One last time

Well everyone, it's been a long (not very long) year and a half but we're made it to the last email.

This last week was a little uneventful so I'll just finish this adventure with my testimony.

I truly know that God is our Heavely Father and that He loves us more than we can even imagine. I know that He sent us here in families and that they really are eternal. From personal experience, I know that He listens to our prayers and answers them. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I've read it and prayed about and found so much comfort within it's pages. I know this church is Christ's church restored on the earth today and that we are guided by a living prophet. I know that God works through us to help His children here on the earth. We are His hands. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I've learned so much and have met so many people. I love them so much.

Thank you all so much for your support and your prayers. You've helped more than you could even imagine.

See you in a week!

Love, Hermana White

Merry Christmas!

This week was really awesome full of incredible lessons until we got to Friday. Friday and Saturday we literally walked around all day because all of our appointments fell through. 

Saturday we stopped for a minute to watch a parade and then as we started walking up the street again. My companion asked if a lady carrying a giant bag of clothes in her hands and a child on her back needed help. She immediately asked us what religion we were from and as we walked with this bag down to her house she told us a little bit about herself and said that she had visited with missionaries when she was younger and wanted to visit with us again. It was a little miracle that was sent at the time it was needed.

Sunday, in church, a member brought her friend who said that she liked what she saw and she also wanted to visit with us. 

I will not be here to see if any of these people make it to baptism but I will help them as long as I can. I really know that hard work pays off. Sometimes in ways that we're not expecting but the Lord does bless His servants. :)

I love you all!!!!

Love, Hermana White

Oh, something funny: Everybody tries to yell english words at us. We had someone yell Merry Christmas at us while we were walking the other day. 

Instruments in God's Hands

I just want to tell you all about the miracle that we were able to be a part of on Friday. We had no appointments and no idea where to go so my companion and I sat down on a curb right by a river to think for a second. We talked a bit and then we decided that we couldn't sit there any longer and we got up and started knocking doors. There was no one home at the first door that we knocked but at the second door we were able to talk to a young man named Pool (not kidding). He came out with his eyes swollen and red and at first we thought he was smoking or doing drugs. After talking to him for a second though we realized that he had been crying. We were able to talk to him about the church and the hope that the gospel brings and how our Heavenly Father really cares about our happiness and the small things. He was struggling with things in the university and just needed some help. We were able to be part of that help. We ended with a prayer and as we listened he thanked God for sending two miracles to his door and for answering his prayers so fast because he had been praying just moments before. 

It was so amazing to really feel like we were being instruments in God's hands. He needed us and in that moment when He needed us we were there. I have so little time left in the mission but in these last few weeks I've seen and felt and heard so many amazing things. There's no way I could ever stop working early.

I love you all!!!! Just so you know we had an awesome fourth of July!!!! We had watermelon and pulled beef sandwiches and hot dogs and potato salad. It was great! We just played sports all pday and we were all able to relax and have fun.

I love you!!!!

Love, Hermana White

Happy Fourth of July

Due to the fact that it is pday today and also the fourth of July us gringos here in Peru will be celebrating with a BBQ and we are all super excited :)

Last week was super exciting. President Henderson finished his mission and President Silva started his. He's from the northern part of Peru and he has five kids (he brought all of them with him but one who is in the mission in Guatemala). We had a multizone conference to get to know him on Friday. Also in the conference those who are leaving this transfer shared their testimonies..... that included me. I'm not sure how I felt about that but I shared what I knew and I found that I know a lot more than I thought I did.

Right now in this area we're just working on finding new people to teach. A lot of the new investigators that we've found have lied to us about schedules or even their phone numbers and it's really hard but we know that we're doing our part. Someday they'll understand.

I love you all!!!! Enjoy your fireworks!!!!!

Love, Hermana White

The Last Transfer

So this last week was transfer week. My companion had been in this area for five transfers so she left and went to Oxapampa (a jungle area). She was absolutely thrilled. Hermana Olson is my new companion. She's from Arizona and has about 13 months in the mission. She's also my little sister (or, in other words, we have the same trainer). I'm so grateful to have her as a companion we've worked so hard in the last five days and it's been so exciting to see what we've been able to accomplish.

