Random and unexpected

Hello family! Holy cow, it´s already Halloween this week. We don´t have anything super interesting planned for Friday, but we´re going to find a way to combine Halloween with preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. It´s going to be a good time.

I have a little story that I wanted to share with you today. Yesterday was Sunday, and every Sunday morning we have ward council at 8. We left a little bit later than we should have yesterday, and we were walking towards the pension talking about if we should eat breakfast in their house or take it with us to ward council. We were really focused in our conversation, talking about the pros and cons of each choice, a little bit zombie-ish and walking really fast, not noticing the world as it passed by us. We stopped at the sister´s house, still debating what we should do, and in that exact moment a car comes speeding up right beside us, the guy slams on his brakes and jumps out of the car and says "WAIT!!!!! Where are you going?? I just wanted to ask you guys a question. Are you Mormon missionaries?" My companion and I looked at each other, a little confused, as if we had forgotten whether we were Mormon missionaries or not. We said yes, and he kept talking - "I see you walk by almost everyday, and I always want to stop and talk with you, but I never know what to say. But I saw you again today and thought that TODAY was the day. I just want to know if you can share your message with me." Our mouths were just hanging open, and again it looked like we didn´t know how to speak or something. It was so random, in a moment so unexpected for us, but we started talking to him about what we do as missionaries, and a little bit about the message we share. He said that he wanted to go to church and that he wanted to know God and the truth. I couldn´t help but think to myself, "Well, you´re talking to the right people." He ended up going to church later in the afternoon, and loved it.

Can you see how God is? He sends a whole bunch of weird, dorky kids out into the world to preach His gospel, and trusts us to do His work. The interesting thing, something that I say all the time, is that HE is the one who really does the work. We were just strolling along, worrying about our own little breakfast problem, and this man comes up to US, asking to know more about God. I am so thankful that God takes care of His children, and that He puts us as missionaries in the right place at the right time.

That´s just one of the many examples, one of the many experiences that we have daily that help us to remember that we´re here so that He can do His work. I love what I do. 

Lots of really cool things are happening here! We are meeting a lot of people, and we have so much faith in all of them. We´ll be seeing some great things here soon.

I love you all so much! I hope you have a great week! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

All my love,

Hermana Scott

God has given us everything!

Hello sweet family!

Today is a good day. All of the missionaries look happy today. P day is always a good time, it´s a beautiful sunny day, and we´re going to CIENEGUILLA!!! We´re going to go eat delicious food and play outside all day. Then right back to work, preaching the good ol´ Gospel. My favorite part :)

Yesterday, we had a family home evening with a super awesome family. We shared a video about God, our Heavenly Father (you should totally watch it - https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-01-002-earthly-father-heavenly-father?lang=eng ). This family is so special. The mom and the dad have an interesting story...the mom, Alicia, left the church for a little while. While she was not going to the church, she met her husband, and they started their family. Later, when their kids were bigger, she decided that she needed church in her life. She went back, and realized that she needed to get married to her "husband" in order to follow the law of chastity and everything. The problem is that the dad, Raul, is technically still married to another woman, because they never got divorced and she absolutely refuses to sign paperwork to end the marriage. Imagine that, literally almost 30 years and that woman lives with so much hate. So they´ve never been able to get married. Raul goes to church every Sunday, and has read the Book of Mormon and the Bible multiple times. He knows the church is true, but because of this situation he can´t get baptized. It´s so frustrating, and he really beats himself up about it. The cool thing though is that they have raised their two sons in the gospel. Their oldest son has already served a mission, and their other son just sent in his mission papers yesterday, so that means that in 3ish weeks he´ll be getting his mission call! It kills me that Hermano Raul can´t get baptized, but I admire so much his faithfulness and the way he teaches his kids. SO, the family home evening. We talked about God. God the Father, OUR Father. I thought about my own father, and how much I love him (that´s you, daddy), and how much he loves me. I saw Hermano Raul as he teared up talking about how much he loves his kids, and I realized that that´s how it is with our Heavenly Father. But He loves us with a PERFECT, unfailing love. He knows us, and He listens to us. He wants us to succeed, and He wants every good thing for us. Like it says in the Book of Mormon, "in the gift of his Son hath God prepared a more excellent way; and it is by faith that is has been fulfilled." Why is God so amazing? I don´t know. But I do know that He has given us everything. I love Him so much for that.

I hope you have a wonderful week, and that you can see all that God has given us. Remember Him this week. 

