Transferre​d to Monterrico

AH I always run out of time. But HELLO! I will make this fast!

So I changed areas. And it was one of the hardest things I´ve ever done in my life. I love Surco, and I always will, but for some reason, God wants me in Monterrico. So here I am!

Monterrico is literally the richest part of Lima. It´s kind of a rough change because Surco certainly was not like that...everything is different here. It´s not bad, it´s just different. Everyone is always in a hurry, and contacting in the streets is almost impossible because people ignore you or say "estoy ocupado." We also live right next to the Embassy of the USA so that´s weird. I always feel weird when I walk by. A white girl in Peru WOULD be walking by the Embassy of the USA, wouldn´t she?

So there´s one part of this area that is literally magical. I don´t care if I sound cheesey or weird, but it´s true. Its´called  Villa Libertad, and it´s so pretty and it´s more like what you think of when you think of Peru. I promise to take pictures this week. Its´amazing. We do a lot more work there because the people actually talk to us.  But this week, we stopped by to visit one of our investigators in her store. We were just going to pass by because we were going to go look for someone else, but we thought it would be nice to just swing by really fast and say hi. Her name is Vicki, and she has two sons, Alex and Jesus. Jesus is severely disabled and we had never met him before, but Vicki always talked about her struggles taking care of him. Basically, we met Jesus. And for the first time, we understood. He is really severly disabled, and I can only imagine how hard that is because they have hardly any money at all. We sat down with her and were trying to teach Vicki, but people kept coming to the store so she had to keep talking to them. Hna Killian (one of my 2 companions) turned to Jesus and said " Remember how we were friends before this life? We told you we´d come and find your mom and teach her. We´re trying. We really are." She said that, and Jesus, who can´t speak at all, just smiled SO HUGE. I couldn´t help but cry. It was such a sweet moment.

Sorry I have 0 seconds left. Just know that I love you!! Thank you for your support.

MUCHO AMOR,

Hermana scott

Pictures!

Sharing a story of JC

HELLO!!! Hope all is well! Once again, thank you for the emails. I love getting them! Thanks for all of the love and support.

Like always, I´m a little short on time. But that´s just the story of the life of a missionary. Haha I sound like a drama queen. 

I wanted to tell a brief story though. So we are teaching a guy named Jorge Chavez, and his wife Liliana really doesn´t want to listen to us. Jorge Chavez is a rather odd individual, but he really loves the church and the gospel, and we are working with him a lot to get him to the point where he can get baptized. The only thing that really blocks his progress is the fact that he isn´t married, but his wife is Christian and she knows that it´s moral to get married and everything, so they´ll be doing that really soon, which is awesome! So basically, JC is for sure getting baptized, it´s just a matter of when. Anyway, so we visit him a lot and talk to him a lot (or, we visit him, and he talks to us....he´s a talker), but we are slowly, SLOWLY, gaining the confidence of Liliana. "poco a poco". So we are lucky if Liliana talks to us. Yesterday, JC called us and told us he wanted us to come to his house because he had something urgent to tell us, and our thought was Um...yeah we´ll try to squeeze you in into our schedule of 8 appointments in 6 hours. We were super busy that day because Sundays are crazy, and honestly kind of irritated that he wouldn´t just tell us on the phone, but we said we would make time to go see him. So miraculously (or just maybe because God is in charge of all this stuff) one of our appointments changed, so we had plenty of time to go visit them. We get to the house, and Liliana is there, JC had just left but was coming back. So we sat with L for a little while, and chated about life, but she didn´t seem to want to talk about the "urgent thing" so we didn´t really say anything. but when JC came back, he had all the details and was really concerned. Basically, he told us all about what had happened, and it was about Liliana. She goes to a Christian church, and always had talked about how much she loved it. But apparently yesterday morning, after church, her pastor and his wife met with her in his office, and they were talking about how L and JC aren´t married, and how it´s a sin. They also called her out on the fact that she comes to church alone, and that her husband goes to another church (that´s us...oopsies). Basically what they told her is that she is no longer "allowed" to come to church, and that she needs to find a new congregation. After JC stopped telling the story, L tried to say something, and just started bawling. It broke my heart. And it´s not like we were about to pounce and be like "Oh hey good news you can come to our church now! You´re church was wrong all along!!!" That was not at all what the purpose of this was. Hna Hamilton and I just looked at each other, and we didn´t really know what to say. Obivously we believe that our church is the true one, that´s why we´re here. But that´s not what she needed to hear in that moment. We shared a story about Jesus Christ, and talked about His life and what He did for us. I don´t know how to explain it, but the Spirit was so strong in that room. In the scriptures, Jesus Christ asks us to have a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I can tell you for sure that Liliana´s heart was broken in that moment, and I think that hearing about Jesus Christ is just what she needed. It was really cool for me, because I felt like I wasn´t even teaching. It was the scriptures that we read about Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, and the feeling that we all had.

