Week 33- Puno is Awesome!!!

Hna Giron and I

Dear Family and Friends,

 

So I am in Puno. Today, it hailed and we were late to our reunion. It’s definitely a little bit chilly here, but not winter yet, so the cold hasn’t hit yet thankfully. Plus, you don’t get much worse than Rexburg, so I am still not complaining!! I am with Hermana Giron. She has 9 weeks left in the mission and a really good missionary. I feel like I had transfers 1, for safety, and 2, I feel like I am needed here. Rumors are that she has transfers in 2 weeks which means I need to learn the area fast. It is smaller than my last area, but still decently big. I am in Salcedo. It’s pretty. The sun BURNS, but it’s not hot here. Once the sun goes down at about 4 or 5 in the afternoon, that is when it gets chilly. The work is a lot slower, but we have been working SUPER hard. I have never felt SOOOO exhausted in a week, but we were able to see a few miracles.

 

First one is that today Hermana Espinoza (my last companion) called me!! Yaneth (who I have mentioned in previous emails) is going to get married the 23rd of this month. The sad and selfish thought I have is that I won’t be there, but I am more excited for her than my little bit of sadness. Haha She then is going to get baptized because she has had that as her ultimate goal because she knew the church was true. The last time I saw her, she said, if my partner doesn’t want to get married, then I am going to separate from him. She says that things are getting better! I am super excited. The other thing is we found a super awesome family the other day. We had a lesson with the Bishop and this family (which is another miracle because the Bishop didn’t go out with the missionaries before) But the family said that they are willing the continue listening and they have a lot of love in their family! We also found a LOT of members that now aren’t attending church. Well, we gained their confidence and have been helping us find people and accompany us in our lessons! It’s interesting to see them strengthen others and they are in the age to go on missions too!!! We have LOTS and LOTS of work to do! The area is super rough, but we have a lot of plans and have put the goal to be 110% obedient and do absolutely all that we can here.

 

Well, my second day here, another dog bit me! This time, it barely broke the skin, but the dogs are a little more vicious here. A funny story. We went to go eat with Hermana Nora who cooks for us. She has 2 kids. An 11 year old and the other I think is 5 years old. I stuck out my tongue at the little girl because we were joking around and she told me "don't do that." I then asked why and she told me ‘’Don’t stick out your tongue because the princesses of God don’t stick out their tongues.’’ Haha well that gave me a good laugh and I'll have to work on that one. Another funny story is we went to visit a family who had references for us. I was talking with Carmen who is special and she was looking at a picture of the family. She was telling me that my eyes were from mom and my chin from Dad and she did this with everyone in the family. Well then we got to Danny (best for last) and she points to the left eye and goes, this eye is from your dad and the other eye is from your mom. That made me laugh a lot!!

 

Well, I am super happy here. It is definitely different but the members that are active are super friendly and we are working hard. I hope and wish the best for all of you. Email me and let me know how you are doing back home. I love and miss you all but wouldn’t want to be anywhere else or doing anything else right now.

 

Love Always,

Hermana Lang

PS. No pictures this week because i left my cord in my last area, but it should hopefully come by next week. I do have pictures I want to send!!! Also... only 3 sisters have gone home since I have been here and no one new has come in 7 months!!!! I am still THE youngest missionary.

Week 32- Transfers are right now!

Huasao... yes, I had a LOT of style this day...
Primary colors!!

Dear Friends and Family,

 

Well, I’ll let you all decide if this was the most exciting week or the most boring.

 

Monday we went to our reunion in the morning and then I emailed you all. In the afternoon, we went to go play soccer for a little bit. Then we got bored and left to go downtown. There we walked around some of the shops and then we decided to eat McDonalds… my first time since leaving the airport in Atlanta in July. There, we ran into some of the elders from the other zone in Cusco. Well, then we had a ‘’noche de hogar’’ which is a family night and we visited a family whose daughter is inactive and lives here. The rest of her family lives in Bolivia. It was fun.

 

Tuesday, we worked a normal day. We had the day full of appointments. Only one of them wasn’t home. Unfortunately, it was the one appointment that was super far.

