Just A Piece Of Candy

Last monday my companion got a call at like 9 in the morning saying "hey, your companion's going to Lima at 11:30 today for immigrations" So I got a surprise vacation!... sort of. I rode to Lima with another sister from the jungle. We got there at about 10:30 (after having used several payphones along the way because zone leaders were supposed to meet us in certain places but didn't). Hermana Larsen was also there!!! There were only a couple people from our group who were there and she was one of them. I seriously love that girl. Anyway, so our group was the jungle sisters (yes, that is what we are refered to as), two sisters from huancayo and 3 elders from huanuco. We stayed in a hotel! and the hotel had carpet! I haven't seen carpet in months!

After immigrations we were too far away from the temple so we went to the beach and shopping... there is Dr Pepper in Lima, I would just like to let you know. Wednesday me and Hermana Goyzueta had another long ride back to the jungle. It was 10:00 when we got back, pouring rain and I have never been so happy to see our short, Latino zone leaders waiting for us. We were exhausted. I realized that I enjoy the work of the mission field much more than a vacation to the beach. It was good to be back in the mosquito infested jungle.

The best investigators ever! A family, a reference from a member, has just started investigating: Cristina, her husband and their four children. Cristina and her husband can't be baptized because of issues but Leslie (9) and Geremy (14) are so sincerely into the church it's crazy! They've told us and their parents that they want to be baptized. We were visting them the other day and Kilie (5) was making a lot of noise playing with a ball so I gave her a piece of candy from my bag and asked if she would sit down with us. She sat down in a chair, and quietly and happily took tiny bites of this small piece of candy. It had never really occured to me that she probably doesn't get candy too often. These people are so incredibly humble. They don't have much but what they do have they tresure and take care of.

I just want to take this time to thank a few people

1) Jacob Flaishans, thank you for shoving a cupcake in my face on my birthday several years in a row because that is what they do here so I'm super prepared. Our hermana leader's birthday was yesterday so we brought a cake over there and the tradition is the birthday person takes a bite of the cake and while doing so someone else shoves your face in. Then they throw eggs and flour and water on you..... It's super great :)
2) Jane Salgado, I'm not going to lie Jane's always been an example to me with her testimony, especially when she ends with "I know these things because the spirit has told them to me in my heart"... or something like that. That's what it really is though. You can't convince yourself that the gospel is true, you have to have faith and looking for evidence is not exercising your faith. Convinced does not equal converted.

I love you all

Love, Hermana Blanca