Happy and healthy!

Buenos días family! I hope you are doing well, and that this week has been super great!

Wanna know something sad/cool/interesting/exciting? We have a new mission president! I was really sad that Presidente Ardila left, but he finished his mission. And our new President is American! The official language of the mission is going to be English. Just kidding, that´s just a joke. We´re still going to speak Spanish. That was supposed to be funny, I hope you laughed.

Well, this week has been really interesting, filled with lots of super happy moments, embarrassing moments, and really spiritual moments. Yesterday, we had a lesson with an Hermana that has been inactive for over 20 years. During those 20 years, she had 6 children, and none of them are members. Yesterday we met two of them, Jesus and Roberto. They are two teenagers, super shy, that really don´t know much about God. Their situation is really difficult, half of the kids live with the dad, the other half with the mom, and neither of the parents have a job, and things are really difficult. Both of them were really excited to listen to us though, and even though they didn´t say much, they listened really intently as we talked. At the end of the lesson, my companion and I both felt the spirit so strongly, and we invited them to get baptized. They both said YES, and we are going to be working with this family to help them find and know God.

Things are great, we are happy and healthy! Sorry that I haven´t sent any pictures for so long, next week a longer email and pictures!

I love you all so much! Have a great week!!!! Know that I love you! Talk to you soon!!

All my love,

Hermana Scott

You need to be strong

Good morning family! How are all of you? I hope that this has been a great week for you and that you are enjoying the lovely summer weather. It´s actually been relatively nice here, we´ve had some sunny days and I´ve been walking around with a red face just like always. It´s been pretty great!

Last week, I didn´t really know how to write a letter because I was really, really bummed. I didn´t even know how to pretend that I wasn´t sad, so I just decided to skip the whole public letter things. It´s hard for me to admit that I am struggling, I like talking to God about it because I know He doesn´t judge me. But sometimes He´s the only one who knows because I really don´t like other people to know that I struggle.

Why is that? I still don´t really know. I think it´s mostly pride. I sometimes think that as missionaries, we have this expectation to be happy all the time, and that we shouldn´t complain because we´re doing the Lord´s work! We really SHOULD be happy, because we´re doing the happiest thing in the world. Seriously, it´s a message of happiness. But, unfortunately, we´re not prefect. And sometimes we get sad too. And I got sad last week.

But then something truly incredible happened. We had transfers again, and my new companion came. She is also from Bolivia, and she came from her other area really sad and really discouraged. She talked about how sad she was to leave all of the members, and how she knew she was going to be okay but that she just needed a little bit of time to get used to the change. She has 5 months in the mission, and this is the first time she´s had to leave an area. I felt bad, she was crying and the only thing I could do was just listen to her. She talked one night about how her dad told her that if she left on the mission, he wouldn´t support her or talk to her or anything, and that´s really what happened. He didn´t give her anything for her mission, he didn´t go to say goodbye when she left, and he doesn´t write her now that she´s here. It is so sad, and it breaks my heart. Right before my other companion left, she told me something really specific and profound : "You need to be strong Hermana Scott." It sounds a little dramatic, a little bit like a cheesy movie scene, but that´s one of the last things she told me. And that´s really just what I had to do. I just kind of had to suck up all of the poopy things, and get over myself. I feel like these are words I´ve said before in other emails I´ve written you guys, but hey, it´s all about learning and growing up. 

I have had one of the best weeks of my mission, I have been so happy and excited every day, and I know that it´s because I´m learning how to forget about myself. I´m learning how to love the people around me with a real, Christ-like love. I know that I have a lot of things to learn, a lot of things to work on, but I thank God for this time He´s giving me to serve His children and work out my kinks in the process.

I hope you understand what I´m trying to say...I´m forgetting more and more English every day.

LIFE IS GOOD! And I am happy! And I love the mission.

One time a friend said this, and I feel like it´s perfectly true -

"Every day I think about you less, but every day I love you more."

Time is flying! I hope you have a great week, the next time I write you I´ll be completing 11 months in the mish! What the weird?! I LOVE YOU!

All of ,my love,

Hermana Michelle Scott

Unshakeable faith

HI FAMILY!

So here´s the thing. I have 5 minutes left, but I just wanted to tell you something scary/funny that happened this week. 

