Happy New Year

Family and Friends!! What a great week it was to celebrate Christmas and be able to see my family! The Christmas tradition here is super fun. They stay up until midnight the day of Christmas and EVERYONE sets off fireworks and starts the Christmas celebrations after. When midnight came we went on the roof with the other hermanas and watched all the fireworks going off. It was CRAZY! What a celebraion. It was fun being here for Christmas but Im glad that I will only miss one Christmas away from home since the real celebration of Christmas is with the family. As for the work, we are almost positive that we are going to have 2 baptisms in January! They are brothers and want to get baptized on the same day. The mom is super supportive, Margarita, and she would love to get baptized but as for now she cant since her husband and her arent married. She would love to be baptized but its sad because she cant. Other good news is that we had 2 new investigators come to church this Sunday! They came to our ward activity for Christmas and we set up a day to go visit them and invite them to church. Best news is that one of the members, Cielo, already knew them so in the morning she came with us to go pick them up at their house. They both came! January we are hoping to see baptisms! Baptisms are the best. I love seeing people come into the church and be converted. This week was a good week! Hope you all were able to feel the love through the Christmas spirit this year. I love Christmas time! Love you all! Hermana Flora

FELIZ NAVIDA

Family and Friends!! This is the week! Christmas has finally come! I look forward to seeing my family this week. As for our time here in Peru this week. We have been able to celebrate the holiday season. We had a christmas party with some of the missionaries and President in Tacna. We also had our ward Christmas party which was the best. We ended up having some investigators come to the activity and tell us they wanted to hear more about the gospel. It was great! We have some good references for the next week. The activity was super good because it gives the less actives a motivation to come back to church and it makes it easier to invite friends to the church in a less intimidating way. Thanks to this activity we had some less actives come to church and also non members! This week we are planning on going out with members to go caroling to less actives and some people we are teaching. I love sharing the holiday spirit here along with missionary work. As for this week of Christmas. We are going to go out tomorrow to go singing to different houses and then Wednesday we are going to a plaza to carol with the ward. The tradition for Christmas here is to stay up until midnight on Christmas Eve and celebrate then. A bunch of fireworks go off and they have their feast at 12 in the night! Its crazy. As for us, we wont be staying up until midnight haha but with the other hermanas we are going to have a sleepover. Im excited to SkypeN with our families. Im looking forward to this grand week! Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and spend lots of quality time with the family! Love always, Hermana Flora

El Nacio

Family and Friends!! This week was our Recital Musical for Christmas called El Nacio! It was also transfers!! Everyone thought I was going to leave down to Tacna but Im staying here in Moquegua for one more transfer with Hna Bourque! Im happy to be here for the holidays and be with Hna Bourque and with the people in San Antonio! The Recital Musical ended up turning out really well. It was stressful but was more than worth it! I directed the choir and it was super fun! From the Christmas Recital, we received 4 new investigators! I got to be on the TV to announce and talk about the Recital Musical with 4 other missioanries. It was really cool. My first time on TV and it was in Spanish, I was just a little stressed haha Im excited to see how this new change will go! The work still moves on. I really hope to see another baptism here in San Antonio before I leave. I hope all is well in the States and that the Christmas Spirit is being felt! Love you!! Hermana Flora

Bold

Family and Friends!! This week I had a goal to teach with more boldness. As missionaries and representatives of Jesus Christ we have the great opportunity to promise blessings. This week I have been focusing on using this great opportunity of being bold and promising blessings. In my efforts to do so I have seen great miracles. As I attempt to be closer to the Spirit and teach what I feel like the investigator needs I have felt the gift of tounges in my life. My Spanish still isnt perfect, nor will it ever be, but when I have really been focused into the needs of the person and testified with boldness, I have spoken PERFECTLY without hesitation! It really surprises me as well as my comp and the people we are teaching. For example, we recieved a reference from a member named DONNY! He is the best, mainly since he has the name of my little brother! haha Anyways, we went to the house of this family. There is one member named Tania, who is less active as of 2 years more or less. Then her mom, Maria, who isnt a member but who has asisted before. The daughter, Tania who is 27 years old, accepted to come back to church easy, the difficulty was the mom. The mom, Maria, told us that there is NO WAY her and her husband can come to church on sunday because it is the day that her husband goes to the farm and they both go there allll day. Its his tradition to go every Sunday and they cant go anyyyyy other day because.....excuse, excuse, excuse. Last week I probably would have told her to try to go and that its important, but this week I was testifying more boldly because I think this has been my fault with some of our other invesitgators. So this time after asking her why they had to go to the farm on Sunday instead of Saturday I told her that she has to come to church on Sunday because its a commandment from God, its not just something that I want but its what the Lord wants. There will be trials and sacrifices right now but the blessings will out weigh the trials or sacrifices you had made. She told us that she wanted her husband to go to church and wanted him to change so then I continued to tell her that he will not change or go to church unless you change and go to church. When I was teaching this I could feel the Spirit sooo strong. We explained to her that we have 6 days in the week to do whateverrr we want and only 1 day the Lord asks us to dedicate time for Him, only ONE day. At the end of the lesson, she actually accepted to see if they could change the unchangeable habit of going to the farm on Sunday. I was surprised! I shouldnt have been since everything I was teaching was true, but I was happily surprised and thankfully. We promised her blessings that as she strives to change and go to church the Lord WILL bless her in her obedience. I am praying and hoping that next week when she said she could come to church, they will show up together as a family. This week I have learned to teach with more boldness. Because its all true! The Lord DID give us commandments, DID promise us blessings, now we just need to teach this to others or help them remember! I love being a missionary! Teaching and testifying of Christ is the best way to have the Spirit of the Holiday Season. I encourage all of you at home to be a little more bold, have a little less fear, because the Lord WILL be with you. Dont doubt what He can do. He is ALL powerful. Do you not think He could change someones heart? Fear not, for the Lord will be with you! Be BOLD. Its all true. Love always, Hermana Flora