Can´t think of a title!

BUENO... BUENOS DIAS!​ Feliz día Lunes!

So I decided to be smarter and send pics of my journal (nothing too personal) to save time writing the same exact thing here haha.  This week was transfers, Hermana Lagos left for La Molina and my new companion is Hermana Llavilla from Cuzco!  She is super cool and we are enjoying Chosica!  It is still sunny and nice here while winter has hit Lima.  I´m enjoying this weather while I can!  Well all of the highlights are in the pics so hopefully they reach you okay.  

Today I received my letter with my ending date.... super sad for me because I can´t imagine leaving and not being a missionary, but so is life. Tomorrow I hit 14... I´ve just gotta make the most of what I have left!! I am super grateful for the time I have and I try not to think of ending but press forward and help familes reach SALVATION.  Its a huge task but I know I´m not alone in this at all. I have been so blessed by this experience and I can´t even express it in words.

Thought:  When Alma spoke to his son Shiblon, he said something important:

."..I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day." 

--Alma 38:5

In Spanish this comes out something like in proportion to the trust you put in God, you will be helped/delivered.  We need to have trust in God proportionate to the help that we need in our lives.  Maybe we can all (especially myself) have more faith and trust in God and that He can help us overcome our trials, troubles, and afflictions.  I know this is true!

Have an excellent week!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Bledsoe

feliiiiiiiz dia mami!!!!!

My two trainees ended up together for a day and sent me this... hahahaha. Theyre the best!

May 12, 2014

So the temple on Friday was amazing!  We had a great day there with Presidente and Hermana Ardila and took lots of pictures afterwards and then we went to the stake center in La Molina and played all kinds of sports and games with President after eating lunch.  It was a super spiritual and relaxing day... lots of laughs

We arrived in Chosica afterwards and went straight to Ivan and Cecilia´s wedding, which was awesome- so beautiful!  Loved the whole day.

Saturday morning was the call (!) which was awesome, loved talking to you guys and it was a huge boost for me so I can continue working hard these last few months.  I have the best family ever! 

So after that we had a lot to do before Cesar´s baptism that night and the poor guy got baptized in freezing cold water but was as happy as a clam.  It was a really special day for the whole family because he was the only non-member.  He is super excited and the bishop says he will be recieving the aaronic priesthood next Sunday!  

So things are great here! Love yall!

Hermana Bledsoe

...and their little son :)

the newlyweds!

the sisters of Chosica at the TEMPLE

​the district

Espera al Señor.

Thanks to an unexpected twist of events it turns out that I am writing you guys today like normal!  It´s a normal day of work afterwards but on Friday morning we go to the temple with President Ardila and then afterwards the mission has planned a big lunch and a p-day with another zone as well. We don´t know much more than that but I´m SUPER excited!  Especially for the temple. We also have a wedding later that night (the husband is getting baptized next week!) so it will be a really happy day!  

We had a really great week and weekend this week working with our progressing investigators and the less actives here.  What topped it off for me was when I got the news that an investigator that I had taught for several months in Chaclacayo was getting baptized and I got permission to go to her baptism!!  On Saturday Hermana Lagos and I went to Chaclacayo for that and it was awesome.  Hermana Avendaño and I had found Evelyn through a member reference-  she had met a member who was on her way to church one Sunday with her kids and asked if she was going to a church and what church she was headed to.  The sister shared a bit with her and found out that Evelyn had investigated the church when she lived in the US just a month beforehand.  She had come back to Perú for her daughter and was looking for the church here.  As it turned out, she lives literally RIGHT BEHIND the church but hadn´t recognized it as the "Mormon church" that she had visited when she was taking the lessons in the states. And it was in English there haha.  So we started teaching her in January and had invited her to be baptized one of the first weeks in February (because she had been listening to the missionaries in the US very recently) and she accepted but of course the opposition came and has made things difficult for her to attend church and make the commitment to be baptized.  She has developed a lot of faith and has come a long way since I first met her.  It was probably my favorite baptism of my whole mission.  It was really special for me because I had been there with her in the majority of this process and got to witness how the Gospel really changes lives.  It would have been great if she had been baptized sooner, but I now have a firm testimony of the Lord´s timing and have learned to trust more in it.  She was so happy and grateful that day and so was I!

