Princesses with Pass Along Cards!

Familia! 

Wow the new Provo City Center temple looks so beautiful!! It was also fun to see the picture of Elder Miranda at his homecoming! Your week sounded like a lot of fun and I'm glad that dad is doing laundry haha it's good for him. As you know, we live with the laundry people. I shouldn't say "laundry people" because really they're like my family here! But usually help them do the laundry for servicio every Wednesday.  Imagine washing, drying, ironing, folding, and delivering the dirty laundry of over 150 elders and hermanas? It's actually really fun. Also Yuri y Yuyi (who we live with) made us special laundry bags with our names on them! We all gather around working and talking and singing (church songs of course). 

For this last P day we met up with zona Santa Isabel again! It almost feels like I wasn't transferred because I get to see all of my friends pretty frequently! All of the Mexican missionaries prepared guacamole, Aji, and tacos for everyone and IT WAS SO DELICIOUS. It was also fun to just sit around and talk with everyone and of course enjoy mexican food and Coke. I like that now  haha. This week we ate cow stomach and chicken heart soup. I am becoming more clever to say the least! 

This week in our reunion de zona (we have zone meeting and district meeting every Tuesday) we talked about the story in the Bible about the people selling things around the temple and how they knew what they were doing was wrong. We related it to how we, as representatives of Jesus Christ, have the authority to tell these people that they are sinning. This part of being a missionary is a little bit hard. I like telling people all of the hope and good stuff but it is a little hard sometimes to tell someone that yes, drinking is bad. That yes, you need to get married or else you're breaking the law of chastity. That yes, the Sabbath day needs to be observed as a commandment of God. The point is, God has sent us not only to declare the good news, but to use a voice of a trumpet to declare repentance! I am working on the whole "voz de trumpeta" thing because sometimes I feel dumb as a twenty year old gringa telling people how to live their life but then I realized that it's not me at all, but God. I had several experiences this week where I felt like an instrument in His hands. I could see these people as He sees them, desire for them what He desires of them, and tell them what He would say. I felt the spirit testify to me that God can't decend to reprimand His children in order to help them to take the steps necessary to return to Him, and for this, He sends missionaries (or church leaders, parents, friends). Be the instrument He wants you to be. 

This week we had a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses knock our door. We answered (without our name tags) and listened to their spill. They thought that we were living together and pulled out their bible telling us that marriage is between a man and woman and that we're in pecado. We politely explained to them that we agree, are missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and when asked if we study the bible, we explained the function of the Bible junto with the Book of Mormon to contain the fullness of the gospel. I wish you could've seen their face when I tried to offer them a Book of Mormon! This week was also a huge festival for El Señor de los Milagros for the Catholic church. Everyone was wearing their purple clothing and it made contacting a little hard but it was interesting to see everyone with their clothing, santos, and traditions. And all of the decorations were really beautiful. I don't have much time but I love you guys and am excited to open your package!

Love always,

Hermana Stone

They asked for our autograph because we looked like princesses. We wrote our names on a passalong card haha

All of the Mexicans from zona San Felipe and zona Santa Isabel cooking tacos for our two zones, over 50 people. I have never eaten a better taco (heart eye emoji)

This week there was a HUGE festival for Senor de los milagros. IT was a little hard to contact

parque enfrente de nuestro casa

Fed Spiritually (awesome) and temporally (NOT awesome) with sheep stomach....

Familia! 

This week was awesome because I was SO SPIRITUALLY FED. Wow. First of all we had a multizona with Presidente. He taught on consecration and obedience but my favorite part about the multizona was the banana bread that his wife made for the birthday people in October. haha no that was a joke but seriously, so good and something that tasted like home! But in all honesty my favorite part about the multizona was the capacitacion from one of the AP's all about mayordominio or our stewardship as members and especially as missionaries. We also had 3 awesome capacitaciones from our lidres de zona and lidre de districto that I want to share a little bit about. We talked about the "trampas de la mision" or traps of the mission. As missionaries it is hard for Satan to tempt us with things that he can tempt other people with because bueno, we don't watch tv, listen to music, have cell phones, etc but he can tempt us in laziness, apathy, disobedience, and bad attitudes (and more!) We talked about four specific traps. 1. Actividades vs Resultados 2. Lecciones vs  Ensenanza 3. Amigos vs Eligidos and 4. Maestros Orientadores vs Misioneros.  Basically the point of all of this, in very few words, is that often times we are doing all that we're supposed to be doing, but it doesn't add up to what it should. For example, we can teach our 32 lessons for the week and have our 100 contacts and not have anyone progressing, not have anyone converting to the Lord, not have anyone with a change of heart. For numbers it looks great but we are focusing too much on fulfilling the goals, being their friend (not wanting to offend them by being direct) etc. It really hit me that everything we do has a reason. Or at least it SHOULD have a reason. It is just like you said mom about there's a difference between reading your scriptures and pondering and studying your scriptures. I think this applies so well to everything we do. We teach to help them understand. We invite to help them know for themselves. We verify to show that we care. We pray to talk with God. We go to church to renew our covenants. and so. much. more. I want to invite all of you to look at what you're doing and how you're spending your time, but more importantly, WHY you're doing these things. 

