Las Brisas - Week 8

October 5, 2015

Service this week - helping out with maintenance at a local
home for special needs kids - LOVED IT!!

This week was interesting, well really every week is interesting, but good, always great! 

We were able to meet with one of our investigators that we haven't seen in a while. Actually I've never met her, but I did this week! Her name is Ximena and she is 14 and is so stinkin sweet and so sincere. We taught her the first lesson and she just wanted to read everything and understand it all. It was great. But she doesn't have much time cause she is in school all the time and has exams and stuff. But we are gonna try and talk to her parents (they are always pretty busy) and include them in the lessons this week. 

Also we are focusing a lot more on contacting. SO the other day we were walking and this guy just walked up to us and was like "Hey what state are you from?" Haha I responded "Soy de Peru!" hahe he believed me. Yeah but his name is Chad and he is from Colorado and has lived in Lima for 4 years AND DOESN'T SPEAK ANY SPANISH! I don't understand. But yeah he came over here and married a peruvian but now they are divorced and she lives in the US with his son and he lives here and he doesn't really work so I don't understand why he is here or what he is doing. Haha it was interesting. But yeah he doesn't live in our sector so we passed the reference along. 

Yeah so we are working lot with our recent converts and reactivating some menos activos (less active members). I love working with them and seeing and hearing how their testimonies are growing and how they are setting an even firmer foundation for themselves and for their families. Its little but that is the way we learn and grow the most over time. 

Some interesting and unexpected service. So the toilets here are always a mystery. Sometimes there is not toilet paper (almost always if you rent like in  church building) or sometimes there is no seat, or sometimes they are super backed up (the toilets here don't have lots of sucky power) but people continue to use them anyway. So we went to the capillia and we went to the bathroom where we saw H. Norma (the rs pres) mopping up from a toilet that had over flown a bit. SO we grab some brooms and mops and help her out and so we are all finished. Then she flushed the toilet that had overflown - thinking it would just all go down. NO. It was gushing so much water and the handle got stuck down so it kept going and going and water was everywhere. And the waster was not clean! There were chunks (if ya know what I mean) coming out of the toilet too! SO she went and turned some lever under the sink that she thought was to turn off the water but instead she turned on the baptismal font! Haha so there was water with little surprises everywhere, and we were frantically sweeping it to keep it from going into the hall while she was hitting the toilet with the broom handle to flip the flusher thing back up! It was a wild time. Hahah but eventually we got it all cleaned up and duck taped the door shut so no one else could use it!

Random guy on a horse in Lima......

Also some other Service- this was more expected- We went to a school for children with special needs that didn't have parents and helped with the maintenance. The elders were painting a gate and we were in this little garden area pruning some plants and painting a wall behind the garden. Hahaha so we are working and then I realize that the garden we were working in was like the little shrine area of some Virgin! Hahaha it was really funny, but it looked really good when we were done and we even contacted a few people while we were there. Yeah so then we left and began working in the Lords garden! 

Also General Conference fue lo maximo (was the best)!! Oh man, so great! I keep going for my journal to read my notes over and over cause I wasn't ready for it to be over! But you should all take a look at the conference talks. I would need a whole day to tell you all the things I lovwed from conference and all the things I learned, but I don't have time so I'll just say one little thing. 

Something that really impacted me was the emphasis on the "simple and beautiful truths of this Gospel" When we have a strong foundation in these truths everything else will fall into place when we continue to live this Gospel and act on our Faith. I know that Jesus is the Christ. HE lives. We have a Heavenly Father who lives and loves us so much. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. It is the word of God written specifically for us today. The Book of Mormon was translated by the Prophet Joseph Smith through the power of God and there are Prophets here on the earth today working through the power of God. I love this Gospel and the Happiness, peace and comfort it gives me. Its true and its real and it is for every child of God. 

Love you all and you are in my prayers! 

-With Love from LIma 

Herman Scarlett

Dog on the roof of the apartment building across from ours.
I think he is a werewolf.....