We switched our Pday from today (Monday) to last Friday. President and Sister Henderson wanted to hike Huatapallana one more time before they left the mission and they invited all the missionaries serving in Huancayo to go with them. It was a blast!!!

That's just about all that's happening here. I just want to leave a little note with everyone on service. This week I had the wonderful learning opportunity of ignoring someone when they really needed help. I was thinking about it later and thought about Christ when he says inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto me. I felt that I had given up the opportunity to serve someone else and in turn serve Christ. Repentence is such a blessing everyone! I would invite you all to look at the people around you and pray to recognize their silent pleas for help. Everyone needs a little service.

That's all!!! I love you all and really, truly need your prayers.

Love,

Hermana White

It's the Little Things

This week we decided that if there were sisters in the office they'd be us.

The office elders went with President to the different parts of the mission to do the mulitizone meetings so when some sisters had to travel to get an MRI we got to take them to the hospital. We played an epic game of dots with her companion while we were all waiting.

We've also had a sister who is finishing the mission stay with us because she had to travel to Huancayo from Cerro de Pasco (about four hours away). She has had some end of mission trainings this weekend and then she heads of to California tomorrow.

In our area we've been working with a lot of less actives. We've grown to love them so much that it just about broke my heart this sunday when one of them didn't come to church. We went and visited her and spoke very directly about going to church and reading the Book of Mormon. She knows she needs to do it sometimes we just get lazy.

I really just want to testify about the little things. God really does love us. This weekend we've been in and out of the office doing this and that and I have seen so many people from my old wards. It's amazing to see how much these people love us and how much I love them. There was one time when we were walking down a long road in the blazing sun that is incredibly close to the earth here and a car stopped and my old stake president from the other half of Huancayo stopped to say hi. The little things are so amazing and they just keep me going.

I love you all!!!!! Thank you for sending your prayers this way

Love,

Hermana White

Welcome to the Tambo Hospital

This week started out with a trip to the hospital. One of the sisters we are over was incredibly sick so monday night we took her to the hospital. We had to get permission to be out past hours and at about 11:30 we got home (for those who don't know, curfew is 9:30 at the latest). The sister had a stomach infection and was dehydrated so now she's on a strict diet of boiled chicken and rice. She's really happy about it. 

Tuesday we were exhausted due to the missing hour and a half of sleep but it was ok because we got to eat pizza in leaders council. It was President Henderson's last leader's council with us as he'll be leaving. It was very sad but he's still working and worried about the progress of the mission so it feels like he's not even leaving.

For the past couple years the sisters who are leaving the mission, entering the mission or staying for leaders council have always stayed in President's house. Now they will be staying in our house due to the fact that the new president has kids. Our house is nicknamed the Tambo Hotel because it's got a room full of bunkbeds for when people are sick but this week we've changed the name to the Tambo Hospital because different sisters have been sick and been staying with us. It's a fun life :)

Friday we had a multizone conference. It is also our last multizone conference so he's basically saying good bye to the mission. Everybody who was leaving the mission this transfer bore their testimony so President and Hermana Henderson bore theirs. It's incredible how close to the spirit we can be here in this life.

I love you all so much!!!!! Know that I'm working hard. I miss you all but I love the people here so much as well. It will be hard to leave them.

Love, Hermana White

Also, all of my companions that haven't finished the mission were in the same multizone.

Just one of the beautiful people here

In El Tambo we're working a lot with less actives. We're looking for new investigators but they seem to be hiding. We've met so many people that are so excited to come back to church though and it's just as exciting to watch them progress as it is someone who hasn't known anything about the church.

Jessica is one of the less actives that we're working with. We actually found her like three weeks ago and she's already come to church twice (which is a miracle). She's a single mom with a seven year old son named Enrique. He is the smartest kid I have ever met. They're amazing and are already reading their scriptures by themselves (another miracle). They've really become a spirit lifter for us.

There're so many more people but I'll just mention her.

I love you all!!!! Thank you all so much for your prayers. 

Love, Hermana White

The sisters sang as they walked and walked...

Well, besides the fact that I yelled across the room in internet today when I found out that Libby got her call, it's been a pretty calm week.

