Semana 4

My district and I celebrating Christmas! 

My companions and our Latina roommates! 

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Mi familia!!!
So another week has gone by at the CCM!
I found out this week that I will be leaving my district and advancing to a latino district for my last two weeks here in Lima! I´m seriously so sad to be leaving Hermana Talbert and my district but I know that it will be for the best and it will be cool to be in total and complete immersion. So the way that works is North Americans stay here for six weeks of language and gospel training, but latinos are only here for 2 weeks. So in the last four weeks that I have been here, there´s been 2 different rounds of latinos, and the third round will be the one I join for my last two weeks. So basically I´ll just be doing the basic 2 weeks of MTC training without language training...all in spanish with a latina companion...so that should be interesting!! I´m a little nervous.
Today was P-day and my district all gifted our secret santa gifts. It was super fun and we all got in the christmas spirit and wrapped up our presents, it was really cute.  Elder Largent loves the harmonica I got him and now all the Elders in our district got harmonicas and play hymns all the time.
We went proselyting again in North Lima on Saturday.  I got put in a trio with two Latinas and they were very good. I can tell my spanish is getting better because they don´t speak an ounce of english and I could plan the lesson with them and teach the people we were contacting as well.  We were back up climbing these dusty mountains with all the little houses built on the side of them. We met some really cool people and bore our testimonies. I´m becoming less and less timid about sharing the gospel and I love it. Today while we were shopping for p-day I gave out a plan of salvation pamphlet to a man on the bus so that was pretty cool!
 I´m getting really anxious to get out in the field and get to Iquitos, but 2 weeks to go!
I love you all and Merry Christmas from Lima!

Love,
Hermana Benyo

Semana 3

Me and my lovely companions at the Lima Temple today

Me and my district at the Light Ceremony. Left: Hnas Ogden, me, Talbert, Ransom, Reynolds, Smith, and Heiner. Row 2: Elders Price, Geddes (short), Largent (tall), and Allan.

CCM volleyball court

View of MTC from my bedroom

CCM Patio where we study

Soccer Field where the latinos lay the smack down

Lima Temple 

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HOLA FAMILIA!!!!

How´s it going, I miss you all!!!

So this week Hermana Talbert and I got a new companion!!! Her name is Hermana Ogden and now we are in a trio so that is pretty fun!!

I seriously love Hermana Talbert and we are so close and work great together, and we´re excited to have a new companion.  So our district has also gotten really close! They are all awesome and hilarious.  Like I´m not even kidding you, they´re all really cool but SECRETLY they´re the biggest nerds on planet earth. Seriously they are so passionate about pokemon, dragon ball-z, and Yu Gi Oh.....and they always bond with the latinos over dragon ball z, but It´s fine. hahaha no they´re really cool and funny. All the girls in our district are super close too.  Our district is doing a christmas gift exchange and I have Elder Largent, our District leader. We went shopping today and I got him a sweet harmonica from this music vendor.  ALSO, so on the way back from Utah, grandma and I stopped at Little America, some random restaurant in Nowhere, WY and when we ate there I told the waitress I was going on a mission to Peru. And she was like ´Óh cool, theres a girl that works here who is doing that, I think she´s going to Peru too. So yeah, flash forward to now and one of the hermanas in my district who reported the same day as me said she worked at Little America in Wyoming...I was like ´NO WAY´. This world is so small, even in Soth America.

So last night We had this awesome Christmas lights ceremony where they decorated the CCM with Christmas lights and then lit them up. It was really cool, some of the area seventies were there and it was really awesome. Although it´s like 75 degrees and sunny so it´s easy to forget it´s december....(hehe sorry I had to)

So the CCM is SUCH a bubble. Seriously, it´s so beautifully landscaped and perfect inside and I kid you not there´s always hummingbirds and birds in the fountains. And it´s so tranquil and safe feeling but also a little bit like a prison cell. haha I can´t wait to get out to Iquitos. However, Lima is kind of scary. I´m glad I´m not serving there. The few times we have left, it´s liberating but then you get out to the dirty city with the PSYCHO drivers and it can be a little overwhelming. Seriously mom, you would hate riding in cars here. Absolutely. Feels like you´re gonna die.  But getting out of the beautiful tranquil CCM is like leaving the Garden of eden and venturing into the lone and dreary world.

Also Hna Talbert and I were talking to some Senior Couple who had been to Iquitos recently and she said that Iquitos seems like it is like 30-40 years behind Lima.....and Lima already feels a bit like it´s stuck in the 90´s haha. It´s scary but I´m honestly so excited. She said it might be hard to find deodorant.....

