Ignacio Merino week 10 - reuniting with a BYU friend, teaching some great investigadores, etc

Gente: here is today's message from Christine.  Hna Parks seems to be getting along just fine in Peru.  We sent her a Christmas package today (September 7).  If it gets to her, we think it will blow her mind.  We're blessed to have a missionary from our family serving.  El campo blanco esta ya para la siega...

--dad

This week was seriously my favorite week of the mission thus far and FULL of miracles! I wish I could tell you guys every detail and tell you about everyone we´re teaching but alas there is never enough time and too many people to describe! :) Here are a few experiences this week:

Friday we had intercambios. Hna Bazan is an hermana lider so Hna O went to her area, more in the center of Piura and Hna Richan came with me for the day! She´s the Abel´s cousin and lived in the building next to mine at BYU. She´s got 4 weeks in the field and barely knows Spanish but she has the BEST attitude and I love her to death! Last intercambios was full of appts that fell through but Friday was the exact opposite! BEST DAY EVER. Seriously. 

We visited la familia Escudero-- at first only Lucia was there with her two little ones, and I felt impressed to teach Plan de Salvacion. We had taught the first half of it about a month ago, so we re-taught the whole thing. Carlos arrived shortly after we began and they both just embraced the whole lesson. They thought the pre-mortal life was so cool that we chose to come to earth as part of God´s plan. They said they had never understood The Fall of Adam and Eve until now. When we got to the kingdoms of glory, I talked about how we have to live the principles of the gospel in order to enter the Celestial kingdom, including baptism. Carlos asked what they needed to do to be baptized! We explained about the priesthood and being baptized in the way that Christ showed us. Their whole family said yes when I invited them to be baptized and they committed to come to church on Sunday! Unfortunately, Carlos had to travel for work and the two little ones got sick so they didn´t make it, but nonetheless we areSO excited forthem. I walked out of thelesson like WHAT JUST HAPPENED. I feel like we aren´t even doing much, they´ve been prepared by The Lord to hear the gospel! Next lesson we´re going to set a baptismal date for October. 

Then, we visited Hna Avanell and taught the rest of Lesson 1 and gave her a Book of Mormon! She was SO excited to read it. She says she feels closer to God than she ever has in her life and she reads the things we give her and prays how we taught her to pray (as opposed to the Catholic recitation she used to do). On Sunday she was at church EARLY, reading her Book of Mormon! Seriously the most pilas investigator in the entire world. We visited her last night as well and set a baptismal date for the 19th! SO excited for her. From what she´s expressed, her daughters are a little wary of Mormons and have some false ideas about us but they love us sister missionaries and we´re going to start teaching them this week. 

On Tuesday, while knocking on doors, we found a Columbian family who own a restaurant, they´´ve lived here for a year. Their parents were busy but their 16 year old daughter wanted to listen to us so we taught her, Evelin, and her 12 year old sister, Jimena. They are incredible. By far the most mature teenagers I have ever met in my entire life! Super super intelligent and I swear they seem older than me, haha. We did a como comenzar a ensenar and only taught the first two principles because we had to run to another appt but then when we came back on Saturday, they had both read the pamphlet and prayed about it!! We taught them The Restoration and watched the video with them. Afterwards, they expressed to us that they felt like they identified so much with Joseph Smith becausethey´ve been looking for a religion forever and searching for the truth! HOLY GOLDEN INVESTIGATORS. Evelin got sick but Jimena came to church on Sunday! She participated a ton in the classes and told us she loved it! Afterwards she asked when we were going to visit her :) We´re going to give them Books of Mormon tonight! 

This week our zone conf was about finding los escogidos. DyC 29:7. We´re finding tons of nuevos investigadores and we´re working on discerning who is truly prepared. 

Reasons our ward is super pilas:

A member accompanying us followed us all the way home in his car after the lesson because he didn´t want us to walk alone and we can´t ride with members of the opposite gender. He was totally holding up traffic as he was accompanying us while we were speed walking, haha. 

In ward council they had hamburgers this week per Hna O´s request and hand delivered them to our apartment afterwards since council ran late and we had to race home. 

Julio Viera is a ward member who´s lived here for 45 years so he knows literally EVERYONE and loves accompanying us during our tocar puertas horas to show us where his friends live and teach them the gospel! So cool to see his excitement for this work. 

Random:

I had a head cold this week and it was INFIERNO, like seriously SO hot at the same time. I was like man it stinks to be sick in the summer...and then I remembered it´s winter :) So scared for summer! 

WE MET AN ATHEIST THIS WEEK. I´m pretty sure he´s the only one in Peru, so it was an honor :) 

Check out the photos of the food we ate. It´s called a Juan because Juan the baptist was decapitated and the banana leaves make it look like a human head on a plate, haha! 

Love you all have a great week!

