A beautiful week. =)

Dear Family and Friends,

This week, Jose was baptized. I am so happy that he was baptized! He was so happy! His family was so happy too! (Even if it doesnt seem like it in the photos I have. haha.) My companion played the piano and I sang. My companion is a great pianist! Jose was so eager to do everything perfectly. I love his attitude. He really is someone who had a change of heart and who is turning his whole life around. Jose was also confirmed on Sunday.
My companion and I are both so excited to see the work grow in our area. We are seeing so many miracles. I still don´t think I have exactly grasped the idea yet or that it has hit me.. or what is that phrase in English that we use to say that we haven´t actually believed what has happened? this week. But, I remember yesterday that we were walking to church and I was thinking... No one came with us today to church. I was about to feel a little bad as I started to think about what I possibly could be doing wrong. I realized that I had been being exactly obedient, and then I remembered our zone meeting where our zone leaders told us not to be desanimado. They taught us that was the opposite of faith and that being disheartened is not going to help ANYTHING. I started saying out loud ¨I am not going to be upset¨¨Voy a ser feliz,¨ until I was smiling. When we entered the church, a boy met us. We had been teaching his less active mother and he told us that she says Hi, and wants to know when we were going to visit her. We had just stopped visiting her that week because she wasn´t progressing. I remembered explaining that God won´t forget her and that we would be able to find people who are ready to live the gospel. It was really hard to explain this to him, but I knew that we were doing the right thing. At the end of sacrament meeting, we found out that 6 or our investigators came to church. One of them was the mother of Irma, someone who recently came back to church and now is active. At the end of our gospel principles class, Irma came up to us with her mom and said, ¨My mom has a question. She wants to know how she can be baptized.¨ I think my companion and I were in so much shock that we hardly said anything. We got an appointment the to teach her that same night. Now, Irma´s mom is going to be baptized on the first of June. =) God is so good. We arent perfect. We just have to be obedient. I know He loves us, and this is His work, and if we do it His way, we will see miracles.
I love you all.
Keep praying, because God hears you.
And he cares, too.

Love,
Hermana Bendixen

Oh, the picture of the showerhead was an accident. haha. But, this I took a picture of it because it broke, and that is how we fixed it. =)

Life in Gamarra

Dear Family and Friends,

We had transfers this week. I continue here with my companion, Hermana Gomez. I am excited because I think we are improving a lot together. We have a baptism this Thursday. I am so excited. He is such a great person.

Last night we visited Gregoria and Victor. Surprise, surprise, they are not married. But, we know that they will progress because they are so kind and Victor is a less active member and Gregoria is Evangelical, but the nicest one I´ve met. She reads the Book of Mormon, and when she accepted a day to be baptized she was super excited because she knew that it was a blessing from God that she met Victor, and she believes that knowing that the Priesthood authority is on the earth also is a blessing. She wants a valid baptism, and is humble, and wants to do what is right. They both have been through hard things, and Victor is going through a divorce and I know that when they repent, they will be so happy together.

Yesterday in Church, 11 of the less actives that the Elders were teaching came to church. I feel so priveleged to be in their same ward.

I cant really think of a whole lot of other news.

Love always,
Hermana Bendixen

Easter in Peru

Dear Family and Friends,

Not surprisingly Easter isnt nearly celebrated as much as it is in the U.S. Im not even sure we celebrate it that much in the U.S. To me it is my second favorite Holiday and I am very excited to make it very celebrated in my home. =) Someday.

I am astonished by the lack of Hymns we have for Easter, but I am determined to compose at least one more before I the end of my life. If I am not mistaken, we only have two.. neither of which we sang in church. haha.

The nice thing though is that all the families are together during this time because there are three days where everyone doesnt work. I forgot what that was called in English. haha. We thought we would be able to meet a lot more families and share the good news of the gospel, but it turns out that the majority of them left on vacation. lol Well, we live and learn.

I am learning every day to be grateful for what God has done. Sometimes we work so hard only to find out that God is working for the same cause but in another way. We just always have to seek his will so that we can work with Him.

I saw this video that I absolutely loved, and I am sure all of you facebookers have already seen this about a bajillion times but I just would like to do a little repost for all of you who have yet to discover facebook. =)

It really captures I think the essence of the atonement.

I love you and I hope that we can always remember what the Savior did for us. He is our King and our Redeemer.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-00-1420-because-of-him?category=topics/easter&lang=eng


Love, Hermana Bendixen

Another week in Peru :)

This week Jimmy was baptized! He is a policeman, firefighter, trained in S.W.A.T. and a lot of other things. He is awesome. :)
He is a great example for many of his friends.
Here are some photos. The first is of when he just was baptized. The missionary who baptized him is Elder Bulacio. He is from Argentina like his companion, Elder Maldonado and like my companion, Sister Gomez.
Love you all, and have a great week!

Almost a year! 2/24/14

Dear Family and Friends,

On the 27th of February I will reach my one year mark. This weekend 3 of the less actives from our area were officially declared active this week. =) It really is a joy seeing people change. I am excited because one of them, Roxanna wants to go to the temple. Normally we wouldnt be able to go with anyone but because she is someone that we helped come back to church we can go with her. =)
Im so excited!

Also, I want to thank all of you for your prayers! Fiorella, without us saying anything, decided to break up with her boyfriend and wants to be baptized this Saturday! =) Please continue praying for her so that she continues to make good decisions! The funny thing was that she felt so much peace when she decided to break up with him.