For Pday last week we went and played games with all the sisters that we're over. We got to the sister's room in Concepcion and Hermana Trujillo was blowing up balloons. We blew up probably about 100 balloons and then just popped them and ate candy. We then played uno. It's probably the most relaxing pday we've had in a long time and it was a blast. 

This week we've been working a lot with some less actives that are amazing and starting to come back to church. They're main goal is to go to the temple and they're all really excited about the gospel. 

As far as investigators go...... we're looking. We've walked so much this week. It's great! Sometimes we don't really feel like we're doing our job but every time we talk to someone, even if they don't want to listen, we plant seeds. 

Missionary work is hard but it's so worth it.

I love you all and I am so grateful for the strength that you all provide.

Love,

Hermana White

Cake and Clowns

Last monday for pday our whole zone went to the parque de los mates. Mates are the gourds that are hollowed out and dried). There were a bunch of gourds made out of cement and decorated in different ways.

Hermana Sinks and I have worked incredibly hard this week. We've been getting home really tired everyday and that is the greatest feeling ever. We did divisions with Hermana Petersen and her child (Hermana Beltran) this week and that was fun to get to know tham a little more.

Here's a list of the crazy things that have happened this week:

-We ran into a clown who blew us kisses several different times this week

-I opened a door with a wire

-Our pension had two birthdays in the family so we ate cake twice this week

We received a reference this week to visit someone named Dora. We visited her once and then when we went back to visit her a second time we didn't find her but we did find her daughter.... who is a member. We're now helping her come back to church and she's so animated and excited to come back. The hand of God is in all things :)

I love you all!!!!

Love, Hermana White

Just over the bridge

The zone leaders called us tuesday night and told us the transfers. I didn't believe them but they told me that I was leaving the area to go be companions with...... Hermana Sinks! My area is called El Tambo and I should be finishing my mission here because Hermana Sinks will have 5 transfers here so she'll be leaving at the end of this transfer. The other sister leader area is neighboring San Carlos just on the other side of the river so all I had to do was cross the bridge. We sent some sisters off tuesday morning and I found out that I'm a grandma now!!!! Hermana Petersen is training and we're in the same zone!!!! Hermana Sinks and I are basically the same person so we're thinking that this transfer will be super awesome (I'll take better pictures next week).
This week was full of exciting transfer news. Monday Hermana Sinks (the other sister leader in Huancayo) came to stay with my companion and I because her companion finished the mission. We were in a trio for two days and then she went to stay with some other sisters in her area tuesday night because a sister got called to train. 

That's the exciting news for this week.

I hope everyone has a fantastic week!!!!!

Love,

Hermana White

The secret to missionary work is the work

One of the things that we've really seen this week is that when we put in our part the Lord helps us even more. My companion and I realized that we hadn't been working as hard as we had before Chio's baptism and so this last week we decided we needed to work harder. We weren't really sure how to do that because we were still visiting people and everything we just didn't feel like we were doing our best. Wednesday morning after studying we took 5 Restoration pamphlets and said that we weren't going to return home or eat lunch until we had given them all away in some good contacting. We said a prayer and left the room. In the first house that we contacted we were able to share the Restoration with a young woman who is catholic. The lesson was really good and really spiritual. We contacted and gave out all the pamphlets and we felt very satisfied when we went in to lunch. We realized that what we were lacking was a desire to complete the goals that we set every week and every day. We had a zone meeting on Saturday and we gave a training on what we had learned about really working to reach the goals that we set. 

It was so awesome to talk to my family on saturday. Everyone's getting so big and it's a little sad to not be there right now but I know that I'm here for a reason and I'll be working hard until I go home so that it can be an even sweeter reunion.

We had a ward activity here on saturday and my companion and I made chocolate chip cookies with our ward mission leader to share with everyone. So many people came to the activity. Every organization made a dish from the coast, the jungle or the mountain area (the three regions of Peru), they shared how they had made them and then every body ate. Some less actives and invistigators came and Chio has her calling in the Primary so she actually helped the Primary presidency cook. This ward has become my home away from home.

