Water balloon fight!

The hermanas in my zone when we went to the Casa Dorada! 

It is really pretty and is on the bill 20 in Bolivianos! 

 

My district, Elder Hernandez, Elder Palomar, Hermana Petroff, me, Hermana Paz, Hermana Cabrera!

 After the conference, 2 of the hermanas from Bermejo stayed at our house! Hermana Padilla (my former companion I had for 2 weeks!) and Hermana Logovii, from Samoa! I got to teach with Hermana Padilla again and it was just like good old times, 4 months ago!

We found a restaurant called XOXO that had buffalo wings! 

(Do you like the Louisville shirt I found here? haha)

This Wednesday are transfers! Just glad they weren´t last night! It´s scary because I have been here in my beloved area of Tabladita for a good chunk of time! 1.5 months in the MTC, 3 weeks in Senac, 6 months in Tabladita equals more than 8 months as Hermana Park! Still feels like I just landed in Peru. 

We are busy preparing Raquel for her baptism this Saturday! She has had an unbelievable amount of doubts and her husband wouldn´t wait for her because he wanted to get baptized NOW so he got baptized in November (Mateo!) And then she just decided it was time, but she wanted to keep it a surprise from the ward! So she had the Bishop announce it in Sacrament meeting at the end after Mateo gave his first talk on humility (which he rocked!) and she just smiled and the look on Mateo´s face was PRICELESS. So our recent convert will baptize his wife :) 

The weather is warming up, the rain is gone, so that means it´s time for carnival! Just 2 weeks away when we spend 3 days locked in our house! (hope my companion is nice!) But people are already starting the traditions. We´ve got people dancing with baskets of fruit on their heads, squirt gun fights, and best of all the water balloons. It´s just another reason I LOVE Bolivia. Yesterday we were walking down the street, and there were a bunch of kids playing, and their dad yelled ¨Look at the queens! Get them!¨(They use the word queen a lot, reina, just in every day conversation.) So we were running from a group of 10 kids under the age of 12 pelting us with water balloons! We´ve also gotten them thrown at us quite a bit, but these soccer players don´t have good arms! 

We had 2 wonderful conferences this week, Tuesday with Presidente with more preparation for Wednesday! The conference, that we got to watch in English! The leaders of the church spoke about how we can Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts. We learned so much. The things are SO SIMPLE. Missionary work is so simple. We over complicate it! I am excited to be able to apply all that I learn now, and in this next transfer! :) 

The mission is wonderful. Bolivia is perfect. The people are angels. And I hope everyone is reading their Book of Mormon :)

Love, Hermana Park

PS. Yesterday the stake brought in pop for the relief society and told us to all drink it as fast as we could so that they could return the glass bottles. From the stake, or a sneaky trick from another church to kill us all with poisoned pop?

Ready for changes!

To see one person change makes up for all the times people have told us no, not done the things we kindly asked them to do in order to receive more blessings etc. The mission is the best place to lose yourself and focus all your time on the people! We had a bit of a hard week with our investigators going MIA, but school will start again in February and then everything will get back to normal :)

I am excited for 2 conferences that we will have this week. One tomorrow with our mission president, and on Wednesday the broadcast for ALL of the missionaries from the First Presidency and 12 Apostles. I am READY to make changes in my life so I can be a better missionary and help bring others unto this wonderful news we have to share. Also transfers are next week, so we really will see some changes since hardly anyone got transfered before Christmas! Our mission president told us to take this week to love and serve our companion better! Hermana Petroff, coming at you! 

This church is true and the Book of Mormon is the best way to grow closer to Christ! I love you all and hope it´s a wonderful week! :)

Love Hermana Park

misiòn de los milagros

A bittersweet day to hear that Hermana H. who was my companion in the mtc and one of my best friends, is being transfered to California for her health. But I´m really happy that she will still be able to serve! 

