Lesson with a flashlight

So this week in Otuzco Perú. 

Sometimes I forget how poor everyone here is. I feel like all of Peru is like this, but then we go to Trujillo. Yeah, it's just Otuzco.

Lessons this week were lessons. We had one cool lesson. We taught the restoration, and their house doesn't have electricity. So we taught with a flashlight. I also learned the word for flashlight. Linterna.  Yeah, so it was actually super cool. We focused a lot on the pictures in  the pamphlet and we turned the light off when we talked about the great apostasy. Pretty neat object lesson that was completely unplanned! I wanted to laugh at the same time I thought it was really cool. Don't worry, I kept calm.

At dinner one day,my best friend and little sister Alisson kept asking us math questions. (She's just learning numbers and how to spell). She asked us the oh so hard question of 42 and 42. 84. She was so impressed. She "whispered" to her mom, "Mami, I think they already know the numbers". It was SO funny. We all laughed, and then Alisson laughed just because we were all laughing. Why are little kids so cute?

Sometimes taking a moto feels like you're riding Indiana Jones in Disneyland. I won't go into too much detail there...

We've also started to do family scripture study with our pensionista's family. Since two of them are inactive. I love it. Definitely something to keep doing!

One night we forgot our phone at dinner, and it was basically curfew, so we literally RAN down the street to get it, and RAN up the hill to our room. I'm surprised I didn't have to stop. It was fun!

On Saturday we took the branch to the temple. I got sick riding back because I already had a headache. Bah. I thought carsickness had no control over me anymore. But I didn't get TOO sick. No crazy stories there. The temple was amazing. It's so nice to go do work for those who can't. Sometimes I feel like temple work is just more effective... No, but we got all three of the recent converts we're working with to go. Super neat! We also bought Lisbeth (Our pensionista's older daughter) two little pictures. One of the temple, one of the resurrection.Super cheap birthday present, but hey,we're missionaries. She liked it! (Or is really good at being polite. Let's go with option 1)

Yes, that is what happened this week!

Love you all.

Sorry the space-bar is weird. (No problem, Haley, I think Mom got them all)

Hermana Brogan

The detergent saved the dog!!!

This week. We did stuff. Nah, I'll give some details. For pday we cooked lunch. For four hours. Why isn't there more to do in Otuzco? Tuesday we visited Elkin (The brother of a member, Edgar). Well Elkin is 26 and has been visited basically since he was 13 and is super good friends with missionaries. (He'd also always say hi to us in the streets and we had no clue who he was...) Well now we know. He wants to be baptized, but doesn't want to get married first. Elder Price apparently was working with him before getting papers in order and everything, but it never happened. But maybe we can have a bit of a sway and help him get that worked out. Also Elkin told us that he has a bunch of doubts, but wouldn't be specific. He said he'll tell us as we go through the lessons. This should be a fun time teaching!

We also found and adventista, Francisca, who is just a poor confused lady who doesn't know what church is true, but says she's already been baptized, and says she likes when churches only teach form the Bible, but accepted to read a chapter of the Book of Mormon. Haha. I think she'll progress. Kinda fun teaching an adventista. Next lesson- Sabbath day, and why we worship on Sundays. 

We passed by Greli a couple days ago. Her mom was on bed-rest because she fractured something... because Greli pulled the ladder out from under her while she was still on it. On purpose. What drama in that lesson. I was literally in middle of a soap opera. Well, both Greli and her mom are in Trujillo. I think Greli went for mental care, and her mom for medical care. Things I see in life. 

That awkward moment in companionship inventory during weekly planning when your companion tells you that you're being really humble about learning to live in a new culture. (Like sweeping wooden floors, and other events that passed that week). After a year and I still stick out so much. Kinda embarrassing for me. But hey, what am I going to do? I do my best to be normal here...

We had an AMAZING multizone with an area 70 (which I almost wrote as 70 of area.) Basically was a motivational speaker to us but with the addition of the gospel so that I wouldn't think about laughing at it. It really was super good. He told us we need to be happy. he also told us that you can count the seeds in an apple, but not the apples in a seed. Well, that made me relax a lot more. I'm pretty happy with that. He also told us in the arithmetic of the Lord, 1=thousands. So neat. :) And we got to eat super tasty sandwiches after the multizone before coming back to Otuzco. But now I don't miss delicious food as much because my pension rocks. And my little sister Alisson loves to talk to us and be at the table with us. I'm supposedly teaching her ballet. She's so cute!

Then coming back from the multizone, we taught Jhonner (our pensionista's husband) and had a super powerful lesson with him about the Sabbath day. He told us that really what keeps him from coming back is his pride. And he knows it. (He's an ex branch president). So he told us that Efraín (our 23 year old ward mission leader) said something that offended him before Efraín even went on his mission. I swear everyone goes inactive because of members. It drives me insane. We're all imperfect. And it means just that. We're not going to act how we're supposed to because we literally are unable to every moment of always. But yeah, Jhonner has been changing a lot since we started eating there. He's stopped drinking at least. That's pretty big. And that before we even started teaching him. Just our presence is helping him out. Cool!

