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

Otra Semana en Ignacio Merino - Hna Parks hace intercambios en Sullana

Here is Christine's email today.  Mondays are exciting for the Parks family these days.  We look forward to these emails and enjoy them as much as FaceTime when she was at BYU.  Our family has been blessed by her service in Piura... we're a little more likely to see the good and spread the good because we know she is.


Hola hola familia y amigos!!

Great week here in Ignacio Merino! The scripture of the week that was kind of my mantra this week was DyC 33, verse 8. Open your mouths and they shall be filled, and you shall become even as nephi of old. When Prez Rowley gave me my first and last interview on day 1, he told me to be a Nephi in the mission. I love reading about Nephi in the Book of Mormon. He was faithful, diligent, and unwavering even despite some pretty hard afflictions. He did what the Lord commanded, sometimes not knowing why or not knowing how it would work out. That´s like me right now! But I KNOW that what I´m doing is true. So I keep on keeping on, just like Nephi! Our goal was to OPEN OUR MOUTHS this week. Our days consist of a lot of talking. People on the street, teaching lessons, etc. Sometimes it´s not easy to stop people on the street and talk to them but it´s really just conversations about Jesus Christ! We bear simple testimony on the daily of Jesus Christ and what he means for us. Since I´ve been here with Hna O we´ve contacted 332 people! Jimmer forever =) Cool, huh? 332 conversations about Jesus Christ and The Restoration of His gospel! Our zone has the goal to do 1200 contacts each week for 3 consecutive weeks and if we accomplish it, we get to go to Huancabamba! Apparently it´s really green, 3 hours away, etc. That will be a super fun P day! We´ve already completed 2 weeks, so one more! 

This week we had intercambios! I went to Sullana, about an hour away, for 24 hours with Hna Shill! She´s from AZ and the absolute sweetest! She´s almost done with the mission, and a total pro! I learned SO much from her. Especially about LOVING people. She didn´t start our contacts in the street with talking about US and who we are, but rather about THEM, their families, where they´re going, what Jesus Christ means to them, etc. She talked slowly, lovingly, and that´s something I´m going to apply! I tend to do everything too fast but I needed the reminder to slow down, and focus on the PEOPLE. Part of her area in Sullana is very very poor. We were walking a sparsely populated area when we came to a teeny house of a family she had contacted earlier in the week. The mom was outside washing her 1 year old in a tub with a little water. There was visibly something wrong on the Mom´s face from the moment we walked up. As we asked how she was doing, she burst into tears. She said she wished she weren´t alive, and where is God right now. She didn´t reveal all the details of what she was going through, but it was obvious that abuse was involved. She has three children. Her husband walked up during our conversation from far away, obviously drunk. We were afraid he was going to take the baby so Hna Shill picked him up while the mom yelled at her husband to leave and never come back. It was quite the experience. We held her as she cried and prayed with her. She invited us to come back another day and gave us each a fruit before we left- i forget what it´s called. I didn´t want to accept the fruit because she had nothing! But what an example to me of humility and love. I pray that she continues to listen to the missionaries! Sometimes it´s so hard seeing people struggle here financially or in their families. Ultimately, we´re here sharing a message that can increase their happiness and give them direction for their lives. It´s something they can take with them through the eternities, although it may not solve their temporal problems. 

Overall, such a great experience to learn from Hna Shill and the people of Sullana! 

 This week more than ever I felt really inadequate because of personal weakness.  Jesus Christ knows who I can become and because he´s felt all my weaknesses too, he knows exactly how to help me reach my potential! As soon as I wrote in my journal about my frustrations, prayed fervently, worked harder, and concentrated on my companion´s strengths and serving her, things got better! I´m going to study Charity this week and apply it! 

CARLOS- He is over 80 years old, the cutest little old person ever! haha. He was baptized last year, the only member in his family. He is the greatest example to me! He LOVES the sister missionaries. This week we asked him to come with us to teach a couple investigators and he was SO excited. His testimony of the gospel and willingness to serve is just so awesome. It is never too late to change your life! For Carlos, it was 80 years. He has now fully embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ and he will spend his remaining time on earth in the Lord´s work! I will make sure to get a picture with him this week or next. 

