Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Week 50!

July 25, 2016

So this week was great, we finally met President Li!!  and... he´s shorter than President Gomez! hahahahaha
It's funny because one of the assistants is like six feet!  They´re super awesome! They told us their conversion story and it's super crazy!

Sister Li crew up Catholic and read the Bible a lot.  She always felt confused because the bible talks about prophets and apostles!  She asked her pastors but they never gave her a good reason. She also asked them why they baptize babies... if Jesus gave the perfect example and was baptized as an adult, why do they baptize babies?  She said for a while she went to church with her husband just out of habit, but she never really enjoyed it. One day they just decided to stop going to church. For about six more months, she still had those same doubts about prophets and apostles. Lots of missionaries from other churches showed up at her door and the first thing she asked them was if they had apostles and prophets. Each one said no, so she closed the door in their face! 

Then one day two sister missionaries showed up and asked for "Maritza".   Hermana Li´s first name is Marizta and got excited, but they were looking for a different Martiza.  As the sister were walking away, Hermana Li called them back and asked them what church they're from... they said the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She asked them if they have apostles and prophets, they said, "yes!" She asked them if they baptize babies ...  they said "No".  She told them to come in! She then called her husband and told him to hurry home from work to listen to the missionaries! hahaha He got work off early that day to listen to them!

The best part- President Li´s work wouldn't let him take anymore days off early, and would get home from work at 10 pm! The missionaries received special permission from their mission president to teach them at 10pm! Crazy, no! Anyways, they were baptized! What an awesome story! 

They are a very sweet couple and we´re excited to get to know them more!

I have been here so long ... I am running out of places to take pictures! 
Besides meeting President and Sister Li, nothing else really new happened this week! We taught a lot, we walked a lot, and we sweated a lot! but it was awesome!

Happy Pioneer Day!! I'm so grateful to have pioneer ancestors who were strong and accepted this gospel so that I could have the chance to live it!

Love you tons! Talk to you next week!
Hermana Gurney

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Week Something

July 18, 2016

THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR...TRANSFERS!!!

and... I'm still in Tarapoto with Hna Velazquez! Crazy right? We still don't believe it either. Looks like the new President just forgot about us! hahahahaha   It's really unheard of for two people to be together four changes, but here we are!

It also means I will have spent half my mission in Tarapoto!     

So what even happened this week?
 
First ...  Mercedes- have I even talked about her?  She's awesome!   She lives super far away and has been less active for sometime but has recently started coming to church.   She now has a calling and we´re super happy to see her progress! She came to church yesterday without a reminder call from us! We were so proud of her! She's been reading her scriptures for the past few weeks too!   She gave us her new Book of Mormon so we could write her a note inside! It felt weird writing in someones scriptures, but thats what she wanted!

With Mercedes and her children!
I finally took a picture with Estrella- whose name means star in English ... and let me tell you ... she is a star!  She is our pensionist´s niece and is around four years old.  She just does whatever she wants! It's hilarious. She comes over by herself every morning to buy gum and candy from our pensionista´s store for breakfast.  We always just see her playing shoeless in the street with her mom nowhere insight.  We kinda worry about her but she always gives us hugs when she sees us so I took a picture with her.

with Estrella
We met a cool new couple this week named Geiner and Isabel.  Their kids are friends with a less active we taught and the kids told us to visit their parents, so we did!  This couple is awesome! They want to change their lives and are looking for a church.  They promised they would come yesterday but then some family member got sick so they went to see her instead!  We´re going to help them out this week so they can come to church next week! 

So... things are going cool down here! I don't have many pictures, sorry! I'll try to take more this week!
Love you all!
Hermana Gurney

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Week 48

July 11, 2016

So this week was the last week of the transfer! Tonight we might get a call and I might go somewhere else! Who knows!!

A cool river we came across the other day!

So this week was super busy! Our leaders went to Iquitos for leadership council and came back with a bunch of new ideas of how to help us be more efficient! They changed the way to count contacts, so now it only counts as a contact if we get their address and we intend to visit them! People who don't want any additional contact ...  don't count! It's super good ... because now these numbers are really going to reflect the number of people we are finding that want to know more about the gospel, instead of just people we talk to! We are super excited to be better about our contacts!
With Rafaela ... one of the first people baptized in Tarapoto!

This week we went to visit a couple older women in our ward.  They walk to church every Sunday, even though they're like 80 years old! They are the cutest! They both prayed for God to take them away in our lessons, and then thanked us a lot for the visit!  When we gave them a picture of Jesus,  they both kissed the picture!  They talked about how much they want their families to come to church with them and how it makes them sad that they don't.   It was sad to see them sad!  I'm glad we were able to help them feel better! We took pictures with them so I'll send those! 

With Anita!!

Remember that guy Piere who got his mission call a while ago to Colombia? He leaves today!! I remember when he got his call, I thought,  "Where will I be when he leaves?" and here I am, still in Tarapoto!  We went to his house yesterday for the last time and it was actually kinda sad! It made me think back to when I left on my mission! He is super excited and I'm sure he will be a great missionary.  


Saying goodbye to Piere!
Erika came to church again!  We went to visit her the other day and she was doing her Personal Progress (a program for the young women in our church) ... how awesome! She's not even a member and she's doing it! haha Her parents still haven't come to church but I have the faith they'll come next week! We´re going to bring President and his family to visit them and we feel that will be a great strength for them! 
Happy Fourth of July!



Holding a baby parrot!


So yeah, that was my week! It was great!Hope everyone is enjoying their summer! Love you all!!
Hermana Gurney

Monday, July 4, 2016

Week 47

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!

I found a nice scripture that talks about the Fourth of July so I thought I'd share it with you all! 

Ether 2:12
"Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the things 
which we have written."

LOVE IT!

Gaston & Aleyda & Family ... They are the best - a wonderful example of humble obedience!

Our Pensionista - Janeth and her daughter, Angely


So this week went by super fast! What happened?

This past week in Branch Council our Branch President says "Okay everyone .. first order of business - we need a birthday party for the primary EVERY MONTH!" and he talked about the details of this party for about five minutes and everyone was just like "okay"... I guess he forgot that there isn't a Primary President right now! She was released last Sunday! hahaha. So apparently there´s going to be a primary birthday party this Wednesday.. but we don't know who´s organizing it! hahaha

This past Wednesday was another holiday in Peru (or probably just the jungle, I don't know) but it was San Pablo and San Pedro´s day, and no one had school! They didn't do any cool celebrations like San Juan, but pretty much everyone was in their home sleeping! 

A baby chick hatching!

With Chelsy ..such a cute little boy!


Felipe and Sara are doing awesome! They started reading their scriptures! They were all ready to come to church yesterday and then Felipe´s brother called and said that his mom is really sick and they needed him in the hospital, so they went to see his mom.  BUT  Erika, their niece came to church! She even accepted a baptismal date for the end of July so we´re excited to help her progress towards that goal!

Raul, didn't get his baptismal permission slip signed, he´s a little sad, but I know it's in God´s plan and everything will work out soon!

That's pretty much all that's going on! We´re just happy to see how much people are coming closer to Christ!


Love you all! Happy Fourth of July!
Hermana Gurney