Personal Shoutouts:
Happy Birthday to my Grandpa (7 of July) this week. Happy, happy, 4 July, God bless America! Also, I was reading the Liahona and read an article by my Freshman Academy friend Liz Stitt titled “You already Know.” We were eating lunch on Sunday and I saw a picture of Hna. Lewis. (Last year I worked with her sister at BYU Education Week and she helped me a ton to know what to bring on the mission.). I knew it was her, because I saw the same bag in the photo that she recommended that I bring on the mission. The Huanci family sends “saludos y mucho cariño” and memories of eating tacacho. Also, they want you to know that they are still active in the church. What a special family. We are teaching her cousin next week.
Hermana Reyes and I stay here in the jungle for another transfer, and we stay in the Mission Lima Peru North. Tomorrow we have our interviews with Pres. Blunck (from Oregon). He is young (45) and sounds really on top of everything.
We found out that we have pension (breakfast) with the same family as our zone leaders. At first we were weirded out and asked, “Is that even allowed?” However, there are advantages. If we have questions, we know we can ask them the next morning. We say, jokingly, “Now there are 4 zone leaders!” Hna. Reyes and I joke about how we are the zone leaders for all of the sisters in the jungle of Iquitos. (We are the only hermanas here in all of Iquitos!)
Wow. I cannot describe how amazing this week has been. For our talent show on Friday, I wrote a musical to teach the ward members that we need their support. It was in the style of Moulin Rouge, where they adapt and combine the lyrics of well known-songs. I was grateful for the many years of Spanish classes where we learned a variety of songs. The musical is called “A day in the life of 2 missionaries.” As part of the sketch, we were knocking on doors without success. We started tapping on the door the beginning beat of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and began singing about knocking doors. The best part was that when the people opened the door (creaking sound and all), they were zombies and began doing the Thriller dance, singing about how they were busy and didn’t want to listen to our message. It sounds weird, I know, but the people loved it. And, the ward members are more involved with helping us. The next activity will be a “noche de placas,” an activity for the ex- and pre-missionaries to share stories, advice, etc. The purpose is to animate the pre-missionaries and encourage them to serve, to get advice for the current missionaries, and to help the ex-missionaries to remember the Spirit of the work.
We are teaching so many families that have sincere interest in the restored gospel. They attended church, which was so edifying. (I specifically prayed that people would bear real testimony and not say weird things that scare away investigators. God answered my prayers.) Really, it makes a huge difference when the members are involved with missionary work. It’s the only way that there is success. I wanted to know how we can help our ward members have more faith, and really, part of it is when they accompany us on the visits and bear their testimony.
We are helping Carlos, 60, overcome his drinking and smoking habits. I thought of Karen, who helped her investigators overcome similar habits by setting her own goals to not eat chocolate. I made a goal to be diligent in my exercises every morning, and Hna. Reyes limited herself to 1 chocolate a day. Carlos is committed to not drink or smoke for 2 weeks. I even made up a contract, which we all signed, and a calendar where we all keep track of our progress. Maybe law school is in my future…?
Motocars…On Sunday we accompanied a family to church and had to run to bring another family. (The family wasn’t ready to go right away.) We were so close, but we needed to go in motorcar because the meeting was starting in 5 minutes. The first car we stopped was trying to overcharge us, so we said, “Thank you, but we’ll walk.” Then, we started sprinting, until we found another motorcar that was willing to offer us a reasonable price. I laughed because we were rushed, running late, and too cheap to pay 50 cents more than what is reasonable. The family wasn’t there, and we ended up arriving late (so late we missed the sacrament!). The worst part was that it was the Sunday when the Stake president attended our ward. He only saw us arrive late, without investigators. Ach! I don’t want to know what he was thinking. Lesson learned: arrive 1 hour beforehand to help the investigators get ready, not just 30 minutes earlier, and do divisions or ask the help of the members to bring investigators.
Life is good!
Hermana Christensen
