Monday, March 2, 2015

Brisas - Week 42

Hello to all my Friends and Family out there,

For the first time in 10 1/2 months, transfers have brought me to a new area! I'm in a pueblo called Hunucma. It's a cute little place and I'm really excited! This pueblo looks a little less authentic than others, kinda like the city look where I've been before, but its still neat. Actually, my "firstborn" Hermana Pinguelo was sent here when we separated and right now Hermana Suarez is here too, in the same ward as me. So 2 of my old comps have been through here. So far what I've heard about this area, is that the Bishop is really great and sells ice cream bars for a living and loves to spoil the missionaries with them! :) Also, my area is made up of 2 parts that are spaced out and the other half is on the beach. On the beach area, I guess there is an newly baptized American couple that don't really speak Spanish. Haha, It's convenient I'm here, because before now, other missionaries had to travel here to teach them and baptize them. I'm excited to meet them!

More than likely I'll end my mission here with this companion, and that's okay with me. My companion has about 8 months in the mission and is from the Dominican Republic. She's tall and about the same build as me, so we made a good pair! Haha. She doesn't know a ton of English, but really wants to learn, so hopefully I will be able to teach her a lot while I am here.

Saturday we had Pilar's baptism. When it started, I don't know what was up with me, but I felt frustrated because Pilar was SO happy, yet I felt like nothing was special about the little baptismal service. The talks and everything weren't bad, but I felt like everyone was in robot Mormon mode and a lot of the people in the audience weren't engaged. After the ordinance, the Ward Mission Leader wanted to just end it with the welcome from the Relief Society President, but my comp kept bugging me to have one of her kids talk, so her son came to my mind, and we asked him really quick and it changed the whole Baptism. Her son is less active as of 3 years ago, but is really great and used to be super involved. All his kids are active and were at the baptism too. He got up and cried and said he wants to come back to church and that he felt so happy and everything he said brought tears to each one of his kids eyes, and his mom's too. It brought the spirit so strong because you could see that he really felt it and really loved his family a lot and wanted to be united again. I was so thankful that my comp followed the spirit and that we acted on it.  

I'm excited for the changes,  but I'm feeling really sad to have left Brisas and my companion. Yesterday, we didn't have appointments with investigators, so we visited recent converts and members I wanted to see one last time before I left. We visited Henry's family and he said he bought a whole computer system of some sort and he can video chat free to the USA. He said he bought it with us in mind. That last day kinda sucked because it's so hard to really love people and know it has to come to an end. Obviously not completely, but things definitely change when you get switched out of the area. Love really is the essence of the church though. (Or ought to be at least!) I just feel SO blessed to have met such good, real, loving people here. I feel like their love has made me love them so much, and right now it just kinda hurts. I know this will be a good change though and that I'll learn a lot. Hermana Lugo and I were talking about how much transfers stink, but really they're necessary to learn and grow. And its true. We exist to grow up to be like our Heavenly Father and we'll only do it by testing ourselves and having new experiences.

Love you all!
- Hermana Harper

Pilar's Baptism

My  new Companion - Hermana Lugo



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