Onward, Ever Onward

HELLO!

I have been having a crazy weird week. None of my investigators think I know Spanish.  It ticks me off.  I've been a little quieter than usual here in this area and I haven't really seen the effects of it until now.  All my investigators and members are treating me like they did in my training area: like I don't know Spanish. It's really making me kinda mad. So yeah that's pretty unrighteous.  I'm making a point to talk more in appointments and with the members so they can understand I know and understand Spanish.  They all get kinda surprised when they find out I'm fluent. So yeah. My lucha with my investigators and members is real.

We had a super duper good meeting this week with President Clark, the Assistants and us three Southern Zones.  It was Zone Conference.  It was AWESOME!!  President Clark had us read a talk by Elder Holland named Cast Not Away Therefore Thy Confidence.  It was a great talk!  It talks about Satan and attacking us before and after spiritual experiences.  "It's not over 'till it's over" type of theme.  He gave a great training on how we need to continue FORWARD!  The Lord will fight for us!  The Israelites crossing the Red Sea is a major story in there also.  I encourage you all to read this!  I've been super inspired by his training. He's a really great man, President Clark.

I've also been studying a lot on the Atonement.  I've been reading a book called the Infinite Atonement by Tad R. Callister.  It. Is. Amazing.  I could sit and read it for hours if I had the time.  It's a definite must read.  I feel the spirit so strong testifying, teaching, thinking, or anything else about the Atonement.  It's the one doctrine that is ESSENTIAL.  It's the reason we are here. It's the reason for everything.  I love learning more about it all so much!

Here's some random thoughts I've had throughout the week.

- I love having a truck.

- I love speaking a different language.

- What in the world.  My little siblings started High School.

- I feel old.

- Being a missionary is so dang awesome.

- I like eating home cooked food.

- Tortillas are so unhealthy but so good.

Love you all.

Elder Frame

The Family and ABANCAY!

I walk out of our apartment and I begin to walk down the Street and there is a single mother attending to her store that barely brings enough money in to feed her kids. I keep walking as we head to our appointment at 11 in the morning. I pass by 2 little boys house that their mom became sick (single Mom) and left them in an orphanage for a time so she could receive treatment in Cusco. My heart just aches as I think of how do they do it every day without the love of their mother? In that momento I thank my Heavenly Father for my mom and dad that have always been there to support and love me.

 A few blocks down a brother in our Ward is heading to work to help support his two kids, whose mother left with another man 3 months earlier. I keep walking and we pass by a members home who in Ward council we talked about because the couple were having many problems and the father was planning to leave permanently the next week. As I walk my companion begins to tell me how our recent convert we are teaching admitted to us that early in her marriage her husband abused her daily and now has fear of talking with any men over the age of 20. I then think of my last companion who suffered a lot because her father left her at the age of 8 with her mother and didn’t return till 7 years later. I just think… Heavenly Father WHY? Why all of this suffering? Why are there so many destroyed homes, relationships, and families? Oh I have had many moments in my misión where I will get back to our apartment and just start to tear up because of all I went through that day fighting Satan in his journey to ruin the lives of Gods children and make them miserable just as he is.

In the last general conference many talks were given on the family and marriage, as well as the last few issues of the Liahona are filled with tips, council and talks given about overcoming divorce, holding together the family, having a stronger marriage, and creating eternal families. Oh how I have found hope in Reading each talk, story, and council from our church leaders. There is so much sadness, so much heartache, but in the góspel of Jesus Christ we FIND happiness. True happiness. In a talk by Elder Bruce C. Hafen he said… “The joys of human love and family belonging give us hope, purpose, and a desire to live better. They make us long for the day when we will take the hands that have held ours together enter the Lords presence. There we will embrace our loved ones and stay with them always.”

Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity--- as it says in the Family Proclamation to the World.

I know that children don’t have to suffer, relationships between a husband and wife can be strong, and we can avoid divorce or even more get married in the first place (I feel like no one here in Peru gets married). But I KNOW by living the góspel and applying the principles that are taught, we find true happiness and we avoid all that Satan is trying to do to destroy the family.

Today I want to thank my parents, my mom and dad. They are incredible. They are not perfect, my family is not perfect but I know that they love their children, they teach the góspel, and they strive to “rear their children” to become better people through the góspel. I know that Satan has less power in MY life because the decisión both my parents have made to have the góspel in our home be married and sealed in the temple for eternity, and to continue moving forward. Thank you so much mom and dad. I will forever be grateful.

