Villa Selva‏

Hola!!

We started out this week good. We went and visited this less active member's house where the dad isn’t a member. The son is 17 years old and wanted to serve a mission but the dad doesn’t really understand why he wants to and just put him in school instead and now he thinks he can’t go because he needs to study. It was one of those lessons that just reminded me of how blessed I am and how much I love my mission and how I am so so grateful that I chose to come out here. Even though sometimes it’s tough and we get sick and are tired. The impact that we are making and the results we see are so worth it.

We explored a whole new part of our area this last week, it’s called Villa Selva. And we have never ever taught in this part of our area before because our area is so huge that if we don’t have references in a certain part we don’t really go there. But we found this list of less actives and a lot of them live in Villa Selva, so we took Friday and Saturday morning and decided to go explore our area. It was awesome. We found a truck load of less active members. And every lesson just seemed to be the perfect timing and what those people needed in that moment. And then the next morning we were walking, looking for one of the less actives and we saw a part of the river (yes the Amazon River) and there were these houses that were built on it and there was this little walk way you could walk on and we felt that we should walk that way. And we found the coolest couple, they were so so sweet J She told us that they have to change the house every 6 months because the Amazon River rises into their house so they go live in a different part of Iquitos until the river goes down and isn’t in their house. They thought it was so cute when I talked; they were like `so cute to see a gringa speaking Spanish’ Haha J That happens a lot.

My companion and I talked in Sacrament meeting again; they love to tell us about 5 minutes before the meeting starts that we have a talk. But this was probably my 5^th time and probably the best, I just felt the words coming to me the fastest and the spirit a lot more. J

Today my companion and I decided to wake up and climb a tree. We absolutely love this fruit named mamay. It is red and on the inside it is bright white. And it smells like roses and is super sweet and juicy. And there are trees everywhere so this morning we climbed the tree and got a ton of the fruit for the week. It was awesome J

Well, Nothing much else to report. Still living the dream J Hope you all have an amazing week! J

Buenas!

This week was crazy, all week we spent getting ready for this wedding and baptism we had Saturday. We did go visit our recent converts the other day, the lady that has downs and her mom. We walked to their house and we heard music coming from their house and I said to my companion 'Rocita is probably dancing' and sure enough we found her dancing. And she saw me and she was like 'mi amor' (my love) she said 'come here' and we danced together, it was pretty cute. :) She is absolutely adorable.   

We had to finish the papers for the wedding that we had during the week and we had to go talk to this guy that is kind of a jerk and all the missionaries know it. So we had our appointment with him and we were talking and i didn't hear what he said and he basically said to me 'sister, you don't understand what I am saying, so I am going to talk to your companion.' I got a little mad and said 'I do understand, now please explain again.' But that is a little example of what happens a lot here. Ha :)                   

Then the day of the wedding and the baptism came, we spent all morning Saturday cleaning the chapel and then in the afternoon we spent blowing up balloons. But it was totally worth it because it was perfect. It was beautiful. It was funny because we were super clear with the couple and said to them 'you need to make sure to be at the chapel at exactly six thirty because we need to start the wedding at seven. And then they were there at seven and then the witnesses for the wedding weren't there on time so we didn't start the wedding until eight and his baptism was after. So RIGHT after they got married we went straight to the baptismal font and he got baptized it was pretty funny. But they were so happy. He told our district leader in his final interview that we were angels for his family and that we changed his life. We are so excited for them. They are seriously the most perfect family. We are so blessed to have known them :)  

We got stuck in another rain storm this last week, I know, nothing really new with that statement, but we love it when it rains because then it is not near as hot :) 

I also held another monkey this last week, it was a little baby :)

Have a wonderful week, and may all your wildest dreams come true ;) 

Hermana Larsen          

 

   

Whoa!

Whoa! Well, we started out this week with preparing for this activity that we were doing for the couple that is getting married this week, we had to gather up all the money and buy everything. Then we found out that we couldn't be at the activity because we found out that we had training so we weren't there. But we made all the money except 11 soles. So we were p`retty excited and it's gonna be this week, they are going to get married saturday and afterewards he is going to get baptized. 

Things are good, it was great to talk to you guys yesterday, everyone looks so great. There hasn't been a lot of rian this last week. It's actually gotten pretty hot. 

Just wanna give a shot out to the moms. Because this last week, I have has a huge feeling of gratitude for my mom. She has taught me so much that I am using in my life right now and I am so thankful. Thank you mom for all you have done for me :) 

I don't really have much to say this week. Love you guys, have a great week! 

Hermana Larsen

El aro‏

What a week! I don't have a ton of time so this may be a short one. But things are going good, we had a baptism this last week, she is a single mom and she has three kids. Her job isn't very good and there are many times when they go without eating. But the whole time that we have been teaching her it has been pretty funny because she has this fear of the movie 'the ring' and here the baptism clothes are a little different. They look like these little square white dresses. So she was scared to wear it because it reminded her of that. But we got her to her baptism and she was in her regular clothes and I told her it was time to change into her baptism clothes and she said 'no, I wanted to get baptized in my casual clothes' but then we finally convinved her to get changed and she would NOT look at herself in the mirror at all. Then, I said we were going to go back into the room and listen to the messages and she started to have an anxiety attack, she was scared to death. So a member who is a returned missionary came and said that he would help her, so he took her into a room with her kids and started to teach her for like 30 minutes and she came out, and she kept her eyes closed the whole time. Even when she got baptized. It was funny because before she got baptized she was really persistent on having the bishop baptize her so we made sure that the bishop would be there but then she had her eyes closed the whole time and she asked us afterwards if the bishop baptized her. Haha it was quite the experience :) 

This last week was really good, we have a lot of people who are progressing, I just love everyone here so much, I love the ward, I love our investigators, everyone is awesome. Today we have transfers and we are crossing our fingers hard that we don't get transferred. I don't have a lot of tme, but I love you all!