Week 54
June 23, 2014

Dear Guys,

Well this week was a little nuts mostly because I had to go to Lima to do some more legal stuff. I spent some absolutely delightful hours in Immigrations and Interpol. So I think I am almost legal and stuff I just will have to go back to Lima once more. But the good news is that I don´t think I will be deported like my zone leader, who has three days to leave the country because his visa expired and he can´t renew it for some reason because of where he is from. The real good news is that while we were in Lima we were able to go to the temple! It's been almost a year and was sooooo good to remember some stuff and just be in there and feel peace. We had to kind of bully our driver guy into taking us there but we got there!  Do whatever you have to do to get to the temple because it is the best place in the world. Even better than Ragged Mountain. 

So I don´t have much to report. Except that when we got back we did weekly planning because we had missed it. We talked about if we should keep our goal for Moises for the 28th. We have been calling every day to just check in when we don´t have an appointment. He hadn´t been answering the last couple days but I remembered what I've learned about setting goals you think are what the Lord wants and then doing all that is your part to make them happen. When we had set the goal of the 28th in our planning we thought it was right.We decided to stick with this goal. The next day when we called Moises to remind him about church he was just like, ¨Yes, Hermana I´m coming!¨ and I was just like ¨woohooo!¨ and he laughed. It felt so good to not hear excuses. Then in church we prayed one more time and saved him a spot in the chapel. He wasn´t there when it started but I thought he would just come in late. He never came. I guess his mom asked him to take over the family business for a couple hours or something. It was really disappointing to have your hopes crash like that but I am trying to stay upbeat because I know we did absolutely everything we needed to do . I know miracles come by faith. But I don´t think lack of faith got in the way of the miracle, only his agency. And agency is part of the plan, so we have to respect that. It´s frustrating, but it´s okay. We are ready to have a great week! Love you tons!

Hermana Beckstead

 Having fun at interpol!

Pizza. We were actually happy but for whatever reason sometimes Peruvians don´t smile in pictures so we took one like that too.  (Except for the guy down on the end...)

Dead Armadillos

Week 53

June 16, 2014

Dear Family,

I hope you had an awesome week!

 

This week we did some service and found some dead, hollowed-out armadillos! Why? Well that´s what I wanted to know too. Apparently they are going to use them to make charrangos, these mini guitar looking things. 

We had our first lesson with the less active, Kempis. who we are hoping will become our ward mission leader. He had an internal struggle about turning off the world cup to listen, but in the end he did! So I would say that´s an excellent sign.

We worked hard with Moises this week. He has been sober! So great! But then he didn´t come to church. Patience....

Also, the Familia Valencia. I think I told you about them in one of my first emails from Puno. It is hard to find them all at home but we were able to have another lesson last night. The first time we talked with the hermana she talked about having an eternal family. We talked simply about temples and eternal marriage and how if you want to be married after you die, you need to get married in the temple. We asked them when they wanted an eternal family and the hermano was just like, ¨Now! ¨ So they are getting married in August. July would be cool, but they have some tradition here about getting married only in even months and even years. So I´m just happy it's 2014. So August! I really hope I don´t go anywhere because they are an awesome family. Some of the kids are already members so we will help complete their family. 

Also, we are still learning more parts of our area all the time. We have been searching for addresses we see in our area book. We were walking down a main street and I just thought to myself, oh that´s a cool street when I saw this tiny, tiny, side street. And so we stop and it was one of the streets I had written down wanting to find who lived there. Then I just had one more street I had written down that I didn´t know where it was. And then like two minutes later I thought, oh that´s a nice street. And it was it! God is really nice to us.

So yeah. I guess besides all that the other thing you should probably know by now is that I am in love with these Peruvian cookies. I´ve kept it hidden from you all for quite some time now, and you know, it´s just better to be honest. They are called Casino cookies (google it) and they come in all kinds of flavors but the best is mint. Hermana Harbertson always tries to help the missionaries eat healthy and stuff but then she comes to Puno and she´s just like, it´s so high up your metabolism is working so hard so you can eat to your heart´s desire and not gain weight. So that has certainly not helped me decrease the amount of casino cookies I eat. So good and I get hungry really fast. Walking, hiking, teaching, talking to people, and eating cookies pretty much sums it up! 

Love you lots! 

Pics- the armadillos. I think you probably could have got that one...

And a picture with our pension family and the elders. 

Have an awesome week! 

