Peruvian Conference, a Non-Member Missionary, and My Latino Heritage?

This week, we have been working hard to schedule lots of lessons, especially with less-active church members. Sadly, we didn't have any of our investigators come to church yesterday, but we had lots of less active members. We set ourselves a new record to beat! As we teach the less-active members, we are hoping to get more references all around.

Our supply of cookies. Essential comfort food
for every missionary after a hard day of work. 

What do you call it when a whole country has a conference? I'm not sure, but yesterday, instead of our regular church meetings, we had a special conference that included all the stakes of Peru. Two of the Twelve Apostles, Elder David Bednar and Elder Richard G. Scott, gave talks, as well as the second counselor of the General Relief Society Presidency. The coolest part was that all the speakers gave their talks in Spanish except for Elder Bednar. I had no idea that Elder Scott could speak Spanish! It was a really, really good conference and now I am super pumped up to have General Conference next month!

My awesome parents sent me some cupcake recipes, but I haven't gotten the chance to try them  yet! I really want to try them out, but we're kind of limited since we live in a garage and don't actually have a kitchen to speak of. Plus, the Relief Society already has activities for the next couple of weeks, so it probably will be another two or three weeks until I can cook with them. We also have an investigator who's daughters are members and she wants us to come up to her house a week from Sunday and help her make a cake! Ironically, the rumor going around the mission is that President Archibald wants all missionaries to have, at the most, only lunch prepared by a pensionista. If that is the case, we will have to move out of our garage. It would be nice to have a kitchen to cook in, but I really don't want to move again because the garage is finally starting to feel like home...well, we'll see how it goes.

Last night we had a good experience with an investigator. We haven't been able to meet with her for the past 3 weeks because something always comes up. However, we ran into her on the street, and she started telling us how she's been talking about the Book of Mormon with her family and inviting them to learn more! Wow! She's already a great missionary, and she's not even a member yet! She asked for another Book of Mormon because she gave the two she had to her family members to read. She's going to write up all of the references and introduce us to her family in the next week. Super excited!

Sounds like it has been super hot back home in Utah! They say here in Peru that this last winter was one of the coldest they've ever had here in Lima. Anyway, it's finally starting to warm up! Maybe now that the sun is out I'll start to get a tan! So I really like to show the picture of our family right before they dropped me off at the MTC last May. I've had people ask me more than once if my dad is latino -- ha ha! He is super tan in the picture and so people think that he is part latino! Here is the link to the Family Picture at MTC (look at the last picture), so see what you think. Super funny! It would be super cool if I had it in my genes for my skin to go that tan!

Me and Hermana Solis

Hermana Solis was with me for one day this week for a work visit! She came to my area and I had to be in charge of everything that day. I was so nervous! It went fine, and I realized how nice it is to have a spanish speaking companion. She was able to answer lots of the investigator's questions that I couldn't understand or answer very well. Anyway, it was fun to get to see her and talk to her. Back in her area of El Olivar (the same area I was in before I was transferred), she's teaching the parents of one of the families that we found, one of our contacts has been baptized and is super active, and one of our old investigators is preparing for baptism! It's cool to see how things have gone since I've left.

Even though we currently don't have any progressing investigators in our area, I have faith that the Lord will help us to find those people who are ready for the gospel, and that we will be able to help people come unto Christ. We have investigators that if they are married and baptized, they can eventually be sealed in the temple and have a family for eternity! I want to be able to help a family find this happiness and have these blessings, and I know that Lord wants it for them too. We just need to have faith that the Lord will help them make changes in their life and that we will be blessed to know how to help them.