I love you so much! Talk to you soon!

All my love,

Hermana Michelle Scott

Today the sun is shining!

HI! How´s it going? Today the sun is shining and I feel super happy. How are you? I hope you´ve had a great week!

So I forgot to tell you last week, but Peru was the only country in the whole world that didn´t see General Conference last weekend. There were elections on Sunday, and the law here says that no one can have a religious meeting. We didn´t even go to church last week! Super weird, right? So we finally got to see the conference yesterday and Saturday. And let me just say, IT WAS AMAZING. I absolutely LOVED it! For the first time here in Perú, I got to watch it in English! Even though I understand Spanish, there´s something special about hearing it in your own language, and hearing the real voices of the people as they speak. I was smiling all weekend long. I love Mormons! Seriously, we are slightly different, but I can´t help but feel so blessed to be one of them.

Well, we have found lots of new people this week. 2 younger guys, 17 and 25 years old. The 25 year old didn´t seem SUPER interested in our message, but his younger brother sure did. He asked us about 300 questions and listened really intently as we explained everything. We talked about the Book of Mormon, and he was super excited to read it. Another teenager, 19 years old, went to the conference yesterday, and he really loved it! He started talking to some of the elders, and they asked him "So when are you getting baptized?" That freaked him out a little bit, but he laughed about it and looked super happy. We also taught Hermana Maria Julia again, and her daughter. Her daughter is progressing really well! She had a ton of questions about the purpose of this life, and we taught her all about the plan of Salvation. We met another lady that used to reject us every time we knocked her door, but she finally let us in, and we all felt the Spirit as we were able to talk about God´s restored church.

There are so many people that need to hear this message! Every day it blows my mind how many people are searching for the truth; how many people just want answers to their questions. I am so blessed to have the answers, to be sure that God is in charge and that He will take care of me. Because there are so many people in this world that don´t feel that. But don´t worry, we´re telling everyone we can about Him. They´ll understand someday.

Have a wonderful week! I love you so much! Talk to you all soon!

all my love,

Hermana Scott

Because of Him

Hello family! How´s it goin´? I hope you are all doing well! Today is going to be a great day for la Zona La Molina. We´re going to go climb a HILL! WOOOO! Can you believe it???

Sometimes our P-days are kind of lame.There´s not a ton of stuff to do here, but we always manage to have a good time. 

So this week has been absolutely amazing! My companion is the best. I literally feel like we´re just best pals. We laugh all the time, and we just have so much fun. We´ve been working really hard and we´ve been super tired the past few days. Everything´s funnier and more fun when we´re tired. Honestly, I haven´t laughed so much or so hard in so long.

The cool part about that, is that along with all of the goofy, happy moments, we´ve had so many moments of complete awe this week, when we have felt the Spirit so strongly, and felt that the Lord was literally right beside us.

I just finished writing my mission president, and I´m going to send you part of what I wrote him, because it´s part of what I wanted to tell you too: 

President! Buenos días!

I hope you are doing well. I am going to write you in English today.

