Week 51

querida familia Y amigos,

Yesterday in the primavera estaca we had this awesome musical activity. we got an invitation to be involved in a missionary chorus and practiced Saturday. it was so awesome! lots of people came, it was a huge success!! first, the activity started with a Mormon message and then us as the missionary chorus entered in while singing called to serve. Testimonies were shared and we watched more messages about the Savior and it was just beautiful. the stake president talked, then President Marler. we closed the meeting by singing I need thee every hour. it was a perfect activity to bring all the members, missionaries, less-actives, recent converts, investigators, and ward mission leaders together. Jose went and really appreciated the messages. I loved it!! probably the best part of it was when hermana Evans walked into the chapel on Saturday for the practice. I don`t cry easily, but my eyes started to fill up when I saw her beautiful face!! she`s been in chimbote for the past 2 transfers and I didn´t know the next time that I´d be able to see my running buddy!! it meant so much to me.

The new zone´s good. its kinda strange being the only gringa hermana. haha we had a special training with this new booklet called adjusting to missionary life and they separated us into English and Spanish groups to make sure that everyone understood it really well in their native tongue. its fun to have another area in our district, the elders that have re-opened salaverry are excited about their new area. hopefully they´ll get a cell phone soon...haha. hna. martinez is training and we were very excited to meet hna. tulumba, she`s great! 

Gloria´s doing well. we invited her for a family home evening with a family in the ward that she`s good friends with. and we visited later in the week and taught about the ten commandments and she was loooving it!! haha she talks so much sometimes, me cuesta! her daughter has had some back pains and is doing lots better after her hospital visit and medicine. 

Lidia´s awesome! we put a baptismal date for the 10th but she wasn´t home when we went for our appointment and MIA for church yesterday. so we´re gonna have to change her baptismal date. pusha! I hope she´s alright!! 

We´ve been teaching various families and they all have great potential, but flaked out for church yesterday and can`t really progress without attending church. 

Recently, I´ve learned how important and wonderful prayer truly is. I´ve come to rely on this beautiful and vital communication with Heavenly Father. It gives me so much comfort and strength when I feel weak or frustrated. He´s molding me into who He wants me to be and I´m realizing just how many bumpy edges and rough spots I have. Its the refiner´s fire folks, at its finest! The mission´s changing me and I`m grateful for the challenges that have changed me for the better. I love it with all my heart, I love this work of Salvation, and most of all I love my Savior.

Keep an eye out for something sweet in the mail!! 

Con Mucho Amor,

Hermana Boody

Week 50

Happy Easter! Semana Santa was kinda crazy, but we survived:) People get really into it here. I was hardcore craving Reece´s special edition Easter eggs. best surprise ever-we all did service as a zone and after had a little Easter egg hunt. 2 elders in our zone got packages last week, one received plastic Easter eggs, the other candy. so they combined efforts and it was so fun! I can´t even remember the last time I searched for candy. 

 

With our 81 year old ward mission leader, the other Hnas. & I went to ¨the encalada¨. ward boundaries changed and we´re starting from scratch in this new part of our already huge area. lots of potential, taught a lot and have many new investigators!! We picked up 3 for church yesterday and they really liked it!! there´s nothing like taking a taxi and racing around to see if who we taught was gonna really come to church, and seeing that she´s all ready and was waiting for us:) the BEST!!

From our normal/main area of Monserrate, about 8 of our investigators committed to coming yesterday, but the family of 6 went to visit their sick grandmother and the other 2 headed off to the beach:( 

 

Went to the new missionaries & trainers meeting this week and it was awesome! cannot believe that she´s already been here for 6 weeks. time has seriously FLOWN by. Tomorrow are cambios and I´ll be starting my 6th transfer here in monserrate. haha we´ve got big plans for this transfer, gonna make it the BEST thus far!! 

 

We taught carmen´s sister, daughter, and son-in-law. really nice, the son-in-law, Jose, lived 19 years in New York. pretty cool! 

Vanessa & Jose, Carmen, Lily, and Ower, and Jonathan and Diana are all doing well! We wanna set some DATES!! patience, my friend. patience. 

