Week 13...WHAT?

Hi :)

I hope you are all doing well. Sorry this email is a tad bit later than normal - we had to make a quick (3 hour) trip to La Molina. The good news about that is that when we got there, they told us that we didn´t need to be there and that we could go home. Haha, it´s funny now, but after riding a psycho lawn mower bus for an hour and having to do it all over again...it wasn´t the funniest moment of my life. But all is well. I´m always ready for a little adventure.

First things first, I am SOOO proud of Daniel´s soccer team!!! What a cool story. I hope that was a nice little birthday present for you, Daniel. You guys are the best, and good luck in the upcoming games! Keep me posted!

So something cool happened - we had our first change in the mission. Like, companion-wise. My dear Hermana Deoporto left me, but I have an awesome new companion, Hermana Hamilton, and she is from Oregon! Yeah - she´s gringa like me!!! It´s really fun to have an American companion. Obviously there´s nothing wrong with having a native companion, but I feel like I can express myself a lot better. My brain is constantly on overload because I switch from speaking English and Spanish probably 37 times daily. We speak some pretty sweet Spanglish too, which is fun. She is also a convert of two years, which was so cool when we found that out. She is a basketball star and is super cute and funny. We get along really well, which is a blessing from heaven and an answer to my prayers. I am learning so much from her, she is such a great missionary. She served the first four months of her mission in Alabama, and she´s been here in Peru for almost 4. But really, she´s just the best and I am having a great time with her!

I like telling funny stories so I´m just gonna pop one in here really quick. The first night, we were trying to change the bunk bed so that there was more room on the bottom. It´s hard to explain exactly what we did, but basically we did it completely wrong. I was climbing onto my bed, at 10:30, and we were both super tired. My companion was like "I hope this bed situation works out" and as I sit down with her laying in the bed underneath me in the dark, the bed starts falling. As I´m writing this I am just cracking up - it was so ridiculous. I just started screaming "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT" because I was afraid that the combination of my weight and the black metal grate thing would probably hurt a little bit. So basically, the bed fell. And we had to take the whole thing apart and start over again. Eventually we figured it out, but man, it was funny. I climb into my bed a little hesitantly every night, but I haven´t fallen again yet.

I feel like I have a lot to say, but I just don´t know how to say it all. I want to talk about my ward here really quick. The people here are amazing. The members are so strong in the church, and they really just want to help us. Our  bishop has been working his booty off to make changes and make a lot of things better. He has been trying to get all of the organizations of the church totally involved in missionary work. And it´s working! We have members coming to teach with us all the time, members are visiting recent converts and less-active members, and it´s just amazing to see. The Relief Society (the women´s organization in the church) made little missionary name tags for all of the sisters in the whole relief society. So, EVERY hermana in the church has a little paper missionary nametag with their name on it. It was the cutest thing I´ve ever seen, and when I saw how excited they all were about them, I couldn´t help but cry a little bit. It´s helping me realize that "missionary work" really isn´t what we think it is. Yeah, the missionaries play a big role in this work, but a more appropriate name would be the "Work of Salvation" or the Work of the Lord, because really that is what I am learning. This is the work of the Lord, and I am just one little part of it. It´s amazing. And I feel so blessed to be able to work with this amazing ward!

So this past week, I have worked harder than I have in all of my mission. I just had a different mind set. I´m realizing that I just was not a very humble person before the mission, and little by little I am changing that. When I can forget about the fact that I am exhausted, or hungry, or just want to take a little break, and focus on the fact that we are about to go teach a young man who hasn´t attended church in a couple of months, or the fact that the Spirit is telling me to make just one more contact in the street even though it´s the LAST thing I want to do, I can feel that I am becoming more humble. I can feel that I am learning my purpose as a missionary. Now, that´s not to say that I never complain about being hungry, or that sometimes I don´t make those contacts even when I know I should, but I am learning. I can see those little changes. I think. Hermana Hamilton likes to work hard, and that´s what we´re doing.

One of the people that we started teaching this week is a kid named Julio Lengua. His mom and sister are members, but they are totally inactive, and his dad and brothers aren´t members. He hasn´t been to church or seminary in forever, so he was our project. We met with him on Saturday night for the first time, and he was just so sweet and humble. At one point he wanted to serve a mission, but he just kind of fell away. He isn´t really inactive, but it´s just been a long time since he went to church. We talked to him, and he just received our lesson so well. When we invited him to church he kind of hesitated (since it starts at 8:30), but he said he would come. So we went to pick him up and he actually came with us! HE CAME WITH US!! That doesn´t always happen. But anyway, he came, walked straight up to the front of the church, and blessed the sacrament, and went to all of his classes and every thing. I barely know this kid, but seeing him up there in his suit and tie, for the first time in who knows how long, just made me so happy. We are not just here to baptize people or pass out invitations to church so we can get a good number of contacts at the end of the week. We´re just here to "invite all people to come unto Jesus Christ." That´s our purpose. That´s really all we do. And we just hope and pray and work for those people to do exactly that - come unto Jesus Christ. I can´t explain the joy that I feel when I see that someone has done that, for the first time ever or maybe just the first time in a long time. It´s the best. And that´s why I´m here.

