que vergüenza

 good thing for jesus this week. Not sure if i couldve done it without Him. 

Tripped down the stairs this week, spilling my waterbottle that i had just refilled after it had completely emptied when I tripped on my dress in the street and dumped all the water onto the sidewalk. On the same day that my mic was unmuted on a zoom call with the APs. Add "learn how to walk and also use zoom" to my list of new years resolutions. 

^^lovely photography brought to you by hermana garzon

Anyways happy 2025!! Can you BELIEVE it?! I can't. In my brain it's still 2022 and I'm still 17 and need to be getting ready foe stinky sneaker and my ap tests. Crazy how time flies. 2024 was such an incredible year, filled with so many miracles and missionary work and pure JOY. I'm excited to see what this year brings. First Sunday of 2025 we had 11(!!!) Friends in church. So Happy !! Now the struggle is to keep them coming...it's a trend here in my area that people will do things the first time and then chicken out when they learn they have to actually, well, do things. 

Spent the last night of 2024 in our little office room which has carpet (!!) Eating salchipapa and watching the joseph Smith prophet of the restoration movie in spanish (10/10 would recommend) at midnight went and sat on the roof to watch the sky explode (had much fear because the fireworks were literally 2 inches from our face and the homemade fireworks were a little more than slightly sketchy. Lighter fluid bottle rockets? #tacnaknowshowtoparty

Took a 30 minute walk up into the desert to go visit a part member family that wasn't there. Worth it for the views, not so worth it for the scary dogs that could 100 percent smell my fear. We ended up going back up there last night, talked to a little 13 year old working in her family's tienda and I thought 

I'm so

Lucky. 

I have the coolest parents who taught me how to love jesus. 

And that I could be with them forever.

And that me and my brothers could grow up and do whatever the heck our little hearts desired. 

Dharianne doesn't know that. So we're going to tell her <3

Took a field trip to arequipa! Got to see my favorite people :) it was weird being back after just 2 weeks away and realizing oh i actually dont get to stay ..i live in tacna rn. 

I learned a LOT about joy and enjoying and understanding that sometimes those two things don't go hand in hand. But we have the choice to find joy in all moments. Like when you have to say goodbye to your compa :( we had an emergency transfer so Hna Perales is now with hermana de hoyos (my other hija:) so I have an hija nieta otra vez:) but ya anyways arequipa was lit everyone in liderazgo is so smart and has such good ideas and I was sitting there just thinking ohmygosh there are such cool missionaries in this room like such cool.people with such awesome ideas and I want to be like them when I grow up

 refused to go to the bathroom the whole bus ride to and from arequipa. 7 hours strong baby, car trips to Utah being the only girl with a family who doesn't want to stop at gas stations trained me well. Watched sister act in spanish and then some other vainera película was playing (elder smartt: broooo guys can you balance your phone on your nose too?? elder oneil: wowwww look at those coolllll rocks outside) but the zls just told me about their whole life story while my comps snoozed 

Happiest of happies this week was German and zarela getting baptized. They're these cutie best friend siblings (Emma and max vibes) that are just so good. Zarela said she had previously wanted to be baptized but was scared to do it alone and was so happy to have support from her brother to be able to make this new change in her life. She's so funny, wanted to throw up the dubs for her pictures hehe. Love them and love their faith and commitment to the lord. 

Love them so big. 

Anyways. Good week good start to a good year. 

To be so for reals (because in 10 years when i look back i want to be honest) been fighting some hard mental battles lately. Changes and accepting agency is sometimes (always) really hard for me. But I think the important thing is that I'm trying. I know I'm not perfect (far from it) and even though I fight with that every single day I know christ loves me even though I'm so human. I think the real battle is reminding myself of that. I think when I left on my mission I had this vision of the Emma Barker that was going to walk off the plane and she would be so confident and perfect with great skin (shoutout elder peña for complimenting the fatty zit on my chin this week in front of everyone:} ) and perf spanish and so testimonally strong and I'm here with 5 months left thinking ohmygosh how am I going to get there !! But I'm trying. Send me any talks/scriptures/how to keep my face from breaking out even though I'm actually washing my face genuinely every day !!!! (!!!) about how to live and learn in the moment:) love yall 

Happiest of feliz año nuevo a todos 

luv hermana parquet (a cute lady I chatted with on the bus ride to arequipa put our phone number in her phone as hermana parquet...am I that bad at saying my own name??)