Week 37- Words of Encouragement would be MUCH appreciated! :)

Dear Friends and family,

 

This is the part of my mission where you all send me words of encouragement because I’m a little discouraged. Crutches are killing my arms.

 

Anyways, so just so that you all know, I’m still the same Carly as before. I can’t say no to being social. Last Monday, I played volleyball…. Well… kind of. I stood on the court and didn’t move at all and when the ball came directly to me, I could play! Haha. It was better than sitting and watching at least.

 

Tuesday, I was still in Cusco and Elder Nash came to speak. So I played the piano for the choir. It went really well considering I had hardly any time to practice. But the choir sang wonderfully and in tune! But Elder Nash talked about 3 Nephi 20. I don’t remember the chapter but how we are children of the covenant and God keeps His covenants with us. He promised in Malachi that we should try him with our tithing and see if He won’t bless us SO much that there won’t be room to receive all of the blessings. Well, then why don’t we have enough faith in God that He will keep His promises with all of the commandments He has given. Well, I can answer that, we have a lot of trials and other things that distract us or convince us to rationalize or to not believe in the promises God has made to us. All of us to one degree or another need to increase our faith by living these principles because it is through our actions that we show our faith that then converts into testimony! After his talk, I had the chance to talk a few moments with him and his wife. They were both so gracious to me for playing the piano. Hermana Calderon said that it was a blessing that I ended up in Cusco (not that I dislocated my ankle to end up there) but that they really were in need of a pianist.

 

Wednesday, President called me and asked how I was. I told him I was tired! But felt like I needed to be back in Puno and he said well then, back to Puno you go tonight! I was so excited to go back to Puno and actually be able to work… or so I thought.

 

Thursday, we worked super hard to prepare the people for their baptisms, but since I hadn’t been there an entire week almost, we had to postpone the baptisms because they simply weren’t ready to be baptized Saturday. By the end of the day, I was sore and sick of crutches.

 

Me and my beloved wheelchair back in Puno

Friday, I woke up and honestly thought, I can’t do this anymore. I’m going to call Hermana Nora and tell her I’m not going to go to breakfast because I can’t walk there. I was super discouraged, but I thought, 'No, this work is more important than me staying inside because I don’t think I can do it.' So we left the apartment and about halfway there, I was SOOOOOOOOOO exhausted. Then we found ourselves in the street with Nora’s mom who is a sweet little Peruvian lady. She said to wait right there. So we waited and I thought, please don’t take long, I need to get to breakfast now because it takes me a while to walk back and we need to begin our studies after breakfast. Well, a few minutes later, she shows up with a wheelchair. I cannot tell you how much of a blessing and answer to my prayer that was. The night before I had knelt down and prayed for strength. I prayed for help that I would have the means or the motives to continue on. Well, when I woke up and said I can’t do this, I think Heavenly Father knew I wasn’t joking, so He sent me that wheelchair! Now all of the streets aren’t paved so the wheelchair doesn’t go everywhere, but when we are on paved roads, it has saved my arms!

 

Well, we have been working with the Familia Supo! They recently have decided to start coming to church again and we were able to visit them this week! The youngest daughter is super excited to prepare for her baptism. We are going to see them tomorrow and figure out when she can be baptized! Her name is Linda… which if you speak Spanish, the name fits her. She’s adorable.

 

Saturday, we had a stake talent show! It turned out really well and I was impressed with some of the talent here! It was super fun and good to relax a little from walking.

 

Sunday was the best. We had 0 appointments planned… which to start off a day like that doesn’t offer a lot of excitement. We started to pass by people that we needed to visit, but they weren’t home. I was out of ideas when I said, let’s visit a member who lives close by (I’m not sure if it was the spirit or my selfishness wanting to rest a few moments) BUT… whatever the reason,  it brought blessings. The member told us about a lady who came to church today with her sister who isn’t a member. Her son then offered to drive us to her house! SWEET!!! Because her house is FAR and up the hill! So we arrive at the house and they had recently just left, but there was a lady there. She said that her son wanted to be baptized but had left for a month vacation and wasn’t baptized before his vacation and that she too wanted to see what the church taught!! Super awesome! She told us to come back soon! So tomorrow we’ll see how it goes. Then I remembered my companion before showing me a house but couldn’t remember if the family were members or not or anything about them, but I remembered the house. So we knocked and it turns out that the lady is the sister of a member and wanted to know more! So after that, we visited Marleny! She has been fasting lately for her husband to get divorced from his other wife so that they can get married. She said that she HATES fasting, BUT that she has definitely seen a little change in him and so she is going to continue fasting every Sunday until she can reach her goal because for 8 years, she has wanted to get baptized, but isn’t married. Anyways, yesterday was definitely a fulfilling day.