Angel y Dely- they are a family we have been teaching who are so very prepared to live the gospel of Jesus Christ! The only problem is that they aren´t married. That is the case with several families we are teaching. They believe in the principles of the gospel and are so ready to live the gospel!. We invited Dely to receive a priesthood blessing last week because she is pregnant and very, very sick every day. She received the blessing and it strengthened her faith and the faith of her husband! Such a cool experience for me to witness the power of the priesthood bless their life! 

Cultural notes!

When you walk into a house or into a room and again when you leave, you greet EVERYONE there. The people here are so warm and loving! 

They have started celebrating for their day of independence next week! Parades, flags, cute kids dressed up in uniforms, it´s pretty cool! 

I was ATTACKED by mosquitoes and spiders on Friday night. I didn´t have a single bite before then, I have no idea why Friday night was all of a sudden drink Hna parks´ blood night. I´´m gonna bathe in repellent from now on.

Love you all, have an amazing week!!

Remember to share your testimony about Jesus Christ with someone this week. Family, friend, stranger. It can be a simple conversation! 

Hermana Parks 

Ignacio Merino Area

You guys, this week I´ll turn a month old as a missionary! Craaaazy. Now just 17 more of those, haha! 

Life is great! We had some super cool experiences this week, but first...the most embarrassing experience of my LIFE. 

You ready for this?

Okay so it´s Thursday night. We got back to the room at 830 sandy and sweaty and tired, like usual :), and did our planning session. Afterwards I seriously could not keep my eyes open so I told Hna O that I was going to bed...9:30. Apparently she followed suit directly after. Then, in what felt like the middle of the night, we hear banging and keys trying to get in our front door...we were definitely a little frightened. We walked out of our room to the front door and heard a group of voices outside the door including girls so we thought it must be people we know...I checked my watch and it was actually 11:30. We hesitantly opened the door and there in our entryway is THE BISHOP, THE ELDERS INCLUDING OUR DISTRICT LEADER, the Hermanas that live below us, the Gomez family (our pensionista), and the Gomez´ exchange students. We were literally so confused and then they told us that they´ve been looking for us for 2 hours!!!! Apparently the Hermanas that live below us had seen our lights off in our window at 945 and assumed that we hadn´t returned yet...so they called our DL because it´s a strict rule that we have to be inside by 9 at the latest and that´s if we´re teaching a lesson that goes past 830. Our DL called our phone several times (which was in the other room and I seriously have no idea how we didn´t hear it!) and told the hermanas to knock on our door and yell our names. WE DIDN-T WAKE UP: So our DL called the President and let him know that we hadn´t returned. The President told him to call the Bishop and all the leadership in the ward to start searching for us and gave the Elders permission to leave and look as well! The Bishop stopped his interviews and the young adults stopped their activity at the chapel to start looking for us! ´Apparently there were about 4 cars and 3 moto taxis filled with people scouring our area looking for us. They stopped at members homes and our investigators houses to ask if they´d seen us during the day! It scared everyone!! They were praying and Hna Guardia, who lives below us was crying. They were imagining the worst. Finally the bishop decided to break into our room to see if there was any more information or if by chance we were sleeping before they called the police. Then we open the door in our pajamas and they were so relieved, mad, exasperated, etc. OH MAN. Hna O and I died of embarrassment. We spent the next 2 days apologizing to everyone!! Literally the entire ward knew about it and was asking us for days, haha. Talk about making a first impression! 

Lessons learned. ALWAYS sleep with the phone in the room and a LOT of people love us! So that was our crazy story for the week! 

Cool experience this week that I´m going to kind of quote from my journal: Hermano A. But first some context that has nothing to do with Hno A.

