Te vas?‏

Well, this week was awesome! We had so many miracles happen! We were walking one night and all of our appointments fell through and I looked at my companion and asked her where we should go. We found the couple that are going to get married on the 17th of April on the street. They looked quite sad. They told us that they were waiting for a guy to bring them money so that they can eat. They are only eating once a day because the dad doesn't have work. So being us, we went down the street bought them some food and brought it to them. It made us feel good. We also have a goal that if our appointments fall through that we go with a member and we share with them. We went with the president of the relief society. She is super sick but so so sweet. She has problems with her kidneys so when she returns home from working, her legs are very swollen. My companion gave her a massage because my companion is awesome and is a cosmetologist. :) She was extremely grateful and shared with us that she doesn't like to get attached to the missionaries because they always get changed or go home and she started to cry. It was really sweet. 

We also are teaching a sweet 10 year old that is probably the smartest 10 year old that I have ever known. Her mom is a member. We taught her about the restoration and the ten year old understood all of it and then we went to go teach her this week and we asked her if she believes that the church is true and she said yes. We asked her why and she said because it has apostles and a prophet and the priesthood and revelation. I was shocked. I have never heard that answer from a ten year old before. We taught them about family history and we asked the girl if she has family that has passed away and she said 'mi abuelita' (my grandma) and we kept teaching but then realized that she was crying. She told us that she never got to know her grandma. And we taught her that she can see her grandma again and she was super excited. We are taking them to the family history center this week. :) 

It has been raining so hard and the river keeps growing and growing. We were working one afternoon this week and it started to rain SUPER hard. We felt like it was the second coming, and all the members are thinking the same.. haha :) But please pray for the people here. There are many that are leaving their houses and can't enter their house for the river. And it is supposed to keep raining until the end of April. 

Saturday we went to the womens conference. It was fun! We went with all the sisters in our zone and a member. We watched it in Spanish and it was fun because this time I could understand every word :) Woooo 

Yesterday we received an amazing miracle! We were in church and we helping a couple that we are teaching get to church with his grandson and another guy that is blind to get there as well. We got to church and we were happily waiting for it to start and we saw another couple that we are teaching show up and then another and another. 10 of our investigators showed up yesterday to church. we were shocked! All of them are excited and wanting to get baptized and married and all that fun stuff. We have a lot of work to do this week. Also I received another surprise. One of the less actives that I taught in my first area in Iquitos showed up to my ward yesterday! It was awesome. He stayed and attended the classes and then afterwards talked with me. He is now preparing to go on a mission and baptized his brother on Saturday. His brother we taught a ton when I started my mission but said that he just wasnt ready to get baptized yet. But he got baptized on Saturday! He was asking for forgiveness for all the things he put me through when I taught him, for not wanting to come to church and for not reading the Book of Mormon. He is awesome and I started to cry. 

I am so grateful for all the things that I have learned in my mission, I have had so many experiences that have assisted me to grow and learn in this gospel. I love the people of Peru.  Peru has my heart, I know it is cheesy but it is true. The people here have a way of getting to your heart and loving you no matter what you have done or if you have yellow hair and can't speak Spanish. They are ready to hear this gospel. Not only have I seen people change and get a conversion but I have seen a change in myself and felt more and more a conversion in myself to God and Jesus Christ. I am so very sad to leave Peru and go home, but as I have learned in the mission, every change is for a reason and it is preparing us for something bigger and better. The only constant is change. 

I will see you all next week :) 

Hermana Larsen

 

 Women's Conference

 

El rio está creciendo con arañas‏

 

 

 

 

Well I am going to start out with what happened on pday. We worked at night and it was kind of rough. We had a lot of people that turned us down and didn't even want to listen to us. When we got home and entered the house my companion was like 'que es eso?' (what is that?) and we looked at the ground and found a huge spider the size of my hand! I screamed super loud and then the spider began to jump and jumped to the wall probably because I screamed so loud. Haha my companion and I were freaking out. Normally my companion is brave enough to kill the spiders, but this time, nope, she was just as scared as I was. But we stood there in our house with brooms, not knowing what to do. My companion said, "Let's call Mama Ketty." She is our pensionista. We called our district leader first. He didn't answer so we called our pensionista. She started to laugh! We were screaming on the phone to her and she said 'ya me voy' (I'm coming). She came with her husband and in the meantime when we were waiting for them, we were standing on guard with brooms just in case. They came and her husband killed it. We were saved! 

