Hola! Hola!

                                                                                                Sept. 30, 2013

Hola! Hola!

 

I am glad to hear everyone had a good week and that you had a good birthday Mom. After I got off the computer last week I realized that I had forgotten to wish you a happy birthday and I felt bad, but I thought about you on Thursday and asked Heavenly Father to send you my love and birthday wishes, so I hope you felt it :) 

 

One thing I would love in a Christmas package is the Nashville tribute band CD called, ¨The Work.¨ Most especially the song called, ¨The hardest thing I´ve ever loved to do¨ I can´t think of anything else right now off the top of my head but I will ask about tricks for getting a package here safely and let you know more next week.

 

Haha, sorry about the ¨having experiences I can´t tell you about yet¨ part of my letter last week. Don´t worry, I´m safe! We just get a lot of attention. My new area is a lot poorer than my old area and we have a lot of the cerros (hills). Basically that means that we go hiking every single day, but that’s ok. I am getting some serious calf muscles! The people here are very receptive and friendly and a lot will listen to us, the problem is getting them to progress. But most people we talk to are very nice and I think I have only talked to one man who doesn´t believe in God. Everyone is very, very religious... and very very Catholic. :) Also, something I was warned about, and have come to know for myself as well, is that everyone here believes that the only way to receive revelation is through dreams. An elder in the office was talking to us my second week here and asked if we´d heard about any ¨dreams¨ yet. I said no and he said, ¨Oh. You will.¨ And its true. I have had several investigators ask me to interpret a dream they had, and many others tell me that if they receive an answer from God in their dreams, then they will know that the Book of Mormon is true, or that they should get baptized, etc... We get to explain about the Spirit and how it works a whole lot! :)

 

I did get to watch the Relief Society broadcast this week! In Spanish of course, but same thing :) I was thinking throughout the whole thing, ¨I bet Mom and Kylee are watching this right now, too!¨ It was so good. I was so excited to listen to President Monson. And  I am so excited for Conference this weekend! We get to watch it at the Stake Center (in Spanish of course) and I can´t wait. 

 

We had a good week! A little bit stressful, but good. We had a baptism this weekend for J. and basically everything that could´ve gone wrong, did. We couldn´t get hold of our ward mission leader all week, everyone who was supposed to be on the program cancelled, and the font wouldn´t fill up with water. So we had to move to a different Chapel, do the program ourselves, and call the ward mission leader in my old ward to get the baptismal clothes, but we were able to baptize him and thats the most important part. It also meant I had the ¨opportunity¨ to improvise a talk about baptism in Spanish and give it in front of everyone. That was only a little bit terrifying. But I think it went pretty ok! Hna Shriver and I also sang a musical number and J. sang with us and it was really sweet. (have I mentioned before that he´s ten?) The three of us sang Teach me to Walk in the Light and his aunt (who was recently baptized as well and is his legal guardian) told us afterwards that it’s her new favorite hymn. J. doesn´t talk much and it was a little bit difficult to teach him and get him to open up to us, but in his prayer we had with him before his baptism he said, ¨Thank you for the Hermanas Misioneras, who have helped me and become like a family to me¨ It was probably one of the sweetest things I´ve ever heard. I may have even teared up a little bit :) So, even though everything leading up to the baptism was stressful, it was all worth it :)

 

I can´t think of anything else super exciting that happened this week, just a normal week in the life of a missionary. :) 

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful week at home! I love you all!!

 

Hermana Shelton

 

Three months!

                                                                                                               Sept. 23, 2013

 

Familia!