 

Anyway, I have to share a scripture that an awesome friend in Mexico sent me in a letter. Obviously it was written before anything happened but that has given me a lot of motivation. I have it written in Spanish, so if the translation isn’t exact, sorry. ‘’Because dedicate all of your service to Zion; and in this you will have strength. Be patient in the trials because you will have many; but bear them, because I am with you until the end of your days… You will have what’s necessary to magnify your calling…’’ Doctrine and Covenants 24:7-9.  So when things get tough, remember the Lord is with you ALWAYS. He will help you and will be with you and you will have the sufficient means to do what is required! So thanks E. Walker for the scripture. It was much needed! But I encourage everyone to remember this in your own trials that come in life! [The actual English version I'm including with her translation.  I'm leaving her translation so you can see which parts meant something to her, but the English because, well, it's easier to understand the whole meaning: "For thou shalt devote all thy service in Zion; and in this thou shalt have strength.  Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many; but endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days.  And in temporal labors thou shalt not have strength, for this is not thy calling.  Attend to thy calling and thou shalt have wherewith to magnify thine office, and to expound all scriptures, and continue in laying on of the hands and confirming the churches."]

 

Thank you all for your prayers and I hope that all is well. I wish the best and you are always in my prayers.



 Hermana Wendoly and I

 

Love Always,

Hermana Carly Lang

 

 

PS. CAST HOPEFULLY COMES OFF FRIDAY!!!!!!! And then we will see what happens.

Week 36- Don't waste your money on exercise machines, buy yourself a pair of crutches.

This is the picture that explains the story. Not my most
photogenic picture, but me and the bishop's wife in Cusco

Dear Friends and Family,

 

So there is lots to tell, but unfortunately not a ton about my investigators. I wish I could tell you more about them, but I really don’t know what is happening with them right now. So first of all, I am back in Cusco in my old area. Now to explain, scan to the bottom and look at the pictures.

 

First of all… don’t waste money on exercise machines… buy yourself a pair of crutches… I am exhausted!

 

Ok so story time. Transfers came and I wasn’t training… WORSE. I am with a mini missionary. I felt SO stressed because it meant that I would be doing most of the work. PLUS, I had to show the new elders everything. STRESS. So we went to the terminal Monday night and then went to go pick up my mini missionary (Wendoly) who was going to be my companion for Tuesday… well, we went by her house and just my luck, it was dark and I took one step backwards and to my shock, ended up 3 feet below in a ditch/gutter. I had NEVER felt so much pain in my foot… I can’t tell you what happened, but we all heard a crack and I was sure my foot was broken. I couldn’t move it at all and I just wanted to scream. So at 10:30 at night, we went to the hospital with the Zone Leaders who are life savers. Well, they x-rayed my foot and it wasn’t broken. Slowly the pain went down, but it swelled a ton and began to bruise.

 

Tuesday was the actual day that everyone was going to be notified of where they were going and who was going to be their companion and such. Aka Preparation Day which meant I could rest ALL day. I’m not really convinced that it helped, but Wednesday came all too fast and I went to work with Yanderline (a member in my ward in Puno). We worked our butts off and committed Abigail to baptism for the 23^rd of March!!!! Well, Thursday, we went to the clinic because my foot was still killing me and swelling and bruising more. We went to the clinic where he told me that I needed surgery because some things were separated that shouldn’t be… UH………… WHAT? I was not super happy about that. So we called Hermana Calderon and she said to have me travel to Cusco where the medical care is better. So that day I spent trying to explain to the elders there who they needed to visit and such.

 



Edu... he dressed himself.....

Friday morning, I arrived in Cusco and no one here knew I was coming, so all by myself, I waited in the terminal at 5am for the sister missionaries to come. Finally I called the zone leaders who solved the problem. Then I went to the doctor and they took comparative x-rays of my 2 feet. Luckily, NO SURGERY is necessary!! My 2 feet are the same… However, from what I understood (which is difficult, I’ve never learned these medical terms in Spanish) But I dislocated my ankle and for whatever reason, the specialists in Cusco said to put my foot in a cast. I thought you only put casts on for broken bones? But what do I know of medical stuff! Haha. But, right now I am in Cusco and it’s DEATH! My crutches are too small and hills to mix with crutches. But luckily, President doesn’t expect me to go out and tract because in the area where I am… it’s pretty much impossible. So President gave me the assignment to play the piano for a choir that is going to sing tomorrow. Elder Nash is coming to visit the members and such. The missionaries don’t have permission to go, except for me, because they needed a pianist. So at least I have something to do with my time.

