Hola Familia!

So before I start, the craziest thing just happened. We saw a group of German tourists just now and were in the combi with them. It was so weird. I couldn't stop staring at them. They were so white and just looked so out of place. I totally understand why everyone stares at us now.

Visiting Huancavelica last week again. I love these two, and the one taking the picture which was also once my companion.

The drive to Huancavelica is so pretty. Cameras don't do it justice. It's on a cliff the entire way.

Our trip to Huancavelica last week being stopped by a herd of donkeys. Normal occurrence. But it took a good 15 or 20 mins to get through it.

And now about my week! So the fiestas are calming down, my companion was almost kissed by a drunk man this week but other than that the city has been pretty tranquillo, meaning calm I guess. I like tranquillo better.

My week was mostly spent taking care of my companion who had the most lovely of stomach infections this week. It was a bad one, she threw up everything she ate for an entire week, even sometimes just water and we both didn't sleep much because she was up a lot of the night. We taught a few lessons at the beginning of the week and she had an emergency at a member's house in San Jeronimo.  The member led her to this outhouse with a bucket, a lovely experience for her and after that we called it quits until it got better. We finally went to the clinic on Saturday which is always a scary experience here but we survived. Seeing that the bathrooms didn't have any sort of soap or toilet seat and the nurse taking blood over full blankets not worrying about the spilling of it I would say that is a great miracle. We count our blessings.

This is from counsel this week. It's crazy how many of us there are. And how many gringas there are now. When I was called I was the only one. It's lots of fun though.

A highlight of my week was a visit from Sister Henderson who brought us a heater! She had remembered me mentioning that we didn't have one and with us being stuck in the room a bunch this week she thought to bring us one. She drove all the way out to Concepcion to bring it to us. So nice and thoughtful! I love her.  The heater is little and it sounds like a lawn mower (it's loud) and we can't use it to much or it will blow our circuits but we are so happy!

our heater and a missionary desk

The honest truth is that I have realized that I feel sad when I'm not teaching. I learned a lot from the scriptures this week being stuck in the room a lot but I hope that next week we can hit the week running full speed. When I started my mission I loved to study every spare second that I had and was always reading and I still do love to learn but I have realized that as time has gone on that my joy has been found out in the villages in the cold teaching and talking to people and just helping them feel the spirit and live the gospel.

Cute little old lady, our investigators wife. Not my favorite picture of me but she's cute.

I learned a lot this week from studying the sermon on the mount as a whole. (3 Nephi 12: 3-12 and Matt 5 too) Christ teaches us what constitutes blessings and being blessed and also teaches that for everyone who suffers there will always be a reward, opposite to what was suffered. Most of the time the fullness of these blessings don't come until after this life which shows me that this life is the preparation for a greater future. There is such great hope that comes from living the gospel and such great promises for a future with God someday. All will be made right in the end if we do our part now. 

Hope you all have a great week! 

Love, 

Hermana Rhoten 1

Hey guys! This week was busy.

We had two divisions one in Huancayo and one in Huancavelica. I would have better pictures but my companion is super sick today and forgot her camera. Also happy Independence Day everyone! Last year my companion was Bolivian so we didn't celebrate but this year we kind of did. The Elders pension invited us over to make hamburgers. She even printed out American flags and put them in the window. It was so sweet of her.

The flags in the windows are from our fourth of July celebration.

Concepcion is a HUGE fiesta right now.. Every time I think that Peru has taken parties to the next level I am always impressed again. I thought it with Santiago, Purple month, Christmas, Carnival, and with the Negritos. This week of July 2nd to the 11th they are celebrating like three big festivals. One is the anniversary of the city of Concepcion,  the second one is the anniversary of the war that took place here against chile and they are also having a celebration of anise bread. That one's a little random.

This statue is in the plaza always. It's of the war from Chile.

Just so you guys get a taste of what its like here this morning while I was studying there were thirty bands passing through our block and in the plaza. It was so loud I couldn't hear my own thoughts. I guess today all of the bands are just from other parts of Peru but later in the week there will be some coming from other countries like Colombia and Mexico. We have seen thousands of people in costumes all week, wherever you are you smell beer, one of the days there were dances of little ones and another day there was all the adults dancing, multitudes of people. There is a huge market too. We always have a market but this one is a lot bigger and has a bunch of breads made into different things like turtles and dolls and things. They had some motocross thing going up by the giant virgin statue up on the hill. To be honest I didn't even know that Peruvians did motocross. Oh yea and the day of the anniversary of the war there was a huge reenaction of the war in the plaza, costumes and fire and the whole works. I guess Peruvians know how to be festive. With all the parties we haven't gone uninvited. We were invited to join in with the dancing even though we weren't dressed up or anything. This man even grabbed my hand after we said we couldn't and tried to dance with me. When we were in Hualuas the men on the combi also invited us to go to another party.