There´s always more to say, but I just want you all to know that I am really, genuinely happy. Yes, I´m tired, and sometimes my feet are sore, and yeah I´m probably a little bit fatter now than I was (darn it, all that rice.......) but I am genuinely happy. I miss you all like crazy, but I can feel every day that I am doing the right thing. Know that I pray for you and I think about you. I hope that you are enjoying the beautiful Colorado autumn. Thanks for all of your support, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Con todo amor en mi corazón,

Hermana Scott

A Work of Miracles

BUENOS DIAS!!!

 

I hope this email finds all of you happy and excited to hear a little bit about life south of the equator.

I want to tell you about a few things before I get to the important things.

Okay, first, this week I ate some more weird food. First was cow stomach. Yes, I ate the lining of the stomach of a cow. And it was so so weird and I was genuinely surprised when I liked it. I was trying not to think too much about what I was eating, slightly enjoying myself, then they put a plate of peppers in front of me so I thought, "Yeah I´ll try that! Peppers have always been my thing!" YEAH...that was a big joke. Never, NEVER in my life have I eaten anything that spicy. And of course I ate a giant chunk of it. I´m not exaggerating when I say that my whole face was on fire. I could not breathe...I could have sworn that my mouth was just bleeding, same with my nose. I don´t even know how to explain it. But nothing made it better, I tried to eat rice, but it just made it worse! Hahaha looking back it was hilarious, but as I was silently dying, crying, and drooling, I didn´t think it was that funny. Mother, you´d be fine to eat those. The people here eat them like candy, so I thought I´d be fine...Yeah well now I know. NEVER. AGAIN.

Also, apparently a few days ago there was a pretty strong earth quake. It was in the night time, and I somehow managed to sleep through it. Every night, I sleep perfectly fine. I have never once had a problem sleeping...and nothing except my sweet, soft alarm in the morning wakes me up. Anyway so everyone keeps talking about how crazy this earth quake was, including my companion. But I was just sleepin´ my first experience away. Everything is fine though, it wasn´t a super bad earthquake. But I guess that this time of year it´s a normal occurrence....I´ll keep you posted on that. As far as I know, it´s not anything to worry about. But if it happens again, the good news is that I probably won´t even notice!

So, in other important news....WE HAD OUR FIRST BAPTISM!!! I can´t even explain my joy. Recently, I´ve been thinking a lot about the purpose we have as missionaries. "Invite all people to come unto Christ..." Our purpose isn´t JUST to baptize. We do a lot more than that. So sometimes I struggle when we talk about goals to get baptisms every week, or whatever. Obviously baptisms are important, but we can´t just be focused in that...it´s something really interesting about the mission, and there are a lot of feelings involved in that topic, and it´s something that I just don´t really know how to explain. But, we had our first baptism. And all of my worries about that subject just kind of disappeared. Hermano Pedro was BAPTIZED! I was sitting there, listening to the talks, watching Pedro, and I couldn´t help but think of my own baptism. The way I felt then, and all of the things that have happened in my life since then. All of the blessings that I have, thanks to that decision I made. I mean, look where I am right now!!! It´s amazing. Honestly, the gospel changes lives. I have a testimony of that. And as I watched Hermano Pedro get baptized, I realized that YES, we do want people to get baptized. Baptism is just the first step we make. It´s the beginning of a life in the gospel, the first "acceptance" of the invitation to come unto Christ. Yes, we have to focus on other things too, but yes, baptism is a beautiful, important thing. It´s such an interesting thing to think about. 

