Sunday, March 29, 2015

Eaten Alive.



   Fun Facts of the Week: This morning I counted the bugs bites on my legs. 52. Oh the joys. 
There were 2 murders in my area this week. One kidnapped in a taxi and the other stabbed to death and left in the cemetery. But don´t worry I´m probably good.;) Hit 6 months today! One third holy cow. Okay that´s all I got. Next week I´ll update you on the bug bites and maybe I´ll count the nasty drunk men and the dead rotting dogs that we find on the sides of the road here in piles of trash. Haha I love it here so much it´s crazy. Life in the valley.
   This area is so different but I´m learning so much. Like I said last week we do a lot of stuff for the branch, and a lot less normal missionary work. Which is hard and I get frustrated sometimes with our numbers but I know I´m still doing the Lord´s work. I already love all the people in our little branch. Last week our attendance was like 65 for sacrament meeting and when they counted again at the end of the 3rd hour there were only 30. And there are about 400 members that live within branch boundaries, so we have a lot of work to do. My companion Hermana Sullivan is so great. She only has 2 transfers more than me but I´m learning so much from her. She´s awesome and loves to work and serve the Lord. 
   On Saturday my companion and I went to a little town to visit a contact that we had made a few days earlier. It was so great because she was there and we were about to teach her a full lesson! Which doesn´t happen a lot here. She had tons of questions and seemed super interested so we were so excited. And towards the end her son (25 years old and named Moses) came out and told us that he had a lot of questions for us. But we were running super late and our next appointment was a long walk away so we told him we would come back another day. And then we prayed and left. After walking about 10 minutes down the road we decided that we needed to go back. So we did and it was great! We talked to him for a good 20-30 mintutes. We learned a good lesson about listening to the promptings of the Spirit, because we really just should have let him ask us his questions and have taught him right when he asked, but we were too worried about being late to our next appointment, and then that whole 10 minute walk we were just feeling bad about not talking to him. When we talked about going back we were just thinking about how late we were going to be and that they would think we were weird if we went back, but we decided that we needed to do it, and we were so glad that we did!
   Okay that´s about all I got for this week. Honestly it went by so fast that I can´t even remember a lot of it. I´ll take notes for next week so I can be more interesting.
   Also I´ll be sending pictures a little bit later from the computer in the chapel cause there are one million viruses on the computers here, last week all the pictures from my camera got wiped out from a virus so I´m gonna play it safe for a while. 

Talk to you next week!

Love,
Hermana Marshall
My new companion, Hermana Sullivan


Corire!



   Sorry that I´m a little late but we went adventuring today and didn´t have time to email earlier. But I am absolutely IN LOVE with my new area. I was so sad to leave Casa Blanca but I immediately fell in love with this place. And my companion, Hermana Sullivan, is AMAZING. I love her to death and we work really well together.
   My area is a little complicated. So we´re about 3 hours from Arequipa, in a gigantic valley. We have a tiny little branch with outrageous boundaries. So the branch boundaries are cut in half into 2 mission areas, Aplao and Corire, There are 2 elders in Aplao and 2 elders in Corire, me and my companion have the two areas. I´m not sure if that makes sense, but we have the area of Aplao and Corire, and work with the elders there. Which is a little weird but we, along with the elders, have a ton of branch responsibilities as well so it´s necessary. So my area is CRAZY huge. You can travel for 4 hours in a bus and still be in my area. Also the six of us missionaries in the branch are all gringos so we´re pretty pumped about that, we have fun together. And we pension (eat all our meals with) the elders of Corire and live across the street from them, which is weird but super awesome. 
   In the Branch we work with the Primary, Young Women, and Relief Society, which is crazy but I love it so much. This week we planned a YW´s activity, spent 3 hours making the invitations and YW handouts for Personal Progress, made the list for Visiting Teachers because they didn´t even have one, And every week we teach primary. I´m the sharing time teacher and I love it. Also I conduct the music in Sacrament Meeting.

   It´s weird here in Corire, the mission is 100% different. But I love it so so much. We have lots to do and we´re pumped to work hard and help build this branch. 

   Love you all! Thanks for all the love and support!

Sunday, March 8, 2015



I forgot to post a picture of Maria's baptism! She's the greatest.




Another week!

   A crazy short week here in Casa Blanca! And possibly my last! We have tranfers on Monday so we'll see what happens!
   Yesterday at church we were starting sacrament meeting and Berni (served his mission in California and has perfect English and is way cool) starts the opening prayer and an earthquake starts. We´re all just sitting there and he just keeps praying but the whole chapel was shaking. And then as soon as he said "Amen" it stopped. That sounds dramatic but I promise it happened. 
   Oh also we lost our cellphone yesterday so that´s a problem. The mission is probably going to kill us but it´s fine. We´re still praying that it will turn up but it´s not looking like it´s going to happen. With looots of faith. 
   So this week we fasted twice, once because it was fast Sunday and the other because we had some specific things that we really felt we needed to fast for. One thing that I fasted for, and that I´ve fasted for before, is that my companion could get her patriarchal blessing. She´s a convert of 2 years and got her patriarchal blessing just a few days before she left for the mission, and she´s never gotten the paper copy of it. She´s called her stake president, and the mission president, and requested multiple replacement copies, but nothing. In these 10 months she hasn´t had it. And just right now just got an email with an electronic copy of her blessing. Right now she´s sitting right next to me just so happy reading her blessing. I love that girl. God is great. 

   Okay sorry that I don´t have any cool stories for this week, honestly it went by so fast that I can´t even remember the majority of it. It´s just a blur.  I´ll take notes this week though so I can have cool stories to tell you guys. I love you guys so much! Thanks for all the love and support!