Week #24 Moving mountains

Tarde Blanca

Dear Family! and Friends 

Woww Woww Woww This week has been so wonderful and I had so many great experiences!

First, we had a service project high, high, high up in the serros. The serros is a neighborhood built on a hill side. Unlike in the US where the houses are more expensive at the top of the hill, in Lima, the higher you climb the poorer it becomes. We basically hiked to the very top to a little shack that consisted of four plywood walls leaning against eachother. It looked like a tiny tree house. In my area we don’t have any serrors so sometimes I forget how destitute the people can be. This service project was a good reminder of how blessed we all our.  Our job was to flatten the ground in front of the house. Literally the missionaries were moving mountains that day. We had to move so so much dirt. We worked with shovels and pik axes the entire day, our hands were covered in blisters. My hands at one point started bleeding! Despite the hard work, service is definitely one of my favorite parts of the mission. Service not only brings and bonds people together, but it also brings the spirit. I love service!

POR FIN!

Another great experience, I got the package from my mom! We had a mini district meeting so I was able to share all the cookies and  the candy. It was a little taste of home! Couldn’t have been sweeter! Every one says THANKS AMY!

Our investigator Y is progressing nicely. She has been going to church for over a month! She has a strong desire to be baptized and the only thing that is stopping her is that she needs to be married. This week we brought Y and my favorite little girl Rosa to a church activity which turned out to be my third good experience this week. It was such a cool event. The relief societies from 5 different wards, put on a dance festival. Each ward performed a different dance from peru! It was so awesome! All the performers were dressed up in beautiful, colorful vestiment's for their culture. And the dances were awesome. That is another thing I love about Peru, the culture, and the way the people celebrate with dance. All the dancers wanted pictures with the missionaries so we took photos with all of them!

Finally, to cap off the week, we held our Tarde Blanca! BOOHYEAH! It was so perfect! Hermana Edith made Hermana cadenas and I matching white skirts so that we could be in all white! We were looking fly! Our investigator J was baptized! It was such a great experience for him! He has been coming to church and going to seminary for about a month. The day before his baptism we asked him to share his testimony with us and we told him to write it down so that he could have it forever. His testimony was so simple. He said I want to change, I want to be a better person, the hermanas have taught me about this church and I know that this church will help me make this changes that I want. I know Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet and that the scriptures a true. His testimony was simple but perfect. We were thrilled. He has some family problems but we were touched to see that His entire family was at the baptism to support him including his little sweet old grandma. This month I'm almost pretty sure that our Zone had 20 baptisms!!! This is awesome I am really happy with everyones work!

Today we have cambios! Dunn dunn dunn! I don’t think I will be transferred this time around but you never know. I think Hma Cadenas might possibly be transferred so I will update you next week about whats happening!

Lovee love you all

See you next summer

Herman Huish

Ps. The future is as bright as your faith

Week #23 Pancha Manca

guinnea pig, 

The Pancha Manca, basically, food cooked in a hole in the ground.

Dear Family and Friends,

Sooo were still working hard down here in Peru! We have our tarde blanca this coming up weekend, I'm really excited and it should be fun!

All of our teaching is going  well! J is preparing for baptism. He is 16 and has been attending seminary and church for about a month. He is ready for baptism this Saturday at the tarde blanca! We have been through ups and downs with J because at first he just wanted an excuse to get out of his house, and his parents would let him leave if he was going to talk to the missionaries. However, after talking and teaching him, he has developed a testimony of his own and really has this desire to be baptized into the church!

Other investigator is M. We were so, so happy because M finally came to church this week! We found M about 2 months ago he has a huge desire to be baptized but is having a hard time with commitments. I think we finally broke through to him when we gave him a tour of the church.He is now more comfortable and is even assisting with some of the activities with the young adults!We are trying to teach him the importance of enduring to the end,and  that repentance is a process not just a single baptism event.  He came to church on SUnday and although I know he thought it was extremely boring he stayed for all three hours, and even came back for an activity Sunday night! His baptismal date is for next month!