 

Wednesday, you’d think was a normal day…. Well the first half at least. We visited Vianca who got baptized in October, we visited the family from Monday again. In the middle of the appointment, the zone leaders called us like 5 times. We were kind of annoyed. Then when we got out of the  appointment, we called them. They said, ‘’HERMANAS!!! Where are you right now, you NEED to be in your apartment RIGHT now.’’ Without question, we went to our apartment. We weren’t allowed to leave until they called us again. So they called us later that night and said that I had an emergency transfer to Tio which is close by and that I would be there until Friday morning at least. My companion would be Hermana Lindsey (another girl from Utah). And that her companion was coming here. Well… I packed a bag and we left. They finally told us what the deal was. Can anyone confirm this with the news there??? They told me there had been terrorist threats to the US that something like the twin towers was going to happen again. Well…….. the leader of this terrorist group came here to Cusco to  talk to the President here and so all gringos were on lockdown. The rest of the missionaries could go out from 12pm to 7pm and then were in for the night. They couldn’t contact in the streets or knock doors either.

 

Thursday, I woke up. Did p90x. Read almost all of Alma. Read some stuff from the Liahona. SUPER exciting day.

 

Friday, almost the exact same. Stuck inside all day. We couldn’t even leave to eat around the corner, the hermana had to bring us our food. Then in the night, we bought pizza because dinner never came and we were starving.

 

Carnavlaes- they decorate the trees with stuff that
you'd use to soak people and then they dance
around the tree and chop it down... kind of weird.

Saturday, I was able to return to my area, but under the conditions of 12pm to 7pm and no contacting or knocking doors. Yesterday we talked to Yaneth about the law of chastity. She said she didn’t know what she should do. She was going to talk to her husband about getting married or separating. She says that she knows that if she keeps the commandments that God will help her in the direction she should go.

 

Sunday, super long day. We couldn’t find anyone we wanted to see. Luckily some members had given us references, but none of them were home Sunday and so hopefully during the week. And now for… exciting news? I’m not sure if I’m excited yet or not, but I have transfers. I have only had 2 transfers here and this next transfer is 3 weeks. I’m going to…….. drum roll please…… PUNO! Where it’s SUPER cold and they eat Chuño. Chuño is made from potatoes and what I’ve heard is they smash it with their feet and then make balls with it and put it back into the earth to freeze and then they eat it and cook it… I’ve had chuño in soup and it’s NOT yummy. So I am going to higher altitude and I will probably lose weight there.

 

The beginning of being covered with foam.
Luckily it goes away quickly. Better than water

Anyways, I think that sums up my week pretty much. I wish I had a super funny story, but more of just complete mission craziness. One thing though… this wasn’t out of stupidity, but I was SUPER thirsty Friday night and we couldn’t leave to buy water, so I boiled water. There weren’t any cups and I didn’t want to wait for the water to cool, so I poured the boiling water into my plastic water bottle. Well the plastic melted a little and the bottle shrunk, but I was able to drink my water happily!!!

 

Another interesting thing, I learned that here, you can baptize your car. And Carnavales… I think it’s now over, but we got soaked yesterday.

 

I think that about covers it all. I hope you all had a lovely week and that you enjoyed Valentines Day. I was on lockdown thinking of you all!!!

 

Love Always,

Hermana Carly Lang

 




 

Week 31- Happy Valentine's Day

I found yellow flowers. reminded me of a picture
I took on my 21st bday in Idaho

Dear Friends and Family,

 



So this week was crazy. We worked super hard to find new people to teach and to help those who we have already found. But to start off with a few things from Peru… They have this type of music that’s called Guayno (you’ll have to check the spelling) but it’s awful! To me, it sounds like old drunk women singing. Also, I learned that if you are anemic, which thankfully I’m not, that you should drink the blood of a bull, one glass every day for a month. HOW GROSS!!!!!!! There is also a drink called Maltin Power. It’s soda made from wheat… it made me want to gag. ALSO, Carnavales continues. It’s a fiesta that I think celebrates the harvest from rain? And so during summer, they

celebrate it for like 2 weeks and people throw water balloons and such. I thankfully escaped being soaked, but my companion not so much.