I love you all and I hope you have a fantastic week!!!! We have transfers tis week so I'll let you all know next monday if my companion and I are staying together... again or if we have transfers.

Love,

Hermana White

The Golden Forest

Last monday we went to a place called the golden forest.... no one told us how far we had to hike to get up there but after an hour and a half of walking we made it. There's a big stadium type area made out of rocks. We played volleyball (like just about every pday) and then we played signs after some of the elders got done with a fairly epic game of ninja.

Other than that this week has been fairly uneventful. My companion has got a cold. She's not bed ridden or anything, nothing super deathly..... she just blows her nose a lot. That's been rough for her.

Rocio received a calling yesterday. She's the knew primary secretary. My companion and I were able to be in the bishop's office with her when they set her apart. It's very special to see these people that you love so much grow and keep growing.

I love you all and I can't wait to see you on saturday!!!!!

Love, Hermana White

The power of prayer

I'd just like to start out by testifying of the power of prayer. As you all know Chio was baptized a week ago. After every baptism we have to fill out a paper with the information of the person who was baptized. It's better (and basically required) to get it done sooner than later. My companion and I thought we were so on top of things and we got the information in the computer and printed out last sunday..... and then during the week we found a couple of errors. We could not get ahold of the ward secretary to help us until yesterday so we were a little stressed (who are we kidding we were a lot stressed...... stressing out is kindof a talent my companion and I have). We then needed Chio's signature but she had to leave church early to go to work. My companion and I prayed this morning as a companionship and personally that we'd be able to find Chio and get her signature. We walked out of our apartment to go to internet this morning and Chio was there  walking across the street with her mom. It was amazing. It's something so small but prayer works. I promise it works.

The highlight of the week was saturday. We had a stake wide talent show where every ward planned and prepared a talent or a skit or something to share. The stake mission leader asked my companion and I to direct the whole thing so the dirrection was a little rough but the show turned out so good. The people here really know how to laugh and make people laugh. In our ward the young women prepared a hip hop dance. In a couple of the wards people sang and one person played the sax. Two wards took the Jaredite story and changed it up a bit. One was a musical and the other was a play on the elections that Peru is having right now. Two of the youth danced the marinera (you should look it up it's beautiful). The missionaries during the whole thing were handing out copies of the Book of Mormon. The elders in our ward even received a reference. At the end of the night we got in a taxi to go back to our area with Chio and she said she was going to get out down town.... to buy a skirt!!! My companion and I about died when she told us that. Chio is absolutely amazing and definitely a miracle for us.

I love you all and can't wait to see you!

Love, Hermana White

Chio's Baptism!

The highlight of this week was Chio. On saturday she got baptized!!! We've been working with her, crying for her and praying incredibly hard for her since the middle of January.

Everyone got involved with her baptism. There were so many people that came and our ward mission leader really put in his part the make the baptism super special. We met in the chapel and then everyone went in to the primary room to watch the baptism. Jim (our ward mission leader) really did his best to make sure that the water was warm..... and we actually had to add cold water to the font because it was scalding. Chio chose one of the young single adults in our ward to baptize her named Felix. It's his first baptism so it was really special for him. We really had to the thank the elders for helping him practice because he was really nervous.

Sunday Chio got confirmed. It was also fast and testimony meeting for us and Chio got up to share her testimony and she said that she wanted to go on a mission. She's definitely a miracle for us.

We also had a less active contact us in the park with every desire to return to church..... so that was special as well.

Our Heavenly Father really is looking our for us and looking for reasons to bless us.... we just have to put in our part.

I love you all so much!!!!