For p-day we made pancha manca de la tierra! It was so interesting, here is the process:

1.       Dig a pit in the ground.

2.       Heat up giant rocks.

3.       Put the potatoes in the bottm of the pit

4.       Cover the potatoes with some of the hot rocks

5.       Throw in the different kinds of meats. Which included pig, guinea pig, chicken.

6.       Layer it with the hot rocks.

7.       Put the tamales on top

8.       Cover the hole with tarp

9.       Cover the tarp with dirt

10.   Let everything cook in the ground with the hot rocks for 1 hour

11.   Uncover the hole and take everything out!

 I would never think to cook something like that… its probably not super sanitary either! But it  tasted really good actually! It was like a pot of stew in the ground with meat potatoes and hot rocks! Just kind of crazy but its traditional here so that was cool that all the missionaries were able to try it.

TESTIMONY:

I have been thinking a lot about my own testimony lately and one way that my testimony has really grown is through the power of prayer. Almost every single lesson we teach we promise people that God will answer their prayers. I really do testify of this power, if we pray and demonstrate our faith, God will answer us. recently, we have had  a difficult time finding new people to teach so we said a prayer for references, the next door we knocked on had a reference for us! Milares is a jovencita and her friend has been coming to activities but not to church. It was a perfect answer to our prayer.

GIFTS FORM GOD:

This Sunday we had a lesson on los dones del espiritu. The gifts of the spirit. I started to think about how I have witnessed every single spiritual gift on my mission.

1.       The Gift of tongues, interpretation of tongues and translation.

I am a witness to these gifts every single day that I am in Peru. It is a MIRALCE  how far I have come with the language in 5 short months. I came into the field not knowing hardly any Spanish, I couldn't speak or understand. Honestly, it was one of the most challenging and frustrating things that I have ever been through. But now just a couple months later, I understand, I can teach, I can express my self in another language. I can read. I pray for the gift of tongues multiple times a day, during lessons, in the morning, and studying the scriptures. Once while we were teaching a lesson, I was really frustrated because I couldn’t understand what our investigator was saying. I could pick up some words but I just couldn't focus on what she was saying. I said a quick little prayer in my heart for the gift of interpretation of tongues. Immediately after I said that prayer I started to pick things up, I understood her needs. She was explaining to us how she felt like she was never good enough, and how she has been though a lot of trials and a lot of mistakes, she also  has 3 kids, and no husband.. I was so thankful for the gift of interpretation of tounges in the moment because I was able to help her feel better, and explain to her Gods love for her. I have experiences with the gift of tongues almost daily and I know it is real. 

2.       The Gift of Knowledge and Wisdom

I have witnessed this gift in my companion. Hermana Cadenas was baptized when she was 18, not giving her a lot of time to learn or opportunities to learn the scriptures before her mission. When we were first put together as companions she had a hard time finding the scriptures that she wanted to share making teaching a challenge.  NOW she is a scriptorian! She can flip to any scripture and her knowledge of the bible, the book of Mormon, and all of the other doctrine grows daily. Its amazing how God has blessed her with the knowledge and the wisdom to be able to teach people and the gift to know that Jesus is the Son of God. 

3.  I also sincerely believe that to have faith is gift from God. The perfect example is a family that we are teaching. The parents J and C are complete opposites. C definitely has the gift of faith. She is so accepting of what we teach. In fact,  the second time we went to visit her she told us that she knew the Church of Jesus Christ was the  true church. She has a tremendous amount of faith in God,and it is evident by the way she carries herself. It is such a blessing to have this gift because she doesn't doubt anything, she is steadfast and immovable in faith. On the other hand her husband struggles with faith. He somewhat believes there is a God or some superior being, but doesn't believe in churches or religion. He thinks they are all here as businesses. Its really hard to teach someone with out this gift of faith because they cant understand.

4.       The gift of prophecy

The prophets receive revelation for the entire world, but we can receive person revelation. I receive personal revelation every single day. In lessons, walking down the street, before I go to bed. I'm always listening for the promptings of the spirit.

5.       The Gift of Healing

In the Church worthy priesthood holders can give blessings of health. Last week I was really sick. I don’t know what it was, but we went to a members house for her birthday and literally the entire time I was laying on her sofa throwing up, it was awful. There was no way that I could have gone out and worked, I had no strength and  I was so sick. We called the elders to come give me a blessing of health. Elder Moody blessed me and said that this wouldn't interfere with my work, and that I would be healed and continue to serve. It was literally a miracle. After the blessing I truly felt better I stopped throwing up, and I was able to go out for all of our proselyting hours. We taught 5 lessons in 3 hours. It was a little missionary miracle.

I bear witness of all of the spiritual gifts that we can receive. Its important to realize what gifts we posses and utilize our gifts to the best of our ability. Because every single person is different and posses different gifts but we all have them, and we are all witnesses of the miracles that they bring.

