"Here comes the bride..."

Ha! Don`t worry. I`m not trunky, but we did have a wedding this week! Woo!

We have been working with P and J, P is a member, J isn't. I think I told you about them before. Well, they were married this last Wednesday and we got to go! Best part was that we got to escape the mission :) They were married at the Plaza de Armas right in the heart of Lima and it was so beautiful. J still doesn't have a baptismal date because he can`t attend church yet for his job, but the day after the wedding we had an awesome lesson with him and we talked about the family, and the sacrifices we have to sometimes make so that our family can be happy. He is praying to know if he should quit his job and look for another so that he can come to church and progress towards being baptized. They are an awesome family. Hey Em, you`ll like this. Their little girl is named Emily! And P is pregnant with twins. She was less active, but is now coming to church every week. I am grateful that we were able to be a part of this chapter in their lives! I would love to see J be baptized, but we will see. 

Let’s see, what else.....

Our pensionistas dog bit my companion this week. That was fun....

We met some awesome new investigators this week. We are teaching E, who has 18 years, and is a single mom. We have been teaching her outside of her house, right next to their goat. I think he likes listening to us too. (.....ha ha...) And on Friday when we were teaching her three cats got into a full on fight right above our heads on their tin roof. It was a little scary. (Also, our house also has a tin roof, and I sleep on the top bunk about 3 feet below the roof, and it is a pretty common thing to be woken up in the middle of the night by cats fighting right above my head. I usually wake up thinking it’s an earthquake or the end of the world or something, but nope. Just the dumb cats again.) Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah. E came to a Relief Society activity with us on Saturday and stayed afterwards for the baptism the Elders had. So that was awesome :)

E. didn`t come to church this week again :( He went out with his friends so that was pretty disappointing. But oh well. We just keep working hard :)

Well. I guess it’s time to go. Talk to you next week!

Les amo mucho!

Hermana Shelton

Pictures:

I thought I`d send on this picture we got from our mission conference with all the Hermanas in our mission :)
 When I got here our group of 11 girls more than doubled the number of hermanas, and now look at us! :)

 

Me in front of the equivalent of the white house!

Here are some pictures from the wedding!

And, a lovely typical scene of my beloved Peru.

Change that only the Gospel can bring.

Hooooooola!

Hi! It’s been a great week, and let me tell you why.

So, we are working with a new investigator. We found him because we have been teaching his family. His brother is serving a mission right now and when he left he was the only member of his family. Since then two of his older sisters have been baptized but his mom is a member of another church (and even holds the priesthood in her church....o.0...) and wasn't progressing much as an investigator. My companion wanted to drop her, but I wanted to teach her atleast once before making that decision. So we went and we both got the distinct impression that if we dropped her now, she would never accept. And that we needed to keep visiting this family. So, we went back. and....found E. When we got there he was drunk, but my companion has no fear and we started to talk to him. He invited us in and as we talked he told us about how he was the ¨black¨sheep of the family, the one that everyone knew as ´´the drunk´´ and that he`d been that way for 15 years. When his brother left on his mission, he left crying and begging his brother to change. It really affected him. We promised him that he COULD change, and if he really wanted to we would come back and teach him how he could, but that he had to be sober. We set up the appointment for the next day, and he promised us he`d be there, sober. As he offered the closing prayer, he started to sob. It was a really powerful moment. But we weren't sure if he was going to remember because well, he was drunk. :P But anyways we went back the next day and he was sitting there, waiting for us. Completely sober and humbled. And he remembered everything. Long story short, we have taught him every day for the past week and a half. He has reached 1 Nephi 14 in his personal scripture study. And is praying every night. The first weekend, he fell. And went out and got drunk and drugged with his friends. We got to his house to teach him and found him that way and talked pretty forcefully with him. We went back the next day and he was really embarrassed. We said we were there to help him, but he had to put in his part. We read Alma 5 together and put small goals together. His first goal was to not go out with his friends this last weekend. He said that while we are there teaching him, or when he is reading the book of Mormon it is easy to resist temptation but then he leaves his house and it gets ten times harder. This last weekend was the first ¨test¨ and on Saturday night we went and had family night with him and his family. We ate popcorn, chips, and pizza, drank Inca Kola and watched the Testaments. And...he did it! He made it through this whole weekend without leaving. He was excited to come to church, but chickened out at the last moment because he is afraid about what all the members are going to say about him. Oh well. Next obstacle to overcome :) It’s been so cool for several reasons. First, his mom has been sitting in on every lesson and has opened us so much. Second, our convert of less than a month, Ricardo, overcame the exact same problem before his baptism and has come to three of the lessons with us this week, and to the family night. His testimony and friendship is helping so much. He is changing, little by little. After the first few lessons he took out his earrings. And his entire countenance is changing. He accepted a baptism date for November! It’s so awesome to have front row seats to his change. I love being able to see this perspective because I know his brother is working hard in his mission and praying for his family, because we are seeing the miracles occur here at home. It’s SO COOL! The Gospel has the power to change lives!