Hermana Parks 

 The cathedral in Catacaos

 Con la Hermana Richan

 With my "Juan"

 El "Juan"

 Obligatory zone photo

 Marcelo, the funniest kid in Peru

 Gourmet dinner with la familia Gomez - shrimp!

 This is a typical Peruvian dog - pobrecito.  

Note from dad: Christine won't admit it but she misses El Jimerito (Jimmer, our dog)

Ignacio Merino week 8 (two weeks late)

Sorry fans, I missed posting this one.  So you should mentally insert this prior to my last post.

-Kevin (Dad)

Hey hey hey familia y amigos!

So this week was kinda tough. Mitchael had a baptismal date for this Saturday, the 29th, but then he got super sick this past weekend and couldn´t make it to church! Darn adversary, haha. So we will have to move his date to next Saturday. Nonetheless, we are super excited for him and hopefully he´s well enough for us to visit him pronto. He is also super busy doing a Master´s theory, but we´re persevering through these setbacks to help him progress! 

Also Gerardo was out of town all week and we tried and failed mutiple times to find/set an appt with Aldo, one of our other investigators who is SO PILAS, just not married (his pareja is less active. I love their family. Just have to get married). We weren´t able to teach La Familia Escudero because they had a crazy week but we did stop by to help Lucia with organizing the new house and she said she feels different every time we visit! Cough, cough, the SPIRIT :) Anyways, all these struggles plus walking what felt like 72 miles and freakin ampoyas (blisters), made for some frustration BUT we found some awesome, awesome new investigators through tocando puertas. 

I´ll share a bit about one of the families: Avanell y Celia. Avanell is grandma age and her husband died not too long ago. She has 3 daughters. One lives in Chiclayo, one works and supports all of them while Avanell takes care of her 2daughters all day every day. Her other daughter Celia who we taught is married with one daughter who was born with several health problems, including a hernia. Her husband lives and works in the US and visits every 6 months and they´re in the process of getting their whole family over there. Anyways, Avanell and Celia are so humble and wept as they opened up to us about their struggles financially to make ends meet and care for the 3 little girls.  We are excited to continue teaching them and hopefully do some service for them as well! 

Just in general the people here are so so very loving. It continually amazes me how fast strangers become our friends here! They barely know anything about us but they let us into their homes and give us refresco to cool off from the heat and half an hour later when we leave we feel so much love for them. I´m so grateful for the people we´ve met and taught tocando puertas that we would´ve never met otherwise! 

Our district is the largest in the mission! 11 of us. Mini zona! All of them are beyond pilas. We have the assistants and then 5 more Elders, all of which work in the office. They only proselyte 4 hours a day and the rest of the time they have assignments as secretaries of health, distribution, finance, etc. They are all hilarious and we have so much fun! I´ve been assigned as the english teacher. For 20=30 mins at the end of district mtg we have an english class. It´s guaranteed one of the funniest parts of the week, haha. I love our district! 

Random notes..

So ya know how people in the US water their grass? Welp, people here water their sand, haha. It kind of cracks me up every time I see someone out there with their hose. I´m pretty sure the purpose is to reduce the amount of dust that gets in their house.

So there´s this dude that is always sitting on the street corner where we live and I was super confused for like 6 weeks of why he was always there and always wearing the same hat and then I asked Hna O and she said that´s the guard for our street. Haha. So yeah, we have a guard.

Also sorry I never have pics with members or people, I´m kind of nervous carrying my camera out for the day. It seems like everyone here has a robbery story. We never really feel unsafe but that would be the worst to lose my camera.

Also you guys should google El Niño for me. Apparently it´s a current that is due to come this summer to northern Peru? Everyone talks about it and some people are literally preparing their houses for it. From what I´ve heard, it´s like 4 months of straight rain and the entire Ignacio Merino floods up to the 2nd floor of all the buildings. Don´t know if I entirely believe it, haha. 

PDAY WAS EPIC. We woke up at 5 to take a bus to Tambo Grande and then a truck to this river. We hung out and had to jump across some sketch spots as we were traversing around the river/waterfall but super fun and no injuries! 

I have a quote and spiritual thought but once again, no time! I´ll share it next week. 

Love you all! 

Ignacio Merino - visit from Elder Bednar

Editing this post... Christine did send an email, just forgot to include mom and dad on the list of recipients.  Good to know we're not so high on her list!

Many thanks to Josue for the forward, otherwise we would have missed this very cool message...

Guess who got to sit 5 feet away from an Apostle?? This hermana!!!

We were literally front row, and it was the coolest experience ever! I loved Elder Bednar before this week, but now I feel like I love him as a person too, not just as an Apostle. He was super dynamic and funny and he totally said the words ¨stupid¨and ¨trunky¨ during the conf which was not what we expected, haha! 

