A Labor of Love: January 2015

Monday, January 26, 2015

By His Grace

HOLA!

I can`t believe another transfer has gone by!

This transfer FLEW. And....

I`m staying here in Tunuyan with Hermana Guzman!

What a blessing, I have learned so much from her already and can`t wait to learn even more!

This week has been a good one! It started out with a STELLAR family home evening with the Monasterio family. We invited the Pelayos (senior couple in our zone) to come and bear testimony of the importance of marriage. And wow, it was incredible, they are an amazing couple and have such strong testimonies of eternal families. They brought the spirit so strongly. As Silvana and Ramon talked about all the little things that have happened to get them to this point, they told us they know Heavenly Father wants them to be an eternal family, and they committed to go work on marriage papers this week! I have loved seeing the changes in this family as a whole. That`s what it is all about, helping FAMILIES together come to Christ. Alan is SO excited for his Baptism Sunday and is adorable as ever. In our last lesson he prayed that Hermana Guzman and I would stay here in Tunuyan... his prayer worked. :)

Carmen our investigator that wouldn`t pray in a lesson...prayed this week! YAY! She always told us she liked the way we prayed and was scared she would mess up. We told her that her Heavenly Father just wants to hear her. And she did it! Such a happy thing. Also this week we were talking to people in the street and we saw a family and I thought "We should talk to them" but then we lost em while talking to someone else.... but then tracted them down again and finally gave the dad a card while the mom was in the store. Next day we are flipping through the area book and see the name of a less active member and decided to go visit him. Turns out he is the only member in his family and his SISTER was the wife of the family we were practically stalking the day before. His mom and sister said they are interested in listening! Such a blessing :)

With transfers this week I have been thinking about things I can change, things I can improve, and have found myself dwelling on my weaknesses and thinking of all of the things I need to change and during studies I read this scripture... "The Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by His Grace and His condescensions unto the children of men that we have power to do these things."(Jacob 4:7)

It made me gain an appreciation and greater knowledge for my weaknesses. I truly am grateful for my weaknesses because it reminds me that I truly need my Savior and it is only by HIS Grace that I have the strengths I do. I am so grateful for my weaknesses and this opportunity I have to discover and improve them:)

Con Amor, Hermana Matheson

Entire Zone!

Love my comp :)

Hermanas de Valle de Uco!

P-Day! We went to go see the sweet statue of Christ in Tupungato!

Cristo el Rey! So sweet!

Hermana Blair. Being in the same zone is the bomb. :)

Family Home Evening with the Monasterio family (Ramon, Silvana, and Alan) I LOVE this family to the moon and back :)

Benefit of having a district with three Peruvians.... Peruvian food at District Meeting!

When its too hot to sleep inside...

We sleep outside.... (on our "spacious deck" haha)

So stoked to spend another transfer with my Peruvian amiga!

Tunuyan... is so pretty :)

Monday, January 19, 2015

Our Personal Plan

HOLA!

It is OFFICIALLY really hot here. I`m missing the snow right about now :)

This week was a good one, full of lots of learning and of course blessings too! Alan and Silvana are doing swell. They had an interview with the president this week and Alan is going to be baptized on Feb 1st. He was so excited. We taught them this week about tithing and they were so excited to be able to pay their tithing! They are such examples!

This week we have been teaching Carmen more and more. She gets so excited when we come. Whenever we are walking past her house and she sees us she runs outside to talk to us. She told us that she can truly feel something special when she is with us and likes it when we pray for her. We taught her that she too can pray for herself (she didn`t know...haha). I love her :)

We also have been teaching Margarita who we found when we were looking for a less active (happens all the time, the Lord works in mysterious ways). She is Evangelica but told us that she feels like she is missing "Spiritual Knowledge" and has been praying to learn more. #prayeranswered She told us she is going to pray to see if this is what she was looking for. You can truly see such a difference when someone is truly searching, and yearning for the truth and to know if it`s true, it makes all the difference in the world.

This week I have been thinking a lot about the Plan of Salvation. I really just love it. I was reading in the Liahona this week and a phrase caught my attention... "He has chosen the time and place for each of us to be born so we can learn the lessons we personally need and do the most good with our individual talents and personalities." Our Heavenly Father has truly designed a perfect plan for every single one of us. I think about all the little things that had to happen, the people I had to meet, trials and experiences I had to have in my life to get me to where I am. He truly has everything figured out and has given us talents and tools to overcome the trials HE gives us and to help the people He places in our lives, but it is up to us to recognize them and use them to become the person he wants us to become. I loved what he said at the end... "Remember... It`s what you do, with what you have, that makes you the person you are."

What a blessing it is to have my personal plan and to be here helping others recognize that they TOO have a PERSONAL plan created for them by a loving Heavenly Father :)

Con Amor, Hermana Matheson