Hola Familia. This week was a busy one.

I can't believe Marissa leaves so soon. I'm so excited for her. Also before I start thanks family for all the letters this week. It made me happy to hear from you all.

Carrying buckets

up in the Cerros

This week was a busy one. But I think that this next week might take the award for being the busiest week of my mission. It looks like a whole lot of crazy but I guess we will see how it goes. I have three divisions here in Huanuco, one or both my companions might go to Lima for paperwork, lots of appointments, interviews with President and training, baptism, and getting ready for cambios next week. I feel like I'm becoming an old woman. My to do list is 6 sticky notes long and I forget everything. Yesterday I forgot the keys and my cell phone and my agenda all at the same time so we got locked out of the house. We spent the morning trying to contact my pensionista because she is out of town and waiting for her nephew to bring us keys. Its a good thing my companions are so pàciente with me. I guess in my defense I have a lot to remember right now.

We bought a toilet seat this week. Funny how much joy it can bring to finally have one.,

I went to Cerro de Pasco this last week. It was such a fun trip. But it is freezing. I can't lie. Its so very cold. You wake up in the morning from under your 7 blankets and can see your breath. Its really difficult to get out of bed because its so cold. The problem with Cerro is that you never really get a chance to get warm once you are cold because there is no heat in houses and things. Their clothes are always cold and it takes about a week for their towels to dry after they shower. I really learned a lot from these sisters though. They are so positive and are working so hard despite the few trials of being the frozen chosen. I did really well, I thought I would have trouble breathing or at least a headache but I was blessed to feel really healthy while I was there. Hermana Soliz was with the other Cerro de Pasco sisters and she had to be on oxygen for a bit so I was just feeling really blessed.

It snowed while we were there. Didnt really stick much though. Just enough to make a snowball.

Cerro de Pasco. Looks cold right? haha

This is the cutest baby ever. All bundled up in the cold. They are members that we visited.

Also while we were there (cerro=) we had to run for our lives from dogs. It was a little bit funny how that happened. We were going to an appointment up a hill. One of the sisters stopped us at a point and told us to pick up all the rocks that we could hold and said if dogs come we run back all the way down the hill as fast as we can. There's a big pack of dogs that lives in this area and if she hadn't hit one with a rock last time it would have bitten her. We tip toed our way across one street when we heard this pack of angry dogs start to run at us and continue to chase us. We didn't spend a second to look back and just ran. It was so scary. We ended up having to go the long way up the mountain.

Remember when I said I wanted to be able to climb up mountains like Peruvians with sticks on their backs. Well I wasn't kidding. They really do.

Another highlight of his week. For our service activity this week we were up in the hills and got to help at like a service kitchen. We had to carry buckets of water from the public water spout and then we helped sort rice. When rice comes it comes dirty with bugs and things in it so we had to pick out every grain of rice to make sure it was clean. It was so much fun. I wish we had pictures of sorting it.

My pensionista is funny. So story is that we came down stairs and found her with this bag of pig parts to eat. It has the tail, ears, feet and all gross parts of the pig. They then spent the night burning off the hairs of all of it over the oven. Our whole house smelled awful for days. It was so nasty. I have never been so grateful that one of our mission rules is that we cant eat pig.

We had a lot of new investigators this week. Including a woman who I already love so much. And she is married! Its a miracle! We taught her about the Book of Mormon and she told us she wanted to read the entire thing. She asked us if we would come back two times a week every week to help her understand it and answer her questions about it. We talked to her for quite a while and left with a prayer. I prayed for her and her family and when I opened my eyes she had tears in hers. She told us that we had brought so much peace into her home and reminded us about 15 times to make sure that we would come back. There is such a power of peace that comes from the Holy Ghost. It is real and recognizable. I feel blessed to be able to be an instrument so that the Holy Ghost can help and touch others to bless their lives. I know that this is God's work.

This is a palm tree in Huanuco.

Have a great week. Love you all!

Hermana Rhoten