Tests of Faith

Hello family!!!! I am really overwhelmed as I write you guys today, I really don´t know how to explain how I feel. Mother, I am so happy for you and so proud of you getting baptized! And daddy and Daniel, I´m sure these past few days have been really interesting for you. I hope you are all happy and doing well, and that you had a great week!!!

It´s hard to think that I wasn´t able to be there to see the baptism, but it´s really okay because I would have probably been a snotty, red-faced mess. I had no idea that was going to happen!!!!! What in the world?? I still can´t believe it, whenever I think about it I smile and get a little teary.

Since I wasn´t there to see it, I thought I would share what I´ve been doing these past few days here in Cieneguilla, Peru.

This week has been really interesting. My companion and I have been working our tails off, but we haven´t seen many results. It´s been a little bit discouraging, because the people that we are teaching don´t come to church, they don´t read, and a lot of times they don´t even open the door when we go to their houses. This week, we set a few specific goals to help us find new people to teach, to mix things up a little bit. One of our goals was to contact 100 people, and to talk to every single one of them about the Book of Mormon so that they would understand what we´re all about. We walked all over the place, knocking doors and talking to people in the street, we went and visited all of our investigators and prayed every night that we would know how to help them or what we could do better. On Sunday, we expected about 89 people in the church (not really, but everyone says, "Oh sure, I´ll definitely go to church on Sunday, but I don´t want you to visit me in my house."), but literally no one came. Not a single investigator, not even one of the less active members that we are teaching. You can imagine the disappointment that we felt, a whole week of running around and working our tails off, to see absolutely no progress ,even LESS than usual. It was really sad, we both had some tears in our eyes as the meeting started. Everything started like normal, we sang the hymns and people started giving their talks. All of a sudden, a guy that we met a few weeks ago walks into the church, and we freaked out because we were both just sulking in our own little world of self pity. This guy has a really interesting story, he´s from a city really far away but he is living here in Cieneguilla in a drug rehabilitation center. That sounds a little iffy, but he´s drug free for almost a year, and he is stable enough that he´s allowed to leave and go to the store any day to buy food or clothes or whatever. There´s no interesting shops out here, but it must be nice to get out for a little while. That is how we met him. We taught him one day in a park, gave him a book of Mormon, and invited him to read it. Since then, we haven´t been able to teach him because it´s impossible to contact him. But yesterday, he came to church and told us that he has been reading the Book of Mormon and started telling us all about what he has read. It was amazing, just when we thought that God had forgotten about us and that all of our hard work had gone unnoticed, he just plops this sweet little surprise in our laps. We were very humbled in that moment, and we felt that God really does hear us, He answers our prayers, and He never leaves us alone.

It´s so hard to have faith in the darker moments. It´s so hard to see beyond the great trials we have right now, but that´s really the test that God gives us. How we are going to overcome the obstacles, and how we are going to show our faith in Him. I understand that the "fruits of my labors" won´t always be 100 baptisms, or even 1 baptism. I know that my faith has been tested in these past few days, weeks, and that your faith has also been tested, mother. It´s a part of life. It´s not easy. But I've never felt so strongly as I have in this internet cafe in the middle of Peru that God loves us and that He responds to us when we show faith in Him. He knows us and He will never leave us alone.

Thank you so much for your support, your love, and the great pictures!!!! I am so happy and so excited and I know that this week and all of the weeks to come will be great. I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week! 

All of my love,

Hermana Michelle Scott

PS - we are changing Pday next week because we are taking a little trip to the temple. So we won´t be writing on Monday, we´ll be writing on FRIDAY. REMEMBER THIS, I will write you on FRIDAY. But I will talk to you soon :) LOVE YOU!