 

Si, yo tengo 3 meses en la mision! Three months in the mission, thats so crazy. In some ways that feels like no time at all, but in others ways it feels like I´ve lived in Peru my whole life! My life with ya´ll back home seems like a dream right now :) 

I did have a wonderful week! Hermana Shriver and I have lots of crazy experiences together thats for sure. Some of them I probably won’t tell you until I´m back home so you don´t worry ;) As two gringas we get LOTS of attention from everybody. I used to think being famous would be fun, but after having people literally stop in their tracks and stare at us as we walk by or yell ¨Gringas!¨ at us from across the street or cat call and whistle at us constantly, I´ve changed my mind about that :) We were teaching a lesson to one of our investigators in his little tienda the other day and someone stopped and took a picture of us. That was a little weird. Also, everybody knows who we are. Not even joking. We knocked on a door the other day and he was like, ¨Oh yeah! I know you two. I saw you walking down by the municipalidad the other day.¨ And we´ve heard other things similar to that more than once. Oh well. We get in a lot of doors and we have no problem meeting our goal of 100 contacts every week (everyone likes to talk to us :P) so its ok. 

 

I need to tell you about our investigators! We have a baptism this week. His name is J. and he is ten years old. His aunt joined the church almost two years ago and now he wants to get baptized as well. So his baptism is this Saturday. We have one more baptismal date for J. He is 23 years old and has friends that are members in our ward. We have been teaching him as well and he is excited and preparing for his baptism on the 12 of October. We found a family that we absolutely love and we visit them a lot. They are our Golden Family :) M is the mom and she is pregnant, and then there is M. her husband and they have a 16 year old named D. a 14 year old named M. and a two year old named M.. They were all at church last week and have been reading the Book of Mormon, but yesterday only M. came to church and they have some struggles that they are trying to work through. So we are hoping and praying for them that they will continue to progress. We love them so much. And they love us two :) They are always so excited to see us and they let us in at any time of day and always give us food :) haha.

 

Oh. I don´t think I´ve told you much about my companion! Hermana Shriver is from Highland and she went to Lone Peak. We get along really well and have way too much fun together. Her mom asked her in her email today for your phone number mom, so I bet she will be calling you sometime this week :) I will try to send some pictures!

 

Ok. Answers to questions: It is highly possible that ¨The House of the Lord¨ book is in my stuff. If it is it is in the clear plastic crate with the orange lid. About going to the temple, Ky, it’s so amazing! You will love it. But, you probably won’t understand or know what’s going on the first time. Don´t worry. Just relax and focus on feeling the spirit. And, go back as soon as you can. I was really grateful to have what was going to happen explained to me before I went in and it helped a lot, so Mom, maybe just walk her through it a little bit? 

I haven´t received any more letters, but it is possible that they are sitting at the mission office and they just haven´t been picked up by the zone leaders. It takes a while for us to get mail here :P Also, packages have been getting to everyone here just fine. If you wanted to send a package for Christmas, I wouldn´t mind :) 

 

Thank you for all your love and support! I love and miss you all. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

 

Con mucho amor,

 

Hermana Shelton

 

A greenie no more...

                                                                                               September 16, 2013

A greenie no more…

 

Guess what?! I was transferred last week! But the best part about it was....I only had to move beds and desk space ;) Haha.

 

I was transferred over into Barrio Independencia, the other ward in our zone with Hermanas. And since we are living in the same house right now, it wasn´t that big of a change. :) The big change though was that the two latina Hermanas that were in that ward were transferred out of the zone and now I am in a companionship with Hermana Shriver, another Norteamericano. and.....we aren´t in a trio anymore, and....Hermana Shriver has exactly 10 weeks in the field and I have 6. So to sum up my new situation, We are two brand new Gringas with limited Spanish skills, and we are training ourselves. Yeah. Oh! And my new area includes a bunch of the hills and really poor areas of Independencia. Remember that picture I sent of me up in the hills? Yup, that was taken in my new area! So. If right about now you are thinking, ¨What in the heck was Presidente Erickson thinking?!¨ join the club. Cause that was our reaction too :)

 

Haha, but no. We are actually really excited and it has been really good! We have been amazed at how much we actually know when we are the only ones there to do it. We were really really worried about the Spanish at first, but I am here to testify about the gift of tongues, because it is real. When we are sitting down with our investigators teaching a lesson or talking to the members we have been able to understand everything that is being said. And when we speak back our Spanish is fluid and I say things that I didn't know I knew how to say. We were talking last night and both agreed that we don´t feel like the language is one of our difficulties. Which is a miracle.

