Passport to Peru: Week 1 in Tumbes!!

Hello my wonderful family and friends!!!

So, just wanted to start off by saying that I am SO grateful for all of you and for the love and support that I feel from each and every one of you. I really do feel and see the blessings of each and every one of your prayers. Mom--a couple of weeks back you told me in your letter that you pray that the language will become second nature to me and that the people will be able to understand me and all. First off, that nearly made me cry with gratitude for a mother who is so loving and so concerned, and second, this week I've really felt the strength of your faith! Pretty much everyone that we talk to keeps telling me how good my spanish is, and I really honestly prefer to speak in spanish...it's so much easier than English for me at this point haha! Thank you so much for your faith and constant support. I love you so much!!!

So yeah, this week :) After our 5 hour bus ride last Monday, we BARELY had enouh time to write and to go shopping for our food for the week...and even though it was stressful, we made it work! Hermana C. is awesome. Seriously, we think basically the same, and we get along really really well.

On Tuesday it was pretty funny because we were going around visiting people (you know, just like every day;) and we went to the house of one of our investigators. The funny thing is that it was almost lunchtime, and she INSISTED that we stay for lunch. We tried to explain to her that we have a pensionista that cooks for us and was waiting for us to come and eat, but she started to seem offended (and later Hermana C. told me this wasn't the first time they'd turned her down) so we decided to stay. Long story short, we had two lunches that day haha. We were so full we thought we'd literally never eat again! It was pretty funny, but also made me feel super grateful that we aren't in the type of circumstance where we didn't have any food! :)

On Wednesday we had our first district meeting. It went super well! The Zone Leaders are in our ward (and obviously our district as well)....and I thought at first that that would be like a ton of pressure or something, but they're really great and it hasn't been bad at all--in fact it's been pretty fun. But yeah, after the meeting I got to help Elder L. with his English (he really knows a ton!) and it felt really good to feel like I could help with something! :)

In other news:

---we have an investigator-Hermano Julio-that's going to be baptized this Saturday! Super excited for him. He's a really great guy who's come a long way from where he was when Hermana C. and her previous comp found him. It's so exciting to be able to participate in this beautiful ordinance with people who really are changing their lives!

---on Sunday morning we woke up and found out that we didn't have any electricity or water!! :( turns out that it was planned and pretty much everyone in the city knew except for us, but it was supposed to come back on at 5pm...and didn't...so since there literally wasn't electricity anywhere in the city, we decided that it was safer to go home early once it got dark, rather than be walking around in the literal pitch black darkness. It finally came back on at 8pm and we were SO grateful!! :)

---The only other thing is that we went to the beach today!! We hung out in the sun, played frisbee, card games, and just enjoyed the beautiful day! We also saw a HUGE pelican and got pictures of it...and yeah. It was a bit rough to be at the beach and not be able to go swimming, but it was still super beautiful and turned out really fun!

I seriously love it here so much. Our area is in the center of town, our building is a two story stake center that is literally HUGE, and the ward is super supportive and organized, so it's been a big change from Sullana, but really inspired and really wonderful. I hope that all of you can take some time this week to think of one way that you can share the gospel! Whether it's calling the missionaries and seeing when you could go on visits with them, inviting a friend to church, or being an example by making the right decisions in difficult situations, there is ALWAYS something that we can be doing to help move the work of the Lord forward. I love you all SO MUCH and thank you again for your love, support, and prayers! Know that I really do feel it and it lifts me and strengthens me in every single day.

Have a stupendous week! Love you all!

Besitos!

Hermana Garner