Faith in Prayers

dearest family and friends.

first of all 

HAPPPY BIRTHDAY CHAZZY WAZZT!!! o sea ELDER GONZALES!!! 

ok and.... i must share a few miracles. 

first of all, i dont know if i already explained but there are 7 missionaries in our ward. 3 sisters, my companion and i and 2 elders that work in the office, so they dont really do a lot of prosollyting. anyways. 

my work is more with the less actives and the part member families. and ev ery month, we recive a list of 20 names. names of members that maybe have moved, or simply less acitve. and these names are GOLDEN! we have found several part member families! and this sunday we had 3 FAMILIES complete families! mother father kids..... in church! PROGRESSING! ahhhh it felt SO good to see them walk in. it was amazing. and whats more is they all SAT next to each other.... like what the! 

they are really special. ill share of one. 

 

Hugo (padre) ana (madre) josemartin (teenager) and Jennifer (hija 11 years) 

Hugo is less active. and ana is a wonderful mother who has already recieved the lessons two times but the first time was here in peru, second in argentina and now they are back and she KNOWS she needs to be baptised. its not a cooincedence that the missionaries keep finding her. and her teenager son has make friends with the youth here. they are AWESOME! i am praying for this family to keep progessing.  PLEASE pray for hte family Villalobos. 

 

another crazy story. 

the other night we were sleeping (like we do every night) and at 3:13am (for parnormal nerds that is DEAD TIME) i hear my companion, innocently call my name from the bottom bunk. "hermana gonzales....?" i respond "hermana paiva, are you ok?" she said she had a bad dream.... and when latinas have dreams,,,,, it really means something. they dream things and the HAPPEN! so if shee is having bad dreams, something is up..... so i jump down from top bunk grab my flash light and crawl in her bed, she said she saw someone in the corner of our room. a dark figure. (ok dont freak out sister gonzales) so i said 

how about we say a prayer? so we said a prayer. "...in the name of christ clean this room of any bad spirits, send your angels to protect us and let us have the holy ghost this night to sleep in peace so that we can work hard to marrow and do thy work...." she was still kind of scared. so i hummed a hymn and i had a crazy idea come to my mind ... i said "hermana paiva, what if we slept with our plaques on?" she thought that was a good idea. so we put our plaques on, turned on the bathroom light as a night light and crawled back into bed. and guess what. we slept SO GOOD afrter that. 

IT WORKED! 

another funny story. 

my lucky streak on avoiding the clinic ended this week. when i found a wierd lump in my arm pit. well to be honest i found it a week ago but i didnt think anything of it. even though it hurt. it didnt stop me from th e work so thereofre, its not a big deal... but then i found ANOTHER one in my arm! same arm, and it hurt too.... so i told the mission nurse sister calle who happens to live with us and she didnt know what it was so she sent me to the dang clinic! COME ON! 

well, went, waited, made some great contacts, and turns out, its just a swollen glande. didnt know i had glandes in my pits but ya know. they gave me some pills and sent me on my way. they said it was a side effect of my ringworm. lol what ever. 

 

that was fun. NEVER AGAIN! 

also i was asked to do a musical number in a devotional for another stake. im in estaka central and ill be goin on the 20th to staka esperanza. SWEET! im pretty excited about that. 

thats the latest and greatest. love you all 

keep the faith. know that God loves us and is taking care of every day through the atonement of our savior jesus christ. i love these people, i love seeing how the restored gospal changes lives. unifies families and makes us over all much happier. its real. the blessings are VERY real. and i cant imagine living with out them. 

 

con amor,

hermana gonzales 

Here for Conversion

dearest family and friends. 

sorry i didnt write last week. 

sometimes SO MANY THIGNS happen it overwhelms me to write home. like i dont even know where to start.... and i forget to the most important spiritual stuff and its jsut better to leave you all hanging..... heheheh hohoh hahahah 

so sorry.

really quick. 

 

surprise sister hosting, we has sisters from far away chimbote come and prosolyte with us cause they didnt have a home or an area for a day 

 

sick sister visit .... emergency sick visit. a sister has been fighting pains her mission and cant walk and sometime these things are psychological and sometimes they are real. we went and shared the gospal with her and helped her set goals to get better. well. turns out she really does have a hernia. (I HATE THOSE DANG HERNIAS) and she had to go home this week. but she said she is conming back. 

cancer or ringworm? 

