My name is husband's Johansson. 11-18-13 PICTURES!

Our little pal "Mi" needed help with his English homework, unscrambling the words to make a correct sentence. As I checked his answers, I wondered if he really knows a man named husband's Johansson.

Well, we went to the playa in Santa Rosa last P-day and I took un monton de fotos. I'll send some of those today as well. It is absolutely stunning there! Some of our zone played frisbee, others went sand jumping, and others of us sat in a little cove and told stories about our lives. Elder Johnson went to BYU-I-Do and was proposed to three times before he came on the mission. I am never touching that campus.

I really appreciated Hermana Moody this week. Even though she teased me incessantly with her foolish imaginations about my life, she also helped me a lot in my moments of sadness or frustration. I have no doubt that Heavenly Father put us together here with a great plan. I learn so much from Hermana Moody and it's going to be really hard when we eventually have to change! But I know we all move along. 

We met another nice drunk man on the street the other night. It was pretty busy and we were right outside a little tienda so we weren't worried. He tried to speak to us in English but said nothing even remotely coherent in any modern language. This went on for a few minutes and he pleasantly told us some story and asked us incomprehensible questions. Then finally, as we extended the mano to say peace out, he pointed straight at me and said,

"I...

"I...

"I love you."

AND THEN I KNEW MY LIFE WOULD NEVER BE THE SAME

Hermana Moody risked her life (again) to climb in the window of the bishop's office at his medical practice across the street from the church so we could get the keys like he told us to. 

And then I tried the door.

And

it was unlocked.

GOODNESS GRACIOUS SOMEBODY IS LISTENING TO DUBSTEP 

Do you gringos still listen to dubstep? Just curious. It makes me want to dance. BUT I'll hold back just this once.

We had a great conversation about important things this week. So Hermana Moody has apparently watched one episode of Spongebob in her whole life. I asked her which episode it was, and she began to describe it to me so I could figure out which one she was referring to.

"I almost said I had seen the one which starts out singing about living in a barnacle under the sea... Wait. I think I saw the one where Squidward had a bad day. OH! It definitely involved a plankton."

...wait...WAS THERE A SPONGE WITH PANTS ON?!

Here on Sunday afternoons, the LDS women make this particular plate called Arroz a la Cubana. Basically rice, fried egg sunny side up, and platanos fritos (fried bananas). IT IS AMAZING. It's like a good casserole. Gotta love those Mormons.

ANYWAY

Quote of the Week:

"We have to keep working with those names of menos activos that the ward gave us, even though some of them are complete......fairy.....love....." - Hna Moody, trying to exercise her pure love of Christ even when people are giving us nothing to work with. (Please pray that the members will do their part in the missionary work!)

I love you all!

De Perú con todo mi amor,

Hermana Hewitt

Baptism! 11-11-13

SohohohoGUESSWHATWEHADABAPTISM

 "Y" was baptized and it was beautiful! Hermana Moody put me up to speaking in front of a lot of native Spanish speakers and I experienced quite clearly the gift of tongues and the guidance of the Holy Ghost. That. Was. Amazing. I wish I had more time to go into detail, but let's just suffice it to say that through faith all things really are possible.

The bishop's wife, "M", is a classic Peruvian bishop's wife. Very sociable, very emotional, and very enthusiastic about singing operatically.  We sang her favorite song as part of the baptismal service. 

Hermana Moody and I are working with a great base of investigators and really happy here in Puente Piedra. We brought a family of young women and their mother to church yesterday and the ward was SO welcoming and sweet! So pray for they might be baptized. Because they are fantastic people.

OH yes! And we have been living in the same dreary rat hole for the past 14 weeks and FINALLY we are going to move into a much better space! President Archie got back from his training in Cuzco and looked at this new cuarto for us to rent. We saw him, Hermana Archie, and the Zone Leaders as we were leaving our pensionista's house and he told us that they are going to have a kitchen area and curtains put in there as well. As women, well, we are unabashedly and stereotypically thrilled to have some cooking space. 

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

There's a young man in our ward, "Mi", who is our perrito (puppy; aka he loves us) and likes to tell us jokes. He animatedly told me a few days ago that he had a dream that I was sitting on a bus with three young children who were all my own. The oldest was named HALLS ( as in, the cough drops. They have those here.) I don't understand why these things happen.

I also was asked on the spot to direct all the Young Men and Young Women in a musical number in church yesterday. It was Llamados a Servir (Called to Serve) and they sang it very loudly and joyfully, sooooooooooooooo although I have this thing against the unprofessionalism of leading anyone over 12 years of age in a musical number in sacrament meeting, I got over it. I love those kids so much.

Alright, well, I am running out of time and unfortunately this letter was really poorly written. SO I'll just send you all some pictures (beginning with some which I failed to send last week) and hope to hear from you all! If you get a second, write down your testimony and send it my way.

De Peru con amor,

Hermana Hewitt

OH

Quote of the Week

"So, I bought this piece of chocolate from this guy with one leg on the bus, and LOOK! IT HAS INSTRUCTIONS IN HEBREW!" - Elder Avery

He really never fails us.