 

Needless to say we have definitely had other difficulties and it has been really hard, but we are both ready to work hard and learn a lot. We get along SO well, and have the same goals and ideas in mind which allows us to work together really well tambien. (also) And, we have a blast together so that adds to our companionship as well :)

 

We have felt Heavenly Fathers help so much this past week. And we talked and agreed that we need a whole lot of blessings right now if we are going to accomplish anything. So we are trying our hardest to be obedient and listen to the spirit and rely on Heavenly Father. 

 

I will have to tell you more about our Investigators next week, but I wanted to let you know that we had a miracle in both companionships of Hermanas yesterday. We have been praying so hard to have our investigators come to church (In my old area and in my new one) and yesterday The Hermanas of Violetas had 7 investigators (I  think of them as mine still, it’s weird adjusting to a new area when my old one is so close) and Hna. Shriver and I had....7 investigators at church as well! What?! After weeks of zero or maybe one or two that attended, yesterday was a miracle. Between the two companionships we had four families in church. Ahh! Thank you for all yours prayers! I know they are helping. We are so excited to continue working with them and hopefully have baptisms in the upcoming month. 

 

Kylee! I am so excited to hear about your mission call! That’s perfect for you. How are you feeling? Let me know if you have any questions and I will try to come up with a list of advice to send you as well :)

 

Hey mom, will you let Holly know that I got both her letters? I got the one she sent the day I entered the CCM and I also got the one with the program from Abby’s baptism with the note she wrote about it. Haha, I opened the one with the Baptismal program when I was at our weekly zone meeting and as soon as I realized what it was I started crying and it freaked all the Elders out. They didn´t quite know what to do with a crying Hermana. It was kind of funny. :) They kept asking me, ¨are these happy tears or sad tears?¨ I assured them they were happy tears :)

 

Chispas. It’s time to go. Elder Gneiting, one of my zone leaders just came over and told me to get off the computer. (Chispas is the Peruvian way to say, ¨darn it!¨) 

 

Thank you for your email and spiritual thought Dad! I like that a lot. Once again I am sure I am leaving so much out but I always have next week.

 

I love you all!!!!!!!!!

 

Con mucho amor,

 

Hermana Shelton

Cucarachas, cucarachas, duh duh duh duh duh duh duh

                                                                                                      Sept. 9, 2013

Hello everybody!

 

There weren’t enough computers open for us today so I had to wait and don’t have a lot of time to write but I will try to write as much as I can!

 

If you can tell from the subject line we made some new friends this past week. (Cucaracha means cockroach in Spanish) Let me explain. We moved to a new apartment this past week! Thursday morning the Zone leaders told us they had a new apartment for us and Friday morning we moved in. We are still living with all six of the Hermanas, but now we are in a better apartment that is closer to the Zone leaders and is in a more secure area. Everything about it is great! Except for the fact that it was occupado before us. By a ginormous family of cucarachas. I am not even exaggerating when I say that yesterday night alone we killed 50 of them in the time frame of about, 15 minutes. So that’s been fun. But hey, we can always use more friends, right?

 

Someone else noticed also that we´d moved in and this morning our neighbors, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, knocked on our door to give us a pamphlet. So that was fun as well.

 

Oh man. It's been an interesting week. And today is transfers! It’s a possibility that our companionship might be split up so I'm pretty nervous right now. I wish they'd tell us before email time so I could let ya´ll know but oh well. 

 

Sunday was really good yesterday! We had one of our investigators, V., come to church and she is progressing quite nicely. We're really excited for her. Also, on our way to church we ran into a member who wanted to introduce us to a friend and his sister who were interested in the church and we were able to talk to him and he came to church as well!  It was definitely a miracle.

 

Well, I don't have any more time and I am sure I am forgetting so much, but hopefully I will have more time next week.

 

I love you all and can't wait to hear about your mission call Ky!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Con mucho mucho amor,

 

Hermana Shelton

 

P.S. That storm sounds crazy!!! I wish I could’ve seen it.