Dead Inkans

Week 52

June 9, 2014

I hope you had a great week!
This past week we had a area authority come and give a training on ward councils to all the bishops and ward leaders and missionaries. Our bishop really took it to heart and our last ward council was awesome! Right now we are working on re-activating someone to be our ward mission leader. One of our ¨candidates¨came to church Sunday! So exciting! Ward mission leaders are nice to have. So yeah we are working a lot with less actives and it´s great.
We´ve tried some new ways to find new investigators from the ideas in the planner besides just contacting. We asked this one lady if she wanted to know more about her ancestors and she seemed really interested and I could show her my family pamphlet and I love that stuff.
We have this awesome Hermana named Rupertina. She doesn´t come to church because she can´t walk. Her legs are amputated at the knees because they were overexposed to the cold. So she is less active, I guess, but we got here and are making sure they take the sacrament to her home. We taught her family history this week and she cannot read or write but she told me what she remembered and I wrote it down for her in her my family pamphlet. She is just adorable and I love her so much!

We had a great lesson with Moises on repentance and forgiveness. Then we went to visit him and he was sleeping because he had gotten drunk again. So that was hard. He doesn´t like to drink, but he just does it for social reasons. His friends call him up and then yeah... But we have been bringing members to all the lessons and this week we found the perfect one! He was just able to share his own experience with him about how his boss brought him to go drink and he just prayed for help and then got the heck out of there. The next day his boss didn´t remember or at least didn´t say anything about it. He told Moises that he just decided that he was just going to say no to go hang out in situations in which he knew they would be drinking or that one ¨friend¨ who always tried to get him to drink would be present. That was exactly what he needed to hear and it was so much better coming from a member than us. We didn´t even have to ask him to to commit because at the end of the lesson he was just like I really need to read my scriptures! And come to church. And he committed himself by himself. That together with him continuing to pray I know he will be able to overcome it. We are going to keep up daily contact with him too. We´re not giving up on him.
So yeah. Then today we went to an Incan cemetery. They built these tower things and buried the well-off dead in the bottom of the tower. They curled them up in a ball because they thought it would make it easier for them to come back to life that way I guess. The Spanish have already come and cleared out all that for all the gold and stuff but I still got to crawl in there. Creepy but cool. Creepy, but cool.

Also, I was thinking about taquitos this week. And you mean to tell me that taquitos are just taco with cariño on the end! Literally a cute little taco? Sometimes really important things like that just click ya know? So I guess you could say it was a great week.

 Also, we taught the bishop´s wife how to make brownies. It was with a mix, and she just could not believe it was that easy. Like, *that´s it?* Haha. but in the end, they didn´t turn out that good. Maybe it was because we didn´t have any kind of measuring cups or spoons or the fact that we cooked them in something that looked like a crockpot. Que será? 

Love you guys! Have a great week!
Hermana Beckstead

Week 51

June 2, 2014

Cow Udders are what I ate for lunch this week. I´ll take the cow tongue anyday. Also we have been eating chuño. I´ve probably talked about it before but Puno is kind of famous for it, especially now that it is winter. Chuño is potato that they put into freezing water and then squish it with their feet. It´s a little nasty but we don´t eat it too terribly much and my pension actually prepares it the best out of anywhere I have eaten it. Mostly because she chops it up into little tiny pieces. 

on the roof with my comp

This week was a little rough just because I have been praying so hard for Moises that he can stick with it and read and pray everyday, and come to church this week. We had our appointment and early in the day I thought maybe to call him and remind him but I was like, oh but Moises is good about remembering our appointments. So I didn´t listen. When we went to our appointment and we weren´t able to teach him because he had drank and wasn´t sober. My heart was so broken because I care about him a lot. I know how much he wants to be baptized and he struggles a lot with this addiction. And my heart was broken because I thought back to that morning and I realized that was probably an idea from the Spirit. Why do I have to ¨put my trust in the arm of flesh?¨ and listen to my own ideas instead of being obedient to the Spirit? I know that everyone has agency and is responsible for their own choices. But I could have helped. I don´t want that to ever ever happen again ever because it was a terrible feeling. But we are going to press forward and I´m not giving up on Him.
I am so grateful for the gospel. That I have it. I am so grateful and remember what Grandpa Davis said, ¨I find it a miracle to have been plucked from the midst of humanity and recieved the gospel in the manner I did.¨ I am so grateful that Heavenly Father still loves me even though I make so many annoying mistakes. And I know that if we put our trust in the Lord we can overcome our faults. I love my Savior so much for making that possible for me and that He established his church so I can commit myself to do better every week during the sacrament. That is one thing I really have come to appreciate much more here in the mission. And we are moving forward!
I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week and keep moving forward! (Isn´t that from meet the Robinsons or something? I don´t know.) But I´m okay. And I hope you guys are doing great!  Lots of love.
The big sac of rice on the bottom lasts how long? Guess!
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(un mes!) Crazy. Love you! 

people use our roof to hang underwear. surprise!