We just follow Him and He does it all

Hey there family! I hope you had a great week, I love, LOVE the picture from graduation. Seriously, it makes me feel slightly weird but at the same time I love it and I am really happy that I could kind of be there to support the big stud on his big day :) Thank you family, for being weird enough to bring a giant cardboard picture of me to a large public gathering. If that´s not love, I don´t know what is.

I´m writing you today from my new area, Canadá en San Luis, Lima, Perú! It happened, transfers came. It´s been a little rough this week, I really do honestly miss Cieneguilla like crazy. I cried a lot the first few days, during breakfast, during lunch, during dinner. Sometimes during planning at night. In the bathroom. The good news is that I´m not a super dramatic crier. Just a few tears that come from the soul, as I like to say. But I think that I´ve cried enough, and the truth is I really like my new area. I just have to learn to love it just as much as I love Cieneguilla. 

My new companion is really great. Her name is Hermana Arratia, from Bolivia. These days, she´s been really supportive when I´ve been a little sad about leaving Cieneguilla. She was originally called to serve in Venezuela, but she had to wait for her visa so she started in Bolivia. Four days before Christmas, they sent her to Venezuela, and just 2 months ago she came to Peru because the situation is really bad in Venezuela. So all of her transfers have been a little bit more intense. She is really great, and she teaches really well. We get along really well...we´re really different, but it´s okay. It´s working out well for now.

Something really cool happened the other day. We were walking to an appointment, and a guy stopped us in the street and told me he had a Bible that he wanted to give me because it was in English and he didn´t know how to read it. It made me laugh at first, I thought "How do they ALWAYS know I speak English?" but he went into his store to look for the Bible and we waited for him outside. When he came out, I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, because it was a Book of Mormon!!! I couldn´t stop smiling. He said, "I really want to read it but I don´t know how, so when you passed by I thought you might like to read it." It was just one of the sweetest moments of my life. We talked to this man about the Book of Mormon, told him that we were going to send missionaries to his house, and gave him a Libro de Mormon that he can actually understand. It´s pretty amazing how God works. I always say we don´t do anything; we just follow Him and He does it all.

I want you to know that I am really happy, I love being a missionary, and I love you so much. I hope you have a great week, know that I love you and I will be talking to you soon!

ALL of my love,

Hermana Michelle Scott

Feeling the love

HI!!

I don´t have much time left. But I just wanted to tell you something sweet. Yesterday, since it was my last Sunday in Cieneguilla, the bishop asked me to go up and share my testimony and the end of the reunion. I am a little bit of a mush ball, but I didn´t cry. But when I was up there, I felt so much love. I felt this genuine love for the people of Cieneguilla, and a huge, undeniable love for and from my God.

I´m going to know tonight about the transfers, so next week I´ll tell you all about what happens!

I love you so much! Have a great week and I´ll talk to you soon!!!

All of my love,

Hermana Scott

The blessings of Skype

Hello family!!! It was so great to see your sweet faces yesterday. I am sorry that the connection was so bad, but it was okay because we still got to talk and I got to see you. Thank you all for being there to share that sweet little moment :) Hermana and Hermano Balvin and my companion all loved being able to meet you! They said that you were all very nice and "lindos" which means cute. So that´s a nice compliment! I think you´re all cute too. Except that weird creepy card board cut out of me is definitely less cute. But that´s okay.

So since I just saw you yesterday I feel like there´s not much to say. But I wanted to tell you a little story about my companion. After I hung up with you guys, my companion called her family. My companion is so sweet, and from what she says about her family I´ve just assumed this whole time that they were all sweet. And it´s true! She introduced me to her family, (it was a little bit easier for me because I actually speak Spanish) and they were SO excited. Her mom started crying and kept saying "Thank you for taking care of my daughter," and her sister said the same thing "Thank you for taking care of her". Her dad didn´t say much (he made me think of you, daddy) but he also told me thank you. Her sister also said to tell you Congratulations mother for getting baptized!! It was so sweet to think that my companion had told her family about that, and when I met them over a little skype phone call, they expressed so much love for something that I sometimes think is so simple. For example, whether I love my companion or not, I have to be with her all the time. If I´m "taking care of her" it´s because we literally have no other choice. Now the good thing about that is that I really do love my companion, and I TRY to take care of her, but it´s something that her family sees in a very different way. It was really interesting, and it was honestly really touching.

