Poquito consejo...

HEYYYYYYY!

So this week was really great! Wednesday was Hermana Aguayo´s birthday (23rd!) and so many different people made her cakes and stuff.  We ate so much freaking food that day, holy schniekies!  

Other than that, this week was normal. Still working with some people and trying to help them overcome some challenges that are keeping them from being baptized, but we are definitely making progress!  We have a baptism this Saturday for our golden investigator, Gisella that I´m pretty stoked about.

Yesterday in sacrament meeting, our bishop kinda grilled the ward about responsibilities in the church. It was kinda funny, but he talked a lot about sacrifice and how if we don´t make sacrifices in our lives, we won´t have the blessings God has for us.  I´ve been thinking about that ever since and how important it is to sacrifice things that we have or things we want for the Lord´s will.  For me, it is a huge sacrifice to serve a mission.  Every missionary can relate.  We are asked for literally EVERYTHING in order to do God´s work.  It´s hard sometimes, but the blessings are amazing.  I am so glad I chose to sacrifice my time to serve the Lord with everything I have.  I feel so blessed to have this gospel and it is such a joy to share it with others.  It sure isn´t easy, but it´s worth it. 

For any prospective or future missionaries:  I can´t lie and say the mission is all wonderful all the time. Missionaries are still people!  We´re not perfect and the people you serve aren´t either. But it´s okay!! :)  My companion Hermana Aguayo once shared with me a scripture in Alma 26:30 that, from what I remember in English, says basically that we suffer pains and afflictions in life (or in the mission) so that we can help someone else find joy, and in the process we find joy too. This is probably the best advice I´ve received about the mission and I hope it helps anyone reading this: When things get hard, think of the people waiting to hear the Gospel from YOU. Think of them when you´re tired or want to give up.  They are waiting to hear it from YOU and you will find great joy in bringing them that eternal happiness. Read Alma 26! :)

Sacrifice really does bring forth the blessings of heaven, in fact, it brings miracles! All we are asked to do is show our faith in Jesus Christ. I know that through Him we can do all things! :)

Okay, I´m done preaching :) I love yáll!

Ciao!

Hermana Bledsoe

Este Semana

 Hermana Aguayo made sushi for dinner one day (!!!!)

 4th of July in Peru!

 Hermana Aguayo thought it was weird to eat ice cream in winter haha :)

 Two of our ward missionaries, Karen and Holly, with our name tags and Books of Mormon... our mini-me´s :)

Taking the bus with the Elders-- Elder Chiroque y yo!

100 Estacas en Perú!

This week was pretty awesome because on Saturday we got to attend a huge celebration for the Church... this weekend the 100th stake was created here in Perú!  The church rented out a stadium of a university here in Lima and had a huge cultural celebration (kinda like a temple dedication celebration) and Elder D. Todd Christofferson came!!! 

There were about 15,000 people there plus missionaries from all the Lima missions and there were dance performances by a bunch of different stakes (all that performed are in our mission) and it was SO cool to see all the culture represented!  I loved it. 

They showed a video of the history of the church here in Perú and at the end they had a segment (like the video they show in the MTC) with "The Spirit of God" playing in the background and a map showing all the stakes and the years they were created.  I noticed that the 50th stake was created in 1992, meaning that in my short lifetime of almost 21 years, the amount of stakes has doubled here!  It was pretty cool to see and realize that I have a small part in that right now.  

The very best part of the night was when all the missionaries got to walk up onto the stage together and we were "presented" (my best translation) to the crowd.  It was incredible to walk up there and see 15,000 Peruvians waving on my left and Elder Christofferson on my right.  UNforgettable! Asu! Machina! Hahaha.

Elder Christofferson spoke to us (in perfect Spanish) and he said basically that he was super impressed by the saints here.  He gave them an apostolic blessing and counsel to continue sharing the Gospel here.  That night was so awesome.

This week we also had a member referral success story.  A young couple in our ward referred us to the cousin of the wife last Sunday and we´ve had 2 lessons with her since.  Her name is Gisella and she is 20 like me!  We gave her a tour of the church and she got to meet members there and she said this is exactly what she´s been looking for.  And she loved the baptismal font!  She is so excited to get baptized!  I can´t say enough how much the missionaries need help from members to find people like Gisella who are ready and need the Gospel but like the scripture says, "know not where to find it."  It´s amazing!

We also have a 12 year old investigator named Jesus who is so cool. He is always at church and people in the ward think he´s a member!  We asked him why he wants to join the church and he said because he wants to hold the priesthood and one day serve a mission... my heart MELTED! Haha. That is one of the greatest things I could hear as a missionary. How amazing are the people here?!

Last Thursday was my "cumpli-mes" and now I have 3 months in the mission... it goes FAST! This week I will have been here in Perú 1 month! Crazy.  Life here is good. It´s July now, the coldest month in Perú, so I will have officially have had winter since last winter in the US! Haha. It´s all good though. 

