Good, Great, Grand and Wonderful!

So I got a call last thursday saying I had a package they were holding at serpost and I needed to go with my passport and sign for it and everything so I did that today! yay! It's the package you sent when you were down for Thanksgiving with stuff from Leah and everything. FINALLY! I think it got to Peru the last day of October but it's been held up. It's okay, I got it and opened it and LOVED it! Thank you so much for all the chocolate and for the dress and the clothes.  You too Leah, and thank you so so so so much for the classic and hilarious Christmas photo of Dad and Mom.  How fantastic! 

Anyways.... 

Tuesday was long.  Sometimes we don't have citas in the mornings so when we go out we are just contacting and it's hot and it's hard for me to be motivated. I won't lie, sometimes we walk a little slow. But it's all good.!  The good thing is it cools off at like 4:30 so it only lasts just over 6 hours. 

We have an investigator couple, Liz and Piero. I don't know if I have told you about them.  They are AWESOME.  And we will be friends for forever and ever.  They are 25 and 27 and have 2 blondie kidlets that are my twins.  Anways, it was Piero's birthday and he asked us for an iphone (everyone here assumes americans have iphones and stuff).  So we were thinking about what to get him for his birthday.... and we were so so smart and so amazing.  We took a box that was about.... the size of... an ipad mini?  No se.  It was a tiny box, thin.  We wrapped it in black paper and made little apps like eternal marriage, the hymns, learn english, animal planet, the scriptures, other funny inside jokes, and we made an iphone!  Because it was so massive we called it the iphone12.  And then inside we put 20 chocolate soles.  So we showed up for his birthday and said we have an iphone and 20 $$ and he didn't believe us.  But we didn't lie!  He was SOOOO happy and they were very impressed with our creativity.  He really appreciated it.  We also snuck in a little paper about marriage.  We drop hints all the time.  If they could just find the money to get married they'd be baptized already! 

Friday we had a lesson with Lola, our 81 year old investigator.  She is great.  We were kind of going to have a drop talk because we feel like we are going just to teach her great grand kids and that's not allowed.  So after the lesson we asked her if she would be baptized the 29th of November... and she said, "well I'm having a surgery on the 27th and I'll be in the hospital so can we do it the 22nd? And we said HECK YES YOU CAN!  It was so so exciting.  But then Sunday we were worrying that it was too soon... When we told the ward in ward council they all jumped on it and started making plans to have someone visit her everyday to read to her.  She is super old guys, and plans for her baptism and it was an answer to our prayers.  We have visited her every day and she is so excited and is remembering everything we teach her.  She is more involved in our lessons and we are so pleased and happy. 

So lessons: we have about 20 lessons per week with investigators and 15 with recent converts and less actives.  So, 35 total per week. We've been averaging about 4 investigators to church every week too which is good. It's weird because I don't know if these numbers are good or not because I don't know any different.  In my next area it will be interesting to see what we do.  Like I said in my email to Mom, we have lots of investigators but they aren't married so it's hard. We don't have fechas for baptism because they aren't married and therefore are not living the law of chastity.  Anyways... it's going well though!

(Brad asked her if she missed swimming and this was her reply).  I would probably pay way tooo much money to go swim right now.  We walked into a house for a lesson and the TV was on and the show was about a swim team.  They were racing so there was the whistle and then the sound of the splash and I teared up.  I am having major withdrawals.  Where is my pool?  And how much longer do I have to go without? 

Basically I am just smiling nonstop.  The mission is good, great, grand and wonderful! 

I hope everything is well with everyone else that isn't here in Peru.  I love you all very much and I am praying for your health and safety every day! 

Love,

Hermana Pilling