Something cool about the baptism is that I got to play the piano! There was no one else that knew how, so I played the two songs that I know how to play. It was such a special experience for me, the baptism. I couldn´t stop smiling, and there were certainly tears. When I cry, my face turns red, and when my face turns red, all the Latinos make fun of me. It was worth it though. :)

One cool thing that happened this week is that one Hermana in our ward here took us to meet someone to teach. In the mission, that´s called a reference, and we LOVE references! We were super excited about it, and so was she. I had read a scripture earlier that day, Doctrine and Covenants 84:88 which says "And whoso ^areceiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go^bbefore your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my ^cSpirit shall be in your hearts, and mine ^dangels round about you, to bear you up.. I had told my companion, Hey, this scripture is telling us that if this person accepts us and wants to listen to us ("receives" us), that means that Jesus Christ is literally there with us." So we went to meet the reference, and as we were walking to the park, I saw the man that was waiting with the hermana, and I realized that we had met him a few weeks earlier - he was one of our street contacts!!! He had told us that he wanted to listen to us, so we took his address and everything, but for whatever reason, we had never contacted him again. But that morning, there he was, just waiting for us. I literally can´t explain the way I felt...that promise in that scripture is true. I just knew that the Lord had led us to this man. And as we were teaching him, I just felt the Spirit so strongly...I spoke perfect Spanish. That´s not even a joke. It just came out of my mouth and I wasn´t even thinking about it. It was one of the best lessons we´ve had. AND, he accepted baptism, right then and there!!!! HE IS GOING TO GET BAPTIZED!!! These are the moments when I realize that this is the work of the Lord. I don´t do anything, He just does His work through me. It´s a work of miracles. Think about it...we didn´t contact Carlos after that first time. He would maybe never have learned about the gospel. But he was one of the very few people that are "chosen" for us, so the Lord made sure that he was put in our path again. "Que milagro" Seriously...it was a miracle.

 

And sorry, I forgot my camera cord, so I can´t send pictures, but I will next week! I owe you lots of pictures...I really am sorry about that. Next time!!!

Also, I have officially completed 12 weeks here. It´s unreal, and the time really does fly. Our first transfer is over, so we might have exchanges...we find out tonight. I will tell you all about it next week.

Well, I love you all so much. Thank you for everything. I got a letter from Nana, Tommy Madden, and the Krells this week in the mail...THANK YOU SO MUCH! I loved that!!! 

I pray for you guys all the time. I love you so much!!!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Michelle Scott

First Baptism

BUENOS DIAS, FAMILIA!!!

Today is a happy day because THE SUN IS OUT! It´s crazy that you are all entering the cold time of the year, and it´s finally starting to be warm here. I´m the only white person here for miles which is interesting enough as it is in this sea of Peruvians, but it will be even more interesting when I am the only sunburned white person for miles. It´s bound to happen. But don´t worry mother, I have sunscreen!

One interesting thing I have to share is that we ate cow heart and cow liver this week. I don´t really know what to say about it....I just sort of ate it. And you know, it wasn´t that bad. All I know is that I eat what they give me. Sometimes I just close my eyes while I do it. No but really, it was actually pretty good! 

Another thing, yesterday was Sunday. We had like 4 of our investigators there, a family of less actives, and some other less actives. It was a miracle!! I´m learning the importance that the gospel has in the lives of every person, and it´s so incredible to see its influence in the lives of different people. Obviously investigators are so important, but people who are already baptized that don´t come to church are equally important. As missionaries, we invite ALL people to come unto Christ. Including those who came unto Christ once before, and decided to take a little break. I love working with less actives and seeing them come back to church, or teaching them lessons, because they start to remember the way they felt before. It´s really a beautiful thing, and I was super excited yesterday.

Also, after sacrament, the Relief Society president came up to me and asked if I could speak for 10 minutes THAT DAY in Relief Society. It was crazy, because I have really been wanting to speak to them, but I was planning on preparing something specific, you know? If someone asked me to do that at home, where everyone speaks the same language that I am fluent in, I think I would have been totally fine. But I was pretty darn nervous to just wing it in front of these people, speaking a language in which I am certainly not fluent. It´s crazy how much I do know, though. It´s moments like that when I realize how much I´ve learned. The little talk was pretty good, and a lot of people commented on it. They also commented on how "linda" my red face is. What can I say, when I get nervous, my face turns red. And trust me, I was nervous. Red face syndrome is just one part of being a gringa.¨

Good news - WE HAVE OUR FIRST BAPTISM THIS WEEK!!!!! On Saturday!! Your birthday, daddy! It´s a pretty cool birthday present, if I do say so myself. Pedro, our golden investigator. He is so great. He is 69 years old, and we just met him one day while we were walking in the street. He was so excited to learn about the gospel, and he has just taken it all in. There are some people that are just ready to receive the gospel, and he was certainly one of them. We have been teaching him for a few weeks, and he is ready, and he´s getting baptized this weekend and I am so happy for him and I am so excited and I can´t even tell you how happy I am!!!! I will send pictures next week.