Love, Hermana White

Behold His Hands

You'll find there are times
when you feel weak and weary and tired

and you need to lean on someone else's strength

look up, not down

there's someone who can heal you

Don't give up, take hold of His loving grace

Behold His hands

take them if you're lonely

just reach out

He'll guide you where to go

Behold His hands

He's written you upon them

Every pain and every hurt He'll help you through

Behold His hands

At times it's hard

when the darkness falls in upon you

and there's no one in this world who'll understand

Just know He's there

He's felt every test and trial

and He'll help you change, have faith, He knows you can

Behold His hands

see the marks upon them

know there's hope

He's here to lift you high

Behold His hands

They're the one thing that's stable

Let Him write His name upon your heart

Behold His hands

And when the day comes

when we'll stand before our Maker

remembering all we could have but didn't do

We won't be alone

for we'll stand beside our Savior

And He'll plead our cause, He'll plead for me and you

Father,

Behold my hands

see the prints within them

Have mercy

I've already paid the price

Behold my hands

see how much you love them

You sent Thy son, they did all they could do

Behold my hands

Sorry, it's in spanish

Soy firme en la fe que tengo

Cristo es la roca

Yo puedo mover pero nunca caer

Mi testimonio es mi ancla

Estoy lleno de una esperanza

que viene por la fe

Yo se quien soy y a donde voy

Con esta luz brillare

Oro por tener la caridad

El amor perfecto

Quiero ayudar y nunca fallar

Quiero ser un buen siervo

"Dumb dog, why are you following me?"

We started out this week with a family home evening with some of the YSA and Rocio (our investigator). We watched the Restoration and when Rocio talked about the movie after she said that she really knew that it was true and also that our persistence in call her and visiting her really helped. Yay for bothering people with calls everyday! She's getting baptised this coming saturday and we're definitely excited. If you haven't noticed my companion and I have been together since January and we have yet to have a baptism. We've been working and praying so hard for Rocio. This Saturday will definitely be a great blessing for us and an even greater blessing for her.

Now on the subject of stalkers. We've had a dog that's been following us for a week now. She didn't just follow us proselyting but also howled and cried outside of our room and the pension when we wouldn't let her in. We didn't really know what to do because we tried to abandone the dog (now named Snickers) once but it somehow found its way back. Our pension has some land outside of Huancayo so we bathed the dog and sent it to the farm.... and Snickers is now the happiest dog in the world. I don't think our pension will ever forget us :)

Peruvian presidential elections were yesterday, if anyone wanted to know.

I love you all!!!!!

Love, Hermana White

The transfer that didn't happen

We all thought my companion and I were going to have transfers but after about 5 rounds of fake transfers they finally told us we were staying together. We were super surprised but hey, we'll both get to be in Rocio's baptism on the 16th and we're super good friends fo it's all good. We skype for mothers day during this transfer so you'll be able to meet my companion!

The highlight of the week was general conference. All the gringo missionaries are able to watch it in english so on saturday we were in the nursery room and yesterday we were in the kitchen. It's basically like watching your favorite tv show. One of the things I really love is the fact that the Holy Ghost answers our questions during conference. If you really listen something that someone says will always hit you in the heart.

One of the things I really loved was Elder Ballard's talk on family councils. I felt like there were a lot of things said in this conference that I'll be able to use in my future home.

I love you all!!! I hope you had an amazing april fools day, conference weekend and birthdays for Ben and Mia!!!!

Love, Hermana White

Cereal and Yogurt and Yogurt and Cereal

We're going to blame everything that happened this week on the fact that the young single adults went to jungle for four days. 

The stake asked our pensionista and her husband to accompany the YSA on their trip so for four days we were left without anyone to feed us.... how did we ever survive before the mission? We have no idea. We ate cereal and yogurt for breakfast and dinner for four days. It's not entirely our fault because we don't have a kitchen in our room. For our lunches we still ate rice and chicken. We went to some of the sister's pensions or we ate in little restaurants that sell peruvian chinese food. Basically, long story short, we were super happy to eat eggs this morning :)

Also, one of the companionships of hermanas that we're over had emergency cambios so we were in a trio for a day and a half. We actually had some really good lessons but there was a lack of communication between some missionaries and her new companion didn't arrive until after we had been waiting in the office for an hour and then President's house for another hour.

We had some exciting things happen as well. My companion and I were probably the people most excited for the general women's conference so we told everyone about it and invited everyone. So many people that we have been working with came to the conference. It was incredible. The conference itself was amazing as well and I'm sure everyone was able to pick up on the messages of service and love. I hope we all can look for more opportunities to serve those around us.