Anyway, our teaching has been a little rocky lately. of course the whole language barrier is pretty hard to break through but also just I´ve felt like we haven´t been prepoerly covering what we need to.  Our teacher Hermano Meza (he is awesome) pulled us aside and talked to us about our concerns. When we told him that we thought we weren't being effective, he directed us to this section in Preach My Gospel where it says that we should teach our investigators not lessons. Yeah I´ve heard that a million times but that's when i realized that if need be, it might take 3 lessons to cover the restoration and that´s OK! And that really helped me and Hermana Talbert. I´m grateful for his guidance and I think it will help us teach more effectively.

I know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who is mindful of us.  I am grateful to be at a point in my life where I can have His spirit with me every minute of the day, and be focused on serving Him and His children.

Well anyway, I love you familia, Hasta Luego!

Hermana Benyo

Semana 2

Me and Hermana Talbert at the Lima Temple 

My companion and I bought these awesome peruvian genie pants from a street vendor in Lima today.

Last night with our fave latinas! Hna Castro from Peru, Me, Hermana Garcia from Mexico, Hermana Talbert from Indiana (my comp), Hermana Amador from Honduras, and Hermana Rivera from Chile

Lima Peru Temple!!!

HOLA MI FAMILIA!!!!

Okay so week 2 in the CCM has gone by pretty quick!

This last satruday we had the opportunity to go tracting in north Lima and it was quite the eye opening experience!! I got to go with one of my sweet latina roommates and we went visiting people with some of the actual sister missionaries. North Lima was very different than anything I´ve ever experienced. It´s very poor and theres tons and tons of houses built up the mountains, and they look like shanty little boxes stack on top of eachother. You have to climb up all these stairs to get to them. I have noticed that the people here in Lima Peru are SO friendly and kind. They are always willing to listen to our message and are so happy when we came to visit and check up on them. We visited some of the less active members and shared a lesson with them about the importance of coming to church to partake of the sacrament there as well as the strength they would receive in doing so. It was really difficult for me to understand the peruvians however. They mumble and just laugh at me because I´m just a little gringa that has no idea what they´re saying. I don´t know why, maybe I just get nervous because I have no problem whatsoever speaking to the latinos here in the CCM, but hopefully it gets better! I got to share my testimony and some scriptures about baptism and sacrament and the people were very kind!

One funny thing that happens here in the CCM is that all the Latinos and North Americans play a game where the north americans teach the latinos funny things to say in each others language, and have them say it to other people. Like for instance the other day Hermana Talbert and I were just walking and these latino elders walking past us were just casually like "whats up, chicken butt?", completely matter of factly. Hahahaha we died, they are all so sweet and hilarious. Oh mom, you´re gonna love this. I found out this week that "your mom" jokes are SUPER not ok here. I said it in spanish to my latina roommates and they all gasped and died laughing. It was really funny and I´m glad I learned it with them hahahahaha. Hermana Talbert and I are so sad that our latina roommates left for their actual missions already. They are such good missionaries, always help us with spanish, and just genuinely good friends.

The food here is super good still. There´s this awesome fruit they give here called granadin. Its sort of like a pomegranate but has the consistency of slugs. Its pretty good.

We had p-day again today and got to go to the Lima temple again, it was really really good. It´s weird being outside of the CCM bubble in actual Lima and the driving is NUTS! There seriously so efficient with roadspace I would be so scared to drive here.

But anyway, I miss you all very much, and we had a really fun little thanksgiving dinner, american style!! Also, the sun here is pretty intense! I´ve gotten burned so quick!

This week I read an AWESOME talk by Brad Wilcox called "His Grace Is Sufficient". Its a good reminder that although we can never be perfect, he expects us to try our best and show gratitude for the sacrifice that Jesus Christ has made for us. "There should never be just two options, perfection or giving up. When learning piano, are the only options performing at Carnegie Hall or quitting? no. When we understand grace, we understand that God is long suffering, that change is a process and that repentance is a pattern in our live. His strength is perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Grace is not the light at the end of the tunnel, but the light that moves us through the tunnel."

I know that this is true. For me and Hermana Talbert lately, it´s been esy for us to think that we aren´t good enough and that spanish isn´t coming fast enough, but we need to remember how HE sees us. Our father in heaven loves us and like a piano teacher and his student, He doesn´t get angry when we mess up a few notes, He expects us to keep trying.

I love you family and I pray for you on the daily!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Benyo