Book of Mormon Challenge!

Well, this week has been an emotional roller-coaster! 

1. I am officially an old missionary! I have a year in the mission! My MTC district is emailing like crazy just wondering how it is possible that time has passed so fast! I can't believe I have been here a year already. Just 6 short months left. I am going to do EVERYTHING I can in these 6 months to help these amazing people in Peru accept the gospel :) I have learned SO much in the past year, and I am going to put it all into practice these next 6 months! I hope to see lots of results :) These pictures are of a poster that my pensionista and her family made for me on my year mark :) 

2. So something pretty interesting happened in the South America Northwest region this week. Elder Uceda, Elder Waddell, and Elder Grow made a huge announcement. Not so much an announcement, but invitation. They asked that in the family home evenings here, the families are going to focus 100 percent on the Book of Mormon. Families are invited to read the Book of Mormon together every single day for 15 minutes and finish it before the end of the year. Once we finish it, the bishop will send a letter to the 70 and they will write us a personal congratulations letter in response! :) SO I am SUPER pumped about this invitation!!! I just finished the Book of Mormon this week and I am totally going to read it again before I finish my mission...so that I can receive one of these congratulations letters!! 

It was awesome this week as I was able to finish the Book of Mormon. Church yesterday was focused 100 percent on this announcement from the area Presidency and I was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting on the announcement and the Book of Mormon. I loved being able to speak to the members(and our investigators that were there) about the amazing blessing we have by having the Book of Mormon in our homes. The Book was written by prophets specifically for us in this day...For our families! President Packer describes the Book of Mormon as our spiritual protection and I believe this is true. The Book of Mormon testifies of Christ, that is obvious, but it has a certain power that is indescribable. It is so amazing and has worked miracles in my mission. I have a very firm testimony of this book, and when people spit in my face, telling me that the Book I hold in my hands is a book written by fools...I am glad that I can walk away with a firm testimony that I KNOW this book is true. It has helped me with spiritual protection in my life. I am excited to take up this challenge and make the Book of Mormon even more present in my life.

Well, that is all for this week. We are pushing forward ready to receive LOTS of miracles in this work. Bring it on Peru :) Love you all!!

Hermana Agle

My awesome district :) Elder Alvarez from Cusco, Elder Montesino from Honduras, Elder Larsen from Logan, Elder Congora from Huancayo, Hermana Hewitt from Logan and Hermana Pinto from Bolivia :) And me and Hermana Lopez :)

   

General Conference was AMAZING!

The Quiroz Family...LOVE!

Well, this week has been a good one. A LOT has happened! We will start with some news:

DAYANA QUIROZ IS GOING TO THE TEMPLE APRIL 10 (my year mark) TO DO BAPTISMS FOR HER FAMILY :) I had another work visit in El Olivar this week and was able to see the Quiroz family. I continue to see the miracles the gospel brings into our lives through this family. They have progressed, and gained strong testimonies of this church. They are doing so great :) We baptized them 6 months ago but they are just too special to not talk about them always :) Mom and Dad, I cannot WAIT for you guys to meet them!! They will not be able to talk to you haha but they will just LOVE you. So I was really happy to hear that from Dayana :) She is also attending seminary every morning with my old pensionista Hermana Juanita :) 

Well, Conference was amazing as always. I love conference weekend...It is better than Christmas :) I received so much strength and guidance from our living prophets and I could feel that they were speaking the words of God himself. What I really loved was Boyd K. Packer's talk. Wow. SO POWERFUL. His testimony at the end left me with my heart beating pretty fast. I felt it strong. All of us gringos went into a little room to watch conference in English and we were silent as we listened to the STRONG spirit fill the room as Boyd K. Packer bore his personal witness of the Savior. I also loved Elder Bednar's talk. I love when he speaks because his talks are always directed towards EVERYONE. Everyone can benefit from what Elder Bednar says ALWAYS. I loved being able to understand this scripture in Matthew better. I also loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk. I loved them all haha. It is a goal of mine to re-read ALL of the conference talks before I get home. Next conference I will be coming home!! AHH. Time goes way too fast.