Love you all! See you next summer!

Hermana Huish

Week #22 This week was the Maximo!

 

Mission conference with Elder Oaks

 

                                                    My little friend from the grocery store

 

 

 

 

 

Hey Hey family and friends!

This week was the maximo! We had a conference with ELDER OAKS! It was amazing, the way that Elder Oaks speaks is so powerful and motivating. The entire Lima North Mission had the privilege to shake his hand. I loved every word he said. One of my favorite parts was when he talked about humor. He said without humor we would be nothing. Humor helps us get through the hard times and it makes us feel better. I love this because when something bad happens if we get rejected or if we get doors slammed in our face the best thing we can do is laugh and move on. Its not worth it to be mad, because the spirit can not be with someone who is angry. 

All of our investigators are doing well and our zone is packed with baptisms. Every single companionship is going to have a baptism this month, which is awesome! At the end of this month we are going to have a "Tarde Blanca". A Tarde Blanca is a giant baptism with everyone's investigators in the whole zone, and everyone wears all white! I'm really excited! Our investigator Jimmy is preparing for the 28th and so far he is ready to go. His testimony is growing so much, I can almost see the progress daily.

 

Sorry this is a short update but I was a little sick on Sunday and didn't have time to write much.

 

Love you all see you next summer!

Hermana Huish

Week 21, I love to see the temple

Hola Familia!

We had tons of great experiences this week! First, Hermana Cadenas and I were able to go to the temple! One of our recent converts is preparing for a mission so even thought the temple is not with in our mission boundaries, we received special permission to go with her. (For those non-mormons reading my blog, we make covenants in the temple, similar to covenants made at baptism.)  It’s a really exciting time! We went with a couple other sistesr to support and help her. The temple is such a sacred place and I love it. The whole week Hermana Cadenas and I were singing the primary song "I love to see the Temple." It is such a place of learning, comfort, enlightenment and peace, who wouldn't love that?  Also a side benefit of going is the distribution store next door. Our Mission doesn’t have a church book store or anything cool like that so the temple is the only place where we can buy "churchy" things! I bought  videos to share with our investigators and rings with the "CTR" (choose the right) logo on them and several other things to help with our teachings. But the day just kept getting better because we also stopped in Jockey Plaza. It was like entering America and hallelujah, there was a Starbucks so of course I ate there for lunch! Yummy! So over all the temple trip was a great experience. We are so lucky that the temple is somewhat close to us. I read an article in the Liahona magazine about a little old lady who traveled from Mexico all the way to Salt Lake City by BUS to go to the temple. She didn’t know any English except for the word apple so she ate apples the whole way there and back. Its kind of a funny story but I'm just thankful that I have a temple close by and that I can say more than apple in Spanish.

This week was also our zone leader, Elder Moody's birthday!  We threw him a little birthday party with cake, pizza and a  movie! The mission is all about service and the people we teach  but the missionaries can have fun too!!

We have two new awesome families that we are working with and they love us! Family O absolutely adore us and they invite us over nearly everyday. The Dad and Mom are not members yet because they need to be married first, but their sons J and M are baptized and their daughter Rosa was baptized this week.Yay! We are in the process of looking for their birth certificates so the dad and mom can be married. The other day when Hermana Cadenas and I had to leave Rosa the daughter would not let go of us! She just held us in a hug! And then when we finally got out the door she chased us down the street trying to get us to come back. She is a spicey and spunky little girl, you can't help but love her. I'm so proud of her decision to be baptized!

The baptism.

Sooo we planned everything the best we could but we always know that there are going to be problems. The baptism was at 7. We were at the church filling up the font at 5! Unfortunately we couldn't get the hot water going but we did manage to fill it with cold water. Rosa arrived in her beautiful little purple dress we had cookies, everything was ready to go! We ran back to our room to get the baptism clothes for President Erickson! Because President Erikson was preforming the baptism. When we picked up baptism clothes we found that they were too small for him and the suit didn’t have a zipper!!! Oh my goodness what the heck were we going to do? We couldn't give the president a jump suit that was too small and had a missing zipper! We started running around looking for other baptismal clothes but we had no luck! We took the jump suit to our penchinista who luckily makes jackets and had tons of zippers. But even when she tried to put a zipper on the zipper wouldn't stay closed. At this point it was already 7.30 and there was nothing we could do! We grabbed some safety pins and ran to the baptism! My companion even fell while we were running and busted up her knees pretty bad! But anyways we gave the jumpsuit to president and to say the least he was not happy. He came out with the jumpsuit on, and to be honest I couldn't help but laugh! He couldn't sit down because it was too small and if he did I'm pretty sure all the pins would have come undone! It was soooo bad, really it was awful, but at least it was funny at the same time. Besides the baptismal clothes everything was perfect! Rosa was baptized the young women came and brought a cake they had just made for their activity. We had great testimonies and everyone was happy! This baptism just reminded me that all the other things aren’t important, in all honesty the only thing that is important is that Rosa can become a member of the church and start her new life. This is the only thing that matters. I really do love this family.