 I realized this week that I take comfort in numbers. For example, these 2 weeks in the field I´ve loved zone conferences and seeing our district and other people. It gives me confidence and comfort that there are so many other missionaries in this with us, even though it´s hard sometimes. I draw strength from their examples, also thinking about all my friends in the field around the world! But then this week the thought came to me (and I´m sure it was the Spirit): Hna Parks, if you were the only one, would you still do it? 

That question was on my mind all day but I didn´t have time to address it because we were so busy out teaching lessons. Then, Hermano A came along. He´s a less active member who was baptized in 2013. We visited him my first day in the field and he expressed his lack of faith in the BoM. We shared Alma 32:21 and Moroni 10:4,5 and had him commit to pray with a sincere heart, etc. Next lesson, (we brought Junior, a 23 year old RM, convert as of 5 years) with us, Hno A expressed even more doubt. He DID read the BoM but he had literally written pages of notes of things he doubted. Details like cities, the characters, things that he didn´t believe were realistic, etc.  He basically started throwing out his doubts from the moment we stepped in the door. It got semi contentious for sure. He was expecting us to deliver a counter response to all his doubts. Junior did a really good job at reasoning with him. Basically Hno A was trying to tear apart the book that we teach from every single day. The one we carry in our hands at all times, per mission rule! You´d expect that I´d feel despondent and unsure how to respond, but I felt the Spirit SO strongly during that lesson. Since there was nothing else we could do, Hna O and I testified of the BoM. I testified that it´s not just part of the gospel, it´s the keystone of our religion. I testified, as I felt a burning inside me, that if I was the ONLY member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I would still know it´s true and I would still be here on a mission. I don´t know if I´ve ever been more sure in my entire life. When we left that night, my testimony was stronger than it had been when we walked in. I don´t know if Hno A will ever decide to return to the gospel, but I´m so thankful for that experience because it fortified my faith, and my testimony of the calling I have. I LOVE  the Book of Mormon. It is the BEST as missionaries to be able to study it each morning personally and as a companionship. I know beyond any doubt that it contains the fullness of the gospel and the Plan our Father in Heaven has designed for His children. I will never, ever, ever deny of its reality and the truthfulness it contains. So to answer the question that the Spirit posed to me: If I was the only one, YES I would still be here. I´m here because this happiness and testimony inside me is bigger than myself! I encourage all my dear friends and family at home to read from the BoM every. single. day! 

Other people! 

Gerardo: He has a baptismal date for 1 August and he came to church this week and loved it! Hna Roper first started teaching him last year! She´s the one I was talking to on facebook before I came out here! SO COOL. Such a small world! My first area was her last area! You guys should message her via my facebook and tell her that Gerardo is progressing so well and really excited for his baptism! 

Yolanda: I attached a picture on another email. She is this hilarious Chinese-Peruvian lady who´s less active! She LOVES the sister missionaries. We went over to her home this week to do some service. We painted a few of her walls this distasteful lime color that she picked out, haha! She´s hilarious. She lives with her 3 sons. It was super fun to do some service to change things up! 

We taught a recent convert (as of June 27) this week about temples and family history. It was one of my favorite lessons of the week! Victor´s mom died when he was 8 so it was super cool to teach about the ordinances we can do in the temple to grow closer to our families on the other side of the veil! I love and miss the temple! It´s such a bummer to have to wait another 17 months to go again! The temple is one of my favorite parts of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I wish we could teach every investigator about the temple right off the bat!! But we have to take it poco a poco :)

Some random cultural notes: EVERYONE here says Ya. The most common phrase I hear every day is Ya. Ya, hermanita, ya. It´s so funny how every culture has their idiosyncrasies! 

I think I´ve already reached a billion grains of rice in these 2 weeks. Every meal, peeps! 

Tons of stray, sick dogs. It´s really sad. Reminds me of Gmala. 

Every day we ride in moto taxis! Itr´s this 3 wheeled motorcycle taxi thing that´s open. The drivers always try to charge us too much since I´m american but I´ve gotten pretty good at negotiation, haha. 

