Happy!...Summer?

It is super weird to me that you all are out of school and that it is summer there! Today Hna Valdivia and I are going shopping for tights, gloves, and scarfs to keep us warm cause it is gettin pretty chilly here! The other day I was thinking about it, and in the space of two years I am going to have 3 winters, and only 1 summer. Super weird, but it’s ok. It’s worth it because I love being here in Peru!

One thing the cold brings though is well....a cold. Ha. I have been sick with a pretty bad cold since my 2nd day in this area (going on two weeks now) And I lost my voice for a couple days. That sure made teaching lessons an experience. It also happened to be my first Sunday in the ward and now everyone here thinks that I have the voice of a frog. Buuut it’s ok. Life goes on. I`m feeling a lot better now as well, and the bishop of our ward here took us to the pharmacy and bought some medicine for me which was really sweet. 

Guess what?! I LOVE my new area! Imagine that? It’s always hard to have changes, but I know that they are necessary and bring new experiences and I know that I am here for a reason. I absolutely love my companion. I think I mentioned before that she is from Mexico. We are a lot alike. She also has only girls in her family, but there are 3 of them instead of 5. And all three of them are out on missions right now. She lives like 30 minutes away from San Diego and after her mission she wants to get a visa and go to school at BYUI. She was trained by Hermana Hulse, my companion from the CCM which is kind of fun cause we have that connection. We both love guacamole and salsa (which they don`t have here) On Friday one of the less active families we are working with is getting married and we volunteered to make guacamole to bring to the reception so everyone here can try it and see what they`re missing out on. :)

I feel like Heavenly Father has answered a lot of my prayers by putting me in this area. It’s hard to explain but it’s true. 

Also! I`m losing weight again instead of gaining, woo hoo! haha. Because my last area was so big I got used to always taking the bus or a moto. I guess you could say I got pretty lazy. :) But here there aren't any buses that go through our area really and we only take motos if we are running super late. And, our area has a lot of hills again! So, basically we walk a lot, and climb hills all day. I`m ok with that though. :)

 We had a cool experience this last week that has helped me understand even more the importance of teaching the members as well. Our ward mission leader is a recently rescued less active, his wife was baptized in December along with his brother in law, his sister who was less active as well is active. The four of them live together with their families and all of them have callings in the ward. The two sisters are in the Relief Society presidency, and then the other is in the young men’s presidency. They are all really strong and are the ones we can always count on to do their visits and accompany us to lessons and we really enjoy being with them. Well, last Monday we had a family home evening and we felt impressed to share the video about John Rowe Moyle, ``Only a Stonecutter'' After we watched it our ward mission leader said that the he had been praying for a very long time for an answer and that he felt that we had come in the precise moment to show this video to him, and it had been an answer to prayers. It was a cool experience. And it was cool because, even though he is our ward mission leader it still goes to show that it is important to share the gospel with everyone! It is an awesome feeling knowing that you followed a prompting and were able to help someone else. I think that is one of the best parts of being a missionary. 

I wanted to share a quote with you all that I found this last week in a glue-in in my English scriptures. It’s from CS Lewis from his book, Mere Christianity.

''People everywhere seek to invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history-money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery- the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God that will make him happy. The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us, invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He himself if the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.''

I don`t know why, but for some reason this quote really stuck out to me. I have been reading in Helaman in my personal study of the Book of Mormon (I have been working on reading the Book of Mormon all the way through in Spanish, my goal is to finish it by my year mark) and I found a scripture that goes right along with that quote. It is what a lot of people were trying to do in this period of the Book of Mormon. They were trying to find happiness outside of God. But the truth is that it just doesn't. exist. You can feel happy for a little while maybe, but it doesn't last. I know that the only true, lasting happiness comes from our loving Heavenly Father. If you’re interested I was reading in chapter 13, verse 38.

Ah! the reason we have less time is cause our zone leaders give us less time in this zone. :P So I have to go, but I love you all! Have a wonderful first week of summer! :)

Hermana Shelton