Hola Familia! Well this week was super busy.

This is a deer. I know crazy. Some members just have a pet deer that they keep in their yard. We were playing with it and it decided to eat my companions hair. I have never seen a deer in Peru, I wonder where they got it from.

We taught lots of lessons especially member lessons. When you leave an area you realize how much the people love you. Lots of them found out my companion is leaving and we got sent tons of gifts, and thank you notes and things this week. My companion is still with me she doesn't leave until tonight. She was supposed to leave on Saturday but it got postponed a little bit. At five today I will drop her off in the mission home and then I will go pick up my new companion and her stuff and come back to Concepcion. I already know her pretty well, she is Peruvian and is another hermana leader. I'm a little bit worried about being able to teach her all of the area in only two weeks because its a really big area but I'm sure we will make it work.

Our ward mission leader and us

Our ward

So General Conference is postponed in this country because of elections. By law they can't hold meetings because they would keep people from voting on October 5th so everyone is going to watch conference the next week and the missionaries won't go to church. Crazy huh? I might get to watch part of it on Sunday because I will be in the mission home but if not you guys have to record it for me so I can watch it when I get home.

Funny or interesting things that happened this week: A lady answered her door with smashed tomato in her hair. At first I didn't really know what it was because I just saw that it was dirty and had lots of seeds in it. She apologized for it and said it was because she had a really bad headache. Peruvian medicine. :)

 

We made tacos this week! My companion taught me to make homemade corn tortillas. We made them at a member's house who is from Costa Rica so she had the plancha and everything. I will have to make them when I get home.

My companion teaching me to make tortillas

 We were teaching a lesson in a store behind the counter and another religious man came up and started preaching to our investigator. It was funny because we were trying to teach and he was at the same time. He didn't want to leave. There are lots of religious teachers here that just shout repentance in the street so people are really used to that kind of thing. Also when they ask us how long we serve for and we say a year and a half or two years they are like oh only that much? It's because there are many missionaries from here that work and do missionary work all their lives. An example to follow.

Every area you go to has a different type of bread and they sell it like this in the streets.

It's been raining a ton here! One day we got stuck in a rainstorm in San Jeronimo. We went into a member's home for refuge. When they saw us soaked and our feet soaked from water in our shoes they pulled out all sorts of clothes and shoes for us to wear home. We looked hilarious. The pension opened the door and just laughed, especially my comps tennis shoes. See attached picture.

This is what the members dressed us in when we came out of the rainstorm.

I have been working on my goals paper for after the mission this week. I honestly don't really know what I am supposed to do nor do I really have any type of plan. I studied and pondered this week and learned a lot from the three Nephites. The nine wanted to rest in the kingdom of God when their lives work of service had finished. Christ responded that they would be blessed for their service and would receive rest. But to the three Nephites who wanted to continue he said, more blessed are ye. I imagine Christ asking missionaries who are finishing their missions the same thing and to those who have served faithfully will be blessed from their missions. 

But to those who continue will be blessed with great things because that is a desire more like Christ had. After he completed his mission he went to the spirit world and kept working. The three Nephites received many blessings including protection, received great things from heaven and received a fullness of joy like God and Christ. My goal is to be able to keep working and serving the Lord all my life like the three Nephites desired. 

Hope you have a great week! 

Hermana Rhoten 1