This week we were teaching a lesson in the park to a 14 year old investigator, Alonso, and suddenly a random lady walks up and asks us to help her find her kimono dragon-lizard thing. It had crawled through the church gates and wouldn´t come out! Seriously huge!! Who in the world would have that as a pet??? There wasn´t really anything we could do because we don´t have the keys to the gates, so she just sat out there waiting for it to come out, haha. Seriously creepy. I wasn´t getting anywhere near that thing. 

GUYS IT RAINED THIS WEEK. Craaazy! Everyone here was scared because when it rains the ground can´t absorb it so their houses will flood! Luckily it was just a little bit. Kind of a little taste of home :) 

Overall, life is really, really good. Emotionally I wouldn´t say I´m 100% yet, but way better than last week. When I´m busy, I´m happy! Every day I get more and more excited being a part of this work. When I´m walking these streets, I feel the love of my Heavenly Father and I feel your love and prayers! Thank you thank you thank you all for writing me! I´m sorry that I never have time to reply but I LOVE reading the letters throughout the week! Keep em´coming!

Someone tell Kirstie CONGRATS on her mission call for me!! So So So excited for her! Which MTC?

Also, can you guys send me a talk by Elder Holland? iT´s called Teach teh Atonement from an MTC devotional in 2000. I read it in the MTC and it´s seriously possibly the greatest talk given about missioanry work ever. I wanna read it again! 

Love you all, have a great week!!!!

Hermana Parks

Week 3: in Piura

Familia!! 

Oh my goodness, you have no idea how nice it is to finally hear from you after 2 weeks! To be honest, I`ve been really homesick this past week but I won`t go into too much detail or I`ll start bawling in the middle of this crowded internet cafe, haha. 

Once again, literally no time, but I just copied and pasted all your emails onto a document to print so that I can read them all this week and then reply next week! I might have time to reply to a few after I write this email.  Ps we get one hour in the field for writing, but we also have to write our weekly letter to the President during that time. 

So when I got set apart as a missionary, I thought that I was totally official. Then we arrived at the CCM and got nametags, and THAT was the real deal. Then we got to the actual field where actual missionary work happens and let me tell ya: THIS IS THE REAL DEAL. 

I`m exhausted and there is literally so much to say so I`ll try to fit everything in: 

AREA: I`m in the Algarrobos zone, Ignacio Merino area. I don`t really know where it is in relation to the rest of Piura, haha, but they say we`re about 45 minutes from the coast. Honestly I`ve been so busy I haven`t even looked at a map. Yàll can google map it, haha. 

MY COMP: Hermana O from Cochabamba Bolivia, 22 years old, been in the mission for 6 months. She`s super sweet and super obedient and we work really well together. But, initially, I was a little hard on her and frustrated because she is kind of timid. I don`t know how to best describe it but it`s kind of a mixture of quiet, slow, shy. I was slightly frustrated because I wanted/needed her to be a leader since I`m a rookie! But I`ve since gotten over myself and I am SO grateful for her. She`s very different than me, but it works out for the best. 

So after our orientation on the first day, we headed straight to our apartment at like 4 or 5pm, dropped my stuff off, and left to go teach 3 lessons, ha! I literally haven`t even unpacked yet and it`s been a week. The following morning, on the second day, I don`t know what was up but I was extremely emotionally fragile. I cried in the shower, I cried getting ready, and I held it together during personal study until it was comp study and we talked about what we studied in personal and I just broke down. I cried that whole morning until we left the house. My comp probably thought I was super unstable, haha. I don`t know how best to explain it, but I think mostly it was loneliness. In the CCM you`re surrounded by friends and your district 24/7. Getting to the field I realized that I`m going to be living with ONE person for the next THREE months, at least until I move areas or change companions. It took me almost the whole week to feel like Hna O and I can be friends. It was just very hard to relate to her in the beginning and I felt completely alone. I missed Hna S and my comp from the CCM SO much. I couldn`t think about or talk about family without choking up. In my mind I couldn`t see how I`d be able to find happiness here. Once we left the house that day, things improved A LOT. When I`m busy, I`m fine. Truly. I have surprised myself with being able to teach and contact people in the street without any fear thus far. It`s the still moments when I get emotional and focus on the hard aspects of this work. I don`t know why, but mornings are hard. I have prayed more fervently than I ever have in my life here. Mornings have been the brink of tears every time, but then at night when we return to the room, I`m so happy. So dirty and sandy, so sweaty, so tired, but so happy. As I`ve gotten to know our investigators and the members, I`ve started to love these people. It`s turned from survival mode into seeing myself doing this for the next 18 months with happiness and fulfillment. 

