Happy Belated Birthday, Rhett.

So world, I suppose I should announce the birthday of my wonderful

brother Rhett, Happy belated birthday!

So this week was another interesting one. The elders had another

baptism. They told me the same morning I was going to give the first

talk. Good thing I've been a missionary for a year and can come up

with something. But I'm not that exciting of a public speaker in

Spanish todavía.

My pensionista interpreted a dream I had with a  bunch of

cowboys-chacra workers, and a  bunch of refugees. She only told me it

means I'll meet someone very interesting. I was cracking up as she

listened to my crazy dream. I have a lot of weird dreams actually.

It's always fun to see what my subconscious comes up with.

We visited Lucía, and there was a turkey.  It didn't chase me too

much. It just puffed up it's feathers every time I looked at it.

Another day  in the street a Turkey started chasing us. We used our

umbrellas as a shield as we ran away. Why are turkeys scarier than

dogs?

And I had a pretty powerful lesson with a widower where I told him

very boldly that he can be together with his family for forever, but only 

through covenants, and that he has to make them in the true

church, which is ours. And I don't know what else. I  felt the Spirit

pretty strong in that lesson. It was cool. I normally have a different

teaching style, so I know the Spirit was talking through me. :)

That's really about it though. We have interviews tomorrow, so I'll be

going down to Trujillo. Woo.

Have a great week!

Keep writing!

Hermana Brogan

The work continues forward.

Okay, my companion and I are back to being best friends. She's calmed

down about being exact with exact exactness. (There's obedience with

exactitud, then there's forgetting about other parts of the gospel,

like that we should be happy, and just try our best and trust the rest

to the Lord, and we need to love others and be patient with them). So

we found a balance, and now we're having a ton of fun here.

President Marler also wrote me this week and told me that really a

large part of the work with our little branch isn't so much to get it

to grow, as much as strengthening it, and helping the members progress

towards the temple. And lots of encouragement. All is good now.

We had a zone meeting and intercambios this week. (And we always stay,

both in Otuzco since our leaders come from Trujillo). The elders also

had intercambios the same day. 8 missioanries in Otuzco. So cool!

We found some cool people this week. We had an amazingly spiritual

lesson with this lady, Betti, and I really helped her feel comfortable

praying, and we got her to pray to end the lesson. It was a very

spiritual experience. I basically walked her through it before she

actually prayed, and then she just had to add the start and the end.

It ended up being a very effective way to teach her prayer.

My companion with Hermana Hidalgo had the miracle lesson (I swear

there's always one in intercambios), where they talked this guy into

going back into his house when he said he was busy, and he believed

everything about the restoration. Future priesthood holder!

Later on in the week, we had an activity where we learned to make

picarones (I always come out of those not having learned... I need

recipes. I'm dependent on them. Here, they aren't.) But the

electricity went out, and we wanted to do a movie night with the JAS

(mostly investigators from the elders, and Greli, our menos activa)

(JAS=Young adults). So I asked my comp if we should pray. She said

yes, but then abandoned me in the dark and went to the kitchen. I

thought she went to the bathroom, so I just stayed in the chapel.

Haha. So I said a quick prayer to have electricity, because it's

usually out for a couple ours, but we needed it within half an hour.

It turned right back on after about three minutes. Prayer works!

We also caught Elkin and Natali dancing in the street together from a

block away. It was cute.

We climbed up the mountain, Cholocday (the tall on with a white cross.

I finally learned its name), at five in the morning with the zone to

watch the sunrise. SO early. It's fun to climb mountains early! It

was super pretty. I actually left my camera so I could enjoy the

sunrise more than be obsessed with taking pictures. :) Good choice on

my part.

Elder Lagrava is always bothering me now saying that he can see in my

eyes that I want more food. In whatever situation. When we're with

Esther, when we're eating pancakes as a zone, picarones, and who knows

what else. He always says that. There's nothing in my eyes. I don't

want more. Thanks. (One time I did want more pizza, but we were going

to go eat lunch with Hermana Chepa.

Our branch mission leader is always bothering my companion about going

inactive. (Just joking around), so last night we ask him why only her,

and not me. He said that those from the USA never go inactive. Ha. He

then told me I'd live in Utah the rest of my life. Never. Only for

school! So much apostasy from him. He jokes about going inactive and

I still don't know if it's a joke or not.

I cried the other day because three dogs were barking pretty viciously

at us. They did no damage, but it was kinda scary. I said a prayer in

my head, and suddenly all their owners were in the passageway for

whatever reason. Not going back there again.

On the intercambio, we're focusing a lot on finding new people to

teach, so Hermana Pineda asks if we should set a goal of one. I said,

no, 3. And we ended up with six. Pretty neat! :)

Okay, that's all folks.

Love you all,

Hermana Brogan

Prayers, please!

Okay, short and sweet on your side, then mine too. It really just

because we kinda delayed writing today until we have very little time.

So this week in short.

I have a hard time communicating and defending my opinions in Spanish.

Sometimes makes the companionship complicated. But we're still going.

