4th of July in Peru

[July 4, 2013]


[email #1 - kb]

i think it will be best if i spend the beginning of my time writing one big email for everyone and then using whatever's left to write back to everyone. I appreciate everyone's individual emails and i love you all! I read everything everyone sends to me, and it helps so much :) thank you!

This was a great week in the CCM (MTC)! some highlights:

Pineapple sopapilla. enough said.

Something my teacher said to me in the middle of class one day: "Hermana Bennett, I like your hair. It looks like a... nurse."

One day during personal study time, i was reading a book. I rested my head on my hand, because this getting up at 6 AM thing is kinda rough for me, and the next thing I knew, i opened my eyes to everyone smiling at me. Obviously i had completely fallen asleep and started snoring... :/

Every night in our room we try to sing hymns together before we go to sleep. It would be really nice except for every one of us wears a retainer at night ha ha ha. It's a good effort though.

The other day during a dodgeball game with the Latinos, one of them turned to me and said, "you know lord of the rings?" and i said, "yes." and he said, "my preciousss," pointing to a ring on his hand, in a Smeagul voice with a Spanish accent ha ha HA!

Today, they gave us a 4th of july buffet! all of the teachers wore red white and blue, and american flags were everywhere. It was SO sweet.

So. obviously there's a lot of fun stuff going on here. But i'm actually learning so much about myself, and the gospel every day. Elder Christofferson of the 12 apostles was here last week in honor of the 100th stake being set apart in Perú! he came and spoke to us at the CCM, and since there are only about 150 missionaries here, we each got to shake his hand. Right as I went in for the handshake, i remembered this one time somebody told me that you're not supposed ot shake general authorities´ hands very hard at all or you might break their wrist because they shake so many hands every day. So i totally froze ha ha oh man it was awkward. we werejust like standing there, not saying anything so then i smiled and stuck out my hand and said, "gracias!" and walked away. ha ha obviously i speak spanish when I'm nervous now! but it was a very cool experience. the man who introduced him said, "there are only 12 apostles in the world, and one of them is here talking to you right now." the one thing I can remember best about his message was that as missionaries, we are companions with the apostles since their duty is to spread the gospel to all corners of the earth. how cool is that?

To be honest, there are a lot of days here where i feel SO overwhelmed. I rarely feel like a missionary. I'm actually beside myself a lot of the time, just thinking, "Is this really happening? am i really on my mission in PERU right now?" It's still not feeling completely real yet ha ha.The other day, we had to teach some latina missionaries, pretending they were investigators. it went HORRIBLY. my companion even started crying and we just threw in the towel. And then we had to go straight to another practice exercise. I took a minute, and said a prayer beforehand. I asked for just a tiny glimpse that i could really do this mission thing. And as we taught our next lesson, it was i could feel the spirit so strongly. The words flowed so easily. the pretend investigators stood up and hugged us afterwards, saying that it was the most beautiful lesson they'd heard. I know that we couldn't have done that on our own. I know that the spirit is going to be the companion i will have with me for this entire mission, and that if i allow Him to do the teaching, i will find all the success i need to on my mission.

this week has actually flown by so stinking fast! I have a feeling that I'm going to be out in the mission field before i even know it. I am so excited! whenever we get to go out for P day, I get to see the people I'll be teaching in a month. They are SO beautiful.

Well, I've been taking pictures! the problem is, I don't get 4 days to let them upload, so i'll try to send one every once in a while. I love you all! The other day I was thinking about my family, and i received the sweetest confirmation that my Heavenly Father is taking care of you all. Remember that :) Con mucho amor.

Hermana Bennett

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[email #2 - kb]

Here are some pictures! one is of the 4th of july feast, and the other is me and my compañera Hermana Blackwell at the temple.

Some things i forgot that I'm really bummed about that you should probably get to Brit (and me if you can think of a safe way) if she forgot: my business cards, pictures of family and like, my picture books from graduation, and everyone's email addresses! that last one you could just email me if you get time. How was dropping her off? I'm so excited to be out here at the same time as her. We're basically companions. :) And dad, I found your Fish! thank you! love you all.

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[Email # 3 (actually went to Nash, but everone will probably like it) kb]

Nash, kenneth, bennett. I'm going to pretend like you didn't NOT email me last week... well things here are pretty rough. we get fed 3 huge meals every day. we get an hour of physical activity to do whatever we want (soccer with south americans is amazing). we get taught the gospel all day. I'm learning a lot it's hard, but so so good. Sometimes i forget how to speak english ha i'm not very good at spansih either, so sometimes, i just can't speak any language.... we have to ride these huge buses to get around when they let us out on our days off. the other day, our bus dies in the middle of the street... but they go tit working in a couple minutes with cars just buzzing past us! the building here are all kind of run down, hopefully i can send pics soon! there ARE a lot of dogs, but they're not as terrifying as the ones on the internet. just a lot of strays. write back fool.

hermana bennett