 

P.P.S. thank you for all the emails from everybody, I promise I will respond individually next week!

 

Officially a Peruvian!...well, sort of.

Officially a Peruvian!...well, sort of.                                             Sept. 2, 2013

 

Hola mi Familia!

 

Como estan todos? Muchas gracias por todos sus cartas! There is so much going on at home!

 

Yo tengo una buena noticia para ustedes! (I have good news for you all) :) My visa went through and I received my Peruvian ID this past week. I am officially a resident of Lima Peru! Whoa. That’s kind of weird. But awesome at the same time. :)

 

I am feeling a LOT better. I have been taking an antibiotic (I think in the US it’s called a Zpac?) and the fever and flu and everything is gone, all that’s left over is the cough, but that has gotten a lot better these past few days as well. 

 

I literally can’t believe that I am sitting at the computer typing another letter to you already. This past week absolutely FLEW by. I can’t even think of what happened! It has been pretty normal. Living with 6 hermanas has proven interesting, but its working out better than the Zone leaders thought it would, so that’s good :) It’s actually been kind of nice showering en la casa de Hermana B. (nuestro pensionista) because she is a hair stylist and always offers to brush out and blow dry our hair for us. It’s really sweet :) It’s also been nice because the otro Hermanas were fed an absolutely terrible soup this past week and were really sick, so with six hermanas we are able to go on splits and still be able to go to all of our appointments. The two that were sick stayed home while Hna Schroader went with the other Hermana to their appointments and Hna Mamani and I went to our appointments. Today for P day we are going ´´apartment shopping´´ (woo hoo....) and I am sad that we won’t all be living together for very much longer. But, we´ll see what happens!

 

With our investigators it was another really disappointing Sunday. We taught G. the Law of Chastity this past week and ever since then he´s been avoiding us and he didn´t come to Church yesterday. :( We´re praying really hard for him because he has been SO excited and has such a strong testimony. We ran all over our area Saturday night and Sunday morning trying to get all our investigators to come to church and we ended up with exactly ZERO once again. We were pretty bummed but we know that Satan is trying his hardest to stop their progress so we are just going to have faith that next Sunday they will come and we are going to pray and work as hard as we can for them this week. We also found two new families and several other promising new investigators that were really excited about so we´re happy. Oh! L. received a calling this past week! She was called to serve as the second counselor in the young women’s presidency. It’s basically perfect for her :) It’s kind of funny, two weeks ago we were planning her baptism in Ward Council, and yesterday she was IN ward council! We are really excited for her. (Also, I haven´t been told anything about pictures and names on blogs...I think putting up the pictures should be fine and just the first letter of their names)

 

I can´t believe all that’s happening at home! I am so excited for Amy and Troy! And also Whitney! 

 

And Dad, that’s crazy all that is happening at your school! I will be praying for you extra hard tomorrow. I know you will do great :)

Mom, good luck with Preschool starting, I want to know how it goes and also how everything goes with your new job at Windsor!

Jess, thank you so much for your email. I can´t believe you are a big high schooler now! I LOVED what you told me about your experience with the word confidence. It’s so true. You are a confident beautiful young woman who is going to do amazing things. Remember that, yeah?

Emily, thank you for your email too! Jr. High huh? I am glad to hear you are making new friends! I want to hear all about it! I know that you are going to do wonderfully too.

Abby, I am glad that school is OK :) and that you get to sit by your friends! That sounds way fun! I love the book Serpent Tide. How do you like it so far?

Kylee, ahh! I am anxious to hear about your call! What else are you up too?

 

I have received three letters so far. One from Spencer, a pouch letter from Ashley and a wedding invitation from Katie (my roommate from last semester. Ashland’s sister :)) I am still waiting for the ones from my family! :)

 

Well, I love you all! Good luck with everything that is going on this week and with school. I am sorry I don´t have time to respond individually but I tried to at least a little bit above. 

 

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!! Send everyone in the family my love, OK? If anyone asks tell them I say, ´´Te Quiero Mucho!´´ (I love you lots!) Thank you for all your love and support. 

