Two Months!

   I hit 2 months yesterday! Holy cow how is that even possible. I can`t believe I`ve been out that long. It`s crazy to think that I only have 8 more of what I´ve done so far. Time FLIES in the field. Each week goes by so fast. Before I know it I`ll be home. Which is so scary. Time can go by fast now cause it`s hard and I can`t speak Spanish, haha, but I know that once I can speak Spanish I won`t want to leave.

 

   This week was so so great. By far the best week of my mission so far. Ive still been a little sick, but this week was awesome. And my Spanish has gotten infinitely better. So many members or just people that we`ve met with multiple times have commented on how much better my spanish has gotten. Such a blessing.

 

   On Friday all the new missionaries got to go to the mission home to have a little reunion with our CCM group. It was so great! It was so great to be able to talk to the missionaries that I grew so close to in the 6 weeks that we were in the CCM. And we got to talk to President and his assistants and got a ton of great advice. And we ate HAMBURGERS. Like good, fat, american style hamburgers. I had been craving a good burger for months. Haha. Anyway it was a great day and it was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits and cheer me up after having a rough week last week and being sick.

 

   This week we spent a lot of time with members of the ward which was great. We have such a great, strong ward. All the members are so kind and make me feel so loved and welcomed. And they`re super patient with me with my Spanish.

   And then 2 of our investigators came to Sacrament meeting this week! And 2 less actives! Hallelujah. And it was the Primary Program which was so cute. Here when they have the Primary Program the kids do the announcements and prayers for sacrament meeting and it was adorable.

 

   After church we went over to a member`s house for lunch with the other Hermanas (there are 4 sister missionaries in our ward because our ward boundaries are so huge, and we do a lot of stuff with them, they`re great) and the food was delicious. This is what Hermano Mercado put on my plate and I promise I`m not exaggerating:

A huge steak, 3 chicken breasts, a big fat sausage, a potato, a sweet potato, and salad (carrots and broccoli with a buttload of salt and lemon juice). I am so serious. It was a struggle. And we drank probably five 3 liters of Inca Kola (they drink more Inca here than water. It tastes like bubblegum cream soda). Anyway it was great.

 

Overall just a great week! I`m grateful and happy and loving the work!

Also if you want to send me a letter or your favorite General Conference talk or something you can ask Brooke or Barb for my mailing address. And I´ll love you forever.

 

Con Amor,

Hermana Marshall

Week 2 in the Field!

Another crazy week in the field! It´s crazy how fast time flies here!

   Honestly this week was rough. I´m having a hard time understanding these people and it´s really hard for my to communicate with them. In lessons it´s basically Hermana Lucano and the person having a conversation and me sitting there frustrated and upset because I can barely understand them and don´t know what to say or how to say it. Also I´ve been sick for the last 3 days so that hasn´t helped. It´s hard being sick away from home.

Also we´re struggling a lot in our area. We have no one progressing and no one who really wants to hear our message, which is rough. And our appointments almost always fall through. 

   It´s rough right now but I know that it will get better. And missionary work isn´t supposed to be easy. 

Okay no more negativity I promise. 

   These week we had FHE with 10 Second Tom (if you get my reference we´re friends) and I honestly had to fight laughter the whole time. It was with this suuuper sweet 81 year old lady with Alzheimers. We were there with the other missionaries from our ward (Hermana Quispe and Hermana Lopez) who are my bffs. It was hilarious. I swear every like 20 seconds she would ask the same question or say the same thing. And we would all just look at eachother and try so hard not to laugh. 

   Also we went to a members house one night and for like an hour her two little girls were trying to teach me Spanish. They could clearly tell that I can´t speak Castillano to save my life. Sofia is 4 and Andrea is 7. Sofia would say "Hermanita, say (insert random sentence like "the cup fell off the table") and then they would make me repeat it until I got it right. They were very impatient. And then once I finally said it right Sofia would say "Perfect. Good Job" and then we´d move on to a different sentence. Hahaha. 

Also I got a package of GOLD this week from my awesome family. You have no idea how much missionaries love packages and letters. Especially when they´re having a rough time. 

   One thing that I am so grateful for is the love that I have developed for scripture study. It´s my favorite part of the day and I feel like I could go on for hours and hours. I´m reading Jesus the Christ right now which I absolutely love. My sweet sister sent me some conference talks too which I am so grateful for. If you want Hermana Marshall to love you send her your favorite conference talk in the mail. It´s hard for me to get ahold of English Conference talks here.