Sunday

Sunday was another great day! I gave a talk in church about the importance of the Book of Mormon in helping people be truly converted to the gospel It went really well. I wrote the whole thing in Spanish by myself and it was actually pretty good! We had another baptism after church and this one went so beautifully. This family are recent converts to the church. R and M were baptized when I first entered the area. They are new, but they are such strong members of the church. This is the family that we helped to move their house a couple of months ago, literally we moved the house.… Im pretty sure I sent pictures!  This family is ROCK ON. M was able to baptize his son S. As soon as S came out of the water R, S's little brother, ran up to the baptismal font almost jumped over the wall and yelled [Hermano Como Esta![ It was pretty dang cute how much his brother looks up to him.  After the baptism S bore his testimony. I don’t have eloquent enough words to describe how beautiful this 8 year olds testimony was. He spoke for about a 10 minutes, quoted scriptures by heart, shared the story of Christ walking on water and how we need to have faith. He related the story of how he was first introduced into the church. It was beautiful and came right from his heart. Everyone in the room was beyond impressed, the bishop was crying, the primary president was crying and so was nearly everyone in the room. I love this story that he shared. He was walking in the streets with his mom when they came across the missionaries. S ran up to the missionaries with a question. His question was [Who created God?] and after that they started to teach his family and now they are all strong members of the church.

Over all everything has been going pretty great I'm really happy with the baptisms and with the work that we are doing.

Love you all!

Hermana Huish

Week #20, A day with the President

Aloha!

I feel somewhat bad  because so much happens during the week that I can't write you all everything! I like the scripture 3 John 1:13-14, I think it describes my feelings perfectly! 

13 I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and penwrite unto thee:

14 But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.

 First of all it is amazing how far I have come on my mission! I feel like I have grown and changed so much already and It's unreal  that I started in January and its already June! How crazy? Time in the mission seems to be flying by! This week we attended a Zone Meeting and the president came down to lead it. Truly, our president is so awesome! He gave a wonderful lecture about the limits of the adversary. He talked about how we can stop the adversary through our own righteousness. He made a funny comparison to Gandolf in Lord of the Rings. When Gandolf says YE SHALL NOT PASS! He also talked a lot about how to make lasting strong converts instead of baptizing people who are going to end up inactive. He stresssed the importance of visiting less actives and recent converts, because they dont have the firm roots that the members do. They need every bit of support we can give them. At the conclusion of the lecture the president choose one companionship  to join for their lessons the rest of the day. He picked Hermana Cadenas and I! Holy cow!  we were so nervous in the beginning, the President was coming to all our investigators! AHHH we only had one confirmed lesson for the day and the rest of the time we didn't have any firm plans. The day ended up turning out really well!! We had three hours with the president and we had three rock on lessons! The president has so much power in his teaching. I was so happy he came with us, I learned a lot from him. Plus he is super cool so I'm glad that we had the chance to get to know him a little bit better.

Right now we are teaching some incredible families!  We had a noche de hogar with Cynthia and Jesus along with their 4 little girls. They attended church this Sunday and they loved it! Both really felt the spirit and wanted to to be baptized the problem is that they aren't married and Jesus isnt divorced from his previous wife. Divorce and marriage have clearly been a pretty big problem for a lot of our investigators. It is just a little obstacle though because they truly have the desire to become members which is great! Cynthia isconstantly smiling and always friendly. Picture Jesus as this somewhat older balding guy with the best sense of humor! 

This week is going to be really special. Hermana Cadenas and I are going to the temple on Wednesday! I cant wait to go it is such a place of strength!

Love yall!

Next summer is going to come faster then I think!

Hermana Huish