{(Peru Chiclayo Mission)}: Week 48: "Bless and watch over the Hermanas so that they don't die, because the motos are crazy!"

Lunes, 2 de Marzo del 2015 [ Polmaca, Peru]
P-Days are great days to meditate and realize the things you want to do, so I did just that. After studies, we went out to buy some things and then we went to internet. My emails were great this week. I highly enjoyed them all. They got me thinking about the work in the mission and the beauty that comes from it. There were many things that I loved, but I loved two quotes that my mom sent me. I can apply both of them to myself and to those I teach. "Sacrifice allows us to learn something about ourselves- what we are willing to offer to the Lord through our obedience" and "As we are obedient, we become willing to sacrifice such things as our time, our energy and our means. Sacrifice changes our natures; it is the process by which we become holy enough to be willing to give up all we have for the Lord if we are called upon to do so." I love that. We should all reach that level of holiness. We should all try and be more obedient to show God that we are willing to sacrifice. When we sacrifice worldly prizes for God, we are blessed with more happiness in this life as well as in the life to come.
After internet we packed up our stuff and got ready to head to the cuarto of the hermana leaders. (Hna Ortiz and Hna McGinnis) When we got there, we played the card game of Monopoly. It's super fun! And then Hna Furness and Hna Ortiz left to go to Chiclayo so they could take a plane to Lima. I stayed with Hna McGinnis. I seriously love her to death! We talked about plans for our futures and our desires. It was really fun.
At 6:00pm we went out to work. We visited a less active. We ended up just letting her talk to us about her worries and her problems. After that, we just contacted. We had a good time.
At 8:00pm we ate dinner....a chunk of chicken and a pile of french fries. Small world....Hna Reid served here in Polmaca for 6 months, so anytime we told people that we knew Hna Reid and that she trained me in Motupe, they would get really excited. It was cute.
After dinner, we headed home, planned and got ready for bed. Then we talked and talked.

Martes, 3 de Marzo del 2015
We woke up at 6:30am and during our morning prayers, the fans in the room turned off. Well....this is significant because that meant that the power had gone out, which meant that I would have to shower in a completely black bathroom. The bathroom is super tiny, and there is no shower stall, so I was afraid that I was going to accidentally fall into the open toilet. It was ridiculous! haha At 8:00am, we left to go into Chiclayo for the hermana leaders' meeting. I was really loving being able to participate in their meeting, even though I am not a hermana leader. I learned a lot of things that I can apply in my mission. Hna Williams taught the class about love. She shared the story of the adulterous woman. I love John 8:1-11...that story is amazing. After we read it, Hna Williams asked us, "What do you imagine this woman felt like at that moment?" It got me thinking about myself-And that all of us should be like Christ, and kindly guide others towards Christ with love and without judgement. Of course, we need to look at ourselves first. (Matthew 7:1-5)
At 10:00am, the meeting for all the zone leaders and hermana leaders started. President Williams pointed me out several times during that meeting. :) It felt amazing. It was very spiritual. One thing that I really liked that President Williams said was, "You have to inspect what you expect." Which means that we have to be wise and practical in our goals. After we set goals, we should analyze them and see what it is that we need to do to reach them.

with President and Hermana Williams

For lunch we had Chili's! We got a huge yummy hamburger. It was so good! It had pickles!! YUMMY!! After lunch, we got back to our meeting. The meeting ended at 4:00pm. Hna McGinnis and I waited in the office for our companions to come back. Around 4:45pm, they showed up.

Hna Furness, Hna Dodson, Hna McGinnis, Hna Ortiz

Hna Furness and I headed back to Patapo. As soon as we got back, we headed out to work. We visited Marilyn, who is the girlfriend of Carlos (less active). We built up a little more trust with her. Hopefully she will accept our message one day. After her visit, we went and visited the familia Risco. Enmanuel and Maria Jose made us cards. They are beautiful. I seriously love this family. We taught them about baptism. The lesson was powerful.
After teaching, we headed to dinner. Everyone had missed us and was so happy we were back. :)
After dinner, we went home. We had to bring water from the outside in with buckets so that we would have water to flush the toilet and to bathe in, because they turned the water off and it won't be back on until Thursday. Gotta love when you have to bathe with a bucket of water and a cup. haha I love Peru!

