Gratitude

Family and Friends!! Congrats to my baby brother for being ready to leave this Tuesday for Salt Lake City West mission! I love you Donny! We will be serving together!! Hermana and Elder Flora! Monday. Went to the office and got to see President and sadly he said that he might transfer me after this week and send me to a new area to prepare me to train. I really would have liked to have another transfer with Hna Ogden since we get along so well but I know that everything happens for a reason and it will be a fun experience to train. It will be scary at first but I know that I will grow and learn a lot from the opportunity. We shall see what happens! Tuesday. After District Meeting we visited Juan Condori in the hospital and Ines was there too. We were just talking and Juan told us that Ines wanted to see my figures that Jessica made me for the Plan of Salvation. It was perfect so then we taught the Plan of Salvation to Ines and Juan. She said she really liked the plan and didn't see anything wrong with it. The lesson went really well! Juan is still reading the Book of Mormon and telling us about all he is learning. This just makes me so happy. Then they talked to us about the temple and how Juan wants to go someday. He told us to never forget about him. Of course we will never forget about them. I really hope to see them go to the temple someday! I think Ines is happy about getting married. I want them to get married and have the wonderful experience of being sealed as a family for eternity. They will be a golden family. Juan is filled with so much faith. Wednesday. Went to help Hermana Zobrist in the mission home with the binders for the new missionaries who are coming next week! Then we went to the Family Choque house and taught about the General Conference talk from Russell M Nelson about Demonstrating your Faith. I love this talk because it talks about our priorities and where we put in our first priority. Do we put the World Cup in more importance than the church? Was a question we asked, since they love the World Cup here. Thursday. This morning we went running in the Selva Alegre park. I love running! When we were done we were waiting to get on a bus to take us up to the top of the hill to our apartment. One said Independencia on it which is the area of our Zone Leaders and Hermana Smith and Sullivan so we just jumped on it and thought we could take it up to the top but then instead of going up all the way it took a turn and I thought it's okay it will go back but nope! We were going to another Independencia in Central which is the opposite direction of Graficos. This was a problem especially since we didn't have our phone or money for another bus. We only brought sufficient enough money for ONE bus. We were getting lost! An older lady got on the bus and was struggling to get on so I got up and helped her get on. Thankfully I helped her because she ended up being our blessing. She paid for our bus fair and walked us to the place where we needed to take the right bus back to Graficos. We would have been lost with no way to communicate with anyone, in PERU. I don't like thinking of how bad that would have been. Lesson learned, always ALWAYS help those around you because you never know when you will need help from others. Mosiah 2:17, when you serve others you are serving the Lord. I will always remember her kind service of paying for our bus fair when we didn't have enough to make it home and for her service of getting us to the right bus and making sure we were safe. She was a blessing to us in this day just by her small act of service. I would hope to have such an effect to others as she had to us this day. Today we went to visit one of our investigators but she wasn't home and ending up finding Nicole, Amparo's niece. She looked as if she was crying. We asked if we could share a message about Christ and our purpose here on earth and she invited us in. We had a lesson with Amparo, who is a convert as of a year and is SUPER strong in the church. We taught her about Christ and His Atonement for us and how He knows how she feels and knows the burdens she is going through. The best part of this lesson was when Amparo shared with us that she was praying for help while she was talking with Nicole and then two angels came to her door right after she finished her prayer. She was telling us that we came as a blessing and answer to her prayers. Wow. That made me feel good. It's crazy seeing the Lords hand in everything and in our planning to do the Lords will. I never realized how we could really be blessings to other people. This experience made me super happy and realize that we are blessings to others. Our shower got fixed today! No more showering out of buckets haha It was actually pretty fun. Better than I thought it would have been! haha August. What? The time has gone by so fast. Today I wanted to express my gratitude to those that have helped me so far in the mission because with Amparo yesterday I learned how good it feels to receive gratitude for the things that we do, so I wrote a letter to Elder Wells, my zone leader who has helped me the whole time I have been here on the mission. Elder Petersen, who was my District leader and taught me a lot about being an example through your own actions. Hermana Smith for just being her and being a wonderful friend to me. And of course to Hermana Ogden for being a wonderful companion and all the things she has taught me. It was fun writing the letters and giving my thanks to others. It just makes everyone feel better when they realize that they are doing good in the world. I love gratitude. Saturday. Found out that Donny is going back to the mission this Tuesday. I was dying of excitement when I found out! I think I almost had a panic attack when I realized how fast he was going to be leaving. But I am so proud of Donny for his decision to go back out after all he has gone through. That's my baby brother! Saturday morning. We met up as a zone and went to the park to do personal study and then share with the zone after. We got to go to the Selva Alegre Park which is only open on Saturdays and Sundays. The park was beautiful! There were monkeys there too! I went to touch the monkey and he grabbed my finger and was pulling me in the cage! I have a photo of the after damage when my finger is all red from the monkey haha it's funny. At the park we went around and each shared our conversion story. We got to learn more from the zone and feel the spirit from each of our conversion stories. What a good activity. It was fun to bond as a zone. Sunday. Fast Sunday. It was happy to see the fruit of our labors when 5 less actives came to church that we taught during this week. I know that this is all with the help of the Lord. What a blessing to know that we are really changing lives and bringing them back unto Christ. This calling is very stressful because we have peoples SALVATION on the line! That's just a little pressure. We still have a lot of work to go, but we are changing the world here in Graficos one person at a time! I love this time I have to be a full time missionary. Time is going faster than I ever expected. I want to take advantage of all the time I have. I love you all! Love always, Hermana Flora xoxo