I Don't Fit in Here - But I Love This Place!

Buenas Tardes!

This week was sooo good. We had a five hour conference with Elder Grow. I was in heaven. He taught us so much about having faith in Christ, truly seeking for revelation, and setting goals. We all had fasted, studied A LOT, and came prepared with a talk. In the end he didn't end up calling anyone to give a talk. phew.....i was stressing. He also changed somethings for our mission. Now for an investigator to be baptized they have to attend church 3 times it's no longer 2. He told us that we should focus on families. If we want 12 baptisms in one month than find three families of 4. Hermana Rivera and I have a new goal. Every family we see in the street we HAVE to talk to them. I want to bring a whole family to the temple. That is my goal. Instead of giving us a goal for how many people we should be baptizing each companionship through prayer and personal revelation we are supposed to come up with our own number. After much prayer Hermana Rivera and I have our number. NINE. yikes! This number is for the month of June. I have so much faith and I want it so bad. I want a baptism soo stinkin bad! After the conference with Elder Grow I was soooo pumped!!!!

Remember how last week I was telling you about how I am baby still and can't talk to people. Well your prayers must have worked because my fear is gone. I talked to everyone I saw after hearing Elder Grow. I even got in a little arguement. Some guy named Jorge wanted to test my Bible knowledge. Haha he asked me what Juan 14:3 says. Yeah I didn't know. According to him I need to do a lot of studying (yeah I know). Anyway after the conference a member saw us walking and ran up to us and said Hermanas I have a family that wants to meet with you! We met with the wife, she said her husband doesn't want to meet with us though. But wow I saw how faith works.

Remember Maria? Her husband left her with three young kids, and she has almost ended her life a few times because of it. I love this family so much. Maria had a baptismal date that fell through. Well we have another baptismal date for her and her nine year old daughter Alexandra for June 14! But Alexander has Catholic school every Sunday during church. I don't how she can attend church but I have faith. Our other investigator that is progressing is Evelyn. She is 25 and has a two year old. She said she feels that our church is true, but her husband doesn't want her to join our church. grhhhh. It's always the men here. The women are so faithful, and the men just party. We have a lot of investigators but none of them are progressing much.

We had a ward activity this last week. It was supposed to be last week but very few people showed up, so we rescheduled it for this week. It was our (the missionaries) activity called Learning Parabolas. Every organization had a parabola to act out. Well no one showed up it was very sad..even less people than last time. Our investigator, Evelyn, came which was great! But inside my soul was clenching because no one showed up. It is hard to want to invite our investigators to activites because our ward is not very strong. No one supports each other. You can't count on anyone ever. 

We are working hard. I am filled with joy. I am a missionary!!! This is the greatest thing my life has seen. Really I am so HAPPY. Every day I look around and think where in the world am I. Then I smile because I think it's funny I am in Piura. I even put on a sweater this week! It was bloody hot but I did it for the outfit. I don't fit in here but I love this place. The men make kissy noises and I have learned to not look. My calves are strong because of my sandy surroundings. My hair is looking curly these days. I try to hide from the sun and cancer. I eat a lot of rice and pray that it doesn't stick. I pretend to understand jokes. I try not to sound like a 5 year old when I teach, but sometimes that's just the reality. This is the place. PIURA. Truly I couldn't be happier!

I love you all!!!

Hermana Stringham