This week I was able to strengthen my testimony of the Book of Mormon. I have studied, marked, searched and pondered the Book of Mormon this past year, and this week I will finish it completely. I am excited to bear a powerful testimony that I know that every single page of the Book of Mormon is true. I know t is true. I have strengthened my testimony of Jesus Christ through this book and have been able to feel the Spirit so strongly testifying to me that it is true. So I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon and everything it has taught me. It is just so true! There is no way to explain the miracles it works in our lives but it really works miracles! It can comfort us, it can help us understand the misteries of God, and it helps us draw closer to our Savior. I am not a prophet or anything but I want to challenge all of you to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover and try Moroni's promise and ask God if it is true. I know that you will receive your answer and your faith will be strengthened so much through doing it. It is a powerful book and I tesify of its divinity!!

I had a pretty painful experience this week with one of our investigators. She completely shut.us.down. And it was PAINFUL. I haven't felt that must sadness in a long time. Seeing someone reject the gospel after hearing it...hurts A LOT. What I learned from it, though, is that just because someone is rejecting the gospel, does not mean that it is not true. This was one of the whirlwinds that Helaman talks about in Helaman 5:12, but if we have our foundation in Christ, we will not fall in our testimony. Like many said in conference, NOW is the time to stand as witnesses and disciples of Christ and not let worldly things get us down. We are always going to see people that will reject what we believe and tell us it is not true and we are dumb for being a part of it. BUT STAY STRONG. Remember who you are. A member of the Church of JESUS CHRIST. This is His church. There will be opposition. But let's stand strong and never deny the things we know to be true :)

Alright well have a great week! I love you all!! Keep inviting your friends to church and following-up with them. Take them by the hand and WALK with them as M. Russell Ballard invited us to do :) Les amo!!

Con cariño,

Hermana Agle

Susie's brand new teeny tiny puppy!

Hermana Agle(the CAT) has grown!!

Classic family photo with the Quiroz Family!!

Work Visits with the Sisters!

This week was VERY very busy. Lots of work visits with the Sister's, traveling around Lima, getting bitten by insects, CUY, and immigrations. Hermana Lopez and I were separated for 3 days in a row because of work visits we had and I had to go to the center of Lima to go to migrations. So this week was a little unusual.

Lets start with the bugs biting me. Well, I had a work visit and SOMETHING bit me, I don't know what it was, but what I do know is that it got HUGE and it HURT!!..haha. I have these two red spots on my ankle and I had an allergic reaction to it so my ankle got really big and swollen. It was really painful!  I took some medicine and it is getting better. The swelling has gone down so thats good :) 

Ouch...swollen leg!

The CUY :) Cuy is guinea pig. Well, here in Peru sometimes they sell rats and say they are guinea pig. The way you know if it is a rat or guinea pig is if the ¨guinea pig¨ turns black when you fry it...Its really a rat. So on Friday night, a recent convert was frying cuy in her front yard and we were helping her and one of them turned black. She told us that it must have been a rat but it didn't matter because it tasted the same anyway...Ok! That was gross!! So here are a couple pictures of us frying guinea pig and rat and feeding them to the party guests :) Mmmmm :)

 

So the work visits with the Sister's are going so well. I had a goal starting my mission that I was going to help the Sister's in the mission so that we are baptizing just as much, if not MORE than the Elders. When I got here, the Sister's struggled a lot and it bugged me. I have never been a feminist or anything but I could see the potential in the Sister's and I wanted to help them reach that potential. I am glad I can work with them individually, working in their area, and helping them progress with their investigators. I love being able to travel around Lima helping the Sisters in the mission :)

