Week #10

pday fun on the swings

Zone lunch

The cute guinea pigs at my Mamasitas house, I can't believe they eat these little puff balls.

Hola!

Hooray! I have this new keyboard called an Alpha smart. I use it like a weekly journal. I can type entries into it each day, save them and then email all the entries from the week during my hour of online time. So the format of my blog posts is going to change a little bit. They will be in dated journal type entries instead of one long letter. 

3.19.14

I have finally found my family!! Everywhere you go you need to make friends and have your own little family. When you are in high school and at home its your actual family and friends, at college its your roommates and all your new friends. Well on a mission its different because all you have is a companion who you may or may not get along with.  Lucky for me I have finally found a surrogate family here in Peru. Our Mamasita moved next door to us, so now we are literally in the same house just different rooms. Our Mamasita lives with her daughter Blanca who has three of her own daughters, ages 9 12 and 18.  I have really come to love them. We have breakfast and dinner every single day with them, and we join them for family home evening. Its has also been a special treat because their friend Reyna is one of our investigators.  We teach her lessons in their house, and watch gospel movies together and eat popcorn. They are so kind and love us so much, they truly are my family here in Peru. The other day for family home evening, it was our mamasita´s friend's birthday. All her adorable friends came over to celebrate. Me and Hermana O shared a message, and then just enjoyed a really good dinner. It was so much fun I was just imagining our relief society back home getting together for lunch to celebrate someones birthday, and its just the same here in Peru, tons of ladies getting together. The youngest daughter Mariciello LOVES me. She brings me brownies and paints me pictures. Their oldest daughter who is 18 sometimes comes with us to teach investigators. She says that she wants to serve a mission but she has a boyfriend now, and it seems like its getting pretty serious! She  always tells us about how they are doing. I really feel like I belong here now. 

3.20.14 

!EMERGENCIA!

So about 2 hours after I wrote the entry from above we received a call from our Zone leaders. They said Hermana Huish pack your bags, you have an hour to get to the district office we are having emergency transfers. YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME! I was warned before I came out that as soon as you start to get comfortable and love where you are everything is changed, that is soooo true. At first I was confused and didn't believe it, once I started packing my bags I was so sad. Why is this happening I thought?  I finally felt like I belonged and  I was just starting to adjust!  I had no choice, so I packed in a half hour and got to the district offices. Now I know why they tell you to only bring two suitcases If I had any more bags I don't think we could have fit in the taxi! I found out at the offices that we were having transfers because we were receiving missionaries from Venezuela. There is a war in Venezuela right now so all the missionaries who are not native are being sent out of the country. 

3.21.14

My New Life!

I have a new companion, and a new area, basically new everything. My companion is Mexican but she is from Anaheim California! She speaks English and Spanish. This is a blessing and a curse because now I can communicate with my companion but it will take me longer to learn Spanish because I am not forced to speak it. Fortunately, Hermana Cadenas has promised to help me with Spanish.  She was baptized when she was 17 and is now serving a mission, which is awesome! Yesterday we had tons of lessons to teach so I was able to see her in action and get a pulse on how she works. She has so much love for the people, and really focuses on the individual and what they need to hear. I love it! That's how all missionaries should be. I'm really excited to have the opportunity to work with her. She is supper chill which is also a good fit for me and even though I miss my old family back in Retablo hopefully I'll be able to adjust soon to my new area and find a family here.

3.22.14

So its only been a couple days but It seems like it is so much easier to adjust the second time around. I'm really loving our zone. I'm finally moved in. I GOT the EASTER package and I loved it. When I put on the socks it felt like heaven on my feet. Man did I miss wearing socks. I loved  the inspirational quotes. They are hanging all around our room. I also really loved the picture of our family with all the hidden messages. (Thanks Dad) Our new mamasita is awesome. She makes us eggs and fruit which is perfect! She also has two huge cages of guinea pigs): I hope I'm not here for the day when she feeds us  guinea pigs! They are so cute how could I eat them?

3.24. Every Sunday we have to turn in numbers for our goals. I was so proud of our work this week, we reached so many of our goals! We taught all the lessons and had 100 contacts! We were on fire this week. Now we just have to get baptismal dates set for all of our people. But if we are working this hard I have faith that they will come. My goal about opening my mouth is coming along really nicely! I feel more comfortable teaching lessons with Hermana Cadenas, she actually allows me to participate. Its SOO MUCH BETTER than before. We are a DREAM TEAM. We just ping pong back and forth we have tons of scriptures to share, its great and I love it! Believe it or not, but I'm at a point where I could probably get through a whole lesson in Spanish! For the most part I understand what people are talking about in the lessons because that's what I study all day. However its still really difficult to understand people when they talk about things not related to the gospel. Its really the gift of tongues because I understand when the spirit is in our lessons and I can say what needs to be said! Its awesome!

Little fun fact about how my mission is changing me already. I am now a MORNING PERSON! I don't think my family will believe me. But I wake up at 5:55 everyday, 5 minutes before my alarm, and can't wait for the day to get started. This is so unlike me. Normally I am mean and groggy in the morning, but now I'm up right away! Don't worry, I'm still the same old me but just new and improved!