholics". Today, we talked with many from different churches. It was an interesting experience.
At dinner, Hna Corona was blessing the food and I fell asleep or something because the next thing I know, everyone in the house was giggling. So I opened my eyes and Hna Corona said "Amen!" as she was giggling. I said, "Welcome to the life of a missionary. You work so hard everyday that you fall asleep during prayers!" Right after that, the power went out. It was only out for a minute or two, but it was a little hard to eat. It came back on and then we headed home. We planned and searched in the scriptures for a scripture that would prove that Jesus is Jehovah...so we can share it with our Testigo friends.
Sabado, 15 de Noviembre del 2014 [FELIZ CUMPLEANOS SISTER MCKENZIE LOFTIS Y MARTIN!]
This morning was crazy! We had scheduled for a member to help us this morning, and we had it all planned out, with all our citas in the morning to be with men that we needed another woman to be present, (for example, Martin), but the member bailed on us. Today was the third time that we rescheduled with Martin because of this problem. So we couldn't do it again, which was especially sad, since today is his birthday. We searched all morning for a member who could come and help us out. We even called the member who we were supposed to eat lunch with, to see if she could just come on a visit with us for 30 minutes, but she said no. Then we asked her if she was still planning on feeding us lunch, and she had totally forgotten and wasn't home and wouldn't be home until later that night. So then we started calling around to figure out our lunch plans. So now, we were trying to figure out three things: Who could help us teach Martin?...Where are we going to eat for lunch? and "What are we going to get Martin for his birthday?" By 11 am, we had all three answered. We taught Martin in the house of Karla, because she has a baby and couldn't leave her house. We got a call from Hna Monja, telling us that we would just have to buy our lunch. And for Martin, we made him a card, blew up some balloons, put a candle in a loaf of bread (because he doesn't like sweets) and we bought him cinnamon scented incense.
We bought our lunch and then studied language. Then we headed to Fonavi. We picked up Estefany Cachay and went out teaching. We contacted the entire time. During one of our contacts, I rang the doorbell of a house that we had just barely contacted, so we ran away down the road! Oops!
We taught a lot of lessons, and when we left Fonavi, on the combi ride back, Richard, a combi helper that we contacted a long time ago...well, when I payed him for our ride, he handed back my money and said, "I'll cover it." haha
Once we made it back to Pimentel, we contacted and contacted by knocking on doors. Well as we were knocking, there was a bunch of people inside one home. (from what we could see through the cracked open door) So we turned and asked some girls that were sitting outside if there was a meeting going on inside, and they said, "No, that's the hospital." Why do we ALWAYS knock the doors of stinkin' businesses that have huge signs above them, telling us not to knock, but we do anyway. Obviously we are just dedicated missionaries! :)
Domingo, 16 de Noviembre del 2014
Well in church today, we were sustaining a bunch of people and when the leader said, "And if any of you object, raise the right hand"- well, not realizing it wasn't to sustain, Marietta raised her right hand and the entire ward started giggling and then she realized what it was that she did. :) haha
During Sacrament, the young men passing the sacrament accidentally dumped almost all of the water on me because he bonked a chair and so my legs and lap got soaked!
After church, we went to lunch. After lunch, we went out teaching and all of our citas fell through, so we knocked doors all day long. Well, we knocked a door of a veterinary...haha...you'd think we would learn! :)
Well, it started getting really cold here, so we headed to our cuarto to grab coats. Then we decided we needed to do a contact over the phone. Well, we typed in a random number and a man answered, "Yes?" I looked at Hna Corona in shock and then continued to contact him over the phone. I asked him if he had ever heard of the church, and he said that he hadn't, but that he would like to learn more. So I asked him where he lived and he said LIMA! Well, I told him that there are a lot of churches in Lima, and then I gave him the church website to find out more and to find the nearest church building to him. He said thank you and take care and then the phone call was over. Hna Corona and I just stared at one another, and then we started dancing around the room, saying, "We contacted someone in Lima!" haha
After that, we left and there was a surfer man staring at us, so we decided to contact him. He said that he is going to come to church. Once we walked away, Hna Corona turned to me and said, "If he comes to church...it's not because he wants to hear the word of God...he wants to see you....and wants to marry you and become mission presidents here in Peru." haha
We ran into Martin 3 times today, and each time he had cookies for us and the last time he gave us bracelets. Gotta love Martin!
Well, we got 103 contacts! It was hard work, but we did it!
Stories from Saturday that I forgot to write. After knocking on the hospital door, we knocked on a door three houses down the road, and a man stuck his head out the window and we told him we had a picture of Jesus Christ for him. He came down and we talked for a bit and then invited him to church. He said he would try, but he was a surf teacher, so he was going to be teaching surfing in the morning. Well, we left and contacted his neighbor. Then we heard, "Hey, amigas de Jesucristo!" We looked up and saw Luis, the surf teacher hanging out his window. He yelled, "I have cupcakes for you!" So we walked over and he dropped the package down to us. Then we went on our way and made a few more contacts. As we were heading back, Luis was hanging out his window again, with a mug and a cupcake. He then said, "Hey ladies, do you want milk to go with your cupcakes, because that is my favorite way to eat them?" We said no thank you, but maybe next time. He promised to do that and we headed to our pension. Martin (birthday boy) showed up with two mini jello cakes, one for each of us. He walked us to our pension and we ate dinner. Then we went home and ate our cake and cupcakes, and planned and talked about our day! :)
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