Week 34

April 4, 2016

So yesterday, they called me at 5:00  in the afternoon and told me I had an emergency transfer to PULCALLPA!  So I had to pack up my bags super fast, run to the airport, and now I'm here in Pulcallpa!

APRIL FOOLS!!

Hahaha ... but actually in all honesty, my zone leaders did call me on April Fool's Day and tell me I had emergency transfers and I almost died of a heart attack!  I didn't want to leave Shilcayo!!

I did move this week.  We changed pensionistas so we moved to live with her.  We're now living a lot closer to everyone in our area.  It's a better change. We live with Janet and her family.  They are members but don't always attend.  I think having us live there is really going to help them.  

So this week was cool. It was General Conference! It was a super fun weekend..I got to watch almost all of it in English! The first half of the first session was in Spanish, but that's okay, because the majority was in English! It's kinda funny in that when I didn't understand Spanish, I watched it all in Spanish, but now that I understand Spanish ... I watched it all in English! hahaha

Anyways ... it was awesome, I loved conference!  I wish we had it every weekend! You just learn so much! 

We also all shouted for joy when they announced the new temple in Lima Peru!!!! That is going to be so awesome!!!!  When they said "quito" Ecuador, we all thought they said Iquitos, which would have been cool, but that's okay, Lima is just as awesome!

So a funny story from this week ... we were walking next to a river, which kinda had a little bit of a slope to lead down to it.  We were just walking on the road next to it and we walked past an elderly lady and said "buenas dias!!!" She looked at us and basically said "I'm going to go to the bathroom".   My comp and I looked at each other and we were just like "okay?" and we just kept walking.  Then we heard a scream, we turned around and the lady had apparently tried to walk down to the river, but fell down the slope! Luckily there were two men right there who ran down to help her up!  It's kinda bad but we thought it was pretty funny!    

We have been working with a woman named Vanessa.  She has been an investigator since August or September, basically my whole mission! haha  She is so strong! She brings her two daughters to church every Sunday, she reads her Book of Mormon every day, she always prays, and has a stronger testimony than many of the members.  Anyways, she hasn't been baptized cause she isn't married. She wants to get married but her husband doesn't want to. We've tried teaching him, but he rarely listens to us and doesn't really want anything with the church. So we prayed and fasted to know how to help this family.  Last Tuesday we went to visit them and the mom told us,  "I was thinking about how to help soften my husbands heart, and I want my daughter to get baptized". Her daughter is 9 but it is usually best to baptize kids with their parents, so we were a little hesitant.  Vanessa feels like if her daughter gets baptized, her husband will attend, and he will feel the spirit there. Her daughter will then have the Gift of the Holy Ghost and will be able to bring that gift to their home. Her daughter's name is Raiza, and is the cutest little girl ever. She also really wants to get baptized and has told us that she prayed and felt that the church was true! So not this Saturday, but the next, Raiza is going to get baptized!  We prayed a lot about it and we feel this will really help her family progress!! Lets hope everything works out logistically!

Vanessa and her cute daughters!

Last Pday we visited El Castillo de Lamas ... (pictures below).  We were told that a member of the church in the Aeropuerto branch decided he wanted to build a castle... so he told all the other members he was going to go by a farm that everyone could help him buy, and it would be like a branch farm. Everyone would be able to have all the fruit and stuff that is grown there. So all the members pitched in and gave him some money for this farm... but then he took all the money and built a castle. Then he moved and stopped going to church.  It actually caused this huge problem in the Aeropuerto branch but it's all solved now.  I'm actually not sure if that's true, but that's the story everyone tells!

So that was my week! Hope everything is going well at home!

Love you tons!!

Hermana Gurney