Hola Familia. Sounds like Rissa is doing great!

I just glanced over her email and she looks good. I'm glad she has her pday before me so I can read them. Also thanks dad for writing me three weeks in a row. It's a miracle!

This morning it was a little rainy. 

We had such an awesome week. I went to Huancayo on Tuesday and Wednesday. I think I forgot to mention that last week that I was going. And about the goat pictures. I meant to say that trying to teach lessons with goats in the living room is so difficult. It really is.

This is the new mission home! They just finished it and we got to see it when we were there. So pretty. It must be the nicest house in Peru.

President's desk

The consejo (training/council) was great we talked about how we can help others become autosufficient. Is that a word? Autosuficiencia? Someone who speaks Spanish can help my mom. Maybe being self sufficient might be the English word. Anyways it helped me ponder a lot on the topic because it applies to everything I do as a missionary. My goal is to help everyone, recent converts, investigators, less active members, my companion, the sisters I'm in charge of, and myself become self sufficient in a testimony of the gospel.

Just the drive to Huancayo

Drive to Huancayo. Our driver was nice and let us go take pictures. This is just off the side of the road.

Drive back to Huanuco

I also was able to stop by a family that was baptized while I was serving in Huancayo. They are doing great. David just got called to be the new ward mission leader, America his wife is in young womens and the two boys are as crazy as ever but sharing the gospel with their friends at school. They have a temple date to be sealed as a family in August!

David and America with the two missionaries that were together when they were baptized. Love them. I think this is such a funny picture. My hair looks like a lion because it was raining in Huancayo as always.

They made a scrapbook of their family history and included a part about us and how they came to know the gospel. So cute.

I didn't mention it last week but Carnival is still going forward with full swing. On Sunday we were walking down the street and I got an entire bucket of water thrown on me. I was soaked when I went to go pick up our investigators for church. My companion right after that got pegged in the back with a water balloon. If only we could play back! It's funny because when they do stuff like that they say such loving things. Like I love you, I'd give my life for you, you are beautiful and they make kissing noises at us. They have such an odd way of showing love here. They also throw baby powder on each other. My companion got some of that all over her back yesterday too. Another part of Carnival I haven't really mentioned is that people cut down big trees and dig a hole and put them in the middle of the road. They decorate them with random things like clothes, baskets, etc and then have a drinking party with bands and all until the tree falls down and they collect the stuff. Our little recent convert Jordan said they were like pinatas for big people. Haha. There were about five of them by our house on Saturday. I'll try to send a picture.

This is that tree..haha

My two funny stories of the week. We were invited to a house of a member of the church who passed away. In Peru when a person dies they clean out all the furniture in their living room and the dead body and the coffin stays in the house for about three days or more until the funeral. It smells so awful because it's hot here. We were invited to come sing hymns for a bit next to the body in the house. We started singing but we had two other members that sang with us and it was just awful. The worst singing I might have ever heard. I kept my cool but my companion started laughing. She had to cover her face so that the people couldn't tell she was laughing and when she covered her face everyone thought she was crying and looked really concerned. They mouthed to me "is she okay" and I was like yea she's fine don't worry. We just should go soon. It was so funny.

Hermana Alpaca put this up for all the missionaries that served in Camino Real. she even put one up for me. :)

The other one was from a lesson we had with one of our investigators who is 80 years old. He came to church on Sunday and really wants to be baptized. He was in jail for awhile and to receive benefits whle in jail listened to "the word of God" He knows a lot and when we invited him to be baptized he told us that he has to do it and told us how important it is. The funny thing is that he is a little slow and we have to explain things very carefully to him. Our first lesson we thought we explained how to pray and started to explain the Book of Mormon to him but got off subject really quick talking about things like baptism. We realized we needed to end the lesson quickly and go so we asked if he would pray. He ended up saying a fifteen minute prayer from his heart but not like anything that we explained to him including lots of glory to god and he said thank you to us for giving him this book of songs to praise god. My companion and I left the lesson thinking what did we even teach him? I wouldn't say about prayer, and we can't say we taught him about the Book of Mormon because he thinks it's a hymn book. Missionary failure. But we plan on going back and teaching his wife this week. We have some clearing up to do.

Mangoes. I love them.

We saw God's hand in the work a lot this week. He really is helping us so much. I am so grateful that he lets us be a part of his successes. We had been praying and fasting to find and teach families. We ended up finding and teaching three complete families by the end of the week and at least one member of each family came to church this week. One complete family showed up themselves even though we didn't expect them too. It just so happens that we had thought of two people to help with their conversion in the ward and they were already friends with them. One of them even spoke in sacrament meeting and one of our investigators leaned over and said that is just what I needed. I have said it before but I really do know that God listens to us, and helps us with our individual needs. I know that he lives and this is his work.

I hope you all have a great week.

Hermana Rhoten