As she was finishing her phone call, she talked directly to her dad for a minute. Her dad is a member of the church, but hasn´t gone in years. He didn´t want her to go on a mission, but told her that he always knew she was going to and that he would support her. As she was talking to him, she asked him really bluntly if he was going to church, even though she already knew the answer was no. She said "Papi, if you want to understand what it is that I do here, if you want to know why we love it so much, and if you want to be with us forever, you have to go to church." Then she bore her testimony about all of what she believes in, and they all cried, I think that her dad cried the most of all of them. 

I know that you know that I love you guys. I know that I´ve always been a weird, loud person that "eats a lot," like Hermano Balvin said last night. But seeing you and talking to you yesterday made me realize that I love you so much that there´s nothing else that I could possibly do to show it than to be out here on a mission. Being here, teaching about what I believe to people I don´t know everyday, is how I´m showing you that I love you. Because this really is the truth. God isn´t just a good idea that some caveman made up - He created us and put us here in the world so that we can know him and be genuinely happy in our lives. The Bible teaches us about Jesus Christ, and talks of a "restoration of all things" - the Book of Mormon is the evidence of that restoration, and also of the love of God for His children. I know that the things that I teach everyday are true. I know that Jesus Christ came to this world filled with pain, sicknesses, and sadness to save us and show us the way to live with Him and the Father forever, as FAMILIES.

I love you all so much, and all the skype phone calls in the world could never express it. 

ALL of my amor,

Hermana Michelle Christine Scott

Faith is a principle of action

Hello family! Today is pretty chilly and super duper cloudy. I haven´t said "super duper" in a really long time, but it feels good. I´m sure it´s beautiful up there in the northern hemisphere. Enjoy that sunshine!

This week has been really interesting. We ran out of money completely on Tuesday, so we didn´t have a way to take the bus. Considering the fact that the farthest part of our area is 30 minutes away in the bus, we knew it was going to be a fun day of walking. It was fun in the end, we took a secret path to one of our favorite little pueblos, and I felt like I was on a secret adventure. 

I wanted to share a cool experience with you guys. We walk in the streets all the time, and when we see people walk by, we normally talk to them and invite them to church.  A few weeks ago, we met a guy who has been inactive for 6 years and is from a city that´s really far away. He´s here in Cieneguilla working and lives here with his girlfriend. His whole family are members of the church, and his mom was a missionary, so his whole life he was really involved in the church. At one point, he was preparing to leave on the mission but he started working and just kind of ditched it all. We wrote down his address and told him we were going to visit him, and yeah...we visited him. From the very first lesson we had with them, it has been so cool. They just listen so intensely to what we say and soak it all up. The girlfriend´s name is Maria, and she LOVES reading the Book of Mormon and always waits for us. Even if we come like 4 minutes late, she says "Where have you been?!?? I´ve been waiting for you guys to come!!" It´s so great and we love teaching them. But they´ve never come to church!!! We always invite them to go, and they always tell us they´re going to go, but Sunday comes, we wait for them, and they don´t show up. That´s our fault, because we should know better than to say "YEAH all of our investigators are going to go to church!!!" So yesterday we went and picked them up at their house in our really fancy 4 wheel drive car, and we all went to church. Yesterday was the meeting when we have the chance to share our testimonies, and during one of the classes Maria stood up and shared hers. It was the sweetest moment, she talked about how she knew that the church is true and that she´s never felt like this in her life. She said also that she wants all of her family to know about it someday, and she wants to be the example for them to be able to follow. My companion and I knew that she loved the Book of Mormon and loved our lessons, but we hadn´t heard her say that before. Going to church on Sunday is a commandment, and when they went to church yesterday, they were LIVING the gospel by obeying more completely the commandments.

That´s the difference, right? We can believe something, or think it´s great, but if we don´t LIVE it, we´ll never be able to be sure. That´s why we teach that we need to go to church and read the scriptures, that´s why we need to keep the commandments and pray everyday. The 100% certainty comes with ACTION - that´s why we hear that faith is a principle of action. Our faith is shown by how we act, what we do, and the decisions we make.

I am so excited to see your faces on Sunday! I don´t think I was really clear in my last email what all was going to happen this week, but on Friday, or 4 days from now, we´re going to the temple, and we get to spend the whole day with our mission President since he is finishing soon. It´ll be the best! Then I´ll be calling you on Sunday!!! 5:00 here, so 4:00 there, right? Anyway, I hope you have a great week! I miss you all but I am really happy, things are going well out here in Cieneguilla.

I love you! SEE you soon!

All my love,

Hermana Michelle Scott

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