   This week we visited a member from the ward and while we were there she pulled out her Book of Mormon and it was DUSTY. It seriously broke my heart. Please please please don´t let your Book of Mormon get dusty. Read it, study it, and pray and ponder about it every single day. 

Anyway I love you guys and as always am grateful for your love and support! 

Hermana M

Puacarpata

   We arrived in Arequipa Tuesday morning. We drove to a stake center, had a short orientation, lunch, got paired with our companions, and then split up to got to our areas. It was crazy. It was super hard to say goodbye to my district, not gonna lie a couple of us cried. Haha. We grew so close in the 6 weeks that we spent together in the CCM.

My companion is Hermana Lucano. She is from Peru and doesn`t speak a word of English. Haha my luck. That was literally my biggest fear. But I know that I`m with her for a reason and that I will learn the language so much faster with her. She is super cute and tiny, she comes up to my shoulders. She`s so sweet and incredibly patient with me which I`m so grateful for.

   We`re in the Paucarpata district of Arequipa, in Casa Blanca. It`s pretty much exactly what I expected, but at the same time I´m shocked every single day by the way that people live here. I`ve definitely cried in lessons because I can`t believe how little these people have. Literally there are no words to describe it, I couldn`t even if I tried. One lady we teach lives in one room (most people do) with her husband and son. They have no furniture other than their bed and no light and no windows. We sit on her bed and teach her in the dark. On Friday she had asked for a blessing so the district leader and his comp came over and we all just sat there with her in the dark and they gave her a blessing. After, to thank us, we all shared a bottle of Inca Kola (the main drink here) and she put some crackers on a plate for us. It was really humbling. Everything I see here and the people I meet humble me so much.

   Our "cuarto" is a tiny little room with a bunk bed and 2 desks. We share a bathroom (tiny room with a toilet, a sink, and a showerhead) with everyone else that lives there. But we still live much more comfortably and have more than the majority of the people here.

   Honestly I am struggling with the language. In the MTC I felt fairly confident, but I am far from where I need to be. My companion doesn`t speak English so that`s a struggle too. Thankfully she speaks pretty slowly and enunciates all her words so that helps a lot. I can usually understand her. But everyone else mumbles and talks pretty fast. And it`s almost impossible for me to understand the people with no teeth, that`s my biggest struggle.

   It´s hard never being able to use english here. I acually miss it a lot which is weird. Mostly because I can`t fully express myself in Spanish. On my second day here Hermana Lucano asked me to offer the prayer in English and I almost cried because I was so grateful. I hadn`t spoken a word of english in 24 hours.

   I have developed a much stronger testimony of prayer on my mission. It is honestly my absolute favorite thing now. My personal prayers are so special and sacred to me and I feel like I could go on forever. On my mission, mostly in the last week, I`ve had to learn to totally rely on my Heavenly Father which has been a huge blessing. Because I`ve been having a hard time I`ve had no choice but to rely on Him and I`ve developed a much stronger relationship with Him.

   This is by far the hardest thing that I`ve ever done in my life. Honestly I`ve found myself feeling really inadequate and wondering what I`m doing here. But I need to remember why I`m here. I didn`t come because I thought it would be easy and the reason that I came doesn`t change just because it`s harder thatn I thought it would be. I know that this is where I need to be right now. These people need the gospel in their lives. They need the light, love, comfort, and joy that comes with the gospel of Christ. I know that even though it won`t be easy, it will be absolutely 100% worth it. I know that I will never ever regret these 18 months spent serving the Lord.

Randoms:

I`m too tall for the shower, which is obnoxious because I`m short. And when my head touches the shower head (which it does unless i`m squatting) I get a pleasant electric shock through my body.

My birthday was great. We had a zone meeting and they had a cake for me and sang to me. The tradition here is that the birthday person takes the first bite out of the cake (like with their mouth no utensils) and the tradition in our zone is that when you bite the cake they push your face into it. So that was fun. Haha they got me good.

 

I love you all and am so grateful for all of your love and support! It really does mean a lot.

Con Amor,

Hermana Marshall

ID Y HACED DISCÍPULOS

Another amazing week! This is my last Pday in the MTC! So crazy! I´m so so excited to enter the field, but I know I´ll miss the mtc and my distrct/companions so much. This time in the CCM has been hard but I´ve learned and grown so much.

 

This week on Tuesday a member of the First Quorum of the 70 came and spoke to us. He´s the Area President. The devo is always in spanish and so the North Americans always get headsets so we can understand. But this week after like 2 minutes I realized that the headphones and the translation were bothering me. So I took them off and understood EVERYTHING!  And toward the end of his abolutely amazing talk, I looked down at my notes and realized that I had written them all in Spanish! I didn´t even realize that I was understanding as well as I was and that I was writing my notes in Spanish. The gift of tongues is real guys.