Also Rocio is an investigator that we've been working with since January. She's more active than some of the members and she has a baptism date for the 16th of april.... but the stake still told her that she couldn't go to the YSA activity. We were a little worried that this would be a little disanimating for her but we had a lesson with her on Tuesday and she was fine. She's more than fine. We set a plan with her so that she can mark her own dates on the lessons that she receives and we gave her all the pamphlets. She's reading them all by herself and answering questions that are in the back of the pamphlets! She's amazing and we're so excited for her baptism.

So that's been our week so far. It's been quite the adventure :)

I love you all so much!!!!

Love, hermana White

Just a mini tornado

This last week we didn't have pday on monday after internet. It was a normal day of work because Friday was a multizone meeting and so Thursday was a multizone pday. It was really strange to proselyte on a monday and we attributed all our success to the fact that we were sacrificing our day of rest :P

Thursday we studied like normal in the morning and then in the afternoon we went and played volleyball and soccer with the four zones her in Huancayo. It was a blast. We started playing at about 2 and kept on playing until about 5. At 5 we looked over by a consession stand type thing and above it, outside of the park, we saw some flying dirt. We didn't think much of it until it moved towards us and ripped the tin roof off the consession stand and sent it flying towards some missionaries. One of our sisters got hit in the leg as did one of the elders in our district. The sister was fine but the elder had to go get some stitches (and a shot). He's perfectly fine now.... he just needs to run a little faster next time and 30 foot tall dust storm decides to attack a group of missionaries. The rest of us that didn't have to get stictches went and got ice cream afterwards. 

So that's the excitement this week.

Friday we had a multizone meeting. We talked about helping people resolve their doubts about the church, especially when they'd been investigating the church for a long time. I love multizone meetings. They're always super spiritual and reguvinating (spell check please).

Saturday the stake celebrated the anniversary of the relief society. Every ward learned a pioneer dance and everyone dressed up like pioneers. They had a three hour activity with speakers and crafts and we showed up in the last hour to watch the wards dance. Our investigator, Rocio, danced with our ward so it was super cool to see her.

Speaking of Rocio, she's been attending church since january but we haven't been able to get her with a date. We had a lesson with her yesterday where we asked her directly if she wanted to be baptised. She said yes. We programmed and date. We've been working with her for so long we were so excited when she said yes (we still have to wait until the 16th of April, but we know she's ready).

I love you all!! I hope you've had as great a week as I have!

Love, Hermana White

Pie Day

To quote a letter I received for Christmas from Evan: "3.14 is PIE backwards, coincidence? I think not" Happy Pie day everyone!

This week has been full of surprises.

The first surprise being that after hiking up Huatapellana we weren't too tired the next day when got right back to work.

Wednesday we went out with a member to do her visiting teaching. She had a couple less actives on her list so we went to find them. One of the sisters we found... wasn't even a member. We're going to go back during this week so that we can see if her daughter is a member or something. We then found another sister who has been less active since she was about 10. She's a single mother with 6 kids. We're really excited to start working with them. We actually had a lesson with two of the daughters and they're really excited to start visiting with missionaries.

Saturday we had a ward mission activity. We set up a scripture treasure hunt and split up into groups. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. There were five groups and they gave a prize to every group (it's a mission activity, everyone has to win). Something super cool was that everyone immediately started sharing their prizes with the other groups. More people showed up a little late so Elder Evans had us all sit in a circle and play another game called "do you love your neighbor" it's kind of like fruit basket. Everyone had a blast.

Yesterday the elder's pension invited us over for cake for his birthday. We got there at about 8 at night.... and found the elder's pension, her familiy and the elders sweeping water out of the house. The house had flooded and was convered in mud. We asked if we could help and Elder Viñola said that he thought we should clean the kitchen thinking he was funny because the kitchen had gotten it the worst. Well, we cleaned the kitchen. It took us an hour and fifteen minutes. We felt super bad for the familiy. The house isn't ruined but a lot of their things were. But while we were cleaning everyone was joking and smiling. No one was complaining. No one was crying. It was quite the experience. I'm so grateful for the blessings in my life and that I live on the third floor. There's no water on the floor..... sometimes there's no water in the shower ;)

I love you all. Remember to count your blessings big and small. 