Eduardo is such a rock-star primary kiddo. we visited him Friday morning and he showed us all the little things he did in the last liahona that came out. man he´s awesome. Jose too. Going through a little heartbreak, but his testimony´s rock solid. 

 

Had a wonderful consejo de barrio-ward council last night. probably the best one that we´ve ever had in my almost 7 months in the ward. ironic, cause we had to leave early:( just when it was getting good too!! 

 

Speaking of cambios-hna. steckler´s finally headed off to porvenir to the smallest area of the mission as a senior companion to a Mexican hna. that just finished her training. hna. allred is headed off to chimbote with hna. EVANS!! ahh so excited for them both:) and hna. martinez will be training a brand-new hermana. crazy, right? oh and salaverry is getting opened back up-again and their area will be in our zone. 

sandrita was SO happy to get a little birthday love from mr.eric boody!! she asked me if the money was real. haha 

Mi hermanita was ECSTATIc about the card and $$ that dad sent!! she asked if the money was real and kept saying ¨tengo plata de los ESTADOS UNIDOS¨. haha thank you mr. boody!! it made her day and was such a sweet surprise for her to open up:) when we skype on mother´s day, she can say thank you in person:)

Love you all and hope you have a beautiful day!!! thank you for all of your love and support for me always:) 

Week 49

Wow this week went by suuuuper fast!! we´ve been sharing many of the amazing messages from conference and inviting them to watch all of the sessions online. I´ve already been applying a lot of what the leaders talked about and have seen blessings from their inspired messages!! its been awesome.

Tried leche de tigre at the bishop´s house after we helped him at his lavanderia. soooo good! the juice part is the best, picante!! and with canchitas. ahh so tasty!! 

Mi ¨hijita¨ and I have been tracking down old investigators and contact lists from other missionaries in our area book to find new investigators. going well, cleaning out the binder little by little. training´s going well, we´re both learning and growing a lot together. she´s awesome and we make a great team! working hard in monserrate 2:) 

Jose and Eduardo are both doing really well. we had a fhe with Eduardo and his grandmother that he planned for one of his goals for Faith In God. 

Our lesson with Jonathan and his mom Diana went really well, but they weren´t home when we went to pick them up for church yesterday:( I have no idea what happened, they seemed really interested in going.

Vanessa & Jose. Still visiting them, but I feel like there´s no real progress:( Jose is still playign fútbol on sundays and Vanessa falls asleep while we teach cause her twins and toddler are up all night.

Lili, Carmen, and Ower. So much potential! they each have a BoM that we invited them to read and pray to know if its true. but they weren´t there yesterday, so we don´t know how it went:( aaand they had a visitor from lima yesterday and couldn´t make it to church ahhh.

Flavia & Eida (less-actives) that we´ve been visiting came to church yesterday!! 

Had a really good zone training on Friday and our zone has the goal of 8 baptisms and 12 almas rescatas for the month of April. 

We had an intercambio from Friday night to Saturday night with our sister training leaders. hna. sosa went to their area with hermana bedoya and hna. allred came to my area. it was great! kinda fun switching things up for a little bit and seeing how I can improve training, teaching, etc. we had a super weird experience with Cesar that I´ll tell you about one day...it was strange. but we´re ok, just a little shook-up. 

Taught the Malca family yesterday!! finally!! we´ve tried visiting them many times before, but the mom´s always working and its hard to find everyone together. but it went really well and I´m excited to see what will happen! 

The bishopric announced yesterday that the sudamerica area leaders have asked each family in the ward to make tonight´s fhe Book of Mormon themed and to make the goal of reading it every day for at least 15 minutes to finish it by the end of the year. so we´re gonna be focusing a lot on the goal too when we go to visit less-active families. 

