Happy Easter from Trujillo

Okay, I suppose I should write a bit about my week. It was wonderful. SO wonderful. 

We sang in the multizona. That was fun, but I was super nervous to sing. Later on in the week we had Sunday. We didn't proselyte at all because the office called us and invited us to be part of the missionary choir for the day. We sang in my building for three stakes, and later in La Esperanze for two other stakes. So we got to church at 8:50ish. We brought two investigators too! Yay! Melissa and Yanela, the cousins we found. People are progressing! Por fin!

Then we stay for consejo. We stay for choir practice. We stay for the performance. We leave about 7 or so to go to la esperanza and then are there until 9 or 9:30. It was so good. I felt a lot like I did when I performed with Zion's choir. Such a sweet familiar spirit singing in a choir. There were also some very beautiful special musical numbers involved too. I think this is one of the best Easters I have ever had. And I've always had good Easters. :)

Then today we got to go to the temple. I got to see Hermana McCally. :) That was the best. For Easter and in the temple. I also woke up at 4:40 this morning to get ready to go to the temple. My comp wanted to get there early. And we got there when nobody else was around. The lights weren't even on. There were only security guards. Haha. But shortly after everyone else showed up. It's so amazing to be in the temple again. I love the Spirit I feel there. 

Oh, we also had picture slide shows as part of the Easter program, and there's one of this little girl with curly hair and Christ. It made me happy.

Oh. The other big news. I knew  I had forgotten something. So in the middle of the transfer, this Thursday, they closed Primavera 2. So now my companion and I are taking care of it until they can put missionaries there next transfer. Our area just doubled in size, and we have to maintain all the progressing people over there. That's insane! Well, hard work to the end! :) Just the thing I need to keep me overly focused. I think I'm going to be very tired by the end of this transfer.

So Sister Beasley is going to Pacasmayo and Sister Vasquez to OTUZCO! So her new comp (btw they're the sisters who were in Primavera 2), came down from Otuzco, and was with us while Sister Vasquez showed us around her area and presented us to some of the people she's teaching. Well, Hermana Rimache (amazing missionary, so much light in her countenance), told me about a ton of amazing things going on in Otuzco. One lady I worked with Consuelo is now rescued, they're working on getting Elkin baptized, and he's finally getting his act together. He and his wife aren't fighting anymore!!! Um, Marilu was with a baptismal date. What else... I don't know. But it was so great to hear that there is real progress there in the branch. It makes me so happy!

Oh yeah, women's conference was the best. Sister Marriott makes me laugh. Especially when she chuckled a bit after her experience. 

Lessons are lessons. I learned something from one of the members who came with us this week. She said that we know we're truly happy if we can be happy with ourselves, with God, and with those around us. I like that a lot! :) Happiness is a choice. It doesn't depend on our surroundings. :)

President Marler spoke to us about obedience this multizone and we watched the spiritual crocodiles video. Then he said there's a lot of them when we go home. Well thanks for worrying me president. Haha. No, but it's all good. :) 

We moved again this week, too. We're back on the same street we used to be. Different room though. But now my companion can sleep at night. So that's good. 

Okay, it's long already. I love you all! Have a great week!

Hermana Brogan

Feel like nothing happens..but, then again....

Okay, first thing's first. Next week pday will be on TUESDAY because we're going to the temple. So I will write you TUESDAY. I don't know at what hour, but that always changes anyways. :)

This week. SO much happened. And when we report on Sundays I always feel like nothing happened. Then I actually look back through my planner, and SO much happens every week!

Well, Estefanía came back from Germany. She's so weird. I really like her a lot. I think working through her, we'll be able to reactivate her and her dad. She promised to start reading and praying and coming to church again. She's actually- praying. It's  a start. We'll just have to remind her more often. 

We taught Melissa and Yanela the first vision. The Spirit was so incredibly strong in that lesson, I can't even believe it. I invited them to baptism. They said yes if they do come to know it's true. They definitely responded with the Spirit. Then Satan came in with the doubts after how that means they'd have to change a lot and who knows what else. I think they're already getting their answer. They felt the Spirit so much. The next visit on Thursday, Melissa hadn't prayed. But not out of laziness, she's scared of what the answer will be. So we explained to her that everything that comes from God is good, and it's a blessing. And that He's there to support her and help her. She recommitted to pray about the restoration.

