Dear Everyone,

 

Oh boy was it rainy this week! we experienced what Sister Thornley calls `side-ways rain´ where there is so much wind that you need to hold your umbrella straight in front of you and hope that you don´t accidentally poke someone´s eye out! In fact we got so wet that the soles of Sister Thornley´s boots disintigrated yesterday. It´s a good thing that today we could go shopping! 

 

As far as the work goes this week we have been doing a lot of finding, planting, and sifting the wheat from the tares. This weekend we fasted for the capacity to find, reckognize and help the elect to progress and come unto Christ. It sure is nerve racking being Presidnet´s guinea pig because I went from having an average of 8 or 9 investigators in Church to having 2. But hey! It took Sister Giberson and I two transfers to get to that point, so I´m hoping that miracles will happen with time! We´ve made huge progress, though. The first week we had streets for our plans, but now we have a nice little handful of investigators. I´m hoping that I can leave an area better than I found it.

 

This Saturday we were chosen to train some future missionaries for an afternoon in the neighboring stake for a Mini-MTC experience. It was so much fun to help them and to hear of their conversion stories. Truly their decisions to serve missions will affect their future, their families, those they serve and their own country.

 

I remember that the week before my mission I talked casually with Sister and President Harbertson (a nice couple in the ward that are serving as mission presidents in Peru) about the mission. I remember that I explained that I was nervous that so many sister missionaries were leaving without are true, solid reason to leave. One thing that Sister Harbertson said was, `But when they return, they will be such better mothers and women in the Church.´ She went further to say that `we need a generation of women that are strong like the women that crossed the plains´ and that President Monson was worried about the activity of members that has been slowly declining and declining. One phrase that I specifically remember that she told me about one of her conferences was that the reasoning of changing the age of service was the following: `If we cannot baptize a generation that we remain firm in the Restored Gospel, we´ll need to create one.´

 

For the first time in my mission I´ve seen this actually take effect upon me. I guess it took an assignment as a senior companion in another white wash for me to see it. In June of 2013 I was a good girl with a testimony and some great things going for me. But after being put into a refiner´s fire for the past 7ish months I can´t believe how much I have changed and learned and grown. Sometimes I look back at my older journal entries or think about my attitude before the mission and I shudder at the thought of how many things in my life were wrong or sinful. I´m so, so, so far from being perfect, but at least now I know how to search for answers, who to rely on and how to face my fears with a smile.

 

Thanks for all of your love and support. I love you all!

 

Sister Derrick