I learned SO much and the next day as I looked over my notes, I didn´t even know where to start as far as applying his counsel! It was Friday afternoon from 2-5pm, but he didn´t just stand up and speak the whole time. It was in a question-answer format. He asked us questions, we asked questions, it was really cool. He had sent us 3 of his talks a few weeks ago to study before he came and the conference was based on those talks (Ask in faith, Converted Unto the Lord, Seek Learning by Faith). He was super direct with us, but said "I´m direct because I love you"

Here are a few things I learned and I´ll try not to butcher his quotes, of course it was best in person:

1. Agency. "Agency is the most misunderstood principle of the gospel". The term free agency that we use all the time in the church is simply a bad habit. In the scriptures agency is simply agency or moral agency but Elder Bednar taught that it is never free. "Wherefore as you are agents, ye are on the Lord´s errand". He taught that when we are baptized we covenanted to take the Lord´s name upon us, thus our agency becomes representative agency. He said that many say they can do whatever they want because they "have their agency". He asked us if we have the option to keep the commandments and answered for us by saying NO. YOU DON´T. You´ve taken the Lord´s name upon you. It´s no longer your agency. It´s representative agency. (He explained it better than I can). 

Each day I increase in my understanding of my calling. I am a representative of Jesus Christ, and I came to do the will of the Father, just as Christ did during his life on earth. Elder Bednar said that eventually we will not only submit our will to the Father´s, but that will be our desire.My prayers have been changing as I´ve applied this counsel.

2. "We must be SO unconcerned about self. This mission is not about you." 

Let´s be real, the first transfer here was all about me. I was on survival mode for at least the first couple weeks--realizing all of my personal weaknesses, adapting to the culture, improving in the language, and overcoming emotional struggles. My prayers were pleading for help formyself, and I probably talked about myself the most in my emails home. This has changed. I have realized that this mission isn´t about me at all. It´s about the people. My capacity to love has expanded, and poco a poco I have changed my focus to those we teach-- their struggles, their joys, and their journey to come unto Christ. It is 100 times more rewarding this way. I have a long long way to go, but I´m FOREVER grateful for this opportunity to be in Piura, because these people are changing me. 

---About 2 weeks ago I was studying El Ser Genuino by President Uchtdorf from this year´s Priesthood Session. (From now on I´m going to read all the Priesthood session talks because this talk was literally written to me.) He asked the question What is your ministry? Similarly, Elder Soto in the conference asked Elder Bednar simply ¨What do you do as an apostle of The Lord?" Elder Bednar said that this week he met with 1600 missionaries in Peru in different areas. He met with 43 stake presidents and many other leaders. "That´s not what we do." He told a story of visiting a stake during his first year as an Apostle and how he was sent to that stake because he was able to have an interview with a father having problems with the Word of Wisdom. He asked "Do you think that The Lord would send one of his 15 prophets, seers, and revelators halfway around the world to visit one of His children?..He does it all the time." That was so humbling! That´s the ministry of apostles. One by one. It´s also our ministry as missionaries. 

I´ve talked about Carlos Calle before. He´s 80 years old and a recent convert. He is the absolute sweetest and calls US to schedule visits. His year has already passed as a recent convert so when we visit or teach him it doesn´t "count" but I have realized that our ministry is one by one. We read the scriptures with him and answer his questions and help him to do his family history work. During the closing prayer when we visited him a couple weeks back he began to weep and thanked God for sending us to him when he was in the depths of loneliness. The married couple who were accompanying us had tears in their eyes at the end. That is what we do as missionaries. 

Hermano German: He is also a recent convert. He recently moved into our area and a sister missionary Hna O knows told us to find and visit him because he needs a lot of support. He paints cars and struggles daily financially to make ends meet for himself and his 5 year old son. Initially it was almost impossible to find him. I thought we were wasting our time that could be better used on our investigators. But this week we finally found and visited him. We listened to him express his struggles and worries, prayed with him, and set an appt for him to meet with the bishop. The next day he called us and told us that he had found work! It was a miracle. He is one of the most genuine people I´ve met here and I felt so much joy helping him out even though he isn´t an investigator. That´s what we do as missionaries. 

Hermana Avanell: Last week we had visited her and her daughter but the Como Comenzar a Ensenar was long so we only taught the first 2 principles of Lesson 1 and left them the pamphlet to read and pray about. We visited Hna Avanell this week and she had read the pamphlet not one, two, but SIX times. As we taught The Restoration, she was so receptive and accepted our invitation to come to church without hesitation! At 8:30 sharp she was ready to go on Sunday morning and loved church. When we called to schedule an appointment later that night, she said her daughter wants to listen to us as well! (She had been busy with her 2 year old earlier in the week). She may have been the only one of our investigators who made it to church, but it brought me so much joy! That´s what we do as missionaries. 

(Dad can you find the English version for this quote for the blog?)

