Monday, June 23, 2014

Lots of pictures

So I don't have much time today, but I hope that you all enjoy the pictures from the past week and this week as well!


This week was special because we had training with another zone with the Mission President. This is where we had to present our memorization of the plan of salvation lesson. We BLEW IT out of the water! (Helps when your companion is a theater major and is used to memorizing long scripts of stuff :) ) We learned a lot about the importance of commitments and how we are changing the focus of our work here in Peru. Other than that, things were normal, we had more people in our English class... and nothing really new to report! Enjoy the photos!

Amor de

Hermana Bowers

My first English class....
Hermana Gludehill and Elder Aoki and I during the combat activity


All of us at our bar b q & p-day and movie!


                                       My companion and I with a head we found in the secretaries office


                                Now the front. our jerseys say MPLN (Mission Peru Lima Norte)


                                               The children playing the cup games in our activity


                                                           The zone! well most of it


Some Elders from my zone with me at the first stake center ever made in Peru, where we got to hear from
Elder oaks


                                                           The baptism of Estephano!


                                                          The baptism of Estephano!


Elder Peterson and I, he is home in China right now- seeing and hugging his family, and we couldn't be happier (that he's happy, not the fact that hes gone)


                              The soccer court between our two capillas where we had the activity



                                     All of us as and the zone to say good by to good ole Pete!



                           All of us at the breakfast we had as a zone to say goodbye to our zone leader


                                              Kevin, our recent convert at the activity with us!

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

So yesterday I hit the 5 month mark! Its been a good 5 months full of a lot of hard work and learning, and I'm going to try and make the best out of the 13 more months that I have here in Peru.

To begin we had our first english classe this week... and nobody showed up. In fact we were locked out of the chapel till about 7:20, and then finally at 7:40ish one person wandered in the church and we ended up giving him a private lesson about infinitive verbs in English and Spanish. Here is hoping that this next week will be a bit better.

So our service project fell through but our Combat activity on Friday was fun. Hardly anyone from our Ward showed up, but we made the best out of the games and people that we had, and our zone leaders were able to make it really fun. we made polo or jerseys as a zone and they look pretty legit! Pictures hopefully next week (this week my computers USB ports don't work)

Then on Saturday we had the amazing opportunity to travel to central Lima and hear from Elder Oaks. the whole mission met in the first stake center ever built in Peru, and we heard from two of the 70, Crow and... oooo can't remember his name right now, their wives and then finally Sister and Elder Oaks.

I could go on and on about our meeting with Oaks, but now I can say that I have shaken hands with an apostle of the Lord. How AMAZING is that? Also I had to freaking pray IN FRONT of an apostle, IN A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE. I was freaking out when we were singing the opening hymn and just praying for heavenly father to not let me make a fool of myself. that was when the thought of the widows mite came into my mind, and well as long as I was giving all that I had-- I knew that that would be good enough and accepted by the lord. So after the song, I got up did my thing and sat back down. The part that startled me was when I could hear the translator lady through the earphones of Elder and Sister Oaks translating what I was saying... That's when I got panicky and quickly closed my prayer. But as is well, I did it!

The voice of Oaks is something in itself. One time he amened after everyone else after a talk, and his amen was a booming thing that clamored through the hall and echoed of something eternal and final. I was fortunate enough to sit in the front row right in front of the pulpit! sure I had to look through the flowers a little bit of the arrangement that was in front of the podium, but I don't know how much closer you can get to an apostle than that! It was just a really cool experience, I learned some really awesome principles.

And then after Oaks was the baptism of Estephano, a 13 year old youth who now after yesterday has the gift of the holy ghost! I'm really surprised that the baptism of Estphano went as smoothly as it did. Its nearly impossible to find this kid and we still had to teach him about the law of chastity, word of wisdom, and day of rest before his baptism. and we had 4 hours to try and find him, teach him, and get him to come to his interview so he could be baptized.

BUT with the stress mounting and the clock ticking, all came out well, his grandma and aunt, who aren't members, came to the baptism. He bore his testimony after being baptized, he thanked Hermana Osignaga and me personally by name for teaching him, and that about melted my heart. this is the first baptism that, for once, I felt that I actually did something. I only know that from here on out with the more Spanish I can understand and speak i'll able to have a great part in helping and teaching people and my joy will be even more full.

