FAMILY DEARRRR :)
oh how i love you guys. lets just make that clear.
This week was good! We are working and progressing little by little in our area every day, and Hermana Lara and I are staying positive even when the days are long and nobody wants to listen to us..hahaha but what an adventure it is to be here, thats how im trying to see it!
Monday- We had a Pday with all the Hermanas in Lima. (the north part of the mission) to celebrate Caraval, a cultural thing they do here through the month of February where they throw water on each other...sounds kinda weird. haha butit was pretty much just a huge water balloon fight! ha! so that was a good time.
Tues we had a lesson with a new investigator! Luis! he was a reference from another hermano that we are teaching, Juan Carlos. It was GREAT! Luis is so genuine and interested in learning about the church, he has a lot of faith. Seriously. it feels so good to teach people that are so prepared.
Later we had lessons with 2 of our less active members that we are helping, Segundo and Yoselin. They are both progressing and both came to church yesterday! yay! Sundays are the best when people actually keep their commitments to come to the capilla :) it makes all our efforts worth it.
Wednesday we had a zone conference and a bunchhhh of lessons in family history. Its so great to be able to teach these recent converts about the work we do in the temple and help them start their family trees and bring their family names to the temple to be baptized. I love it!! Im so happy I get to be one of the few that is doing this.
Thursday we went to the temple with a group of converts so they could do their baptisms. Later we had a lesson with one of our investigators, Piero! Piero is 22. He has been learning from the missionaries for quite a while but were ust taking it little by little and trying to teach him. He has a lot of questions so its cool to sit and talk with him and explain more. He works for some restaurant or something and he brought home a little sample of this delicious dessert thing! Its called lucuma or something. It was yummy.
Friday we searched for a list of less active members and were able to find a man named Ezequiel. He is very old and sick and hadnt been to church in years. It was so sad because he was so heartbroken and felt so alone. He couldnt talk or move much because he was so sick. But we got to sit with him and remind him that His Heavenly Father loves him and is aware of him. We sang a hymn to him and reminded him how to pray (he had forgotten.) His wife isnt a member but she was so sweet. She was so worried and sad about her poor husband....we told her we would keep coming to visit and talk with him because, like my companion said ¨God doesnt forget any of his children.¨
This phrase touched my heart. Ive been thinking about it all week since then. ¨God doesnt forget any of his children.¨ He remembers them and knows them, Each one. He knew that this little old sick man on some random dirty street in the south of Lima Peru had a heart that was hurting. But he guided us two teenage girls, to his house, to find himj and sit with him and remind him that he is loved and known and not forgotten by His Heavenly Father. It was lo maximo. (the best). It made me feel so good inside...These are the momnets I came here for.
The Lord heals one by one. We help people,uno por uno. It takes patience and it takes time and it takes a lot of love to keep working and searching everyday for people that heavenly Father needs to send us to. But uno por uno, we are helping them on their way. What a blessing it is to be here and be a part of His work.
Saturday a MIRACLE happened. Ive been praying that heavenly Father will help us find new investigators to teach in our area. We talk and talk and talk to so many random people on the street every day but it seems so hard to find people that actually live in our area of proselyting! BUT!! Today we were walking up this street and there was a young mom just standing there with her little daughter so I decided to talk to her. And we ended up having a lesson with her right there in front of her house and then an even bigger miracle happened....
Sunday: SHE CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!!!!! Wooooooooo!!!!! Yay!!!!! Im so excited to keep teaching her. Her name is Flor and she has the CUTEST 3 year old daughter, Ariana with curly hair...adorable. Pray for them :)
Other Miracles:
Okay so we have the nicest Bishop in our ward and his awesome family invited us to lunch yesterday. Im always a little scared to eat with members cause i dont know what theyre gonna feed us...and yesterday the day came. It came. We sat down to eat and on my plate was the biggest pile of LETTUCE and vegatables and some kind of mystery meat. ÖHHH KNOW, i thought. SALAD!!! So guess what i did, the only thing I knew to do which was to pray. Pray that I would be able to eat the lettuce without gagging!! hahahah! (those who know me know that I cannot for the life of me eat salad because lettuce is the grossest food on earth besides fish.) But guess what?! I kid you not that I was able to eat that salad! I ate the lettuce! and I hardly tasted it!!!! The taste was covered up by the flavor of the potatoes and carrots and salty meat. But im so serious that it was nothing short of a tender mercy. I was so thankful! hahahaha! YAY!!! I ate lettuce!!!! what a miracle.
Quotes this week:
Start each day with a grateful heart.
All we have to do is listen.
WOW I am learning so much about simply Listening. Life requires more listening I am realizing. Listening to other people. Listening to our hearts. Listening to the Lord. My mission president gave this advice on our first day, ¨You only need to speak very little. Dont let the simplicity and light of your words get lost in too many words.¨ I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. It really is about listening to what people say, trying to let them know you want to understand. Also, I am really learning how to PRAY. I realized that I think I talk to much in my prayers. I feel MUCH more peace and love from Heavenly Father when I just stop talking for a bit and listen to the peace he is sending. I LOVE the Holy Ghost! Let me tell you. It is my best friend here. I watched a video by Elder Christopherson called ¨Daily Bread.¨ I need you each to go find it and watch it because it is to a T what I am learning. :)
By Small and simple things are great things brought to pass.
By losing ourselves, we find ourselves. Wow. Im really learning that the more love I have to give away, the more happiness i get in return. Everyone always said this but its not till now while im actually doing it that I feel it is true :)
Funnies:
Okay so our mission is cracking down on the latino missionaries trying to help them learn English. haha they hate it but its the BEST because they came up with a rule that when we are in our apartment, we can only speak english!!! wooo!!! SO im teaching Hermana Lara english and its the funniest thing ever. Now I dont feel so bad for saying dumb things all the time in Spanish and now she can feel a bit of my pain!!! hahaha! She is so cute. The other day we.re walking home and it had been a lonnnngg afternoon of trying to contact people and talk to people and all of our appointmnets fell through (the people wernt home) and nobody on the street wanted to listen to us...so were walking and Hermana Lara reaches in her bag and says, ¨You want lollipop? Is good for sad¨ and she gave me a lollipop. :) hahah how cute she is. Also the other day I told her how pretty and long her hair is and then she replies in her cute spanish accent, ¨Thank you for your commentary.¨ hahahahah i was dying. we laugh alot at each others lack of language skills. I say a LOT of embaressing things in spanish. Most of the time if people are talking super fast and I dont understand them I just smile nod...Sometimes it works. Sometimes, it gets me in trouble.
ALSO its the sweetest thing in the world when my investigators pray and pray for MY FAMILY. Specifically they pray for you guys. So just know that. :)
I love you all. Thank you for your love and support! Thank you for emailing me and praying for me. LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU!!!!!!
till next week, Hermana G :)
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