I honestly can´t believe that it´s time to write again. The time goes simultaneously unbelievably fast and unbearably slow. With a short term perspective, it feels like this past week flew by. But in the grand scheme of things, one week doesn´t seem like much time when you´ve still got 16 months. It´s an interesting mix of emotions for sure.
That being said, I love it here. I don´t even know where to begin. The work is hard, and there are days that I don´t think I can do it, but with out fail, every day I remember all of the powerful blessings that I have received, and I know that I can do it. "Puedo hacerlo."
Peru is like a dream. That sounds so cheesy, but its true! Its absolutely incredible. It´s beautiful. I´ve never seen anything like it in real life. I honestly believe with all of my heart that if I weren´t a missionary, I wouldn´t be able to handle some of the things I see. People live in crazy conditions, and we walk into houses that are barely even houses. Dirt floors or cement floors, one faucet for "showers" and drinking,...like I honestly don´t even know how to explain it. Some people live on hardly anything, but they´re the happiest people I´ve ever met. It warms my heart, and makes me feel like a horrible person because of how needy I am.
At the same time, some people live in really nice homes (comparatively, at least.) Even here in Peru, there´s a split between the richer and the poorer. It´s interesting.
I totally wish I could just sit here for hours and tell you everything about everything, but there are some things that I really want to tell you.
First of all, we have a pensionista, who makes all of our food. Three times a day. She is amazing. She has literally nine children and all of them are girls. They are the sweetest family, and the mom (Hna Angelica) is amazing. I just can´t get over how much she does for us every day. Her youngest two daughters have stolen my heart...seriously, I´m in love with them. Their names are Tooti and Valeria. Literally, her name is Tooti. Haha I will have to send a picture sometime. I am honestly just in love with them.
So, remember how I´m obsessed with Texas? There is a family in our ward, and the son just got home from his mission recently. We were at their house one night, and I was looking at his stuff from his mission, and he had a flag that people signed. I was convinced that it was the Texas flag, so I was like "YOU SERVED IN TEXAS????!!!??" In English and everything. Everyone looked at me like I was an idiot, and he said "No....Chile." I don´t know if I´m actually stupid or something, but do those two flags look alike? Because I could have sworn it was Texas......well, needless to say, it was embarrassing on many levels.
So you should know that I love all of the people here. Every person I meet, I think, how could I possibly love another person as much as I love you? Then I meet someone else, and it´s just this endless cycle. But we are teaching two sweet women, one is a less-active member of the church, and her sister is not a member, so it´s cool to be able to teach them at the same time. We always have spiritual lessons with them. But one day, we were doing family home evening with them (Dad and Daniel - just a night once a week when you have a spiritual lesson, play games or have dessert as a family), and Hna Max´s grandson was there. We started with a hymn, and literally none of them knew the words or the tune, but they wanted to sing all three verses. It was so funny, I laughed throughout the entire thing. Not because I was making fun, just because it was the sweetest thing. (also hilarious though)
Next week, I´m going to tell you all about our investigators. But yesterday, two of our investigators were at church, and two less-active members that we´ve been teaching came as well! That was a huge blessing, and I just couldn´t stop smiling.
Really fast - I had an experience this week.. I was studying with my companion, and I just could not get words out. For whatever reason, I just literally could not express my feelings in the beautiful language of Spanish. I just started balling, and kept thinking "I can´t do this, I can´t do this." I sometimes feel like this is the hardest thing in the world. In some ways, it is. I am a million miles away from home, speaking a language that I don´t know, teaching people that just don´t want to change, getting doors slammed in my face and weird looks because I´m the only white girl for miles. In that moment, I felt like there is no way I can do this whole mission thing for 16 months. But, I prayed. I prayed for a really long time. My companion was super nice, she really comforted me and said a lot of nice things (from what I could understand, at least.. ;) ) but I didn´t feel any better until after I prayed. And in that moment, I felt the love of God in a way that I never have. I have been called of God, to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He called me to speak Spanish, in this country, to teach these people. It´s hard to explain exactly how I felt in that moment, but I knew with all of my heart that I can do this. It will not be easy, and I will struggle a lot, but the gospel is true and I´m just here to share the good news with these people, and love them with all of my heart, because they are children of God. He knows I can do it, so I´m going to have faith in that and just do my best.
Thank you for the love, support and emails. I love hearing form you guys. I miss you all so much! But I know these 16 months will fly by. Take care of yourselves, enjoy the week, and know that I look forward to hearing about all that happens in the next week. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!!
Con mucho amor,
Hermana Michelle Scott
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