How are you all???? I am so sorry that I forgot to tell you that I wasn´t going to email you until today! I have felt bad about it all week haha. It´s transfers today, that´s why!!!! But how are you all?? Are you all having such a party on Butternut? I´m so jealous--it sounds so fun with all the adventures and kids and everything! Ah, I hope you are all having so much and partying it up. Take lots of pictures and write down the one-liners for me! And I am so excited to hear about Bear Lake! I hope you have so much fun! I hope it´s awesome. Huge shout-out to Sammie--I hope you had the best birthday ever! I was thinking about you, hoping that it was a wonderful day :)
This week was crazy!!!!!!!! I decided there´s just never a dull moment ever. Good news--Hermana Noakes and I are staying together another transfer! I´m so excited. She finishes her mission next transfer, so I´m her last companion (as they say in the mission, I´m going to kill her off haha). It´s super crazy. But we are having so much fun together and we are a good team, so we´re super excited. I love her so much--she is so funny and such a good missionary.
Transfers were super sad, though, cause two of the elders in our branch went home and they decided not to send us anymore, so it´s just us four here! Saying goodbye to them was so, so sad--it was one of the hardest goodbyes ever, cause we were all so close and do everything together. So now it´s just the four of us and it´s weird, but it´s good.
We had SO many miracles this week! I can´t even tell you. Okay, so I had an interview with President last week and he told me that if I invite every single person to be baptized in every lesson, I will have more baptisms--makes sense right? And now as a mission, we have a goal to invite at least one person every day to be baptized. That´s something that has always made me nervous, but this week we just went for it. We are inviting everyone! It´s amazing!!!!!! So we were in a lesson with Rachel, who is becoming active again, and her kids, Ari, who´s 18, and Ricardo, who´s 12. We´ve been teaching them a lot, but they never really pay that much attention. We were teaching them and I got the feeling to invite them to be baptized--and I told President I would repent, so I needed to do it. I thought to myself, "Okay, President, this is for you," and we invited them. And . . . Ari said yes!!!!! She said if she gets her answer that she will do it for sure. I was so surprised I almost fell off my chair! It was unreal. President´s advice is real. Now we are inviting everyone to be baptized and seeing so many miracles from it! It´s addicting--now I feel like inviting everyone to be baptized and talking about baptism all the time. It´s the best thing ever! I love it.
Another HUGE miracle this week: Tatiana´s family! Okay, I can´t even tell you the changes that have come over this family. So the father, Diego, used to listen to us but never had a testimony and always cared about soccer more than anything. But now, he comes to every single activity, church every Sunday, he bears his testimony in every lesson to his kids, he wants a calling--it´s incredible!!!!!!!!!!! And Alexander blesses the sacrament every week and brings his friends to listen to us! And Ana and Mateo, who were so shy you couldn´t even look them in the eye, are now the most popular kids in the branch! They have so many friends and are the life of every party!!!!! Every time I think about how far this family has come, it brings tears to my eyes. Words can´t describe how much I love this family. But Ana has never wanted to read the scriptures, no matter how much we invite her to do it. But this week at an acitivty, she came up to me so excited and with this light in her face. She said that she and her mom decided to read the scriptures together. Before they read, they prayed that her doubts about baptism would be answered. She said as they read that all of her doubts were answered and that she felt like she was talking directly to Heavenly Father. It was amazing!!!!! I was crying as she told me, and we cried together and were just hugging. She wants to get baptized and go to the temple with her family!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Right now we changed their date to the 16th because they want more time to plan it. She is still nervous about it, but we are hoping and praying with everything we have that by the 16th she will feel ready and be up for it. They are so ready, they just have to have the courage to do it. But it's amazing. I can´t even describe how much joy I feel with this family. I love them with a love that´s not even mine. They are incredible!
Ah, so many good things are happening! We are starting TONS of activities, and it´s incredible to see the change it has brought in the branch! It´s like everyone´s been waiting for acitivites to happen, but it just hasn´t yet. But everyone comes, and there are TONS of youth in this branch that serioulsy are the magic of this branch. So we have a big FHE every Friday night that so many people are coming to, we have sports every Saturday morning, we are in charge of Young Women activites every week, and we are doing Zumba every Friday! It´s so fun! We are having so much fun and seeing so many miracles from it--I really think this is a huge reason why everyone is progressing so much, because they are in the Church all the time and feeling the Spirit. It´s just incredible! Tatiana and her family come to every activity and are the life of the party at everything! The only bummer about Zumba this week was that Hermana Noakes was leading a dance and tore her ankle! She has really bad ankles, so it´s happened before, but she couldn´t finish, and one of the elders and I had to make up the rest haha. But she is doing better; we are taking it easy for her.
Another funny thing about this week--so all of the sudden everyone in the world wants to feed us! It´s crazy! We love it, though, cause we are getting so much closer to the members. So this week we ate with President and Resu at 4:30--they fed us this really thick soup and bread, and we thought we were good to go. Then she says she´ll go get the main dish. We looked at each other like, "Oh, shoot!" and she brought out this HUGE plate of fish! TONS OF FISH. It actually didn´t taste that bad, but it was SO filling. And after a huge pudding to eat. I was so full I wanted to die. Then at 8, we ate with a menos activo and she gave us Pica Macho--a Bolivian mountain hot dog, beef, fries, and fried vegetables. Hermana noakes just straight up told her she couldn´t finish after a few bites. I felt bad, though, and didn´t want her to be sad, so I ate ALL of it. Oh my gosh, I seriously don´t ever remember being that sick haha. On the way home from her pueblo, we were in the back of a bus and we were bouncing around everywhere. I was holding a barf bag and barely made it to the bathroom in time when we got home haha. Needless to say, I was up all night in the bathroom. It was really funny haha but my stomach is still messed up, and I don´t think I¨lll ever be able to eat that stuff again.
Okay, sorry--this is the longest email ever, but I just have so much to tell you! Pretty much I just want you to know that the Lord loves us SO much. This is His work. He knows His children, and if we put our faith in Him and do everything we can, He will help us bless others. He gives us miracles every minute of every day. This is His work and He´s in charge. All we have to do is be worthy to follow the Spirit and be the instruments in His hands. I am so happy to be a missionary; I love it with all my heart. I always look down at my chapa (nametag) and just smile, cause I love wearing my Savior´s name on my chest every day and doing what He would do if He were here. This church is true. I know that with all my heart, and how lucky we are to have that knowledge.
I love you all so much and hope you have so much fun together! Know that I love you with all my heart!
Love, Hermana Boyer :)
This is my little friend Laura--I love the young women here so so much!!!!!!!!!!
This is Hermana Noakes and I at an activity where they had to feed each other yogurt blindfolded--it was super funny!
It was Hermana Porter´s one-year mark in the mission, so we burned a shirt haha.
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