This week was pretty normal. Hermana Haro surprised me and sent me a tshirt with our faces on it. I ate "pansa de oveja" or in other words sheep stomach. I literally put some of it hidden in a napkin in my bag. It saved my stomach but now things smell a little odd haha. For servicio Wednesday morning we painted the house of one of the members in my ward. I don't know why she trusted us but it ended up being a lot of fun. It made me think of dad. Hermana Gomez does this thing where she says hello to EVERYONE on the street and accidentally contacted a perro. We almost died laughing because neither of us noticed for a good ten seconds what happened.

 In response to your questions, Sundays are kind of stressful. Our ward starts at 8 am (collective gasp) and we have to leave early to try and drag everyone to church. The ward is really small and we had to teach Gospel Principles again but there's good people here. My companion and I are connecting a lot. She has a laugh that is absolutely contagous and the more I get to know her the more I love her.  We are working really hard here and I am really happy. Don't get me wrong, I am also really frustrated, heartbroken, tired, confused, really tired, but really really happy. Hope you guys are appreciating this time of year. Please eat some apple pie and go for a walk in the river bottoms for me! 

Love always,

Hermana Stone

Found this picture in the Liahona magazine

Multi zona with Haro and her new comp

With Elder Gerken (from my district in CCM!) and Elder Martinez from my old zone

moto-taxis and golden hair with Gomez

special food from the selva- takatcha con cecina (spelling is a horror sorry) but super delicious. The meat tasted like smoked bacon and the ball is banana with nuts and seasonings with fried banana and salad

Servicio. I promise it looked prettier when the paint was dry haha

TRANSFERS!

Familia! 

Soooo this week was crazy! First of all, thank you so much for the package. AND FLOWERS. AND CAKE. You know me so well. It was a little bit of a miracle that she could find us. After internet last week we all met up in a park to say who has cambios and as you know, I got changed! I am now in the area of San Felipe and it could not be more different than Los Angeles. Sometimes I feel like I am walking the streets of California or something. My comp Hermana Gomez was laughing so hard because when I arrived I kept saying things like "Wow there's grass!" "The buildings are so pretty!" "Do you see these flowers?" "This tree is in the shape of a bird!" It's seriously gorgeous. The people are a little hard though. Everyone works a lot and are obsessed with plata aka money! We keep running into the problem that when we try to contact people and share our message they tell us that they are content with their life, that they respect what we're doing, but we should focus our efforts in finding people who don't have a concept of God or aren't happy. I want to tell them to stop being prideful and that they're not as happy as they can be but I think that's a little looked down on. Also, my new area is super small! When we're contacting only about 2 people in every 10 live in our area. And only 1/2 of that will listen to us. But we're smiling and laughing and working our tails off. I know that there's someone here that God is preparing, we just have to find them. It reminds me of the scripture that says  something like "Many are contacted and few are chosen" or something like that ;) 

My new companion is named Hermana Gomez and is from Mexico too! I love the Mexicans haha She is really sweet, has a beautiful singing voice, and we are from the same group of the CCM. This is kind of hard because we both feel super inexperienced and unprepared but I guess that's part of the fun. Our house is part of the house of some members. They are named Yuri y George (Yoyi) and are soooo cool. They always invite us over for a minute at the end of the day for bread and cheese and tea. They do all of the laundry for this part of the mission. Over 100 missionaries! For service we helped fold white shirts for 2 hours. I actually love folding laundry because we can just talk and have fun! My new zone is cool. My Zone Leaders (a trio) are all hipsters and I think we'll get along well. I am getting to know my new area pretty well. We did get lost in a different city on accident the other day but after asking about 4 people for directions we found our way back from Lucyana to San Felipe haha

This week we had a really interesting experience. We are teaching a woman named Brenda whose husband is a gringo! He doesn't speak any Spanish and I, with Elder Pond one of the zone leaders, was able to teach him in English. It was so weird because, obviously I have a testimony in English, but I learned the lessons, the scriptures, and a testimony in Spanish. He also is an athiest and it was interesting trying to explain God and Jesus Christ to someone who has no belief in either. I don't think that he is going to accept our message, but I can only hope that he will support his wife in learning more. It was a good experience for me to really share what I believe. In English nonetheless! We are working hard to find new people to teach and trying to drag people to church which starts at 8 am. It's a little rough but we have faith haha Our ward is small- regularly there are 80-90 people that attend. We have to teach the classes if the teachers don't show up. Yesterday we had to teach gospel principles and I was like.... uhhhh I can teach the Restoration.... we ended up reading a lot of scriptures and word for word from the manual haha next week we'll be better prepared. Thanks again for the love, the prayers, the flowers (seriously, lo maximo!!) Stay sweet,

Savannah

Hermana Gomez  :)

Lidres de zona! Elder Miranda  (last day before going home to Utah) and Elder Jesus

with Elder Torres, Elder Frost, Elder Sepulveda, Elder Narvais (last day before heading back to Argentina!), Hermana Haro, and I

viva peru!