The next day we went to family history with one of the members we are teaching. He is blind. He had an accident in 2009 and now he can't see. He is awesome. He comes to church by himself and makes his way around really well. We went to the family history center and he did his family history and he got the opportunity to send the name of his dad to the temple. They sent it and he started to cry. It was amazing we could feel that there were angels in the room with us :) 

This week there has been 10 times the amount of rain. We are teaching a few people that live on the rivers and their houses are being flooded because the river is growing from all the rain. We went to go visit one of the families at night and we were peacefully walking along these skinny bridges above water. We didn't think anything of it and then we entered the house, taught, and at the end of the lesson we were leaving and my companion asked how deep the water was. We were told it is very deep. It is 2 meters and then it just gets deeper and deeper. Haha we were freaking out. We told the sister to watch us so that we didn't fall and we made it safely. We are good :) haha 

We also had training this week with the mission president. It was really good and we learned a lot. We went to go eat in a restaurant and it started to rain really hard, as usual, and we had to return to the offices. Imagine a group of white collared shirts and skirts running in the rain, the majority gringos. It was pretty funny for my last training :) 

Then yesterday we did a blitz and all the missionaries had to come to one church to meet up and it started to rain, again, but this one was super strong and lasted until we got home at night. We got soaked and we were super cold, I felt like I was in snow, but we kept going. It was pretty funny. 

We found an awesome family this week. We were contacting a reference of one of our investigators and we found a girl that is a member. There were three teenage boys there and they were all sarcastic and told us they wanted to listen as well. My companion and I are always super defensive because I am a gringa and there are always guys that are dumb, but they all sat and listened really attentively and then they told us that they had attended the church before and it was awesome. We are going to visit them all next week again :) 

I hope the weather is good in Utah and there isn't any snow and that it has all gone away so that I can survive in a few weeks :) I love you all. I hope that everything is amazing. Take in every moment and enjoy it :) 

Hermana Larsen

Camarote

Well, this week we started out on p-day by going to Belen, a huge market place where they sell clothes, food, everything and we ran into someone that I taught in my first area. I was so excited. I wanted to see his mom. He led me to her and it was so great to see her! We hugged, she gave me juice and bought me a papaya. She is so sweet, I was so excited to see her. :) I am sending a picture of the two of us.

We also have been organizing a wedding all week. The happy couple are getting married the 27th and we need to do an activity to raise money. We are going to do a bake sale that we are super excited about. The bishop's family is going to help us and everything is going great with that. All week we were running from one side to another, organizing all of it and trying to teach at the same time. They are such a cute couple and are super excited to get married. We are making chocolate cake and apple pie to sell. 

We are teaching another couple that is really the cutest. The husband is very fun. He had a stroke so he talks slower and walks slower but is very bright and intelligent. He always smiles when we come and loves to learn. He said that he listened to the missionaries before, but he didn't like it because they tried to pressure him to get baptized. He loves us because we haven't been pressuring him. He finally accepted to come to church this week, but when he heard that it was stake conference and he had to take a motokar to go he said it was better to go the next week. So they will be coming to church next week. His wife is super cute as well, she just looks at me and laughs. I really have no idea why. Perhaps it is because I have blonde hair and I am talking Spanish :) Haha

We had a funny experience happen. My companion and I sleep in a bunkbed and we were going to go to sleep. I think it was Saturday night when I was climbing the bed and my companion was teasing me and grabbed my ankle. I jumped with my knee on the bed and suddenly the boards that held my mattress up fell on my companion's bed. It's funny because we were just joking around about on the RM movie when the big Tongan guy falls on the returned missionary. The good news is that my companion wasn't sleeping and the boards didn't fall on her head. Haha, but now I don't trust the bed. I am not sleeping on top. Luckily we have extra beds in our house so I am sleeping on the floor with a mattress. That was an adventure. :) 

Things are going well! Iquitos is super rainy and sunny at the same time. :) 

I hope everyone has an amazing week! I love you.