 

Tomorrow, President returns from Puerto Maldonado and he said that we would discuss the options of whether I stay here in Cusco or return to Puno and for another  11 days, I am with this cast on my foot. SOOOOO exciting.

 

Anyways, what I have learned this week is to depend on my Savior. My ankle in all honesty kills and I can’t work… super easy to get discouraged, but then I think of my Savior and when my arms are tired from crutches, I think, 'you know what? I can do this.'. And then I’m blessed with excitement to continue on. So when things get tough… KEEP GOING! Haha But seriously. When you give up is when you’re going to feel discouraged, it’s the moments when you push through things that you achieve the satisfaction and are rewarded with the relief that you accomplished what was most important.

 



Some members and I and Hna Giron in Puno

Anyways, that is about it that I have to tell you because I wasn’t really able to walk much to meet new people and visit people and so my stories are kind of boring this week, but hopefully I can find someway to be useful this next week.

 

Well, friends and family, I am so grateful for your support and prayers. I hope you are all doing well and you are in my prayers as well.

 

Love Always,

Hermana Lang

 

Week 35- I am not training!!! Wooohoooo!

What you can see across Lake Titicaca is ALL of my sector.
What you see is Jalihuaya... which is the part that we visit least.

Dear Friends and Family,

 

So first off, my companion has transfers… which means I now have to direct the area to my new companion (which thankfully I am not training this transfer) and also help the 2 new elders that are now going to be in my sector too. So tomorrow night, I will know who is my new companion. I am kind of nervous.

 

So this week we worked a TON. We planned a Battle of Talents. The Ward usually doesn’t support a lot in the activities, but this activity had a LOT of success and helped bring unity to the Ward!!  It was great. A lot of the Ward ended up coming and we all laughed and enjoyed the skits and such.

 

Well, last week we went to visit a family that my companion had met a few months prior. The son had wanted to be baptized but his Dad said no. Well, when we went to visit, the mom, Betty, told us that she thought God wasn’t answering her prayers. Well, she told us how her husband had recently left her for a 16 year old and that she needed peace in her life. Well, we went back to visit her and she and her daughter and son are set to be baptized the 23rd of this month!!!  She luckily has a lot of friends in the church to support her because she is going through a lot of trials.

 

I feel like I don’t know what to write this week. This next week will definitely be crazy busy, but with transfers, luckily P-day is tomorrow so that I can rest and prepare for the week to come.

 



My companion and I and Maribel.
We went to Jalihuaya for the day to visit some less actives over there.

Also, we have been working with Romulo. He is definitely SUPER odd. It is hard to get him to directly answer a question. I think he should probably study philosophy because he talks like a philosopher. If he has a question about chastity, he’s not going to directly ask, he’ll ask what is the definition of love. Hahaha so we have had a lot of fun listening to him and trying to figure out what he REALLY is asking. But I have definitely learned patience and to listen and understand the person. He has a lot of desires to follow God, but doesn’t have a solid testimony in Jesus Christ, nor in modern day prophets, so hopefully we can help him!

 

Anyways, I think that is pretty much it. I love you all and really do appreciate the prayers and letters and emails and all of the support!

 

Love Always,

Hermana Carly Lang

 





 

Week 34- Snow...

Dear Friends and Family,

 

So welcome to Puno… we had a mini snowball fight today. I don’t know at what point it snowed, it more rained, but there was slush on the ground. Kind of crazy. The other thing is I still haven’t received my cable to upload pictures, surely next week! Because I really do want to show you how beautiful it is here!

 

So a cute story I heard. There was a little girl who wanted to have her birthday party outside in a park. However, it was rainy season. She told all of her friends and began to pray. She prayed that if it were God’s will, that it wouldn’t rain for her birthday. Well she prayed and she prayed and finally came the day of her birthday. She was so excited, but… it POURED that day. Her friends snickered and made fun of her for praying so much and saying that God hadn’t answered her prayer. She looked at them boldly and said, ‘’No, God did answer my prayer and he said No.’’ This experience taught me a lot about humility and accepting God’s will. We sometimes pray for things that to us seem like a worthy request, but it isn’t God’s will. God answers yes sometimes, and sometimes no. Sometimes it’s a wait a little longer, but God DOES answers prayers. We just need to recognize how God is answering our prayers.