 

i have this wierd growth on my left arm. and for a while i just thought it as a bug bite cause it itches. then next thign i know its as big as my watch face! thought it was a patch of skin cancer. but good news. its jsut a ringworm. yum..... and i have special antifungus cream i get to put on it every day. yay 

general authorities. elder clayton came and inspired us with his spiritual wisdom! share my notes when we get home . but every one READ THE BOOK OF MORMON!!!! 

SISTER DRAMA! 

 

MA work....TRUE missionaries. so we have 7 missionaries in our ward in total 5 sisters and 2 elders. so reall, my work is more with the less activs. so dont judge me if we dont have baptimsms the rest of my mission. but im not here to baptise. im here for CONVERSION! and THAT is th work of salvation my friends. and let me tell you, there is nothing sweeter, it is awesome.

 

sister training meeting .... was inspired how to take care of these sisters better. spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. theres a lot that goes into this work. if you could only see behind the scenes. its a whole other mission in its self. truly. and we learned how to respect the priesthood and use the pwer and authority that we as sisters have been given. EVERYONE go read elder oaks talk from priesthood session this last conference. its BOMB.COM! 

 

beach. ya we work hard and we play hard. enjoy some sweet pix of our trip to the beach in the peruvian winter time 

 

 

 

thats the latest. 

i love my mission. i love my savior. and i love my life. even though its hard. 

really hard. 

con amor hermana gonzales 

Off to Ecuador

Dearest Family and Friends. 

This was a good week! it was my first real Change of my whole mission. where i left all my work my heart and my testimony to do it all over again in a new area. Welcome to California!!! ITs awesome. its more like a city. i dont like city. i miss my peaceful Parque Grande and Onion fields. 

 

i dont like cars and beauty salons and restaurants. but its ok. i was only in california for one day when we got a call. 

 

Sister Gonzales, you have been called to go to EQUADOR! 

you are being deported for three days . you are illegal and must leave the country. 

cool.

 

so me and 14 other missionaries packed a small bag and went to the office where they took us to the airport, where they flew us to lima, where then then flied us to Tumbes peru, where they put us in a small van (not big enough for 15 missionaries and their bags) and drove us across the border where we waited in line and got our visas stamped. then we stood inanother line to get it stamped again. after two lines and 20 minutes, i had left and reentered peru. cool. 

 

 

 

then we went back on the bus, back to tumbes where we went to lunch, ate some delicious chicken and fries, sang to a sister missionary cause it was her birthday, did some shopping and contacting., then flew back to lima, took an hour to shower (by this point it was 2 in the morning) went to chinese food (nothing better than peruvian styled chinese food at two in the morning) and took an hour nap and went back to the airport to fly to trujillo and arrived back at teh office by 7 in the morning. just in time for personal study time.... it was SO HARD to stay awake during studies. SO HARD! we went three days on like, 5 hours of sleep. i REALLY  used the atonement that day prosoliting. The savior really had to make up for ALL THAT I LACKED that day. . . . but it was good. it was fun. we laughed a lot and talked to a lot of cool people from all around the world! a good weekend. 

we laughed a lot. and i really needed that. havent laughed that hard in a while. it really relieved a lot of stress.

 

 

Tumbes, Peru - a sweet cathedral

 

 

 

sunday in a new ward was bitter sweet. our bishop is awesome .and fairly new. he is an institute teacher too and he has a lot of knowledge. but he is still figuring out what he is doing. but we trust him. 

 

there are five of us sisters who live together. there is my companion and i and a trio of sisters. they are good sisters. there are 9 in our zone in total. and we are their sister training leaders. its going to be fun getting to know all of them and taking care of their spiritual needs. ive learned as we are taking care of so many, sometimes we forget to take care of ouselves. i hope to be that friend that sister missionary who can take care of these girls so they have the juice to keep serving even if they lack. and thanks to my loved ones at home, i can do that, because you all take such good care of ME I have the juice to take care of others. its a beuitful cycle. so THANK YOU ALL! thank you for your prayers THEY ARE REALLY REALLY FELT!!! 

 

We re doing dood. i am happy. i feel like mywork is cut out for me here. and we are ready to go and do. the church is so true. 

 

this week i read about how the savior reacted when he cleaned out the temple. i have wondered how many times it will take for him to come clean out my heart and mind so that i will be worthy of the spirit and feel comfortable in the presence of god one day. how many trials will it take to sanctify me. and in the process of correction, i will come to know the savior and why he does what he does. He loves us, and he loves his father in heaven as do i. the mission is humbling, we are learnign and living the higher law. and it is a blessing. 

 

all is well. 