I want to say more, but there is not time. I just want to say that if I´m learning anything out here, it´s that I really don´t do much. I just wear a black tag, walk around and sweat a lot, and hope and pray that people can feel God´s love through our words in broken Spanish.

I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Hermana Scott

Living in the now

Hello!!! Buenos dias!!! I just want to say first things first, THANK YOU FOR THE EMAILS! More than you all know, I love getting emails and letters. It makes me feel like a normal person, and a little closer to home. Thank you!!

Funny moment of the week. Man, this one kills me. So we were teaching one of our recent converts, Pedro. He was my first convert in the mission, and I just love him to death. He´s a sweet, old 69 year old, and he´s just so funny. A few days ago, we went to teach him, and when he answered the door, he was wearing this funny, huge sweater, which was tucked into these huge, baggy sweatpants and his socks were pulled up super high and the bottoms of his pant legs were also tucked in. I´m sorry if I´m a jerk, but I really had to try hard not to laugh. So just keep in mind, I already had the giggles a little bit. Okay, so then we started teaching. He has a hard time reading - he can read just fine, but he just doesn´t do it. So we started with the first chapter in the Book of Mormon, and were just going to read that and the first 4 verses of the next chapter. In chapter 1, the prophet Lehi receives a commandment to leave with his family from Jerusalem because it was going to be destroyed. And in the first 4 verses of chapter 2, it just basically says that they left and took only the things they needed. verse 4 says "And it came to pass that he departed into the wilderness. And he left his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and his precious things, and took nothing with him, save it were his family, and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness." The point of reading that was so that he could see the importance of the family, because that´s really all he took! He left everything else. So I asked him something like, Hno Pedro, what did Lehi bring with him? What is the most important thing? Or something like that. And he says "La comida, no mas" THE FOOD. He said THE FOOD. I literally could not stop laughing. I was trying so hard to pull myself together, because obviously we shouldn´t be laughing at the people we teach, but that just killed me. Every time I think about it, it makes me laugh. I think, if that´s what people are getting from my message, I gotta change something. Hahaha he´s funny. He´s the best, but sometimes, those Peruvians...

So once again, this week has flown by. I can´t believe that it´s week 6 of this transfer. The sad thing about that is that I will probably be changing areas next week...it´s really hard for me to imagine being somewhere else. I have come to love these people so much. When I think about some of the goodbyes I´ll have to say, I get a little misty-eyed. It will be really hard, but something that my companion and I have been working on is "being where our feet are." If that makes sense. Living in the now, doing all that we can now, and focusing on what needs to be done now. That applies to missing home, thinking about stuff like transfers..all of it. Something that has happened recently is that we have set baptismal dates with people, but they´re all in December, when I probably won´t be here. At first I thought to myself, Well I don´t want to ask them to get baptized now because I won´t even be here to see it! But that´s not what we´re here for...I don´t ask these people to get baptized just to "get another baptism," so that I can enjoy it. These people get baptized because they believe that what we teach them is true. We ask them to get baptized because we know that what we teach them is true. Whether I´m here in Surco or somewhere else, the Lord is guiding His work. It will continue with or without me. That makes me think of something that I heard recently...One of the dear friends I´ve made here on the mission goes home next week. She bore her testimony in the Zone conference we had last week, and she said "He aprendido que no estamos ayudando en esta obra, sino El Señor nos está dando esta oportunidad." We´re not helping in this work, the Lord is giving us this opportunity to do the work. It´s really interesting. But it´s true. So I´m trying to keep that in mind as my time here in Surco comes to an end.