 

Saturday was without a doubt the best day I´ve had in the MTC. We were just sitting in class and Elder Carter and I noticed a bunch of super cute latino kids walking past our window into the soccer field. And then about 10 minutes later Hermana Rivera told us to go out to the field. Our district walks into the field and we see so so many kids playing. Probably like 60 or 70 little kids. And then they all saw us and starting screaming and rushing toward us. They swarmed us all, just screaming and so excited. So we all just kind of seperated and met all these little kids. I was just surrounded by these sweet children trying to hug me and kiss my cheeks and hold my hands. They were just so excited to see us because we were missionaries and they thought we were so cool because we were from the United States.  I was just surrounded by these kids. And moms would pull me over to their children and ask me to pose with them for pictures. I have never felt so much love in my entire life. Just surrounded by these wonderful kids with such sweet spirits and I could feel their love for me. I was just so full of love for them even though we could barely communicate. I was standing with a few of my elders, and we just looked at eachother and said that we were so happy and so full of love for these kids that we were all about to cry. It was so amazing.

 

I don´t have a lot of time, but as usual I just want you all to know that I love you so much!

Wish me luck as I enter the mission field this week!

 

Hermana Marshall

Week 4!

Another amazing week here at the CCM! I can´t believe I only have 2 weeks left!

For the last 2 weeks we had a trio of Latina hermanas in our room and I grew to love them so much. The Latinas are so sweet and so humble. Hermana Colkuehuanca (from Trujillo) was truly the most pure and innocent person I have ever met. She's a recent convert. Her whole life she had had a desire to be close to God and to serve him so she was preparing to be a nun. This girl literally wanted to be a nun. So sweet. And then she was introduced to the gospel and was so excited to learn that she could serve our Heavenly Father as a missionary. Also she is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. Literally looks like Pocahontas. She was the most Christlike person I´ve ever met in my life.

Another amazing latino who humbled me so much is Elder Fuentes. He´s from Ilo which is in my mission. He´s 26. He worked for 10 years earning 20 soles (about 8 dollars) a day to be able to come on a mission. I was his fake investigator one time and his lesson was incredible. He has a testimony of gold. Haha funny story about him, he would always come and talk to me and he would call me Courtney (which probably isn't okay but he doesnt speak a word of english and I didn´t know how to correct him haha so I just let him) and before he left for the field he found me and asked for my email address. He told me he would write me and asked if I would write him back. Haha a couple other latino elders did that too but I don´t remember their names. The Latino are so awesome though.

A few days ago I had to teach lessons SOLO to the LATINOS. Haha it was terrifying but I managed! My spanish is improving but I still don´t feel super confident.

On Sunday we got to watch "Meet the Mormons". It was so good! I encourage all of you to watch it. We also watched "Ephraim's Rescue" which I had somehow never seen before and it was so good.

Just a few random things I´ve learned about my mission and just Peru in general:

We get 5 soles a day in the field (like 2 dollars haha).

Apparently my mission president is super chill and let's us watch Disney movies on Pday

You can't flush toilet paper in Peru. You throw it away. I'm talkin 1 and 2. Hahaha so gross. The bathrooms smell great.

My mission is called the "Mission of the Valient". Apparently everyone in Arequipa is prideful and stubborn. It's the least baptizing mission in Peru.

This week was pretty uneventful but still awesome as always! Today was great of course because it's Pday. I love doing the temple session in Spanish. And after the temple we did our shopping like we always do and my scripture cases were finally ready! I love them! I wish I was allowed to send a picture.

Anyway I don´t have much more time but I love you all! Thank you so much for all the love and support! This mission has already been such a blessing in my life and I´m so happy that I made the decision to serve a mission.

Love, Hermana Marshall

Halfway Done!

Another great week at the CCM! I feel like last Pday was yesterday. Time seriously flies here. I'm still happy and loving it! 3 weeks from now I'll be in the field!  So crazy!

I just want all of you to know how grateful I am to be here. It is such a blessing. Being a missionary and wearing this tag brings me so much joy. I've learned so much in these short 3 weeks. I've prayed more in the last 21 days then I have in my entire life. And I have seen so many of those prayers answered. I know that God listens to our prayers and that He really does love us.

We've been teaching like crazy! We're on our 3rd and 4th investigators right now. We learned a lot from the first 2. One of our investigators right now is an alchoholic so that's interesting for me. But I really do love teaching. You don't really realize how much you love the gospel and how much you KNOW that these things are true until you're trying to teach someone else and bring that same joy into their life.