On Wednesday I had an intercambio with Hermana Alvarenga. She's from Argentina, so everyone on the street calls her gringa. And she told me that she hates that because she's not north american. She's Latina. She's such a cool person! She's so happy and optimistic. And we just had this amazing day teaching Estefanía the first lesson and  finding new investigators in the morning. But more important, we found Angela. I've been having the impression time and time again to go to her house. (She's on the directory). We found her this time, and got in the door. Well, some fun facts first. She had cranberry juice (I forgot that existed!) She's thinks it's gross, then I saw what it was (it was in english) and got super excited about it. So good! And gave us cake as well. Then I learned that her job is cremating. Wow. She described the process to us. Not going to lie. I was pretty disturbed. I'll leave it at that. I freaked our zone leader out about it later on in the week just mentioning it. Haha. But then we got to the spiritual. She can't have kids. Her husband is a returned missionary who doesn't want anything to do with the church. (She wouldn't tell us why). She says that she feels very alone in a church that talks so much about families. That centers on them. She's basically just lost hope. She doesn't see a point. Well, after she went on and on about how the church centers on the family, I thought, well, it also centers on the atonement. I asked her, what do you know about the atonement? And she was quiet for a moment, and said, Wow. I haven't thought about that in a long time. I testified to her that through the atonement, all the injustices in this life can be made right. But we must do our part and come to Christ so that He can pour the blessings out on us. And maybe they won't come in the moment, but they will come. But we must remember the gospel is what we must live as conditions of the atonement. Faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end (Or see, living the pattern of faith, repentance, and renewing covenants). How amazing that our mission president right in this time is having us, as a mission, study about the atonement in depth for the multizone we're having tomorrow. My testimony of the atonement is being strengthened and relivened as I do the assignment we have to prepare, and also review my own experiences in my journal. I am so grateful for the Lord's love. For the angels he's sent me to lift my burdens. For the miracles I've seen. And for the changes that people can make thanks to the grace of the Savior. That lesson was so spiritual, and I could see renewed hope come into her eyes. She admitted it would still be a process, but she went right after the lesson to share a scripture Hermana Alvarenga had shared in D&C6 with her husband. What a blessing to see that lesson. 

We've also found two convivientes. One menos activo and his wife is investigator. He wants her to be baptized. He wants to reactivate. She wants to know more. We talked to her of the temple and eternal families, and now she really wants to know. They're young. 19 and 20. They'll progress. :)

I'm so grateful for this week. It's been full of amazing experiences. 

Have a great week!

Love you all!

Hermana Brogan

Singing in Zone Conference

This week. I felt really happy when a menos activo told us he wasn't

going to come to church, but changed his mind when we called him the

night before. I wasn't happy that he wasn't going to go, but I

realized that those small acts can really mean a lot for some people.

It's also nice to see how someone can be so GRATEFUL for small things.

Gratitude is so important. It's something I've been trying to work on

lately. Being more grateful for everything.

But we had this awesome lesson last night focusing on faith in the

Savior and repentance. I swear I learned more in that lesson than he

did. The Spirit was so strong. I could really feel it as the Spirit

spoke through me on how repentance isn't a punishment, but rather a

way to hope, light, and healing. It's the way to avoid the punishment

for sin. It says so in the Spanish guide for scripture study!

Repentance is the best! And when I asked him how his faith in Christ

was, he completely opened up and just told us everything was with the

members (It's always because of the members). I told him to just look

straight to God. And testified a lot of His love for us and how He'll

always support and help us through everything. It was an amazing

lesson, and Carlos is now committed to come back to church. He's

convinced that now is his time.

Lesson: This gospel is one of hope. (How appropriate for this Easter

season). And the small things really do help in a big way. By small

and simple things. :)

Antony Chunque is looking for his mom's permission to be baptized.