 

 

Con mucho amor,

 

Hermana Shelton

And then there were six...

                                                                                            Aug 26, 2013

Hola Familia!

 

Well. This has been a very interesting week. Where to even begin…

Good news first! Yes! We had our very first baptism this week and it was wonderful! I am definitely going to attach a picture. The whole day was a bit hectic but the baptism was perfect. L. is so incredible. We are so excited for her. The only sad part is that we won´t be able to teach her and see her as much as before :( But our ward is incredibly supportive and loving and have welcomed her in and loved her and she is in good hands :)

 

This week has been super hectic for several reasons. I feel ok telling you about this now because I´m better now, but I had the flu this past week and had a fever for several days. Last week I wrote my email wrapped up in a coat and blanket in the internet cafe by our house because I was so cold and feverish :P So that made working a bit difficult and the three of us have been fighting off sicknesses all week, but we´re doing better now and are going to be working even harder this upcoming week.

 

Our zone also had an emergency this past week with the other Hermanas of Independencia. They had to move out of their apartment immediately but couldn´t find an apartment in their area. So....emergency solution? Move in with us! So. We now have six hermanas living in one house, with one bathroom. It’s been...interesting so far. But super fun as well because we all love each other. They will probably be with us for about another week and a half. Our zone spent the better part of the morning last Thursday moving them out, then in, and rearranging our apartment to accommodate the six of us. Our lideres de zona are worried that we´re gonna have fiestas, but we assured them that we are mature sister missionaries and can handle it ;)

This has put a halt to our current search for a new apartment, at least for now.

 

On Friday we had the matrimonios!(weddings) There were 14 couples that got married, and then baptized the next day. It was a super awesome experience. We got to do a musical program for it and it was great. 

And on Saturday we had our double mission conference! It was SO AWESOME. For several reasons. For one, our zone got to do the musical number which was fun, for two, I got to see all of my friends from the CCM and it was like a family reunion! We were so happy to see each other. And third and probably most important, Elder Tad R. Callister from the Presidency of the Quorum of the Seventy (I think? I can´t remember for sure) came and spoke to us and it was incredible! Especially because we had the musical number and were sitting on the very front row. It was basically like having front row seats for general conference ;) haha. 

 

Our other investigators are doing well. We´ve had some disappointments and some hard times finding people, and we have a REALLY hard time getting people to come to church on Sunday because it’s at 8 AM in the morning (They can´t get baptized until they have two asistencias a Iglesia) (attend church) So when we are hoping to have 5 or 6 investigators at church and none of them show up, it’s a bit frustrating. So, keep praying for them and we´ll keep working hard and hopefully they will come to church next week! :)

 

I´m so anxious to hear about Kylee’s mission call!!!! I hope it gets here this week! Also, mom, I also almost started crying when I heard about the check you received in the mail. That’s incredible! It’s so awesome to hear about how Heavenly Father is blessing our family. I love you all! 

 

Also, the pictures I am sending, the first one is with Lucia at her baptism and the second is all the Hermanas of Zona Independencia a couple of P'days ago when we went to a natural history museum in central Lima. I´m hopefully gonna send one more email with a couple more pictures. 

 

I love you all! I look forward to hearing from all of you next week about school! ;)

 

Hermana Shelton

 

Rachel's zone eating a Chili's

Rachel's first baptism

            Rachel and the Hermanas of
                      Zona Independencia
 

Looking for a reference up in the hills of Independencia

Happy two months to me!

                                                                                                         Aug. 19, 2013

Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!

 

Kylee! I am so excited to hear about your mission papers!! I can´t wait to hear where you’re going! Even though I won’t be able to read the email until Monday, write me an email as soon as you get your call, yeah? How are you feeling? :)

 

Guess what today is! My two month mark on my mission! Hna. Schroader and I are pretty excited. Especially because it’s a P day and we can ¨celebrate¨ a little. :) We are going over to a member’s house later today and they are going to make us brownies.

 

Wow. So much has happened this past week I don´t even know where to begin! We have had some really high highs, and some lows, but all is well.

