Week 25: New Years!!

Having some fun with shutter speed and sparklers!!

 Dear Friends and Family,

So today is the last day of the year and looking back, a lot has happened. I was super sick and dropped out of school at the beginning of February. Then I was at home for a Little while and decided to turn in my papers to go on a mission and somehow, I am now in Cusco Peru for the New Year. This last year has definitely been crazy, but a good one. I want to thank everyone who has helped me to get here today and who continually support me. I wish you all the best and that the new year brings lots of success and joy.

So things that happened this week… almost ALL of our investigators were out of town. Also, sad news. Mari and Jesus who are working on getting married… they move today to Urubamba. The good thing is that we know the missionaries that are there and they are going to continue to visit them.

Me on Christmas Eve

Christmas was crazy. We were at President Calderon’s house till 2:30am. I was SUPER tired, but we got to light off Little Fireworks and such and played with sparklers. It was us and then the office elders and President Calderons family. Then Christmas day, I was able to skype with my family!!!!!!!!!

Baptism with Lidia - Angelito baptized her.
He's a priest preparing for his mission and is super awesome

Anyways, so the exciting news!!! Lidia was baptized on Saturday. It was a bit stressful. She was in the hospital Friday night and missed her interview. We were super stressed. And then Saturday, we were inviting people to her baptism and we need men who hold the priesthood… at least 3. And we had 0. The elders couldn’t come to our baptism and a lot of the members were out of town. We weren’t sure that we could actually have the baptism. Luckily, we found a few priesthood holders in the church right before the baptism to help us out! The baptism was great and she hugged us both super tight and thanked us so much for bringing this into her life.

Another cool story that hopefully has a great ending to come. We were having a really hard time finding people this week so I decided to look in our área book of the people that the other missionaries before us have taught. We found one guy who had a cellphone number. So we called him and he goes oh hermanas! I was actually thinking about the church and coming back when you guys called. I don’t have time this week, but PLEASE visit me the next week! So we’re going to visit him and see how it goes. I’ll let you know how it goes with Marcos.

Well, I hope everything is going well at home with all of you and wish you the best.

Love Always,

Hermana Carly Lang

PS. EMAIL ME!!!!!!! carly.lang@myldsmail.net

This is all mud we have to climb... NOT FUN!

Week 24: Merry Christmas!!!

Dear Friends and Family,

I feel like I have TOO much to write and hardly any time. Anyways, to start off, this week was super hard as far as missionary work. There are a lot of people that are gone for the holidays and so we couldn’t find a lot of our investigators. But, the good thing is that we figured out a way to be more creative. We don’t have cellphones, but we have a wireless landline that you can carry with you where ever you want… SOOOOO basically we have a GINORMOUS cellphone that pretty much has saved our life.

Well last Sunday, a girl named Libia came to church. My companion and her previous companion contacted her in the Street and she came to church! Well we taught her on Tuesday!! Luckily we had our ‘’cellphone’’ otherwise we wouldn’t have found her. We asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she is going to be baptized THIS SATURDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She said that she has felt complete peace in her life since she met us and has continued to listen. However, the bad part is then her cellphone was turned off and we couldn’t find her the rest of the week. Her landlord doesn’t like missionaries so we have met with her in the church and we only kind of knew where she lived. In front of a store by the Catholic church. So we went to every store by the catholic church to try and find her, but we couldn’t. Then she also didn’t come to church and her cellphone still wasn’t working. We were a Little stressed and worried that something had happened. We almost didn’t bring our ‘’cellphone’’ with us yesterday but decided to bring it anyway. Luckily she called us and we were able to meet with her yesterday and find out where her house is too! She is still super psyched for her baptism. What had happened was she lost her charger and didn’t come to church yesterday because her son is super sick and they went to the hospital. She just is SOOOO humble and looks for God in all parts of her life.

Well, that’s the most exciting news for the week and I’m short on time, but I’ll tell you all more next week! I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope that you are enjoying the holidays! You’re always in my prayers.

Love,

Hermana Carly Jo Lang

PS. Email me! carly.lang@myldsmail.net

My Zone!

Week 23: Agijanchu Panai y Turai

Agijanchu!! That’s quetchua for how are you? I am not sure how to spell it though. Anyways, a lot of great things are happening.