Nobody is progressing. We're also going to refocus on menos activos

because if we don't get church attendance up by the end of December,

they're going to make the branch into a family group, and they'll lose

rights to a chapel. Also, we're dropping basically all our

investigators minus like three or four. And starting over. Joy. Gotta

love Otuzco. It's got a very set culture, and it's a bit hard. Prayers

please! :)

Now for the good (mostly random funny stories, and a bit about Kati).

With permission from President Marler, we get to call Kati. I'm

basically her best friend since I'm the only missionary who went to

every single one of her citas. But I called her and she was overjoyed

to hear from me last night. She told me she's found the elders, asked

me how to talk to them (like she talks to us), and told me she's found

the chapel now and is planning on going. Woo!

On Monday we were teasing little Alisson about marriage. She told us

she wasn't getting married for a long time (She's 6). So my companion

says, well then, at 18. Alisson says, Yes. I'll get married then. She

thinks that's so old. It's so cute.

We're going to have to drop Elkin. He just wants to be our friend, but

he doesn't keep any of his committments.

Elder Lagrava bought a recorder. He plays it all the time. We went to

Josefina's chacra last week, and Elder Lagrava was playing it on a

mountain. No big deal. It's bright green, and cracks me up. So he,

Elder Jensen, and I did the musical number in sacrament meeting. With

the flute. Lucky I didn't crack up.

Joke: Why was the computer cold? The windows were opened.

My companion broke our mirror this week on accident. This is the

second time in my mission we've broken a mirror. Why?

On Friday we contacted this lady and so she told us to come into her

corral to visit her. She has one donkey, one baby pig, and one turkey.

The turkey was soooo flippin mad we were there. Then it chased me

around her little yard. So I jumepd into where the donkey was. Luckily

the donkey didn't care. And the lady put the turkey's rope around a

brick so it couldn't get to me. It was terrifying and hilarious.

Turkeys are weird. And I saw a firefly for the first time in my life last night. It was

so cool! It made me super happy!

Aaaand, that's about it. I love you all! Have a great week!

Also, I love handwritten letters even though I never respond. Sister

Erskine is the best, and I always get letters from her! They make me

super happy! So thanks to her. And mom, I got the December package.

Now I'm hoping I don't have transfers because I don't want to carry it

to a whole new area. It's huge!! But I'm suuper excited for Christmas

season! Also, could someone be kind enough to tell me what day is

Thanksgiving?

Hermana Brogan

Lessons, Halloween and Peruvian Lunches

This week. Oh, this week was an interesting one. 

We're working a lot with Elkin. He's 26, practically Mormon, and his wife is MA. 

We FINALLY got to talk with his wife, Natali, last night (with Elkin

there too). They have some problems in their marriage... minus the

marriage since they never got married. But they're a family- two kids.

Well, Elkin works in a store that makes huge styrofoams characters for

parties. So his store is always crazy and fun. And he has a really

active imagination. It's hilarious. So we go to teach them last night,

and while we're waiting for Natali, Elkin, and one of his workers

ended up doing taditional peruvian dances and playing traditional

instruments. There's no way I'm going to remember what they're called.

Pretty neat though! Then Natali came and we were discussing eternal

marriage and family and stuff. So then Elkin wants to get married, but

Natali doesn't trust him, and so he pulls out a receipt to demostrate

what their marriage will be like. Then he ends up cutting out two paper

hearts, giving one to me and one to my comp, makes us crumple them up,

and tells us that will happen one day to us. What the heck? So my

companion took the opportunity to explain repentance. Hahaha. They're

crazy. I love working with younger people. It's nice to get to laugh.

We went to teach one of Elkin's friends, Alexander. He seems pretty

cool. But he travels to Trujillo a lot, like Raquel (Juana's friend).

He said he'd read and pray. Yay!

We went to visit Jhoner (pensionista's husband) with a member. He went

and hid from us. Okay, not time for that yet. Last night, he was

drinking. Not in his house, but in his shop a door away. So we went to

greet him (comp's idea) so he'd feel bad about it. I've never seen

someone I know drunk before. That made me super sad.

We started visiting Norma again (MA). She finishes studying in the end

of November. Hopefully we get to go work with dirt with her. (She's

studying something that has to do with plants, animals, and dirt...)

The elders had a baptism. Yay! Raquel came. We didn't even get to

visit her or invite her, but Juana, the great future misisonary she

is, and Claudia brougth her along. So awesome!

On halloween, I was my companion. Well, I just wore her nametag. We

also carried around plastic pumpkins full of candy to share with kids,

members, investigators, etc. Well, something I learned is that a lot

of the evangelistas think it's a day to worship Satan. Awkward. Didn't

realize carrying around a plastic pumpkin and giving out free sweets

was satan worshipping.

We also got to teach Elisabeth, the sister of Hermana Esther. She's

the first in her family to accept the gospel, and was going to be

baptized.... 18 years ago. And now she still loves the missionaries, but

never accepts anyone. And we got to teach her. Little miracle right

there! She said she'd pray. I'm excited to see what happens.

And that's about the week in summary.

Oh, and the pension is tasty. I don't really like Peruvian lunches.

She makes pancakes and french toast sometimes. Yay! And Hermana Esther

does our laundry for us.

Okay, love you all, have a great week!

Hermana Brogan

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