Another Awesome Week in Peru

WHOOO so this week was AWESOME!

Grandma- she always calls me Barbie

Me and Elsa and Nelle

First off we finally finally FINALLY got Dalila in the waters of baptism, and after yesterday she has received the gift of the Holy Ghost. We bumped into her on the street this morning as we were running around doing errands and she couldn't stop telling us how happy she was. She's a special one that girl! Her boyfriend, whose agreed to her baptism, support her in keeping the law of chastity and her moving out of her house assisted both the baptism and the confirmation. We hope to be able to teach and progress with him someday!

The Mission President and Delila

The Group at the baptism

 

Delila & her boy friend

The Rodriguez

Also, the same Saturday, but early in the morning, we had the apollada de Nancy and Jhonatan (yes that is how you spell it) to raise money for their wedding. We were running around all week trying to get the members to either donate food to help out or buy a plate of chicken to support the pollada and the night before we were really worried if we would come out with a profit. BUT the lord has his hand in all things and not only did we come out with a profit, but just barley enough to pay for the expenses of the wedding! Me and my companion were rejoicing and doing a lot of praying of thanks for our loving Heavenly Father who helped us, help this couple to take one more step to put their life in order. So we don't have a wedding date just yet for them, were working with Jhonathan to overcome a few things, but when we can were going to save the date and finally finally get this family married, and eventually baptized as well! It was really amazing how the whole family of Nancy and Jhonatan help cook and prepare, even though they have thier own religion and beliefs.

Making Chicken for the wedding

Ward members helping with the chicken

              

The only bitter sweet thing of this all is that today is the day of cambios. I´ll find out after internet if I have a change but its 99.9% sure that this is my last two days in Violetas! But you never know. I have six months now in this area, but there are stories of people who have had up to 9 months in one area, so yea I guess you all will find out next week! Also coming up this week we have a Multi zone meeting and a test on the memorization of lesson 1... which well I don't have memorized so this is going to be a little bit of a disaster, but you just keep rolling on no?

Investigator on date for the 23rd 

Thank you so much for your loving support and keep up the work in your own wards! Visiting and Home teaching is SOOO important to sustain a ward and us missionaries are SO HAPPY when you members do you visiting teaching

Miguel who came to buy some chicken

         

Helping out at the Hamburger store

mucho amor
Hermana Bowers

Making cookies for the Latino's

                 

There is a Point to Scripture Reading

So this week I have seen the blessing of fasting and the church in action. Elsa, one of our investigators that we´re working with to be baptized the 23rd of August, had to make some tough choices and leave an abusive boyfriend. They´re still talking and apparently he tries to visit with her, but were working with her to try and put an end to the terror and pain he has inflicted on her and her family. The thing is that she is trying to finish up high school and has no means of work or how to support herself. So we talked to her and she agreed to try and talk to the bishop. At first she absolutely did not want to, but we helped her overcome her fear and ask for help. The bishop then explained what the church can do, and with the help of relief society Elsa can go and buy food for a little while until she can secure work and become independent. This was fast offerings in action, and it was so great to see the end result, and how the charity of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being put to use.

I was also studying in Jesus The Christ about how Jesus fasted for 40 days before he started his ministry. There was a point that was very interesting on how the fast was necessary to subject the mortal side to the spiritual. Fasting isn't only going without food for a bit because mom or dad says so. It's not only just a way to get God to notice our prayers a little bit more. It is us subjecting our mortal frames to the spirit that we have, and drawing closer to who we were before we came to this earth. I thought that was interesting.

With hopes and prayers we´ll have a baptism of our Investigators Dalila. This last Sunday she bore her testimony and it was a really tender experience. Dalila is a tender soul, and when she feels she FEELS so she came sobbing back to her chair and gave us a standing hug and kept telling us thank you for how we knocked on her door. It was sweet, but just a little, awkward in front of everyone.... in the middle of someone else s testimony. But yea you take what you can get.
 

My companion and I

Another precious moment was last night when I taught a less active family the game that my family does to read their scriptures. I explained how we read two pages, each person a verse, and whoever reads the last verse gets the point and has to say the family prayers, de rodillas, or of the knees! I had the father pick a letter and then whoever was closest read first. We drew up a piece of paper, wrote all the names and Joseph won the first point. I hope that this will help them read scriptures more as a family and help them further develop their testimony. No one in their family has read the book of Mormon all the way through, so what a better way- than doing it as a family? This also makes me want to give a shout out to my family and I want to say thank you to my parents who always made reading the scriptures a priority. I can testify of the blessings of this in my own life and share it with the people here in Peru. I have really been humbled to recognize how great of a family I have and the blessings that I have been able to take a part of thanks to the gospel constantly in my life.

This week for service we helped cleaned this abandoned house, and the second floor is a storage unit for costumes, so we have some pretty funny pictures as a zone and companionship with random masks and costumes-- I will send them when I can! Sorry to those who e-mailed me, next week I will have time to get back to you, and keep up the good work in Zion!