 

Well, we went to visit a lady in the church who said she had a few things to tell us. Her name is Martha and she’s SUPER nice and friendly, but cookey. Well……. We went to her house and she fed us super delicious pastries and hot chocolate, BUT you know what? She’s a mystic. She has a room with a curtain and a little table and decorated all crazy. The only thing that she didn’t have was the crystal ball in the center of the table.

 

Well, we finally contacted the mom of 4 girls that have been coming. She lives on top of a HUGE HUGE HUGE hill. I was out of breath when we arrived. Then when we were there, there were all sorts of commotion because the uncle who lives next door was drunk and in a violent mood. He ended up leaving and who knows where he ended up, but the mom thanked us for all of our help and she gave permission to her girls to get baptized and she even said that she wanted to listen now!

 

Also, Luisa. We have been visiting her some time now and she has come 2 Sundays in a row!!! She came yesterday and when she saw us, her face lit up and gave us a huge hug.

 

Well, I don’t have more time, but I love you all and I hope that you have a wonderful Valentines Day, I send my love to all!

 

me running to make the picture... it was more than a
10 second run and I had to be careful of the mud.

Love Always,

Hermana Carly Lang

me in the picture

 



Week 30- I don't like rain anymore

Dear Family and Friends,

 

So I think I am eternally sick with a cold. This week, I had to go back to the doctor and he says that I need to call today to do a follow up. I’m much better than before, but still sick with a stuffy nose, the sniffles and an itchy throat, but at least I have a voice now! I lost my voice midweek from coughing and my companion couldn’t sleep because of me coughing and I obviously didn’t sleep either. Super fun.

 

Working this week was also hard. I was a little frustrated when I knelt down to pray Saturday night. I prayed for Heavenly Father to help us. We had done all that we could, but didn’t see any results. Well Sunday came and we showed up at church and none of our investigators were there. My heart sank a little… ok a lot! Well a few minutes later, the first blessing came. Alberto entered. Alberto is NOT one of our investigators though. He’s a member who helped us a lot in Puerto Maldonado. It was exciting to see him. He told us that his aunt wants to be baptized and gave us her address! SWEET!!! Then right when the meeting started, Ramiro entered and sat down. He came even though he didn’t feel good from his chemotherapy! He left after the first hour! BUT WOW! When he was in Lima, he ran into a family from here who are members and the member told us that he loves the church and is so much happier now! We have an appointment tomorrow with him! Hopefully exciting news for next week now that he’s back. The next blessing, Felicia and Daniel came! It’s a mom and a son whose husband/dad is a recent convert. They’re preparing to get baptized too!!! Then when the first hour ended, we found out that Luisa and her daughter and son had come too!!! We also found Luis! 6 people came! I finally felt like we could see some success.

 

We found a lot of new people this week. A member was showing us houses he visited with the missionaries about 5 years ago! We found a ginormous family! We haven’t met all of them, but there is the grandma, her 8 children who all but 1 have their families and then I think 11 grandchildren. The last daughter who isn’t married was so excited that when we came back her mom said that her daughter had talked a lot about this being what she wanted to do with her life. Her name is Thalia and she is a doll. We taught her and at the end she said thanks so much for taking the time to really listen to me. She says she doesn’t feel like she really has friends and that instantly she felt loved by us! Awww. That made my day.

New part of my area that we discovered this past week... I still don't know all of my sector. It's HUGE!!!

 

Anyways, we have a lot planned for this week. Fun experience, we were walking to find a certain house and we look to our left and I go, oh great, a nice little stream that we need to cross… well, correction, it was the street…. Completely flooded with water, not a stream.

 

Also, quick update on Yaneth. She agreed to be baptized, but now she says that she needs to talk to her husband about marriage. Although they have a LOT of problems to solve, we have a lot of hope for how this family can end up! We feel that they will progress to be a happy little family! We’re excited to see her tomorrow!!!

 

Well, I love you all and wish the best. One quick thing I learned or more was reminded was that we need to apply what we learn, if we don’t apply, then what we learned is in vain. Also, when we do what the Lord commands, he is bound to complete His promise, but if we fail, He has no promise with us… (D&C 82:10)

 

I wish you a feliz semana!

 

Love,

Hermana Lang

Causa... look it up. One of my favorite dishes