He's 12. A super fast learner, but I want to help him have truly

spiritual experiences. He understands everything, but I want him to

have a true conversion...

We taught Luis yesterday. He's the father of Diana who we lived with

before we moved. He's been uber prepared. He basically told us he's

willing to be baptized with time, but that he wants his wife to listen

too, and also basically told us he already knows it's true. Well,

having the missionaries in the house for a year probably helped a bit

with that. I'm so grateful that Diana took him to the temple open

house and that she keeps a picture of the temple and pictures of

Christ on the walls. He's really prepared, but I hope that means that

he's ready to act. He said he'd start praying daily though. :)

I think those are the best experiences I had for this week. I sang in

our zone conference. I was super nervous, so it wasn't my best

singing, but I could still really feel the Spirit come in a lot. I

sang I'm trying to be like Jesus with my companion. Such a sweet song.

It's still one of my favorites. I can never figure out where to

breathe in one part of it though......

Yeah, so have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Brogan

The Finding Continues...

So my week. Nothing crazy has happened. But the work is picking up like crazy. We're finding really good people, including the daughter of my companion's convert from another area. Still nobody comes to church. Even though we do everything we can on our part. 

We found a less active who left the church right after she was baptized as a kid, so we're basically teaching an investigator. But she's better than the members with missionary work. She has a friends she wants us to teach already! Yay!

We were using the directory this week to find families. Well in one house we went to, this family had never lived there, but we found Karla, an amazing new investigator. She's studying medicine, and we really feel the spirit with here. But it's also always really awkward when we first get there, which is kinda hilarious. 

We're also working to rescue an RM,  he has all the desires and is almost there. His brother and wife are also less actives that are starting to come back to church, so we basically just get to teach them and support them. Yay!

We went to Kathy, the daughter of Hermana Utley's convert, one day when we didn't have a cita, because I felt like we needed to the night before. I don't usually do that if we already have an appointment planned, so it was cool. We went and she really needed us in that moment. She has desires to repent and be baptized, so we just have to get her to stop working on Sundays, and she'll progress really fast. 

We also found two other university students, who are cousins. I think that they think we're really weird, but my companion and I really felt the Spirit teaching them, so I think they'll figure it all out pretty fast. This girl, Melissa, actually told us she used to pray every night, and one day she felt like God betrayed her, so she consciously decided to stop praying. This was a few years ago. So we invited her to start again, and she agreed to it. She's also super sincere and told us she wasn't going to come to church just because, she feels like it's too fast. I like that it isn't a yes and then she just doesn't come. It's a lot easier to work with them when they don't tell us just what they think we want to hear. Honesty is the best. But she did say she'd pray. Pretty good when all we taught was that- prayer. 

We're working with Ronaldo on accepting living prophets. That's my favorite part of our message is that God lives. We have the same church, the same gospel, the same blessings for us today. It isn't just some tradition, or something that happened in history. The gospel is an active thing. The Savior is involved personally in our lives. So we left him the homework of praying and watching a conference talk. I think it should help. He can usually resolve his doubts pretty well.

My companion and I will be singing in the zone training tomorrow, and hopefully a multizona later this month. We'll see how it goes. We're trying to arrange two songs together for the multizone. But I'm excited! We also have conference coming up. Yay! And a temple trip at the end of the month. So much is happening these weeks. :) It will be good. 

Have a fantastic week!

Hermana Brogan

Happy Leap Day.

Okay, so transfers. My companion is seriously the coolest. She is such an amazing, but amazing missionary. Like we now have two people preparing for baptism and got a less active to church this week amazing. She's been here 6 days. Not even. Like 5 days. Because the day of transfers, we had to go work in her area one more day.