No matter your situation…. There is hope. I know that. I work with broken homes every day. I know that the góspel heals the home and lessens the power of Satan. Find ways to teach the góspel more, encourage your children to marry in the temple, express gratitude to those who are in your family right now… No family is perfect but I KNOW that all can find happiness through applying the góspel in your homes, and in your lives. I love this góspel and have so much hope for my future because I am a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Well, I hope you all have a great week and I am so grateful for all who support me here in the misión. It is a time I will never forget. Love you all!

Hermana Frame

New place, new faces! My room is bigger! Yay! But I am so much colder here!

 And our shower broke so there is no hot wáter! AHHHH!

 I have been adjusting to all the crazy hills I have to go up and down!

 But the weather is a bit weird. One second it is warm

, then really hot and then a few hours later the sun starts to go down

 and I am freezing my bum off!

My companion Hermana Tonga!

 She is so great and we will be doing so much great work here! 

She is from Bolivia and she will be ending her misión here in 3 months

 so I am excited to help her have the best 2 transfers before she heads home.

Being an Hermana leader will be crazy! 

I found out we travel literally 2-3 weeks of the transfer

 so I will be getting to know a LOT of places! Yay!

 I am excited to help the sisters and I have already gotten a million calls for health problems! Crazy!

 It is a good change and I am so excited!

Some pics from one of our investigator and her kids!

 He loved taking pics with my camera and he is the cutest thing! 

Leaving Quilla was hard but I did it!

 The members and my converts and all the people I was able to get to know 

will forever be in my heart!

In Cusco making cookies!

 All of us Hermana leaders had a great time helping all the new missionaries

 coming into the misión from the CCM! 

Pic of all of us NEW Hermana leaders! We are going to have a blast 

and I will get to see them every month for a meeting we have as leaders!

Bueno....

Elder Frame here just checking in!

How's life for everybody!?  It's pretty good here!  We're gearing up for a week full of Zone Conference with President Clark, District meeting, 2 exchanges and everything else missionary work entails!  It's gonna be GREAT!  Haha, we have so many meetings!  It's so awesome!  The spirit is always super strong in every one of them!  Also there is heavy revelation in all of them too!  I want to share a quote also I heard this week!

"The words 'Thy will be done,' written on the heart, are the window to revelation."

- President Henry B. Eyering

Anyways, I just found out we have to get going because we are actually going to go play some soccer with some of our investigators today!  It's gonna be great!  The only bad thing is I have to end early.... Sorry.

Love you all!  Keep el Chamuco back!

Elder Frame

Alive and Well!!

COMP PHOTO!

Hey everybody!

I'm so sorry but it's going to be really short today!  There's more in the voice recording!! We went to the temple today so that's why I'm so short on time!  The temple was super great by the way.  It always is.  We are so in the true church. It's reconfirmed hardcore every time I go to the temple.

Visalia is still great!  Endless member support.  Investigators coming out of the woodwork and baptisms about to be rolling in!  It's such a great work.  If any of you are trying to decide on a mission, it's for you.  It's for everyone.  I love it.  I've learned so much about myself, others, the gospel, Jesus Chrsit, God.  The list goes on and on forever.  I am so grateful to have this opportunity to serve God.  It's the best decision I've made in my life.  I'll never stop saying it.

Read the scriptures. Live up to your covenants.  You'll stand before God one day and answer for everything you've ever done. So make what you do what you want to tell God at that day. Live life so you can honestly have a true "No Regrets" written on your tombstone!  Love you all!

Elder Frame

It was my comps birthday!  

So I helped him to taste his cake!  haha!  

I love that tradition especially when it's not my birthday

"I saw a pillar of light, exactly over my head....."

left=companion, right=my district leader elder corona

DISTRICT PHOTO!

All At Once!

Well I am leaving Quillabamba! Oh it will be my home for sure here in the mission. Yesterday I completed 11 months so including the MTC and Quillabamba I am just rockin it here in the mission! But today I found out I will be going to ABANCAY!!!!! Ahhhh! I don’t know a ton about Abancay but I have heard it is great and the weather is great! I thought I would be serving in cold cold cold my whole mission but no! Abancay is not hot or cold and I think it’s not humid so we will see! But it is completely hills and mountains so I will be hiking like all day long! Ah we will see!

