Amazing week! 8-18-14

This was such an amazing week!

Firstly, we ¨rescued¨ a less active family, the Familia Lazo. They are a family of 5 who are preparing to be sealed in the temple in two weeks! Probably the richest people in our area, but some of the sweetest and most humble people I have met on my mission. It was so great - last Sunday Adrian, their 14-year-old son, was ordained a teacher and received the priesthood for the first time. When we had our FHE with them on Monday night, he talked about how excited he was to pass the sacrament and even more to go on a mission in 4 years. When we first started teaching them he wouldn't even consider it! 

Then we started teaching the (very Catholic) parents of a 13-year-old girl who has been going to church off and on for years. No other missionaries had EVER taught them! WHAT! They had all begged permission for her to be baptized, but they had never actually received the lessons. So we taught them about the Restoration and the Spirit was strong. They didn't accept a baptismal date, but they did accept a return visit and to read the Book of Mormon. Pray for the Familia Ponce!

Ohoho also that same day we taught a widowed woman who we contacted about a month ago. She was never in her house but we finally caught her and taught her the first lesson and she accepted a baptismal date! A couple days later we went to remind her about church and I felt a strong impression to ask if she had shared with any of her children about the Church (she has 4 children between 10 and 28). She lit up and said, "Yes! I was telling my daughter about the Book of Mormon and she wants to know more!" So she went and brought her 28-year-old daughter, who just started asking us all these GOLDEN questions! It was so so so SO amazing! She also accepted to be baptized, buuuut they didn't get up early to go to church. :( However, we are going to keep trying with them! Pray for the Familia Lozano too.

On top of that, we had a beautiful lesson with Paul, the husband of a less active sister. He is so great! He just will not accept to be baptized! Literally he lives like a member. And he has had so many spiritual experiences. But there's always something little. We have him on a recipe of Book of Mormon stories and strong doses of daily prayer. Please pray for Paul.

Also there is another PF, the wife and mother of a less active family, who is going to be baptized this Saturday! Luisa. She's hilarious and I love her. You're invited to pray for her too.

OH I JUST WANT TO GIVE IT AWAY NOW but I won't. Just look forward to next week's letter. :)

Anyway a couple approached us in church yesterday and said their son is turning 8 on Thursday and is going to be baptized that day. They asked us if we would be willing to come each day prior and teach him the missionary lessons. Sure thing! So we went and learned he has Asperger's (sp?) and also that he is the most intelligent 7-year-old in the South American continent. He knew almost everything already! It was so fun teaching him. Teaching the gospel to children requires SO MUCH PATIENCE and a whole lot of resourcefulness. Teaching a child who only wants to tell us how it is and talk about origami dinosaurs is just plain FUN. Haha I am totally serious in saying that it was one of the most worthwhile challenges I have confronted in awhile. I am so thankful that his parents invited us to teach him!

I gave a talk in church yesterday about baptism. Just going to say... I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks to my bishops who made me speak in church ALL THE TIME. I really didn't like it before, but now it's a joy. I feel so powerful.

Don'tworryeverybodyIprayforhumilitywithgreatfrequencyandtheLordanswersprayers.

Alrighty well I love you all! Keep prayin' and readin' and livin' the truth! Remember who you are and make good choices.

Hermana Hewitt

P.S. My companion is the Peruvian equivalent of Debbie Downer on SNL. Yesterday she was telling me all about her puppy and how he offered his paw when you said Buenos días and how he always chased the rooster in the morning. "Ah, my puppy was SO cute. And then he died. He was poisoned."

#luvher

You can change. 8-11-14

Those of you who knew me well before I was deported from the United States know that I am a fervent advocate for the cause of journal-writing. I am quite certain that a good quarter of the weight in my suitcases as I return home will be pages and pages and pages of my life story. I thank my wonderful family for loving me enough to send me pretty little journals to write in, because I definitely did not bring enough paper. I am currently about to finish a journal which consists of a notebook I bought here in Perú, on which I pasted a great deal of my bus tickets as well as a McDonald's receipt in Spanish and some exotic candy wrappers. 

Still disgustingly creative. Eeee. :)

I bought a journal before I left from the brand "Quotable Journals," similar to one gifted me by my awesome stepmom Heidi (represent!) a few years ago. It is white and square, and on the front is printed a quote that has become woven into my mission and my life. 

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly."