L. is getting baptized this Saturday at 8:00 PM and we are so excited for her. She is incredible! She really wants to go on a mission, and last night we went on splits and she came with me and we contacted on the streets for an hour or two. It was a really good experience. I am pretty sure she knows more than I do! She is really excited to go to institute this week because a general authority (I think its Elder Cook) is coming. Also, another General Authority is coming this weekend and we will have a Mission Conference with the North and West missions on Saturday with him. And guess which zone out of all the zones in both missions got picked to do the musical number? Yup! Zona Independencia! We are singing ¨Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd¨ and I will be playing the piano. :P Only a little intimidating, right?

But no. I´m really excited. We also have a big wedding ceremony on Friday at the mission offices for all the couples who need to get married before they can get baptized. Here in Peru 95% of the people we teach aren´t married, they just live together because it is so expensive to actually have a wedding, and they don´t receive the same type of benefits we do in the states. Entonces, not only is our focus in the mission Baptizing Families, our focus is Marrying, then Baptizing families. I really love that families are our focus. The mission standard is 8 4 2. 8 investigators progressing each month, 4 baptisms, and 2 families per companionship, per month. We won’t be able to reach that this month, but it’s our goal for September :)

We also were able to commit another investigator to baptism, G., and he is really awesome as well. We first met him while contacting on the street and then we went back to visit him he was sick in bed so we weren’t able to have a lesson, but we did say a prayer with him that he would be feeling better so he could hear our message, and the next day we went back and he was up and moving and excited to talk to us! And last night he came to a Noche De Hogar (family home evening) in a members home and we watched the movie ¨On the way Home¨ and talked about eternal families and it was a really beautiful experience because he is a widower and has been alone for a while. I´m really excited for him :)

Unfortunately a couple that we were hoping would be baptized this upcoming Saturday as well (The wife had committed to Saturday but not her husband) have decided they can’t commit yet. They want to wait until September. We´re still holding out for a miracle, but we´ll see. They´ve been going to church for almost 5 years and their entire family are members, and they have testimonies, so we don´t know what’s holding them back. Like I said, We´re hoping for a miracle!

Unfortunately as well a family that we had been teaching who were wanting to get married so they could be baptized, talked to a different Pastor and have decided to get baptized in a different church. That was kind of a stab to the heart, but oh well. Everyone has agency! We haven´t quite given up but we´ll see what happens.

New experiences for the week: We walked into a home to teach a teenage girl and her little brother started screaming and yelling at us to ¨get out! I don´t want you here!¨ and we were called several mean words that I didn´t understand till after when Hna. Mamani explained them to me. We were only there for about two minutes when the mom told us we had to leave because we were scaring her son. So that was fun.

Also, we are in the market for a new apartment because ours is super old and has some problems. Also our landlord didn´t pay our water bill so we went without water for 3 days which was an experience I´d rather not repeat, but all is well! Hna. Schroader and I brushed our teeth with water bottles outside our two story window and had a lot of fun spitting out the window. We were feeling a little crazy that night and figured out a way to make going without water more fun. We had a good time and took pictures, maybe I´ll send them :)

So a lot of ups and downs this week, but that’s how mission life goes. I am loving being a missionary, and the Church is true, and that’s all that matters!

I hope all is well at home. Good luck with school starting everybody! That’s really cool that Elder Terry was there for stake conference, it sounds like an awesome experience! Also, thank you Mom and Dad both for sharing your experiences in the temple. I love the temple and love hearing about your experiences there!

P days are all day Monday until six o clock PM, which is when we start working again. We always have internet at ten in the morning and then we go and do something with our zone. Last week we went to central Lima to a Natural History museum which was really fun! We usually get about an hour on the computers, but we also have to write to our Mission President so it’s only about 45 minutes to read and write emails. I haven´t got any letters from the pouch yet, but I´m hoping they get here soon! :)

And, first initials for just the investigators. Thanks Mom!

 

Yo se con todo mi corazon que este Iglesia es verdadero.

 

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

 

Hermana Shelton