This is Cusco... when it's sunny. It's cloudy a lot and rains pretty much every day.

A Little bit about where I live. I live in what the misión calls, the casa grande. It’s 3 stories and it used to be a hostel but the members who live there now just have their family and then us! So we have a kitchen, a study room, a living room, and then our room with full sized beds… not twin beds. The only down side is hot wáter doesn’t exisit. It is luke warmish but more cold. Also, it’s pretty common that I shock myself in the shower. Not on purpose, but the shower head has an electric current and unfortunately, it’s  made for short peruvians. At least it´s not freezing though. I finally found the ingredients to make banana bread and it is delicious. The only thing that I’m pretty sure doesn’t exisit is sour cream. But oh well.

The accent is different with the people whose first language is Quetchua. They tend to pronounce their Rs like we do in English and instead of siete and siempre, it’s shiete and shiempre.

So, it hailed this week. The good part is that we had just entered a house when it started to hail, so we weren’t walking outside in it.

Mi llama and I

Exciting news!!!!!!!!! Mari and Jesus are going to get married before the end of the year!!! They want to get married in this Little pueblo and hopefully we can get permission to go! But they’re just so adorable. They wouldn’t sit next to each other when I first met them, but now they smile and are laughing and sit next to each other. There is just a whole different spirit inside their home that was there before. Funny thing is that we taught them the Word of Wisdom which talks about the things we should do to be healthy and receive blessings. We asked Mari if she struggled with anything and needed our help. She said no, I don’t usually drink coffee and I stopped smoking a while ago. So then we turned to Jesus and he said I love to smoke cigars. Mari then said I used to, but I stopped. So we asked her what she did to stop smoking and she goes, I got pregnant. Jesus then looks down at his chubby belly and goes ‘’perfect! I think I’m already pregnant with this belly.’’ Then Mari asked us for our opinión on something. So she begins to say how she loves the smell of something, but she knows it’s not good. So we asked her what it was and she says’’ i love the smell of paint!’’ We then talked with her and she doesn’t go and sniff paint to get high but if she walks by a paint store, she enjoys the smell. We got a good laugh and explained that it wasn’t bad that she liked the smell, but she shouldn’t go around sniffing it all day! They are just a cute couple and their Little son Leo is my buddy. We play together and look at the pictures in the pamphlets.

You can read what the sign says, but we call it Sexy Woman!

Anyways, Christmas is in almost a week and I hope all is going well. I miss you all and send a huge hug from Cusco Peru.

Love,

Hermana Carly Lang

PS. Email me!! carly.lang@myldsmail.net

Week 22: The Work in Cusco!

Dear Friends and Family,

So I love this área. It is gorgeous. The people are super friendly and loving, but it is definitely a lot harder here. NO ONE IS EVER HOME!!!!! That is the down side, but my companion and I are still receiving blessings!

One thing I discovered is that I can`t eat platano raw. It doesn’t taste bad or anything, but it makes me gag. I’m hoping that goes away because I seriously have eaten WAY worse things and was fine. But when I say platano, I mean platano, not banana.

Well, our área that we cover is HUGE!!!!!!!!! We were trying to find a guy named Aldo who should have been baptized with Hermana Olivera (my mom in the misión) and Hermana Hoffman (my grandma in the misión). We wanted to figure out what happened. Luckily our information records had his cellphone number. So we called him and he was super excited. He told us which bus to take to get to his house and how to arrive. What we didn’t know was that is was 30 minutes in bus… and we still haven’t reached the limits of our área. Well. Awful part of the story. We asked the bus to tell us when we reached our stop. Well after 40 minutes, we asked if we had passed. He said, ‘’oops, i forgot to tell you guys, we passed it a long time ago.’’ So he dropped us off at the next stop so we could back track with another bus. BAD DECISION. I do not like Tipon. Tipon is the name of the place we stopped. Once you get out of Cusco, civilization changes a LOT. It was completely dark and there were a lot of men at the bus stop… and drunk!!! I have never prayed so much in my heart that the bus would come quickly and we could leave Tipon. Nothing bad happened… except some comments that we ignored. But we arrived safely and found a HUGE family. Aldo couldn’t attend church before because of his work, but is now not working Sundays and his family of like 10 people are excited for us to come back as well!!!