This past week was really great, but also really difficult. Sometimes I am really selfish, really stubborn, and really impatient. It´s so important in missionary work to just be humble in every way. I am slowly learning how to be humble. But the thing is that as missionaries, we invite everyone - EVERYONE - to come unto Christ. That includes ourselves. I may have already said this, but it´s so important and I´m learning more about it everyday. I, Hermana Scott, also need to come unto Christ. I need to come unto Him, and do all I can to become more like Him. He was humble. He was patient. He was loving. And that is exactly what I want to be. I´m trying, and everyday I learn more about how I can do that.

The mission is the best, I am so so happy, and I can´t believe how fast time is flying. Every week I just can´t believe it´s time to write to you all again. Thank you for your love and support, it never goes unnoticed. I love you all so much, and I pray for you about 80 times a day. We pray a lot out here.

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Scott

Getting lost in this work

Hi everyone! This is a two-part email from Michelle...enjoy!

 

 

PART 1

 

FAMILY!!!! Hello!! I hope all is well and that you are having a great morning so far.

Before I write anything else, I have to tell you something, and this is directed mostly to Daddy...but this morning, I had the world´s most amazingly incredibly delicious tamale ever. I don´t even know how to explain it besides, "Holy crap." I didn´t want to eat it because I didn´t want it to be gone. But then I ate it in like 12 seconds, so..so much for that. But yeah, seriously the food here is amazing. And I haven´t had a repeat of a meal yet! Which is crazy if you think about it, because...

I´ve officially completed one month in the field! It´s so crazy how time flies. I think about all that has happened, and time out here just doesn´t make sense. My first week felt like a year, but the weeks after that have really flown by. It´s like a mind game. I don´t know how to explain it. But "el tiempo buela."

Thank you also to everyone who has been sending me emails! I love it more than you know. They are the perfect boost in the beginnings of the weeks here. Thank you thank you thank you!!!

Okay so this week was great. It was really hard, but I learned a ton this week. On Thursday, everyone in my zone had interviews with the mission President. It was my first interview in the field, and I was a little bit nervous about it, but our mission president is the bomb so I got over those nerves pretty quickly. I was mainly nervous because I usually cry when people ask me questions like "How are you REALLY doing, Hermana Scott?" You know what I mean? But it was great. Our Zone leader, earlier in the week, invited us to think of a question that we could ask him. And my question was along the lines of... "I want to be lost in the work and "forget myself" completely. How can I do that? I´m trying but I feel like I´m not totally there." Before the mission, so many people told me to just love the people, focus on them, and forget myself. But in total honesty, that´s hard to do. I don´t think that I have a problem with loving these amazing people, but I think about myself too much. Anyway, President Ardila told me that I should be thinking about the investigators always. When I am studying, I need to look for things that will help my investigators. When I am praying, I need to pray for my investigators. As I´m walking in the street, I´m looking with my eyes but trying to see with the Spirit, if I´m supposed to go talk to the guy, or tap that woman on the shoulder. It´s crazy and it´s hard and it´s amazing and I literally don´t know how to explain it. But that´s what he told me to do. Think of the investigators first. So that´s what I started doing, because  (sad as it may be) I wasn´t really doing that yet. But something that I realized, is that as I´m studying and focusing on the needs of the people I teach, my own testimony is strengthened. I get my "spiritual feeding" too. As I pray for my investigators, and pray to know how to help them, I´m showing God that I´m willing to do what He wants, and not what I want. It´s a process - everything in the mission is a learning process. I hope that this all makes sense. But the point is that I can slowly feel myself getting lost in this work. And I hope that eventually I can be totally lost, because at that point I don´t think I´ll have to say anything about it. So really, President Ardila is the best. And the mission is also the best.

So here´s the thing - my companion needs to go to the mission offices in La Molina, which is 1 hour away from here. So its cutting our time a little short. I am going to come back and be able to write more I think, so until then know that I love you so much!!!! I have more to say but not enough time right now. But I will send more, I promise. I LOVE YOU!!!!!

Hermana Scott

 

 

PART 2

 

Hello again, querido familia!

Okay, I don´t really have a ton of time, but I just wanted to tell you one more thing.

So we are teaching a boy named Isaac who has a lot of problems. He is 16 but he has problems with drugs and a girlfriend who doesn´t help in that regard, and needless to say (in missionary terms) he has a problem with the law of chastity. We work with his family all of the time because the family is huge, and there is a mix of recent converts, less-actives, inactives, and non-members. So we see him a lot. But he doesn´t really like to talk to us, and doesn´t really see a problem with smoking weed and cocaine (or whatever you do with cocaine...don´t judge, I´m just a missionary). We are trying so hard to find a way to make a difference, tell him something that will help to realize there´s more to life, but he just doesn´t really care. It´s really hard for me, and sometimes I just feel so sad while we teach him. It´s something that is a blessing and a curse about missionary work...you come to love the people so much, and it is just so sad when you just have to watch them suffer. You can see in his eyes that he isn´t really happy, but he just doesn´t know what to do. AHH, it kills me. He´s just a baby!!! 16 years old. It is my prayer every day all day that we can make a difference in this boy´s life.