Miercoles, 4 de Marzo del 2015 [a full day in Patapo]
Because Hna Furness had to go to Lima on Monday, I had to go to Polmaca and so we had missed some of our citas. Hna Furness had taken our phone with her, so I had no way of contacting them to let them know. Anyhow, one of the citas was with Erika, so we went to visit with her first. When we got to her house, she came outside and acted like she was killing us. She had invited her dad over for the first cita that we missed. He isn't a member, and he had made a treat for us. :( We felt bad, but once we explained what had happened, she forgave us. We taught her about tithing and fasting. She is super excited to start doing both again.
After teaching her, we went to lunch. After lunch, we went out teaching again. Our last cita of the day was with Jose. I seriously love him. We taught him about the spirit world, the resurrection and the kingdoms of glory. He happened to be wearing a cross necklace and asked us if the LDS church used the cross. We told him that we don't, because we focus on Christ's resurrection instead of his death. Right at that moment, he took off his cross necklace. He is so ready to give his life over to Christ. He is so excited for March 14th!
P.S. Someone else that we visited was Elita and Carmen. When we showed up, they told us that the Elders had come by to teach them. They told them, "The sisters are teaching us", and then proceeded to tell them about all the things that we have taught them. They made us look like really awesome missionaries! :) I love missionary work.

Jueves, 5 de Marzo del 2015
This morning we had a zone meeting. Everything we talked about, was what we talked about in the leaders meeting in Chiclayo. It went really well. We took some fun photos.

Our Zone

Hna Dodson and Hna Furness

After the meeting, we waited for a combi with the elders. By the time we got a ride, it was 2:00pm. We ate lunch and then went home. When we got to our cuarto, Shirley was waiting for us to pick up our dirty clothes.
At 3:00pm, Hna Furness wasn't feeling well, so she rested. As she rested, I organized the area book, put up papers on the walls to help us reach our goals. At 7pm, she started feeling better, so we went to visit Yohana. We taught her about tithing and fasting. She is excited to start fasting, and said that she always pays her tithing.
At 8pm, we went to Jose's house. He was just as ready as could be to learn more. :) We taught him about the Word of Wisdom. He loved it. He accepted it and he was very willing to give it all up. He doesn't drink alcohol, use drugs or smoke, but he does drink his coffee and tea, but he said that he would give those things up. We were teaching him the blessings that come from living the Word of Wisdom, and then he asked if it was okay to share the gospel with others. Of course, we told him that he could, and that it would help him understand the gospel better as he shared it. He is excited to do that. Before we left, he asked us what chastity meant. We gave him some information about it and told him that at our next cita, we would give him a lesson about Chastity. We asked Jose to give the closing prayer and he said, "Bless the hermanas and bless their families who are far away. Bless them...because thanks to their parents, I have these wonderful hermanas here to bring me to your truth." After he ended, he looked at us with tears in his eyes and said, "You must suffer a lot.... because your families are so far away." We responded that it is impossible to suffer when we have people like him who love us and pray for us and care for us everyday. He smiled and just kept talking about how wonderful our families are for letting us be here and that they must be just as amazing as us. haha I love the mission! I love universal love!!

Viernes, 6 de Marzo del 2015
This morning we had our weekly planning. We decided with the elders that we would be putting up boundaries, so as we were planning, we realized that we would be losing a lot of our investigators. :( After planning, we went to lunch and then back home to study language. Then we went out to teach. We visited Gloria and Itamar. We read Alma 24 with them, to help them figure out the purpose of life and how to prepare to meet with God.
After that, we went to visit the familia Risco. Enmanuel came to the door and invited us in. He told us that Gma Risco wouldn't be able to join us because she is really sick and throwing up. We told them that we couldn't come in and teach them unless there was an adult....so Enmanuel made sick Gma Risco come out and sit so we could teach them. Well, as we were teaching, Gma Risco had to run out of the room a few times. Enmanuel gave our closing prayer and he said, "Bless and watch over the hermanas so that they don't die...because the motos are crazy!"
We taught a few more lessons and then we headed to the Noche Misional. Before it started, we divided the area with the elders.

