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

Week 19 The Wedding!!!

The brides two daughter's and her nieces

Cadenas and I at the wedding

Our awesome missionary painting service project

Zonas Magnolias right before transfers. We all got awards and mine was for "Mas Feliz en el Mundo"

missionary friends

more missionary friends, awwww

Aloha!

This week so much happened and it went by so fast I honestly don't even know what to share with you all! I'll start with transfers. This week we had transfers and luckily none of the Hermanas were transferred so I'm still in the same area with Hermana Cadenas!  Three elders left to different areas and Elder Urozola finished his mission! Its so awesome to serve with a successful missionary like Elder Urzola. He was a great example, so smart and he always cleaned my plate at lunch! The last day our zone was all together we watched Disney movies. We received permission to watch Finding Nemo and Lion King! Also our Zone leaders made awards for everyone! I got the "Mas Feliz en el Mundo" Award. Hermana Cadenas and I are excited to be together for another transfer! The other night we tried to dye her hair light brown but before we finished we ran out of dye! So only half of her hair is light brown and the other half is black! Opps! So now we have to dye it black again and then dye it brown! I felt so bad about screwing up her hair it was pretty bad  and she had to wear headbands everyday this week. I guess I won't be a wedding planner or a beautician after my mission.

I have talked a little bit about the wedding that we put together. Here are a few more details, A really wanted to paint her house for the celebration so all the missionaries got together for service and we painted her house. I don't know if you can really see in the picture or not but in all honesty it was a really shoddy paint job! I would never let missionaries paint my house. (I won't be a painter either.) There was paint all over the floor all over the furniture, and it was  super uneven! But Hermana A was thrilled about it! She was so happy and I'm glad that we could make her happy! The wedding finally happened! HIP HIP HOORAY!!! Finally after all that stress and drama before the wedding they officially signed the papers! Litterally this wedding was stressfull up to the last minute! They showed up almost an hour late to their own wedding and it almost didnt even happend because they were so late! BUTTTTT IT HAPPENED! Hermana A and Hermano N are now husband and wife. Im so grateful for the opportunity to help this family. The next step is baptism for N and then the temple! 

Another really cool experience we had this week was with Hermano. We have been teaching Hermano  for over a month now. He was having several issues with accepting that there was only one true church. In all honesty he is just this cute little old man that wants to hear the word of God and will go to any church to hear it. The reason he likes our church is because it is conveniently close to his house, and he doesn't have to walk far. We focused on the apostasy and the restoration. Then we were really direct with him and asked him to pray that night about which church is true. The next visit we had with him he told us he received an answer to his prayers. He had a dream that the church with the fence was the Church of Jesus Christ the true church and the church that Jesus established when he was on the Earth. Thank goodness our church building has a big fence. He said that he wanted to be baptized as soon as possible! We were so excited about this! So then we taught him the law of chastity and found out he was not married and was not divorced from his old wife..... great another wedding. But I think Herminios wedding will be a lot easier because he is a really chill old guy that just wants to make God happy. 

Being here in the mission is just crazy. Honestly theres no way to explain it unless you have experienced it, and still everyone has different experiences. I am beyond grateful to be serving here in Peru and I know that I am here for a purpose. I love the work that I'm doing and I love getting letters so please write me!

Love you all! and see you next summer!

Hermana Huish

Week 18

You have to watch where you are walking in Lima or you could end up in a hole!

Service Day

Giant zone soccer tournament, it was sooo much fun!

Aloha family and friends!