It was a fun week for my companion and I. We have been working so hard. We talked a lot as a zone this past week about contacting. When we contact in the streets and strive to have 100 contacts each week it brings the spirit of missionary work so strong. So we have been focusing on that and its true! This week we had 35 lessons, 101 contacts :) And we have found SO MANY PEOPLE. I swear they are coming out of the woodwork. We have so many new investigators and references. I always joke that I work better with less actives than investigators, I just seem to have better luck with them, but it’s true! Right after we`d decided to strive harder for contacts (especially to families) we walked outside and the first family we saw, we contacted....and turns out they are inactive members. We were like, Hi! We`re missionaries from the church....etc.... and they were like, hey! we were baptized there several years ago! But when they moved they`d lost contact with the church. So...we've been visiting them and they came to church yesterday for the first time in years :)

Yesterday at church was so great. It was the first time we`d had church in 2 weeks, and so many people came! The Elders and us were sitting kind of at the back, and we just watched in wonder, and kept looking over with silly grins at each other as we watched as less active, after less active, investigator, after investigator, and recent convert walked in. We made a list of everyone that came and it had about 30 names. We were so so so happy. Members that hadn't come in years were there. Such a happy feeling :) Yay!

I know I had more I wanted to tell you, but I have already written a ton. :) I hope you are all feeling better! I am feeling a lot better this week. Also! It’s been so sunny, and hot. I love it :)

Well. I guess I`ll end. Have a wonderful week everybody! The church is true!

Hermana Shelton

Greetings from San Juan de Lurigancho

Buenos dias!

^quote from Elder Cristoferson :)

I am jealous of all those fall leaves I see in the pictures! Que bonito. It’s just starting to warm up here in Lima and I`m back in San Juan where the sun shines even brighter so I am happy about that! Just in time to get a tan before heading back to winter :)

So, conference was great! I loved all the talks given in SPANISH! Everyone here was pretty excited about that. Ky, that quote you mentioned in your last email by Elder Christofferson was one of my favorites as well. I wrote it down in my agenda, but it sounds even cooler in Spanish! ``un dios que no exige es lo mismo que un dios que no existe`` ooo....I liked it a lot :)

This week was good! Today is my companion’s birthday so I woke up sneakily in the night and blew up a bunch of balloons and wrote her a note and placed them all over her bed and on the floor for when she woke up. Tonight we have dinner with Mamita, and the birthday traditions here are nuts. They have been planning for weeks all of the things they are going to throw at my companion. Flour, Eggs, and Cake in the face. Oh, Peru. Good Times. Also, since my companion is from Mexico I tried singing her the ``estes soooon, las mañanitas`` birthday song from Mexico, but unfortunately those are the only words I know :) Also, we started singing another Mexican song, that goes, ``Ay, ay, ay, ay, canta no llores! etc....`` anyone? anyone? haha it brought back memories from Elementary School :) 

Remember the family I told you about last week? The dad came to conference with us! And he liked it a lot, and he now isn`t working on Sundays and is excited to come to church. We were pretty sad to find out this week that the only way to fix his wife’s birth certificate is for her to go her hometown which is really far away, and they don`t have money for it. But, miracles exist. We`re going to find a solution :)

In the meantime!! One of our families is getting married on the 22nd!! The wife is less active, and her husband isn`t a member. So we are teaching them both and we are helping them with their marriage! El hermano works on Sundays so he hasn`t been able to come to church, which means we can`t put him on a baptismal date yet, but we`re working on it. One step at a time. We got to go with them to the centro de Lima this week to sign some papers, and their marriage is going to be in the Plaza de Armas, and we get to go! woo hoo! We`re pretty excited about that :)

We had a good week! We are working on finding new FAMILIES and we contacted 101 people this week, and 16 families. 12 of those turned into new investigators, and 4 families. So we`ll see how this week goes :)

We had a conference with all the Hermanas in the mission this week! I`m going to send a picture I took with all of my companions :) Hna Shriver goes home this transfer so it was the last opportunity to be with all of them :`( Also, the mission world cup was awesome! We won team unity :) For some reason the zone thought it would be a good idea to make our zone jerseys fuscia (fucia? the ugly pink color...) and I was opposed to the idea, but they turned out all right :) I`ll try sending a picture too :)

What else, what else.....