I´m out of time, but all is well here. I am super happy and we are getting lots done down here for the Lord. Or, he´s giving us lots of opportunities to learn and have some pretty amazing experiences.

I hope you are all well! I love you! Thank you so much for the support! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Mucho amor,
Hermana Scott

Unspeakabl​e Joy!

Buenos días, familia y amigos!

This week literally flew by. I´m sitting here at the computer and I can´t believe that Monday has come again, and it´s already time to email.

So many things happened this week. This week, I have learned a ton, felt the Spirit a ton, cried a ton, and good news, laughed a ton also.

First, my companion told me on Tuesday morning that I had talked in my sleep on Monday night. Like...a lot, apparently. And the best part is that it was ALL IN SPANISH. Hahaha how weird is that? What she told me is that I was "making a contact" in my sleep...like saying what I would say to someone that we met in the street. Isn´t that so weird? And she said that I was talking 100% clearly, and that she could understand all of it as if I was wide awake talking to her. Haha when she told me that I just died laughing. How weird, but it´s kind of cool that my brain thinks in Spanish like that now. The mission does weird things to ya!

So I wanted to tell you about one of the most spiritual experiences that I´ve ever had in my whole life, if you don´t mind. This past week, I was struggling quite a bit. Mainly just Tuesday and Wednesday, I just was really beating myself up. I don´t really even know why, but I just felt like I wasn´t really good enough to be doing this stuff. I was exhausted, and we were both stressing out a little bit about all of the things we had to do. But mostly, it was an internal, personal battle that I was having with myself. Really, what I always say to myself and to God (in my prayers) is that "I just want to do this missionary stuff right." I had been struggling with other stuff too, but I just really want to be doing all of this right, in the way that the Lord wants it to be done. It´s His work, for heaven´s sake! I don´t really know how to explain it, but despite our successes I just felt crappy about myself (kind of like a pity party). But anyway, I really have decided that Alma 26 is my life´s motto. In this chapter in the Book of Mormon, a group of men have just returned from their "mission," and one of them, Ammon, is rejoicing. He is talking about how amazing the mission was, and how many great things they had accomplished, and one of the others, Aaron, tells him that he needs to knock it off because he´s boasting. But Ammon basically just turns to him and is like "What are you talking about? I´m not talking about myself...I´m talking about how amazing GOD is." This whole chapter is filled with his words, praising and thanking God for all of the miracles he had done, and for the help they had received from Him. I read this chapter all the time, almost every day, because I want to be like Ammon. I want to realize that all of the good we do out here, the "good results" we get are great, but it´s all thanks to God - we´re literally just instruments in His hands. Anyway, one of the things that Ammon says, is this-  "Therefore, let us ^aglory, yea, we will ^bglory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his ^cmercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel." I have always loved that part..."I cannot say the smallest part of which I feel." I always think about that, and I want my joy to be like that. So in these days, I thought about that a ton. I kept wondering why I couldn´t feel that joy. So on Wednesday, I was reading my Patriarchal blessing (the blessing that members of the church receive...we get lots of blessings in the church, but this one is special, and intended for your whole life. It´s not like a prophesy of your life, but it tells you a lot about your life and blessings you will receive. I hope that makes sense) Anyway, I was reading that, and the last part of mine says the following - "You will be blessed with unspeakable joy in this life and in eternity as you serve the Lord..." UNSPEAKABLE JOY. That´s the blessing that I have. After reading my Patriarchal blessing who knows how many times, and reading Alma 26 every day for the past 3 and a half months, I FINALLY discovered that, just in the exact moment that I needed it. It´s funny because I wrote that scripture on the front of my agenda like 4 weeks ago, so that I could always see it. "I cannot say the smallest part of which I feel." And I have that blessing. To be able to experience that. And that unspeakable joy is exactly what I felt this week, after I had to fall a little bit.

Now that I´ve spent forever explaining that, I want to tell you about what happened this week. So I want to talk about our investigators a little bit.

