Lunes, 9 de Marzo del 2015
My last P-Day in Patapo. Crazy how time flies and crazy that I am getting sent away. This morning during our studies Mila, the aunt of Rossana (who lives in the same house as us), came knocking on our door asking us if we could help her with a situation that she was in. Rossana had accidentally locked some keys inside of another cuarto, and she needed to get them out. We decided to help her. It took quite a bit of time but in the end we unlocked the door, using 2 broomsticks, a mirror and a string! :) Hna Mila was so excited that she didn't have to call a locksmith. Hna Furness and I felt completely awesome for having solved the problem. :)
Once we finished study time, we headed out to say goodbye to people and to also buy some things. We said goodbye to Moroni and Karen and then we went to lunch. We ate arroz chaufa...the Peruvian version of Chinese food. It was really yummy. After lunch, we went to internet. Then we took pictures with Yohana. After that, we took a moto to visit Erika. When we got to her house, we saw her sitting inside and then she started crying. We took pictures with her and her daughters Kiara (7 yrs) and Hahory (baby). Erika cried and kept saying that she "didnt have ganas (desire) to go to church because she wants to be with me"....haha...she was just joking, but she wanted me to know how much she was going to miss me. She cried our entire visit and she kept hugging me a lot. When we left, she stood in the doorway and watched as we walked away. :(
Next, we went to the church and took some pictures and ran into Dominga (Elder's pensionista) and her granddaughter Joselyn. We took pictures with them. Then all the way back to our cuarto, we took pictures. When we got back to our cuarto, I read my letters and also made tons of recuerdos (little cards) for everyone.
At 6:00pm, the pain came to my heart. We visited the familia Risco. Before we told them about my transfer, we shared a message with them....then we broke the news. They just stared at me in shock and then they started to cry. We were all crying and hugging. We took a picture of all of us. We said our goodbyes and said a prayer. Enmanuel offered it and the last quote from his prayer is , "Please help all of us be more humble and help me and my family stop sinning." Right before I left, he looked at me and said, "You are beautiful. I am going to miss you teaching me about God." Then we left. :(
After that, we went to visit Geraldyne, Itamar, Gloria and their mom. We made a list of goals and plans for them to accomplish. It was a really successful visit. Before we left, they gave me some jewelry and a little teddy bear.
We met up with the Bishop and headed to visit Jose. We taught him about faith and repentance. He was so into it and he is just so ready for his baptism. We focused on the lesson and at the end, I gave him a card and then we left.
We headed to dinner, which we took pictures with everyone (Mila, Harry, Antony, Ingrid and Rossana). I am going to miss the Dulceria and all my friends that work there.
We got a call from Mery telling us that everyone was waiting at our cuarto. We hurried home to find Enrique, Shirley, Frances (their daughter), Yohana, Esteban, Sebastian, Mery and her 2 daughters. We took pictures with everyone and said goodbye.
We planned for tomorrow and then I packed...and cleaned.
One thing that happened today during our time in the cuarto, is that Francisca, her husband and their daughters Ingrid, Shirley and Frances came to say goodbye. Francisca cried and cried, and we hugged and hugged. It was really hard to say goodbye to her. She is an amazing woman, who was always helping us in the work.
Martes, 10 de Marzo del 2015
TRANSFERS!!!
This morning we went and said goodbye to Victor (Rossana's brother) and Solema (woman who runs the Dulceria for Patty, who lives in Utah). We also said goodbye to Jose. I started crying.
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| with Solema |
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| with Victor (brother of Rossana) in the Ducleria |
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| with Jose |
I literally screamed and ran to her! It was awesome! Everyone was so excited for us, and I am so pumped because I will be doing intercambios with the hermanas in Patapo often!!! God loves me. :)
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| saying goodbye to Hna Furness |
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| With our new companions Hna Areguen, Hna Furness, Hna Dodson, Hna McGinnis |
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| our house we live in the upstairs |
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| staircase to our cuarto |
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| our bedroom |
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| my bed |
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| my collage |
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| my desk |
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| dining room |
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| kitchen |
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| bathroom |
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| the toilet is in the shower :) |
At 3:30pm, we went out to teach. There is a butt ton of dirt here in Pomalca. They don't have any paved roads. We visited with some less actives name Fany (mom) and her daughter Hali. (8 yrs). We were teaching them, when Hali cut off Hna McGinnis and asked, "Do you like queque (cake)?" to which Hna McGinnis replied, "Si." Then Hali asked, "Do you like soda?", to which Hna McGinnis responded with , "Si." Then Hali put her hand out towards her mom and says, "Plata (money)?" haha We cracked up.