Goodbye Los Angeles :,(

Spent our last night together dying her hair and talking 

Out with the old and in with the new :,)

My new house

que bonito!

with Elder McClain, Elder Espitia

Conference!

Familia! This week was crazy! First of all, last Monday we went to Centro de Lima. It's beautiful but unfortunately all of the museums and things we were going to do was closed for the day so we spent the day wandering around shopping centers and enjoying the nice weather. For lunch we went to a sandwich shop. I told the worker that I wanted the "agotado" bread which apparently means they're out of that kind of bread, not an actual flavor. That's my life haha 

This week we had a really good capacitacion from Elder Miranda (who finishes his mission tomorrow!) It was all about how our calling as a missionary is a covenant with God. He has given us specific rules and guidelines (commandments, our missionary handbook, rules from our Mission President) that we need to follow. If we do so we are promised power and authority in teaching His gospel as well as personal spiritual growth. We talked about how God won't be upset with a member who sleeps in until 10 am but if a missionary wakes up at 6.35 am, he will be upset because we are breaking our covenant with Him. It also hit me hard when he told us that if we can't live the simple rules here in the mission, how do we expect to live the higher laws of heaven. I think this is a good thing for everyone to realize, missionary or not. If we aren't paying our tithing, keeping the Sabbath day holy, or even something as simple as loving our neighbor, how do we expect to live the higher laws of heaven. Heaven, or life after death, is not without rules and this life is a time to prepare to meet God, to live with Him, and to live by His rules. We talked about how when Adam and Eve were cast out from the Garden, they were searching for light and knowledge and the form it was given to them was through more commandments and covenants. I challenge each of you to live the commandments and remember your covenants! 

Hermana Ericksen, the Presidents wife, told us that we each need to prepare an emergency backpack for the possibility of a natural disaster or earthquake. It was funny because Hermana Haro is deathly afraid of earthquakes and was SO serious about her mochila and having everything you could possibly think of for an emergency. It probably weighed 50 pounds however, if we have a natural disaster, I hope she's my companion! Speaking of, WE HAVE CAMBIOS AGAIN TODAY. We will find out in about an hour who stays and who goes and tomorrow the new companions. I¿m really hoping we'll have another cambio together but only God knows. 

This week we also got to help the Elders move houses. aka Hermana Haro and I did all the heavy lifting. no pasa nada with the Elders! ;) After someone told me "Hermana Stone, parece la muerta" or "you look like death". I try. Thank you. Finally on Saturday, we had a special edition of Hermana Stone and Hermana Haro and the no good, very bad, terrible horrible day. First of all, none of our investigators could come to General Conference with us, one of our investigators with a baptismal date told us that she doesn't want us to come by anymore and to discontinue the lessons, and then our cell phone got stollen on the bus. I was feeling angry at the whole world and wasn't in the best mindset for conference. But as soon as we were seated and the talks began, I changed my mind. The whole theme of the first session was being happy and trusting God. Isn't it funny (WONDERFUL) how He knows exactly what we need to hear and when we need to hear it? Everything was in Spanish but I could understand almost everything. almost... haha but yes. I sang LOUD AND PROUD in English all of the hymns. I looked around and all of the other North American missionaries were doing the same. It was a good week and I am so grateful for a living prophet. I know that He is called of God and is the only man on this Earth that holds all of the keys of the priesthood. I love you guys!

Hermana Stone

Sepulveda always wants to be in our pictures

LA4 Going to miss them

General Conference!

My companion is a drama queen

With Obispo Machado and a bunch of other random wardies

Jimisue, one of the Young Women that accompanies us sometimes

For Claudia's birthday

NOt quite the same with a red curly mustache

Claudia's birthday. She and her mom were menos activos that we reactivated!

Hermana Davila, Hermana Josefa, and Hermana Sara. Our "missionary moms" aka the ladies in the ward that take care of us and love us most.

With Elder Frost, Naranja, Rosales

Hermana Maldonado. My soul sister. Also Mexican. (I love these Mexicans)

Centro

matching

Mama Luchi, our laundry lady