This morning we washed blankets and sheets (everything here is done by hand) and I had the job of stomping on them in a tub of soapy water while wearing rubber boots... it was awesome!  We put on music and I got to dance around and stuff... it was super fun.

Oh and yesterday at a member´s house for lunch I ate CHICKEN FEET! It was pretty weird! Haha. Life is good here and I´m so grateful to be here in this BLESSED country!

´Til next time!

Hermana Bledsoe

 Almost all of the hermanas in our mission on our way to the 100 Stakes celebration! :)

 Compañeras :)

 All the Lima Este gringas at 100 Estacas!

 People arriving at the event

 100 Estacas!

Hermana Aguayo, Hermana Echegaray, y Hermana Johnson

Ellos me llaman "Barbie"...

Yeah, it´s true...  the kids here call me that, hahaha. (I just found out that I´m known in the mission as Barbie also!)

It´s probably no surprise that I stand out here!  At first it was weird, but now I´m used to everyone pointing, staring, honking, whistling, etc.  It´s actually pretty funny!  The other day there were about 200 kids leaving school and they all passed me on the street and all were just staring at me like I´m a dinosaur... it was a very interesting experience and one that I won´t soon forget!  

Another time, Hermana Killian and I were on splits and were talking to some kids and they asked if our hair and eye color was real.  One of them said, "Sus dientes son como leche!" (Your teeth are like milk!)  Ohhh we got a great laugh out of that one.

People always ask to see pictures of my family and they always say something about how tall Nathan is, hahaha.  And actually a few of the young women in my ward were asking about him and if he has Facebook! So funny.

Oh and I want to let you all know that I just this week got the letters and Dear Elders that were sent to the Peru MTC... THANK YOU!! Real mail is really fun to get :)

Besides transfers this week (Hermana Killian left us), not much else is new here.  I´m getting more and more confident with Spanish and this week I´ve received some really great compliments from President Ardila and others in the mission.  Hermana Aguayo says I sound latina!  At the same time, my English is starting to  become robotic so I apologize for that!

Hermana Aguayo is awesome.  I am learning a lot from her and we are always laughing.  She is a companion that I genuinely like to be around. She is scared of the dogs on the street and when we walk by them she always hides behind me, haha. She is so encouraging with my Spanish and at the same time, I´m teaching her some English, like slang and stuff.  I taught her "it´s all good in the hood," and a couple of other funny things like swag and YOLO and stuff.

In fact, I teach a free English class at the capilla (church) every week for anyone who wants to come (it´s great for contacting because everyone and their mom wants to learn English) and it´s getting weirder and weirder for me to speak English, which I guess is a good thing!  Writing this is weird too!

This week was the first week in a while we haven´t had a baptism, but we have some people set for next week.  The important thing is helping people come unto Christ and we´ve truly had some awesome stuff happen.  The training this weekend was awesome and it´s true that we NEED help from members! References are the best!

Take care!

Hermana Bledsoe

Me walking on Hna Killian´s back! haha

"Missionary Barbie" at the temple :)

La Vida Peruana

Well how do I begin? I think I´m just gonna use bullet points to describe a little of what life is like here:

-Día de Padre (and Día de Madre) is HUGE here.  Yesterday there were fiestas everywhere!

- Almuerzo (lunch) is the biggest meal here. It´s interesting but I kinda like it! Cena (dinner) is more like a bedtime snack.  

- We eat mostly papas (potatoes), arroz (rice), and pollo (chicken).  And also pan (bread), like little rolls.  The food has a lot of different flavors, but it´s pretty good.  Our pención makes the best food!

- There are perros (dogs) EVERYWHERE in the streets here!  It´s seriously a miracle that I haven´t stepped in any dog poo yet hahaha.

- A lot of times we ride in motos to get around.  They´re like if a motorcycle and a tricycle had a baby. I´ll send pics!

- Our shower water is pretty cold... at the warmest, it´s like pool water temperature! 

This week we had another baptism, a jovencito named Ramiro.  He is an awesome kid and I really admire his faith and testimony.  He was confirmed yesterday in sacrament meeting and it was awesome. Another investigator we have who´s his age came to church by himself (and early) and I sat there amazed at the faith of these kids! I started crying (which is pretty unusual for me) because I totally felt the Spirit and am so happy to be, in some part, helping them and our other investigators come unto Christ.  It´s the best feeling!

We also went to Immigrations this week and all the Norte Americanos were there.  I´ve been stressing about my Spanish lately, but my comps said I can talk much better than some gringos we saw there who have been here like 6 months! So that was definitely a confidence booster!

So all is well! I´m gonna attach some pics :)

Love yáll :)

Hermana Bledsoe

 we live by Gordo's Chicken hahah

 ramiro bautismo y parade of motos!

 pics from last week's baptism

 Oh and last pday we went to the temple in Lima! It´s awesome :)

 ^nuestro calle

 President Ardila and his wife

 training

Peru!!

