God is love

IT POURRRRRRRRED Thursday. Rain is fun especially when you are COMPLETELY soaked :) 

My pensionista Magui almost made me cry when she brought out chocolate cupcakes with chocolate mousse inside. My first Bolivian cupcake. She also made some canned tuna for us. The only fish we can eat!

I hope everyone had a happy Easter and all the ladies out there LOVED women's session as much as I did. I may or may not have cried during More Holiness Give Me.. But it was amazing! Every talk was on love and service. I´m so excited for General Conference this weekend.

The Easter traditions are VERY interesting. Starting Friday, none of the Catholics can leave their houses. This is part of their observance of Christ dying. They only came out around 4:00 to follow around a cross and re-enact Christ dying on the cross. All we saw were 3 teenage boys on crosses in the park, and walked a bit faster. Hardly anyone was outside (or inside...) of their houses this weekend. Everyone kind of disappeared.

As a result of Easter yesterday, no one was home. So we walked for at least 6 hours straight. We sat down on a curb to call a referral, then kept going! We had one lesson yesterday, but it was a beautiful lesson with Edith :) At the end of the day we were walking home and saw a tall, skinny man with long hair and a guitar. He gave us a thumbs up, then asked if we were Jehovah´s Witnesses or Mormons. He introduced himself as being from Chile and told us he´s visited every church and loves that we're spreading the word. He kept pointing at us, at his heart, then up and told is that GOD IS LOVE. 

Matthew 22:36-40 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? And Jesus said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

A man mistook the name Hermana for Amor yesterday and called me amor (or love) Park. I want to develop such a deep love that my name becomes Love. I love this work and especially all the people that God has trusted to my care :) We are working towards getting a family married and baptized so they can seal all their 7 children together in the temple in Cochabamba soon. I love Bolivia and Heavenly Father for giving me this beautiful opportunity to be here :) God is love, so go love someone today :)

WITH MUCH LOVE,

Hermana Park 

Last photo caption: Well, it was time for me to chop off more than 12 inches. I donated it, so that made me feel better. It´s so weird to have short hair for the first time since I was 4. (You can decide for yourself if this picture is real by looking at the date Friday...)

More than eggs and a bunny

Sometimes old ladies we contact don´t want to talk to us because they´re making lunch, but give us some really yummy cake. We´re not complaining!

And then sometimes people yell at you about how there aren´t prophets and say that they wont talk to us because they believe in God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost ¨us too...¨ So we buy coke. 

 Oh Boliva. Gad is faithfull.

For our activity last week we made cuñape and I found a kitten and Hermana Petroff came back to Santa Cruz 

how to make cuñape! It has a bucket load of cheese that you have to mound and then roll into balls!

more pics with the hermanas when we made cuñape and ate a Pizza Eli´s interminable pizza, which we ate regularly in Tarija!

Family, friends, and fellow cat lovers,

We are finding a ton of new people to teach. We have been using these pass along cards of colors that have questions. We let the person in the street, park, or wherever thay are choose their color. For example, pink says how can I find peace and happiness? Green, how can I learn from my trials? Light blue, how can I have a happy marriage? And we shared one with a random guy named Marcelo. Then he asked if we could come over to read the Bible in English. We said yes, but never brought my English Bible. Sorry! But he´s very interested and asked about tithing, the bishop, how Christ came to the America´s, everything! He came to church yesterday and we were happy to see him. Now we just have to find a way to teach his whole family! This is just one of the many, many miracles we are seeing here.

This week is Easter! It´s interesting to see all of the Catholic traditions. I never understood much about how Easter is more than eggs and a bunny. But it´s about Jesus Christ. Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, ¨Because of the sacrifice of our beloved Redeemer, death has no sting, the grave has no victory, Satan has no last power, and we are begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.¨ There are not words to describe my gratitude to my Heavenly Father for letting his only begotten Son, come to Earth and die for me, so I can live again. I have come to understand more about the word Savior. I found this poem I like:

¨Jesus will save you

just as you are;

Jesus will welcome you

back from afar;

Jesus will heal

sin´s pitiful scar:

Just as you are 

come home.¨

-John Runyon

I am so grateful to be preaching His gospel in Trompillo. I hope everyone remembers Christ this week and that all of the women reading this enjoy the women´s session of conference! Come unto Christ.

Love, Hermana Park 

#HALLELUJAH FOR NEW LIFE

With Hermana Huber!

Gardenia´s baptism!

 I was a little more than excited to eat KFC

From our zone activity last week when we ate KFC and ice cream! :)

Welcome back eastern time zone. Happy Bolivian Father´s Day this Saturday the 19th. I am done counting how many months I´ve been in the mission because it makes me nauseous. 

This week Gardenia got baptized! It´s sure handy that her boyfriend got baptized in July! ¨But if you dont get baptized, we arent getting married.¨ haha but dont worry! We checked that she has real intent! haha She´s cute. This same day I had to play the piano for the Stake Relief Society bday party and by heaven's grace I got to play Called to Serve! haha

One fun part of the mission are transfers! We didn´t have any, but my Hermana McDonald is in Tabladita now and she gave me an update that my drunk, but harmless, friend Dumbo, real name Pedro Leon, hasn´t drunk for 2 weeks and he wants to come to church. He can have new life through Christ! Just like we all can! Christ died so we might be. But the good news is that HE LIVES. I am so grateful to know that He died for me. and for you. Because He loves us :)

Watch here to find out how you and all those whom you have loved, can have new life throught Christ. Have a wonderful week! I love you all!

Arrepientense

Hermana Orozco made me arepe from Colombia!

The Cesari Family made us salteñas. They got baptized last year and are so cute! This was our intent on a picture that almost didn't happen because my 10 second timer is fast and I tripped over a chair. 

This week I have learned what truly is repentance...after hearing "We Are Never Getting Back Together." Satan knows my weaknesses.

Yesterday we had stake conference! We had some big names there. President and Hermana Willard, President Jensen from the Cochabamba temple, and Elder Lizano from the Seventy. It was a little ways to get there being in the 6th ring, but surprisingly many of our investigators came! YAY! It was so good. They all touched on keeping the Sabbath Day holy and repentance. One of the speakers talked about divorce. He said that the solution for problems in a marriage is not separation, rather repentance. Why is repentance so bad? Why do we treat that word like a swear word? A mí, me encanta el arrepentimiento. A new opportunity to START OVER. All thanks to the Atonement of Christ. I CANNOT believe that we are in March, so close to Easter and General Conference! I want to think more about Jesus Christ. About how he lives. Hallelujah, He lives!

Have a happy spring and enjoy the sun! We´re going into fall here now! I love you all :)

Love, Hermana Park

Zone meeting pictures from Hna Secce!  Hermana Huber and Hermana Canales weren't there because they went to Tarija to check out hospitals!  The other Hermana is Hermana Basualdo who did a mini mission and leaves on Wednesday for her mission in Colombia!  So here are the hermanas in our zone, and then our district. We've got some good space going between the zone leader and me because we wouldn't want to break any rules!

(Salteñas have little cubes of potato, shredded chicken (chicken is better than beef) with part of a hard boiled egg, some spices, and an olive.)