I think that President Uchtdorf said it perfectly in this quote:

"Parte de su servicio mas impresionante lo brindo en momentos privados, con unos pocos testigos, a quienes pidio que a nadie dijesen lo que habia hecho...ese es nuestro elevado y santo llamamiento-- ser agentes de Jesucristo, amar como El amo, servir como El sirvio, socorrer a los debiles, levantar las manos caidas, y fortalecer las rodillas debilitadas, atender a los pobres y a los necesitados y cuidar de las viudas y los huerfanos."

In English:

He performed some of His most impressive service in private moments, with only a few observers, whom He asked to “tell no man” what He had done.  Brethren, this is our high and holy calling—to be agents of Jesus Christ, to love as He loved, to serve as He served, to “lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees,”  to “look [after] the poor and the needy,” and to care for the widows and orphans.

The most important moments of my mission thus far have been these kinds of moments. 

3. I learned to change my expectation of success. I want SO badly for our investigators to progress and embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ. But it´s not always in my own timing.We were so excited this week when one of our investigators, Ricardo started reading the Book of Mormon, showed us his favorite verses excitedly, prayed to know if it was true, and felt peace from the Spirit, And yet, he refuses to come to church because of his family and his previous baptism into the Catholic church as a baby. This was heartbreaking for us, and not the answer we were hoping or expecting. Likewise, Michael has been swamped with work assignments and his Master´s thesis classes, and called us to tell us that he doesn´t feel prepared for baptism. It´s been 2 weeks since we´ve been able to visit him which has been so very hard and we have been praying and fasting to know what to do. Ultimately, these experiences could bring us down but I learned from Elder Bednar to ¨be not weary for we are laying the foundation of a great work" DyC 64, 33. 

Faith precedes action which precedes power. 

I am so grateful for this opportunity to be a missionary. I know that my Savior lives and loves us. I know that he has restored His gospel and church to the earth through living prophets and apostles. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I have learned that my ministry is one by one, just as the Savior´s was. I bear this testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

So sorry I didn´t get to reply to individuals this week, and sorry for the novel! Next week for sure. 

Love you all!

Ignacio Merino week 7

Intercambios this week...

The mission is definitely not rainbows and butterflies, but it is such a unique and humbling experience and I am so grateful for all that I have learned! 

For the divisions, there was a catch. We´d be spending 2-8pm on Tuesday with GREENIES. Like brand new fresh off the MTC barely speak Spanish greenies. BUT, it was a super cool experience. I got to see Hermanas Richan, Sandison, and Bryce who I was instagram friends with before the mission! They are all super sweet. My hermana nueva for the day was Hna Buchanan! She´s from Wyoming and was ready and excited for her first day in the field! We had a great list of appointments lined up, and then every. single. one. fell through. I was like you are seriously kidding me. I was praying and praying that Hna Buchanan would have at least one teaching opportunity! Finally, I thought of Lucia y Carlos. They are contacts from Hna O and Hna Crowder back in June. We taught Lucia twice about a month ago but then she had her baby and was in the hospital for a long time with complications, so we had passed by several times with no success. It kind of seemed like a waste even putting them on our schedules because it was impossible to find them available in their house. But, nonetheless, Hna Buchanan and I passed by. And I am so glad we did! The Spirit definitely guided us. Lucia y Carlos were just about to MOVE HOUSES so if we hadn´t passed by, we probably would´ve lost them forever! We taught their family The Plan of Salvation and Carlos expressed his desire and search over many years to find a path and a religion for his family. Investigators of gold I tell you. They have 5 kids. Carlos lived in the US for 22 years as a manager of migrant workers, so he speaks English too! (Which was pretty ironic because Hna B´s first experience teaching in the field was to a bilingual family, haha!) They are the sweetest, and I felt the Spirit so strongly that day. I offered for Hna O and I to stop by on Thursday and help them move! So on Thursday Hna O and I spent the morning carrying mattresses and boxes, etc across this sand field to their new house, not too far away. We got to know their oldest daughters, Adela who´s almost 12 and Miracle who´s 13, really well! Then they fed us lunch and asked us to come back next week! I love them so so much and I´m so excited to continue teaching them! 

ZONE CONF THIS WEEK-- Huge changes in our mission. From now on, all the missionaries in our mission are going to TOCAR PUERTAS (knock on doors) from 6-8pm. Every day. No scheduled appointments within those hours. This is a huge change! Here´s why--

1. Hna O and I have never knocked on doors. I think that the missionaries in our area just never had the habit of doing it. I asked her my first week if that´s something we do and she said that it wasn´t effective. Turns out we were kind of mistaken. Granted, street contacting is super successful in our area. But it´s successful in terms of getting names and addresses, but not necessarily finding families and prepared individuals. Like I said last week, it was overwhelming having so many names and not knowing who to visit, as well as dealing with false directions and addresses from all parts of our area. Now, we have the opportunity to teach people on the spot because they´re in their homes, and normally families are all together between 6-8pm! We can also get to know our area better and proselyte in areas where we´ve only walked a few times. 

