Hermana Tanuvasa's Mission

HELLO FAMILIA!!!

Im so glad to hear about you guys. Its interesting that in a small way we are experiencing the same things right now with being in new places. But your email has given me strength. I have constantly told myelf this week that Piura is where I am supposed to be. Sometimes it feels like I will go home soon until i realize Ive only just started. This week has been better and harder in many different ways. After I emailed you guys on Monday, we went to the Navarro Families home to talk about temples. We first asked them how their experiences with temples have been before since they went twice before, but they are recent converts. Hermana Elara began to cry as she talked about being baptized for her mom in the Guayquil temple. They have a goal to go and be sealed as a family this year in Semptember, but as we talked with them about their goal, Hermano Alberto said that it might be hard as they needed to raise the money for the trip and other things. Its crazy how differnt things are here. I honetly am so grateful for all the beautiful temples we have in the US. Im glad you guys are taking advantage of having the temple so close to home.

After Monday, Tuesday started out rough, BUT we got to meet Sister and President Rasmussen. UH! I love them! They are so kind and loving and Hermana Rasmussen made me feel so much better. When Hermana Rasmussen got up to talk, lol she said " Oh mis munecas!!" lol so nice. But even better was that I got to seee Hermana Howell there. Over the past two weeks I have missed her so much because she really became my family in the CCM as we went through the same things. But here I cant really talk or say how I feel and there isnt really anyone who understands right now what im going through,(except God) but to see her lifted me soooo much. We shared some of our struggles that we´ve had here and felt bettter to know we werent the only ones going through problems. God knew that I needed that more than anything and since then i have been so much happier. Friday was also amazing!! So I've been praying that because i dont say much in lessons other than the usual basics for teaching, I wanted to give more to reach a persons actual needs. So I've been praying that in my personal study i can study that which will somehow help me during the day. Friday I studied in 2 NEPHI 31 AND IN VERSE 3 it says that the spirit speaks to every man "in his own language and his own understanding". Later i read in Preach My Gospel and then i finished with reading the talk by Elder Eyring, "The Comforter". My favorite part stuck out again where Elder Eyring shares the story of helping a sad couple and all he did was listen and then at the end said that "only Christ could PERFECTLY understand their pain and sorrow". During companion study right after, Hermana Echegaray shared a trouble she had - one of her cousins was hit by a motorcycle and from it they had to amputate his foot. She said she had a reaccuring dream that her aunts were crying and crying and her cousin walked in and she didnt know what to say. Over and over she didnt know what to say to them.

In my broken and horrific spanish i shared with her what i had learned in the talk and she began to cry. She said that that was exactly what she needed to hear and that more than anything she wanted her family to understand this. I cannot believe that God could bless me so much this week but He has. I have been seriously fortified in a time where I dont speak much, but in my daily prayers to God. Everything is a process and takes time. I promise that prayer works. Not in our time, but in Gods and in reality he does hear your prayer. Eartlier this week we also taught Ana and Juan Jose whose mom is less active and dad is not a member. We taught them that prayers mean alot and that they should tell Heavenly Father about their day becuase he wants to hear. Ana then gave the closing prayer and it was beautiful. She literally shared her whole day: what she ate, what she drew and how she doesn't quite like her teacher. She really taught me a lesson on prayer. There have been so many other little miracles here in Miraflores, Peru, but I just wanted to share a few.

Otherwise, funny story where i actually got to laugh, (because that is something that is also kinda rare), we were walking home one night and we were talking when i looked down and saw something strange. Then i realized it was a brown TOAD!!1 I jumped as i almost stepped on it and in the process scared my companion. we laughed about it for the next half hour lol. But seriously i hate the bugs, i hate toads, and I HATE COCKROACHES. This whole week I've been antsy about them because they are in our bathroom. BLEK. But thank heavens, this morning Hermana Echegaray and i spent an hour deep cleaning our room. It was VERY needed lol. Plus cleaning makes me feel good haha. But some of our troubles here is that the ward is not very united. There is a big economic diffference and for some reason our ward doesn't have alot of activities together. We are trying to work with eveyrone but we need more help from the members. This week we have Ward Conference so we have a few activiites duing the week to help the ward prepare. I hope that it will make them more united. BTW side note, Mom and Dad, do you guys have your certificate of marriage hung up somewhere in the house? I wonder if you could put it up because that would be cool lol. Any who, I love and miss you all sooooo soo much and I hope all is well. Thanks sooo soo much for doing the challenge. This weeks challenge: See what things you can add to make you prayers more meaningful.

LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU ALL, MOM, DAD, KEIRRA, KANOAH, KEANU, AND KAI!!

Hermana Tanuvasa