The city is Huancavelica

One of my favorite moments of this week was when we were contacting in one of the little villages. We started talking to some little kids and this little girl asked me Why are you white? I was like well there's this thing called genetics but it mostly has to do with that my parents were white. She seemed to be satisfied. Most of the kids out there have never seen white people before.

This picture was on our stake bulletin board and I thought it was funny. It says if your girlfriend says she is going to be ready in five minutes take a seat and read your Book of Mormon.

One of our jobs as missionaries is to boldly call people to repentance. There are lots of inactive members in our area and I feel like we have to do it often. This week I had a cool experience when relating the example of keeping covenants to a woman who always promises us she will go to church and never does. We talked about the converts of Ammon who had promised to never again take up arms. They were in a time of war where their friends were suffering and dying because they were defending these converts. They almost did but Helaman talked them out of it because he was scared they would loose their souls. We talked about how even though people were dying it wasn't okay to break covenants. 

Sometimes we will feel like the option to keep covenants won't have the best consequences. I personally don't think that sending Helaman (who to my knowledge has no military background) to be in charge of 2000 young men with weapons was the best option either. But the lord provided a way. They were protected and kept their souls. To those of us who have made covenants with God we must keep them. If we have broken them we must repent. The Lord has promised us that as many times as we repent with real intent we will be forgiven. Moroni 6:8) Let us be a covenant keeping people. 

I hope you all have a great week! 

Hermana Rhoten 1 

Hey guys! I like that mom already has my count down up.

I still have tons of time left. lol Also Happy Birthday to my Grandma Hatch today! And thanks for your letter if you are reading this, I just got it this week and it made my Tuesday. 

me and a llama at the park

This week was full of trials and successes as always! Successes first. Alexander accepted a date for the 11th before transfers because he wants us both to be there. He wants to be baptized in the river. It's cool but he's crazy because the river is cold. lol He was looking at baptismal clothes yesterday with his friend at church and he is really excited about it. Also after a tearful inspiried spirit filled visit with an inactive family they showed up at church on Sunday. Even though our attendance is still terrible we had a fourth of our attendance yesterday was inactive or less active members of the church. 

Last pday we went to a pretty park called parque de mattes. Mattes are these gourd things that they carve into here. They are beautiful. This was a little shop just down the way from there. So cool.

This gourd is huge. It costs a lot of money too but they are cool. I can only imagine how long it took to carve and burn all of that.

We taught a lot of lessons about repentance and the plan of salvation this week. I love watching people change their lives through repentance. It's such a happy message that Christ gives to us. You can change! You can be clean! If you come to me I will give you a new start! The plan of salvation often brings just as much joy. We taught a man whose wife had recently passed away this week about this plan. After explaining that eternal life means to live with God and your family forever he asked, Can we really obtain eternal life? Of course we can! The atonement makes it possible for each of us. 

In other news, Sunday lunch with members is slowly murdering our stomachs each week. We have gotten sick the past three weeks so as you can imagine we are starting to dread it because we know we will be miserable after it. But we are grateful for the members. We love them and are grateful for their sacrifice and being so willing to give to us what little they have at times.

This is my zone. They are all so great.

Other things from this week, we got stopped by two huge herds of sheep crossing the road, a members pig escaped in the middle of a lesson so we had to go chase it down, my hand got pecked by a chicken during a lesson ( I was sitting on the ground) and yesterday a man was so busy staring at us that he fell down some stairs. Poor guy.

Like I mentioned last week. It's basically Christmas.

One of my goals for this week was to be more grateful. In Pres Uchtdorf's talk this past general conference he teaches us that its actually a commandment to be grateful and that obedience to commandments always brings us blessings.

