Baptism!

Family and Friends! As you can all see from the photos, we had the baptism of Nicole! It was such a great day! I didnt save much time to write but it was such a great day and I will write more about it next week. The photos should explain the day. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Love always, Hermana Flora /Users/bettyflora/Desktop/Our little family in the misión.docx/Users/bettyflora/Desktop/Nicole and her mom after the baptism.docx/Users/bettyflora/Desktop/Program for Nicoles Baptism.docx/Users/bettyflora/Desktop/Baptism de Nicole.docx/Users/bettyflora/Desktop/Ilo.docx /Users/bettyflora/Desktop/Noche de magica.docx

November 17, 2014

Family and Friends!! The weeks have now been passing faster and faster. I cant believe that its already Monday again. This week has been a little crazy. In general I have been looking for the miracles all around us because sometimes I let the little disappointments bring me down. Since I have been looking for miracles I have seen many! The first miracle has been the transformation of our ward. When I first got here we never had Consejo de Barrio....Ward Counsil. In my 2 months here we only had it twice, when we were supposed to have it every week. Now the bishop is really trying and making a huge effort to get everyone back on track. It is going to change the ward if we can have a support group with the ward. Another miracle. This Sunday we got a new mission leader. This is such good news because we didnt get much support from the other mission leader. Then they also called 6 ward missionaries. Hermana Bourque and I and the 2 other Elders in our ward had the biggest smiles on our faces! We are going to have a HUGE support system now. I can now feel like there will be people to help us with our activities, lessons, being friends with our investigators, and everything! Im so excited! The last great miracle. When we were sitting in the sacrament meeting an investigator just walked into church! Shes friends of a member, whos name is Donny! He asked us to come visit her so we set up a time to go visit her with Donny this Tuesday night. Also, that night after a conference we recieved another reference from a member. Our Relief Society president gave us the information of a family that wants us to come and teach them. Wow! The miracles really do come in our hard work. We have both been worried about who will be our next new progressing investigator since Nicole is getting baptized this week and is our only invesitgator who has progressed the most. So now we are excited to see and meet these new investigators. And of course the best news of all. Nicole is getting baptized this week! 20 de November! Im so pumped! Its going to be such a good baptism. We planned the whole baptism and are inviting the whole ward and making assignments based on what Nicole wanted. We are also going to have a choir with the mujerers jovenes...Young women. and some other members. Its going to be great. So next week you will see many pictures from the baptism of Nicole! Im so happy! The finish up the week. This Saturday we went down to Tacna for a rehearsal for the Musical Recital that they are going to do down there. Hermana Bennion and I are the only ones in 5 Stakes that can play the piano. So she went down for the other rehearsals and I told her I could go down if she needed help since its a 2 hour drive down in bus and takes up time out of our area. But I told her I would be happy to do it. I have used my piano skills so much in the mission and I have loved it! It has been a blessing to have the skill that I do and I can feel the Lord helping me in my weaknesses. There are many miracles all around us. We just need to open our eyes and take note of what we see. When we do this we will be happier and find joy in our lives. Open your eyes and count the many miracles that all of you have around you! I will be doing the same here in Peru! Thanks for your support and love while Ive been here on the mission. The onther day marked my 10 month mark....I cant believe it but I am sadly on the downhill. The time is FLYING! Remember to count your miracles! Love always, Hermana Flora xoxo