After their visit, we went and visited another less active named Rosio. She has a son, and she was very warm and welcoming to me. It felt nice to be loved and not just compared to Hna Ortiz who was in Pomalca for 6 months.
So the coolest thing happened on the way to dinner. I decided to contact a woman and her sister came up behind her...and her sister can't speak, so she was using sign language. I started signing with her. Even though the signs are different in Spanish, she was impressed that I knew sign language. Her name is Kelly. I hope that we can help her learn more about the church because she is a really cool lady.
Today was a good day. It's going to be hard getting use to a new area, but I am ready. I am nervous to be a sister leader. Intense.
Miercoles, 11 de Marzo del 2015
This morning we went on a search for members that we don't know. We couldn't find them, so we headed to a contact reference named Cristina. She is 93 years old. She wants to be baptized so she can go to the temple and be sealed to her husband. She is so adorable. We set her baptism date for the 11 of April, so we have A LOT to teach her in a short amount of time.
Then we went and visited Luz, a recently rescued less active, who is now active. We taught her about the Articles of Faith. She is a great hermana who is so willing to work with us in the work.
Then we went and visited Anaximando and his "wife" Victoria (member). We are working with a hard situation....Anaximando and Victoria had their first child together when Victoria was 14 years old and he was 18 years old. Well, after having 3 kids, Anaximando left and got married to some other lady. Well, after being married to her for 20 years, he left her and went back to Victoria. Now Anaximando's wife will not give him a divorce, so he can't marry Victoria....they are an adorable couple though. They seem really happy and in love.
After them, we went and visited with the familia Espinoza. They are less active and really sweet. Their names are Cesar (dad), Diana (mom), Cirgio (12 yr old son), Sebastian (9 yr old son), and Enrique (4 yr old son). They are a happy little family who listen well and know the answers....they just don't "act" too much. They are making progress, though.
After teaching them, we contacted some people on the way to dinner. We had a huge fruit salad! Yummy!! Then we went home, planned and got a call from Hna Furness, because I accidentally took my payment for the cuarto with me. Oops!
Oh, during contacting today, we taught a familia in the park. They are evangelitas (strong believers). We taught them about the importance of families and they seemed to really enjoy it. They also complemented my Spanish, which was much appreciated, because I was starting to feel bad about my Spanish....but they lifted me back up. :)
There is so much dust and rocks here...it is crazy...so I come home completely COVERED in dirt. It is ridiculous!! haha
Jueves, 12 de Marzo del 2015
This morning we had our district meeting. My new district consists of Hna Haro, Hna Mejia, Elder Brunis, Elder Olsen (zone leaders), Elder Lewis, Elder Hinostroza (district leader) and Hna McGinnis and me (sister leaders). This district is really full of leaders! haha
Once we got back from the meeting, we went to lunch. We ate chicken with peaches. It was really good. After lunch, we went home, talked, studied and then went out to teach.
We headed to an area outside of the central part of Pomalca, called San Antonio. It is super cute there and the people are really nice. We taught some less actives who have desires to return to church, but "things" just seem to always pop up.
As we were on our way out, we got contacted by two women name Berta and Elvira. They are really sweet and we taught them a little message about the importance of families.
Then we hurried and took a moto to our next cita with a less active. She wasn't able to visit with us, so we headed to the ward activity at the church. We got there at 7:00pm but no one showed up until around 8-8:30pm...we had to get back home, so we had to leave.
After dinner and planning back at our cuarto, the husband of the woman who cleans our clothes, dropped off our clean clothes. :) We finished planning and got ready for bed.
Viernes, 13 de Marzo del 2015 FRIDAY THE 13TH....
