For the win...June 30th email

Because in the mundial costa rica is all the rage. good to know that the games seem to be worth all the hype.

so this week was good. we had a multi-zona, interviews with president archibald, junior got baptized, we almost got robbed. all good semi-normal things really haha

so quickly. Junior got baptized and afterward it was so cute because he was soooo happy. It was really great. also yeah. this week just flew by. like for reals.

so things are going good, this will be short and sweet because today we are going to the beach. but i will actually believe it when we get there. i remember what happened last time the elders told me we were going to go somewhere........

Basically in two words this week was? RADICAL MADDNESS.  We had some good lessons, talked to a lot of people, in which the vast majority of we got stood up. saturday we spent all day at the chapel and kept setting off the security alarm. good to know that it kinda works. and Junior got baptized even though friday we were dead certain that it wasn't going to happen. Basically he hadn't answered his phone for maybe four days, and so friday we went into stalker mode and maybe just waited by where he works so that we could talk to him and short story longer saturday everything went perfect and now he is a member of the church. let's go peru.

so much for being all spiritual like last week...... well i'll keep working on that goal haha.

this week was also the famous part of san pedro, ( the area in which we live) so everyone has been partying hard and the fireworks are so nuts here, especially when they are all so drunk.

 love,

hermana degn

p.s. we went to mcdonalds and they had pancakes! it was kinda really sorta a dream come true.

 

 

I'm a big kid now...June 23rd email

of course we are now the family that goes to bear lake when i am on a mission.....

 

ha its cool. i hope you guys have lots of fun now that you only have four kids! ha jk. send me lots of pictures! i never really liked bear lake anyways. #ijoke

 

Anyways this week i was catching up on my study of general conference. Because i missed the sunday morning session because it was in spanish. Anyways i read elder Ballard's talk about sharing what we learn in our personal study about predicad with our families. And i just loved what he said. it is super powerful so i have decided to try to include something that i have learned of that i like about PME. so this week we have really been focusing on the spirit. Being guided by the spirit, teaching by the spirit, and trusting more in god. Anyways I was reading about what it is the investigators need to feel and what we need to feel and i love the scripture in alma 19:6 that says, 'y la luz que illuminaba su mente, que era la luz de la gloria de Dios, que era una maravillosa luz de su bondad, sí esta luz había infundido tal gozo en su alma, que el nube de obscuridad se había desvanecido, y la luz de la vida eterna se había encendido dentro de su alma....´ i really like that scripture because it says so much about the power of light fighting against darkness, in predicad it talks about how important the role of the holy ghost is in conversion. and i love this example of ammon and king lamoni and how the light changed is whole core and entered into his alma. That is pretty awesome. And i have really been able to see people change as they have started to follow the light of christ.

 

So.... THE GOOD:

This week we made a goal as a district to each have 4 people come to church. Hna barahona and i have been so stressed beacause last week we only had one person come. But this week we made the goal! We had six people come! even though two don't count because they live in the other ward, but it was just a mom who randomly came and now the other elders are teaching her. But it was so cool to see that as we really strived to teach the importance of the sacrament and follow the spirit that everyone did what they said they would do... (well not everyone we still have like ten people who didn't come haha)

 

The BAD:

turns out junior really is living with his girlfriend who is a member. so he lied to us then failed his baptismal interview and then didn't come to church. But we are going to baptize him if it is the last thing we DO! But really he has changed sooooo much and he is sooooo prepared!

 

The FUNNY:

Like one day i was really channelling my inner 80s child..... (but in a conservative way) and this guy stopped us and asked he if could recite a poem for me about how beautiful i was and how green my eyes are and how white my skin is. like thanks a lot. and he kept trying to kiss me and hna barhona just laughed a ridiculous amount. so we just gave him a folleto and then told him where the church was. and i secretely well not really hope that he never actually comes. Which isn't all that righteous but it is what it is. and that's why i never wear makeup. #ifyoudontknownowyouknow

 

haha so that was the week in a nutshell. Perú is the best even if we haven't qualified for the mundial in more than twenty years. fútbol is overrated! #ilie because i am turning into a fanatic. it's inevitable. but i'm glad usa is making me proud.

 

love you all a whole heck of a lot.

 

hna degn

 

also pictures. because i am soooooo much taller than hna B and we have cell phones now.... did i tell you? #iphone7s #inmydreams

 

 

21.

So sometimes its hard to be a missionary because you have to keep a straight face in your lessons. Like when you feel really inspired to ask your investigator if they want to be with their childen forever and they tell you no. um wrong answer. are you sure? They're your children. yep she was sure. #spiritkiller. also we had this ward activity..... see pictures from other email. and some of the members acted out the part of the bible when Abraham sacrifices his son. it is in the top five funniest moments of my mission. I haven't laughed so hard, it was soo funny. bless them-

 

So this week was awesome! I turned 21! and celebrated with my cake and a lot of walking hahaha not- it seems really wierd that now I am actually old enough to be a missionary and I am more than half way done. that's crazy.