Love, Hermana White

16,000 feet above sea level

Yesterday I couldn't write because our zone went to Huaitapallana. We got up at 5:30 in the morning and about 30 missionaries and us went and hiked a mountain. We hiked past a couple smaller lakes and up to a glacier. It was super beautiful, so green and very very cold when you weren't moving. We're all a little tired today but it was definitely worth it 😃

We also celebrated Elder Evan's (one of the elders in our ward) birthday yesterday night. I went to set my camara down on the couch and found an egg... It was extremely satisfying to egg someone, I think I know why they do it here now.

The past week we had a leaders meeting again. There's always a training before we discuss how we can better the mission and the training this month was on role of Prayer in conversion. I really have felt the power of prayer these last couple weeks as I've been trying to really focus on others and better my prayers. It works. I know it does.

We also had a zone meeting this past week. Our zone didn't change to much this last transfer so it's fun meeting with the same people and still working with them. 

I love you all, sorry I couldn't write yesterday.

Love, Hermana White

Also... general conference is in less than a month!!!! Get excited!

Transfers

My companion and I are staying together!!! We're super excited because we worked so hard last transfer and we're hoping to reap the rewards this transfer. We've been really trying to be the best missionaries that we can be.... and sometimes that can be hard because you have to pass through challenges in order to learn anything but we're doing our best and we're super ready to take on the transfer.

We did have a super cool adventure this week when we had to buy curtains for a companionship of sisters with a giant window in their room. Neither of us had ever gone curtain shopping before... let alone in Peru. Everyone here has their own little store and it's as if each block has their own theme. So we went to the curtain block and searched in 10 different curtain stores and finally we found one that would make us curtains for a reasonable price. It must have been fate because when we went to pick up the curtains we contacted the family and right away they gave us their information. 

Now that I'm telling the story it's not that interesting but it was to us.

Besides work the highlight of the week has been our district leader who got stuck in Lima. Our distric leader had to travel to Lima last Tuesday to have some sort of operation on his finger his companion went with him. So far we have two elders in Lima. No big deal, they'll return after the operation so like Thursday or Friday. Wednesday night the two elders got a call that two elders who had to do visa papers in Lima would be staying with them. Wednesday night at about 10:30 there was a knock at the door and one elder covered in mud arrived. There had been a mudslide and the bus got stuck and he walked two miles in the mud to get to Lima. Thursday the elders got a second call from president saying that the other elder had been stuck on a bus for a day and a half in the same mudslide and president was going to send to more elders to pick him up and bring him back to the mission and he would do his papers later..... well, there were about four more mudslides and all three elders ended up walking through the first mudslide to lima. So Friday when our district leader called us there were six elders stuck in Lima. They should be back today.

So, anyway, that's been the highlight of the week.

I just want to let you all know that prayer works. Someone is definitely listening and He will respond. I've come to know that even more this week.

I love you all!!!! Enjoy your extra day of the year!

Love, Hermana White

chickens and octipus and such

It's amazing the different things that you can learn in the mission. This week, for example, I learned how to kill chickens. I could describe it in detail if you want because my pension's husband and his mom killed the chickens in the kitchen right in front of us.... but I won't.

Also, the elders called us fat because their pension invited us to a seafood soup (with octipus and squid and crab and shrimp... it was delicious by the way) and the then we had to eat at our pension because she had already cooked something. 

We've been working incredibly hard and there are so many people preparing for baptisms in this area. My companion and I are hoping to stay together so that we can be here for them. We love this area and these people so much. Yesterday we helped our pensionista in a primary Faith in God program welcoming for all the parents and their kids and it just felt like my ward. It's amazing how much you can love these people.

Also, sometimes I get really excited about personal study. The other day I started freaking out about justice and mercy. It's amazing. Our Heavenly Father loves us so much. Justice is what gives us consuquences when we make decisions (good or bad). Mercy is what gives us the opportunity to repent. Our Heavenly Father loves us so much that we have justice when we do good (He's bound to give us blessings) and mercy when we do something wrong. I'm probably not explaining this super clearly because I'm translating from spanish to english.... but study it, it's beautiful.

We find out transfers tomorrow night so I'll let you know what happens next week!

My prayers are always being sent up north to you all. I love you so much!

Love, Hermana White