 

Part of my zone... eating ice cream in Puno

Well, this week we had training! With the Assistants and with President! It was AWESOME! Just a few thoughts from what I learned, Puno is known to be a HARD area of the mission. He talked a lot about living what we preach. The gospel of Christ brings happiness and we need to apply that to our own lives if we feel disanimated. Here, we are looking for the chosen investigators, but we need to remember that Christ struggled with this too… Think about the people He chose to be His followers, doubting Thomas, Peter who denied him 3 times, and Judas who betrayed Him. We also talked about what we felt when we took the sacrament. Most said grateful to receive a remission of their sins. He then relayed a story with Elder Holland who had come a little while back to the area to meet with all of the leaders. Elder Holland asked the same thing and after all of the responses, he said that he personally felt HORRIBLE during the sacrament. President Calderon then personalized it and asked me how I would feel if my sister had to die for me to pay for my sins. I would feel horrible. I would feel horrible that someone would have to pay SOOO much for my faults, but that’s how it is and although I do feel horrible that it had to be that way, I am grateful that someone loved me enough to suffer SOO much. President then compared the people here to Goliath… they’re hard to conquer, but then he asked, do you believe that you’re David? It was a really cool reunion. We all left with motivation and having had our spirits lifted.

 

Another fun story I heard that reminded me of what I needed to do. There once was a Penguin who learned how to fly, he thought it was SOOOO cool that he showed ALL of his friends. He taught them how to fly. They flew around all afternoon so excited with what they had learned and at the end of the day, they all walked home. I think a lot of the time, we are like the penguins who failed to apply what they learned.

 

So crazy news here in the mission, transfers are in another week and my companion has transfers for her health which means… I am most likely training. There are 35 new missionaries coming (7 are sisters) and only one elder is going home… which means we are opening 17 new areas… SUPER crazy. It makes me nervous and excited and blessed to be apart of this work that is rapidly going forth.

 

Fun joke of the week. I have no idea why, but I was trying to remember the Spanish word for 'alien'. I couldn’t remember and I was like hm… how do I describe this to my companion. I thought and then asked ‘’Como se llaman los extranjeros verdes de otras planetas’’ (what do you call the green foreigners from other planets) she then laughed and responded ‘’Greengo (gringo) we had a good laugh with that one and then she told me the actual word.

 

So some of the awesome people here. Isaac… we met him in the street, talked to him and then visited his family a week ago. We taught him about families and Joseph Smith and asked if he would pray about what we had taught. He said, No. I won’t pray for something that I don’t believe in. He said, I’m not saying it’s not true, but I won’t pray to know. We left SUPER discouraged. We prayed to know how to help him. We prayed for comfort. We talked about all of the things we could do to help him. Talk about the spirit, prayer, prophets. We decided that was it. We prepared a super legit lesson and then went back. When we got there, we felt that what we had prepared was ALL wrong. We ended up teaching the plan of salvation and that families can be together forever. EXACTLY what he needed. At the end he said that he wanted to grow closer to God again and that he owed it to his mom who had passed away a year ago. He said that he doesn’t know which path his mom wants him to take but that he would pray! WHAT???? Through the spirit, he decided that he was going to pray. Such a difference from before. Hopefully we can continue to help him

 

Then there is Soledad. We couldn’t find ANYONE yesterday and were walking around without any plans because plans A, B and C had already failed. No one was home. We decided to see if Soledad was there (an old investigator that I hadn’t met) Well, she was!!!  We taught her about the plan of salvation too and then her husband who is a less active member came. We talked about the importance of marriage and they said they wanted to get married!!!!! Friday we are going to go back to find out when and how we can help. Here in Salcedo, people can get married SUPER easily, basically you can get married tomorrow if you want! Such a blessing in compared to my other areas.

 

Well, my companion has 7 weeks left in her mission and she is awesome. I learn so much from her and although the work is tough, we are working and the Lord is blessing us! I LOVE LOVE LOVE being a missionary.

 

Thank you so much for all of your prayers. I wish the best.

 

Muna Cuiqui (I love you in Quetchua)

Jujariqui ( I miss you)

Love Always,

Hermana Lang