June 18, 2013

To answer Dads questions, first off, no we don't have any culture classes. I guess being in the CCM with so many Latinos teaches us a fair amount about the culture as it is, and i got to know a few Bolivians which was nice. Although since the Latinos are only at the CCM for two weeks, the whole batch of them, along with the oldest batch of norteamericano missionaries, just left today. And get this... the next batch of missionaries is unheard of. We will have, instead of about 70 percent Latino and 30 percent white, we will have 59 new norteamericanos coming in, 44 of which are sisters, and then only 30 Latinos here total. That's nuts and its really a shame to be honest, because I would much prefer to have more Latinos. They are super friendly and way helpful with the Spanish. Yesterday was kind of a sad day losing all of them, especially our roommates. there are six of us to a room, and along with Hna Wursten and I there were three Latinas and a girl who is from America but speaks Spanish fluently, so they all left. They were SO sweet and fun and we had a great time together, so it was a shame to watch them go, but I'm going to try to attach a picture! PS, right now there is a fairly impressive, long earthquake going on. Awesome, ground has been shaking for like 40 seconds now and its still going.

In my district, the four elders and then me and three other sisters are going to Santa Cruz. the others are going to Guacil south, Ecuador. I'm glad about who is going to Bolivia with us because they're all super great, though Ill be a bit sad to lose some friends in Ecuador. Its crazy how fast our district became super tight, really even after just one week. After six weeks, it will definitely be rough to split up.

OK, so this whole past week has been awesome. I feel like Ive learned so much more about how to be an effective missionary. hna wursten and I were teaching lessons and felt like we were doing a pretty good job at explaining things, but we weren't having a whole ton of success with our progressing investigator, Alberto. He was still meeting with us, but we just didn't seem to be getting through to him. Then we taught his girlfriend that he lives with for a day, and she told us that she didn't want to meet with us again because it just didn't interest her. Well, that was rough to hear, especially since shes actually a teacher and so its not like you can get turned down just because the investigator isn't ready, its because the teacher felt like you didn't do a good enough job. So we really took a hard look at what wasn't quite working with our teaching approach, and we realized we weren't doing a very good job of really connecting with the investigator, really asking them questions about their lives and making our lessons personal to them. So that was something I really tried to work on this week, and it was awesome how much of a difference it made when we next taught Alberto! We taught him again yesterday, and we FINALLY made a real breakthrough by asking some questions that were definitely inspired by the Spirit. He said he has a few questions about baptism before he agrees to get baptized, but we will answer those next time and then try again to commit him to baptism. I'm definitely learning more about humility here at the CCM. It was frustrating for me at first to be the only companionship out of the three teaching Alberto that hadn't committed him to baptism yet, but I'm coming to realize that this is all about doing the best we can, relying on the Lord, and being the best teachers that we can be.

Also, something that was really cool was proselyting on Saturday. Hna Wursten and I went out with a teacher from the CCM. They always either do that or do splits so a white person is with a Latino. Anyway, we went like an hour from the CCM in a bus to a pretty poor area of Peru, and then we we walked around for like three hours and knocked on doors and talked to people! It was fantastic, such a cool experience. Unfortunately we didn't speak much Spanish, and the teacher kind of took over for us instead of letting us do much of the teaching, but next time we will be better about being more bold. The people here are SUPER friendly, I just love it. They all let us talk to them, and we ended up getting nine referrals for the missionaries in the area. At one house, they actually let us in and we taught the first lesson, and I actually did just a tiny bit of the teaching. I explained prayer and how it is communication with God, and I explained a little bit about the restoration. Also there was another really cool experience, when we were just walking along knocking on doors, we walked past these stairs up to a second story house and I had this sudden thought, we need to knock on that door. So I said something, and up we went, and knocked on the door. Turns out the man who answered is a theologian and knows a lot about all religions, including ours, but he doesn't have a specific religion. Well, he was super interested in what we had to say and really seemed like he wanted to learn more about the spiritual side of the gospel, not just the factual side that he already knew. I really felt like that was the Spirit guiding us to that house, because he really seemed enthusiastic about the gospel. I wish I could find out about how these people that we talked to turn out! And over and over while we were talking to people, I could just feel so strongly the love of God for them. I know that He knows all of his children all over the world, including in random poor towns in Peru.

Well, Ill try sending some pictures now. Hopefully it works! One is of me and Hna Wursten at the CCM, one is of all my roommates, one is of my whole district at the Lima temple, and one is of me and two other sisters in the district, all coordinating our outfits. the church is true and I love it!!!