Semana 20 in Iquitos (May 26th, 2014)

Hello my family!

Well this week flew by in the blink of an eye. I felt like I was just writing you all yesterday. 

Hermana Centeno and I are living the dream here in our area Las Colinas and working so hard. This week for sure had it's ups and downs but we are learning so much.  We're also going to be moving this week because Sister Gomez doesn't like our house all that much and wants us to move into an apartment owned by a family of members, it's for sure safer and the road in front of the house is cement (HALLELUJAH).  Its gonna be really tough though because our current house is basically inaccessible by motokar and I don't know how we're gonna load all of our stuff onto a motokar, but hopefully the members will help us out with that one!

We've been finding lots of new investigators and some awesome families that we're teaching.  One of of them is a super cute little 20 year old mom who has two little twin baby boys. Her name is Chana and we've been teaching here a week or two now.  Her husband is a member of the church but hasn't been active since he was a kid, but she is super interested and has come to church and wants to get baptized. So we've been teaching her normal, but this week we went and taught her with a member named Janina. Janina is awesome, she's always helping us out, giving us people to teach and usually tries to teach the whole lesson haha. This time when we got to the house, Chana's husband Jose, would not come and went and hid on the back porch. With Janina leading the way we marched around to the back of the house and brought the lesson to him. I literally sat on a log and we started teaching. We started getting to know Jose better and he said that he doesn't really have goals for his family and that his kids can do whatever they want. And with that Janina was off, she started with a social analysis of why Jose was that way, and then started burning him REALLY hard and started saying things like 'I know you have problems in your relationshiop and your family, and your babies are sick! Look at them! I can tell that they have diarhea! And your wife is suffering and lonely!" at this point my companion and I were slightly horrified and tried to cut her off before the damage got any worse. And right as I was getting ready to change the subject Chana, with a baby on each knee, started crying really hard. A cry of desperation, and of someone who really is suffering. Janina went over and started hugging and comforting her, and she too started crying and telling her to be strong and that we love here. And right then one of the babies started crying and had an accident of diarrhea. At this point I was kind of freaked out I had no idea how this sister was able to discern all of these challenges that this young women and her family were facing, when normally we would teach her and she would be there with a smiling face. That night, Janina went back to the house of Chana and gave her some money to take her babies to the clinic. I learned a lot from Hermana Janina and her example to me. At first I was like 'oh my gosh this woman is a wizard' but then I realized that when we are in tune with the spirit, we truly can discern the needs of these people. Because it's true, so many of these people are suffering in ways I can't even imagine, but the gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer. It's what truly brings families together and can heal all these problems.  I completely sure that Chana felt the love of Hermana Janina and this week came to church.  I was moved by this experience and pray for the spirit of discernment to help me open my heart and truly help my brothers and sisters here in Iquitos.

This week Segundo got baptized! He is so awesome and has lots of goals for his family. But sadly on sunday he didn't come to his confirmation.  It doesn't sound that bad, but for me and Hermana Centeno it was a pretty hard blow as missionaries and really sad. We went and talked to him to find out what happened and there were some issues that happened and he feels pretty bad about it, and I'm 100%  sure that he will be there next sunday for his confirmation.

So that was probably the low point of the week, but there are things that happen that are out of our control, what is important is that we are constantly learning. 

One of the members asked me how it feels when I see the families that we have found, taught, married and baptized in their dresses and white shirts and ties faithfully walking to their sunday meetings as families and reading their scriptures and Liahona's--I literally can't describe it. It's AWESOME. Missionary life rules. 

Love,

Hermana Benyo

Photos:

1. Us and Segundo before his baptism, along with his now father-in-law/our convert Maykeel

2. Amazon river dolphin!!! awwww

3. Our neighbors selling their freshly caught piranhas 

4. The peruvian hairless dogs here are super cute!

5. Hairless puppies

6. The street in front of our house after it rains (ie every day)