We were in a lesson, and all of a sudden, everything started shaking. Or better said, everything started QUAKING (haha, that´s punny). I experienced for real my first earthquake! And it was not a little baby one...it was pretty strong. But the good news is that it wasn´t a big deal. But everyone and their mom thought it was going to be really bad, so everyone left their houses screaming and praying to God. I was genuinely freaked out at first, but all of a sudden, I felt the Spirit. I felt this great peace in my heart, and I didn´t understand why. But later in the day, after talking to everyone about how scary it was, I realized I felt that peace in my heart because I wasn´t afraid. Those people that started crying and screaming to God, they had something they needed to get off their chest before "the end of the world". I feel like I don´t have anything that I regret, I feel good with my God.

Why wait? Why not just have faith in God NOW, trust in Him, and do those simple things he asks us to do? I´m not gonna lie, I´m a little earthquake paranoid, but everything is okay. I know that what we´re doing out here is important, because everyone deserves to have an "unshakeable" faith in God. I have a lot of work to do with that too. We always need to improve, and show God that we love him.

I LOVE YOU ALL! Have a great week! 

All of my love,

Hermana Scott

Let your faith show!

Hello family! I hope you had a great week. This week has been really fun. My companion and I are becoming friends, and it turns out that life is happier when you laugh a lot.

I just wanted to share a really weird experience I had the other day. We were basically running from one appointment to the next, because we were a little bit late. The streets here are really crowded and there´s always a ton of people going from place to place, but as we passed a restaurant, I saw a blind man struggling with the steps leading down to the sidewalk. He made it safely to the sidewalk and started moving hesitantly toward the crosswalk. We caught up to him, and passed by just as he ran straight into a light post. It was just like what you would see in a movie - his face hit the pole, and his body kept moving, and it just looked painful. Nobody else noticed, thank goodness, because someone might have laughed or something, but he just shook his head and kept moving. It was a moment that made me feel so sad. I don´t even know how to explain it...just so much sadness for this man, I don´t want to say I felt pity but basically that´s what it is, right? I told my companion we should help him cross the street, so we went over and started talking to him. He told us where he needed to go, thank goodness, because he was headed in the complete wrong direction. I put my hand on his shoulder to keep him from walking into the middle of the busy intersection, and asked if we could help him. Very quickly he noticed that my accent was not Peruvian, and asked where I was from. I told him I was from the USA, and that we were missionaries from "La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días." If we´re being totally honest, I think the part that was most interesting to this man was the fact that I was American. But, we crossed the street, and somehow he managed to get his arm completely around my shoulders, so I was hunched over completely trying to help this short (very, very short) man cross the road. We get to the other side, and he just plops this huge, slobbery kiss on my cheek and takes off. I don´t know where he ended up going, if he got to where he needed to be, but I just stood there so surprised. My companion just died laughing, and I didn´t know if I should be offended or if that was like my "thank you" and I should just say "You´re welcome". Hahaha it was really just a strange moment of my life. 

I feel like that´s just a weird example of life, the way that we as people serve other people. There are a lot of times when we have the chance to serve others, but we just pass by because we are busy or because in the moment our problems are more important than whatever could be happening in someone else´s life. Sometimes they´re little things, like helping someone cross the street, or sometimes they´re bigger, more noticeable things. The funny thing about this man, is that no matter how much I might wish that my little act of service would be the reason for this man to search our church, talk to the missionaries, and get baptized, it just isn´t going to happen that way. That´s just not how it works.

I just wanted to share that little thought with you. Also this one - 

I was reading the talks from General Conference (where all of the leaders of the church speak to all of the members of the church) and the Elder Russel M Nelson said a few things that I loved in his talk in April : "Faith is the antidote for fear...When we speak of faith - the faith that can move mountains - we are not speaking of faith in general but of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." He also said "Truth is truth! It is not divisible, and any part of it cannot be set aside. Whether truth emerges from a scientific laboratory or through revelation, all truth emanates from God. All truth is part of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

I can´t explain the greatness of the truth that Elder Nelson expressed right here. Everything, every single basic thing in our lives, is centered in Jesus Christ. Those little acts of service to waking up in the morning to go to work. All that we see, who we are - all of it comes back to the basic fact that there is someone greater than us who loves us perfectly and gave us all that He was so that we might be able to find Him in this life, and exercise that faith that Elder Nelson mentioned.

I want you to know that I believe that is true. With all of my heart. I am so happy! I love my mission and I love Jesus. Thanks for being the best family in the world. I love you all so much! 

Have a great week! I will be talking to you soon!

All of my love,

Hermana Michelle Scott