These past few weeks I have been crazy busy planning a wedding, and let me tell you I am NEVER going to be a wedding planner after my mission. We have been through the best and the worst organizing this event. There have been so many ups and downs. One moment everyone is happy and everything is proceeding according to plan, then the next moment a crisis arises and we are in a tailspin.There is no doubt that this wedding wouldn't even be happening without divine intervention. For example the necessary legal paper work didn't go through on time so the original date of 24th needed to be changed to the 27th. Unfortunately, all of the brides family was arriving on the 22nd and leaving the 25th, so this was a HUGE problem. We tried to explain to A (the bride) that we could still have  the celebration on the 24th and just sign  papers on the 27th but she was having none of that. She said if she couldn't get married on the 24th she didn't even want the wedding. After already planning so much and even raising money for it Hermana Cadenas and I wear literally at a loss for words. There was nothing left we could say to  persuade her to go ahead with the ceremony. We left the meeting with Anna to say a quiet little prayer and in it we asked for help with the situation, even a miracle if necessary.  When we returned to the meeting A's two friends were there already trying to convince her to still get married! The timing couldn't have been more perfect! So finally she agreed and then!!!...we found a way that she could still get married the 24th. She had to pay some extra money to expedite the papers, but its done and now everything is back on track. Throughout the whole wedding planning her husband has been very reluctant. He is always back and forth, one day he wants to get married then the next day NO! Yesterday he was on the "No" train and he said that he wasn't going to even show up. Hermana Cadenas and I were again at a loss of words, having no idea of how to convince him that getting married was the right thing to do. So we planned a lesson with A, her husband N and our Pentchinista, Edith, and her husband to try to show them the blessings of being married in the temple and raising their family in the gospel. The spirit was so strong in this lesson, everyone was in tears. I am so thankful because they are going to go through with the wedding. Everyone keep your fingers crossed on the 24th and say a prayer for A and N that all goes well.

I am so grateful for the gospel in my life. It has blessed me in so many ways. Being on a mission I interact  with people daily who don't have this light, truth, and peace in their lives. I see first hand how difficult it is to face the trials and ups and downs in life without the anchor of the gospel I am thankful that I was raised in the church and have this solid foundation. I wouldn't be who am I am today without the gospel in my life, I also wouldn't be where I am. I just wish that people were more willing to accept this good news into their lives. It's like I have a giant piece of delicious cake and I want to share it with everyone so they can know how good it is, but sometimes people don't want the cake! I feel bad for them because the cake tastes amazing! 

Love you all!

Hermana Huish

Week #17 Mothers Day special edition

 Skyping on Mother's Day!

 

Service Day

 

Hermana Rosa, this is before Pepito pooped on Cadenas

 

 

knocking on doors

This is the card we made for David to remember to Pray

 

 

Mother's Day Extra:

I was able to Skype with Morgan for a little over an hour today and it was the best mother's day present ever! She looks so happy and is just bubbling over with enthusiasm for the work she is doing in Peru. It is hard to believe that four months have gone by. She said that she has already changed so much in just that short amount of time. For one, she said that she is now a morning person. She is up every day at 6am with a smile on her face and ready to work hard. (The smile on her face is the key because she never woke up smiling during the four years she attended early morning seminary) Another change she has made is that she doesn't take a single minute of the day for granted. Every hour of the day is planned out with a goal or task to be accomplished. Not a minute is spent idle. So much can be done if you have an organized plan she said. Finally, Morgan said her testimony and knowledge of the gospel has grown exponentially. She has learned so much  about herself and the gospel as she teaches others. I am so proud of her wonderful attitude and the service she is giving in Lima!

 

Morgan loves getting all of your emails but she REALLY loves letters! Letters on paper in the mail are the BEST! So if you have an extra minute, send her a letter, it takes three stamps to mail and her address is on this blog.

 

Here is her blog post for this week:

 

Aloha!

This week for p-day we went to mega plaza! Mega plaza is sweet because its like leaving Lima and entering America. Normally lots of different Zones go to Mega Plaza on the first p-day of the month, so its fun to see all the missionaries from the other areas! In the mission your trainer is called your mom. So I am the daughter of Hermana Cadenas and while at mega plaza I got to meet my missionary family, My sister, (another missionary trained by Cadenas) and my grandma (the missionary who trained Cadenas), its a fun way to keep track of everyone. OK,  Mega plaza is so American that is has a STARBUCKS!!!  It is starting to getting cold here so I was beyond excited to get a starbucks black and white hot chocolate, I have never felt closer to home!