Oh. So I don`t think my stomach likes this whole ``having a pensionista`` thing and eating food again. I`ve been living off of water and pepto bismol this week. We had a scare cause we thought I had appendicitis, but turns out it was just cause my stomach was inflamed. It’s whatever. I think I`m gonna go on a diet :) 

But don`t worry about me! I`m fine! Happy! NOT counting the days, I still have like, six months, right? :) haha

Well, I guess that’s it for this week! Love ya`ll!

Hermana Shelton 

Pictures! 

Zona Magnolias!

With Mamita and Nayeli (one of her grandaughters) in the mercado this morning!

The picture with all of my companions on the mission! (minus Hna Mamani)

Sorpresa!

Hello!

So this Monday we are having another ``world cup`` in the mission which means....we are writing today, not Monday! It’s gonna be sweet. All the zones have made their special ``zone`` jerseys and instead of being teamed up according to our country, we`re going to play zone, against zone. Bright and early Monday morning :) So President gave us all permission to write today. I love when the whole mission gets together!

This is actually going to be a super strange weekend all around, because tomorrow is election day in Peru! which means....no church tomorrow. It’s against the law to have any type of meeting or reunion on this day, so we all have to stay in the house for a good part of the day so everyone can go and vote (which is also a law, everyone has to vote and if you don`t vote you have to pay a big fine). But unfortunately election day falls on general conference day! So next week is when they are going to broadcast general conference for all of Peru. But we have permission to watch it in a member’s house if we can so after internet we are going to go watch it with Mamita. (mi pensionista) yay!

I feel all weird writing today instead of Monday. But it’s whatever. I will just wait to hear from ya`ll the next week!

So, what’s been going on in my life this week....a ver.  Cool story! We are teaching a new family! My second day here we were walking down the street when a man called out to us, and started to chase us down. My first instinct was...what the heck? run! but my companion turned right around and started to talk to him. Turns out he`s harmless :) (you never know with some of the men here...I have some crazy stories for ya`ll when I get home) anyways. So this man, Guillermo, works cleaning convis(buses) and one day he found a book of Mormon left on a seat. He said that he felt like he needed to take it home with him, so he did. He said that he`d always seen the missionaries pass by and knew that it was one of our books so when he saw us he called us over to return it. We were like, no! This book is for you! He said he didn`t really understand how to read it, but he would like to know more. So we said we could come by one day to visit him and explain it and he got really excited. He told us we could come by whatever day we wanted, so we did :) And....long story short, we are now teaching him, his wife, and his four kids. They are veeeerry humble, but SO receptive. They aren`t married (like almost every couple in Peru) but it’s not because they don`t want to. There is something wrong with his wife’s birth certificate (her dad put that she was a hijo (son) instead of hija (daughter) so she has to get that changed before being able to get married. But they don`t have the money to do it. But, it’s a good thing the mission is expert in things like this :) They really want to make things right with God and want to be baptized. And we are going to help them! Their whole family is coming over to Mamitas house tomorrow to watch a session of General Conference. :) Also! Other small miracle. Guillermo told us that he wouldn`t be able to come to church because he works every Sunday. But this last week there was a change in salary in his job (it was lowered) so he said he is going to look for a new job with a better salary, and that allows him to come to church on Sunday. I felt prompted to tell him that if he started saying his prayers every day, asking specifically to find that job, that he could find it. I am excited to see how everything goes :)

So other than that...let’s see. My companion is wonderful! Hna Sanchez is a convert of three years, and she was less active for two of those years. The conversion story of her and her family is super bonito and her testimony is SO strong. I love teaching with her because she teaches with so much passion and spirit. We get along great and we have a goal to baptize a family together. Our goal is to contact three families in the street every day. 

Well, time to go.

I hope you are all ready and excited for General Conference! Which is about to start in....like ten minutes. Yay!

LOVE YA`LL!

Feliz cumpleaños otra vez Emily!

Hermana Shelton