Having fun cleaning out the costume closet.

As a Mission we read a talk called the Fourth Missionary and I encourage all of you to read it. I am the definition of a third missionary and am repenting and trying to become a servant of the lord with not only my might and strength, but also with my mind and heart. I encourage you to read it and apply it to your life. Your calling in the church is of God and vital to the souls of the children of God that live in your area. But we should not just grit our teeth and serve, but give our hearts to the Lord.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/34660140/The-Fourth-Missionary

Until next week!


Hermana Bowers

Good Luck In Peru

                                                       Studying in my apartment

Ever had a bird poop on your head? If it happened to you you´d think you´d have rotten luck no, you´d ask yourself, "oh wow of all the things and of all the places the bird had to go, why me?". But quite the contrary! Here in Peru it is a sign of GOOD luck and so you can count Hermana Bowers as one of the luckest missionaries there are! The worst thing is that I didn't even realize that I had what I had in my hair until during a lesson with one of our investigators. I just thought it was just water that dripped on my head. NOPE. So when I found out what it was I started squealing -and we had to leave the house and my companion tried to clean it up as best she could with my water from my water bottle. It was pretty funny I´ll admit. (I can say that now after my shower and all that jazz).
Peru in the winter is really really wet and humid (sooo humid to the point that my towel that I used to dry off from my shower two days ago still hasn't dried out)

This week we had a member that were teaching experience some surprising difficulties in his life, so hes been tagging a long with us during the lessons to try and get his mind off things, and so its been fun trying to teach him how to contact, how to teach and be a missionary (he converted late so he didn't have the chance to serve a mission). Other than that, we had two of our investigators show up to church with their little kids, so it was cool to see them together at church.

Transfers are in two weeks, and I'm sure that this time I´ll get moved around so I'm trying to enjoy the last two weeks I have in Las Violetas! Well see what happens! Keep your faith strong and love the Lord.

Mucho Amor De
Hermana Bowers

                                    Y.W. Pres. Y.M. Pres. in our ward- expecting their 1st child

ON MY WAY TO THE TEMPLE

                                               TEMPLE TRIP

All of us in the waiting room at the temple

Outside the temple 

           We went to the temple this week, and it was a beautiful experience. We brought four investigators with us, and of these four are two families that want to get married to be baptized. The other was our dear sweet Dalila who has a testimony that just can’t be contained so she likes to come with us to other lessons and testify of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. How awesome is that?! I was able to go inside and do a session with a member that came with us. I'm so grateful for temples, the amazing covenants we can make with our Father, and the work that we can do for others that hadn't had the opportunity to know the gospel during their mortal existence

This week was also the start of teaching an excommunicated bishop in our ward. He has been away from the church for two years and one day we had lunch at his house. We started talking and he said yes that he would accept the discussions again. This week was the first lesson we had with him, and he's been assisting the chapel ever since. Teaching him and seeing him struggle and grow spiritually is one of the most beautiful experiences I've had on my mission.

My beautiful mother was so kind to send my a copy of the book, Jesus the Christ. It was actually kind of a miracle how I got it. We had a work visit this week and we were waiting outside the offices till our companions came so we could swap back. As we were waiting the mail delivery man came to drop a package off. Saturdays are the p-days of the people who work in the office so the whole building was shut down and locked up. The man asked us what he was suppose to do with the package he had to deliver. we kinda shrugged our shoulders, but then saw that the package was indeed intended for none other than Hermana Bowers. We told him that it was actually for me, but I didn't have my I.d. or anything with me. all I had was my badge to say who I was. the mail man hummed and hawed a little but then relented and gave me the package. I had to sign and give the number of a bunch of people but just like that I got my hot little hands on my book and a lovely note from my mother. I've eagerly begun to read Jesus the Christ and makes notes, and I'm really excited to deepen my understanding and relationship with our Savior. Often I think that its just a automatic response, "Yes I know that Jesus loves me and he is our Savoir" but do we really understand that... do we really have a connection with him? Well I'm positively ecstatic to read and learn as much as I can.

Nancy and Jonathan, a family that wants to get married so they can be baptized that came with us to the temple

                                                         Migel and Luz with us on the bus

A typical lunch that I decided to take a quick snap of. it was rice chaufa with fruit and juice. its not a meal here in Peru if you don't have rice

                        Me and Dalila (one of our investigators) on the bus on the way to the temple

My companion and I early in the morning to collect our investigators to go to the temple with us

Happy Birthday America!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

So this week we had interviews with our Mission President again and had our rooms looked over. All Is good on this side of the equator.

One of the families that we have been working with said yes to getting married! The husband was really reluctant, and didn't want anything to do with the word marriage at first. However this last Sunday, we brought a couple to our ward that was recently married (well three years ago) and they bore their testimony about marriage and the importance of the temple. And at the end of the lesson, the husband said yea I can see that you guys are right and I will talk to my wife, or partner, about it. We finally got him to say yes and then he said he just needed to talk to his wife about the date of the wedding. This is super awesome, because its progress and it will also help the sister that we were teaching as well try and take the steps they need to become members.