Hermana Larsen

 

 

Platano

 

 

Well, if you saw by the title, we have been eating a lot of bananas, why? Because I love them, they can do so many things here with plantanes and bananas, it is so good! Our pensionista makes us some everyday, I love them :) 

This week we saw a miracle on Tuesday. We have the family that we are teaching with the husband that it is in a wheelchair and his wife, well they aren't married, as usual, but they are the sweetest family on this planet. They have two children that are just adorable. We invited them to pray for a date to get married for the 28th of March. They accepted to pray and then we went to go visit them on Tuesday. We asked them about their prayer and they are getting married the 28th of March!! Wooooooo :) We were super excited they are both very content. They have been talking with the bishop and have finding solutions for his work he hasn't been getting paid. I'll send pictures. I hope they go through.  

All Saturday morning we worked in the rain, then it rained all weekend. There has been a lot of rain but in 2 minutes a lot of sun will come out that burns your skin. Hah! That is the climate of Iquitos :) 

I hope my sweet nephew this week has an amazing birthday. He is turning 2 years old! I love that kid! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAXTON! 

Hermana Larsen

Milagros‏

 

Well, this has been a week of a lot of miracles. We have learned a lot and seen a lot. 

We started out the week with transfers and we didn't get changed. I will be finishing my mission in Morona Cocha! Woo :) We were happy. My companion was more happy because she will be 'killing me'. 

We found a less active this last week that was really cool. We have always been looking for her but we always just found one of her daughters that are members as well. But this time we found the 3 sisters together. We came in and sat down only to find that one of the sisters was in her bed crying. We asked what happened and they said she had a stomach infection. I looked at her and I didn't feel like that is what it was. We started with a prayer and shared something about the church but I just kept looking at the girl in the bed, I finally started to ask her questions about her life..."Do you have a husband?" "Do you have kids?" She responded and started to cry more. She said that they were going to have kids but she lost her baby when she had four months being pregnant. We shared a scripture with her and talked with her and she seemed to feel a little bit better when we left. She didn't come to church this Sunday, but we are going to keep visiting her. 

We had a work visit this last week, I was in the area of the sister leaders and my companion was in our area with one of the sister leaders and it went well. We learned what we can do better. I got to know a different area, but I like my area more :) 

Saturday night when we got back together with my companion we went to go work in the afternoon. The visits that we had fell through so we started to 'walk by the spirit'. That's what we call it. We came across a members house and suddenly something stopped me and I saw this guy sitting and watching soccer. I started to talk to him about soccer and asked him who was winning and I asked him if he was a member. He said no, and we kept talking. Then he invited us to come in. We started to talk and he confessed that he is a member, but inactive. He explained that his wife left him when they had their children and that a lot of stuff has happened. He works traveling for months at a time. He says that he knows he just needs to choose to come back. He was awesome. He explained to us that it was luck that we found him because he was going to leave and go work for a month and a half on Friday, but he decided to stay until Monday and then we found him :) 

After that we were walking and we wanted to go find a girl that we taught one time that we never found again. We went to see if she was home and we found her mom. Her mom said that she was a little upset. She let us come in and we felt the spirit so strong. It was awesome. We taught her a little bit and she said that she felt a lot better and that she wanted us to teach her children as well. :) 

We are feeling good. I am feeling good. I love doing this amazing work and finding those people that God wants us to find. It is amazing. 

