Proclamation to my Family

Buenas Dias yáll

My shoes are already so worn. Since we have no money, we walk everywhere, it takes about 30 minutes to go from cita to cita a veces (appointment to appointment sometimes). Which means I arrive sweaty and wet. Haha, great image right? I love to walk, so it´s fine, but we also don´t like losing that time. This next month I told her we´re going to do finances and proportion out the money we need for Marzo (March). Ugh, probably the longest month of the year, and this was the shortest! I wish I could pay tithing, so we could be blessed with that financial security. Alas....there are others ways to make this possible. 

So this week was better, companionship wise. We both realize we need to make changes to teach better, feel better, act better, and when we constantly help the other remember these metas, we accomplish them more often. I think the turning point for me, was realizing that she does share these same goals, and that i´m not in this alone. And I think that she gets less frustrated with me because she has realized how hilarious I am. These last 8 weeks have been rough because when I was dropped into a different culture and a different language, I really felt like I lost my identity. I knew how to be clever in english, i knew how to make jokes in english, i knew how to make people laugh, without entirely offending them, in english...I knew how to be myself in english. And it has honestly been so hard. But I feel like myself again, for the most part, with the people here. What a gift this is. When we can share happiness, when we can share laughs, it really feels like home. This is just like the gospel! When we can share our testimonies when we can share our knowledge of God´s plan for each of us and the HOPE and the LOVE and the JOY we can have in this life for the life to come. WOW, in this work we can truly find ourselves, in this work we can truly feel like we are at home. I testify that when can share this joy with others, our joy increases. When I can share my humor with others, I feel like they understand who I am, what I enjoy. When I can share this Gospel and my testimony of it, I feel like they understand whom I represent and how I want to live my life and what makes me happy. I know that with or without this missionary plaque this joy can be shared! 

CHALLENGE: especially for your missionaries serving in the Google, Facebook mission, share what makes you happy. Share a part of your life with others, help them conocer (know/understand) the source of your happiness.

The Great Thaw of ´14

Would you please send me pictures!!!! I want to see your faces! and pictures of the Ice Age EEUU (USA), because it´s hard to believe anywhere could be colder than 80 degrees. Haha, it was 75 degrees and overcast yesterday, so Hermana Martinez and yo wore sweaters. 

My dearest Katherine! I hope you feel better, I know you LOVE bananas, especially con (with) peanut butter, so eat up! Bananas are stuffed full of potassium. I love bananas, the ones here are pequenas (little), but muy delicioso! and Despite the millions of other fruits here, I still have an ifinity for these. oh yea and this challenge goes for you too! DAILY, could you share your testimony with someone new? I know you can do it! you´re so friendly, and i want a picture of you and your family too! I want to see your beautiful smile! it´s contagious after all!

How is the work on the Indianapolis Temple coming? When will it be completed? The people here have to fly to Lima to visit the temple, and the people in Iquitos! wow, if they´re wealthier, they fly. if they´re everyday citizens, members of the church, they take a boat down the Amazon for 5 days and ride in a bus for 2 or 3 and spend a few precious hours in the temple of the Lord and return the same way. Dedicacion, si (Dedication, yes)?

So this month, we didn´t have any baptisms. We have been working with a woman ,and her family, the fma. villanueva. Let me tell you her story.....

For ten years, she has accepted the knocking of missionaries, elders and hermanas and let them into her home. For ten years she´s listened, once she visited the church with her two sons, 12 and 8 years old, and had never returned.

January 01, 2014, Ella had made yearly goals, had written them on little pieces of paper and put them away in a jar. This morning she remembered those papers and pulled one out, her goal for this year would be....have a unified family in the Lord....Later that day around 11am, Hermana Martinez and I found her name on our list of antiguas investigadores (old investigators) and found her cleaning out her garden, we offered to help and after shared our message of the Gospel. She accepted a return visit and we have been slowly teaching her, and her now three sons, renzo 18, frans 17 and leo 15. She accepted to be baptized and she could teach anyone the story of the Restauraccion of this church. But she has chosen to wait for her husband to hear and accept this gorspel so her whole family can be baptized together. She wants to be married to Fernanado for time and all eternity in the temple of the Lord and to have her family with her forever. We didn´t make our goal for the number of baptisms we wanted this month, but in the coming weeks we will try to teach her husband and help him gain this desire to be with his family for eternity and to live the commandments of God and to be steadfast followers of Christ. It´s times like these, that I remember the work and the glory of God, and not the statistics.