So going to that story, yeah, they took the sisters out of her area and put in elders. Two elders I know from Zona Sierra actually. Elder Lagrava and Elder Rodriguez, so we got to proselyte with them all day. Well, it was awkward because I went to transfer meeting thinking we'd go straight back to my area, and they told me IN THE MEETING, that I'd be in her area the whole day. So I was without a Book of Mormon.  (Lesson, always, always have a Book of Mormon no matter what). And without sunscreen. It was like a field trip almost. Haha. I like my area a lot better than hers. It's more tranquilo. But it was nice nearing all the news about Otuzco. Hermana Utley's last pension's mother in law commented on how happy I am and how she'd like me to stay. Haha. I guess I'm super happy. It was cute. She commented on it like 3 or 4 times. But at least your companion is happy she told Hermana Utley. :)

We're dropping a lot of investigators. (Including Susan. Sad day. Well, maybe.) So we can find more who are prepared. We found a less active I've been looking for for a while that I'd never met. He's cool and said he'd come to church next week. It's weird having a companion who sings. Well. We harmonized in a lesson last night. It was so cool! 

The family we live with is who we taught actually. (We don't live with them, it's just we live on their roof and their door is always open in the style of the sierra. So then the uncle commented on how he heard me singing in  the morning and stopped to listen. Hahaha. Yeah, I sing a lot. In the states, people usually just look at me weird and let it go. I love that in this culture, they mention it. It's fun. But that just means I have to sing primary songs that teach basic truths all the time, right? Right. 

That's about it for the week. It's been an amazing week. :)

Love you all! Have a great week!

Hermana Brogan

Transfer week...Last one!

So we live on a rooftop. It's awesome. Every morning I wake up I just go a few steps out of the front door to say hi to the world. We wake up to the sunrise. It's gorgeous. Then when we study it gets really hot... 

Okay, so we have a new pension too. She treats us like queens. I'm going home fat I guess. Haha. Good table manners is eat your huge mountain of rice every day. Ugh. Not like I ever am able to. But she's learning fast- :)

Transfers tomorrow. My companion will be Hermana Utley. She's North American. I don't know much else about her. Transfers have me stressed. I really want to help someone get baptized or rescued before the end of my mission, and I've got 8 weeks. But I'm also a little excited too. 

This week my companion and I were walking down a passageway by a park and some houses. We walk by this guy sitting on his doorstep, and we walk past him. The Spirit is telling me to contact him. So I look at my companion to tell her. Hermana Maydana in the same moment looks at me and asks, you too? Yup. So we go contact him. Renzo. 18. Really cool. Really low key guy. He reminds me of some of my high school friends, down to his form of dress. I, of course, made the contact super awkward. See, that's my trick, make them laugh at my awkwardness and then I somehow have their trust, and then we turn it super spiritual. We ended up talking a bit about the plan of salvation. We talk about how everyone has a purpose in life, and that through prayer, we can really know what Heavenly Father desires of us. It just ended up being really cool. I can't wait to go teach him again. I think he'll progress. He's a good listener too. That's weird for Peru. 

We found Kathy again. I don't know if I ever wrote about finding her. But she was an investigator 5 years ago I think. She's going to be able to start to go to church at the end of March. She already has a testimony of the church and very good memories of the elders who taught her a ton. I think she should be able to get baptized pretty fast once she can go to church. :)

The family from the sierra (mountains) actually live in our new building we live in. We  live on their roof. I know they're from the sierra because one, they always keep their door to their apartment open, two, there are always random grains and fruits sitting on tarps in random spots in the building. And three, their way of talking. I love it.

One sister who is in Cajamarca had to come down to Trujillo. She was in my area before. We did intercambios for the evening, and I went to one of her inactive converts with her. It was amazing. She really helped Doli a lot to understand the restoration. The truth is I had no clue how to help Doli. But Hermana Harris showed me how, and now I know. Yay! 

We got another recently inactivating recent convert, Carlo, to come back to church after two months. After Sunday school, I asked him how he feels being in church again. He said it feels like home. Carlo is so funny. He was evangelical before, and he's really good at preaching actually. It's fun to take him to lessons. But it's even nicer to see his own personal conversion. 

Alicia is a less active since her baptism at 11 years old. We've taken the apostles' recent counsel to treat less actives like investigators. We found she has a lot of doubts about the restoration and there being only one true church. We're encouraging her to pray because she has a very good personal relationship with God. I think helping her with the restoration will help her see that she needs to come to church. She's super sweet and loves the Book of Mormon. She just needs to progress a bit more.