 

A funny experience this week was our lesson with Hermana Rosa P. Hermana Rosa is a cute little old cat lady. She does live with her family but they also have tons of cats, and a little bird named Petito. We were enjoying some Ecco (Mormon coffee) and crackers when Pepito escaped from his cage. He was flying all over the place! The cats were chasing him and trying to get at him, It was like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon! Then Pepito finally landed on Hermana Cadenas´s shoulder and left a nice big poop right on her sleeve. I tried to tell Cadena's that its supposed to be good luck when a bird poops on you but she wasn't feeling very lucky at that moment.

 

Another good experiences this week was with Hermana Lydia. Lydia was the lady that we baptized last month  and she rocks. This week we helped her make mothers day gifts. We put together hot chocolate mugs with bon bons inside them with a nice big red bow. She loved it.

 

One down side of the week was that our investigator David is having troubles. He is suppose to be baptized next Saturday but wants to wait for July. We think  that he is having some problems with the word of wisdom. Hermana Cadena's and I never give up, we have been visiting him a lot and made him a  card to help him remember to pray

.

On the bright side we have two new investigators who wanted to be baptized this week! We were shocked when we had our first lesson and Marcos (a 19 year old boy)  literally said can I be baptized this Saturday? We had to explain to him that we have to take it slow make sure he has all the lessons and that he should probably actually go to church before he is baptized into it. His enthusiasm is exciting! We met his sister and his mom and they both want to join the church as well. SWEETNESS!   

 

Another awesome part of this week was our Chuebletada. One of the less active members we are working with  is finally getting married! Her husband is not  a member so they need to get married before he is baptized. We have spent the past two months helping them plan for their wedding! Today we had a fundraiser called a Chubletada. We went to Hermana Anna's house early this morning to help her cook tons of pork chops and then we went to sell them to all the members in our ward, and to all the missionaries. It was a good day. For sure an adventure I felt like a girl scout again selling girl scout cookies.

CANT WAIT FOR MOTHERS DAY!

LOVE YOU MOM! CANT WAIT TO SEE YOU THIS SUNDAY!

Xoxoxo

See you next summer

Hermana Huish

Week #16

Meooowww!

! Hola Family and Friends¡

Everything is going really well down here in Peru. Hermana Cadenas and I have been working so hard. All the work makes the time go fast, I can't believe that it is already May.I am looking forward to being able to Skype my family this weekend!!! I'm excited and a little bit nervous. Excited because duhhh its my family and I miss them a ton but also it is reopening the homesickness wound that has already healed.

All of our investigators are doing greatl! Eight of them attended church this week. David had his interview on Sunday and is preparing to be baptized next Saturday! Wahoo!!! I can't wait David is sooooo ready for baptism. He is awesome.

The members of our ward are very supportive! They are always willing to help. Hermana Calra is the best! She is a 25 year old return missionary  and she comes with us every single Sunday and Wednesday! Working with the members is so important. Missionary work isn’t just forthe missionaries any more.  The testimony and spirit that members add, help our investigators progress sooooo much! Carla has been a mentor for Hermana Cadnes and I. Because we are both somewhat new so she has taken us under her wing. Sometimes we go over to her house and just practice discussions, or read preach my gospel together. Shes like the Yoda of missionary work. Also we have a lot of help from our penchinista Hermana Edith. Hermana Edith is so fun to work with! Shes has a great sense of humor and she is so patient and loving. Shes basically our mom in the field. We are planning  to bring her small gifts on Mothers day because she just takes care of us all the time. Whenever we don’t eat dinner we know we can just walk into her house and grab something. I'm pretty sure she is even going to give us  a copy of her house key so we can just come in whenever.  Her husband Marcos is our Mission Leader so we love the whole family. 

I love you all and hope that you help the missionaries in your ward!

See you Next Summmmmmahhh!

Hermana Huish