Pay the Price

Are you willing to pay the price? Well, I am. 

This week I have understood yet more about being on my mission here in Peru. Missionary work is the best…. Period. Yes, it is just like life in the sense that you have ups and downs, hills and valleys. It is just like a heartbeat. You need the ups and downs on the monitor to say you are alive. I believe this whole heartedly.

 Well, this week as always was full of ups and downs but I AM ALIVE! Wahoo! But seriously to be a disciple of Christ is all that matters in this life. You need to have the good ups and downs. Well, this week I had a freak out. I told my companion about how

 I DID NOT UNDERSTAND WHY THESE PEOPLE WERE NOT PROGRESSING. 

Oh man, it is so hard because this message is so amazing and so precious. Why don’t they just accept it and follow Christ. I want to share an excerpt from my study journal… I find that I am a really impatient person and I want the people to just understand how important it is to renew your baptismal covenant or to be baptized in the first place. Or to just come to church!!!!! To give up their lives and to follow Christ, to realize what He has done for them. 

Hermana Hoskins gave me an analogy. It is like those teachers you hate in high school or in college when they just understood it, and couldn’t understand how someone else wasn’t understanding on the first try. It is how I am currently with our investigators apparently. But then she helped me realize I had those teachers who understood perfectly themselves but took the time to help students figure out what was going on. They were willing to deal with my imperfections and tell me what to do little by little. To “figure out” what was going on.

 My investigators, menos activos, and conversos recientes need a guide who is patient, who loves them enough to understand that this life is NOT easy and to follow Christ is a PROCESS not a one time ordeal and that it is a life time process. I am still learning. I have been schooled and trained in my home and at church my WHOLE life to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. But it took many experiences, many late nights of staying up talking with my parents, youth conferences, EFY, relationships with friends and family, and many prayers to understand and to be where I am today. I know there are some people that understand it quickly, but in general they need guidance, PATIENCE, love and encouragement. They need to feel the spirit over and over again to realize that giving their life to Christ is really is the most important. It really is. 

I am so grateful to be working with the members here. And also the people that are searching for the gospel. Everyone has those deep soul questions. I am here as a disciple and I will pay the price. No matter how hard, no matter how impatient I am, I am working toward becoming a better disciple. Evaluate your lives. Get back on track if you have fallen off, work a little harder to be a little better. Read your scriptures each day, talk to someone who doesn’t have the gospel. Start taking the lessons. There is so much you can do on this mortal journey.

 Do your best. It is ALL WORTH IT.

Well, I need to go! Hope all is well!

Hermana Frame

Basically loving the mission…. Seriously I LOVE IT!

us with Wendy! I LOVE THIS PIC! She is crazy and oh the adventures we have with her.

Oh the meat pictures are of our stalker sides coming out as we watched the family take the full on cow out of the back of their van into the market. I try not to puke each time I eat meat now. Well, I just shut off my brain and realize its cooked.. I am good right? Anyways, enjoy!!!!

Ni Modo

Brianda and the Baptizers

So ya.  This past week and a half was AWESOME!  Brianda was baptized last Wednesday! It was by far the coolest baptism I've participated in/seen before!  Brianda has muscular dystrophy so she's been in a wheelchair her whole life.  She took a HUGE leap of faith by being baptized because that meant that she'd have to trust Elder Vargas and I in baptizing her!  Haha, so her baptism(the actual ordinance) went like this.  I picked her up and carried her down in the font. Elder Vargas and I made a kind of chair with her facing the audience and Elder Vargas and I facing each other. Elder Cruz(Elder Vargas' first trainer) said the prayer and then Elder Vargas and I lowered her into the water.  We had to go under too to make sure that she went all the way under because we were NOT doing it again!  Haha so it all worked out great!  Then just like every baptism that the Spanish Branch has, there was a smorgasbord afterwards for everybody to stuff their face and talk of holy things and such.  So that was definitely a highlight!

 

Zone at the TEMPLE

Then just this past week we had Zone Conference! I LOOOOOVE Zone Conferences!  They are always packed with spiritual atom bombs!  I'll share some of the love at the end of the letter.

 

REEDLEY DISTRICT at the TEMPLE

Today we were able to go to the temple!  It was awesome!  The temple always helps me recharge and get ready to keep on fighting the good fight!  Despite the fact I forgot my temple recommend, everything went smoothly.  So yeah.  I gotta work on that weakness because I think I forgot my recommend every other I time I went to the temple back home too....

ZONE CONFERENCE!  What a great idea!  Put a super inspired mission president with bunch of missionaries that know nothing and combine him with the spirit and he trains the crud out of the missionaries!  President Clark is such a spiritual giant and so compassionate!  Here's my favorite highlight from his talks!

IWADWWADTWAGWWAG= If We Always Do What We've Always Done, We'll Always Get What We've Always Gotten.  Change equals growth.  We are in a new day and age of missionary work!  No more knocking doors!  We are using the members on a whole new level!  So buckle up members!  You are the missionaries now!  We are just the helpers and teachers so the members will become the missionaries and not just give us names but go out and teach without us having to take them!

