Hola Familia! This week was so great!

I didn't end up traveling like I had planned to because there has been so many landslides and Hermana Soliz ended up taking a trip to Lima so we are hoping to do that all next week. I have council on Tuesday and Wednesday in Huancayo and then we are planning to go to Cerro de Pasco on Thursday and Friday. It sounds like it will be a busy week. I feel sad to be out of my area so much especially right before transfers but they should be good experiences. My companion is great and even though she won't admit it she can run everything in the area fine by herself. I hope that we don't have cambios but I think that we might end up having them because we have already been together for two cambios and she needs to train. ;) Someday when she reads that she will laugh.

This week was the last week of Carnival! Hallelujah! I got hit in the head on Saturday by a water balloon and I think I am starting to be ready for it to be over.

Getting hit in the head with a water balloon

It's a fun idea and things but when you can't play back and are just getting hit by things all the time it's a little bit less fun. The last four days of Carnival is called Calixto where they have sort of like a festival of colors. There are hundreds of people running through the streets throwing water balloons and colored chalk (that's why in the picture the water is all red in the street).

The streets are running with red

The route just barely touched our area but I was on divisions with Pedro Puelles this week and it was crazy there. There was also a lot of parties going on with the trees in the middle of the road.

The tree next to our house for the big party

The pictures I sent were right directly outside of our house. They had a band and were drinking and dancing until 3a.m. We didn't get any sleep even with our earplugs and the music was so loud that our doors and windows were shaking. 

Party outside our house until 3a.m.

We had baptisms this week! Tuesday was a really great day because we were able to get permission for a boy we had been teaching to be baptized, we confirmed Jenny's baptism and another person we have been teaching finally accepted a date! On Saturday and Sunday we had combined baptisms for our ward (we share a ward with our zone leaders too) and they turned out so great. There were lots of people all dressed in white.

Everyone in white. Lots of baptisms for our ward this week.

Baptism pictures from Saturday

The parts that touched me the most were the testimonies after though. The little boy said the water was cold but I didn't feel scared. This is probably insignificant for most people but knowing that he has a great fear of water made it really special. He also said when he was baptized that he felt like a son of God. After Jenny's confirmation on Sunday she turned to me and whispered I think I get what you were trying to tell me about the Holy Ghost. It's like you feel it in your heart and you feel a great calmness. Its indescribable. I think she hit it right on the head. It confirmed to her that she had made the right decision.

Jenny's baptism

Baptism pictures

I have realized recently how well Christ was able to relate to the people he is teaching. I like to imagine that he is teaching Peruvians sometimes because a lot of the symbols that he used relate so well to them as I imagine that they did to the people of his time. The symbols of him being the light of the world, bread of life, and our shepherd work so well to people who don't have light in there houses, who have to leave to the store to buy bread everyday and people who actually own and work with sheep. When we travel outside the city I always see large groups of sheep and a person leading them and it always makes me remember that Christ is our shepherd. He simply wants us to follow him. Sometimes he is calling out for us and we don't listen (Alma 5). If we follow him we will receive his protection and his love.

Silly Peruvians trying to translate things directly into English.

Have a great week. Love ya!

Hermana Rhoten