This week has been amazing! It has been so full of beautiful experiences. I have felt the Spirit everyday, and I have felt so much love for the people here. My companion and I are like best buds, and that really helps. We laugh a lot and are growing and learning a lot as well. 
The other day, the same day that we went to the temple with Hermana Maribel, she took us to her friend´s house so that we could teach her. President, in my whole mission, I have never met a person that was as ready as she was to receive the gospel. Her name is Maria Julia, and she has lived such a rough life. She has 3 kids - 2 daughters and 1 son. Her son (Flavio) has down´s syndrome and is SO COOL! We love him. A few years ago, her husband left them all, and went off with one of Maria Julia´s cousins, who was also already married with a family. When he left, it left Flavio heartbroken and completely scarred. He used to be a happy kid, who ran around and played and danced and loved life, but when his dad left him, even with his severe mental disability, he understood that his dad wasn´t coming back and it left him with severe depression. He started trying to kill himself, and sat in the same spot on the same couch day after day, not wanting to move or eat or do anything. No one could leave him alone, because if he was alone he tried to take his own life. The interesting thing is that when the dad found out about his son, they all realized that he had to return to the house. So even after all that happened, Maria Julia had to accept him in her house again so that her son could be okay. Now, things are better, but Flavio still has serious depression and still tries to hurt himself. The whole day, he just sits on a big couch, waiting for his dad to come home. He doesn´t get up to eat or go to the bathroom, he doesn´t talk, he just listens to the same music over and over again, and when he dad gets home, he finally stands up, goes to a different room, goes to the bathroom, and gets ready for bed and everything. He lives an empty life, just going through the motions. These are the things that Maria Julia told us....that night, when we met her, we also met Flavio. He didn´t want anything to do with us. We were trying to talk to his mom and sister (also named Maria Julia), and he was just spitting all over us and trying to kick us in the face. It was kind of funny, but it really made me sad, because he obviously still has some of those feelings, even though his dad is there now. He doesn´t know how to accept people or adjust to new situations. We went back again to visit her a few days later, and Flavio recognized us. He didn´t spit at us as much, and it seemed like he was a little bit more comfortable with us. Hermana Maria Julia was telling us about how her biggest problem was being able to forgive her husband for all that he had done. He has never really asked for forgiveness, he basically just came back because he had to. She said that she couldn´t feel happiness or joy, because all she feels is hate. She talked about how she, too, feels like she just goes through the motions, living a life without purpose. We talked about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, about repentance, and forgiveness. She understood the need to RECEIVE forgiveness, as well as the need to GIVE it. She also talked about how she realized she needed to do something different to help Flavio. We talked about the priesthood, and about how someone could come and give her and her family a blessing of health and comfort. She was so excited, and the next day we went with the bishop. President, I can´t even explain to you how amazing that lesson was! We had no idea beforehand, but the bishop also has a brother who has down´s syndrome. He knew exactly what to do to win Flavio´s love. He was laughing and smiling and singing and talking! The bishop gave Maria Julia and Flavio blessings, and I´ll never forget the moment when he said in the blessing "I bless you to be calm and to be able to feel your mother´s love," Flavio got really quiet, and sat still for the rest of the blessing, listening. It was incredible. Everything changed in that moment. When he finished the blessing, Hermana Maria Julia was so happy, a little choked up with tears in her eyes, and the power of the Spirit was undeniable. We feel like this family has just been waiting to receive the gospel. 

I really don´t understand the Lord sometimes. There are some things that happen, and I find myself looking heaven-ward thinking, "What´s this supposed to mean?" But I feel like He always helps me to understand. He´s always there, and in this time of my life, I get to feel the guidance of His Spirit in every moment. We are so blessed as missionaries, there is no one as blessed as us. We get to teach the truth every day.

We don´t know what will happen with Maria Julia and her family, but we know that God has put us in their lives for a reason, and we are going to do all we can to help them accept the Gospel in their lives.

We are so excited to keep teaching them! I´ll keep you posted on what happens with them in the next few weeks.

Something really strange/scary happened to us yesterday. We were walking to a lesson, and we saw a girl running across the street, but something was obviously wrong with her. Her body moved like a puppet, and she looked crazed. We decided to go to see if we could help her, and as we were jogging to catch up with her, she fell flat on her face and scraped up her knees. We caught up to her, and noticed that she had an empty bottle of wine in her hand and was super drunk. It was kind of scary, because her eyes were blurry and she had this blank stare on her face. We were trying to get her to tell us where she lived, but she was completely incoherent.(that's a word, right?) She just started walking, so we followed her. She was telling us about all of the horrible things that she had been doing the night before, and it made me think that she was a prostitute, or that someone had convinced her to do all of the things she was doing. She actually offered that "service" to us,and tried to lay a big fat kiss on my companion. It was so strange, and we were super freaked out. She stopped at a house, and tried to open the door, but she couldn´t do it because of the state she was in. We tried opening the door for her, but none of the keys worked, so we thought she didn´t live there and were about to call the police. But thank the heavens,someone who lived in the house passed by right in that moment, and told us that she lived in the house, but she always forgot her keys. So they let her in, and she walked up to her room, and they told us that they were going to take care of her. That moment left me a little freaked out, but as we walked to the lesson, my companion and I started talking about it. I kept thinking "Why her? Why do such horrible things have to happen in this world?" But all of a sudden I felt the Spirit so strongly that I wanted to cry. I looked over at my companion, and she had the same look on her face, and she smiled and said "She´s going to get baptized."

Miracles happen! God leads us to where we need to go. We don´t need to doubt Him, we literally just need to trust in Him. There are so many people that need Him. I feel so blessed to be able to talk about Him, His Son, and their church every day of my life. 

I hope you have a wonderful week. I love you so much, you don´t even know! 