Thanks for the awesome package and sorry I will have to look for that name again, but hold off on sending packages for reals without it cause I will not be able to go and pick up any more so that would be a real real bummer.

 

But that package was like the best thing ever! and thanks to the jacksons too! I like the whole stripe theme that we definitely have going on! Even though hna barahona likes to laugh at my fashion sense. hahah

 

So this week was hard. We had a lot of people drop us and then our investigator who is aweome and wants to be baptized doesn't even live in our area- like what?? We have limites? yes, yes we do hahaha

But we have been working with Junior for three-ish weeks now and he is so awesome and is changing sooo much! He came to church again yesterday and finally liked it! so we are making progress!

 

So sorry this is quick but I g2g. thanks for being the best family ever and happy fathers day to the best guy I know- Too bad fahers aren't as cool as mothers though cause then we'd get another phone call!

hahah i love you all so much!

love,

Hermana Degn

 

 

hi.

well thanks for all the birthday wishes! I am pretty excited to be turning 21 this week. even though it feels super wierd and kinda surreal.

but the highlights of this last week..... like how we contacted a family that lives in our building in the street. I said oh hi, we know you. so can we visit you,. and they said yes and then i said where do you live. and then they said, you know in the house. oh right. so that's awkward. and don't hold your breath, they aren't even married.

This week we were reading in the book of mormon with a converso reciente and we got to the part where is says that Lehi had two sons in the wilderness. And she got super mad, she was all WHAT another son!!! How am i supposed to keep track of them all now!! It was pretty much hilarious and so we tried to help clarify all the people in the book of mormon for her. she is quite the entertainer. She is always getting after her husband in our class on sundays and it totally cracks me up. She's got a lot of sass.

In other news we had cambios and hna barahona and i are still together. cambios go by so fast! I seriously can't even believe it! But I'm glad that we are still together. She has really helped me learn a lot about how to follow the spirit- And we get along well especially considering that we are like polar opposites- But our companionship gets stronger every day.

Also this week we taught one lesson and i tried to ask the lady a question only like 13 times and she was not understanding it. it was so funny, i was trying so hard not to laugh because i would say the question, and she didn't respond so i would try again and at the end i just passed it off to hna barahona to save it and then i just busted up laughing. i am such a spirit killer. But i just couldn't help it. It was so funny. She did not understand anything i said to her. So i guess i should take my language study more seriously or something..........

But she told us we could come back so alls well that ends well-

so my rocking family. you guys are the best- also dad the korea postcards were legit. and my companion is like super super into K-pop (korean pop music..... i think) so she was like way impressed. She has a thing for koreans and it is hilarious! Like she has all these asian people stickers that we have in our apartment and little posters and a calender now she thinks i'm cool. so you know me just swagging it out down here in perú with the asian fans!

oh latin america, you have everything. also this week i found my new love in chocolate and ate like three pounds. I also have this great tradition every saturday of buying tamales and having a mexican hour. it's every saturday night, when we come home and we buy tamales, drink horchata (more rice) and dance to the wierd music from the church that is right across the street. We keep it cool. pictures to come.

so thanks for all the birthday love! I'll let you know how it feels next week to be 21!

You can run, but you can't hide...

So this week we were out prowling for menos activos. There are millions here. And this week we found one and it was sooooo cool! I mean you have to find the ones who are really ready to come back and actually can.  But last night we went to one of the addresses we have from the church of members who are like suuuuuuuuuper inactive. and it was in a part of our area that we basically never go to because it is SO far away, total boonies. But we went to this house and the guy who got baptized let is in and now he is married and has FIVE kids! It was sooo cool. So we taught him and his wife lesson one and the importance of going to the temple and he was so on board and basically the only thing that he remembered was that families can be together forever. So we bore some cool testimony and the spirit was soooo strong! Man it was unreal! and then we got lost and it took us like two hours to get home. ha some things never change.

besides that we've been doing service! and it was wolfpack wednesday. #packpride. #i'mtheonlyone #ilovenature. Only because there isn't nature here. #citylyfe

have a good week! Cause i sure will!

Also last call to send me something before my birthday!! It's not too late!!! hahaha so write me maybe??

 

Love,

Hermana Degn

 

 

 

This is the way I live...

This is the way I live…
So the story of my life is that basically I have a missionary super power. I can get into any house. Literally it's pretty cool. The elders are all super jealous because every week I have at least ten new investigators. but my achilles heel is that I can never seem to baptize any of them. Ever. Like when they have fechas something happens like you think they are married but they aren't. or some dumb relative tells them something and then they never open the door again. Or you get bit by their dog and are too scared to go back. (hahah okay that last one isn't completely true). I'm just here waiting for all those miracles that supposedly come when you are exactly obediente. They should be coming anyday now, because we are sooooo obediente here. But still my superpower is pretty awesome. It makes for a lotta laughs every day.
So this week we have been teaching Teonila, Dana, and Alisia. Alisia is a member who is way inactive and Teonila is her mom. Dana is her eight year old sister who wants to get baptized too but her mom sells alcohol. And it's like the longest story ever but do you ask someone to give up her living and walk by faith? welll you pray A LOT and teach a cool lesson about obedience and talk to her about elias el profeta and then she still says no. But we are gonna keep praying a lot so that she can get baptized. She wants to she just won't have a job.

