Mid day shower in my mission clothes

I have decided the calendar is wrong... I refuse to believe I complete 11 months in the mission today!

Wow was this week great! Though it felt like it was only a few seconds long, I enjoyed every moment of it!

I had quite the experience this past week in one of our lessons.  We arrived at our lesson with our investigators named Gabriela and her daughter Ana.  I asked them if I could use their bathroom and they said yes and showed me where it was.  The bathroom they have is one little room with the sink, toilet and shower all together. There is not any kind of separation or shower curtain to divide the 3. While in the bathroom I noticed that the shower faucet was dripping so I thought I would do them a favor and turn it off to not waste water.  However, as I turned the knob that was supposedly  going to turn off the water shot out at full blast!  I panicked and turned it the other way and the water came our faster.  Not knowing what else to do I continued fumbling with the knob until I was soaking wet, when suddenly I heard a knock on the door.  "Would you like me to help you?" I heard a little voice call.  I opened up the door to see Ana, the little 8 year old girl standing at the door.  She rushed in the door and after fumbling with the faucet for a bit she eventually got it turned off for me.  As I walked back out to where the lesson was my companion just looked at me and asked, "What happened to you?"  As I explained what had happened we all got a good laugh out of it.  My unintentional shower in my street clothes is now the new joke we have with that family:)

Where Sacrament meeting is held

Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit our mountain group again.  They are doing awesome and progressing as great as ever!  We were also able to see several of the less active members we have been teaching come to church yesterday which made me so happy!

There are so many other miracles and progress that we were able to see this week, but there is not enough time to write all of it.  So, since picture's are worth a thousand words I will try and send lots.:)

I love you guys!  Have a great week.

Love, Hermana Peine

My Birthday cake, it's a tradition

A member's pet!!

Trials Are What Make us Stronger

Mother's Day Dinner

Thank you all very much for all your prayers and support!  It helped me so much and I could feel each of your love from so many miles away.

Little boy who drew a picture for me

This week I have thought about trials and why we have them.  Though they may be disguised as pain and suffering, they are blessings from our Father in Heaven.  As hard as they may be I am so grateful for my trials and especially in my mission, I have been able to experience the atonement on a greater level, strengthen my faith in my Savior and build my testimony.

Though this week was very hard it was also very wonderful!  We weren't able to work most of the week because I was sick, but we were still blessed with 6 investigators that came to sacrament meeting.  We also were able to teach a few lessons that were so great!  One of them was with an Hermano named Daniel who is from the Dominican Republic. At first he didn't want to accept us or hear anything we had to say unless it involved the bible, but after teaching him about the Restoration and giving him a Book of Mormon we have seen such a great change in him.  Another investigator named Flor de Maria who is from the group we are teaching in the mountains spoke yesterday in the little sacrament meeting the group holds each Sunday.  She had never given a talk before but she did so awesome, we felt like proud parents as they watch their children grow up :)  She has such a beautiful testimony and so much faith I have learned so much from "teaching" her.

All in all this week was just fantastic!  Yesterday I had one of the best birthday presents ever because I got to spend the day serving the Lord.  I am so grateful for my mission and these experiences I can live!  

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love, Hermana Peine

Typhoid Fever

Hi mom and dad. It was so great to talk to you guys yesterday! You look like your doing great and that makes me happy. 

I would like to be honest with you guys but I don't want you to panic. When you asked me if I was sick at all yesterday and I said no I was completely honest with you. I felt great yesterday. However, today I didn't wake up feeling so good. I've had a bad migraine and a my body has been hurting. My fever was also very high so I called the doctor and he had me come to the mission home. I am here right now. He's not sure what I have but we are going to do blood tests tomorrow morning. The most likely is salmonella because I have salmonellosis, but we will know for sure tomorrow with the blood tests. 

Please don't worry about me. I know I will be ok and will get better soon. This is all part of the mission experience, but I am happy and hoping to get back to work soon :)

I sure love you both.  

Note from mom;

We got to talk with Sadie on the phone 2 days in a row.  She was able to call us from the mission home where she spent the night.  The blood test results came back saying she had Typhoid fever.  We are really worried about her but are keeping the faith that she will be watched over and cared for and soon regain her health and strength.  She has had a priesthood blessing, we fasted for her today, her name is on the prayer roll in a few different temples and there are many people praying for her.  They have started her on antibiotics and when I talked to her yesterday she said she was starting to feel better and her fever was coming down.  She has to rest for 4 days and then if she feels better she can start doing missionary work again but was told she will be tired and dizzy for a few weeks so she needs to rest and not push herself too hard.  We appreciate all the support, love and prayers from so many. Sadie said she can feel the prayers and they are helping her. 

Week of a Lifetime!