So we missionaries are super weird and we have a ton of phrases that we just directly translated from English to Spanish. Our teachers thought we were crazy at first but now we have all of them saying them.

1. ¡Que en el Mundo?! (what in the world?!)

2. Por el Amor! (For the love!)

3. Toda dia cada dia. (All day everyday)

Haha missionaries are so weird.

Also I don´t know if I told you this but our maestros dont speak any English. Haha it's pretty hilarious actually. But I love them and have learned so much from them.

I´m pretty bummed because usually missionaries here get to go proselyting once a week in lima for like 5 hours, but as of the week we got here they're not lettting us go anymore. It's too dangerous. There were just a few scary incidents in the weeks before we came so we´re not allowed to anymore.

Pdays are awesome! We have to wake up an hour earlier but it's so worth it. We take a bus to the temple. The bus situation is seriously so hilarious. LIterally there are like 40 missionaries standing on the side of the street trying to wave down a bus and then a bus pulls over and it´s always already super full. But we get on anyway! Haha I wish you could see us all on that tiny bus. Also it's lame because the hermanas have to be with elders all the time in Lima so we don't get murdered or whatever. Haha I really don't think it's that dangerous here but they're just being cautious. Anyway the temple is absolutely beautiful, and I love listening to the session in Spanish. and then after the temple we have like an hour and a half to shop around! It's so much fun! I love gettting to wander the city and eat the delicious street vendor food that we're not supposed to eat and will probably give us diarrhea. Haha it's so fun!

Anyway I'm out of time but I love you all! Thanks for all the love and support!

Hermana Bread.

Another great week!

   Another great week at the CCM!! It's crazy how time flies here. I've already been a missionary for 2 weeks and I love it so much! Every day feels so long but the weeks go by so fast. I cant even tell you how awesome the MTC is. Sometimes it's exhausting and overwhelming and stressful, but it's also so amazing and so fun. I love all the missionaries here. Especially my district. I laugh so so much with them. But don't worry I learn too. Haha. Our elders are so awesome and such great examples. I´m learning so much every day.

   We just got new roommates. I was so sad when our old roommates left, they were my best friends here. Every night I would just talk and laugh with them until we fell asleep. But last night we got new Hermanas! A trio of Latinas! THey´re so sweet. Of course there's a bit of a language barrier but I know that we'll learn so much with them.

   We have 2 investigators that we teach here. Ary and Rodrigo. We teach everyday, sometimes twice a day. My companions get frustrated with me sometimes because I tend to take over and do all the teaching, which is a problem, especially with a trio. Haha i just get so excited and have so much that I want to say and teach. We're slowly getting better and more comfortable with teaching. I absolutely love teaching.

   So just to give you an idea of what you do here I'll tell you what an average day is like:

Wake up at 6. Breakfast at 645. classes until lunch. classes for an hour after lunch, then physical activity for an hour. then more classes until dinner. and then more classes until bed. Hahaha the days are long but they're good. I'm learning so much!

   PDAYS are so awesome! we wake up early and do a session at the temple, then we have 2 hours to shop. Today we went to distribution center and bought scriptures. and then to the temple store (a sketchy looking place where they sell the cool scriptures cases and llama ties and other random missionary-church stuff like that. The whole bus situation is hilarious-I wish I had time to tell you about it. And then we come back to the CCM after almost dying on the bus, eat lunch, do laundry, and then email. And then classes start again at like 345. oh we also go to either Metros (ghetto peruvian walmart) or tottus (not as ghetto pervuian target) haha. and that's where we buy random things that we need and candy and stuff. im addicted to casinos and sublimes. and I always buy a coke zero of course.

   I dont think i will ever again crave meat or rice. hahaha literally every meal. but its okay its pretty good usually. and they always have fruit. granadías are my absolute favorite. look them up. they´re super weird but delicious. it looks like an orange on the outside but then you crack it open and its filled with little fish eyeball looking things. Haha sounds so gross but I love them. and then delicious fresh juice and always dessert. And of course the bread. Hahaha. And no dad no rodents yet ;)

   OH and of course im a missionary so i have to talk about how amazing conference was. i have never gotten so much out of conference. I loved every second and was writing pages and pages of notes the whole time. It was absolutely amazing. Conference is like Christmas at the ccm.

   Anyway I'm loving it here!

   I love all of you and I'm so so grateful for your emails! It makes my day logging on and seeing so many emails from all of the people that I love.

Hermana Marshall.