D&C 78:17-18 helped me SO much on day 2 and I`ve found so many others that have carried me along this week. The Lord is looking out for me for sure. Also Hermana Stringham was my angel this week. (I emailed her before the mission, she`s a sister leader in Tumbes and goes home next month, from Utah) We had a zone meeting/conf whatever you call iton Saturday and for the first time I got to meet other missionaries in our area. Hna Mitchell, who`s in my district said she had a note for me from Hermana Stringham! I don`t even know how Hna Stringham knew what day I was getting there or where I`d be!! She basically asked me how I was surviving and told me that her first month was really hard so don`t give up and Heavenly Father is so proud of me. I started crying right there. I needed that so much. For some reason so far it`s more difficult talking about my feelings with my companion or the sisters that live below us (they aren`t in our area) because they don`t speak english and they`ve all been in the mission a while. So anyways, it`s been the small things that have carried me through this week. 

So our daily routine: 6:30 running in the parque de avion near our apartment, showering in our freezing shower that`s actually really nice when it`s hot!, getting ready, then 8-11 is personal study, comp study, and additional study (additional is for the first 12 weeks using a training booklet we got -- it has helped me a lot with the emotional side of this transition), 11-1 we´re out working, WALKING and walking, teaching, contacting, then at 1 we have lunch with our pensionista (Food is so good here but rice for DAYS. I haven`t seen any beans here and they don`t even know what tortillas area, haha. It`s different than I expected. Soup every day. Then the dish with rice and usually chicken. Really delicious flavors. We always have some kind of fruit in dessert form. They also have this weird fruit called a granadia that looks like fish eggs inside and I can`t decide if I like it , haha, look it up. We aren`t allowed to eat strawberries at all, so that`s depressing, haha. For breakfast I just have cereal and then we don`t actually eat dinner usually because we`re out working. But our pensionista feeds us a huge meal and we just have a snack at like 9pm.) Anyways, 2pm is language study where I help Hna O learn English and then I usually do some Spanish grammar things. Then 3-9 is out working! 9pm is comp planning. Then an hour of free time before bed. Busy, busy, busy. I look forward to teaching lessons during the day SO MUCH because that means we can sit down for a while, haha. 

We have/had one investigator with a baptismal date but he DIDN`T COME TO CHURCH. This is so far the story of our lives. 

Weather: actually not that bad. I mean, we sweat all the time but there have also been a decent amount of cloud cover lately and a light breeze. I still wear sunscreen every day. The nights are actually really nice. We just sleep with sheets and it``s perfect. But it`s winter and Hna O said that this is nothing as far as heat goes, ha! 

Everyone, seriously everyone compliments me on my Spanish. Mom and Dad, I am SO grateful for you guys, especially Mom for persevering to teach us!! It has been the biggest blessing. I understand 100% of everything people say and it`s just a matter of some grammar errors when I speak. Improving every day. 

BUSINESS ITEMS:

From the President: When you guys send me packages it has to be through SERPOST. It`s the same address that`s on my blog but you HAVE to put the President`s full name and then my name. It won`t get here if you don`t use serpost. Also no mail in the CCM so sorry to Bro Minor because I know he sent me a letter!

Camera charger update: I`m gonna buy one

LOVE YOU ALL! SO much. 

Hna Parks