Ha ha a funny thing that did happen at the baptism, is that Hermano Rodriguez forgot to bring another white shirt to use after the baptism, so he didn't have a shirt to wear! he only had his garment shirt and his suit jacket, so at the end of the baptism when he was giving Estephano the welcome to the ward talk (Hrno Rodriguez is the 1st counselor in the ward) he was all huddled in his jacket, clutching the collar to not expose himself. It was a sight and he walked into the room while we were singing a hymn and we all couldn't help but laugh and laugh. Poor fellow, but hes a good sport so it's all good.

So thats it for this week! Thanks for checking in on me and hope all is going well on that side of the equator!

Mucho amor de
Hermana Bowers

Monday, June 9, 2014



So this week has been awesome, and full of progress, and let me tell you, nothing is more beautiful to a missionary than that!

The first awesome thing, is that we got permission to baptize a young kid whose been coming to church with a member friend. We´ve been teaching him, and talked with his grandma, and FINALLY she saw the light and signed his permission form (hes 13). So this Saturday we have his baptism!!! We have to finish teaching him the lessons and get his interviews and all that jazz done still, but this Saturday we´ll have a baptism again! Whoo!

Second is that we made great progress with one of our investigators. We´ve been teaching her and she has such a strong testimony of the book of Mormon, but has to move out or get married to get baptized. One day we were teaching her, and in walked the boyfriend (up to this point we still hadn't met him and knew that he didn't really like that we were teaching our investigator). However we were able to finally meet him, talk to him a little bit and talk to him about letting our investigator come to church. We invited him to come as well.. and lo and behold, halfway through my class about the apostasy my companion gets a call, dashes out into the hallway and brings in the investigator and her boy friend! We have a noche de hogar this night where were going to watch the testaments, and they'd said they'd come! So were really excited to get to know and share the gospel with this couple and we´ll see where things go.

Also we´re teaching a lawyer, (lawyer by day and a skater guy by night) and he accepted a goal to be baptized later this month. Well because of his occupation, he is the type of guy that wants to investigate every point of the lesson and debate and discuss them for hours, but we have been seeing great progress in him and his willingness to even accept the idea of baptism is really great!

Fourthly, this week I had a vista de trabajo, or I think they are called exchanges in English. We have sister trainers that help us out and check up on us to make sure were following the rules and doing OK, and my companion went to their area, and one of them came to stay with me in my area. I was really stressed out at first because it meant that I had to be the lead and plan which investigators we had to teach, and what message and the whole sha-bang, but it turned out to be a really neat experience. ALL of our appointments that we had planned fell through or were canceled by the investigators, so we were wandering around trying different people four almost 2 hours! This is like worst case scenario, but Hermana Brigance, a gringa from Missouri, was such a pleasure to be with that we were talking (finally in English) laughing and having a grand o time. She is such a bright light and even though we had a terrible day by all means, I was humming and laughing at the end.

So this next week is going to be awesome as well because we have fun activities planned almost EVERY day!

Tomorrow will be the first day of our English Classes. We got it all set up with the bishop and made fliers and have copies of worksheets from my companions English book for the people that come. I'm nervous because I have never taught an English class before, but you never know until you try right so were just going to do it!

Wednesday we have a cool serve project planned with the zone, which is awesome because we never get to do service, so I'm stoked for that.

Friday we have another missionary zone activity where we'll be playing games from a show named combat. Its where well race through obstacle courses and playing min to win it games to see which ward in the stake is the champion of the world!

And Saturday... Saturday we have training from none other than DALLIN H OAKS!!!!!! Yes an apostle of the Lord will be in Lima Peru this week, and we get to come and listen to his voice! I was asked to give the opening prayer to the meeting... IN SPANISH!!!!!!!!!!! I'm admittedly nervous but I'm just hoping that I get to shake his hand. If i can say that I have shaken an apostle's hand, I can die happy lol. And then after the training we'll have the baptism of the young man were teaching, so fingers crossed that it all works out!

Well much love from Peru!


Hermana Bowers