A different perspective

MOTHER!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness WHAT IN THE WORLD!?!?!?!?!? I literally don´t even know what to say!!!!! I am balling and smiling and freaking out!!!!!!!! I just sreamed "Mi mamá se bautizó!!!!!" here in the middle of the internet cafe and everyone says congrats, my companion cried with me for a minute and all of the hermanas are also a little teared up. I don´t know what to say, I am so proud of you and SO happy for you!!!! You have shown so much faith and God has blessed you so much for that. I can´t believe it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I knew it was going to happen, I just didn´t know when!!! AHHHH I so wish I could give  you a huge hug but I know that you know I am so happy and so proud of you!!!!! I also just emailed Michael Johnson and he´s so excited!!!!! And I have recieved so many emails from people telling me about how amazing your baptism was. Mother everyone is so excited. I AM SO EXCITED!!!! Hahaha you are the greatest person I know!!!!! I am so happy. Thank you for your great example. You have just given me exactly what I needed to keep going on with faith, to be able to fight through the hard moments. This week has been so difficult, but now I know why. God has been testing my faith, and through YOU he has shown me why it is so important to keep fighting. It´s always worth it. 

I love you so much mommy!!!!! I wish I could give you a hug, I wish I could have been there to support you and to give you a hug as you came out of the water, but I know that God is taking care of us and that more than ever we are so much closer. 

I wish I could explain the way that I feel, but I can´t. My companion and I worked so hard this week, we did so many things differently, came home almost dead from walking so much and talking to so many people, and we just didn´t see any results. We didn´t understand why nothing had gotten better, why we had put so much effort to see nothing in the end. But literally, I know why now. Because you and I both needed to show just a little bit more faith. We did it, and the results are showing RIGHT NOW: :)

I am so proud of you, mother. I love you!!! And I get to see you really soon!!! I don´t know what else to say, there is so much more to say, but what I love most is the look of pure happiness in your photos. You look beautiful, and so happy. I know that what you´ve done is the best thing that you could have possibly done. I am so proud of you. And I know that things might not get easier, but now that you have made this decision, you will have a different perspective.

Thank you for your example and for showing me how to be better, just when I needed it. You are amazing mother. I will be talking to you very soon!!!!

I love you so much!!! Alma 26:16

ALL OF MY LOVE,

Michelle

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!

Happy Easter!

Hello family!

This will be a short little email, but just know that it´s filled with love. 

These past few days have been really interesting. Peru is a Catholic country, so everything that I've seen the past few days has been really traditional. Here, everything in the country shuts down on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday during holy week. People from all over the country came to celebrate these days in Cieneguilla because it´s a really touristy place. They all came to go play in the river, get drunk, go to bed late, then do the same thing the next day. It was really interesting to see. From what I have noticed (I don´t know for sure since I´m Mormon, not Catholic) the Catholic church puts a lot of emphasis in the death and suffering of Jesus Christ. Not just his suffering, as in taking on the pains, sicknesses, sadness, and sins of all mankind, but his suffering as He carried the cross and was beaten and mocked. They have a lot of images of Him like that, all bloody and beaten up. It's something that they recognize a lot. I just feel blessed to have had the opportunity these past few days to talk to people about the good news and incredible blessing is it that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day to give us the chance to do the same thing someday. He died for us, and it is so important, but he overcame death, which is so beautiful.

I have to go but I LOVE YOU!!!!

All me love!!
Hermana Michelle Scott

The need to believe in something

Hello family! I hope you are well.

I don´t really know where to begin with this week. There are always weird and funny things that happen. For example, this week there was a little baby scorpion in our house. I was about to put my shoes on, and I see this little thing just sitting there. I don´t really know what I was thinking, but I thought it was a good idea to try and save it. So I´m there in the hallway trying to scoop it in a bag, using a fly swatter, just like a genius would do. My companion was genuinely freaked out (she doesn´t do well with bugs...bummer that she lives in Cienguilla), but anyway I was trying to get it the bag and it stung me. Haha imagine that! But it was just a little baby one, but it actually hurt for a little while. After it stung me, I decided to kill it. It wasnt worthy of being saved. But nothing happened, I still have two hands and I haven´t died, so it looks like everything is going to be okay! Another funny thing that happened was yesterday, we went to go eat lunch with some members. They have a son who´s 15 years old and he likes to try and scare us when we go into their house. He hides behind this corner, and it´s just dumb now because we all know that he´s going to do it. But yesterday, I was sneaking up to the corner, thinking that for once, I would try to scare HIM, but he got me really good..he went the other way, and snuck up behind me as I was trying to sneak up on him, and I screamed so loud. It was really embarrassing. Then of course I was embarrassed, and just like I used to do with Daniel, I went to go punch him. After I hit him a few times, I remembered that I´m a missionary. oopsie...hahah it was okay though.

