Wait, why do we go to church?

Hermana Ruiz my Hermana Leader

 that visited this week under the waterfall in our sector. 

We see men even taking pictures under it

 and it is HILARIOUS!

Well, everyone I am back in Quillabamba! Wahoo! My companion and I decided that it is the Hawaii of Peru minus the ocean… It is sooooooo beautiful. I am so grateful for it though. The people are amazing and the church is growing which is the best part. This week though we have been SLOWLY getting back into normal missionary work as Hermana Hoskins has been recovering.  But it has been great because it was weird not to be out working 24-7 like normal! But she is the best and is doing so great as she had surgery in PERU!!!

I want to start off by sharing really how important it is as missionaries to have your investigators attend church. It is the hardest thing sometimes to understand the importance of attending. I really thought about it this week though because I am trying to find how to improve our lessons and get them to come! But really WHY do we go? We go because of the sacrament. At our conference this week with President and his wife they talked about covenants and how important it is to take it each week. This week as I sat in a sacrament meeting, listening to the sacrament prayer it really touched me. I wanted to really understand. So as I thought about it we take it because we need to have His spirit with us each week. We need to have His spirit because we need to constantly be changing to become more like Christ. To become more refined. But I had the thought pop into my mind (the spirit obviously) say YOU CAN CHANGE. That is the message of this church. We can constantly change our lives to become happier. To have true lasting peace. To become more like our Savior. I studied more about it as we have had some extra time. It is THE REASON we go to church. The 15 minutes are vital to renew, remember, and review how we should be living our life. It is all about remembering the Atonement. The more we ponder the significance of the sacrament, the more sacred it becomes to us.

My companion said one day as we were on our way to church really how hard it is to go to church sometimes. It can be HARD. We can go to the movies, shop, rest at home, read a book we want, not have any stresses about callings, or take care of screaming children in the meetings. But we go because we are showing the Savior how grateful we are for His life, and His sacrifice. A quote I really like is “The ordinance of the sacrament has been called one of the most holy and sacred ordinances in the church. It needs to become more holy and sacred to each of us. Jesus Christ himself instituted the ordinance to remind us what He did to redeem us and to teach us how we may avail ourselves of His redemption and thereby live with God again.”-Elder James J. Hamua from this last conference.

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be here on my mission constantly refining my life to become the person the Lord wants me to be. But I can do it through renewing my baptismal covenant each week, thinking about the Savior, and taking the Sacrament WHICH MEANS I have to go to church. Reflect on the importance of the sacrament and truly how lucky we are.

Hermana Essig! 

This woman is so great!

 She was trained my Hermana Hansen

 from my ward in Spanish Fork!

 Whoa small world! She is now an Hermana Leader

 and I love this girl so much!

 Well, this week was “carnival”! This is when EVERYONE. Seriously, everyone fills water balloons, brings tubs of water, silly string, paint, anything you can put on another person and throw it on literally everyone walking by or neighbors.

People throwing globles de agua-water balloons from the windows

Throwing water off the roofs!
 So many do this and they even get cars,
 motorcycles and anyone walking by!
 It was so funny to watch!

It’s so funny because they had to keep going back
 and forth in their houses to get water to throw on each other.

 It was SO fun to watch from our window all that was happening! Apparently it is a country wide holiday… If you want to call it a holiday… Haha! But Hermana Hoskins and I literally talked about how it would go in the U.S.  Haha hoses and all it would get pretty hysterical! Anyway enjoy the pics! Until next week!

Love you all!

Hermana Frame

Drive by in trucks and it is an all out WAR!

Our block going crazy! It was hilarious to watch!