We have been blessed also to receive references from members. President Calderon’s wife gave us a reference of a girl who wants to listen. We passed by her house yesterday and she is getting married December 21st and wants to get baptized because her husband is a member, she said I only need your help to help me understand what it is exactly that you believe and I’m going to pray to have God help me guide my family  so that they can grow with good principles. She’s super busy right now, but said to come back Tuesday!!! So I’ll let you know next week!!!

Then we changed where we are eating lunch. The other lady is sick and so to make it easier, we changed. So now we are eating with Jessica. Her cooking is DIVINE!!!!!!!!!!!!! She isn’t a member but comes every Sunday. She’s in the process of trying to travel to Lima to get married because her partner lives there. Then she said she’s going to get baptized. Well, she gave us references of about 3 other people who want to be baptized! She is the best! She helps us a lot with finding people.

Anyways, other news, Stephanie, who I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, she got baptized Saturday! A Little sad that I missed it, but SOOOOOOOOO excited for her!!!!

I love you all and wish the best during the holiday seasons. I hope that you find time to open your hearts and love a Little more.

Love,

Hermana Carly Lang

PS. Email me!!! carly.lang@myldsmail.net and if you need my mailing address, it is on my Facebook and my blog, or you can Facebook my sister.

Week 21: Serving in Cusco!

My new area!

Dear Friends and Family,

So, last Monday was crazy. I was all over trying to say goodbye to people and then in the night, I traveled to Cusco. Tuesday morning, we went and hiked some. THAT WAS PRETTY MUCH DEATH. The altitude kills and then to hike up a mountain, I could hardly breathe. It was worth it though at the top and I didn’t die from shortage of oxygen. But wow, the altitude really hits you and I’m still not completely adjusted.

My companion, me, Hna. Inga, Hna. Lindsey, and Hn. Ingram

Well, I am still in Cusco. I am in the part called San Jeronimo and it’s beautiful. President Calderon is in my ward, but he’s not there a whole lot. My sector is a lot of climbing up and down, so I will definitely lose weight and it’s HUGE. I have walked about a third of my sector and there’s a LOT more, but it’s SUPER far. My new companion is from Mendoza Argentina and her name is Hermana Espinoza. The cool part is my name is Carly and she’s Carla, but our nicknames in Spanish are Carlita and Carlita! She’s super fun and really happy. I love having her as my companion. She doesn’t have an argentine accent though. L Her parents are both from Chile, so she speaks like a Chilena.

So Alicia is the mom of a girl who got baptized a few years ago. She comes to church every once in a while, but has never been baptized. Well we went to visit her and she said that this time, she could feel something different. She actually felt the desire to change. She however said that change is hard and so that she is going to pray to be able to make the changes and be baptized!!!!

The wild alpaca that we found... it is not a llama,
but I have seen a decent amount here.

Next, Mari and Jesus. They are a cute couple with a little boy who aren’t married. They have had a LOT of struggles, but the sister of Jesus is going to the temple tomorrow to be sealed and they have seen the changes that have happened in their family since they were baptized. They said they wanted the same for their family and are trying to plan when they can get married!!!!!!! Woohoo! I love weddings!

The best part is that with Hermana Espinoza, we work really well together. I can feel the spirit all the time when we teach and I know that the people can feel the joy the gospel brings too.

So funny story. My companion went to share some of her pictures that she has and she pulls out one that is her favorite and goes ‘’My sister sent this to me and I love it because there are 4 missionaries walking, but if you look closely, there are angels with them too.’’ It kind of sounded familiar to me what she was describing, so I asked to see, and I look at it and tears came to my eyes! It’s a picture that I have we have in my house and one of the missionaries in the picture is my brother! Super cool. I have no idea where her sister found the picture, but my companion now has a copy of it that she carries!!!!!!

I complete 5 months in the mission on wednesday,
this is not my fat btw, this is stuffed with stuff.

Well, I am super happy, it’s kind of cold here though. I think half of the problem is the climate change, but hopefully I adjust! And the thing is that the sun REALLY burns. You feel like your skin is burning the second you step outside.

Well, I hope you are all doing well. The holiday season is beginning and I encourage everyone to find ways to  share joy with all that you encounter.

Love,

Hermana Carly Lang

PS. Email me!!!! I love hearing from everyone

carly.lang@myldsmail.net