Week 5

 

Here is a picture of some of the lovely ladies in my district! We all dressed in red and pink! It was so cute. I had a secret valentine, I'm probably not suppose to but he is a Chilean Elder, who sings, ride horses, and is bi langual. ahhhhhh. hahaahha latino cowboy get out of here!

 

Our missionary friends at immigrations.

 

Here is Carlos the amazing savior that helped Sister Smith and I through the entire Immigration process! He just joined the church because he liked the idea of eternal families he leaves for his mission in 2 months! We were so excited for him! He was so nice to us and translated everything.

 

 

 

Mis AMIGOS!

This week was quite the adventure. So something went wrong in customs at the airport I was supposedly suppose to leave the country this Friday! So Hermana Smith, Hubert, and I had to go down to immigrations a couple times. The immigrations building reminded me a lot of the DMV, slow inefficient, and frustrating, except now everything is in Spanish.
Wednesday morning we had to be at immigrations at 7. We left the CCM not really knowing what we needed and we didn't have anyone to talk to because the secretary of the CCM doesn't even start working until 8. So we just showed up at the gate and met the member who was taking us. We drove 45 minutes into the city. This part of the city was beautiful. Large buildings, no trash, and the people looked put together. We finally got there and met up with a couple other missionaries, but the CCM didn't give us any of the correct paper work or our passports. We had nothing. Lets just say the CCM is a little disorganized and we have all had to learn to go with the flow. We had to wait a couple hours outside for our passports to finally get there to just get into the building, then we had to wait another 5 hours inside the building! It was ridiculous! And we didn't even get what we needed done, we signed a couple of papers and that was it the entire 8 hours we were there. HOWEVER, we did start do  some missionary work!
There was a little boy outside who was selling candy, Juan. He was 12 years old and had two younger siblings that he was trying to provide for, by selling candy. We obviously bought some from him, how could we say no! And then we taught him how to say "Do you want to buy candy" in English. We watched him practice it on some wealthy north American people a couple times, and his charm worked on them as well. Knowing English is such a blessing.
Then once we got inside we taught a catholic women about the restoration of the church. She seemed interested and had a friend in the church. Even though we couldn't understand or talk to her very I handed out my FIRST Book of Mormon to her, and asked her to read it! It was sweet how accepting she was. After giving that to her a man from Germany came up to us asking what we were doing, he spoke some English so it was easier to tell him. He didn't believe in religion because he looks at it more like a business. He never liked how the priests, or pastors got paid. We were able to explain to him that our church was centered around service and no one gets paid. He was shocked when we told him that we weren't getting paid to go on mission. He couldn't understand why a couple of 19 year old girls would want to pay to preach about a church.
The next day Sister Smith and I had to go back again. This time it was worse than the first! We were at immigrations for 10 hours!!!!!! I have no idea why they had us leave at 7 in the morning because one no one was there, they just dropt us off in front, and our interview wasn't until 3 in the afternoon. It was ridiculous. But I was so thankful to have sister Smith with me. One word to describe Sister Smith is POSITIVE! The entire time  we kept smiling and kept our positive attitudes which made it at least a little better.
One of the funniest moments of the day... So after waiting for a very long time I turned to Sister Smith and said "Do you think that I can open up to a scripture that applies to what we are doing right now?" she doubted it but we turned and pointed right to Jarom 1:5. It said something like this "And now, Behold, two hundred years had passed away" (We started to die of laughter because it had felt like 200 years had passed away in that hot immigrations building) Then it continued "and the people of Nephi had waxed strong in the land. They observed to keep the law of Moses and the Sabbath day holy unto the Lord. And they profaned not, neither did they blaspheme. And the Laws of the land were exceedingly strict." Yes the laws of immigration and visas and stuff are very, very exceedingly strict we both started to die of laughter again. Its good to remember that God has a sense of humor.
But finally at the end of it all we made it through immigrations and we are legally aloud to stay in PERU! yay so we wont get kicked out! fewwwf
When we got back to the CCM we decided that because we sat for so long that we deserved a break so we took our own physical activity time and ran for about 45 minutes and did sit-ups push ups just to release all the energy from sitting all day, it was great. I slept well that night.
VALENTINES DAY!
Valentines day was great! Mom I'm so thankful for that package of valentines cards you sent me! we made valentines for my entire district our teacher and some of the workers It was awesome every one loved it! It also inspired other people to write their own cards, two other companionships in our districts gave out chocolate and valentines day cards. We all dressed in red and pink it was so adorbs! Ill send you a picture!
So some other stuff...
There is a Starbucks here!!! yummy It makes me feel at home and it tastes so good to be able to have ice in you drink, they don't have ice at the CCM. I tried using a Starbucks card from the US but it didn't work:( oh well.
There were two earthquakes! At first I just thought some one was making a lot of noise upstairs but they were definitely earthquakes... AHHH. Not bad though everything is just dandy.
This week we had a huge group of north Americans come into the CCM. And two girls were from my BYU ward! Crazy how we didn't even really know each other and now we are running into each other in South America. Its just a crazy thought! Along with the new group we have three new roommates.. Lets just say they are interesting, and that I am beyond blessed to have the companions that I do. My companions are literally so great! I love them with all my heart! and they are NORMAL! We can all be goofy with each other but also very spiritual with each other. WE ARE THE TRIFECTUM.
I cant believe that I have been gone for a month. Next p day that you hear from me I will probably be in the mission home. I'm not quite sure when we get to email, or if we get to but Ill let you know. On a mission is the only time where days feel like years and years feel like days! Its a stragne feeling because I haven't really even entered the mission yet, the CCM is this weird in between stage where you don't feel like an official missionary. I know that the first couple months are going to be extremely challenging. A change in food, rice everyday. There will be no one to speak English to I will be alone with my companion who will probably only speak Spanish. The only person I can speak English to is Heavenly Father. I can already see that well have a very close relationship. haha. I've talked to some other missionaries who say that it takes about 3 months to feel like you have somewhat of  a hold of the language. Which in hindsight is AMAZING, but also those three months are going to be roughhh. I really appreciate all the people back home that are supporting and praying for me. I cant tell you how much it means to me.
I don't know how to do accents on this computer so any one that actually speaks Spanish bear with me.
Yo se que la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias es verdadera. Yo se que Jesucristo sufrio para todas las personas de la tierra. Estoy agradecido por la Expiacion en mi vida. Yo se que Dios responde mis preguntas y oraciones. Y Dios tiene much amor para todas personas. Yo se que Thomas S. Monson es un profeta de Dios. Yo se que yo fui llamoda a Peru por a proposito especial. No puedo esperar para servi a las personas de Lima, Norte. Yo se que las familias pueden estar eternidad. Y amo mi familia mucho! Yo se que mi familia quiere gue yo este aqui en Peru. Yo LLegorea mas como Cristo. En el nombre de Jesucristo AMEN.