2. We´re realigning our focus. As missionaries, sometimes we waste our time on investigators that just aren´t progressing or less actives who refuse to come back to church for various reasons. This week we cleaned out our investigators. It was really bittersweet, especially some that we feel especially close to, but ultimately it´s for the best. We need to find those truly prepared, and sometimes that means having the courage to let people go. We can only invite others to come unto Christ, they have their agency to act! I´m so excited to find new, prepared investigators! 

3. We´´re going to ask for references between 8-930pm from members, less actives, and recent converts. This means less personal time in the evening. Previously, we could be in our rooms at 8:30 but now it´s 9:30. That means planning until 10 and with phone calls and filling out registros, we´ll have less personal time. BUT we have a lot of faith in this new schedule and we´re confident that we´ll be able to make time. But my poor journal is suffering a little :)

But we had the COOLEST experience our first night knocking on doors. I don´t have time to relate the experience, but I will next week! It was the first lesson I have been in tears and felt SO much love for a new investigator.

Random notes--

We literally had a chicken foot in our soup this week. Apparently it´s a delicacy.

Also a moto taxi we were riding got stuck in the sand and we had to push it out, haha.Desertprobs.

Gah, so much more to say but no time!

I love you all! Have a great week! Hike a mountain for me :)

Hermana Parks

Ignacio Merino, continuado...

Photos from today:

One down, 11 to go! Time is flying and I think that this week I loved being a missionary more than all the other weeks! I just felt most emotionally happy with this life I live, and excited for each new day! 

First I´ll answer Dad´s questions since the general population might wanna know some of these things, too-

1. Lessons with members present makes ALL the difference. Unfortunately, it isn´t super easy here. When we ask members to accompany us, we choose investigators who are going to for sure be in their house for the appointment. Once, we had a member with us and went to 10 investigator´s homes over 2 hours and NO ONE was home or available. So yeah. We try to have 1-2 lessons with members each day, as a goal. The members of our ward are super great in helping out with the work. 

2. 28 de julio was super fun, Hna Gomez made us a huge lunch for us and the whole family, they were all wearing their Peru polos, and there were tons of flags in the street and it was a great conversation starter for contacting! 

3. The Peruvian accent is for sure different but I don´t know if I can explain it, haha! They have this intonation when they speak. Also a lot of people speak really fast. I can notice a difference between Hna O and the average Peruvian even though Bolivia isn´t that far away.

4. Personal study - President Rowley on day 1 counseled us to study the BoM for at least 20 mins of our hour, and PME for at least 20 mins. I usually do 30 mins of BoM and then we always study for someone specifially, so I use PME as I study for that person and form a lesson plan. My only complaint about the mission is that we only have 1 hour for personal study! I want 5, haha. The time seriously flies. I loved the scrpitures before the mission, but now I LOVE the scriptures. I look forward to study every single day and I´ve received so much personal revelation and inspiration! 

5. The typical LDS family here..hmm.. they actually don´t have a ton of kids. Besides the family with 7 kids, the average is probably 3 or 4. On the other hand, unlike the US, nonmember families sometimes have like 5-6 kids! And a billion grandkids. And all 72 of them live in the same house, haha. 

6. We haven´t eaten in a cafe or restaurant yet. P days we usually eat lunch in the Tottus plaza with other missionaries which has Burger King, Pizza Hut, all that unhealthy stuff, haha. Something other than rice. 

7. Language study- I don´t know if this is all Spanish missions, or maybe ours especially emphasizes this, but it´s not an option for the Latinos to learn English. They have to, haha. Obviously they aren´t going to be fluent even after 2 years but Hna O actually knows a lot! The Latinos have English grammar and workbooks that has tests to measure their progress. Mostly she needs practice talking so we try to have conversations and practice specific things like past tense. For Spanish, I have a grammar book from the CCM and sometimes I read conference talks in SPansh to expand my vocab. 

8. Experiences that prepped me for the mission-

Anything that had a leadership or teaching opportunity. For example, being a JC at girls camp and teaching Relief Society at BYU! Also just having experienced other cultures for service and learning Spanish in Gmala and the Dominican. Also SEMINARY. Especially scripture mastery. And perhaps most importantly personal scripture study. All of those experiences are part of my foundation.

9. Piano - yep, almost every Sunday for the ward. And every day in the CCM, haha. They just have a keyboard in our ward. The wardmission leader is the other person who plays, but his wife lost her baby (7 months along) a few weeks ago, so he has missed a lot of Sundays. 

10. The tuk tuk drivers are pretty chill. Sometimes we´ll give them a pass along card or invite them to church as they drop us off and they´ll say oh yeah missionaries already gave me one of these, haha. They know the missionaries really well because we´re always getting rides. 