Also yesterday we were walking to a lesson and passed a group of tenish people. Family?????? Yes. So we stop them I say some joke, tell them to invite us in their house and we ended up teaching five women the restoration and then about birth control. It was different. Hermana Barahona and I were dying. First they all told us they are catholic and then I said well soon you will all be mormons. and the one who really wanted to talk to us (she is 82, I have a gift with old people) slept the whole time. It was pretty hilarious. But no one is breaking the law of chasity so maybe in six months they'll get baptized. If I pray really hard???

We also had another lesson yesterday with Karla. She is also new. Well she asked us who John the Baptist was after I taught her that Jesus went to him to be baptized because he has the priesthood. you don't know who john the baptist is??? You are catholic for crying out loud!!! Everyone and their dog knows that he baptised Jesus here! Even los testigos de jehovoh know who he is! And long story short I didn't know the answer. That's embarassing. But then I went into a long story of well he is Jesus´ cousin, son of Elizabeth and Zacharias...... etc. and hna barahona saved it with he was a profet. ok cool. that was easy I guess.
So those are some oh the highlights??? and here is a snapshot of the way I live, my desk and my area. high life right here.

and that's basically it. So if you are going to share the gospel this week maybe you should make sure you know who baptized jesus. I guess that's kinda imortant.

love you all!



The view from my desk... 

Working Hard!--May 19, 2014

First, I'll just bring you up to speed with Joel and Lilia Servantes and their family. Like how they were supposed to get baptized this Saturday and then in the lesson I said a joke about the law of chasity (a super awkward one about having kids) and then Joel says, ¨well we have kids and we`re not married¨. And then hna Barahona and I just start laughing and I am their waiting for them to tell me its a joke. Spoiler alert it's not. So it was rough. We then threw down some hard doctrine and burned them and now we are at a rough spot where they are going to get married in August and we want them to get married in June. Basically we left and I still don´t know whether I should laugh or cry, But we'll get them.

 Then we found a new family this week who is MARRIED. we are triple checking now. And they are awesome buut there are both in the police so they work on sundays. And we'll see how that one goes. They are super interested which has got to count for something.

 And on a funny note this morning we went and opened the church and then the alarm went off (I mean we had the keys!!! for crying out loud) and all these people came and we were just trying to get some papers and it was a total fiasco. But good news is we finally figured out how to turn it off and were only seven minutes late to internet.

Also here is something cool, we have one investigator named Matilde. who is awesome but super frustrating because she knows the chuch is true and everything but still doesn't want to get baptized. But we did a practice this week and Hermana Barahona was pretending to be her, and it was a super frustrating practice and at the end I just really didn't know what to say or what to promise her. But Hna Barahona seriously has the gift of discernement. We went to the lesson and started teaching and Matilde was saying the same things as hna Barahona had been saying, and then I just had all the words come to me and it was so cool. So she's going to pray again. And the spirit was so strong in our lesson. So man if she doesn't accept the fecha this week it is just a lost cause. hahaha

 And that basically sums up my week. I basically feel like I am still in utah because it's cold one day and a million degrees the next day but what else is new? Well President Archibald has told us how important it is to be a missionary 24/7. So i've been working really hard to apply that. As in my mouth is always running but that even when we are in our house I am thinking about baptism or investigators or scriptures or something. Well this morning the alarm went off and in my dream someone was handing me my mail, letters and postcards, and there were a ton of photos of you guys. Well deciding to wake up on time this morning was SO hard, and sleeping isn't even restful anymore because i'm just doing missionary work. Some advice. at least the good news is that all my dreams are in spanish. #WORK. hahaha

okay sure love you!

 Also dad love the sweet taiwan story! Let's just say that a lot of times I've asked my investgators how was jesucristo baptized? trying to get to the point of immersion, or by juan el bautista, Well the answer is always In a river. and then we really have to back track because dang we don't baptize in rivers. Just fonts these days. But it always gives us a good laugh-

or how this week I tried to make a joke and said that Jesus was baptized by juan el taxista not juan el bautista. I know, I'm a spirit killer. But our investigator laughed soooo hard it was so worth it.
and thats all. I tried to make it long to make up for the last two weeks haha
Love you all!

Also the birthday of everyone's favorite missionary is coming up soon. (cough, cough) It's my only one so feel free to spoil me.

love,
Hermana Degn

 

p.s. my scripture of the week is mosiah 4:10. and maybe if i have time next week i'll tell you why.