Ana Maria and the 4th missionary

Ana Maria is the cutest! Oswaldo baptized her! He`s leaving to Panama for his mission next week!

 After the baptism, the ward had a huge Bolivian party and they all wanted to take pics of us with the food and flags and interesting objects to mash up yuka! 

And the activity with the Elders was a hit and we all got matching shirts!​

This week was wondeful! Ana Maria got baptized and everyone just loves her. Through the curtains in the font we all heard, ¨ahh! the water is so cold! Can we reschedule this for during the day?¨ She has had her own beauty salon for more than 30 years, so I`m putting my trust in her and letting her TRIM my hair in an hour! But she was prepared to be baptized. She is currently in 2nd Nephi 2 and reads the Book of Mormon whenever she has free time. Yesterday when the ward gave her a the sign of fellowship and welcome to the ward in Sacrament Meeting she waved and yelled "thanks!" We love her so much.

One of our investigators, Isabel, gave us cute white shirts and told us we are her best friends. She wants to be baptized, but something happens every Sunday and she can't come to church. With the R. Family yesterday, who are the BEST but have the really complicated situation of the wife being married to another man. We went with Belen (19) and her cousin Joselyn (20) who came to church for the 2nd time yesterday because she went inactive right after she got baptized when she was 10. They helped the family more than we culd have imagined when Belen started talking about how she didnt know where she`d be without having had the gospel her whole life and Joselyn said that she messed up by distancing herself from the church. It was a powerful lesson and the family, Nelson, Francis, Nagely, and Lucero all committed to come to church and the Meet the Mormons activity we`re having Friday!

If you have the chance to get a hold of the talk "The 4th Missionary," read it. I read it again this week and noticed that these almost 15 months (eek) I have been holding just a tiny part of me back and not giving my ALL to the Lord. His will is higher than my will and His plan will be infinitely better than mine. I feel a peace that I have never felt before. I want to challenge everyone to give just a bit more to Him this week. Go the extra mile because Heavenly Father has entrusted each one of us opportunities to do so. He can count on me and I wont let Him down again.

Hermana Park

LOS OLIVOS!

I dont like packing

 Last night with the hnas in Trompillo with giant hamburgers that I could only eat 1/4 of! (featuring my overflowing suitcase)

Jesus' baptism (with Hermana Alvarez and her new companion, Hna. Quackenbush)

Hermana Undurraga!

The call came Tuesday and I packed up my 4 transfers of Trompillo, with a few tears, and came to Los Olivos! My companion is Hermana Undurraga from Ecuador. She is extremely adorable and never stops smiling. I already love her! We have been able to find a lot of new families to teach! We live here in a big condo, 6 of us hermanas! The Elders lived here before and so all the door handles are broken and I got locked in the bathroom twice.

Jesus got baptized in Trompillo!

A sweet older lady who is a hair dresser named Ana Maria is preparing to be baptized on August 6th! And a family where only the father from Korea isn't a member was very surprised to know my last name. So we`re hoping that "Park,"  a common name in Korea apparently, can get us in the door with him!

My companion helps me know Christ more just by knowing her.

We are working harder than ever before.

I really love these dirt roads of Los Olivos.

Hna Park

9

FINALLY got reunited with Hermana Newbold in our intercambio! :)

We walked outside for 10 seconds to grab our lunch through the gate from our pensionista and got blasted with water balloons from a car! haha 

Happy Valentine´s Day. We got dumped on just walking home from church! haha

One thing I am coming to understand is the concept of time. These 2 weeks since I have emailed, 3 days locked up inside, and more importantly 9 months of my mission have flown by ridiculously fast. It makes me think of interstellar and how we can change the concept of time. On some planets, 1 hour is 7 years  to us. That would mean that my 9 months have been like 10 seconds. 

As I have put on my Hermana Park nametag, I have seen so many miracles. Here is 1 example from church yesterday. I only have about 5 minutes to practice before playing for Sacrament Meeting in my ward. And yesterday I didn´t have time to practice all 4 of the songs, and so when the 3rd song came,and everyone stood up for interlude, I said a little prayer and relaxed my hands. I thought okay. I don´t know the tune of this song, but I will just count it out like I did in band. 4/4. And I started playing, AND IT CAME. I played the song almost perfectly and realized that I had heard it one time. There are 1 million better piano players in the world, and without more practice I would never make it as an organ player in Sacrament meeting in the USA. But Heavenly Father KNOWS us all perfectly and individually. He knows our talents, our weaknesses, our fears, and He helps us. Because He loves us. 

Life is beautiful and thinking about reaching the halfway mark makes me really grateful for the 5 companions, 3 areas, a couple tears, a few laughs, and 9 months I have grown and changed to become a better disciple of Christ. 

I love you all and hope Valentine´s Day was full of LOVE. Because I love love :) 

Love, Hermana Park

PS.  Shout out to my cousin David, who was on the Today Show!