11. Ways that my testimony has grown the most.. well that´s a hard one, haha! I feel like my testimony has grown in so many ways. Probably primarily in the principles of the gospel! You really never know what you know until you teach it. Each time I testify of a principle, it is solidified in my heart! Especially The Restoration and Plan of Salvation. Also I have never felt the importance of daily prayer and scripture study as much as I do  now. My prayers are longer, more sincere, I feel closer to my Heavenly Father, and my scripture study is focused on the truths that can bless the people here, not just me personally! It´s the small and simple things, but they bring to pass GREAT things. 

Before I forget to tell you guys, ELDER BEDNAR IS COMING TO OUR MISSION. We are stoked out of our minds. I think it´s the 27 of August or something like that. How lucky are we?

Okay a few experiences this week-

We try to visit a member family once a week to ask for references or plan a family night in their home with a nonmember, investigator, etc. This week we visited Hna Arronategui. She told us her conversion story, which is incredible. To summarize- She found the gospel during her early 20´s at asuper rough time in her life when she had several questions of the soul. The Elders answered all her questions using the Bible. She doesn´t have a lot of friends here so we left without a reference but it was completely a miracle what happened next. We left to teach an hermano Crol, he´s in his 20´s, in a wheelchair and was super interested the first week or two teaching him. He prayed to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and felt peace. But during the lesson, he basically told us sorry but he feels like he´s found all he needs from his Christian church and the Bible. Initially we were thinking that was it. We can only invite others to come unto Christ, they have their agency. But he has also expressed to us many questions of the soul he has about hte plan of salvation. Because we had just talked to Hna Arronategui, it came to us that we could use the Bible to give a lesson on the Plan of Salvation and build off the faith Crol already has in the scriptures. So we´re going to return this week and teach him with that strategy. If we hadn´t visited Hna Arronategui, we would´ve let him go. I´m so grateful for the Spirit guiding us that day! 

This week during our weekly planning, Friday 10-1, I was stressed out of my mind about our contacts.The Peruvian people are so receptive, and sometimes that´s the problem. We had a billion names and addresses in our agenda from this transfer of people we contacted in the street who agreed to have us visit them. I was stressing that we wouldn´t be able to find the people on the list who are truly prepared to hear our message because it´s impossible to visit them all! But through the guidance of the Spirit we figured out a way to organize all our old contacts, by area and by priority. From now on, at the end of each day, we´re going to decide which contacts we are going to visit that same week. There are for sure contacts where we feel the Spirit strongly, and those are the people that we need to visit as soon as possible after contacting. Anyways, after creating a plan, we found 5 new investigators within 2 days, 6 total for this week! A principle I´ve learned is that if we have a plan, The Lord will make up the rest and consecrate our performance (2 Nephi 32- 8,9) If we don´t plan, especially in lessons, we are less likely to have the Spirit with us.

Favorie food here thus far- Papas a la Huancaina. Google it. Also Alfajores, it´s a dessert. 

No more time! I love being a missionary, I love these people, and they are so important to me! It´s really not my own love or care for them, it´s the Savior´s. I feel so blessed to represent Him for these 18 months. 

Chau!

Hermana Parks

Another update from the Ignacio Merino area

This is today's message from Christine in Peru.  Looks like the girl from Oregon got to see some green mountains for the first time in a couple months...

You guys, today was the COOLEST. Our zone left at 3am this morning to drive 3 hours to Canchaque, waaaay up in the mountains! Perks of living in the desert include massive appreciation for trees and greenery! Once we got to Canchaque we took two pick-up trucks to Pampa Minas, a teeny pueblito even higher up in the mountains. The Elders stood in the back of the pickup and we sisters were inside, it was quite the ride! Then we hiked for about 3 hours and saw a few waterfalls and passed farmland on the hillsides that reminded me of Guatemala! So worth waking up early, and a sweet reward for our hard work contacting these past few weeks! So never fear future Piura missionaries, it´s not ALL desert, haha. 

I don´t have a ton of time left, but I tried to send more pictures to compensate! 

This week flew by! We had a service project Tuesday morning, 5 Week Reunion with my MTC group at the mission house thursday, ward activity Friday morning, and district meeting Saturday! It made the week seem super duper fast.

Service- we cleaned the street with la familia Gomez, our pensionista family who live on the 1st floor and we live on the 4th. They are seriously the best! They have three kids, one married and 2 in their early 20´s. They are converts to the church and love helping us out teaching lessons! Our street is super cute and clean now, which is ironic because you walk around the corner and it´s back to sand-trash chaos, haha. 

