That one time we almost had a baptism

Once upon a time, we had a baptism. oh wait. ALMOST. She was in her baptism clothes and everything, but 2 hours after it was supposed to start, her family came and decided they didn{t want her to be baptized this week. They were upset and i felt like I was in a spanish soap opera, but the good news is, we got pictures. so it{s almost like it happened haha. She will be baptized this week if everything goes smoothly. 

I just want to share some things from my journal because my brain is a little bit fried. This has been a rough week. There were miracles this week, but huge trials as well. 

24 de Julio 2013

Today we had 2 miracles (big ones) and a lot of tiny miracles.... Ambrosia accepted her baptismal date for the 3rd of August (she didn{t come to church so we had to change it to next week). She is so funny. She always repeats our prayers and almost always takes over the prayer and finishes it for us. She knelt dpown behind the chair when the elders came to give her a blessing. I love her so much. She has so many problems in her life and I know living the gospel will bless her life so much. I am so excited to watch her progress. 

We also had a little adventure today. There is a little old lady that lives really far away (we got permission to visit her) and she only speaks quechua. I thought we were just going to talk to her daughter who lives down the street from us, but i{m pretty sure something important got lost in translation cuz there I was with her daughter, my companion, and 20 other people, squished into a van meant for 6. It smelt like death, and there was a lady in my face breastfeeding her baby. It{s fine. It{s peru.

 Anyways, we waited in the smelly van forever, and finally set off for who jknows where... no one spoke spanish on the bus, only quechua. (at least I hope it was Quechua, or I really need to work on my Spanish). We got dropped off in the middle of nowhere. The daugher showed us the way to her mom{s house. She jetted off into a little stream and says "cuidado". she was forever ahead of me, and I could barely see cuz i forgot my glasses. I just started laughing cuz I looked back and hna. inga is wearing ballet flats and keeps trying to only step on rocks, and I{m trudging through the mud in my boots. THANK you Uncle Marc and Aunt Echo for knocking some sense into me. Boots are a good idea. 

When I catch up to her daughter, she picks up a mug she found in the middle of the stream COVERED in dirt, and says something along the lines of "oooh. a little cup. It{s mine now." Once again, all I can do is laugh. When we finally arrive at her house, some adorable dirty children run up to me, and the first thing they say is "There{s spiders everywhere".... awesome. I feel like freaking Ron Weasley in the forbidden forrest. I HATE spiders. But I braved it anyway. 

We walked through the door to her yard, and the first thing I see is about 30 little piles of poop drying on a table. Not entirely sure what they{re for, but it smelled really good.ha. joke. I had no idea what was going on the entire lesson. She only speaks quechua, and i BARELY speak spanish, so it was a fun time. I mostly just kept the kids distracted with pass along cards. The room was filled with animal skins (not sure what kind.) and our only light was a 100 year old lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Luckily we didn{t need to read anything, cuz she doesn{t understand spanish. I just kept laughing to myself and thinking about how i{ll never get an experience like this ever again. At the end of the lesson, Hna. Inga told me she is getting baptized on August 3rd. OKAY! I don{t know how that happened, but i{ll be there and i{m really excited about it. 

As we were leaving, her daughter told us that she always hides from us when she knows we{re coming. That{s why she didn{t tell her we were coming haha. As we walked down the street in the middle of nowhere peru, waiting for the bus, i swear i{ve never been happier. Everything was perfect in that moment. Then her daughter took a few steps to the side of the road to pee. haha. I knew that peace couldn{t last forever. But I love it. Everything about this country. The people, the weird smells, the tanneries and coffin stores that are just on the side of the road like it{s just a grocery store or something. haha. It{s so different here, and I LOVE IT

Ahhh i{m almost out of time, but one last funny story.

yesterday we went to visit an investigator who lives with a member, but he wasn{t home. We were about to leave when I asked if we could do anything for her. I didn{t understand anything she said except "fruita" and she did a little hand motion, so I just naively assumed she asked us to wash or cut some fruit. I only knew I was very very wrong when we walked into her house and the next think i know, she is dropping her skirt half way down her bum and hands hna. Inga a bottle of peruvian Icy Hot. I turn to hna. inga and she said she needed us to "frota" her lower back... which does NOT mean fruit. it means rub. So there we were in the middle of Peru, massinging the butt of an old lady, getting our feet pecked into nubs by chickens, listening to the radio in Quechua and talking about the gospel. I will NEVER forget the difference between fruita and frota ever again. I also won{t forget how grateful she was to have someone visit her and help her with her pain. She lives alone and no one ever visits her. We{re going to visit once a week from now on. 

I{m out of time, but I LOV EYOU ALL!