Well, I´m here in Peru!!  It was awesome to get to see my old comp Hermana Weller and some friends from the MTC on the flight from Atlanta to Lima.  We got here pretty late Monday night and the first night we stayed in a hotel close to the mission office.  We had training with President Ardila all day on Tuesday and it was amazing.  President Ardila is a great teacher and our mission really is organized so well.  The motto so to speak is that we baptize and confirm weekly, which is awesome!  There are so so many people here ready to receive the Gospel!  We also got our areas that morning, which, because of the mission split, determine which mission we will be in. I am in....Vitarte!  aka still in Lima East!!  Only two out of the five of us in our group are staying here and the rest are in the Huancayo Mission.  The rest of the mission will find out where they´re going to be a week from now when we have the next transfer.  I´m so excited to be here because the temple is in our mission and we are having apostles come to our mission this year!  They had Elder Bednar in April, and in July Elder Christofferson is coming for a celebration of 100 stakes in Peru (kinda like a temple dedication).  Later this year, we are supposed to have Elder Holland and Elder Cook come too :)

Cool sidenote... so Dad, President Ardila didn´t know I´m your daughter until our interview... he was so amazed that without foreknowledge, I was the only Hermana to stay in Lima East!  It was really cool. I told him how I went to a mission reunion at President Mickelson´s house in Idaho.  (For everyone else who is probably confused reading this, mi padre and my mission president served in the same mission in Colombia!  Small world!)

So I am in Vitarte, outside of the city of Lima, in an area/ward called Alameda.  Funny, huh?  And the name of the other ward that meets in our building is called San Fransisco.  Looks like I didn´t go that far away after all!  Haha. Alameda is in more of an industrial area, so that means less bug bites :)  It´s winter here, so it´s not super hot.  In fact, during the day it´s a perfect temperature, a lot like California.  At night it drops to about 45 degrees at the very lowest.  My favorite thing about Alameda is the PEOPLE!  This is a blessed area because the people here are truly truly ready to receive the gospel.  Right now, we have TEN people with baptismal dates and plans to baptize for the next 4 or 5 weeks!  On Sunday night, a brother and sister were baptized, so I got to have my first baptisms in the mish!  Even though they weren´t really mine, it was waaaaay cool!

Oh and I should probably mention my companions :)

I am in a trio again!!

My trainer is Hermana Aguayo, she has 10 and a half months in the mission and is from Chile. She the BEST!! Seriously, we get along so well because she likes to joke and have fun and she plays tricks on me (or tries to!).  She and Hermana Killian had me convinced once that I needed to read the Book of Mormon in Quechua every day... haha.

Hermana Killian is my gringa companion, she´s from Vegas and has 2 months more than me.  She was in the Lima MTC before the visa madness began!  I met her brother in the MTC and he gave me a note to give her if I ever saw her in the mission... totally awesome that she ended up being my first companion!

Both of my companions are very obedient but also like to laugh and have fun, just like me!

Peru is very different and I´ve learned a lot so far.  Spanish is coming along well! The people are very humble and nice, and their communities are very different than anywhere I´ve been.  The food also is very different, but good.We have a pencion who cooks for us and she is amazing!

I don´t have time for much else, but I´m safe and happy here!  I love you all and hope to be able to write more next time!

con mucho amor,

Hermana Bledsoe

Dos Meces!

Yup! As of yesterday, the 27th, I've been a missionary for a whopping 2 months! Haha.  It's really flown by... I can't believe Memorial Day Weekend just passed already!

I was SO excited to get on my email today and see emails from literally everyone!  Thanks guys!  It's so fun to hear how your lives are and what you're up to.  Totally made my day.  I don't have as much time to write this because I wanted to write y'all back individually :)

Being in California is the best. (Duh!)  The weather is fantastic and I had In-N-Out for dinner twice this week... that's what's uppppp!  Haha.  And I'm in the best stateside mission. For real.  We had zone conference all day today it was so great.  The missionaries I serve with work very hard and our mission has such a great--as they call it-- "mission culture."  Everyone I meet has a good attitude about the work and about everyone around them.  Everyone is positive about baptizing.  It's so great!

This week we had a lot of success in finding and contacting people and I really am seeing the Lord's work hastening.  We were told today about a huge missionary broadcast on June 23 (that our whole mission will be watching together) from President Monson.  Apparently all church meetings will be made to work around it... it's that important!  I see so much happening in "la obra misional" (missionary work) in the coming months!

I love and miss y'all so much, but I want you to know how happy I am.  I couldn't be doing anything better with my time right now.  I am so grateful for this opportunity to be on the Lord's errand and I hope to make all of it count!  Thanks for all the love and support :)

Hermana Bledsoe