Week 33 Feliz Semana Santa! March 28, 2016

The District Hermanas at Pinkberry! w/ Hermanas Thomas (Ogden),  Dionicio (Cali), Dorado (Puno)

Feliz Semana Santa! (Happy Easter)
First, Birthday shout out to Harrison! 17! Your last year as a kid so disfrutalo! (enjoy it)

This week we had a holiday, celebrating Christ! Unfortunately, What did everyone do on this Christ centered celebration? Get together and get drunk. Hermana Aida likes to call it Semana Tranca because of all the drinking. The procession close to our room was crazy! My companion wanted to get out of there but of course I had to take pictures. Everyone marches around with statues of Senor Cautivo and they recite prayers. Its pretty interesting!

Acting out Christ being crucified.

Processions! Right in the middle there is a big statue of Señor Cautivo that they're carrying around.

This week we met a lady in our area named Bertha. She just moved her with her family from Chiclayo and has been a member for 2 years. This last year she has been completely inactive and her 9 year old daughter Dayana isn't baptized! So we got them to come to church yesterday and Dayanas baptismal date is April 16th! They have a great family.

Manuel is the greatest! For the first time ever he showed up to church in black slacks a white shirt and a tie! I commented on it and he responded by saying "progress" How true! His goal for receiving the priesthood is April 16th! So awesome to see the difference in him.

A painting of Miguel Grau in the museum. (A war hero) Hermana Thomas and I were wondering why he has his hand on his stomach. We both agreed he was saying, "Please, NO MORE RICE!" (:

My companion and I ate the worst food in my whole mission yesterday.. I still am not sure exactly what it was but I wanted to puke! There was a little boy sitting next to me and I almost tried discretely shoveling my food onto his plate. Poor kid didn't like the food too much either. (:

Coming up on 8 months! Love you all so much!
Hermana Ingram

Chicken delivery arrived just in time and covered in flies too! It reminded me that I'm in a 3rd world country.

 I love Hermana Thomas! I hope we get to be companions one day (: She is hilarious!

The district with Miguel Grau. The Elders: Biedleman (Cali), Dilascio (Argentina), Norman (Morgan, UT), and Cachura (Cusco)

Just a little love from home.

Week 32 March 21, 2016

At Stake Conference and I found my cute trainer! The first thing she said to me "Hermana Ingram you have gotten so fat!" Thanks Hna Apeña I love you too! (gotta love the brutally honest latin culture right?)

Week 2 of this transfer!

Yesterday we had 3 investigators come to church!! Woot woot!
The father of the family is Carlos he is actually a member that hasn't been to church in almost 30 years but we are bringing him back! His wife Miriam is pretty funny... She is super evangelica. We recently had a lesson with the two of them and taught about the restoration and baptism. During the lesson she crossed her arms and defiantly said, "Yo no voy a bautizarme." "I'm not getting baptized." Then she stated, "You believe in Joseph Smith but I believe in God." We very patiently and clearly explained to her why that isn't actually the case and then her husband lost all patience. He still has a testimony of the church so he defended it the whole time. But it was pretty awkward when they sat there arguing and my companion and I looked at each other like "what do we do now?"
Moral of the story they came to stake conference! It was awesome, Elder Nelson Ardila from the Seventy came. Carlos and Miriam have two sons who are progressing so fast! They have been to church twice now and participate in young mens and seminary! So we will see where it goes with them.

I am always so surprised at how unbelievably open everyone is here. Almost every single time we sit down in a lesson everyone tells us exactly what is going on in their lives and the personal problems that they have. Every time I always feel like I don't even know how to respond. But a lot of the time the people tend to blame God a little and it's very sad. This week we met with a less active Hermana named Marisol. We taught her about temples and eternal marriage and she seemed to love the lesson. Then we invited her to set a date for herself to go to the temple. Thats when she started to cry and opened up to us about her husband and the problems they have. It was super sad hearing about everything she has gone through and how unfaithful her husband is. It's always hard when people have marital problems because as missionaries we aren't exactly qualified to give any type of marriage counsel. We helped her the best we could and as we were talking her cell phone rang. It was her husband. He told her he was almost home so she immediately put the phone down and ran to the bathroom to wash her face. She sat there applying makeup to make it look as if she hadn't been crying for the past hour. Something she said really made me sad. She said, "Why is Heavenly Father letting this happen to me?" I think I would respond first with. Heavenly Father can't control our agency! Sometimes others use their agency negatively and it may effect us personally. Secondly, about trials in general, I read this in a talk that I really liked:

"The world would have us believe that trials are unfair and that we are entitled to only blue skies and sunshine... We may forget in the heat of our trials that God is aware of us and that He has a plan for us. He knows us individually and perfectly and customizes our mortal experiences to help us grow into our very best selves-- If we will let Him. He is the ultimate personal trainer!" I like that is says IF WE WILL LET HIM. We definitely cannot be changed to become like Christ by chance. Its a choice. Our will is the only thing Heavenly Father does not have, so it's our choice to try and align our will with his! "Every challenge you face, every hard thing you confront, every bad thing that happens to you, every unfairness, every conflict, every sadness, tragedy, every disappointment and heartache, every temptation and every opposition happens for one purpose only; to give you opportunity to respond by applying in your life the teachings of Jesus. As you do so you are change to become more like Him." So essentially it's our choice! I try to apply the Christlike attribute of patience every time the ward sings the hymns 5 octaves lower and with a melody similar to a rap song (:

Hasta la proxima semana!
Hermana Ingram

Week 31 March 14, 2016

Zone meeting! Lots of Hermanas with a photo bomb from zone leaders. Dionicio (Cali), Sandison (Twin Falls), Brown (South Jordan), Dorado (Puno), Sepulveda (Mapleton), Signs (Coloroado), Thomas (Ogden)

7 months! 