Mitchael- he´s progressing greatly! This week we taught him the Plan of Salvation at the church with the Bishop! I´m so glad we had the Bishop there, he explained The Fall super clearly and the Spirit was super strong. I read this week in a talk by Holland that when we´re teaching people the Plan of Salvation, all we´re really doing is bringing back to their remembrance the same plan that they learned in the premortal life! Pretty cool. As the weeks go on, and the more I teach the Plan of Salvation and also Lesson 1, the more I LOVE and am so grateful for my family! Families are so central to this life. I also love the talk Elder Perry gave last conference on families. 

Friday we had a ward-stake activity. Youth from several areas in Piura came to our chapel, we divided up into groups, and went to visit less actives! I was paired with a 15 year old girl, Aracsana, from Tumbo Grande. For the first time, I was the for reals leader! Weird not having Hermana Orellana by my side to negotiate with the mototaxi, find directions, and give a lesson! But a really cool experience. We taught a 17 year old girl who´s less active and honestly, I love teaching youth because I´m practically the same age and I feel like I can relate to them well..as opposed to, for example, teaching an adult couple who have been living together for years (not married) the Law of Chastity, haha. That happened this week too. 

Sunday we ate with a member family, the Albuquerques. They have 7 kids, 3 recently returned missionaries, and made us Brazilian food! Feijuada and coos coos. Their whole family are converts as of 5 years. Their story is so, so cool. The majority of members that we eat with, (Saturdays and Sundays for lunch) are converts and I love listening to their stories. They are all super willing and happy to help us out with missionary work because it´s had such a huge impact on their lives! 

Some random notes-

- I love sunrises here. We are the luckiest to live on the 4th floor and every morning is spectacular out the window.

- This week we had several reverse contacts, aka people contacting US, haha. One man pulled over in his car and asked if we were missionaries and said that he´s having difficulty interpreting the Bible and wants to know if we can help him. We´re gonna visit their family this week! Another woman in a panaderia stopped us as we were walking out the door and started asking us questions and wants us to visit her. I love it when that happens, haha, makes our job easy! 

- Also, nothing beats a few warm breads from the tiny panaderias here for 50 centavos, that´s like 15 cents in the US. 

Love you all, have a great week! 

Hermana Parks

Update from Ignacio Merino Area

Hna Parks sent us a fun email.  She is adjusting to Peru, speaking more Spanish, and learning a lot from her trainer Hna Orellana.  We love Mondays!  I've added a few photos as well.

--Christine's dad


Buenas tardes, familia y amigos!!

Time CRAWLED when I first got here, but now looking back it seems like 4 weeks flew by! Crazy. 

I´ll start by answering Dad´s questions before I forget-

- 6 weeks between transfers, we have one exchange per transfer

- Our ward has about 80 members..or at least that´s what I counted on Sunday, of course there are several more who aren´t active. Our chapel is pretty teeny, I´ll try to send a picture! 

- I´ve never really felt unsafe. There are parts of our area that where we don´t go past dark, about 630pm, because there are hardly any lights. Where we live is definitely safe. 

- No sicknesses thus far! They bring us clean water in huge jugs every few weeks and as long as we drink and cook with that, we´re good!

- President and Sister Rasmussen are AWESOME. We had a multizone conference with them a couple weeks ago and then we had interviews this past week! They are from Irvine, President was one of the first missionaries in the Dominican Rep! Pretty cool. He was stake president in Irvine for several years before this. They´re actually pretty young, their youngest daughter is serving a mission in Chiclayo right now! Overall super pilas, they will be fantastic for our mission! And Sister Rasmussen just has to learn spanish, haha!

- I drink SO much water. It´s just so hot. I´m pretty good about staying hydrated.

- I haven´t had cui yet. Mission goals. But also slightly terrified. 

- The only regret I have is one pair of shoes I brought that are just flats, no strap across. I need the strap because we walk SO much, in a lot of sand.

- You guys have to pick extra pears for me! That is something I miss! 

- And heck yes, BYU football highlights in detail please!

Okay so great week here in Ignacio Merino! Well, at times it was a pretty tough week, actually. We worked super super hard, but there were a couple days when NO ONE was home and all our appointments and backup plans fell through. 

During my interview with President Rasmussen he told me to look for the Lord´s hand each week in all we do. Sometimes we´re so busy we fail to recognize that each of our successes happen because HE has led us to the people who are ready to hear this message! 

So here´s how I´ve seen The Lord´s hand this week:

Monday- we had a family night with a Rescatada family. (rescued) This means that they were inactive for a long period of time but the missionaries taught them all the lessons again and they started attending church regularly and had an interview with the bishop! The Bautista family. Norma is a single mother to Alexia, 10, who reminds me of Rachel :)  Alexia is so sweet, she wanted to teach a lesson on Tithing, and she did a great job! Afterwards I taught them a game I learned at BYU thanks to my FHE group and Alexia and I played with her volleyball. I feel like I´m starting to form relationships with these families and the kids, which is such a blessing! 