 My new companion will be Hermana Tango and I will be an Hermana Leader (sister leader). Wow! Lots of change! I am super excited and super nervous but I go to a training on Wednesday and from there I will be starting my new adventure…. Ah I am super excited!   We will see how it all goes this week!

Well, this last week was crazy and I am trying to realize that I am actually leaving Quilla! It doesn’t feel real but I am sure as I have to say goodbye today I will really feel it.

But wow on Saturday we had baptisms and I will not lie I stressed un monton! It means I stressed a LOT! Haha but no, it all went well! But Paula, Jacinta and Favian all were able to be baptized! It was such a great day and wow, as I watched them, and then helped them out of the font it just all hit me. All the small things lead to those greater things. I remembered all the spiritual moments, all the preparation, the time we were able to spend helping them understand really how special it is to be baptized. Oh wow! Seeing their faces after was priceless!

I really have been focusing on the basics because I know that if I don’t I cannot have the spirit. One day this week we had a lesson or something in the morning that didn’t allow us to study. During the day Hermana Bazo turned to me and said… Oh wow we cannot miss study sessions because we do NOT have the spirit. How true it was. I realized how much my desire to work was affected, how in the lessons I was not teaching as well and just all around I felt so all over the place. I guess the moral of the story is… Make time to have spiritual moments. Pray, read your scriptures, and allow the spirit to work in your life. Doing the basics, those small things each day create the big things. I want to share a quote that touched me this morning.

“These are not just steps that they experience once in their lives; rather, when repeated throughout life these principles become an increasingly rewarding pattern of living. In fact it is the only way of living that will bring peach of conscience and enable Heavenly Fathers children to return to live in His prescence.”

It is referring to the Big 5. Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. The basics. I have a firm testimony that the basics is what gets us to our goal of living eternally with our families and more important to live in the presence of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. What a blessing it is to be here and love the people, serve them, and change not only their lives but most of all mine.

Well, until next week!

There was a humanitarian group that came and it was so fun to talk with all of them.

 I forgot about the U.S. these last few months having my Latina companion 

and being in a different culture so it was fun to talk in English for a little bit! 

But it was an amazing experience, there was 1000 people

 that were able to receive glasses and what a great opportunity 

to contact, and find all of the inactive members as they came to receive temporal help.

 Now the challenge of helping them realize that their spirituality, 

their salvation is a little more important than a pair of glasses.. Haha!

We had quite the time killing and enjoying the turkey that Jacinta had us catch, kill, 

and eat the night of their baptism. It was so funny though

 because when we sat down to eat the turkey the power went out. HAHAHA! 

Welcome to Peru. So we ate with a lantern. Oh the memories.

I will miss it all!

 The fruit, the days I get back to our apartment

 and fall asleep on the floor,

 the cake making, the members,

 EVERYTHING! AH!

This was a picture we took a few weeks ago when Elder Uceda came!

 It is Zone Quillabamba! 

VISALIA BABEE!

New Area:  I am here in Visalia right now!  It's a town of about 150.000 people and it is my favorite area I've served in so far in my mission!  We cover the whole of Visalia.  I'm in a Spanish ward!  They do exist!  It's named Barrio 5.  (5th Ward)  It is AMAZING!  The member support is ENDLESS!  They all practically beg to come out with us!  And since I've been here we've solidified 3 dates for the end of this month and set 8 more dates for Aug/Sept!  Everybody here is more open than any other area I've served in!  It's so awesome!

New Companion:  Elder Ayala!  He is from Paraguay!  Yeah!  He knew my last companion, Elder Agazzani, before the mission!  Haha so that's pretty coincidental!  He is super crazy, ambitious, hard-working, and he is a MASTER teacher!  I've never had the privilege of teaching somebody that is so in-tune with the Spirit.  It's been so awesome!  He is super duper ambitious too!  He loves politics so he's planning on being a lawyer in Paraguay and eventually the President of Paraguay. Ha!  He could do it!  I'm loving learning everything I can from him!

New Apartment:  All I want to say about my new apartment is that it has a washer and dryer and I am so dang happy for that because now I don't have to pay for it.

So yeah.  I really don't have a lot of time to say anything else.  I love you all so much and I hope you all are doing your spiritual CPR with real intent! (Church, Pray, Read)  That's how we'll achieve happiness in this life and eternal life in the next!  So simple, yet so hard sometimes.  You got it.

