Wow! Perú is amazing! Let me just tell you! I really am having a marvellous and incredibly humbling experience here. I have a native companion (se llama Hna Mamani). She is incredibly humble and very happy and fun to be around. I am constantly amazing by her love and her desire to help me. I am truly grateful to be down here to learn and grow in the culture instead of in provo. I was extremely grateful to have the opportunity to be in Provo, and I was more than a little sad to leave all of my amazing friends there (including one of my companions), but I am beginning to love the elders and hermanas here just as much. They truly are all amazing and are all called of God. Spanish is coming just as fast today as it was in Provo, but now I literally HAVE to speak spanish in order to plan and teach and just talk with my companion. I get to go to firesides and such that are in spanish and I don't even have to get the translation! :) My companion likes to learn some English, so thats kind of fun to teach, and she is cute. She always asks me how to say cute things: she now says 'I love you a lot, sister shearman' or 'you are my sister, enserio.' It is so great! She is so sweet. All of the elders are great too and we just have really bonded as we've been able to teach and share spiritual and life experiences together.
I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to be on a mission. It truly is the Lord's work and I am incredibly lucky to be able to be a part of it. I am constantly amazed at how Heavenly Father is changing and healing my heart, as well as how He is helping me develop as a person. It truly is a constant process that we all have to go through, the changing of a person's heart for the better in the love of Christ. I have had the opportunity to learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ and I just love it; it is so simple! Have faith, repent, be baptised, receive the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. I am so excited to share that with the people of Perú and I know that they have been prepared and will be receptive to the message that I bear, the message of the Restored Gospel.
I got to go to the Lima temple today...it was beautiful! It was such a great experience to know that I am in exactly the right place and to be able to understand spanish without translating it back into english. It was a bit tricky to say some things in spanish, but that will come with time. It truly is the House of God, and He really does reside there. What a blessing temples are! It was interesting, and a little weird to be outside the CCM and walking the streets of Lima, as well as riding the buses. It is a bit crazy, but I enjoyed it! :) We had a great experience, and things are really pretty crazy and different, but great here. In all of our classes I end up being a 'translator' of sorts, helping americans understand their latino companions as well as helping the teachers explain things in english...it is pretty great. I truly do love spanish!
I am so glad that you got to speak in a baptism! That sounds amazing. I'm sure that you did a wonderful job and that the investigators felt the Holy Ghost testify of the truthfulness of the gospel. I am sure that they understood more fully how they could feel the spirit. In my lessons I always end up saying 'yo sè que cuando lea y cuando ora y pregunta a Dios, recibirà una respuesta de Dios mediante un sentimiento en su corazòn. Este sentimiento es el Espìritu testificando sobre estas cosas.' It is truly powerful what a testimony can bring. I see it in every time that I teach, bearing witness of the truth, that you KNOW that it is the truth, and then letting that resonate with them is so strong! It is in those moments of silence that the Spirit will truly testify with so much strength to their hearts that it is difficult for many to deny that testimony and the spirit.
I don´t have much else to say. The country and the food are great...well most of the food. I think I may have eaten donkey the other day, but I am not entirely sure. Their desserts, though, are ALWAYS amazing...or at least they have been here. I have eaten more starch in the last week than I think I ate for a full year before that. It is pretty intense, but it is muy richo. I am doing well here, tired as usual, but that is the life of a missionary. When I get home I can sleep for 2 days or something...maybe.
I love you all and I know that I am where the Lord would have me be. I know that I will be able to bring the Spirit and the Gospel to many people and that they will be blessed because they listened to the words that I will attempt to speak! These people are truly prepared to hear the gospel and I know I am being prepared to teach it in a way that they need to hear it. I know that this work is the work of the Lord and that I will find a pattern for my entire life through my service here. I know that this church is true, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and I will testify of that truth to anyone and everyone who wants to listen. This is His time, and I will try to be obedient and humble and to learn and develop to be more like Him. That is my ultimate goal. I love you all. Nos vemos.
Hna Shearman
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