Hola hola hola!
Wow this week went by so fast... and now I only have two more weeks left in the CCM and then I have to go to the jungle!! AHHH
I´m actually really terrified. I can´t speak Spanish and I have to leave all my friends here ... but it´s good because then I´ll actually be able to help real people and I´ll really be able to learn the language. :)
This week on Saturday we did a proselyting activity in Lima.. that was an adventure. So we went to the Lima Este Mission and I was paired up with another Latina Hermana from the CCM and a member in the area.. so basically no experienced missionaries. The Latina Hermana was named Hermana Aguirre and she is the cutest person ever! Luckily for me, she´s a professor of English, so she could actually translate for me if I needed it, but I tried to get her to talk as much Spanish as she could. She´s so funny! She calls herself Hermana Taylor Swift and kept telling me how great of a missionary I´m going to be because I smile so much! haha.. She left for her mission in Bolivia the other day and I don´t have a picture with her, but just know she´s the cutest ever! Apparently I give off the impression that I can understand and speak Spanish. One person asked me if I was from Spain, and Hermana Aguirre was surprised when I asked her what she said because she´s like "you looked like you understood!" haha Anyways, the whole activity I just felt lost. We went and visited less active people. The first person we talked to was a 19 year old girl, who was the sweetest. She understands English...but she just can´t really speak it. So we started just talking to her and asking how she´s doing and why she isn´t coming to church. She starts telling a story and she starts crying! like full on sobbing! I had no idea what she was saying, so I didn´t know why she was crying. It frustrated me so much that I couldn´t help her! At one point she did say something about feeling like her heart was ripped out of her chest, but I didn´t understand any details. While she was crying, I thought of this one scripture that helps me whenever I feel sad that I thought I should share, but then I second guessed myself. I didn´t know if that scripture really fit her needs, and I didn´t want to ruin the mood by sharing some random scripture, so I didn´t. Afterwards I asked Hermana Aguirre what she said, and apparently she had an experience which left her feeling as if God doesn´t love her. The scripture I was thinking of would have totally helped! So I´m super mad that I talked myself out of it. I decided that from now on, for one I´m going to work even harder to learn Spanish so I´ll actually be able to understand what´s going on and two, I´m not going to talk myself out of sharing anything. I never know how much of an impact it might make.
We did teach a family later who had just lost their mom/grandma, and I shared about how I can in a small way understand what they´re going through. I left my whole family for 18 months to be in Peru where I can´t talk to anyone and how prayer and going to church has helped me through it. I even started crying, which I was super embarrassed about. I didn´t even know if it would help, but it was a thought that popped into my head like the scripture. I didn´t want to regret not sharing it later. Hermana Aguirre told me later that she loved when I shared that, so I guess that means it was helpful? Anyways, the main thing I learned from this proselyting activity is that I really don´t know Spanish at all. Like sometimes I think I can say things, but I really can´t.. I was complaining to Hermana Dickman the other day about it and she just said that even though you can´t offer the people of Peru a heartfelt Spanish testimony, you can offer a few things, like a smile and your happiness. That really helped pick me up.
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| Me and the wonderful Hermana Gillingham! |
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| District Selfie! |
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| Selfie in Tottus, the Peruvian Walmart/Target. The two other girls are intermedios and their district joined ours for the adventures outside the walls of the CCM. We love them! |
Also remember how I told you that no one can say Gurney down here? Well I introduced myself to this one Latino elder the other day and he said my name over and over and then finally he said, in English, "like meat?" and I was super confused because Gurney isn´t a type of meat.. but then he said "Carne!" which is Spanish for meat. Carne is kind of pronounced similarly to Gurney if you have a thick enough accent. So now everyone just calls me Hermana Carne, or Sister Meat. Fun times hahaha.
What else what else.. this week I met an Elder Weight who is from the Caldwell stake in New Jersey! We figured out that we both went to that one dance in the Newark building when it was first built. So we might have actually met before we just don´t know it. But if anyone knows any Weights from Caldwell, I met one all the way down in Peru.
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The girls in our district plus the girls in the district across the hall! The back row goes me, Hermana Dickman, Hermana Fink, Hermana Alailima, Hermana Tirrell, then the first row is Hermana Gillingham, Hermana Jardine, and Hermana Briggs. All of us are going to iquitos, except Alailima, Tirrell, and Jardine are all going to Cusco. They get Macchu Picchu, we get the jungle!
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| Another selfie of the Hermanas |
Anyways, yeah nothing else exciting happened this week! It´s just like the same schedule for right now.
Love you all!
Hasta lluego!
Hermana Gurney
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