Lost

So, this week was good-ish. ha we had stake conference. which was spiritually rejuvinating. and I learned the hard way to always be a half hour early to my meetings. It was rough. we have the WORST luck with getting places. For instance, Saturday night we went to the sesh, but it was in a capilla in another stake so we leave our area an hour before the conference starts. Right? we tried? Obviously, we did not plan well enough because we got off at the right stop and then proceeded to get soooooo lost! We were wandering around in some foreign city for 45minutes lost. and then we got a call from our dl wondering ^where the heck are you??? I don't care what you have to do just get here!^´ very Guy Patterson when he's trying to find TB player.. if you know what i mean. ha. so we took a taxi who claimed to say he knows where the capilla is. (spoiler alert he doesn't) so after asking for directions (TWICE) he takes us to the church of testigos de jehovah. well, thats awkward. like no um we're mormons. yeah this is where they meet. um no we're mormons and this is Not where we meet. Chambonaso. so and the next half stop we bailed. it was pretty intense. (there is a huge lack of stop signs and stop lights here) but yeah we got out and then took a motor taxi. which, as sketchy as the ride sometimes is, I have way more trust in them.

 And in the end we got there. very fashionably late, (like Peruvian standard time meets Mormon standard time) and this is my official apology to our whole zone who were part of the "you need to be on time lecture" from the pres. It was soo my fault. but kinda not. We have good intentions but somehow we can never make it to anything on time. no matter when we leave. hahaha But I've turned a new leaf. I'm a new person. hahaha I will now try to take the "be on time advice" in Preach My Gospel more seriously.

So, all in all, it was a good week. I think I am getting skin cancer, we stopped and contacted ten families, we are learning to not run from dogs, and have started carrying rocks in our bags. (like parent trap only on purpose. ooh the irony) ha but we are still loving our new area and our new ward. the work is coming along. every one here, okay almost everyone is okay with listening to us. good old peruvians. buut they are not that keen on the progrssing part. or reading the book of mormon part. so we're getting there.

 

Also the Book of Mormon is so cool. I'm just going to tell you all that my love and appreciation has quadroupled since being here on the mish. and that's about all I got for you for my spiritual thought. haha that the Book of Mormon is true kids. keep on reading it.

 

Also in news of investigators we have matilde. the only person we inherited from Elder Poole. Well she does not understand that she needs to get baptized. ¨but hermanitas i'm catholic.¨face in palm. you know the book of mormon is true! So yeah we're looking for newsies. hashtag story of my life hahahaha

Also I know you guys are a bit curious about my new living standards. Well you know you're living in the ghetto when you try to clean the walls and instead of washing off the dirt you wash off all the paint, you have buckets under all faucets collecting water, your ceiling is held together by tape, and the sink is slanted??? I know it's wierd. soo while it kinda has this whole jail cell cement wall look going for us now, we're still big fans. mostly because it is two seperate rooms and a hallway! and we have our own bathoroom inside. which I will never get over being thankful for. so thats whats been going on here in Perù.

Also--- hello my best friends are engaged!!!!! And I would just like my future husband to know that I want Kim's ring. yep. that's really all. Why is everyone growing up? that means you Abby.

i love you guys. have a good week.

 

love,

 

hermana degn

 

we out

Well, it's been a loooong week. So I moved?yep, true story. But yeah, after a quick six weeks in Covida I am moving on. The picture is of the Covida crew. Elder Chisholm, me, hna J, and Elder Palomo. Elder Palomo is seriously theee BEST. I was so sad to leave our ward. he's going to die this cambio and I am just so gratefulI I got the chance to serve in the same ward as him. Dad you would love him!! He is from Mexico, he's super funny and he is a great missionary. Hna J and I really lucked out to be part of the Covida crew with him.

Right so I am sure you are all dying to know who my new compi is......... Well I am still with hna jiménez- #winninglikeaboss. I mean i know right???? obviously there is hope in zion! We are so pumped! Cambios was such a party. Ha when our names were called out we were freaking out! Like people blushed for us.... hahah we were just sooo happy.