 

thank you for your love and encouragement. 

con mucho mucho amor

Hermana Gonzales :) 

 

 

reunited with my companion hermana flores 

 

 

Goodbye parquet grande with your million contacts!

Goodbye church

Our ward council - the leaders of the ward

My last night in El bosque. wanted to do a Family Home evening with my recent converts and a few less actives that we activated. turns out that not only them, but investigators and the whole ward wen!! ... not waht i had in mind. but it was beautiful. i bore my testimony, i told them what they had taught me. and got to hear from a few of their testimonies, and i cannot tell you there is NOTHING more sweet than hearing the testimony of someone who has been inactive for 10 years, from someone who stopped drinking for their kids and for God. from someone who decided to serve a mission cause they saw the fruits of the work of salvation in their ward and family. THERE IS NOTHING BETTER!!! 

i love these people-. they are my family here. i will forever be changed because of them. it was a good night. a beautiful good bye.... or see you later. 

 

California here I come!

Dearest family and friends. i have  A LOT to report. mostly cause i sent a very short and sad email last week. so now i kinda have double to shard. heheheheh 

 

first of all 

SHOUT OUT! 

DANIELLE IS BAPTIZED! congrats my littlest sister. you are now an official member of the True Church! I AM SO PROUD! and its funny, cause sunday, in Gospal doctorines class, we had to talk about baptism. and in this class they are all in vestigators and recent converst. and i got to talk about my little sister. and how she was getting confirmed that very day,. they were all warmed and happy to hear about it. as was i. what a blessing

 

Bro. Boucher

I GOT YOUR PACKAGE!!!! i was spoiled by my favorite seminary teacher as he sent me an adorable book of daily scritpures, THE YUMMIEST CHOCOLATE EVER! (it requires A LOT of charity to share this stuff) and a figuring of the last supper. it is BEAUTIFUL and it even looks italian. and your letter made me laugh and cry. thank you SO SO MUCH! and im so glad you compare me to a DOG! jk lol it was awesome

 

also, happy birthday to MIKE!!! Aunt Bobbi and Porter this week!!!! WHAT A GOOD MONTH for birthdays. 

ok.

 so last week i took my first trip out of my bubble in el bosque to the furthest part of the mission to do interchanges, aka, work visits, i was so nervous! i have never traveled in peru before. and you bet i as biting my nais like crazy! im so glad my companion is peruvian and knew what she was doing. we had to take a taxi and two buses to get there. a two hour trip! but it was AWESOME! and i got to visit and do interchagnes with my dauhter. and she is tearing it UP out there! her area is HUGE and its all fields of sugar cane. it is beautiful! i thought she was kidding when she said we are goin to that mountain.... the mountain on the other side of the valley. but she wasnt kidding. we went, we taught, i got bit and it was AWESOME! and she has 3 baptisms. couldnt be more proud.

and we got there adn back in one piece. SUCCESS!! 

 

also this week we had "concilio". or leadership meeting. where we talked about how we can better the mission and then went to service. we did service at an orphanage. where we cleaned up their yards and played with the kids. it wasnt really service. it was play time. and it was A BLAST! those kids are ADORABLE! it broke my heart but it felt so good to make cute new friends and help them feel love from their Father in Heaven. 

 

that was awesome. 

Service day at the orphanage

 

then we had changes. "THE CALL"

AND I LEAVING EL BOSQUE!!!!!!!!!! 

i never thought this day would come! well.... i knew it would come but i hated thinking about it. 

tonight we are doing a super FHE with the ward members where ill leave them with my testimony and leave them to take care of my cnoverts. and where ill shed a few tears 

then by this time tomorrow i will be in California. cali USA!!!!!

 

ahahahah 

 

JUST KIDDING

 

California PERU. but funny riht?? it happens to be zona Central. its the Presidents Ward. ill be sister leader there and all the office elders are in our zone. mom was right when she said president wanted to keep me close. im a little nervous. but he is a busy man. im sure he will  hardly notice. 

my companion is awesome. her name is Hermana Paiva. she was MY sister leader a while ago, and if you remember i had an experience with her where we put our feet in the river and talked about the atonement. she is a sweet sister and i love her very much. im excited to be workin with her. 

she also, acts like the princess from enchanted. if you can imagine. i will be living with rainbows and butterflies for i dont know how long. its gonna be good!!!! 

 

thats the latest. the church is STILL true! i love you all. i love hte Lord. i love this Work. and i am excited for how the Lord is going to shape me. 

 

con amor

hermana gonzales