Querida Familia,
Hola! Como estan todos? I am doing
so wonderful and I hope everything is great at home! Thank you for all your
emails.
Guess what I got to do this past
weekend?! I went out tracting for four hours in the streets of Peru! That was
definitely an experience. A good one :) Hna. Hulse and I were paired up with
one of the local youth, a 17 year old boy, and then they gave us four book of
mormons, 20 pamphlets, and reference cards and sent us on our way! We were
actually in a pretty poor part of town, and I knew that there are places like
that, but it was still a shock to my system to see it in real life. The houses
were all kind of crumbling, the streets were full of garbage, there were dogs
running around all over the place, and we were the only white people in sight
:) I actually had a bit of a hard time at first talking to people because I was
in shock still at what I was seeing. I was also having a hard time
understanding everything that people were saying because they talk so fast and
quiet. Luckily we had the 17 year old boy (I can't for the life of me remember
his name!) and he was able to do most of the talking, but Hna. Hulse and I were
able to bear our testimonies a lot and we were able to communicate with them
for the most part. The best moment for me while we were out, was getting to
talk to a lady that we met at the park. Her name was Zoila and we had a really
good conversation and she seemed really interested in the Church. We gave her a
Restoration pamphlet and the time and place for church on Sunday and she agreed
to go! Well, about an hour later we were walking back through that same park
and I saw her sitting there still reading the pamphlet and I got the
feeling to go back over and talk to her and get her address so the missionaries
could go find her. So I went over and sat down next to her and asked what she
thought about what she was reading. Her face lit up and she said that she
thought it was very beautiful and she would like to know more!! So I talked to
her about what she'd been reading for a while longer, and then I got her name
and address and gave her a book of Mormon and let her know the missionaries
would be in contact with her, and she told me that she was going to try really
hard to go to church on Sunday. It was so cool! Best experience of the
day.
We were able to talk to a lot of
people that day, and we got lots of references, but that was my favorite one.
:)
AND THEN! yesterday we left the CCM
for several hours to go to central Lima (p.s. I got to see some of
the really old Spanish buildings and they are beautiful!) and take
care of some immigration stuff. I was sitting next to Hermana Goulding and a
lady sat down next to us and we started talking to her. We found out she was
from Colombia and was here on a work visa, but then our conversation got cut
short and we thought that we wouldn't get to talk to her again. Well, we were
standing in another line later and she came up to US and asked if we could tell
her about our church! Of course we said yes, and by some miracle, we had
pamplets and an extra book of mormon with us, so we talked to her for a while
and gave her a pamplet and the book of mormon and she agreed to meet with the
missionaries and she was so happy to talk to us. Best part though, was while we
were talking to her one of the security guards who was standing nearby came
over and asked if he could have a pamplet as well! What?! Of course we were
like....''uh, of course you can!! So while Hna. Goulding talked to the lady
from colombia I talked to the security guard and told him about the book of
mormon and answered his questions as best as I could, and then I gave him a
pamphlet and showed him the mormon.org website and told him to go on there to make an appointment
with the missionaries in his area and he said he would! How crazy is that?!
AND THEN! Today on the bus ride home
from the temple, Hna. Hulse and I sat next to a man and started talking to him
and the first thing he said to us was, ''You girls have such beautiful eyes''
(he could speak a little bit of English) and we told him thank you, and then he
asked us what we were doing here in Peru. So of course we started telling him
about our missions and where we were from and about our church and we asked him
if he would like to know more and he said YES! All we had to give him was a
Liahona that had all the general conference addresses that we had just bought
at the distribution center so we gave him that and wrote the mormon.org website on the back with our names, and then he wrote down
his name and number and told us to send the missionaries his way. He gave me
the paper with his name and number and then he leaned over to me and said,
''Just so you know, I work for the Peruvian police and if you are ever in
trouble or need help with anything, you just give me a call, OK?'' He was such
a nice man, and he seemed genuinely interested and I am excited to give his numbers
to the full time missionaries here :)
Wow! It just goes to show that if
you are willing to open your mouth and talk to people Heavenly Father will put
people in your path who are willing to listen! I am so excited to get out in
the field! I absolutely love it here in the CCM but I am so ready to go out and
talk to as many people as I can and to share the gospel with them! Ahhh!
Also, might I add that all of those
conversations were done in Spanish!, Broken, very slow Spanish, but they were
able to understand me, and I was able to understand them :) So cool.
Well, I am running out of time, and
I have so much more I want to tell you, but I am planning on writing you a
letter after so I will include it in that :) Thank you for the emails from everyone!
I love hearing from you. Also, I am STILL finding little notes from you in my
stuff and they make me so happy, so thank you!
One more thing! I saw a familiar
face arrive here at the CCM today! Elder Parra from our stake just arrived, and
it was so nice to see someone from back home :)
I love you all!
Con Mucho Amor,
Hermana Shelton
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