I love you all!  Be a missionary!  Go share the gospel!  Change something you are doing to get a different and better result!  I love this work!  GO BAPTIZE YALL!

Elder Frame

EVERYBODY that helped Brianda to get baptized

Super Cool Japanese WWII Gun at Bro Thompsons

From the Mouth of my Companion!

awkward picture of me with the flowers... 

Gotta love trying to pose with a backpack and

 bees about to take my head off.. 

Which were in the tree of course.

Pretty picture of random flowers that are in bloom!
But there is a ton of trees that are covered in these flowers.

Hermana Hoskins letter..........

Dear everyone,

           This week was great! I don't have a lot more to say about it other than ward counsel is really funny.

        Ok, of course I will now tell a story. Once upon a time we were sitting in branch council. The branch president, President  Melchor, was talking to the brand new president of the elder’s quorum. He was talking to him all about how we needed to get the home teaching assignments going and all about how the elders quorum president has keys to do it and to know who should be assigned with who and who they should visit.

            During his whole speech the elder’s quorum president listened intently but began looking more and more overwhelmed. As President Melchor began wrapping up he said something like “of course if you need help I am here to help you.” Before he even finished speaking the elder’s quorum president blurted out.

“Please help me!”

Everyone burst into laughter but the whole experience can be related to our lives. Sometimes we just need to know when to ask for help from the best source….wink ...wink…Heavenly Father. (Did you like how I tried to tie that all in to something spiritual…I try)

At that same branch council a caterpillar appeared on my companions backpack during the closing prayer….I won’t say I may have something to do with it but….she should have left the water bottle right-side up in her backpack. Don’t worry she jabbed me with her elbow during the prayer and I was able to put it back in the water bottle before the prayer ended. I’m pretty sure only the relief society president had any clue something was up but maybe that’s just because Hna. Frame and I were sharing a chair right next to her…but that’s another story.

            Branch council always makes us laugh!!!!

            Ok, just one more story. This week we went to have a lesson with our investigator Alex at the house of a member. We went to the door of the single sister’s house, who should’ve been alone, and knocked. As we waited for her to come to the door I started laughing because it sounded like she had 10 men in her house. So, I turned to my companion and said “Oh, Hna. Mery invited the guys over for the super bowl!” I had just finished saying this when Hna. Mery came to the door and we looked in only to see our two zone leaders and two other elders from our zone inside helping her paint her store. Hna. Frame and I still laugh about it Yep, the super bowl aka 4 elders painting a house.

Love you all tons

Sister Heidi Hoskins

 

WAHOO! Hermanas for life! 

We are going on our 4th transfer and going strong!

Well, as from my companion..... this week has been filled with laughter but so many great experiences I can’t write it all! Sorry it is so short but just so you know I am loving my time with Hermana Hoskins! She is amazing and such a hard worker even when times are not exactly how we want them.

But I want to add how amazing it has been to see our ward progress. When we got here it was struggling. We did not have presidents in each of the areas, not many were coming to church, and quite honestly it was hard to get them to welcome and incorporate the menus activos and recent converts we were bringing into the ward. But WOW. We sit in ward conference and I can just feel the spirit working. We now have a presidency in each organization and wow to hear them so concerned about so many people and what they can do to serve and just wow. Hermana Hoskins and I just want to cry… That sounds like we are emotional but really. It reminds me of a quote I have on my wall.

 “There is no greater joy in life than being anxiously engaged in the service of the Lord.” M. Russell Ballard

It is true. When you look outside of yourself and serve the Lord, which means you are serving the people you really feel that TRUE joy. It is indescribable. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be a missionary. I love it. Each minute, each second, each moment. It is so amazing to see the change in people as they are coming closer to Christ.

 I have to go but I love you all and I pray that you are serving the Lord and consecrating all you do to the Lord. It really is worth it- vale la pena as they say in Spanish. 

Until next week! Enjoy the pics!

Hermana Frame

 Bring in the trucks filled with fruit from the jungle!
 Interesting and so creepy at the same time....

live cuy they sell and they will just kill it on the spot if needed! 

Cuy is Guiney pig but they eat it all the time in Peru!

Verduras or veggies in the market! So fresh!

Meat in the Market!
 Yeah don’t freak out that is nothing!
There was like 6 cows just hanging in the back...
 Made it feel like I was on Hunger games or something?

This is Karen and Magaly. OH I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.
 Magaly is such a good example to me
and Karen is our 17 year old that we are working with
 to get reactivated. LOVE THEM!

What in the world!?

 Found this spider and had to kill it for Hermana Hoskins bug collection! 

My companion is crazy!

 And yes the tape had to be there... 

Couldn’t have ANY part of that creepy thing touching me!

Oh how cute right? NOT!!! Ah I forget I am in the jungle sometimes

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We came across this Peruvian with her sheep
 just walking in the road. Totally normal!
And as you can see I am almost as tall as her
but kneeling down! HAHA!