He taught us that we should be grateful in our circumstances. Two examples from this week. My companion basically had a mental breakdown this week (okay maybe a little exaggerated) after using someone else's bathroom that didn't have a toilet. She just doesn't understand why people will have a computer or tv and they only have a squat pit outhouse. We laughed and realized that we were grateful that we had a toilet in our little room. It became something of a joy when we entered into our apartment everyday and my companion would say we are so blessed to have a toilet. Another example was my ingratitude for our all week of cold showers. I realized my ingratitude one morning and thanked the lord to have water to shower with. I went to shower and realized that the water had become bearable and I was so happy. 

my beautiful area

I testify of President Uctdorf's words that gratitude brings us the blessings of happiness, broadened perception,  and cleared vision. We can count on the promise in Doctrine and Covenants 78:19 that says those who receive all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious! 

Have a great week!

Love Hermana Rhoten 1

Hey guys! Everything is going well.

Concepcion is super cold. And getting colder. Sometimes I can see my breath in our room because we don't have heating. If you were to see us in our study time you would all probably laugh at us because we have all the clothes on that we own almost to keep warm. We have been sleeping in our coats at night all bundled up. 

Pacha manca. They always feed this to us every Sunday here. It's good but we always get sick off of it when they just cook it on rocks in the dirt. I'm sure I have a bunch of dirt hanging out in my stomach right now.

This is what it looks like before we take it all apart.

Taking it apart. It's just right next to the rocks.

I was realizing the other day that I haven't really told you much about my companion Hermana Fitzpatrick. She is really great and we are best buds. I think she must be the most sarcastic person I have ever met. We are learning a lot from the scriptures and our Spanish is getting a lot better this cambio. Sometimes I bug her by singing Christmas songs. She always tells me that its not even close to Christmas. It's not my fault really. Peruvians have the Christmas spirit all year round. For example the table that we eat at everyday at the pensions has a giant Santa Claus on the wall next to the table and yesterday we were served drinks in Christmas mugs. Plus it's so cold. It might as well be Christmas.

Milena's little girl named Bianca. She is so cute. I love Peruvian children.

Crazy things from this week: So we saw a lady acting like a dog walking around on all fours this week, she even jumped onto a combi on all four legs and then sat down like a human. So weird.

We had a appointment fall through so we were contacting and saw some ladies pealing dry corn. Not sure how to explain that. But we ended up just sitting down in the dirt and helping them. I learned all about corn harvest and drying corn to use to make canchitas. We are so planting corn next year in the garden! It will help with my bucket list goal to learn to make tamales too. :) 

Yesterday we traveled into Huancayo for a stake conference. It was so good and we had a member of the seventy come and speak as well. We were excited that we had an investigator willing to come all that way with us, he was even ready in time and all dressed up in a suit. When we got close enough to see the church (we have to walk a few blocks from where the combi drops us) he commented on how big it was. When we got inside and he saw how many people there were he was so surprized and said it feels like all of Huancayo is here. It was just so funny to see his reaction because all he had ever seen was the casa capilla that's just so little. Even though he knew the church was worldwide, seeing the stake center really opened up his eyes to see how big the church really is. 

I also saw a bunch of people from my old ward in Camino Real at the stake conference and got some of the craziest hugs ever. This little old lady who used to accompany us a lot almost tackled me when she saw me. I saw several converts, members and even old investigators that we had taught. I don't remember if you would remember little Pamela, her and her friend Carolina with her family were there. So cool.  It is so cool to see the progress of an area that you helped open. Also David and Americas family have their sealing date! They are going to the temple August 26 to be sealed as a family for time and all eternity. The most beautiful news ever. I love them. 

The member of the seventy that spoke yesterday gave such a powerful talk and a message that touched me deeply. He spoke about our temperatures in the gospel based off the scripture found it Revelation 3:15&16. We can either be hot, warm or cold. In these verses it is taught that it would be better to be hot or cold than to be warm in our testimonies. Our temperature shouldn't change on the circumstances that we are in. He shared the story of the young mother who only had a tiny bit of flour and oil for her family but gave it to the prophet of the Lord who came to her home anyways and was willing to let her family starve to death. Her testimony was boiling hot and she was greatly blessed for it. When we act in faith we receive these blessings. He asked us at what temperature were we in things like scripture reading and the way we treat other people and asked us to ponder on how we can not only have warm faith and testimony but be hot. What are each of your temperatures? 

I love you guys and hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Hermana Rhoten 1

Hola Familia! First off, Happy Father's day yesterday to dad!

Father's day here was so crazy. I'll talk about it in a bit. 