We have been working a LOT and we have a LOT of potential right now! We have 4 baptisms planned for the 12th of April and we are SO excited for conference this weekend :) Our investigators are excited to go to Conference and listen to the words of the living prophets. President Archibald sent an email to us today that talked about how the words from the living prophets are MUCH more important than the words from dead prophets. How lucky and blessed are we to have a living prophet to listen to today? I am excited to go into conference with my doubts, questions and concerns, ready to find answers and comfort. I know that the prophets are speaking directly to us and their messages are inspired of God.  I hope all of you can go into Conference weekend looking for an answer and be listening to the Spirit to receive your answer. I promise you, your answer WILL come :)

I really enjoyed the Womens Conference. I felt very strongly the love of our church leaders and I LOVED the talk by Henry B. Eyring. I feel so much excitement to be a part of the Lord's work. Not just here in the mission...but to go home and keep working. Womens Conference really got me excited to make a difference in the Church and to serve. I have realized how much giving service can bless our lives and the lives of others and I want to always remember serving the Lord in my life :)

Thank you for all your prayers and love...I love you all so much! Keep on being the great latter-day Saints that the Lord needs and being an example to the people around you. There are a lot of people around us that need help and we can be that light they need in their lives. Keep looking for opportunities to serve :)

Con mucho amor y emoción,

Hermana Agle  

A Mission is the MTC of Life

So this week has been a good week! Lots of preparing people for baptism which is the BEST as a missionary. Nobody has entered the waters this weekend but these next few weeks SI O SI :) I have heared from a lot of friends that are now serving missions this week and I LOVE hearing about their awesome experiences. I have heard from Ashlyn, Afton, Jordan Berrey, Austin, Logan Barlow and it just sounds like they are all doing so awesome. The mission is the MTC of life and I can see it in each one of my friends. It is awesome to see :) 

So this week we found a family. The husband is a less active and he hasn't been to church in 11 years. The wife is not a member and they have 2 young daughters. We were walking in the street and they were kind of looking at us funny. We passed them waiting to see if they would talk to us and when they didn't, we turned to talk to them. Ebert, the husband, says, ¨The Spirit told me I needed to talk to you. I think it is time.¨ He told us that he had rejected missionaries for 11 years but he had recently felt the need to go back to church. He has been teaching his wife the gospel and his daughters and they had just BARELY moved into our ward. So we set an appointment and when we went we taught about the family and how they could be together forever and be sealed in the temple. They got SO happy when we told them that :) Ebert said that he had always wanted to serve a mission as well and regretted not going. We told them that they could serve together as an older couple. When we told them, Ebert starting to cry and was so grateful :) We left with his wife begging us to be baptized!!  They need to get married, first, before she can get baptized, so we will be helping them with that. I was on a work visit with a sister(When we met this family) that has only been in the mission for ONE week, and she said ¨Wow, does that happen every day on the mission??¨ haha :) Miracles like that are the best :) I love this family! And guess what their last name is? Quiroz :) 

I am starting to study how to make my weaknesses into strengths. I don't have a whole lot to say yet, but I will in these coming weeks as I study it more. I know this is going to help me a LOT as a missionary and as a person. So I am excited to study this part of Ether and the Atonement of Christ :)

Bueno, quiero dar mi testimonio de este Evangelio. Sé que es el Evangelio verdadero de Jesucristo. Sé con TODO mi corazón que él vive y nos ama. Amo ser misionera. Amo la misión. Amo Perú. Sé que José Smith fue un profeta de Dios y que por medio de él, tenemos el sacerdocio verdadero de Jesucristo nuevamente acá en la tierra. Estoy agradecida por este Evangelio y la Iglesia. Sé que Thomas S. Monson es un profeta de Dios y si escuchemos sus palabras, vamos a poder tener más paz en nuestras vidas. Estoy tan animada por la conferencia general para escucharle. Sé que el Libro de Mormón es verdadero. Amo este libro también. He aprendido bastante de este libro y es poderoso. Gracias por todo su apoyo y amor. Sigan adelante en el Evangelio de Jesucristo y sepan que Dios les ama. 

