Hermana Parks in Peru

La Copa Piura Vida was today! Unfortunately we have a deficiency of Latino missionaries in our zone....so we didn´t do so well, but today was just the pre-game, next week is the real thing! Lots of fun, and hot hot hot!

We had an awesome service opportunity this week!

Hope Alliance, an organization from Utah, came to give glasses to the pueblitos and poorer areas! We went up to La Matanza, it´s a pueblito even farther away than Chulucanas. We translated for the eye doctors and volunteers as they examined THREE HUNDRED people´s eyes! It was humbling watching little kids to 85 year olds smile as they put on their first pair of glasses and say clarito!!! (clear!)

Then we got home and Hermana Luzby´s (member on the first floor, basically our momma) kitchen was COVERED in blood!! She had been cutting tons of meat for a ward activity when the butcher knife fell and cut her big toe!! Seriously so much blood, she had left to the emergency room with her daughter and we cleaned everything while she was gone. We are so glad she is okay!! She´s been on bed rest for a couple days. We love our mama luzby!

I´m copying and pasting what I wrote to President about the MIRACLE we experienced yesterday..

Yesterday we had a very cool experience. We ate lunch with a member family and shared a spiritual thought, then asked for references. The 17 year old girl Collins told us about her friend who lives closeby and whose grandma has cancer. She committed to invite her to come over for lunch on Friday and we scheduled to come by and meet her! Later that day we were with our recent convert tracting and had lots of appointments fall through because of the Father´s Day celebrations. Unfortunately, the streets were filled with groups of people drinking, mostly men. Alcohol is definitely my least favorite part of Sundays and holidays in Peru. I felt like I was in the vapor de tinieblas -- mist of darkness, but suddenly an image came into my head of us in a house with a mom and children. It was like a sanctuary with evil outside. I know that that thought came from the Spirit. I thought ¨wow that would be cool if we could find a sober family who need to hear this message today.¨ We came upon a woman walking holding a child and I started to talk to her. We asked if we could share a message with her and her family and she said yes and showed us to her house! We met her aunt and other baby. When Hermana Martinez asked if there was anything she could pray for in the opening prayer, the aunt, Karla, began to tell us about their mom who was dying of cancer. This was the SAME family that we had received as a reference that day!! We had completely forgotten pamphlets of the Restoration (no idea how) but we had a great lesson on the ATonement, repentance, and baptism. They understood perfectly and want to be baptized in the way that Christ was baptized. As Karla said the closing prayer, she began to cry and thanked God for sending us to them in a moment of pain and uncertainty.

I KNOW that God´s hand is real. He is guiding us with every step we take. I had this overwhelming feeling that we are not alone. That even amidst drunk people in the street and getting rejected, He loves us. He knows where His children are, he knows what they need, and he sends us to them in the moment they need it.¨

Love,

Hermana Parks