Today is hermana steckler´s 20th birthday!! wahoo:) we came over to their apartment this morning after our studies and she opened up all of her 3 packages from home. about half the amount of clothes that we were told to bring on the mission.haha we´re gonna all have lunch together as a district in a member´s house and I´m not really sure after. but I´m sure it´ll be great fun!! there´s a secret celebratory fhe at the bishop´s house tonight that she has no clue about. a whole ton of people are coming over and she´ll be oh so surprised. some tres leches cake and we can call it a day!! transfer calls are next week and I´d be shocked if she doesn´t get transferred, so its also kind of a goodbye party too!! 

Love you all tons and hope your having a fun week!! thank-ya for all of your prayers and support, I can´t even express how much I appreciate it:) As I continue to work hard and put my trust in Him, I´m filled with love for these people and continue to see God´s hands in this work of Salvation. I´m so happy to be serving here in Peru, there´s no where else in the entire world I´d rather be. xoxo! 

If you were ever curious to where I live, this is the street on google maps! 

 

https://www.google.com.pe/maps/place/Cuba/@-8.119122,-79.0296554,223m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x91ad3d79d1dd509d:0xc71761104a1446fe

hna. allred and I enjoyed this little lamb in jazmines during her ¨visita de trabajo¨

Week 48

HUUUUUUGE shout-out to McKay this Thursday!! can´t believe your turning 13!! haaaaapppy hhapppppy happppy birthday buddy, love you tons and hope you have a fun day!! I´ll be sending a birthday card to you next week, don´t you worry one little bit:) 

Wasn´t conference simply just amazing?!? wow-there were so many messages that I really needed to hear, I loved that they talked about PMG and having the faith that we can receive personal revelation. as missionaries, that's what we talk about all the time and it was a good reminder that we really can receive answers to each of our prayers!! sadly, only 1 investigator was able to come to  one of the sessions:( we invited tons, but only mamma transito came. I cannot believe how many temples we have now and how awesome it was to hear that the FL ft. lauderdale temple will be dedicated next month!! I think that was Boyd K. Packer´s last conference message, it certainly sounded like it. I wouldn´t be surprised if he passes away soon:( 

My companion traveled to Lima this week for 2 days to get a Peruvian id and was with hna. bravo, who´s also new in the mission. so I worked in my area with her companion , hna. flores. we had a wonderful time together, she served in el bosque with hna. gonzales and hna. downs when I left-so it was cool talking about some of our common friends and hear how everyone´s doing. 

E´coca from Argentina turned 20 and we put together a super secret surprise get-together with our district! eh I never wanted to eat cake again, lol we had a big cake for the 6 of us.

Everyone in our zone has been getting the common cold, one missionary at a time and now its my turn. its only been a few days, but ugh my throat and voice are all weird. I asked my pensoniesta to make some hot lemon aid to drink tonight cause I remember a member in Provo said that was the perfect thing to kill the sniffles. 

We had a wonderful multi-zone meeting, it was so awesome to hear about how we can have more effective ward councils and work better with the leaders in our wards. ahh it was so wonderful!! 

For fhe, we made hamburguessas with the heredia´s. kinda strange with a fried egg to top it all off, but that's the Peruvian style I guess:) 

We had a super fun and surprise multi-zone pday today!! it was awesome, we had a lot of sports and got a LOT of sun:) it was great to catch-up with hna. portillo and hear about her area in esperanza. and we have a zone training this Friday with some exciting news, according to our zone leader. 

 

 
 

 
We contacted a reference from the other hnas. and now have a new investigator named Johnathan. 11 yrs old and a little shy. his mom wants us to teach him and he´s pretty awesome!!

Vanessa & Jose are doing well, but still no plans to get married cause of $$

Michelle. her dad said a long time ago that she could get baptized when she turned 15 and her birthday was 2 weeks ago, but still nothing:( 

We had a great lesson with Carmen and Ower, lily´s parents. its been harder to teach her cause she´s been traveling a ton for work. 

Training´s going great and I´m absolutely loving the mission!! I know that Jesus Christ is my personal Savior and Redeemer. he´s leading this remarkable church. God knows us personally and answers my prayers daily. thank you for all of your examples to me, keep sharing your testimonies and being a light for others!!! 

P.S.  who won march madness? totally forgot to fill out a bracket this year:(