Hey fam!

How is everyone!? It sounds like everyone is doing well down there. Everything has been going great down here in Peru. We were a little late today writing because we changed apartments! We are moving to the house of one of our recent converts who has a restaurant and she is going to cook for us.  I am so excited to live with her and her family! She is the only member in her family and we are hoping as we live closer to them the spirit will be able to make an impact on each of the members of the family.  Many exciting things happened this last week . . .

If you remember me talking about Ana, our investigator, she accepted to be baptized on the 28th of December! She is so excited. At first she was a little bit hesitant because she told her husband about it and he wanted her to wait to be able to study and investigate more. However, the other day when we were at her house she told us of her experience. Lately she has been very delicate physically not knowing what to do other that cry.  She began to cry in pain because of it as we were there (the lesson before this one) so, we called the bishop and he came over and gave her a priesthood blessing.  He gave her the blessing, she said thank you and he left. Yesterday she told us her experience.  She felt like during this week the pain in her knees completely went away and this was evidence to her that this church was true and that she is going to tell her husband, "I am getting baptized on the 28th. Are you coming or not?" (haha that’s exactly how she said it) and he accepted to come as well as her kids. She is so amazing, so strong willed even though physically she is week and this is evidence of how real the priesthood is! Such miracles!

We are also seeing a lot of progression in our less-actives and this week we are planning of rescuing many of them!

Our leadership conference was amazing.  We talked about the importance of contacting and through contacting we can change generations!

I received an even grander testimony of fasting this week. This last week I began thinking a lot about the family that was baptized in Buenos Aires and haven’t been able to get in contact with them for the last couple of weeks which was worrying me.  So I prayed and fasted that they would be alright and that night my comp answered the phone and two little girls screamed in the phone, "Is Hna. Mahas there?" My comp handed me the phone and as I heard their voices I knew it was them! Such a miracle! Heavenly Father answers our prayers. I talked to them for a little bit to find out that they are doing well, going to church and to the young women activities. Amazing how powerful the hand of God is!

This week my comp goes home on Wed and I will be here alone with a member the entire week which will kind of be crazy but it will be a great opportunity to get to know all the members! I will miss my companion so much but it will be great to get to know another amazing sister!

Sorry this is a little short but I gotta get to my apartment.  Thank you for your prayers and everything that you do for me. I couldn’t do this without your! I love you so much! Keep smiling!

Love you!

Jess

EL ES LA DADIVA (he is the gift) Remember HIM this Christmas! 

navidad.mormon.org    ---this is an amazing video

Leadership Conference with Hna. Rivera

FAMILY!
 
How are you all? It sounds like everything is going well for you guys! Well, this week has been a good one. We have been seeing many miracles with our less-actives this week and it is unreal to see the changes they are making in their lives and the things they are doing to remember the things that they once knew but just have forgotten. 

The other day we put together an activity called "the night of tradition" and each of the sisters brought a typical plate of Peru and presented it and told where they got the recipe, telling stories about their families. Later Hna. Bennion and I did a presentation about family history and how the spirit of Elija needs to be a part of their lives each day. It was a real success because, speaking of less-actives, there were many there who hadn’t come to church in 20 years. I sat there and talked to one lady who had served a mission and had been sealed in the temple with her family 30 years ago but slowly Satan pulled her away from the church and without even realizing it she has had 30 years of inactivity. We had many investigators and recent converts who came and were talking non-stop about their family and the dishes they had made, which was a beautiful site to see everyone wanting to learn about the individual lives of each person. Without Heavenly Father's hand in guiding these people there, I am positive they wouldn’t have come. Such miracles.   

We are working with many new families of investigators who have not heard one thing about the church. And that family with Maria, we are slowly working with them to set goals and traditions as a family to pray the find their Father in Heaven in their lives because it just seems like they have never known him in their lives. It is amazing to see the changes they are making in their lives in order to know Heavenly Father again!   

We also found an old investigator that hasn’t been taught for about two years. She is a single mom with four beautiful girls. We met with her the other day and she lives in probably the poorest environment I have ever seen. As we talked to her she began to tell us about the challenges that she has seen in her life. Even right now she doesn't have water to feed her kids. As she was crying my companion pulled out a song from the primary "He Sent His Son" (which we are preparing to sing in the Christmas concert we are putting together in December) and we sang it with them and their four little girls. As we sang the spirit of the Savior was so strong and I felt like it brought immediate comfort to the mother. The spirit is so unbelievable!   

Well, sorry this is late. Yesterday was kind of a crazy one traveling the Arequipa and having the leadership conference didn’t really leave me much time to write you guys. But thank you so so much for your letters, they really do lift me up each week so I can have the energy and strength to carry on the work. I love you all so much and miss you like crazy but I can feel your prayers each day and can feel you right beside me! Keep smiling!   

Love, Jess

FAM!

Hey! So all of you sound like you are doing great! Thank you for all of your b-day wishes today. It was a good day.  I honestly forgot for most of the day that it was my b-day until the night time when my pench put together a little get-together with some of the leaders and members in our ward which was really sweet! I felt like I was at a Bennett party ;) They all went around and said something they admired about me which was kind of funny to hear the answers because I have only been in the ward for three weeks haha. It was a really happy day for me—just to serve the lord like each day here in the mission!

But yesterday I got the most amazing birthday present ever—our investigators and less-actives at church! Heavenly Father is truly blessing us with people who are truly prepared. Maria Ester, the one I was talking about the other day came to church for the first time and she absolutely loved it! And also our investigator Ana also came and after church it was so sweet—she asked for a blessing for her health from the bishop. It was such a special experience to see an investigator getting blessed through the priesthood. But what was the most beautiful about this day was that one of our less-actives who we are trying to rescue walked through every class, explaining every little detail of the church to Maria Ester.  And on the other hand our most recent convert, Totti, was doing the exact same thing with Ana. What a blessing to see them sharing the gospel!