Jorge Chavez - This crazy guy who loves to talk. Seriously, we really don´t talk much when we visit him, because he just talks and talks and talks. But he´s really great and he really wants to learn about the church. He wants to get baptized, but he can´t right now because he lives with his "Señora" and they aren´t married. They have two kids, and have lived together for years, but have never gotten married. That´s how it is here though,  the Law of Chastity is one of our biggest stumbling blocks. We´re helping them set up a date to get married, but we aren´t sure if they´re all in. His wife isn't really into the whole Mormonism thing, so she´s not really in a rush to get him baptized.

Ashley - The sweetest little girl! She is only 9, but her parents are members of the church, but were 100% inactive. She sought us out though - her parents hadn´t gone to church in years, but she decided that she wanted to figure out what it was all about, so she sought us out and we have been working with her and her family for about a month and a half. They are totally active now,  they come to church every week, and Ashley is getting baptized THIS Saturday!!!

Geraldine - We met her through a family in the church. She is the girlfriend of one of the brothers in this family, but the brother was also inactive for a really long time. Years! But about a month and a half ago also, we started teaching Geraldine. She really wanted to get baptized, but couldn´t because of the law of chastity thing too (DANG that commandment of God) (that´s a joke). But anyway, she lives with her boyfriend, Diego, and they have a child. But we have been working with them, and they are getting married on November 30th of this month!!!!! So that Geraldine can get baptized and they can start working towards getting married in the temple!! Diego is reactivated, and they´re really passionate about this. It´s amazing, and when I think about it I want to cry. I get to marry someone on my mission!!!!!!

Sebastian - He is the son of an Hermano in our ward, but his situation is difficult. He has like 5 people in his family telling him that he should join different churches, and he just doesn´t know what to do. His parents were also inactive, because they have to work on Sundays (well they don´t have to, but they do). The dad´s name is Jorge. So Jorge hasn´t come to church in so long, but he wanted his son to find about the church and get baptized, so that´s why we´re teaching Sebastian. Basically, we´re making progress with Sebastian, and Jorge is reactivating in the church!

Jenny - She is  a sweet, shy 26 year old that randomly came to church one day, just to check it out. Since then we´ve been teaching her, and she is making progress. It was not a coincidence that she came that day. She will probably be getting baptized next week!!

Okay, with all of that, I wanted to tell you what happened on Sunday. So there is an Hermana here, Hna Burga, who was inactive when I first came to this area two months ago. But now she is totally active, and I could tell you so much more about her, but just know that I just love her to death and thinking about her story and how she has changed, it makes me so happy. She is one of the dear friends that I have made. She talked in church on Sunday about a story that was in one of the church magazines. .. About a little girl that was meeting with the sister missionaries, and decided to get baptized. The missionaries were like best friends with this little girl, and they would always go by her house to bring her to church, and the little girl just loved them. Anyway, it turns out that the little girl had terminal cancer, and I don´t remember all of the story exactly, but she said that the missionaries were right there with this little girl when she died in the hospital. So Hna Burga is telling this story, and I´m just balling, and I realize that THAT is what the love of missionaries should be. they should love the people THAT much. And be willing to do anything for them. I was just crying, and thinking about how much I loved the people here, wondering if it was enough...and I looked around and saw that EVERY single one of our investigators were in Sacrament meeting. ALL of them. In that moment, I felt that "unspeakable joy"...I can´t even explain it. It was absolutely amazing. And I felt a love for them that I can´t even explain.

I am sorry I'm out of time, but just know that I love you so much! I wanted to tell you these things. I hope you know how much I love you! Thank you for the emails and support. I LOVE YOU!

Until next week!

con MUCHO amor,

Hermana Scott

Reactivate

HELLO! I hope all is well! Everything is great down here. The sun is coming out and I will soon be getting sunburns every day. How exciting, right?

I have to tell you something funny that happened this week. We had taught a lesson in the chapel one night this week, and when we left we were super happy and excited. I walked out on to the sidewalk, talking to my companion, just loving life and laughing and smiling, then I just completely ate it. I fell flat on my face, slid off the sidewalk, and just ended up sprawled out completely in the grass. I think my companion sat there laughing for literally 5 minutes. It was easily the funniest thing that has happened to me on the mission so far. The weird thing is this that I still don´t know how or why I fell. But all things happen for a reason... or at least that´s what I hear.

