First of all, Happy Father's Day Daddy and Granddaddy and Papa!!! Espero qui tuvieram el did mas grandioso en el mundo! Lo pase con mi Padre Celestial pero pensando en ustedes tambien. LES AMO!!! (I hope you had the greatest day in the world! Along with my Heavenly Father, I think of you also. I LOVE YOU!!!)
Well, we are here entering week 4 of the cambio (transfer). I don't know how it has been 3 weeks already. I'll try to hit some highlights of the past two weeks because my email last week was super short. So, the week before was super busy! It started out by us moving houses. We are in a much better place now. It was a miracle that we found it. The week before our landlord was calling us nonstop from money, so we had to move fast. I was praying so hard and we went looking. We didn't find anything that night. The Primary President came and accompanied us for a visit. She said that she had walked by a house and took a picture of the info. We went and it was just perfect for us. The landlords are really cool too. The guy lived in Utah for eight years and investigated the church and has great respect for the church. He even started to name off all of the conference sessions has been to. His wife is so sweet and just wants to make sure that we are safe and taken care of. And their kids are adorable. Literally a miracle we found this place! God answers prayers and takes care of his missionaries. But moving was quite a task! Let's just say cleaning up an apartment after Elders live there is not fun! And then to move everything! (Alex, clean your apartment!) But on the bright side, we had our own moving crew! That's the good thing of being 2 of 18 missionaries in Ayacucho. That night I couldn't even unpack because we jumped on the bus to Lima for Leaders’ Council. I handled that trip a lot better than the first time around. The night after, Hermana Stodtmeister and I stayed in Chorillos while the rest of our zone traveled down for Elder Rasband. We had the meeting in the afternoon, so in the morning we were able to go do a session at the temple. I'm a lucky kid! Then after that, we will all walked over to the CCM for the meeting. It was good. Elder Rasband and his wife and Elder Godoy (Area President) and his wife shook everyone's hands. We were 2 missions and the CCM (MTC). He talked about our divine call as missionaries and fulfilling the purpose that God has giving specifically to do. After the meeting, we went and hung out at the temple until our bus left at 9 PM. When I got back, we all stumbled to church to have a Zone meeting. Worst idea! Everyone was so dead from the bus ride, but we made it through so we could go home and shower before lunch. Oh the fun of being 10 hours away from Lima!
Last Sunday (and yesterday) we were able to go to church and meet our ward! They're a fun group! I am excited to get to know them more as they accompany us. Also last Sunday, I gave my first talk in my entire mission. I've sung before but never spoken. I made it a year without doing so.
Here's a fun story for you! We contacted a less active and had a lesson with them. As we started the lesson, she got really worried about her dog because it wouldn't come out. She got up and couldn't find it anywhere. As we finished the lesson, she described her dog to us in case we saw it while we were out walking. We literally walked two minutes and saw a dog like the one she described across the street. My companion freaked out and started running after it and then the dog got scared and ran away. I called the less active and she came running to us and was super happy that we found her dog. I called it a miracle that her dog got lost and that Heavenly Father let us find it because we were able to gain her confidence to find her lost doggie.
This past Saturday, we went to Huanta, which is an hour away to do Family History. So to get there we get to travel through Ayacucho a bit. It's super gorgeous. I wish I could just put you all in my bag for a day so you could experience Peru like this, but my letters will have to do.
Well, we have kind of gotten off our ponderizing so here is a scripture if no one else picks one. 1 Kings 6:16.
I'll leave you with a spiritual thought about Father's Day, Dia del Padre. I love the quote that goes something like “of all the names of honor and respect given to Deity, He has asked us to call him ‘Father’!” How amazing is that! He is an all-powerful, omnipotent, eternal God. But He wants us to call Him “Father”. I was reading the conference talk from this past conference about being a child of God. What knowledge we have and power that comes from it! We are children of God, our Father! What does that mean to you? How does it change how you think and act? For me, it's the eternal truth that I can always rely on. Whenever there is disappointment or rejection, even in the happy times, I can always know that I am His daughter and nothing can change that!!!
I hope you have a great week full of fun, new adventures!
Love,
Hermana Elise Joyner
Quotes of Dad for Father’s Day:
“It’s a whole, nother, level.”
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