November 10, 2014

Family and Friends!! This week has been revolutionary. We are seeing a lot of support from the ward members and we have a member leave with us everyday! Some days we have 2 members and so the whole day we are always with a member. This week we had 12 investigador lessons with members present. This is the highest Ive had in my whole mission. We can see the excitment of the members to do the work with us. Another highlight of the week was Sunday. Nicole called her mom who lives in Tacna and she set up a date to come up the 20th of November for her baptism! Its official! Im so excited! Then that same day she came with us to a baptism in another ward just to see how a baptism is. She was so excited to see what happens and what will happen at her baptism. After the baptism she told us she was more excited for her baptism. It was a really good experience. Thats exactly what she needed. Another highlight. I am now the new English Teacher for the Zone. I have the responsibility to help the latinos in my zone learn English and give them English tests. Im happy to take this responsibility. So now Ill be calling the Latinos and checking up on their English and giving them tests. Its actually an awesome opportunity that the latinos here have because they can study English everyday for 30 mintues to an hour their whole mission and take these tests, and at the end of the mission they can take a test run through BYUI! And they can be certified in English. This certification also can count for credits at BYUI. Its pretty awesome. Another highlight this week was when I let Hermana Bourque take charge for one day. I gave her the phone, the keys and gave her the opportunity to be Senior companion for the day. At first she was all happy and leading during the studies, then when it was time to go visit people the nerves started coming, especially when the phone rang. The poor girl was trying her best but I could feel the stress leading up. For me, it was nice just following her around. By the time we got to the room she was looking for the keys and they were no where to be found! If she wasnt stressed before...haha thankfully she found them 5 minutes later. But when we got into the room she took the keys and the phone and put them on my bed and said theyre yours now, Im happy with my role! haha The rest of the week shes been thanking me for the work I do haha I think it was a little much for her so Im just going to start giving her little responsibilites to prep her for when she will be in charge. I know she will be a leader so I want to prepare her to be a great leader. Funny incident that happened this week was when we were ordering chicken one night and Hermana Bourque turned to me and asked me how to say leg in Spanish and I said, pie, and then the lady looked at her like she was crazy. Then a guy that was sitting right by the lady said, Pierna! haha Then I realized that I told Hermana Bourque Foot instead of Leg. hahaha everyone started laughing when they realized that we just asked for a foot haha Its been another great week here in Peru! Im loving this opportunity I have to be a missionary. Love always, Hermana Flora Next week we are going to Ilo with Ruben and Margarita to see their son get baptized! His name is Cristian and we were the missionaries that found him and taught him his first lesson and then passed his information to the missionaries, Elder Petersen, in Ilo since he lives in Ilo. Im excited to see him get baptized and I think it will also help the testimony of Ruben and Margarita.

November 3, 2014

Family and Friends!! Its November! I cant believe how the months are flying by. This week we sent 2 missionaries home, so we had little farewell parties as a zone before finishing the mission. The pictures are from last P day when we went to the waterfall as a zone. Its the big activity we do here in Moquegua on the last Pday of the change. It was way fun! As Im sure you will be able to see in the photos. This week in general we have been working more with the members and we have grown closer to the members here and we are working on helping the members get closer to our investigators so they will feel more comfortable when them come to church. Also, it was Halloween! They dont exactly celebrate Halloween here. Which is a little sad. We saw some cute kids dressed up in costumes running around at night but theres a lot of people that are superstitious and think that Halloween is an evil holiday. I was so sad to hear that. But we had a little celebration during dinner with the Elders and Magaly and her family for Halloween. Nicole passed her baptismal interview this week! We practiced a song for her baptism with the ward choir on Sunday and are getting everyone excited for her baptism as well! Another exciting thing from the week was our activity this Sunday night that we had, called Plan Oveja. Sheep Plan haha to look for the lost sheep that arent coming to church. It was such a success! I was so happy to see many members at the church for the activity. They were ready to help! We got them excited to go do visits with us and help invite these people to come back to church! Hopefully we can do this activity every Sunday or every other Sunday night. I think it is a good opportunity to help get the members visiting other less actives and for us to meet more people with the help of the members. This week was a great success, just as always. The mission is going great. Sadly, today is tranfers and we lost both of our Zone Leaders...Elder Chipman and Elder Birtcher. We went to say bye to them this morning. It will be weird having two new zone leaders but the new zone leaders seem like they will be great. The work is pushing forward here in Peru! Hope all continues to be well at home! Love you all. Love always, Hermana Flora