Juany.....

Just a note to say that Cara told me in a separate email that she is really doing well. She is learning to trust and connect with the members like family and it is making a difference in her not feeling homesick. She has been in Iquitos for two months now and it seems that she is stepping into more confidence and peace with her experience. We are so grateful for your prayers and your love sent to her and those she is serving. I know my mom heart rejoiced today to hear how she is. I find myself ever grateful for angels seen and not seen.

 

This week has been interesting! It all started with our investigators not wanting to get baptized and married this week. They had a little trouble; they had a niece who is only 1 year old and she threw up blood the night before we visited them. They took her to the doctor and the doctor said that they couldn’t do anything for her and that she would probably die. That was hard, because the baby was crying in the house while we were talking with them and the nurse was trying to do all she could to calm her down. But a few days later the baby was perfectly healthy. It’s a miracle! J Now They are really excited to get married and baptized and the relief society in our ward is really excited to help decorate and make food for the wedding.

This week we were extremely busy. We did a lot of walking. It’s funny because our area is huge! If we don’t take a motokar, getting around takes a lot of time. It’s better not to because we don’t want to spend all of our money; but when we don’t it takes us 20 minutes just to walk to the street where our lesson is. So it kind of sucks when we feel like we have worked extremely hard but we don’t have that many lessons.

Wednesday morning we got a surprise visit from Hermana Gòmez! (Our mission mom) We were scared that we were in trouble, but no, apparently she just wanted to drop in for a visit. With the sister leaders here they do these visits called ammonitas where they drop in randomly and see if your house is clean how you are doing with teaching, with your companions and all that fun stuff. But normally we don’t get them because my companion is a sister leader. So Hermana Gòmez decided to do one with us, and it was really early, like seven in the morning. And she wanted to do a practice in teaching with me. I was kind of freaking out a little bit. But it went really good. She ended up telling my companion that I did really well and that I am definitely ready to train…ahhhh!

Saturday we went to eat lunch with a member and she gave us this soup, which I loved. It was kind of like ramen with a fried egg in it. Then the second part was Juany……….Jauny is this ball of rice with boiled eggs in the middle and chicken and these tuna things which are completely disgusting… it was a lot of rice. And the flavor was really strong. Well, I ate all I could and then I had to tell the sister that I couldn’t eat anymore. Then we went back to our house and I felt really sick….yeah I threw up everything I ate. Everything. And then I couldn’t keep anything down the rest of the night. Terrible. Now everyone of the members and my pensionista always say that I have a very sensitive stomach. I guess I do J But I am feeling a lot better.

Sunday, we went to church and normally every third Sunday is where a missionary gives a message in sacrament meeting about the mission. The night before we called and asked if we got to prepare a message and they said no. But when we got to church ‘Hermana Larsen, usted tiene la discus’ ‘¿què?’ So I got to prepare something fast. But it went really well J It’s amazing what the spirit does when the missionary is under pressure. 

But I'm doing really good, I'm loving Iquitos, more and more everyday, I love my area and I love the members here. :) Life is good :)

Hermana Larsen