OH. By the way, I didn´t get transfered! I´m still over here living the dream in Cieneguilla! It was the biggest relief in the world. That means I´m definitely getting transfered this time around. But that´s still far away, so we don´t have to worry about that just yet.

Well, I wanted to tell you about a really sweet experience we had the other day. For these past few weeks, we´ve been working with this member, David, who was inactive in the church for a really long time. I am positive I´ve told you a little bit about him. But he is an alcoholic, and that´s really the reason why he stopped going to church. He has been a member his whole life, he served a mission and his whole family is still active in the church. It´s really sad actually, his situation, but since the day we met him in the street that one day, we´ve been meeting with him regularly and he has come to church the past 2 weeks! Also, we´re pretty sure that during this time, he hasn´t been drinking again. So he´s doing really well. The other day, we asked him to come teach with us. We went to a lesson, and he taught almost the whole thing! Not necesarily because we wanted him to, but he was just on a roll, and he was so happy that we didn´t want to stop him. It was so cool. After the lesson, we were walking to the bus stop to go home and we saw a man walking in the street. My companion and I always stop the people when they pass us to invite them to church, but I was thinking that maybe this time we´d let this guy keep walking since we were walking and talking with David. But as the man passed, I looked at David and at my companion and we all had the same thought at the same moment - that we should go talk to him. So we stopped him, talked to him about Jesus Christ and invited him to church, and we all continued on our way. For us as missionaries, it´s somthing so normal, we do it all the time. But for David, it´s something that he USED to do, that he hasn´t done in a long time. He was so happy. The look on his face was so special, I can´t even explain it.

It makes me think that there are so many people that recognize the need to believe in something, but are afraid to act on that feeling. It could be anything that keeps someone from going to church, or from really believing in something. But so many people already know deep down. That´s what I see when I see David. He´s known his whole life that the church is true, and that only THERE he´ll be able to overcome his trials, but he was scared. It´s amazing to see how God works in our lives, and how He helps us to overcome the trials we have. Each and every single one of us, if we let Him.

I love you! I am super happy! And I hope you all have a wonderful Easter. Here in Peru the population is about 97% Catholic, so we´re going to see lots of traditions. It should be interesting.

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! Have a great week!

All my love,

Hermanita Michelle Scott

God gives us exactly what we need

Hello family!

I literally have 3 minutes to write this email because the elders asked me to do about 17 things during my internet time. Not complaining, just observing. Good missionaries don´t complain.

Well, this week was great. I don´t know how to explain how I feel right now, because I´m almost positive that I am going to be transferred tomorrow. In these weeks, I have really come to understand that God knows us. Perfectly. He gives us just exactly what we need, and tests us to see if we´re going to figure out that we need to trust Him before we trust in ourselves. I am really happy and still a little chubby, really tan and a little dirty. I´m excited to see what God has in store for me, it´s possible that I´ll stay here in Cieneguilla but I´ll have all the news for you next week.

Have a great week! I love you so much! And I love God even though He´s crazy sometimes.

I LOVE YOU!

Hermana Scott

Giving everything I am

Hello family! I am happy to be writing you today. I hope that this week has been a good one, can you believe that it´s March 31st? Because I sure can´t. I officially have 8 months out here in the mission. I remember when I first got into the field, my trainer had 7, almost 8 months in her mission, and I thought "Holy crap, that´s a lot of time. I don´t know if I´ll make it that long." Just kidding, I didn´t really say that, but I said something similar. And look, now I´m the one who´s training and I have 8 months. The good news is that I don´t think there´s a word for "crap" in Spanish, so my companion won´t be able to say the same thing I said ;) I can´t believe how fast the time flies out here. But I loving every second of it!