Con BASTANTE amor,

Hermana Agle

Seguimos Juntas!

So I will start with transfers because everyone seems to be excited about that :) Hermana Lopez and I are together AGAIN in our area as Sister Training Leaders! Wow, this will be transfer number 4!! And next transfer Hermana Lopez goes home so I think we might be together until June! I guess we will see what happens :) I am really grateful to be here in Los Olivos again. I love it here! And I will pass my year mark here :) I think that means I will only have 3 areas in my mission. El Olivar, Los Olivos, and I have a secret hope that I will get to go to Huaraz :) If the Lord wants to send me there, lets just say I will be very VERY thankful :) Not that I am praying about it or anything :) (Hermana Winters and Hermana Bills are both up there so that is SUPER cool) Hermana Lopez and I have broken the record of the companionship that has been together the longest! We will be together 6 months! A third of my mission! Crazy, huh? But I am ok with it, she is so great :) So I am grateful I can continue to work with the Sisters in the mission!

This week we had stake conference and it was AWESOME. President Archibald came and spoke so that was the best! He talked about Doctrine and Covenants 88:73. Remember how I told you all that on June 23rd 2013 there was going to be a HUGE announcement. Well, turns out there was. It just was a hidden announcement. President Monson read this scripture which says that the Lord will hasten his work in his time. President Monson officially stated that THIS IS THE TIME. The Lord is hastening his work right now. This time period is one that will never be forgotten as a church. Everything is focused on missionary work. Ward councils, messages from the first presidency, everything. The work is being hastened. There are more than 80,000 missionaries serving around the world! While President was speaking that just hit me SO hard. That we, right now, are a part of the Lord hastening his work. And if we love him, we will support him and do everything we can to serve him in his purpose. In stake conference they invited every single person to think of a family that needed to be rescued. A family that was a lost lamb that needed someone to carry them back to the gospel. Do YOU have a family in mind?? :) Well, I am inviting you all to be the one's to carry that family back to church. Just like the Lord carried the lost lamb, we need to do the same. Not just inviting them to come back to church, but carrying them...always being for them, being a friend, someone to talk to, someone to go to church with. If we all do this, we will be a part of hastening this work. If we sustain President Monson as a prophet of God, we will work on rescuing those families that are far from the church, because he is the one inviting us to do so. I am so grateful to be part of this work here in Peru and to continue the work when I get home! :)

I had a kind of fun/terrifying experience this weekend. We were all sitting there listening to stake conference and Hermana Archibald(mission president's wife) gets up and the first thing she says is, ¨Hermana Agle, can you come up and translate for me??¨ Apparently, I went completely red as I walked up to the pulpit to translate her talk. But, I did it and it turned out good :) I was really nervous to be talking in front of the stake as a translator but the Spirit definitely helped me (both to calm down and be able to use my gift of tongues). It was a really cool experience! So Mom, I kind of was able to speak in Stake conference as well! ;)

Alright well that is all for this week! Thank you all for your support and keep working hard in your mssionary work. I know that this is the work of Salvation. I know that God loves all of His children and he wants ALL of them to return to live with Him. I am grateful that I can help Him with this purpose :) Love you all! Have a  great week!

Hermana Agle

A Room Full of the Spirit

Well, this week has been great as usual :) The mission is filled with challenges and hardships but it's pretty hard to get down on things like that because you're a missionary! It is hard to be depressed as a missionary! Logan Barlow said that in his email last week and it is SO true!! Being a missionary is just the best :) I hope all of you Young Men and Young Women in the ward are planning on serving a mission! It is really the best :) 