And then began the longest week in my whole Life. Seriously though I feel like I have been here FOREVER (think sandlot). There have never been sisters here! #pioneers! so we basically feel like celebrities, which is the BEST.But really the members are so excited to have sister missionaries! and our area is huge! So we walk so so so so so so so much! More than I have thus far in my mission. and it is WAY hotter here. We are a little bit farther away from the city so its hotter and more deserty. All the roads are dirt. But they are starting to pave some of them which is fun. And we literally have zero investigators. So we spent a lot of time knocking doors. But our area has SO much potential! We are soo pumped to be here! Even though I have never been so tired in my whole life. and that isn't an exaggeration, ha one time this week we were kneeling in our apartment praying about where we should go and a half hour later we both woke up and my legs hurt soooo bad because of lack of blood circulation. ha needless to say neither one of us had any dreams so we just ended up picking a corner of the map and going with it. not our most fruitful day. but our first three days we didn't even have a map so we are making progress.

 So yeah its been a roller coaster of a week, but its def been entertaining. like how we have no carpeta de area. um thanks elders. or how the font is in a closet??? or how we get chased by dogs all the time. or how we don't even know where one of the limits of our area is? or how turns out half our area isn't on the map because they don't put cerros on maps. gee thanks for nothing. so hey to sum it all up we are living a dream. our apartment is HUGE! two bedrooms and a hallway! I know a hallway! We may have shed a tear because there are also no coachroaches. #doublewin. besides that our apartment is also super super creepy and really dirty. and we can't open our windows becuase the one time I did the whistles and catcalls were OUTRAGEOUS. and they were only open for twenty seconds. chambons. basically you could say we're living the dream.

and that´s what you missed on the district.

 love.

h-zizzle

(i´m channleing my inner Matthew with that nick name, you like??)

the other pic is me and hna j with what we thought would be our last coca cola juntas. also have i told you? me and dr. pepper broke up. I am now a coke fan. I literally drink it every day. except most sundays. i know i am a traitor. but the dr. pepper addict in me is long gone. just give me that coca cola and i'll be good to go.

 

 

it's good

So. Basically it was a really good week. It was also a super crazy jam packed week that went by way too fast! I don't even know where to start?  Our power has been out for the last three days??? and there is about a foot of standing water in our kitchen from our fridge. But before that happened we played hotel for hna carr and hna cueva which was a total blast. One of the biggest perks about being in Covida is that whenever hermanas come in from the provinces they stay with us. Which is awesome because we get to know a lot of the hermanas but it also is sort of depressing because they show us their pictures of how beautiful Perú is and we cry ourselves to sleep. Ha, okay maybe i'm being a BIT dramatic. But you know, Perú is pretty..... just not Lima. anyways they ended up staying with us for five days because hna cueva went home this morning. So this week we had a lot of great pillow talk, late nights in the offices, super early mornings (today we woke up at THREE-THIRTY) but mostly it was just a party. So I know you are thinking what do you do with four missionaries is a super super super super super super super small area? (as in we did divisions one day and ha, kept running into each other) well, I'll tell you.

 LIMONADA GRATIS.

While the actual success of all day Saturday spent contacting was minimal. We had a lot of laughs doing it- For example, we spent all morning boiling water. went on a half hour search for ice, which melted immediately without cooling the water whatsoever. So after slaving over this limonada for two hours we finally leave the house and guess what? It started raining! What in the heck! I have only seen rain twice in my whole mission (not that it was a heavy rain, just a nice enjoyable sprinkle) But seriously. Some joke- Well, we still went out. But man it was a rough sell. Ha we were running after people saying "Do you want lemonade? IT¨S FREE!!!" let´s just say its not quite the U.S., where people will do anything for free stuff. or maybe that is just BYU. However we still handed out all our book of mormons, half a million folletos and got a lot of referencias, none of which live in our area. but hey it was great. Our elders stopped by and told us that it also tasted terrible. Well they put in about a half a ton more sugar and then it really tasted terrible. We would hand out a cup and then we'd launch into the Book of Mormon and the looks on their faces. Poor people. Also the next day if you are wondering it tasted like straight up vinegar. and elder palomo keeps saying the it made him sick. (only because he drank 17 cups). and then that night we went to our ward mission night..... well our attendance was a total of six missionaries. So obviously we then went out for schwarma.