Tuesday- We taught Angel y Dely! They have been taking the discussions for a while now, so were praying to be able to find out what they´re lacking before baptism. They both have incredible faith and always have awesome insights during our lessons. Hna O and I felt like we needed to teach The Restoration again. We read part of JS History with them, which was a great experience because they got to hear Joseph Smith´s own words telling the story of The Restoration. I think it really helped them to realize why they´ve kept listening to the missionaries all this time, and remember that The Restoration is the foundation of everything we teach. This week we´re going to have a family night with them with another family in the ward. Really all they lack is ASISTENCIA a la iglesia and marriage. Which is actually kind of a lot, haha. We´re praying that they will continue to progress!

Wednesday- Mitchael Carmona! He is one of Yolanda´s sons. 32, lawyer, isn´t a member. We first met him while doing that service project for Yolanda and eating lunch with their family. I think that he´s grateful for us for befriending Yolanda since she´s separated from her husband and works from home, kind of lonely at times. So he expressed interest in taking the discussions and of course we were ecstatic! This week we invited him to be baptized and he accepted! He´s one of those people who you wonder why they aren´t already a member! He is super hard working and respectful, and has great values and goals for his life. He is going to be such a great addition to the ward! Yay for progressing investigators!

Thursday- Missionary work two by two is SUCH a blessing and definitely designed by God. I learned so much from Hermana O this week and I´m super super grateful that she´s my companion. She is always in tune with The Spirit and especially diligent in our studies and planning for investigators. On Thursday, for some reason, I was super homesick! Sometimes I have the terrible, terrible thought that I will lose a member of my family while I´m out here. I don´t know why that thought even came to my mind, but I was on the brink of tears that morning. But then during companionship study Hna O (who didn´t know that I was feeling down) shared DyC 118:3. It was literally a direct answer to my prayer. I felt so comforted in that moment. Heavenly Father chooses our companions. He knows us and knows exactly what we need, and Hna O has been such a great blessing! We´re super different, but I´m learning to be more humble, prayerful, and patient! 

Friday- At 3pm we left the house to work. I think we went to THIRTEEN I repeat 13 investigators´ homes and NADIE estaba. In our area, that means a LOT of walking. Hours. But as we were walking down a street, we passed a house with a family inside talking. After passing the house, at the street corner, I had this overwhelming feeling that we needed to go back. The Spirit literally stopped me in my tracks. We knocked on the door and they said we could come back later to teach them! The Lord´s hand is in everything :) 

Saturday- We taught a lesson to Gerardo. He had a baptismal date but last week he didn´t keep the word of wisdom. We taught about repentance and the Atonement and he received a priesthood blessing to give him the strength he needs to keep the commandments before his baptism. The Atonement has taken on a whole new meaning for me here as I watch people use and apply it in their lives! 

Sunday- Sundays are love-hate relationship here. I wake up excited to attend sacrament meeting and then we walk out the door and it is STRESS-o-rama. We first went to the Paredes house to help Andrea, 14, get ready for church, they´re a menos activa familia. They were talking forever so we left flying to pick up an investigator, Valeria, before church and then Valeria WASN´T THERE even though we stopped by the night before to remind her and she confirmed that she was coming! Ugh. So I was sitting in sacrament meeting really ticked that we had a grand total of zero investigators at church since the others didn´t show up as well. I was basically thinking there was no hope for this area because no one will come to church. But then, in gospel principles class, I just felt this overwhelming peace. It was a feeling that everything is going to be okay and I just need to have the faith to keep working hard. We had ward council directly after church, and I am SO grateful for our ward, they are awesome. It´s a small ward, like I said, but our leaders are fantastic. I´m excited to work with them to help our investigators and menos activos to progress. Andrea had an interview after church to be a Rescatada, since she was less active in the past. We were waiting for her to accompany her back to her house and she came out of the interview with tears in her eyes! At first we were worried that something was wrong but then she said that the interview was an answer to her prayer! She had been having doubts, and didn´t know if she wanted to serve a mission, even though it´s a ways in the future. She said that the bishop helped her to set goals for reading the book of mormon, and she wants to prepare for a mission! People of ALL ages here are such an example to me!

Cultural Notes-

It is super windy here most days. At random moments we get annihilated by sand and dust. I should start wearing sunglasses for my eyes! 

When I introduce myself as Hna Parks here, people usually have a confused look on their face so sometimes I just say Hna Parques to make things easier, haha!

Some people here really slack with being on time and being at their house when we´ve scheduled an appt with them. But, if they´re home, whether we´ve scheduled an appt or not, they always let us in! Super welcoming all the time. They will stop whatever they´re doing to listen to us. 

The best decision I ever made was bringing stickers on the mission. Seriously. The children of Peru are out to destroy missionary work, haha. Whenever one of the tiny tyrants are trying to destroy a lesson, I whip out the stickers and we´re good!

Hope you guys had a great week! Love you all!

Hermana Parks