im sweating cats and dogs

 Sometimes there's just people in my life that I swear God casted or something to just make my days so much better. Hermana Garzón is one of those people. 

But she ditched me for Ilo which is extremely disappointing. But we ended strong after staying up till 2am Monday and forgetting her mission tags in the house after sprinting to the flores terminal only to find the zone liders showed up 20 minutes late and forgot to buy a ticket for cute hermana Rivera. It all worked out in the end though. 

"When I die, I'm telling them to put my ashes in maracas so I can keep bothering people" -hermana garzon cuando eramos felices y no lo sabíamos 

spent the day in parachico with hermana Chagua. She is. Wow. Incredible. Remember how i said i feel so lucky for the life i grew up with? x2. I just am in awe of these strong Latina women. Theyve grown up in a culture that tells them they are anything but capable, that their worth is measured in the way they cook their pollo and their looks. And every single one ive met has the strongest soul. Never complaining about sexism again. Also This little little old.man was probably the cutest thing I've ever seen. I asked him why he wants to get baptized and he goes "well, I have to do it, what else can I say? I have to follow Jesus!" And ain't it the truth.:) restoring my confidence in the world one little oldie at a time. 

introducing the newest characters of the Hermana Barker mission emails: hermana Jamanca y Hermana Ellis! Hermana Jamanca is a 22 year old accounting major who is like the coolest ever. She's so tender and smart and I don't even know exactly how to describe her other than like someone from tinkerbell. 

Hermana Ellis is 19 (heck I'm so old jk) and from the fabrica (provo utah). She's like a little fairy queen too ans has perfect span (no fair) and is so ready to talk to everyonnnneee I love it. 

belen is plugging along. We're slowly trying to find people who actually want to commit (#everyonehascommitmentissues #thatswhypeopleconviveforlike20years #ya)

patty got baptized this week. Shes so cool. She had a dream a while back that her mom who passed away doesnt want her to get baptized. She the hnas stopped visiting her for a bit. Then we came back and taught her on her doorstep. A few weeks ago, I called her while I was in arequipa, just to chat about how her scripture reading was going. But instead invited her to be baptized and she said YES. and she has been 100% in every way since then. First one in the chapel. Reminding us to send her scriptures. Telling us she wants to move up her baptism date. She came up put of the water GLOWING. (And it was even cooler because a new convert baptized her;) 

anyways. She told me something really cool. She said 

I'm not getting baptized because I feel sad.

A lot of people decide to come to God because they're sad.

But I'm not sad.

I'm actually really happy and I see a lot of blessings.

But I want to do it because I feel happy and I know it's because I need to make a covenant with God. 

I wanted to throw my arms around her and jump up and down. Because YES that's exactly it. We don't come to Jesus because we need relief. Obviously we do and sometimes it's like that. But when we choose christ because we're happy and want to include him in that joy, we truly see miracles.

im happy. And i was happy before i left! But i chose to include god in my happiness and it has turned into JOY. 

Read soemthing cool this week. In nephi, a prophet named Lehi is about to well die and bcuz he's so old he gets all his kids together to gibe em some last bits of prophetic wisdom .

And he tells his son Jacob "because you recognized the goodness of God, he's gonna consecrate your trials". 

And consecrate is when you set something apart for a sacred purpose. 

so.

Me: If I'm hearing you right, (I said to myself/ghost of Lehi in my brain) if I recognize the GOODNESS of God, recognize that he gave me everything, then the really hard parts of my life will actually affect me for a sacred purpose?

Ghost of lehi: Yes. 

Me: But if I don't recognize the goodness of god my trials my trials will just be like...sucky? 

Ghost of lehi: well uh yes. 

(I feel like the ghost of lehi probably looks like that one dude on legomovie that I literally forgot his name but he's like really old and magic and ughh I can't remember his name...mission veil is so real)

anyways. Life is good. So was this cake, it was really good (but don't worry I didn't eat the strawberries)

XOXO emma