Also, this video changed my life this week. You have to watch it,and remember that all we have and all we are is because of him.

https://www.lds.org/church/news/church-to-launch-because-of-him-easter-initiative?lang=eng

All my love,

Hermana Scott

Transferred to Las Viñas!

¡HOLA! How are you, my dear familia? Today is a sunny day here in Lima. We´re getting ready for the heat!

Well, this week was transfers. I always feel like they´re never going to come, that I´ll just get to stay in the same area forever, but that´s just not how it works. Once again I had to say goodbye to so many amazing people that I love so much. But I´m happy here in my new area. It´s called "Las Viñas." It´s part of the La Molina stake, and I was in this stake before when I was in Cieneguilla. So the church buildings where we go for our meetings and P days is the same building that I used to go to! That´s pretty fun. I´m sure I´ll get to see lots of familiar faces during General Conference :)

I have two thoughts for today. One, thinking about how much changes stink sometimes, and how difficult they can be. I was talking to one of the sisters that I live with now, and she said that she always tries to look at the transfers as little snippets of what it will be like in the real world. Changes happen in our lives; big ones and small ones. And we have to be ready to go down the path that God lays out for us with faith. 

Being converted to the gospel also requires a lot of change. Like it says in the Bible Dictionary about conversion, "Denotes changing one’s views, in a conscious acceptance of the will of God. If followed by continued faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism in water for the remission of sins, and the reception of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, conversion will become complete and will change a natural man into a sanctified, born again, purified person—a new creature in Christ Jesus. Complete conversion comes after many trials and much testing." We must be willing to make these changes to one day be perfected in Him.

Another thought I had is just this...I´M STILL HAPPY! Even though it literally breaks my heart having to leave an area, I have come to love this work, and I know that wherever I am, I need to keep doing it. My area is really different, the people are rich and the streets are dead (complete opposite of Canadá) but it´s beautiful and we´ve got lots of work to do. We live with two other sisters...that´s just dangerous. We laugh a lot and don´t get enough sleep. :)

I´m excited for spring and for summer to be here, but I hope you're enjoy the beginning of fall! OH, by the way, I have another companion from Argentina!!! She is the bomb and we get along SO well. We´re basically just best buds already. Her name is Hermana Tacconi...I promise I´ll send pictures soon!!

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

All my love,

Hermana Michelle eh-Scott

Charity is the pure love of Christ

Hello sweet family!

I hope you are doing well. Thank you for the emails and the fun stories. It sounds like all is well!

This week something crazy happened. Crazy is the only word that I can think of to explain it.

On Friday night, my companion and I got back to our room, and right as we walked in the Elders called us to ask us a few questions. I sat down at my desk and was talking to them, and my companion lay down on her bed. I think I was talking to them for like 6 minutes, on speaker phone so that my companion could hear too. But when I hung up I looked over at her and she was sleeping. Six minutes! I was amazed at how fast she fell asleep, I didn´t realize she was so tired. She had mentioned it during the day that she was abnormally tired, but she kept working as normal. I tried waking her up, but she was super duper asleep. I got a little irritated actually, because every night we always plan for the next day, and it´s not an optional thing. So I decided to just leave her alone for a minute, and I started to get ready for bed and stuff. At 10-ish, I tried waking her up again. I was literally screaming her name and shaking her whole body, but she would not wake up! I was legitimately angry at this point, and I just thought to myself, "Whatever, you can just do whatever you want." I´m so dumb and immature sometimes. So at 10:30, bed time for all missionaries, I prayed, tried to wake her up one more time (with no luck) and went to bed. Literally the second my head hit the pillow, I felt so strongly in my heart that something was not right and I heard in my mind, "Go take care of your companion!" I jumped off my bed and turned on the light and saw that my companion was convulsing. Her whole body was shaking and her eyes were rolled back in her head. It was probably one of the scariest things I´ve ever seen. I don´t know how I managed to keep calm because I was so freaked out. I called our leaders, they called the mission president, and they all came to our room to take her to the hospital. When the elders saw my companion, they freaked out a little bit too. The President came, and they carried her out to his car and we went to the hospital. We got there at 12:30ish. Basically, it wasn´t as serious as it looked. She´s been taking a medication that apparently doesn´t work right, and it made her body enter into shock. I don´t know what the doctors did to get her out of it, but it wasn´t that huge of a process, thankfully. When she woke up, she was so confused. I felt so bad! Imagine that, just waking up in the hospital and not remembering anything. By the time we got out of there, it was so late that we had to sleep in the president´s house because our area was too far away. The next day we woke up after getting about 3 hours of sleep, and just laughed. It was such a strange, sweet, and funny moment.