As we were planning tonight, we realized why almost all of our citas fell through today....it was Friday the 13th...haha....No, not really, it just happens sometimes. hahaha But as we were trying to teach in the afternoon and not finding anyone home, we decided to pray for guidance as to where we should go. When we turned the corner, there was a woman with tons of buckets, so we took that as a sign and asked her if we could help. She said, "Yes. Stay right here with these buckets, and I'll be right back." She took off and about 20 minutes later, she popped her head around the corner and called us over. It turns out that we signed up to lug huge buckets of water to her house, which was described to us as being "close by"....not. We picked one up together, each holding a plastic handle. Our fingers felt like they were getting cut off. We carried them down a really windy dirt path...about the length of my house to the Loftis' house. Once we dropped one off, she called us back up to bring some more. By the end, we were soaking wet from our knees all the way to our toes. And because Pomalca has so much dirt, we looked like we had dark skin from the mud that was forming on our legs. haha
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| lugging water buckets |
Then we headed to the best cita of the day. It was with our downstairs neighbors, Carlota and Hermes. Carlota is going to get baptized the 21 of March, and she is so excited! We talked about a lot of commandments, one being to keep the Sabbath day holy....which means that we don't buy anything on Sunday, and she just looked at us in shock and then turned to Hermes and said, "Looks like I have to buy it all Saturday." She was willing and ready to start living this commandment tomorrow. She is ready for baptism, and her husband said that he will be ready with a little more time. I think what will happen, is that he will see his wife get baptized and then he will want it more than ever.
Sabado, 14 de Marzo del 2015
During studies Hna McGinnis showed me an activity called the 40 Day Fast. You make a list of things you want to "fast" from, that are taking you away from the spirit. We decided to do it, so we could become closer to the spirit. We decided to fast after lunch, to have guidance in what to put on our list. We ate lunch with the familia Barturen. They are all great people. They are super nice and cook really well.
After lunch, we headed to the area San Antonio to help Teodora and Jose (investigadores) decorate for their marriage celebration. They got married today so that they could get baptized in a couple of weeks. Once we finished setting up, we headed a couple houses down the road to visit menos activos that we had found. Their names are Silvia, her son Felix (28 yrs), Egnaluci (13 yrs) and her grandson Axel (4 yrs). They said that they would be at church tomorrow. :)
At 6:00pm, the Elders had a baptism at the church. (Elder Olsen y Elder Brunis). It turned out great! President and Hermana Williams ended up being there, too. It was beautiful. At the end, I asked Pres. and the zone leaders if Jose Sandoval got baptized and they said, "Yes!" I could have cried at that moment. I am so happy that he could make that beautiful covenant here in this life. It is going to bless him and change him and his family a lot. I am very excited!
After the baptism, we tried to teach some families, but no one was home or they were busy. What we ended up doing was contacting. We had some really successful contacts tonight.
Once we reached our contact goal, we headed home to plan quickly, so we could call the hermanas in our zone to see how they are doing and if there is anything we can do for them. I got to call Hna Furness and her companion Hna Areguen. We talked about the baptism of Jose. They said that he really feels like part of a family in church and that he teared up and said that he knows that his decision is going to help his family. I love Jose!
Well, all the Hermanas told me that I make a great Hna leader. I am super excited to take on this responsibility and learn from it and learn from all the Hermanas in the zone. I am just so excited to start seeing a lot of miracles here in Polmaca. We are working hard and we are trying to center ourselves on the spirit....and with the few experiences we had today, we can see that God is working with us here. :)
Domingo, 15 de Marzo del 2015
Here in Polmaca we have church at 8:00am. When we got there at 7:30am, the power was out...but we still had church. I got asked to lead the hymns...haha. Everyone was staring at me like, "new meat"...haha. We had tons of people at church today. We had several investigadores and less actives.
After church, we headed home to study and at 1:00pm, we headed to lunch. We ate with Glenda (returned home from her mission about a month ago). She is really sweet. After lunch, we visited the familia Yesquen and then a woman named Mirium. At the beginning of our lesson, she wasn't listening too well, but by the end of the lesson, she was hugging us and told us to return quickly. :)
At 4:00pm, we had correlation. At 5:00pm we had ward council. At 6:00pm we had a meeting for future missionaries. They asked us missionaries (Me, McGinnis, Olsen, Brunis) to bear our testimonies about missions. It was a beautiful service to encourage all to go on missions. At the end, they had sandwiches and soda, but when we went to the kitchen to help with the food, the food was covered with ants! So we were helping to shake the ants off the food. haha I love the mission!
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| ants on the food :) |
"Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis...The Lord says to us: Give me all. I don't want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work: I want you. All of you. I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man, but to kill it. No half-measures will do. I don't want to only prune a branch here and another there; rather, I want the whole tree out! Hand it all over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wishes and wants and dreams. Turn them all over to me. Give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange, I will give you myself. My will shall become your will. My heart shall become your heart." Lawrence E. Corbridge from the talk entitled "The Fourth Missionary"
READ IT!
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| eating mac n cheese |
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