 #obvi. Speaking of schwarma we have started teaching them and holy cow they are so cool! They are five brothers who are from india and all five practice islam. So that is cool. They all speak seven languages and we teach them in spanglish and one of them translates for the others. Because they don't all speak spanish. But it's been awesome teaching them. I mean we just started and they don't know really anything about Jesus Christ. Which has been a new experience since everyone and their dog here is super catholic.

Also guess what? Alberto got baptized. And he now holds the Melchizedek Priesthood. Hna Rodriguez and I taught him in trébol. how cool is missionary work?

So yeah, with lots of missionary love, hey that's called charity something that is the pure love of Christ that I am still working on haha

hna degn

 

Our angry faces that we couldn't go on our outing.

 

Shish-kabobs--yum!

 

 

 

 

Making limonada!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The worst April fools joke...and it's not even April!!!

So, I've been super pumped for today because we WERE going to go to some super sick ruins and catacombs for the day in Huacho with our zone. Which I was sooo pumped about because A. sick ruins and B. rumor has it they are Jaradite ruins + plus they are the oldest in the history of old c. I was so excited to have pictures of somewhere cool/ pretty/ I would just love a day outside of Lima. Well, last night everything was good to go and J and I were so pumped. So fast forward to this morning when we are at Plaza Norte at 5:30 in the morning waiting for all these elders to show up and no one would answer their phones. Well you want to know why???? Because they were all sleeping! Because they got the call last night from presi that we couldn't really go. But then they all FORGOT TO CALL US! Those punks. Needless to say it was a pretty traumatic let down. Like there were almost tears thats how much I want to see something of the outside world. #soclosebutstillsofar Also perú is the worst because mcdonalds isn't even open that early plus there is no breakfast there! So we cound´t even eat away our sorrows! Well, we ended up just riding our bus until the very very very last stop. Which turned out to be kindaa like a roller coaster because the last twenty minutes the roads aren't paved and its just rocky dirt and a lot of hills and buildings crammed together. So that was kinda fun. only we are still so mad. I took a great picture of our angry faces but I can't send it because we are also at a super super ghetto internet place and yeah let's just say the camera is not coming out. so now i guess we´ll probably just play futbol and hna Jiménez and I are gonna take naps. #aprilfools #itsmarch

So now that we aren't actually doing anything I have my normal email time of two hours. so get comfortable. haha

 This week was great. Still no family family but we had a lot of super hilarious lessons. We have this one investigator Yeder that we've been working with. Well he has problems with the word of wisdom, like--no hermanita i wasn't Drunk, i just had one, maybe two, okay four drinks. What the heck Yeder! You went to church that morning!! (also it is so hard to keep a straight face in our lessons. because he just says the funniest things...like one time he fell in love with his cousin. i know don't ask) So yeah, he had a fecha, semi-passed his interview, and decided to not get baptized. So we dropped him and are now looking for newsies. Silver Lining? My Poker face is a lot better than it was three weeks ago.

Anyways this week I had a cool experience praying. So J and I were both praying about our map to figure out where we should go the next day. Well I was praying and thinking about Enos, and his prayer and the great faith he had. Well I was trying to pray like Enos prayed but you know what? I just don't have all the time in the world to pray for a day and a night and a day and a night and a day and another night and another day.. hahaha you get the picture right, so this thought was going through my head and you know what? I got an answer to a very specific question about where we should be. And then it was the same place that hna Jiménez recieved an answer about too. So that was pretty awesome. We went there the next day, contacted a ton of people. with no results. But you know what my testimony of prayer was really strengthened. A ton. And maybe the next time we do the map prayer we'll find a family that actually wants to listen to us. Stranger things have happened hahaha.

So, basically I think thats about all the higlights/lowlights from here in covida. All in all it was really a great week. For reals. Plus I haven't felt mad in a long time. ha, it was pretty refreshing. So with that, have a great week. p.s. thanks for all the emails. Good thing I had so much time at internet............... sorta.

 Love,

 Hermana degn