Sometimes, as people with the inclination to doubt, we feel enormous weight as good things seem to come to an end. In our limited mortal experience and perspective, it is difficult to know why certain things happen. It is even more difficult to not even desire to know why. Many times we may rationalize that we don't even have the faith sufficient to START having faith! How could God expect us to walk forward boldly and confidently into the great unknown, remembering full well all those times that the leap of faith we took was directly over the edge of a spiritual cliff? How could He expect us to strip ourselves of pride, walking blamelessbefore Him and being sufficiently humble at any given time to know that we qualify for His kingdom if we are so called there?

If we were a little more like Nephi, we would remember in whom we could have trusted - again and again and again, cliff after cliff, mountain after mountain, trial after trial after trial. And we WOULD have trusted. And, perhaps, we have indeed trusted and we have indeed been led through the wilderness of our deepest afflictions. 

If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, why would His arm cease to extend toward us even in the very hour that we think the world is over?

It is through every whirlwind and temptation that we are refined. As missionaries, our most spiritual experiences are almost always at the end of hard days and hard weeks. The miracles always come after the trial of our faith. And if we have faith like a little mustard seed, the Lord promises that we CAN receive those miracles. 

Mosiah 15:7 explains to us how Jesus Christ was able to perform the miraculous act of the Atonement as He humbly allowed His mortal will to be swallowed up (in Spanish, absorbed) by the will of His Father. God knew what needed to be done, and it was the loving submission of His obedient Son which made God's divine purposes come to pass. Christ's mortal life - His world - was over. It did end. But because He trusted in His Father's plan, look what He became! We cannot even imagine the glory with which He will return to this earth!

Here is the point. 

God has a plan.

If we trust Him, He will lead us, and we will fulfill His purposes among His children, and we will become perfect, even as He is, and even as His Son is. We will become the butterflies that we were always meant to be. 

Don't let your true self fade away. Be who you are, who you REALLY are, and you will be made even more. The only thing you have to change are the mistakes you may have made, and that is infinitely possible through the Savior.

This week I saw many people return to their God (Isaiah 55:7) and remember who they are. It is possible! It is true!

I love you!

Sorry this wasn't funny! I actually am in a really happy mood but these things take brainpower.

Okay I really do love you!

Hermana Hewitt

Light. 8-4-14

After a week of some extraordinary disappointments, I am sitting here at the computer, wondering how I can possibly be the means of providing encouragement and light to the folks back home. 

I think I explained the answer in a Family Home Evening that my companion and I improvised last night. We were with the former bishop's wife and two sons and mother-in-law and less-active sister-in-law, their neighbor and her 17- and 11-year-old daughters, and a friend of the 17-year-old daughter's. A very diverse crowd with very diverse needs. But as we opened up the scriptures to explain some of the Savior's teachings, meeting every last one was surprisingly easy. Well, the Spirit did that. 

We went to Matthew 4 and 5. 4:19-20 explain that Jesus called fishers to come and follow Him, and He told them they would be fishers of men. I made the jóvenes giggle as I asked if they were supposed to start catching people to eat...that would not be tasty...but we went on to talk about how we can follow Jesus Christ and help others to do the same. 

We read through the Bienaventurados (sorry I'm too lazy to try and remember what they're called in English) and then set our sights on 5:14. As we strive to keep the commandments and serve everyone - and I mean everyone - in our pathway, we become a light for the world, just like Jesus' disciples of old. We become fishers of men.

The Savior came to this world to do exactly as His name suggests - to save us. Every single one of God's children is so precious to Him that He sent His Only Begotten Son to suffer for every single one of our sins, pains, afflictions, trials, temptations, weaknesses, and crushing failures. I KNOW that this is true. And every single one of God's children NEEDS TO KNOW that this is true for them, too.

Your neighbor Mr. Rogers needs to know how to use the Savior's sacrifice. Please be a light to him. Your second cousin needs to know, too. Please, be a light to her. And if you don't know yet, please write to me and I will show you! 

THE FULL-TIME MISSIONARIES ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN SHARE THE GOSPEL.

Look everybody, I don't know everything. I still have so much to figure out. But I learned that God made me ME for a purpose, and if I don't let that light shine I am wasting His creation. We are expected to use what light we have received to guide those who may be lost in the wilderness. Read 1 Nephi 8! Read the book of St Matthew! Listen to the hymn "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy"! 

And the trick is in Matt 5:16. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. 

We are here to glorify the Father. He wants us to be US because He made us that way so that we could glorify Him. It all goes back to Him. If you're trying to be somebody else, stop! It doesn't work and it's not right! You are YOU and it is because you are supposed to use every one of your characteristics for God's purposes! Just be obedient and thankful and charitable and everything will be okay.

I PROMISE.

I love you.

Hermana Hewitt