Week 1!

Querido Familia y Amigos,

 

Holy cow mission life is CRAZY!!! When we landed in the Lima airport early Sunday morning, honestly I was pretty freaked out. Thank goodness for the other missionaries...having other people going through the same experiences was really helpful.

But anyways, the drivers here are seriously insane. The guy who drove us from the airport to the CCM was driving over the lane line the whole time and we ran literally every single red light that we came upon. Oh, and everyone is constantly honking...I'm still getting used to that part haha. At first I was really freaked out, but then I realized there's no point in being super stressed about it, so now I just think it's funny.

 

So we finally got to the CCM at like 3am, which meant I didn't get to bed until about 4, because I had to try to get into bed without waking up my roommates, so it was totally dark and I didn't know where I was supposed to go...yeah, it was kinda a mess. But I eventually did get to sleep, and before I knew it, it was 6:30 and time to get up. That first morning was sooooo rough. Pretty much the whole time I kept thinking "What the heck was I thinking?! I don't want to be here in Peru! I don't even know that much spanish and I miss all my family and friends and it's super scary to be locked up in this building all the time that's surrounded by all these super tall walls..." and so on. But then I was sitting in Sacrament meeting and we sang Count Your Blessings. I realized in that moment, I'm not here for me. I'm not here because I wanted to leave my family, or because I wanted to give up all the comfort of home and of life in the US. I'm here because Heavenly Father has a work that He needs done, and He has called me to be an instrument in His hands. As soon as I thought that, I felt so much better. I started making some goals to help myself become a better missionary and to help me prepare to be a better instrument in God's hands to perform the work I have been sent here to do. Since then, life has been so good.

 

Monday was awesome. I love my companion Hermana Ramos so much. She is really good about wanting to be strictly obedient, which is something I really relate to. Also, its really funny because the two girls I knew from BYU that are going to Piura with me, ended up BOTH being in my district!! Aaaannddd my district leader was in my mission prep class at BYU too. Such a small world.

 

So anyways, one of the biggest highlights that I've had since coming to the CCM was the lesson that Hermana Ramos and I taught to our investigator Mario Torres last night. It was such a neat experience. So Hermana Ramos told me on Sundaythat we needed to teach a lesson in Spanish the next night...I kinda freaked out for a second, but I was like, okay, here goes! So during our companion study time, we started to prepare a lesson about the restoration...but as soon as we finished, we kinda looked at each other and realized we didn't feel like that was what we were supposed to teach AT ALL. Unfortunately, we didn't have any more time to prepare, so we decided to wait till the next day. As the day went on, we started to freak out a little bit because we didn't feel good about anything we tried to prepare. I was getting worried that we would completely fail our lesson if we didn't figure something out soon. Finally, about an hour before dinner, we decided we would teach on having faith in Christ. We didn't feel bad about it, but Hermana Ramos said she just didn't feel anything, even though I felt like it was the right direction to take. Since we had like no time to prepare, she decided to trust my judgement and we went with it. Then, stuff just started coming. It all fell into place about 20 minutes before we were supposed to go teach...But once the lesson was done, Hermana Ramos started getting really down on herself and I felt the Spirit leave our companionship. So, we went outside, knelt down, and I said one of the most fervent prayers I've said in my life. Then, we walked into the room where Mario Torres was waiting for us, and somehow gave an amazing lesson....IN SPANISH. Our teacher (the investigator) didn't even have anything for us to improve on. He was super impressed. It was amazing because there were so many times during our lesson where I was talking and I'd forget the word for something, but it would immediately pop into my head. We walked out of there on a super spiritual high. It was so wonderful :)

 

Today we went to the temple. It is soooo beautiful. There weren't very many workers there though, so it ended up taking us about 3 hours to get through our session, and as a result of some missionaries wandering off and messing around after the session, we only had about 20 minutes to go shopping afterwards, and we ended up getting back later than we were supposed to, but it worked out :) The buses we had to take were SOOOOO packed haha. We were literally squeezed in there so tight! You got to get comfortable with your neighbors really fast haha. I got so many weird looks when we were walking around, and at first I was like, uhhh...what's the issue people? Then I remembered that I look super weird to them haha. It was pretty funny.

The CCM is PACKED with Hermanas. My district has 4 companionships of Hermanas, and only one of Elders. And there are about 3 more districts that are the same way. Its really fun though :) and the Latino sisters are so awesome!! We try to eat with them at meals so we can practice our spanish, and they're always super forgivng when we make mistakes...they get a lot of good laughs out of our feeble attempts at spanish haha. I love the language so much though. I'm still working on figuring out what tenses  to use, but I can almost always understand when other people speak to me in spanish. Its so awesome. I love it here, so much. Can't wait till this Saturday when we get to go out and teach in the streets of Lima!!

 

Yes mom, we had sacrament meeting and a fireside on Sunday, and even though they had translation headphones and stuff for the Norte Americanos, I got one but ended up not using it because I was getting annoyed and I could understand what was being said without them. The Lord has definitely blessed me so much with understanding the language these past few days. The food is really good, and they have a lot for us to eat at meals, but in the afternoon everyone gets super hungry because we have lunch early and dinner late...so that's a little hard, but esta bien.

 

Anyways, I love you all! I hope all is well at home. Mom and dad, good luck with everything for the cultural celebration! You guys are so awesome, and I know they couldn't do it without you.

 

Sorry, but I have to go now! They have this little timer thing that tells me how much time I have left before I get logged off, and it's pretty stressful not gonna lie haha.

 

Love and miss you all!! Till next week,

 

Hermana Garner