A good but very hard week. We worked super hard and how many inverstigators came to church yesterday? Ninguno... It was super disappointing when so many people told us for sure they were going to come, even going around to pick them up didn't work.

The good news is we found a new family! _ and _, (mother and daughter). _ has two kids, _ and _. So yes _ is a member, I'm sure you could guess by the names... But _ and _ are not yet baptized! We still haven't had the opportunity to sit down and teach them due to the fact that they have other problems that need attention first. This little family was previously living in _ (on the border of Chile) but moved very quickly and secretly to _ as they were experiencing extortion. What that means is that they have been receiving countless threats such as "if you don't pay this certain amount of money by this date I will kill your 2 kids and your mom"... She showed us the threats on her phone and lets just say I censored it. Terrifying right? So they moved to _. While living there, They left as a family for a day at the beach. Coming home later that night they walked into a completely empty house. Everything had been robbed. It was very sad when both of these women were sobbing as Hna _ said, "My children had nothing but the swimsuits on their bodies." Can you even imagine these trials? So from there we have been helping them in service related ways. Its been such a blessing to have Hna Dorado here just in time. They bonded to her within the first 5 minutes because she is from the southern part of Peru as well. Perfect timing! I know its definitely not a coincidence!

Saying goodbye to Hermana Shumway (Orem) and Hermana Vasquez (Cali). SO SAD! These two are amazing missionaries!!

Hna Bobbio has also been experiencing some hard trials. I got a call from her sobbing as she told me her little grandson Emilio, 3 yrs old, has a brain tumor. She asked us to tell the whole ward so that we could pray for him. (portion removed to maintain privacy) Emilio's dad, Harold, who isn't a member but someone who we are really good friends with, also called me crying. He told me he didn't know what to do and that he was scared. I honestly don't feel adequate to help someone in a situation like that! I told him we were praying for him and that Heavenly Father hears his prayers. I feel so sad for their family.

Hermana Dorado and I! She's from Puno! How cool to think that I've visited her home town.

But on a brighter side we have a lot of investigators that are progressing! We just need to get them to church!! I can't reiterate it enough, the importance of going church! We are literally battling against age old traditions and a culture that tells you to work or go out and drink and watch soccer on Sundays. It is so hard!! But not impossible..

Fun fact: As my comp and I were walking the dusty hot streets we talked about what each city in Peru is known for... Lima, the capitol. Trujillo, the flowers. Arequipa, famous volcanoes. As we got to Piura the both of us paused, looked at eachother, said "chifles" in unison, and then busted up laughing at how sad but true it is. Chifles are fried banana chips... and that's what Piura is known for. Also THE HEAT. Don't take cold for granted!!

Miss everyone sooooo much
Hermana Ingram

PERU: Niños playing with burning garbage

Week 30 (week 6 of transfer 4) March 7, 2014

Manuel's baptism!! With Hermano Raul who is our ward mission leader

Week 6! MANUEL GOT BAPTIZED!

Friday night it rained... and hard too. In the afternoon we left with hna aida to teach a cute little family. Their mom is a little difficult and lacks a lot of faith, but we are working on it! When we left it was pouring rain. The streets had turned into rivers. We had to flag down a moto just to help us cross the street! As we were walking back to Hna Aida's house we passed by the street that also works as a drain. It was FULL!

The street that turned into a river!

My comp and I ran down the side of the "river" to watch cars and motos attempt to cross. Meanwhile Hna Aida sprinted to her house to save everything from getting destroyed. We later went back to help her bail water out of her roof (all of the roofs are flat here and collect rain water like a swimming pool) So we spent about 2 hours sweeping away water onto the ground below.

Botando el agua el techo de Hna Aida!

At 8 o'clock in the church we had our very last lesson planned with hno manuel before his baptism. But with the rain we both knew it wasn't going to happen. Long story short Hno Manuel practically swam to hna aidas house to have his last lesson! It was awesome. We read about the people of ammon and when they became converted to the Lord they buried their weapons of war. I related that to him and his baptism. That from here on out all of his bad habits or bad decisions will be buried deep in the ground and he can truly be converted to the Lord. He bore a strong testimony about how much he has changed. After the lesson the light went out in all of our area! so we practically swam home in the dark with trees falling along the roads. It was an adventure if you ask me.
And the next day Manuel was baptized.. Woo hoo!

Hna Mauricio completed her 4 months as a mini missionary and went home this morning. My new companion is Hermana Dorado from Puno! She is from my same group at the CCM and is awesome.

Miss everyone so much!
Hermana Ingram

Happy and content eating cold ice cream in the cold rain. I sure do miss the cold!

Amazed by the amount of water!

Hermana Aida when the lights went out! She was a little scared :)

Brave cars that ended up getting stuck.