March 2, 2011

Holy Crap, is it March already? I´ll probably say this every week but
time is FLYING by! In one week from today I will be in Ecuador and a
legit missionary! Hello full immersion, AHHH! I´m a little nervous,
but so excited to be doing what I´ve been preparing to do for these
last 8 weeks. We leave early Tuesday morning for the airport, but
we´re not going to be able to call :( Good thing time is going fast
and Mother´s Day is right around the corner!!

So here is how this last week went...

Wednesday we got to go to the temple. It was SO great because I
hadn´t been able to go because it was closed for 3 weeks. It was a
nice escape from the world and missionary work. There are a good
handful of elderly people from the states that are called to be temple
workers in the Lima temple, so it was nice to see and talk to people.
We luckily had translators in the temple, but I would listen in
Spanish every once in awhile. It´s cool how much I understand when
people speak in Spanish then I did when I first got to Peru, it´s
mostly just church related words though haha. I also put Papa Holmes
name on the prayer roll. From the good news I hear this morning about
him, it sounds like the prayers from the people in Peru helped! After
the temple I went to the distribution center and finally bought a
primary song book in Spanish, so no need to send one anymore (you are
a smart woman Mom). I also bought my companion a Book of Mormon in
English, so for 30 minutes of our companion study each day we´ve been
reading aloud from the Book of Mormon and it´s been great!

Saturday was our day out in the city proselyting!!!!!!!! We were sent
to a ward by the airport, which is a pretty sketchy area. We couldn´t
wear necklaces or watches. I was a little nervous at first. In the
morning we had Hermano Gallo (a tall Latin who looks like a mix
between a Latin Ryan Reynolds and Tanner Ritchey haha) helping us.
He´s super nice and I felt safe with him. But after walking through
the town a little, it wasn´t as "ghetto" as I thought it would be,
there was nothing to fear. Hermana Cruz and I were assigned to an
area that was a 30 minute walk from the church building, so with
having to walk back and forth between the places for lunch we spent 2
hours of our day just walking. However, the day flew by because we
were so busy. When we got to our assigned area, we knocked on a few
doors with no answers, but after that we were talking with people and
teaching lessons in houses. We taught 4 good lessons, like 45
minutes. The good thing was I could understand where the
conversations were going and what they were about, but I didn´t
understand a lot, especially what the investigators were saying.

I´ll share a story of a family we taught.... We were walking back to
our assigned area after lunch. We were half way there when we past a
man and woman who stopped us. The man said to us (in Spanish) "She
has your book" (we walk with the BoM in our hands). So we started
talking to them, just little stuff like where we´re from, why we´re in
Peru, and where we are going for our missions. Well it turns out the
woman is a member of the church, but inactive. Her name is Maria and
she was telling us how her mother was sick. She said that she knew we
didn´t hold the priesthood, so we couldn´t give her a blessing, but
she invited us and wanted us to have a prayer with them. So, we went
in and met her mother named Justina. I didn´t understand what exactly
she was sick with, but it had to do with pains near her stomach. We
started off by singing a hymn and then I gave the prayer. We talked
about Jesus Christ and the Atonement and that when when we have faith
in him, we can be healed. I shared a scripture and then felt prompted
to sing "I Stand All Amazed" in Spanish and asked them to listen to
the words (I have memorized the words) and then shared my testimony of
Jesus Christ. It was cool to see how much faith Maria and Justina
have in the Savior and how much faith they had that we, just sister
missionaries, could give a simple prayer to help her. We told the
Elders about Justina and they went back and gave her a blessing later
that day. I am so excited to experience more situations like this,
especially when I am finally fluent in Spanish and can speak and
understand perfectly.

Well, that is pretty much all the "worth-telling stuff". I don´t know
when I will be emailing next. I would assume my mission president
will let us email the day we get to the mission home, but if not, it
should be shortly after. Wow, seriously I can´t believe it´s almost
the real deal. Please keep me in your prayers!

I love you so much and miss you. I hope you have a great week!!!!

Love,
Hermana Smith