Oooookay I just realized that I have no time. Pictures from the baptism next week PROMISE (Unfortunately… or fortunately… I was out of town and didn't have the chance to post Lexi's email from last week until now… and she sent the pics this week so… there you go! :-)

Also, if you happen to have a red velvet pumpkin left over from Halloween

SEND IT TO ME

It's a force field...

HEYLOOK I'm still in Puente Piedra! 

WITH HERMANA MOODY!

#yayyyyyyyyyyrejoicewiththechoirsofangelsohwaitjustkiddingthosearetheawkwardgringas

We are unbelievably happy to be spending another transfer together here in paradise. I am now finished with all my training and so I guess that means I am a missionary and what not...

Speaking of which, I just can't wait to tell you something great that happened in District Meeting this week. Elder Scroggins, our beloved district leader, called us the night before and asked me to speak a little bit about the importance of preparation. I had been studying diligence and came up with some cool stuff to say to relate it to preparation. In d.m. I shared what I had learned and the Spirit was really strong! Elder Reyes - one of our zone leaders, who I look up to SO MUCH and is super duper nice but never really pays a whole lot of attention to me because I have been, you know, training and slipping up on my Spanish and just hanging out making mistakes next to Hermana Moody (#ALRIGHTthat'sjustalittlebitdramaticbutstill) - was listening with shocking intent and nodding in response to important points and all that good stuff. Liiiiike, he actually got something out of what I said! And after I had closed my little portion I sat back down and Elder Salazar gave me a fist bump. And THEN. Okay, so Elder Reyes has this expression that we always tease him about. In Spanish, "bacan" (bah-cahn) is slang and means cool or awesome. He likes to use this word for extra special emphasis (i.e. That baptismal service was BACAN.) and always puts his fingers in the OK symbol when he REALLY means it. To receive this expression is something of a sacred privilege. And to my great surprise and joy, Elder Reyes leaned over Elder Salazar and said to me, "Su Español es BACAN!" Hey! I speak Spanish!

#OHMYGOODNESSICANDIEHAPPYNOW

So this week me and Elder Reyes became friends. And then, to the great distress of the entire ward, he got transferred on Saturday. DARN it. But we got a new zone leader, Elder Johnson, who seems pretty cool. And Elders Crozier, Brown, Tunque, Orellana, and Fallas all got transferred out of our zone as well. The rest of us are the same. We now have Elders Spencer, Wilson, Johnson, Billalba, aaaaaaaand....some others who I haven't met yet. We'll see. Anyway. Transfers were harder this time, but the Lord's work goes on.

Hey, by the way, we have a fly in our house who just doesn't seem to want to leave. Hermana Moody suggested we make him our pet to feel less uncomfortable about his presence. I named him Macklemore. We have good times with Macklemore, telling him to keep his filthy paws off our queso and mermelada. He is a polite, strong fella for the most part.

Speaking of music that I caught just before leaving, at a meeting with the zone this week, Elder Salazar started singing "I FEEL SO CLOSE TO YOU RIGHT NOW..."

And I finished the line. IT'S A FORCE FIELD. And then, of course, distanced myself substantially.

You just don't understand how great American music is until you realize that all the Peruvians know it by heart. Why? I don't know.

Also, it seems like a lot of the Latino elders in our zone have girlfriends named Kendra...why? I don't know.

Also, we started a new pension and she gave us two successive lunches from the underworld. Why? I DON'T KNOW.

Let me talk about this for a minute. Peruvians eat a lot of food for lunch. That doesn't describe the meal she presented before us to finish completely on Saturday:

Soup with potatoes and carne. MMMMMM delicious and filling! Thanks Hermana Francisca! See ya tomorrow! WAIT...she gave us forks as well.

Then came the actual meal.

SLAB OF MEAT. POTATO PUREE. MOUNT VESUVIUS OF RICE.

#weepingandwailingandgnashingofexcessivelyfood-coveredteethandohmygoshwearefreakinglateforournextcita

again...

And then, a nice little bowl of delicious mango chunks.

We also met a nice little old lady who has A HUNDRED YEARS of life under her belt! We are going to take a picture with her this week. Also I almost got eaten by Balto's loving horse twin.

Also, N is living the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom even in the very face of incredible temptations. She literally cut off the two most difficult commandments to keep in her life cold turkey and is doing SO well. 

I LOVE CHASTITY. I...I JUST LOVE IT.

Quote of the Week: 

On Halloween, we were talking about all the little kids who would go out and get candy that night and were kinda sad that we didn't get any. Then Hermana Moody came up with an excellent idea!

"We could just go out contacting, knocking doors, and saying, 'TRICK OR SALVATION!!!!!!!!!' "

And that we did.

Well...not.

I LOVE YOU ALL SEND ME LETTERS AND I WILL SEND YOU BLESSINGS

De Perú con amor,

Hermana Hewitt