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

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