This week we went to Santa Cruz for a leadership council. While we were on the plane, there was a tour group from France and I couldn´t even talk to the 2 cute girls next to me. In the conference we talked about how the new goal for the mission is that every companionship has to baptize 1 family every month! We are working hard to reach the goal here in Tabladita and are seeing miracles! Roxanna and Jonny have decided to get married this month, fingers crossed, that it´s before transfers. Haha but that´s selfish of me and I´m just happy that they can get married so that they can enter the waters of baptism, as a family, with their 8 year old daughter Mariam. 

It´s beautiful here and we are getting more heat! I love having a hot South American winter/summer! I fall more in love with Bolivia, the people, and culture here every day. The best decision I have ever made happened almost 1 year ago when I went to the Bishop to start my mission papers! 

Thanks for all the love and support! It is a wonderful feeling to be here serving the Lord and knowing my loved ones are protected! I LOVE YOU ALL! Stay safe and enjoy the blessing that Heavenly Father has given us to be on the earth, in January, or 2016, where ever you are! :)

Love, 

Hermana Park

2016

New Year's Eve tacos and ginger ale! :)

I wish I could express in this email how much I love Bolivia. The people here are unbelievably humble. There is always a woman who sells scones on the street corner and we finally found her in her house to visit her on Saturday. We explained a bit about the message we have because she didn´t have much time. At the end, we were committing her to read The Restoration pamplet and pray about it and we´d come back next week to explain more. And she was nervous and said she didn´t know if she could do it. I was very humbled by her response that she is in her 30´s with 2 boys and her husband left her, so she doesn´t have much time because she is always working, but more than her parents died when she was 6 years old, so she had to start working with her older sister.She should´ve been starting 1st grade, but she couldnt go to school, meaning she can´t read. I almost cried when she said that and we told her that we would come and read with her and help her. When they pray here they give thanks for another day to live and for always having bread to eat everyday. 

Another reason why Bolivia is amazing: on new year´s eve right at midnight, EVERYONE shoots off fireworks. And I´m not talking fountains and sparklers, but giant ones that light up the sky. There were so many more than Christmas eve. We had to be inside at 7 pm and we made some tacos and goals for the year, then were awoken by a battle outside! Luckily, we live on the 3rd floor in the mountains so we can see all of Tarija! Way better than the 4th of July! Fireworks forever! Happy 2016! The year that everything changes.

We are really excited here in the mission because there will be a world wide conference, just for missionaries and the 1st Presidency and Apostles on January 20th. I am excited to see what more we can do to bring more people unto Christ! :)

The mission is a life changing experience and I do not even want to think about how it is 2016 and I will have to come home this year. But I still have time :)

Today Hermana Petroff is 20! I have spent Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year´s and now her birthday with her! 

Love Hermana Park

New Year, new you.

From the Christmas Skype with all the cool cats in my family, minus Scout.

December 28, 2015 

Yay! Christmas happened! I hope all could feel of Christ´s love :) I was SO HAPPY to be able to Skype my cute family. Best Christmas EVER. 

We had to be inside an hour earlier Christmas eve so we did the usual and ate the Greek pizza from down the road! :) We have to be in by 7 pm, two hours early, on New Year´s Eve! It seems like just yesterday I was with Meghan and Kristin Ferm at the YSA dance! Where does the time go. 

We had our Christmas conference with Presidente with all the missionaries in Tarija and Bermejo, so around 50 of us! We had a conference with him in the morning then we all sand songs and recent converts and investigators came! My zone sang "What Child is This?" and acted it out, and I got to be the angel! :) It was a little cheesy, but fun! 

Last night, the party next door blasted a remix of 80´s songs and older. We got to hear a nice rendition of "Another One Bites the Dust" while we tried to sleep! Also, we heard at least 5 times this week that everyone here has a sister in Virginia. So if anyone goes, I think you have some good odds of meeting a Bolivian! Gotta love Bolivia!

I was trying to think of a good resolution for this year, and here it is! I am going to do everything exactly how I think Christ would do it! WWJD. But really! As I read Jesus the Christ I am more inspired to be more like Him, do what He would do, say what He would say! 

I hope as you all come up with what you want to change and who you want to be, remember that it doesn´t matter who you were or what you have done. Because with Christ, we have a beautiful future :)

I LOVE YOU ALL and hope everyone stays super safe this new year :)