map of our divisions

At the 8pm, the activity started. We listened to a message from the Bishop and then we played a game with balloons and cups. You have to blow up the balloon and then let the air out and push the cup across the floor to the other side of the room and back again. It was really fun. Then Elder Caceres decided to teach everyone a new game called, "I give you a Book of Mormon" or in Spanish, "Te regalo un Libro de Mormon". It is played like this. One person has the Book of Mormon and walks up to someone and says, "I give you a Book of Mormon." The receiver then says, "A what?" and the giver says, "A Book of Mormon." The receiver then takes the book and gives it to someone else and says "I give you a Book of Mormon" and the new receiver says, "A what?", and then the new giver asks the first giver, "A what?" and then the first giver responds and then the new giver responds, and it is just repeated over and over, until everyone in the room has answered everyone's questions. I don't know if that makes sense, but it is really fun. haha Jose even played the games with us!
After the activity was over, we went to dinner. Then we went home and planned and got ready for bed.

Sabado, 7 de Marzo del 2015
This morning I felt really sick, so we stayed in until about 3pm, and then I felt well enough to go out and teach. Today was a pretty good day. We visited a lot of people, to let them know of the changes that we made with the Elders. We had to say goodbye to a lot of our contacts, because they were in the Elder's area now.
Our best lessons were with the familia Risco and Jose. We taught Jose about the law of chastity. We had to teach him next door at Harry's house, because Jose's neighbors were having a really loud party. Harry is a sweet old man that works at the Dulceria, and he listened to the lesson, too. It went well.
After that, we went to dinner and then went home to plan. We are setting our goals really high, but we have faith that we can do it.

Domingo, 8 de Marzo del 2015
Well, Feliz 11 months in the mission! Time has flown by!! Today we are going to find out cambios (transfers).
Well, this morning, we headed out contacting at 8am, as we were waiting for Victor (the nephew of Rossana) to come to church with us. At 8:45am, we headed to church. We had a good turn out. Nelson (ward mission leader) taught our lesson in Gospel Principles. He is the coolest teacher. I love his teaching style.
After church, we headed out teaching and finding new people to teach. We ended up finding a lot of families. We were having a ton of success!!
At 1:30pm, we went to Francisca's house to eat lunch. At 2pm, Francisca and Viviana went out teaching with us. We did divisions- I went with Hna Francisca and Hna Furness went with Hna Viviana.
At 3pm, we went back to the church where we had a meeting with the Elders, so we could switch references and information. At 4pm, we met up with Nelson and talked about a few needs and took a picture together.

Hna Dodson, Hna Furness, Nelson, Elder Caceres, Elder Encalada

After we were done, we went to our cita with Jose. We taught him about tithing and fasting. Jose is so ready to be baptized. We planned his baptism with him and he said, "I want Hermana Dodson to sing at my baptism." I told him that I would.
At 6pm, we headed to ward council. When we got there, we found out that it had been cancelled, so we ended up telling Nelson about the plans for Jose's baptism.
At 7:30pm, we went to visit the familia Risco, but they weren't home. As we were trying to decide where to go next, we both got the impression to visit Rosa and Victor. Rosa was home with her two daughters, and they were all crying. They were having some family problems, so we prayed with them and shared some thoughts and feelings with them. At the end, Rosa offered a prayer and thanked God for sending us to her house at that exact moment.
We went to dinner and then went home to wait for the call about transfers. At 9:48pm, our district leader called. I asked him to tell us the cambios, but he had to go because he was getting a call from the zone leaders. He said he would call back as soon as he was done with them. Thirty seconds later, he called us back....and he said, "Hna Dodson, you are leaving Patapo." My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe it, but I could at the same time, because every single time someone is going to get baptized, I have to leave....right before the baptism. Bummer. :( Now I won't be able to sing at Jose's baptism.
After getting off the phone, I started packing. That is worst part about transfers. Next week y'all will find out where I am headed. Pray for me.