My companion and I have been switching off being stomach sick all week. Whenever that happens we always try and guess what food it was that made us sick. My companion always blames it on the fish omelets because she hates them. We don't really eat them that often so I don't think its always the fish omelets. We were looking back this week and realizing that we ate a lot of different food. Monday we ate cow heart and some sort of spongy part of an animal. Not sure I want to know what it was. We also got offered this fruit thing. It looks kind of like a two foot long giant green bean and you tear off the skin and eat the white stuff inside, its really sweet. Yesterday for lunch with members we ate pacha manca again cooked in the ground. It was really good but it made my companion so sick. Poor thing, shes had a rough go around. The first month of her mission she was sick the entire time and then they found out it was because her water bottle filter wasn't screwed on all the way. Our water isn't super safe here, but I guess its nice to know that our water bottles work.

People here get creative with their bridges to their homes.

My companion and I were daring each other to cross this one to contact a house.

We changed the limits of our area this week. We now have a few more little pueblitos including Hualuas and Santo Domingo (before it was the elders area but still in our ward) Our old bishop took us around Hualuas and it is beautiful. You kinda have to learn the short cuts and trails to get to peoples houses because its all hidden so him helping us helped a ton. We met a man who was converted not too long ago that had a very similar experience to John Tanner. He hadn't been able to walk since his youth but after listening to the missionaries he had developed a desire to be baptized. The bishop and the missionaries gave him a blessing then the missionaries called him forward and asked him to walk in the name of Jesus Christ and he did. Now he walks with a cane and is so grateful for the church. His wife died a month ago and he is so sad without her so we are going to go back and teach him about the plan of salvation again.

This is from Hualuas (this pueblito is famous for its tapestry and things)

Funny and sad: My companion trying to start conversation with a man yesterday to possible share the gospel with him asked what kind of leaves he was selling (assuming that it was some kind of herb) he responded that it is coca or cocaine. So funny.

Our district leader who is from Costa Rica got reassigned to a different mission this week in Ecuador. Some sort of problems with his papers. We sang god be with you till we meet again at our district meeting and it was so sad. We will miss him.

Yesterday for Father's day we only had 35 people at church! We had passed by the park in the morning and there were hundreds maybe a thousand people in the plaza dancing and things for fathers day. Maybe that's where they all went. It's crazy because Concepcion isn't a very big place. I'm not really sure where all the people come from. Since the wards here are mostly all recent converts the commandment to keep the sabbath day holy is really misunderstood. People buy food in the middle of sacrament, work on Sundays and go to church when they can. I have committed myself to re teaching the commandment to everyone in the ward. We taught primary the other week and were like drill sergeants trying to help them learn it. We would ask a question like Do we work on Sunday? and they would say NO! Do we buy things on 

Sunday? NO! What do we do on Sunday? We go to church! So cute. I think they got it.

Remember the mom who wanted to name her baby Joseph Smith? Well she had the baby and its a boy but she hasn't named it yet. The mom is pretty sick still and I guess hasn't gotten around to it. But we had the cutest lesson with her and her daughter about the plan of salvation. Our recent converts (the nine year old) dad died so it was cool to be able to teach the plan of salvation and explain to her that her baby brother was with god before he came to the earth last week and that her dad is waiting for them in the spirit world. There was a really special spirit in that lesson. 

Well the church is still true. Jesus Christ is still our savior and his work moves forward. Hope you all have a great week!

Hermana Rhoten 1

Hola Familia!

So we had cambios this week! We got the call Tuesday night that Hermana Pulce was getting voted off the island and getting sent to Huancavelica. Sad news for us because I loved being in a trio with them. I've always loved all my trios. The saddest part of it all was when we were riding back to Concepcion after dropping her off in Huancayo and it was my turn to pay so I said to the door lady "three for Concepcion" and then Hermana Fitzpatrick turned to me and said Hermana Rhoten there are only two of us now. So sad. But now to the happy news....Hermana Fitzpatrick just finished her training so I don't have a companion in training!!!!! I feel like a proud mother who's kids are finally all out of diapers. I love training but I've just never had a companion who isn't in training and it will be a nice break I think. 

We went to our less active member's guinea pig farm. She sells them to restaurants and things 

I love the investigators that we have right now. They are so great. Here's a couple stories: 

We were finally able to teach our investigators nine year old son this week. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted. After that one lesson, the next time we saw them his mom told us that he had been taking his Book of Mormon to school everyday and reading it and he says that he wants to be baptized. He's so cute. 