I hope that you all have an amazing week. It is still hot here and still rains sometimes. Good old Iquitos :)

Hermana Larsen

 

 

Bautismo y Testimonio‏

What a week it has been, as usual. We worked super hard this last week in the boiling sun!! IT has been so hot lately and the sun has been burning us, and to make it worse the power has been going out a lot so we can't use a fan. AHH...But at least I am getting a tan :) 

I don't have a lot of time but we had a good week We had a baptism that was really cool. He is the only one that wasn't baptized and finally he got baptized. He is awesome! Both of his kids gave talks at  his baptism.  One of his kids just got baptized in November and was super nervous to give a talk because he feels like his testimony isn't that big and not worth much and we explained to him that this will help him and it doesn't matter what it looks like. And he did AWESOME. It was so spiritual and made me want to cry and then the whole family sang together, Families Can Be Together Forever. It was so awesome. They are an amazing family and I am so grateful that I got to know them. 

Well, I just wanted to share that litte experience with you guys this week. Sorry I don't have a lot of time.  I love you all :) Have an amazing week! 

Hermana Larsen

 

The Baptism!

These are paintings in Iquitos.

 This is super cheesy but I like it.

:)

 

Carnaval...cuidado

What a week! Full of rain! I think we worked three nights in a row in the rain and returned home soaked from head to toe. We had some cool experiences this last week with the people that we are teaching. We have a family that we are teaching that the dad is a member and the mom not, but she is super sweet and they are just awesome and so willing to listen and she wants to get baptized and married. We went with a member to visit them and only found the mom, but we talked with her and taught her about coming to church and she said that she attended the church before but without her husband. Now she wants to attend church with all of her family. They weren't able to come to church yesterday and we don't know why, but we are going to work with them this week.

We left with a member one of these days and we finally found these twins that are less actives that we have been searching for since we got here. They are 17 years old and identical twins. They are super sweet but we went to go visit them with a member and it was hilarious because they talked for probably 45 minutes about the monkey that they had that died in November. They told us everything about this monkey named Martin. He was like a normal person; how he slept, how he ate, everything you could possibly think of. They talked about all of it about this monkey. We wanted to share something with them but they talked so much that we couldn't inturrupt, it was pretty funny. :)

We also left with another member this week and there was a returned missionary that served in Iquitos 21 years ago that was visiting. We heard he was close by so we went to go say hi to him and talk with him. He was very nice. He served in some of the same areas that I did, so we talked a lot about that and he gave us a ton of references which was awesome. He companioned us to a reference that night and it was pouring rain, and the street was full, it looked like a swimming pool. It was cool to see that it is possible that I will return to visit Iquitos :)

Yesterday at church, the bishop got up and made an announcement to the ward that they needed to start gathering food storage. Why? Because it is raining so much in Iquitos that the river is growing a ton and he explained it is going to grow so much that we could be in great danger by living here and the members need to be prepared. It was something really interesting because I could see the worry in his face. So please keep the people of Iquitos in your prayers. :)

This last week was Carnaval, I don't know if you guys remember last year when I wrote about it. Well it was that time again! We couldn't leave our house again. Carnaval it where it's basically like a huge water balloon fight all day. But it all starts on a Saturday and they put up this huge tree thing called the Umisha, with things on top, like Tupper wear and things like that. A bunch of people put them up, there is like 4 or 5 on every street, then Saturday at night, there is this group of people that come around dancing around the Umishas at midnight with masks like a night of Halloween. Then Sunday is when it really starts. All day Sunday they are throwing water  and dancing and drinking. It is nuts. They dance around the Umisha and do this ritual thing where they cut it. They dance these dances called pandillas. But we couldn't leave our house because they don't respect anyone. They throw water at anyone they see, especially the girls with yellow hair and green eyes ;) ha ha! So, we were stuck in the house doing nothing yesterday. We studied, talked, ate, it was interesting.
But now everything is peaceful in Iquitos. Everyone is sleeping and exhausted from yesterday. :)

Well I hope everyone has an amazing week and enjoys every minute.

Hermana Larsen