Week #14 - Granados

Hola todos!! 

I can´t believe that I´ve been living here in Perú for 3 months, and that I´ve been out in the field for 8 weeks. I´ve felt like I´ve been here much longer, just from how much I´ve learned and all that I´ve experienced. There truly is nothing else like the mission.

Monday:

Today we decided to eat at a restaurant close by our apartment named Paísa that is always full of people and music. The food was pretty pricey, but it was pretty good and we listened to some jazzy music. We also slept for a good 2 hours which felt so good... I will admit I miss my memory foam, queen-sized bed compared to our squeeky, twin sized bunk bed, but it does the job.

Tuesday: 

Today we had district meeting, and I taught the English class like always which has been super good for me. We met up with Estrella to help keep her super excited for her baptism, and got the official approval from her mom, whom we´re hoping we can teach soon!! She was super welcoming and so supportive of her daughter´s decision which makes our job easier. She also offered us more panetone, which is basically sweet bread with dried fruit inside... I´m pretty "panetone'd" out from Christmas hahaha. 

Wednesday:                 

Today we visited Marilu who is a member and did some cleaning around her house for her because she´s been pretty sick the last few weeks. Today it was a miracle, because we ended up running into Diego in the street who is the brother of a recent convert named Irving, whom we had been trying to contact all last week to visit because he has a baptism date set. We set up an appt. to visit him Sunday, and we were able to help relieve some of his concerns and he´s back on track to progressing towards being baptized. We also met up with Talia and Betty, and had a great lesson. Afterwards, Anita, the other daughter of Betty, asked us to visit her brother who´s not a member. It made us feel pretty good that she showed trust in us so we could visit her other family members that she doesn´t usually talk about. 

We also had an interesting experience that night. When Hna. Cahuapaza and I were walking, a man came up to me who appeared to be drunk and said: ¨Disculpe, respeto, respeto, saludame¨. Hna C and I just looked at each other like: "oh boy". He ended up coming right up to me and asked where I was from. He didn´t want to let go of my hand and I was kinda freaked out. I told him where I was from, and he said: "maybe we could talk"... oh jeez. I looked at him straight in the eyes, told him who we were and that our purpose was to bring people unto Christ, and nothing more. He explained that he wanted to change his life, but he drinks everyday, and prays to God asking: why, why. Talking to this drunk man felt a little unproductive, but nonetheless I felt prompted to firmly say: "Hermano, instead of asking God why why, you should be asking, what can I do to improve?" We ended up saying goodbye and booked it out of there haha.

Thursday: 

We had our second appt, with Liticia, and introduced the Book of Mormon!! It all went super well, and we´re praying that she´ll have the desire to really read it to know that it´s true. We also did a ton of prep for Estrella´s baptism today, and cleaned the chapel and the font by ourselves, and helped prep the program with our mission leader.

Friday:

ESTRELLA GOT BATPIZED!!! it was the first baptism I've been able to see on my mission, and it was a super fulfilling experience. It was a little stressful with the prep, and I can testify that Satan tries to do all he can that last week to make everything fall apart. But, everything ended up going super well, and Estrella felt really comfortable and happy. Hna. Cahuapaza and I performed a musical number and gave the talks...It was kinda nerve wracking since we didn´t have a lot of time to prepare anything, so I pretty much talked freely in Spanish for 5 minutes about the Holy Ghost, but it all went pretty well. 

Today it also rained like crazy...which is kinda weird for this time of the year. My comp and I joked that it was raining becasue  the Catholic Pope was coming tomorrow. My comp was also getting pretty nervous with the rain becasue she was in the field when there were diluvios (floods), and she did not want to have to go through that again...

Saturday:

Well, is was prettty quiet because the Catholic Pope came to Lima, so everyone left except for the Testigos de Jehovah y Evangelicas....But we ended up visiting Napoleon who is recovering from his cancer operation. He is doing super good and we´re hoping to review the lessons to help him get back on track. His daughters are members of the church, but are inactive, so he was pretty much burning them during our lesson telling them they need to pray with their children and read the scriptures...I couldn´t really tell who was the member him or his daughters haha.

Sunday:

Today was...interesting. Today we contacted quite a bit and I was not having luck with knocking on doors. I ended up first knocking on the door of a Jehovah´s Witness, then on the door of a man who was without a shirt or pants and only had a towel around his waist. When he opened the door, I wasn´t really paying attention to what he was wearing, or rather what he wasn´t wearing, and proceeded to explain that we were missionaries and all that, then he just started to chuckle and said: "yeah, I´m without pants right now¨ and shut the door. 

It was pretty awful but Hna. C and I just busted out laughing and I was literally crying because we were laughing so hard. Later, when it was Hna. C´s turn to pick the next culprit, she started talking with a 14 year old who was washing a car. His cousin, who´s 17, came out and Hna. C kept conversing with them. She started to share a message with them and they were both listening intently. When she finished, she turned to me and I started testifying....Alex, the 17 year old turned to me and had a huge grin on his face and I knew his thoughts went elsewhere...I chose to just make eye contact with his 14 year old cousin who was listening sincerely. I asked them if they pray daily, and why, and Alex responded: Well, one day I hope to find my wife....in that moment I wanted to do a facepalm, but then I remembered that that was what I would have done BEFORE the mission hahaha. We ended up giving them both a card with our names and number then Alex asked: "who´s number is this?" We explained that we shared a phone.... Not sure how well the appts. will go with them, but we've got to build the Priesthood somehow!!! 

I hope you all have a great week, and remember to do the little things. We are all trying to find happiness in this life, so remember to be patient with those who may have different vulnerabilites than you. We had to do an online course today about Safeguards for Technology, and one of the member´s of the 70 said: ¨It´s in our nature to have vulnerabilities, so don´t try to pretend that we don´t have them!¨ We can sit and be acted upon my our emotions and weaknesses, or we can act ourselves and have a plan to overcome them. God will work with us when we have a plan. We've just got to take the first step of faith.

Love you all!

Hermana Doney