Thinking about this experience and the many others that I´ve had in the past 13 months, I can only feel an immense gratitude to my Heavenly Father for the mission that He has allowed me to have.  I may not be a "Dan Jones" type of missionary, bringing hundreds upon hundreds to the knowledge of the Gospel and I may not be a perfect teacher, but I have been so blessed for my efforts.  I have been able to witness the Atonement in my own life and in the lives of those I teach. I have been a recipient, as well as my family, of the blessings of sacrifice and diligence in this work.  I know that the Lord is mindful of me and of each one of us.  He really does listen to and answer the prayers of his servants (Mosiah 27:14).  At times I feel extremely weak and I don´t know how I will be able to do all the things that I need to but as often as I ask Him, Heavenly Father blesses me with the strength to press forward.  This Work of Salvation is of utmost importance to Him and nothing that Satan does can stop that.  We are on the winning team.  I loved Elder Holland´s talk in this last General Conference. As he closed, he said: 

Friends, especially my young friends, take heart. Pure Christlike love flowing from true righteousness can change the world. I testify that the true and living gospel of Jesus Christ is on the earth and you are members of His true and living Church, trying to share it. I bear witness of that gospel and that Church, with a particular witness of restored priesthood keys which unlock the power and efficacy of saving ordinances. I am more certain that those keys have been restored and that those ordinances are once again available through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than I am certain I stand before you at this pulpit and you sit before me in this conference.

Be strong. Live the gospel faithfully even if others around you don’t live it at all. Defend your beliefs with courtesy and with compassion, but defend them. A long history of inspired voices, including those you will hear in this conference and the voice you just heard in the person of President Thomas S. Monson, point you toward the path of Christian discipleship. It is a strait path, and it is a narrow path without a great deal of latitude at some points, but it can be thrillingly and successfully traveled, “with … steadfastness in Christ, … a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men.”¹⁹ In courageously pursuing such a course, you will forge unshakable faith, you will find safety against ill winds that blow, even shafts in the whirlwind, and you will feel the rock-like strength of our Redeemer, upon whom if you build your unflagging discipleship, you cannot fall.²⁰ In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I know that this is true and I thank God every day in my prayers for the opportunity that I have to serve Him and his children.  We face a lot of opposition in missionary work and in life but I know that trusting in Him is how we can overcome it. Like Elder Holland says, and in Helaman 5:12, if we make the Savior our rock, we cannot fall.  

I hope each of you has a great week and I look forward to Mother´s Day! :)

Hermana Bledsoe

Letter from 4/28

Suprise! It turns out I´m writing today! :)

...Here is the message I had sent my first week here:

Hey hey heyyy!

So first things first: Yes, we did have transfers.  And yes, I did get sent to the last place I had expected: CHOSICA!  Chosica is the zone past Chaclacayo, the last in the mission before you get into all the provinces and country.  I wasnt expecting it because usually sisters dont go to both Chosica and Chaclacayo.  It was a huge surprise for me but I´m excited to be here. The weather is nice and the people are too.  Like Chaclacayo, it´s a vacation spot for those in Lima because it´s more dry here and there´s always sun.  So I´m happy. My new companion is Hermana Lagos from Tegucigalpa, Honduras and she has 6 months in the mission.  She is really cool and we are always talking and laughing together.  She is a really awesome missionary and I am actually learning a lot from her.  I´m super grateful. It was super hard to leave Chaclacayo after 3 transfers there and leaving "mi hijita" Hermana Avendaño as well but I know she will do great things there.  And we always pass through Chacla to get to Chosica so it´s not like I´ll never go back.  

Right now I´m in the ward El Sol (or "the sun"), and in the area "El Sol 2" because there are two pairs of sister missionaries in our ward.  We live with them in an entire house and it´s way cool.  It´s fun to be all together and stuff.  The other sisters are Hermana Bennett from Utah and Hermana Giusti from Argentina.  The area is wayyy different from Chaclacayo because it´s a lot more...humble.  But I love it because there are more people in the streets to talk to and they actually want to LISTEN!  So that´s pretty cool.  I´m happy to be here because the majority of the areas for sisters in the mission are more wealthy and that tends to be a challenge as far as the work goes in areas like that-- Chaclacayo was kind of half and half.  And yeah, things are going great here, it´s fun because Hermana Lagos and I are working hard and having little successes.  This area has a lot of potential!

Right after transfers we also had interviews with President Ardila... the last ones (that I know of) before he finishes his mission in July.  I had a great interview and he let me look at a sheet I had filled out my first day in the mission where I had written my goals.  It had been 10 months since I had seen it but it was cool to get a perspective of where I´m at and where I still want to be by the time my time ends... it´s going by wayy too fast!  President Ardila is the BEST.  I will miss him a lot.

So yeah, I´m happy to be here. I wouldnt want to be anywhere else right now. Sure, this is NOT easy but I am so grateful and I thank my Heavenly Father every day for this opportunity.  I miss you all and love you SO much!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Bledsoe

(The night of transfers we took a million pics and I happened to have a fever so I apologize for how I look in them!!)

Peace out Hna Patrocinia :(

Ciao Gabriela!