So this week was awesome! Carla was baptized (See photo above)! She is 14 years old and she LOVES the church!! This whole family are members of the church, but they've gone inactive. Carla and her sister were never baptized so we've been visiting this family to reactivate them and baptized Carla and Katty (her sister). Carla showed SO much interest right off the bat. She loved the Book of Mormon so much and she LOVES seminary. Seminary starts at 6:00am here and she gets to seminary at 5:30am every morning (I know because we live on the second floor and every morning at 5:00am I am woken up by Carla's voice :) But that's ok because I LOVE that she is going to seminary!). She is definitely an example to all of the other students and she wasn't even a member! She loves the gospel and was so happy to be baptized Saturday:) Her baptism was awesome :) Hopefully we can help the whole family have the enthusiasm that Carla has about the gospel :)

This week we taught a family and had a family night with them. They loved it so much that they invited us back for their grandfathers birthday party so that we could share a message with the family. So we got to the birthday party and told them that we were going to share the message and go because we had another appointment. We decided to share the Plan of Salvation (it was his 91st birthday :))...and as we finished we got ready to head out. BUT Peruvians are very very VERY obssessed with their food. They would NOT let us leave without eating first. The people here are so caring. They give you everything they have even if it means they wont have anything the rest of the day. (We even had to stop teaching a family because we found out she was feeding us the food that she would have been eating herself if we didn't come.) The people are VERY generous...they really recognize us as representatives of Christ, and the are willing to do anything for us. So,anyway....back to my story. Well, this family would NOT let us leave without eating first. So they go grab a plate of food for us, and come back with an entire trout that was just fried and corn and a potato. My companion was thrilled because she had never tried trout before and was so excited to try it. I, on the other hand, was doing everything possible to not make a ¨disgusted¨ face in front of the family! haha. Oh man, the fun things that one has to endure on the mission. It wasn't too disgusting...I just felt uncomfortable as it was looking at me the whole time I was eating it. 

This week we also had our Mission Leadership Council and it was the best!! We get to learn so much from President Archibald and talk about what we can do as leaders in the mission to help the missionaries do this work in the most efficient and correct way possible. It is just a room full of the Spirit and I feel so blessed to be a part of it. I am glad I can help this mission in any way possible. Today we have transfers and I will find out what happens a little bit later, but I am so grateful for this time I have had to serve as Sister Training Leader. I have learned so much from the other Hermana's...and so much about myself. It is such a joy to be able to serve others. I have gained such a strong testimony that when we are in the service of others we are in the service of God! I have loved to be able to help and serve the mission Peru Lima Oeste :) I got to see Hermana Brown as well so that was awesome. :) 

This week was a WEIRD week weather-wise. IT RAINED IN LIMA! The first time in YEARS and the first time since I have been here. That is something I have been missing a lot is the rain. AND IT RAINED! It was so awesome :) That made me pretty happy this week :)

Also, Hermana Juana and her daughters are raising chickens to eat next Christmas :) So we get to play with them sometimes...it's great!! :)

Alright well that's all for this week :) I am loving the mission! All of the spiritual experiences mixed with the fun, crazy experiences, is turning into something that I am never ever ever going to forget :) I am grateful for the opportunity the Lord has given me to be able to serve Him. Love you all! Have a great week!

Hermana Agle

Miracles at Work

Ok, the miracles here are getting out of control :) But I am totally fine with that :) Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE being a missionary? It really has changed my life for the better :) My testimony has grown, I have grown to LOVE the Book of Mormon and I am developing lots and lots of living skills. The mission is the best :) I am SO excited to hear about all of the Sisters going on missions from our ward!! Elizabeth Whatcott, Jordan Berrey, Alex Johnson!! And Hunter!! He is not old enough to serve a mission(and not a sister either...haha)! But that really just makes me so happy and excited for them!! 

