Speaking of days filled with love, I had the best birthday! Thank you for all of the birthday wishes. First of all, I got to talk to you guys briefly on the phone, and that was probably the greatest gift I could have ever gotten. It was so awesome, because as a mission we celebrated Christmas that day also. So half of the mission came together (the other half did it the next day...there´s lots of missionaries, we have to take turns) and celebrated Christmas! We just did a lot of goofy things, like every zone did a skit in front of everyone, and we watched some videos, sang some songs, and they gave us some sweet gifts. We all got a personalized journal and a santa hat. AND about 100 missionaries sang Happy Birthday to me in English AND Spanish. There is a girl in the mission named Hermana Mack, and it was her birthday, and she completed 20 years too! It was cool. I can´t believe I am 20 years old. The first thing I said when I woke up was "Ew I´m 20." Haha but it was a great day! Later we went out to this fancy Peruvian restaurant, then went to this huge park called "El Parque de las Aguas" or something like that. It sounds funny, because it is. It was a park of a bunch of huge fountains, water tunnels, and random things like that. All of the missionaries just had a blast becuase we don´t ever do weird things like that. It was awesome and hilarious and we just played and ran around, and it was a very happy day :)
Other than that, we have really worked hard this week. While we were celebrating Christmas, we ran into this teenage boy at the park, and starting talking to him, and found out that he lives in our area. So we went and visited him this week, and his sister in law and brother were also there. They told us that they had already been to church a number of times, but that they had gone in a different city and when they moved they didn´t know where the church was. So they listened to us, and basically just told us straight up that they all want to get baptized, and that they wanted us to meet the rest of their family because her mom had always wanted to get baptized. We were just sitting there with the dumbest look on our faces like, "Yeah...sure." That NEVER happens. Let me repeat that..NEVER. That is a LITERAL miracle, and I don´t know how to explain the joy that we felt. We left, and since they live on the third floor of this building, they can see us until we turn the corner of the street, so as we were walking we were like "okay just keep it cool, act natural..." Then we turned the corner and just started jumping up and down, there may have been some tears, but really we were just so happy. It amazes me every day how as missionaries we literally don´t do anything. We just show up, or talk to someone on the street, and realize in these moments that God has already prepared these people to receive our message. I am realizing more and more that I need to be SO dang humble to do this work, because there are still so many times that I just want to do things my way, and realize that I really don´t know anything. I like to think that sometimes when I say stuff, God just kind of chuckles to himself and says "Someday you´ll learn." We have taught this family twice, and they are learning little by little, they have about 100 million questions, but we love to answer them. Bryan is 18, Cesar is 17, and Winnie is 21. Vanessa, the sister in law, is 25 I think. And they introduced us to Winnie´s boyfriend Carlos and Cesar´s friend Piero last night. They´re not even members, but they´re already so excited about the church and just want to learn more about it. It´s really amazing, and they´re all so sweet.
So I wanted to share one more thing this week. After I found out about Karl, Claire, and all that happened, my heart just shattered. I can´t even explain the sadness that I felt...it´s just so hard to be so far away, and just worse to think about the sadness and pain that so many people are experiencing right now. I wanted to share a personal experience...so I literally didn´t know how I was going to work that day. Every other minute, I would just start crying, I think I cried that whole day. I wanted to get out there and work, but I was just an emotional wreck. One thing that the men in the church do is give blessings of health and comfort, and what we believe is that they have the legitimate power to speak for God. So when someone receives a blessing, it´s not just words coming from the mouth of some random dude, rather they are literally speaking the words that God is saying to this person receiving the blessing. The only thing I could think of to do was receive one of these blessings, because I had no idea what else to do. So I called our zone leaders (one american, one latino) and asked if I could get this blessing in English. I don´t really know how to explain exactly what I felt in the moments that I was receiving the blessing, but one of the things that he told me that God knows us perfectly and has a plan for each and every one of His children. I have been hanging on to these words this week, and doing all that I can to believe in them without any doubt. I don´t doubt it, but sometimes we just don´t understand why things happen. I don´t know why all of these had to happen at Arapahoe. I don´t know why any bad thing happens to anyone, but I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has a plan. We may not ever understand it, but He does.
I wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Just know that I pray for you and love you all more than I can explain! Thank you for all of the Merry Christmases and Happy Birthday´s, they mean more to me than you know!
I LOVE YOU!
Hermana Scott
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