We also got in contact again with one of our investigators that want to get baptized really bad, but has to find her own room to live in. We lost contact with her after a while because she found work -thanks to a member that offered her a job. BUT.... she ended up loosing the job due to medical problems, so were back to square one with the whole close to baptism sphere, but shes got her animo back again and were working with her to find another job and fortify her testimony to get her through this rough time.

Red ,White, and Blue for the 4th of July

Ahhh and this week I will complete 6 MONTHS! Tomorrow I will be able to say I only have one year left, and then after Wednesday, less than a year!! Crazy stuff! We had missionaries come again from the CCM and it was really interesting to have them ask me all these questions about when you get the hang of the language and how was my first couple of months. It made me ponder because it feels like yesterday that I was in THEIR shoes wandering around Lima with no idea of what I was doing! Funny how the tables turn yea?

Our nails that we did for p day a while back

That is it for this week! Remember the importance of your family home evenings and daily scripture study! With our obedience we can receive all the blessings that the lord wants to give us :)

Hermana Bowers
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Service this week as-A TRANSLATOR? yep that is what I did

Picture of some of the youth at a dance festival 

So no changes for me and my companion this transfer. Both Hermana Osinaga and I are still working for the Las Violetas ward! (and I´m really happy for that!!)

The last p-day we did nails with a member in the ward (mirla, the wife of the ward mission leader) and it was super fun! We had Hermana Gledhill with us since her companion wasn't coming to her zone till transfers. We were a trio for the majority of the week and probably had more fun than we should have as a trio.

Also, an awesome experience I had was to work as a translator! yea I was like "wait what, you want me to translate?" but I was at least able to communicate the general and basic idea of both sides so that was really cool to put my bilingualism in action. There is group of EFY kids that have traveled to Peru to see the sights and help build a school. They were going around to the houses of less active youth to invite them to come to a fireside that they were going to have later that day. They didn't have someone to help communicate the message, so our zone leaders called us us and we were able to visits with them. It was awesome to speak some English and see 16/17 year old gringos again. It was a really cool opportunity to translate and see the fruit or put into action the gift of tongues we receive as missionaries.

Its getting colder surely but slowly here in Peru, and today I was finally able to use this big huge jacket I had bought a couple weeks back. While there isn´t much sun hardly ever... I like proselyting better in the winter here in Peru than the summer. 

Happy news for our ward is that there are three women who recently announced that they are pregnant. They roughly all about have the same months, so in the next 4 to 3 months Las Violetas will welcome three precious new souls to the world.

What a marvelous thing it is to participate in the plan of salvation our heavenly father has prepared for us, and be able to come to the earth and have the experiences necessary to develop and grow. Its amazing each time I see a newly born baby, and think not that long ago this amazing spirit had been waiting and waiting to finally have their turn to come to the earth and receive their physical body. I hope that everyone can take a minute and study this plan that God has given to us, and remember our divine potential. remember that we are literally spirit children of God and that he loves us more than we can comprehend.

 
More dance festival pictures
Until next week -Hermana Bowers

Working hard in Peru

Luz and Miguel, the partners that we´re teaching who are preparing to get married, so Luz can be baptized. They finished reading the entire book of Mormon in 2 months! They are some of my favorite people to teach here in Independencia

So here are pictures of some investigators that we´ve been teaching. The woman's name is Luz and the mans name is Miguel. There are a wonderful couple who were teaching, and they´re getting prepared to be married in September! After that Luz can be baptized, and then they´ll start working to go to the temple. They had a chart where every chapter you read in the book of Mormon you can fill in a box. They finished the whole book of Mormon in 2 months!!! how awesome is that?!?!

This week was awesome because we got to visit a dance festival that the primary kids preformed and obtain some references. Also we started teaching this family that has tons and tons of questions about the gospel, and have a strong desire to be baptized (they have to get married first, but were getting there). We just taught them about Joseph Smith and gave them a book of Mormon last night. They have a really catholic background so were going principle by principle and explaining how baptism for small children isn't necessary and how we should pray to saints. Their neighbor also was in the lesson with us, and had tons of questions, and said that she wants us to talk to her husband as well. We super excited to see how they grow these next upcoming weeks!

Also, Dalila, our little miracle door contact got a job offer and a room to live in, thanks to some neighbors in the ward. Today she was suppose to start her work, and in a week move into the room with the member. Its in her hands now, but i hope she went and that she finally distance herself from the relationship she was in to start again and be baptized.


Well see how things go, and hope everyone has a fantastic 4th of July! (Independence day in Peru is the 28th of July so I hope well see some fireworks or something later on in the month).

                                                                                      Me with Luz and Miguel