I think it's safe to say that this week was one of the best weeks of my life!  It was such a great week. Yesterday was amazing.  Remember that group of people I talked about last week who we received as a reference to go visit?  Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit them.  Yesterday after church we went on the adventure of a lifetime to visit the families.  We got in a combi which took us on about about a one and a half hour long ride on a curvy country road straight up into the mountains.  After getting ourselves lost for a little bit we eventually found where we were supposed to go and met with the president of the group to visit the people.  The group of people are a group of about 23 people made up of 6 families.  They meet together on Sundays to have a sacrament meeting.  The president of the group is a member who holds the meetings on a cement patio in front of his house.  There meetings are at 11:00 a.m. but they waited for us to arrive to start.  When we finally arrived at around 12:30 we greeted all of the people and then took our seats on the wooden benches that had been set out.  The president asked my companion and I if we could speak.  The spirit was so strong as I looked at each one of their faces and the exact words I needed came to me I could feel how much these people needed us and how the Lord had prepared them.  As the basket of bread and little cups of water were passed around for the Sacrament I could feel the power of the members desire to live the gospel with the little that they had.  As the meeting ended they brought out a little lunch they had prepared for us to thank us for coming and we ate it as we talked with them and got to know them. We handed out pamphlets of the Restoration and made an appointment with them on Saturday to teach them the first lesson.  They were so excited and so grateful for everything.  After the meeting was over we went back to the entrance of the little town called Soyalo to wait for the combi to take us back home.  The elders quorum president from our ward who accompanied us had us stand in front of the entrance to take our picture.  "This picture marks a part of history," he told us, "You two are the first missionaries to step foot in this area."

I am so grateful for the miracle our Heavenly Father gave us of being able to teach and get into contact with this little group of families in the little town up in the mountains.  Our Heavenly Father truly loves and prepares his children for the gospel as missionaries.  We are so blessed to be able to be lead and teach those he has prepared.

I love this work and I know it's true.  I will never regret the greatest decision I have ever made to be a part of it!

Love, Hermana Peine

Mangoes and Miracles

This week was truly a week of miracles!  This week my testimony was renewed of how much the Lord Loves and is looking out for his missionaries.  My testimony was also strengthened how according to our faithfulness and obedience we are able to see miracles in the mission field.

One of the many miracles the Lord gave us this week was a tree full of mangos.  As it is near the end of the month we don't have much money to buy food, but the Lord always provides a way!
One day as we were walking across the street we looked over to the other side of the road to see an orchard with the ground covered in mangos.  There were probably 6 or 7 giant mango trees with fallen mangos underneath them.  We went and talked to the people in the home nearby the mango trees and they said nobody owned the property and that we could take as many mangos as we wanted because if we didn't they would go to waste.  So we filled up a big bag and took it back to the house. Another miracle we saw happened last night.  We have been working extremely hard this week and doing everything possible to be exactly obedient.  However as hard as we are working we aren't always able to see the fruits of our labors.  There are days where we walk the entire day and every appointment we have falls through.  But we continue walking knowing that this work requires faith and that the Lord has people prepared for us.  So to make a long story short we had a good week of hard work, but as we tallied up our numbers this week they did not show our efforts.  Though we worked harder than ever this week our numbers looked as if we didn't.  When our district leader called we talked with him and he told us he knew how hard we were working, though our numbers didn't show it he knew we were working as hard as we could.  He told us that he didn't know why we weren't able to see the fruits of our labors but promised us that if we continue to work with faith we will be able to see the fruits soon.  Later that night after we got done talking to him we received a call from some elders from a different area informing us of a family that lives in a little town that is part of our area. The town is about1-2 hours away and there is a family of 9 who would like to be baptized.  We were very excited to hear that news!  It is true that the miracle comes after the trial of your faith.  All we have to do is give our best and trust in the Lord.

There are several other miracles that happened this week but there is neither time or room sufficient to write them all.  But the Lord is looking out for us.  This is his work and he is the master of his vineyard.  I am so grateful to be a part of this marvelous work!  I love you all.  Have a great week!

Love, Hermana Peine

This is where I ate lunch today.

Me with the Mexican Band

The Walking Popsicle Has Finally Melted!

Hola!

This week was so great, but holy cow is it HOT!  here in my new area!  There is no shade here.  We both got fried by the sun this past week (I'll send pictures)  But I sure love it here!

My companion is a cute little thing, she's about 5 feet tall and just as nice as can be.  Her name is Hermana Robelo and she is from Mexico.  She's a newbie so I am training her.  However, I feel like it's the other way around.  Training someone is the best training I think I have gotten.  I love it and I am learning so much!

This week's funny experience happened when I shut the bathroom door and felt a clammy 4 legged creature fall on my hand.  I looked down to see a big clear/transparent lizard looking up at me.  I yelled and shook it off.  My companion came running and asked me if everything was o.k.  I explained what had happened and we both laughed about it for awhile.

We live in a little apartment with 2 stories.  The tap water comes directly from a river.  We shower with a little hose in the bathroom every morning.

The members here are great.  Though the ward is very small there are several less actives we will be working with to reactivate.  The ward welcomed me in my first Sunday here by asking me to speak when the speaker that was assigned didn't show up.  So I gave a talk about prayer.  I think it was the first talk I have given in my mission that everyone understood me.  So that's good.

I think that's all the news I have for this week.  Oh and I weighed myself the other day.  Apparently I have lost 14 lbs since I started my mission, so that's good I guess.  Progression is progression :)

I love you guys and I hope you have a great week!

Transfers

Unfortunately I don't have much time at all to write this week but I will send something quick with the short time that I have.  Today was transfers.  My companion and I are both being transfered.  I will be opening an area called Chiapa de Corso and will also be training.  I haven't met my companion yet but I'm sure she is wonderful.  I know nothing about the area either but I'm sure I will love it there as well!

Today we went to a place called Chiflon which is a huge waterfall about 30 minutes away from my current area, Comitan.  We went with my ward mission leader, his wife and a recently returned missionary named Alejandra.  It was a lot of fun!  I will make sure and send pictures next week :)

I sure love you guys and hope all is well. Keep up the good work and I'll talk to you next week.

Love, Hermana Peine