By the way the name of the city where the flood happened and wiped out a whole town was in Carhuaz. It´s in our mission.

Okay, in this email I am going to send a ton of photos from the mission. I love these people so much!
I hope all is well with each one of you and I love you as well!

Take care!
Hermana Bendixen

Another week in Peru 2/17/14

Dear Family and Friends,

Changing areas is always hard. Something my new companion taught me is that the grieving process is necessary. We cant just always pretend like nothing happened. When I left my old area, I felt like I left my family behind. I know this ward will become my new family. I already feel like I have a few brothers and sisters here. One thing she told me was how when Jesus heard that Lazurus had died, he cried. He cried even though he knew he was going to go and resurrect him. I think many of you probablly have heard this before, but it was something really I had forgotten and touched me.

One thing that I am consistently impressed with is the ability that God has to bless the work despite our inabilities and the oposing forces of the world.

Last week there was a mob of about 1000 people who came past our street and were crashing windows, robbing houses, and spray painting everything. It was something like around 1 in the afternoon and we had just left our house to go have lunch at the house of our pension. Nothing happened to our house and nothing happened to us. But we heard the noise. Later everyone was asking us if we were okay and was telling us what had happened. Apparently there had been a really big soccer game the day before and they were all fans of the same soccer team.

This month is also the month of Carnival. So everyone throws water on everyone. They havent gotten me yet, but they have gotten my companion. I tried to warn her.. but it was too late... haha. She just kept walking. The sun is super hot so it is a little bit refreshing. I was a little bit jealous, not going to lie.

As I have been talking with the members and other missionaries, I heard of something that happened that I never knew about before. The name of the "pueblo" passed me, but everyone here in Peru remembers them. There was a small group of people that lived in a valley that was nested inbetween some mountains, and built into the mountain was a dam. The mission President sent some missionaries to preach in this little village. The thing was that no one in this village listened to the missionaries. No one. One day the mission president felt an impression to call all the missionaries out of the area. They all had emergency transfers and left the same day. The next day, a traveling carnival came to town. They set themselves up on the mountain, and all the children of the village went to play at the carnival. While all the children were up on the mountain, the dam broke, and wiped out the village killing all the people who were in the valley. All the kids were left without parents.
Everyone in Peru knows this tragic story, but only the Mormons know about what happened with the missionaries. I learn two things from this.
1) God will always warn a people before destroying them. Always. And he is merciful to the innocent. 2) Obedience. Immediately. Can you imagine what would have happened if the missionaries took another day to say their goodbyes and pack up? We should always listen to the inspired leaders of the church. I know they are called of God.


I love you all and hope that you are all finding the people for the missionaries to teach! =)

Love always,
Hermana Bendixen

Loving Peru 3/3/14

Dear Family and Friends,

I forgot to tell you about a few things that we have been doing.

This past week we basically built a whole house. Okay that is a bit of an exaggeration. The walls were there but they were falling over and there was a cement floor, or roof of the house below, but the floor had a mountain of dirt on it and there was no roof. So we had the fun job of putting it all together. =) My companion and I were going to do it all by ourselves but we decided to solicit the help of a few of the members of the ward which was a good idea because we really just thought we were going to be putting on the roof. =) Im happy because the lady we did it for was so happy and grateful she was crying.
It is really interesting how they sweep the floors too. They remove as much dirt as possible but there is always a little bit of dirt, so they splash water all over and then sweep.

That reminds me.. the other week when I was telling you about how I didnt get wet yet from carnival in February. Well, I spoke to soon. One day we were in a taxi getting to a meeting, and there was a truck next to us at a stop light. It was one of those ones with a big, huge tank. Well, right after we crossed the stop light, there was a large group of people who crossed behind us, and the truck next to me opened up a valve and literally dumped a TON of water over the people behind us, but our taxi was a little bit behind the truck and so the load of water also fell through the open window of the taxi and got half of me soaking wet. haha. =) The guys in the truck were laughing so hard. =)

Something else that has happened recently is that I have started teaching English classes again. I am excited because they are actually really successful. A lot of people come and bring their friends and one student commented to his friends that he wished I taught at his school. I think its probablly because I hand out candy if they speak in English. haha But really, I love our ward. Everyone is amazing and willing to help and invite people to the activities. I am extremely impressed with two recent converts. Marjorie and Estefani. One of them got baptized about 6 months ago and the other about 3 months ago. The other day they just went through the streets contacting with the Book of Mormon. I am so proud of them!!! They are 18 and 22 and they are both wanting to serve missions.

This week we also had a little bit of a a lot of miracles. One of them includes how our church hasnt had water for more than two weeks. Well we had scheduled a baptism and everything and we completely forgot. A baptism without water, can you imagine!? Well when we got to church, we checked the bathroom. Yep, still no water. We went to the font and to our surpise there was already water in the font... but it wasnt full yet. We used some of the water to put in a bucket and clean and then we turned on the faucet for the baptisimal font and water flowed in. I dont know why the font water worked and the bathroom and drinking fountain water wasnt coming in, but to me this was a miracle. God hears prayers. =)

Thank you for the many prayers. Specifically this week I would love it if you could pray for Fiorella that she will have the strength to continue doing what is right. Also please pray for Pablo that he be able to get his birth certificate so that he can get married. Here it is very very difficult to get a birth certificate. Extremely.

Love Always,

Hermana Bendixen

First picture is of me and my newish companion. Second is when my bag broke. I thought it would last forever.. =)

Fiorella.. I love her face when she leaves the baptisimal font. So happy! =)