We passed by the branch president's house on Saturday. And we visited with his wife for a little bit (She made me... what's the word... take corn off of the cob so she could make popcorn. Super cool! My thumb was super raw after... hehe) But then their dog Wasabi, was foaming at the mouth. He had eaten something poisonous! So they poured detergent in his mouth so he'd throw up. It worked. They saved their dog's life with soap. But I came when Wasabi was a new pupppy! So it was weird that he was being so calm. So so calm. Then we saw the foam. Pretty crazy. 

And yesterday, in the park by our house, there was a public exorcism going on. Oh Otuzco. 

I love you all. Have a great week!

Hermana Brogan

Older Missionaries Are Just Calmer.

This week we had intercambios. I was having a bit of a hard day being a little sick (that's actually a good story, but not one I'm going to put on the blog), and frustrated with my district leader (all is good now. I thought elders weren't supposed to be the too serious ones), and thinking too much about what hasn't happened in my mission the first year. So luckily, we had a zone meeting that morning, and unluckily, I cry so easily, so my sister leader Hermana Pineda and I went outside to talk. And she helped me a ton and told me how amazing I am and stuff. So that was cool. Then after lunch, we did intercambios, and I went with Hermana Nuñez. She was in the CCM with me. I don't remember her (she's from Bolivia, so I couldn't communicate with her back then, and just chose not to). Well, she speaks english. Haha. I figured that out when she asked me in a lesson in english if I thought our investigator really was pregnant. Haha. She told me later that she lived for a year in New York. She went with her friend. Hermana Nuñez is 27 years old. So it was a really cool intercambio. She's a lot calmer than most of the missionaries, and we had super spiritual lessons the whole day. It was awesome!

Kati moved back to Lima. We had a lesson with her, and we got her a little closer to keeping the word of wisdom. She just doesn't think she can change. But she wants the gospel too. We committed her to go to church this sunday in Lima. I really hope she did so the missionaries there can start working with her. 

We started teaching Juana's friend (Juana is who's preparing for a mission), Raquel. Raquel is super amazing. She asked us why God doesn't appear to everyone. I talked about how there needs to be a need for a miracle in addition to the faith necessary because we promised to walk by faith in this world, and that there was a need with Joseph Smith (Woah, that's the first time I've said Joseph in a long time. It sounds so weird now.) She also asked why she doesn't always receive answers to prayers, and Juana stepped in on that one. It was awesome! And so Raquel is going to pray about the first vision for the first time in her life (she's listened to missionaries before, but has never prayed specifically about Joseph Smith). I'm excited to see where this goes. Raquel's two best friends are active members. And we teach her in Hermana Esther's house. So sweet! The Spirit was so strong. 

Aside from that... not much else has happened. I'm doing good. The work is... going. We're finding. A lot of finding.

Hermana Brogan

A Little Sister in Otuzco!!

We found a pensionista. She's awesome. Hermana Chepa (I don't know her real name, but her nickname is Chepa.) I'm super stoked to have a little family again! She has a six year old who is suuuuper excited for us to start pensioning there. This morning at breakfast (we started today), we told Chepa we'd wait for her to drop off Allison (her six year old) and come back. So Allison told us to wait for her too and that she gets back at one (lunchtime). So we told her we'd be there. We're actually going to be a bit late. Haha. SO cute! I get a little sister! At least as long as I'm in Otuzco. I'm stoked. Must take pictures with this family. :) 

Well, in the work, this week wasn't the most productive. Except for two things. One, Greli came to conference. So cool! So she'll hopefully be a rescue in a week or two. :) Two, we 'found' this lady named Carmen. Who works with Consuelo, and Hermana McCally and I gave her a Book of Mormon hace no sè cuanto. Hehe, just messing with you mom. We gave her a Book of Mormon about a month ago or so. (I apologize to my family members who do not speak Spanish because I will drive you crazy when I go home, I just know it.)  Anyways, we visited her officially in her house, met her 14 year old daughter (she's sweet, and a little odd...). It's just those two. We invited them to baptism, and the Spirit was super strong, and Carmen said yes. So we now have someone else to work with towards baptism. I'm excited about it. Unfortunately, she was unable to come to conference because of something going on in her daughter's school.

Then at the end of the week, we had... A multizone, and general conference. So basically we didn't get to teach a ton of people, but that's chill. It was everything I needed and more. I am SO excited to get back to working hard, and finding new investigators, and having more faith, and just everything. In the multizone Hermana Marler spoke to us about the scripture, in Matthew 11:28-30, come unto me ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest. She spoke about the power of the atonement and how we don't need to carry around our burdens. She said that she thinks Christ would be really sad if we did, because He already did it for us. It isn't necessary.

I also really loved in conference that there was a huge focus on not making the gospel so complicated, and that we don't need to feel pressured to be perfect now (I am SO guilty of that). But we just need to be good and get a little better at a time. President Marler the day before told us (was it Pres Hinckley?) someone said that God is perfectly fine with progressing just a little tiny bit every day. We don't need to overwhelm ourselves. I loved it. I've also felt really strongly my Heavenly Father's love for me these last few days.

We've dropped Kati, but she's been finding us in the street. She got fired from her job. So she came to conference for part of two sessions. She'll be going back to Lima at the end of the month. We're going to go back to visit her to see if there's any last things we can do. Prayers please! I honestly don't know much more what we can do. But she so needs the gospel.

Honestly, that's about all. Thanks for your support, keep writing me, I love you all!

More to report next week!

Hermana Brogan