This week, Susy was baptized(See photo above)!! Her story is pretty amazing. The first time we ever had contact with her, she was NOT nice. We were looking for a reference and she told us to go away and not come back...so we didn't. But a couple Sunday's later, these two woman showed up at church and we got their address and set up an appointment with them. We went to the appointment and it was Susy's house!! Turns out her sisters had gone to church to learn more and Susy ended up listening to us as well, and she was the first to get baptized :) :) It's funny how the Lord works isn't it? She is so cute, and she keeps saying ¨I am SO sorry for that first day!!¨ haha...we already have forgiven her :) She LOVES the gospel. She bore her testimony at her baptism and just kept saying how the gospel had just changed her life and she had this happiness in her life that she had never felt before. And she knew it was the gospel :) We are working with the rest of the family as well. They were praying as a family to know which church was true before we arrived. God is powerful right?? Well, right when we starting going to visit them, so did 3 other churches. So now we teach them Monday's and the other nights of the week are reserved for the other churches ---___---. Satan is working as well. BUT I know that WE WILL BE TRIUMPHANT :) God is so much more powerful than Satan. SO I know they will be baptized as well. Its a family of about 10 :) So keep your eyes out for a baptism of 10 in these next couple of weeks :) Also, we have Monday's so we always do a Family Night with them. That is something that I have learned on my mission, that Family night's are POWERFUL and IMPORTANT. I hope everyone is doing them every week with their families :) If you are not, repent and start please :)

Another miracle family...read below!

(This is from an excerpt written by Cami to her mission president...)

This week I learned the importance of being a missionary 24/7. I loved that letter you sent out a few weeks ago that talked about 4 things we need to do as missionaries to improve. One of them is to think, act and be a missionary ALL the time. SO I have been trying to put that into practice more. So every single time we are in a taxi, we are teaching the taxi driver. About 3 months ago we were teaching a man named Carlos, who was our taxi driver. We wrote down his address and left him with a pamphlet with our names and number. Well, about 2 weeks later he called us and said, ¨Hey, your friends still haven't arrived at my house, when are they going to come??¨ So we called the offices right then to pass the reference straight to Elder Schenk. Well, this week we got a call from Carlos. He said that the missionaries arrived at his house, he and his wife got married, and they all got baptized the next Saturday as a family!! As he cried, thanking us for teaching him that day in his taxi I just felt so glad that I had opened my mouth that day :) He actually came to our ward on Sunday to thank us in person with his family and expressed to us how the gospel has changed his life so much. He has friends (a family!) that live in our area that want to hear the gospel as well, so we have an appointment with them this Tuesday and Carlos is going to introduce us :) Wow, President, thank you so much for that letter!! I am so glad I was able to be part of this families experience just by teaching Carlos 5 minutes in the taxi. I realized how important it is to ALWAYS remember who we are and to be missionaries ALWAYS. Not just while we are proselyting. That was a really amazing experience!

This week I got the WE LOVE YOU sign that the young woman made! It made me very happy :) I loved hearing from the Littleton ward! It is hanging right over my bed :) Emily's note was my favorite :) Made me very very happy. She is the best, I miss her a lot! And Joshie boy. His note made me laugh: ¨I hope you have a good mission¨ Haha ...Joshua. I loved it!!

Well, Hermano Espinoza had an accident this week and he lost all of his memory. We went over to visit him and he did not recognize us at all. He doesnt recognize his wife either. That was really heart breaking. BUT, he got a blessing and little by little, he is remembering. We went over yesterday and he said to me, ¨You are my friend right??¨. The cool thing is that he remembers all of the hymns! So we sang with him and sang and sang :) But it was really hard to see. He was doing so great. So if you could all keep Hermano Espinoza in your prayers, I would appreciate it. 

This week I ate Tocosh. It is a potato that they put in the ground for a year and a half to ferment, and then tey eat it. It as a LOT of nutrients and it is really good for you. It was also horrific haha. I hope to never eat it again!! 

Ok, I love you all!! Thank you for all your love and support. I am so grateful for this gospel. I know the church is true. I have no doubt in my mind. God works miracles and He is aware of each and every one of us. I know Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true. Keep living the gospel!! It will bring so much happiness into your lives!! Love you all!

Con mucho cariño,

Hermana Agle