Anyway, I don´t have much time. But I say that every week. Basically, I have a million things to say. But I will share one. So we are assigned 5 families that are less active in the church to meet, work with, and "reactivate." It´s a really long process actually, but it´s really rewarding. So we hadn´t gotten to know one of our families yet, and one day one of our appointments fell through so we decided to go meet them. It wasn´t in the plan, but we thought that it would be a good idea. So we went and found the family, and when the hermana let us in she was kind of hesitant. Like she didn´t really want us there. That´s the awkward part of seeing less actives...they stopped coming for a reason, and usually the last person they want to see is a missionary. but we started talking to them (two of her children were there), and they started getting a little less tense. We shared one simple scripture with them, and bore testimony about Jesus Christ, and the mom just started crying. At first her face got really serious, and I thought she was going to say that we shouldn´t come back or something like that, but she just looked at us and tears just started coming down her face. She started talking about how things had been really hard for a lot of years, problems with money and family and health, and how she knew that the right thing for her to do was go to church and take her kids with her but she just couldn´t do it. She said that for her whole life, her parents had fed or housed the missionaries, and that the church and missionaries had always been a huge part of her life. But with these problems in the past few years, she slowly just kind of fell away. But she bore a beautiful, powerful testimony of Jesus Christ, and said that she knew the church was true. It was AMAZING. I just knew that it was not by coincidence that our other appointment fell through, and that God really led us to these people. I was so overwhelmed with the Spirit in that lesson, and I couldn´t stop thinking of the scripture in Alma 26.15 that says " We have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work" INSTRUMENTS...that´s it.

I love missionary work! Life is good. And I am happy. And sometimes I forget how to speak English. Which is good...I think.

I love you all so much! Until next week!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Scott

Our Little Miracle Project

Buenos Dias!!!

I don´t have a ton of time left, but I have some important things to say.

First I ate the foot of a chicken. Yes, it´s true. Well, actually I couldn´t eat it. I tried. And I just couldn´t choke that sucker down. Apparently it´s good for wrinkles...I decided I would rather have wrinkles than eat one of those again.

More important, we have the baptism of Carlos Lelkes this week! he is the best. He was the guy that was originally the contact in the park, but an hermana from the church brought us to teach him. This whole time he has been our little miracle project, because he just seriously wants to change his life and is ready and willing to do anything. But something really incredible happened with him this week. He told us one day that he was really happy, but he was really hungry because he hadn´t eaten anything in like 2 days. It broke my heart, but my companion and I just didn´t know what to do. That night, we had a meeting with the ward mission council (where we talk about the investigators and make plans for the members to help us) and we told our ward mission leader what Carlos had told us. Carlos came that night to the church to get a blessing of comfort and health from some hermanos, and Hno Barraza (the mission leader) talked for a long time with Carlos. Afterwards, we saw them walking and talking like they were best buds, and Carlos just looked so happy. He is always happy, despite all of the hard things in his life, but for some reason it was just different; he looked different. We talked to Hno Barraza, and he was like " Oh yeah, everything's fine. After the meeting we´re gonna go grab a bite to eat and just talk for a while." So here´s the thing. Hno Barraza took him out to dinner. But he also started him in a process to get a job, so that he won´t have to worry about money like he does right now. The people here, members included, really don´t have much. But they just want to share. They just want other people to feel the same happiness that they do. The members here are so strong, and such a huge help to us. After Hno Barraza told me he was taking him to dinner, and I saw the look of pure bliss on Carlos´face, I just started crying. It was so so sweet.

So I really don´t have much time, but I wanted to tell you that we are working hard. My companion said that she has never worked this hard in her whole mission. And it´s paying off...we´re getting a lot of good stuff done. But we´re exhausted! Hahaha literally I was a zombie yesterday. So it´s good, but we´re trying to learn a balance in all things. One thing that I personally am working on is realizing that all I do here, good work or bad work, is all FOR THE LORD. I don´t do this for myself. I don´t do this so that I can call my district leader every Sunday and give him good numbers. I´m working on learning that everything we do is for something greater than ourselves. It´s really interesting.

I am sorry I am out of time, I have more to say but there's never enough time! And pictures take forever to load so I only got those ones. Ill do better next week. I love you all so much!!!! Take care! And read Alma 26!!!

Mucho amor, Hermana Scott