Anyway, life is good. All is well. I love it here and I´m learning Spanish! Last night I talked on the phone to our district leader to give the weekly report on numbers and stuff, and I talked to him (BY MYSELF - big girl!) about Isaac and what we can do to help him for like 20 minutes!!!!! I can´t even tell you how proud and happy I was...our district leader talks so fast you´d think the world was ending and everything he says is his last words. But yeah so that was cool. Everyday is hard, but there are miracles when we look for them. The mission is really the best.

I hope you are all well, sorry I don´t have time to email you all personally but just know I love you more than words can describe!!!! Talk to you soon!!

I LOVE YOU!!!!

Con much amor,

Hermana Scott

Straight from the heart

(This email was received Monday 9/30/13)

Buenos dias, familia!

Holy cow, I honestly can´t believe it´s Monday again. Seriously, this week flew by. That´s what everyone told me, though...the days are long, you sleep easily, but the weeks fly by. That is becoming very true.

Today is my feliz cumple mes!! I have successfully survived 2 months here in Peru. This week is exactly 9 weeks. If you say I have 16 months left, that sounds like a long time, but if you say I have 69 weeks left, that really does not seem like any time at all. It´s flying by, and it´s just going to go faster. It scares me a little bit.

Okay, first story is really funny. Last night, we had a family home evening with 13 people. It was so great and it reminded me of the Lattins and that crazy house. One of the brothers has a baby, who is adorable. We had just had this really spiritual lesson, and then the baby walked in to the middle of the room and just let out this HUGE fart. I seriously could not stop laughing. It was kind of embarrassing actually...I guess I´m still pretty immature. I was laughing at the baby, but everyone else was laughing at my reaction. What can I say, farts are funny.

Okay, serious now. This week was super hard. We did not have much success. In the mission, you have to be careful of how you measure success, because the people we teach aren´t just numbers, they are souls. That sounds cheesy, but it´s true. Our goal may have been to have 5 new investigators, but we don´t walk the streets thinking, "okay, gotta get one more, we need to beat the Elders this week" It´s not like that. That´s not how God thinks of his children, so we shouldn´t either. At the same time, it´s hard to feel like we aren´t making any progress. Plus, my companion and I argued a ton this week. I am not an easy person to work with sometimes...I am pretty stubborn, or really stubborn. I think I know everything. (I´ve always been a Daddy´s girl...haha, love you daddy) But it caused problems this week. That didn´t add to our level of success. I learned a lot about patience, and humility. I am constantly learning.

After a week with zero, yes ZERO new investigators, we were pretty discouraged. Not many of our investigators are progressing either. Yesterday, we prayed to be able to see a miracle. We prayed for humility, patience, and faith. It was a hard day, but we had some great lessons. The best was in that family home evening. We taught about the Restoration and the story of Joseph Smith. So remember, there were 13 people there. Two weren´t members, and one was already our investigator. The other was the wife of the guy with the baby. Actually they're not married. But anyway, 2 non members. We gave the most powerful lesson we´ve ever given. I just spoke in Spanish like I was speaking English, it was crazy. We just taught straight from the heart, and the spirit was so strong. It was one of those times when you just couldn´t deny the power of the spirit in that room. But we were about to finish, and my companion started to ask her if she wanted to be baptized. I was freaking out internally because I just didn´t know if it was the best idea in that moment....but she said YES. SHE SAID YES. What?!?!? It was amazing. It proved to me the strength of companionships, because she felt something that I didn´t, and it resulted in a miracle for us. The Lord blessed us in a way we never could have imagined. After a long, hard week, we were able to see a beautiful, yet simple miracle. This is the Lord´s work! I am learning that every day...The Lord works THROUGH us. We aren´t the ones that work miracles.

So things are good. Spanish is coming. It´s still hard, but it´s coming. I was pretty sick the other day. I hadn´t felt good all day, I had made a number of trips to the bathroom, and there was this moment when we were walking that I felt so sick...and I didn't know what to tell my companion so I just stopped walking, and in English said, "Stop please" Maybe that´s not funny to you, but looking back I think it´s hilarious. Life is interesting here, to say the least. But it is great.

I love you all so much. I hope that all is well, that the week was good, You are constantly in my prayers. Take care, enjoy the first week of October!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Con mucho amor, 

Hermana Scott