This week we also went out to do divisions with the sisters who are in Ilo, which is about an hour and a half away from Moquegua.  I was given the opportunity to go out to Ilo which is beachy—it reminds me of California. It was so beautiful. It was really fun to get to know Hna Alciden from Mexico. She is from Mexico but she said her parents spoke in English to her all the time at home but here on the mission she hasn’t had the chance to practice so I practiced with her. I love doing divisions because I get to ask these girls who they are and what life has taught them that maybe I haven’t learned yet. I learn so much from each of their individual gifts and talents! 

This week I truly experienced the scripture where it says, “Mas o menos...." Many are looking for the truth but just don’t know where to find it. The other night we met with a family with two cute little girls and we just started out by asking them basic questions like, “What do you think your purpose it here in this life? Why do you think you were blessed with a family? What do you want for your children?” And honestly each answer to these questions was, "I really don’t know." It was unbelievable to me to see these children of God so lost.  So lost in fact, that they have no idea why they are here or what they want in their future. At the end of the lesson we asked the family to kneel and pray together.  They all hesitantly got on their knees as if they had never done so in their lives and after we said amen everyone was silent.  The mom and dad looked at each other almost confused saying, "What is that feeling?"  In that moment my testimony of the spirit and the light of Christ grew tremendously. The light of Christ is in each soul and it is just our job as members of the church to reawaken this light in others that has been dormant for a while!

Well, this week has been full of miracles and I have felt Heavenly Father guide my each step. However, if we want to see miracles in our lives, we need to go and find them and work to see them.  They won’t just come! Each day I am humbled realizing my complete reliance on my Heavenly Father. I love each of you so much, thank you for all your prayers. I couldn’t do this without them. Now, go out and reawaken the light of Christ in another person who is looking for the truth—in the street, at your work, in a drive through—anywhere! And the easiest way to spark that light of Christ is through your SMILE! love ya. Talk to you next week!

Love, Jess

Thanks Mom!

Hey fam!

Sorry I’m extremely late. My companion has been having some problems with her health and because our area of Moqugua is very off in nowhere land there aren’t any doctor’s clinics that can do all the tests and labs that she needs to do. So, this morning we got up early and got on a bus to Arequipa in order to make her appointment in the afternoon, so I didn’t have time to write this morning. She is doing fine. The mission nurse just wanted us to do these test to make sure nothing is wrong. But it was fun today to be in Arequipa and talk with president for a while. We plan on getting the results tomorrow morning and heading back to our area to work as fast as we can! I love my new area!

Funny thing that happened today, right as we were walking into the clinic guess who walks in right after us? Our investigator from Moquegua! Haha she was so surprised and happy to see us. Her name is Ana and she has cancer. We have been teaching her these past two weeks. She loves coming to church and just seems like she is craving to learn more about the plan of salvation because she doesn’t know when she will be taken from this life. We talked to her for a while in the clinic. She just feels so tired and weak all the time but is trying as hard as she can to read the Book of Mormon. She has such a sweet and gentle spirit. We are going to challenge her again this week. We are feeling that she is ready. Please pray for her!

Our other investigator, Maria Ester, was the one I talked about last week who told us that she felt she had known us before this life. She is progressing extremely well. She knows so many people in our ward and every person who knows her has been telling us that she is a very closed person and will not change her ways. However, the first lesson we had with her she committed to a date in December! She is amazing and honestly seems like a member of the church already. She lives alone in a big house and has told us she feels lonely and she wants to become the person that God wants to her be but doesn’t know HOW. But, through the gospel of Jesus Christ we can know the HOW of every question we have in life. Especially if it is about reaching our divine potential! I am so excited to teach her more this week!

We have been receiving many references from the members -and the other day we received a reference of a family of five. We went over to their house to do a NDH and the mom expressed to us that she has always loved our church because of our focus on the family and she has been praying for something to come into her life in order to make the changes necessary to become a stronger mother and family! Tomorrow we have another lesson with them and my companion and I are super excited to teach them about eternal families and the covenants they can make in the temple! Temples are my absolute favorite thing to talk about in lessons!

Also, this week we had a training over satellite by the area presidency on how we can be a more effective ward council in order to hasten the work of the Lord! It was so amazing. We have so many things to change but right after this meeting we met together as a ward council to talk specifically about the things that we want to change which was very powerful. And from that, I know that from now on the investigators and less-actives will be in good hands here in the ward!

I went on divisions with Hna. Flora the other day who is from my same group at the CCM. It is crazy that just about nine months ago we were praying that one day we could be companions and the other day we got to be companions for a day!

Well, that was my week this week! Many miracles seen because of the guidance of Heavenly Father. This week I truly felt the power of the atonement through the sacrament. Before the mission I honestly didn’t understand the significance of partaking of the bread and water, however, during the course of my mission I have tried to actively participate in the sacrament. Taking the advice of the president of the primary I think this last conference who spoke about the sacrament that during the sacrament we should make a list of the things we want to CHANGE in order to be more perfected the next week. I would suggest this to all of you! As you do this, you will feel the power of the atonement flow through you as you renovate your covenants during the sacrament!

Well, I love you so much. Thank you for all your prayers and love. I couldn’t do this without you! Up until next week, keep smiling. Especially when you don’t feel like it! Love you!

Love, Jess

Doing divisions with Hna. Flora. She is from my group on the CCM and now she is in my zone.