It turns out that my pension and her husband are both returned missionaries and not sealed in the temple. I'm not really sure how that happened but I love them and want them to be sealed someday. In order to get there they need to make a few adjustments in the way they are living. We have an investigator who has been coming to church now for about a month who happens to be friends with our pension's husband. They ran into each other on Saturday and our investigator said Why don't I ever see you at church? He replied I am there I'm just really late. Our investigator didn't believe him so he said we will see who gets there first tomorrow. Our investigator and our pension were the first two people there on Sunday. It was the first time he had come for all of sacrament meeting in a long time because they normally work on Sundays.

The rest of the week was pretty normal, I got attacked by this same dog three times (it saw me all the way down the street and ran up to me to attack me, not sure what I did to it), we got asked if we were single by lots of drunk men, got saved by our little friend named Aladdin, that's not really his name but he just reminds me of him because he roams the streets stealing things and riding on the back of motos without anyone seeing him so he doesn't have to pay. He even accompanied us to a lesson once because he was protecting us from danger (he's about 10 years old) and always carries a whip like thing, and we lost water and light a few times this week but it's all back now. We ate cereal and milk once for breakfast this week it was amazing! 

I am so happy to be here and be serving a mission. It's so fun watching people progress in the gospel. It's fun to look back and see how much you have learned and changed. I have become so grateful for the little miracles and love that God shows to us. 

Have a great week todos!

Hermana Rhoten 1

Hola Familia! I won't even say this week was great or crazy because I always say that but it really was :)

We have cambios this week! I kinda doubt that we will be staying in a trio but you never know. I guess we will see what happens. 

This is most of my area the city of concepcion

I started out this week with consejo in Huancayo again. It was really good, and I learned a lot as always. I finally got up the courage to ask president how long it should be before I am worried about stomach problems because everyone here has them but even though it hasn't been bad it has been on and off for over a month. He asked me about symptoms and he said yep you have all the symptoms of a parasite! He asked me if I had lost any weight and from weighing myself at the mission home I had lost 10lbs since last month. I asked president if I could keep him and he just laughed and said absolutely not! So I had to do a parasite treatment and stay in the room all day Saturday. Goodbye to my little parasite friend. 

This is the virgin that overlooks the city. It's nine stories tall and we see it everyday.

from inside the virgin's head

A few cute moments of this week. So I think I have probably explained before but we greet all the women-girls here with a kiss on the cheek. Normally we would with boys too but it is forbidden as missionaries for obvious reasons. So yesterday at church these two little junior primary aged boys (having been trained by their mother that they can't give kisses to sister missionaries) held up their stuffed animals to our faces and had their stuffed animals give us kisses. So cute. Peruvian children are so cute. 

Another cute moment, we are teaching a mother of a young recent convert. Her mother is very pregnant right now, like due at any moment. We had a lesson with her last week about Joseph Smith, watched the movie and bore testimony to them about him. I guess it went well because this week we went to her house to share a message and just striking up conversation we asked her if she had thought of any baby names yet. She replied, I really like the name Joseph Smith. Haha. It was funny because she's not even a member yet. 

I also wanted to say hello or g´day mate to Silvia Gonzalez in Sydney Australia. I went to Huancavelica this week and visited your daughter. She told me that you always read my letters so I thought I would tell you that your daughter is doing great, she is obedient and her Spanish is coming along. (It's really cute hearing her speak Spanish with an australian accent.) 

 

the Huancavelica sisters and us,

About Huancavelica and our trip, its about 3 hours from Huancayo by car so I went with another hermana leader Thursday morning. My pension warned me how terrible the drive was but I didn't take it too seriously because all the roads here are so bad. It was really bad. I didn't get too sick just a headache but my companion stopped and threw up three times. It's so windy with such high altitude. The city itself is beautiful and a new area to sisters. I sent pictures of their casa capilla and their homemade font so cool!

the city of Huancavelica

This is Huancavelicas casa capilla and their homemade baptismal font.

And the Huancavelica sisters studying in the sun on their mantas. It's cold there too.

We got stopped by cows six times on the way back. haha.

I had been studying this week the theme of the relationship between faith-power- to deliverance in the Book of Mormon this week. It's just everywhere. I have at least ten examples written in my study journal, one of my favorite being Alma the younger's story. Right before the angel left him he told him to remember that when his ancestors were in bondage god freed them, and later in Alma 36 when he tells the story to his son he said he called out to Christ and he was freed. It is obvious that he Lord wants us to know that if we have faith in him, he will help free us. From any trial, weakness, sin, suffering, natural man he can free us. I know that is true and that he loves us.

Hope you have a great week!

Hermana Rhoten 1