So I wrote you last week, and said that it had been a rough week. And it was the truth. But everything, literally EVERY thing changed this week. We had an amazing week, things are changing a lot over here in Cieneguilla 2! We had a baptism on Saturday of a 23 year old guy named Aureliano. I think that of all of the people I´ve taught on my mission, he is the most converted to the gospel. He is pretty shy, and doesn´t say much, but he has just completely accepted the gospel. When he prays, he prays so simply, but his words are so genuine and powerful. His mom, brother, and sister-in-law came to the baptism. His friend Sumilda was the one that invited him to church the first time, a little over 2 months ago, and Sumilda and all of her family were at his baptism also. It made me think of a sweet little family of blonds that I know that helped one weird girl get baptized once..... ;) It was a good time! We´re having fun over here.

So last night, Hermano Balvin and another hermano, Hermano Moncada, came out to teach with us. We had a great lesson with a family that I love to death, and we all left smiling and filled with this mutual, indescribable feeling of happiness. It was cute and super Mormon. :) But as we were on the way home, Hermano Balvin asked me how I felt about having 8 months in the mission. I literally didn´t actually know how to respond, I was really tired (it was 8:45 and we were running back to our 

house) and I was thinking about lots of things. But the thing that came to my mind was somehting that had happened that morning (yesterday morning), and I´m going to share it with you guys really fast. 

Before church, we were in the bus on the way to pick up some investigators for church. We were making good time, but we saw an inactive member walking on the side of the road when we turned a corner. We met this guy about 4 days ago, and when we found him, he got really choked up as he talked about how he had also served a mission but left the church for "something". We don´t know the somehting yet, but he told us that he would go to church on Sunday, which really means that he wasn´t going to go to church on Sunday. So as we sat happily in the bus to our investigators house, I saw him walking on the side of the road. I jumped out of my seat and pressed the "I need to leave" button, and my companion and I hopped off the bus and sprinted down the street to go talk to this guy, David. We caught up to him, sweating and out of breath, and invited him to church. He was 

really surprised, and said he "would do all that was possible to come to church." It wasn´t very 

convincing, but that´s what he told us. He thanked us for the invitation, and walked away with a little smile on his face. Not a "Gotcha losers" smile, but a genuinley happy smile that we didn´t see when we first met him.

And so that´s what I told Hermano Balvin. That´s how I feel about my 8 months in the mission. That 

sometimes we do every thing we possibly can, sweating or sprinting or walking 2 miles or teaching every lesson possible and all we see at the end is that nothing has changed, or that the person still doesn´t care, or they don´t come to church, or whatever it may be. But at the end of the day, that´s what I am supposed to do as a missionary - give everything I am and all that I have so that maybe, MAYBE, one person will have the chance to recieve the gospel of Jesus Christ. So that through my selfless labor, God can reach out to one of His children and give them all that they´ve been waiting for.

The bad news is that I´m not perfect. I don´t do that perfectly everyday. But another good thing about my 8 months is that I have 10 more to learn how to do it better :)

I love you so much, and I pray for you always. Have a great week, I´ll talk to you soon!

All my love,

Hermana Michelle Scott

Trust in God

FAMILY! Hello! I hope you are well.

I am not going to lie, this week was really rough. I cried a lot actually. I don´t cry a ton, even as a missionary, but this week, I cried. I have been WAY too stressed out, worrying about silly things, and letting the sweet, simple moments pass me by. That happens sometimes to us as missionaries, and then afterwards, we see that all we really needed to do was step back and trust in God a little bit (or a LOT) more.

I am on a computer that is slightly broken, so I can´t connect my camera to send pictures. But I got a hair cut! Professionally done by my companion. And then I cut hers...a little bit less professionally. But it´s great, I feel free from the monster that lived on my head. And the good news is that I won´t have to use as much shampoo now...look at me, growing up and learning how to save money and stuff :)

The point of this breif email is that I learned that you really have to trust in God. He really is the only one who knows how do this thing we call "life." I am excited, my companion and I are going to be changing a lot of things this week and we are going to make a lot of things better and God will be with us the whole time.

I LOVE YOU, and I always pray for you. I hope you have a great week, and I will be talking to you soon!

All of my love,

Hermana Michelle Scott