Spencer lights up so much when he sees us now. He's like a kid. We watched mormon messages with him this week. He loves it. He finds so much joy and love in the gospel. I feel the spirit so much working with him. He's turning his life completely around. Just to get him to church. But he really is developing his testimony. He has such childlike experiences with prayer and reading the scriptures. Just simple experiences. But I find that those can be the most powerful. He was so happy to tell us that God answers his prayers this week. I am genuinely so happy to hear that. God does answer our prayers. Every single one. 

We have another old investigator back who I taught once at the beginning of my time in Primavera. he's been in Cajamarca, but he came back this week. We're starting over with him. We retaught the restoration and it amazed him. He really feels the spirit. He also completely needed it. It all seemed so new to him. He's super busy during the week, so I hope that doesn't keep him from progressing... But weekends are free. yay!

Rosas and Susan are killing me. I don't know what to do with them. Susan honestly isn't progressing much more. She prays and reads, but does not come to church. But Rosas seems to be warming up. But he's so weird. He always goes off on his dreams and he loves talking about Revelation (the book in the Bible) too much. He can't seem to stay on track.

My companion told me a few days ago she wanted to go home. Poor girl. So I got to convince her to stay on her mission. So much testifying to my own companion. That was an interesting experience. But by the end of the day she had decided that she does need to stay. She's just tired of not having success on her mission. I got to pull out a note Sister Fraser (who served in Morgan Hill 1st ward) wrote me before I left for my mission that has been able to help me. It helped my companion a lot too. Missionaries have an influence that goes beyond their own mission. I love that. :) I love that I got to see that too. There's so many people waiting for us. So many.

So to see what transfers bring tomorrow!

Have a great week!

Love you all!

Hermana Brogan

More Teaching and Finding

Okay, not too much to write. 

But first off, earlier this week we had a member come with us to teach. He's recently reactivated and is seriously the best person to come to lessons with! He served his mission 6 years ago or so in the states. Wisconsin? But I haven't heard his english. I think because he just reactivated, he's really

humble in the lessons with us. He still shares his testimony and experiences, but when we talk, he really listens. I've never seen an RM act like that before. He listens and reacts as if it was one of the

first times he's heard this. But it's not. He also has faith that these people really can progress. He has a sincere love for every single person we visited. I don't really know what made the difference

so impactful on me, but really the Spirit was so strong in all our lessons, and they all agreed to baptism and to being rescued. Of course, that isn't too abnormal here. Getting them to act is the big

thing. But I could even tell the investigators felt the Spirit. Now that doesn't always happen.

Spencer, who we found last week with that can of beer, told us that day that he wants to reactivate. Yes! But he still didn't come to church this week even after deciding on his own to come. But he'll get there. He did finally read a chapter in the Book of Mormon. Victory! He's awesome!

We also found and taught Hernàn. 20 years old. Same day. He felt the Spirit, UNDERSTOOD what we taught (he's from the sierra, but he's studying. His poor mom, like most people from the mountains, doesn't understand our message or the importance of it, but Hernan really

could feel the spirit and agreed to baptism. He didn't show up for church. Actually, none of our investigators did, even after organizing with the members and everything. They even did their part (the members). But that's how it goes sometimes. Next week!

Today we moved rooms. It was seriously the most stressful thing I've done in a while. I was trying to get all my stuff ready and then the elders told us last night at 10pm that we needed to get a truck ready for the morning, and that hadn't even occurred to me, and I was just stressed out about everything. And then the elders didn't even set up our beds this morning, and my comp and I are not strong enough or that, so they have to come after we write, and just a  bunch of little things on top of not sleeping last night to pack. But it's all okay. It all works out. I have an amazing sister leader, who reminds me of my sister, who can just seem to figure everything out. She helped me a ton today. I'm so grateful for her. But then we got to watch emperor's new groove while in Peru. That's a

neat thing. I've always kinda wanted to do that. :) But the work is moving forward. We're fining and teaching and inviting and seeing small miracles. Just hoping we can get them to church next week!

Love you all! Thanks for writing me. I always like emails!

Hermana Brogan