Love yall!

Elder Frame  #visalia

PS: Sorry for no pics.  I don't have a SD card reader so I gotta buy one and send a billion next week. Ha. Sorry.

Going Strong!

Well, I am doing great! My tenth month here in Quilla! I am going strong! Not going to lie I walk up and down the streets and think… I wonder how many times I have walked this street… Or wow I have probably said hi to that person like 500 billion times! Haha my companion made fun of me because of all the people I know here… Oh man what will I do when I have to leave? Quilla has such a special place in my heart!

This week was a bit crazy but so great! 3 interviews on Saturday for investigators that will be baptized! Fabian, Jacinta, and Paula. They are all so excited and we are preparing for Saturday! A part of the preparation Jacinta told us she will be giving her “pavo macho” (male turkey) for the baptism. So “giving” her turkey means killing it and eating it…. Um…. My companion is NOT willing to help with it but one of the Hermana’s in our ward said that we will need to be there to help so once again I will be killing yet another animal to eat? AHHHHH! Haha! My fear of turkeys has now left as we will be killing it! Bahaha! Poor turkey…

I want to share part of my letter to President this week! Just an experience I had with Fabian…

Yesterday I had a really spiritual experience that I want to share though. It was one of those moments that I really realized the privilege it is to be here in the mission and SERVE. We are going to have the baptism of an older couple and we have been able to go to their house each Sunday at seven thirty to get them ready to go for 8 o clock church. Each Sunday I have been able to help Fabian, our abuelito, to put his shoes on. Their circumstance of living is so humble. The shoes I put on are worn out converse shoes that he probably has had for years. I have put them on each Sunday for the last month and a half but yesterday I went to put them on and the spirit just overcame me. The scripture that came to mind was... “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matt. 25:40

I felt like I was actually there with the savior, doing what He would have done. It has been such an opportunity to serve here. This is just one experience of many that I have had as a missionary and what a great privilege. To wear this name tag, to be a representative of Christ right now in Peru, wow I am so grateful. I know that service is not just here on my mission. I love the way that service... that charity changes people. It has changed me. I know that loving others, which in turn is serving them brings me closer to Christ. I am reminded of the quote... “Preach the Gospel, and use words if needed.” It is true. As I put the shoes on Fabian, he felt my love, and in turn was the love of the savior. He felt like there was someone that cared, that wanted him to progress. Every lesson we have, Fabian just sits and listens and when we ask questions, even though he doesn’t understand everything he tells us how much he feels that it is right. He has been a blessing for me. I love the gospel, I love that the church has been restored so that I could be baptized and take the name of Christ upon me and serve in His name. What a blessing.

Just know that your actions are what counts. You can say you will do something but God looks at your actions. Prayers are answered through others. I know that. I know that God is real. I know that there is good in this world. There are genuine people that care. I have been able to rub shoulders with so many. I am so grateful. Whether you have been my companion, family member, friend, or just an acquaintance, I have been blessed to have each one of you.

Keep moving forward. Love and LIVE the gospel. It changes lives. I can testify of that. Well, until next week!

Hermana Frame

We had “dinner” at a member’s house.

 Here in Peru dinner is a piece of cheese, ecco-mormon coffee (haha), and bread.

 It is good but quite different from home. Haha!

 And yes, the bread we ate was huge. It is called cake bread… pan torta.

We passed a ferris wheel and had to take a pic

Hermana Bazo had a mosquito bite her and she freaked. 

She thought she would get dengue!

 Oh brother… She does not have it just so everyone knows but the bite swelled up pretty big!

 Painting! Every time missionaries move we have to paint… and quite the process!

 Painting in Peru makes me laugh. 

Buy a bucket of paint, put a lot of water in it and start painting. 

Oh, and make sure it can be the brightest color possible… Haha! We had fun!

Turkeys with Fabian and Jacinta!

 Haha me trying to get a picture with the turkeys!

 I think one of them turned out… Hahaha! 

Only if it knew it will be dying soon.

 I remind it daily as we walk up the hill and out the door…

Mili and Mery! They are probably two of my favorite people!

Mery helps us so much with the missionary work 

and Mili is there every two seconds correcting my Spanish- Little sassy thing! 

I will definitely miss them when I have to go.