My companion is okay! Don´t worry. This week and especially the past few days, we´ve talked a lot about all of the things we´ve learned together; all of the moments that have taught us so much. We´ve seen a lot of amazing things together and had quite a few bumps in the road. But that day, I really felt that God is always taking care of us. Who knows what would have happened if I had ignored that impression and let my tiredness win me over. I think I´m still paying the price of getting so little sleep, but obviously it had to be that way. 

This experience helped me to understand the importance of the little things that happen in our lives (in the midst of the big things). Loving my companion, for one. Second, being able to listen to and respond to the prompting I received that night. 

There is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that I really love. It´s in Moroni 7. It´s really well known, but it says everything that I´ve felt these past few days:

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—

But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.

Interesting how it says that if we don´t have charity, WE ARE NOTHING. We really have to learn how to love all people, despite their flaws. It´s something that I´m learning, and trying to master. 

We must be like Jesus Christ! We must learn to love as He loves. And also, don´t take medication that has crazy side effects :) Be willing to listen to the Spirit, and follow what He says. 

I love you so much! Have a great week!

All my love,

Hermana Scott

I get to see miracles everyday!!

HI FAMILY!

When I write in capital letters, it´s because I´m excited. HI FAMILY! I´m excited to talk to you today! 

I hope you´ve all had a great week. I have had a wonderful week. Today is September 15. Can you believe that? I literally can´t. I feel like just yesterday I was writing you!

I want to tell you about something amazing that happened this week. I talk a lot about Nancy, Roberto, and Jesus. Probably because they´re the best and I love them too much. But this week, we had a lesson with them, and Jesus finally opened his heart up to us. Just a little bit. He said that he knows that to be happy in this life, he needs to get baptized and follow God. Those were his exact words! He is only 13 years old, but he really understands. His problem is that he doesn´t want to yet. His mom told us that he really looks for affection and love from his dad, but his dad never gives it to him. His dad is schizophrenic (I think I told you that already) and he never even talks to his children, let alone show them love. But Jesus really loves to see his dad. Who doesn´t love to see their dad? It makes sense to me that he wants to be with his dad, but it absolutely breaks my heart because he´s not going to find what he wants; what he needs. But the fact that he understands that he can find that happiness by following Jesus Christ gives me hope. I have so much hope for him.

After the lesson, we talked to Hermana Nancy for a minute and she told us that her other son, Raphael, mentioned that he wanted to go to church on Sunday. I was so excited (a little TOO excited)! Since the beginning of June, we´ve been trying to talk to Raphael. He´s 17 years old and already has a drug problem, and really no one in his family cares about him. He lives with his dad, and no one even cares at what hour he leaves the house, when he comes home, if he eats or not, if he goes to school or not. It´s so sad. But Hermana Nancy told us he wanted to go to church, and I cried because I was so happy! We went to go look for him, but as always, he wasn´t home. We tried looking for him all day long, in the streets, in the parks, but we didn´t see him. This was on Saturday. I was a little bummed because I wanted to invite him personally to church, and offer to go pick him if he wanted. As we were finishing the day, heading back to our house, literally 20 feet away from our door, WE SAW RAPHAEL IN THE STREET. I had to try really hard to contain my excitement. I was saying in my head "Act natural, act natural..." because I didn´t want to scare him. We invited him to church, and he said "maybe". That was enough for me. That night, we just prayed and prayed and prayed that he would go.

The next day, he went to church.

And his brother Roberto, now Mormon and super faithful, went and picked him up and brought him to the church.

There are moments in the mission that I just can´t explain correctly. I don´t know how to make you feel what I feel; to understand the happiness and love and excitement that I feel. It´s indescribable. It´s something that just lives inside of me everyday. Seeing people come to know God and his Son Jesus Christ is the most amazing thing I´ve ever experienced. I am so lucky. I get to see miracles everyday!!!!!! 

I know I´ve already mentioned this scripture before, but I´m going to mention it again: (Alma 26:36-37) "...this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption from everlasting wo. Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people... yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land. Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen."

That scripture just brings tears to my eyes. This is my life. And I love it. 

I love you all so much! Daniel, I´m happy to hear you got to go home this weekend. I hope you all have a great week, and enjoy the color change of the leaves! It´s finally starting to get warm here, I´m loving the sun and I´m excited to start wearing my sunscreen again. :) I love you so much! 

All my love,

Sister Scott