From: Hayley Imbler <hayley.imbler@myldsmail.net>
Date: Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 10:38 AM
Subject: Sunny in Sol del Pinar
To: Kathleen Imbler , Michael Imbler <

HOLA!! 

Feliz Lunes a todas! He decidido que voy a escribir un poco en español para que los que sepan puedan practicar! Haha.. ok that´s enough! For those that didn´t understand, don´t worry it wasn´t anything interesting! This week has been difficult but I think we are starting to get the hang of our area. Sorry that this email will probably be a little shorter than usual.. We are not going to have p day today because my companion and I are going to the temple on Wednesday. 

Monday.. we went to visit my old zone.. yay!! Haha I was really happy to be able to see Hermana Callejas and the other elders and sisters in Carabayllo. We had a big water fight and then headed back home. Sadly Monday night every single one of our lessons fell through... I really feel like Heavenly Father is testing me... Not sure exactly what He wants me to learn yet, but I´m ready and willing to change if that is what He needs of me. 

Tuesday was a little better. We talked with some less active members, who we are working to reactivate and with a recent convert. Then we had a lesson with Justina, but she told us that the landlord was going to kick her out before Thursday and we couldn´t find her again because on Wednesday my companion had to go to immigrations.. we are hoping that somehow we can get in contact with her to see where she´s at.

Wednesday I was in another area all day with Hermana Schroader.. from my same group.. She lived with Jen before the mission. It was interesting to teach with her, but we had a good day together while our companions were having a bad day at immigrations having to go to three different places.. haha oh well. But at the end of the day I got the best surprise of my whole mission! At about 8:30 we were in the stake building finding our companions again when they arrived. I was talking in a group of people and heard someone say my name.. but pretty quietly.. I turned around and started crying almost immediately. Lizbeth and Jeny two of my first converts were there and they both ran to hug me! They have been going to church in the ward that is in the stake building and not in the other that participates in the Comas stake. I really have never been more happy! They both said that my companion hadn´t given them my email and they hadn´t been able to write me. They now want to do splits with us and I am going to get to spend lots more time with them!

Thursday we had an activity in our area and we did splits but sadly my planned visits fell through and I ended up talking to about 11 different people without the success of entering their houses.. but some did invite us to go back another day. We´ve had a lot of struggles because the investigators that the elders here had, a lot of them don´t want the sisters to visit them.. I never imagined that that would happen.. 

Friday we had only a few lessons as well as Saturday. We have been struggling to find new investigators, but I know this week will be better. We have the mentality to change this area. There is so much potential here that I know if we work really hard this area can just explode! My companion and I are learning so much.. we´re working together and trying really hard to change the things that have been hard for us and make them easier.. Humble ourselves so that our weaknesses can be made strengths like it says in Ether 12:27. I know I´ve got a lot of weaknesses that I need to overcome, but I know my Heavenly Father can mold me into the missionary he wants me to be. 

Sunday was really really slow... We had some interesting contacts though.. One drunk guy told us that he didn´t believe in God and that he was the anti-Christ... I felt like I was listening to the story of Korihor in person. 

Well that´s all folks!! Take care this week!!

Hermana Imbler

Birds that we found in a little chacra.. farm.

2nd photo - -view from my apartment

Sunny en Sol del Pinar

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Hayley Imbler	10:32 AM (41 minutes ago)
to Kathleen, me, Michael

Happy Monday everyone!! Well surprise surprise I think my mission president really likes to make me sweat because this week on Tuesday I received a call at 9:30 from my zone leaders and they told me I had an emergency transfer.. haha here we go again (and happy 9 months to Hermana Imbler.. we´re going to transfer her haha)!! 9 missionaries arrived this last week from Venezuela due to the bad situation over there so we had to make some changes. I never expected that I would be leaving Libertad so soon, but Wednesday I was all packed and ready to go. As I sat in the offices with the other missionaries I waited patiently..ok impatiently to hear where I would be going.. And then I heard something I didn´t think I would ever hear.. Hermana Imbler will be opening a new area... wha wha wha what?? Sol del Pinar 2. They took out 2 elders and put in 2 hermanas.. what a shock.So I got to my new apartment with my cute new companion Hermana Inca (from Quito Ecuador) and we got to work! 

Rewind... Monday and Tuesday in Libertad.. We were able to spend our last two days working hard.. although Hermana Callejas and I didn´t know it would be our last two days... On Monday Carlos, Manuel, and Linda (Manuel and Linda are a couple, and Carlos a younger kid 24) all accepted baptism.. but I guess I will see how that works out when Hermana Callejas writes me! Tuesday we found some new investigators that I know will be progressing in these weeks with Hna Callejas and her new companion. We also had a lesson with Bryan.. more updates on him to come.. 

Wednesday.. we started out in the offices which is where I got to meet my new companion! Like I said her name is Hna Inca and she´s from Quito, Ecuador. She is 20 years old.. just like me, and super cute!! We get along really well and we´re always laughing! Wednesday one of the elders that was serving in our area helped us to get to know a few things in the area.. it´s really big.. but one of the good things is that there aren´t any hills!! Never thought I would be on this side of the street.. haha! We also got to know our new pensionista.. we have two! One for breakfast who isn´t a member, but is super sweet, and one for dinner... I think I might get fat here... We´re thinking about dropping our dinner pensionista because my companion and I both can´t eat that much food during the day! So all day we just tried to get to know the streets and a few members... but in reality it didn´t help too much!

Thursday we were able to teach 4 lessons.. it was really a miracle because I don´t know how we even found the people we needed to teach! But funny story because we were trying to find a house and we got stuck in the middle of some kind of farm with a barbwire gate... We didn´t even know how we got in there in the first place.. So then we saw these birds with long legs that ran pretty fast.. they were actually kind of cute so don´t worry I didn´t get scared! Then we heard someone saying Hermanas.. we found a member.. or she found us and helped us to get out. We had a lesson with a friend of hers and then went to teach a cute lady who was going to be baptized on Friday.. so I guess I didn´t clarify well enough.. they took out the elders and put us in, so technically I´m not opening the area for the first time, but we are starting pretty much from scratch here.. and we are the first Hermanas to ever be here in this ward! It´s a pretty great priviledge! 

Friday we weren´t able to teach any lessons due to a reunion and the baptism of 5 people in which President and Hermana Erickson both came. I felt pretty wierd walking into an are with a baptism of someone I didn´t know, but we have come to love this sweet lady already! Aida is 68 years old and just super ready to be a great member of the church! Hopefully we will be able to reach her daughter and her grandson as well. The baptism went really well and I got to sing in the choir of missionaries.. we sang partly in english.. 4 of us from the U.S. including.. Elder McIff! We found each other again here in San Felipe haha.. so funny to be here in the same zone as him again! 

Saturday we were able to go to Bryan´s baptism and say goodbye to my ward.. It was really awesome and I got to see Jhon, Sergio, Emiliano, and other members there! Sergio asked if he could give me a hug and I had to tell him that he needed to wait until December.. super cute, and so sad.. You know me and how much I love cute old people so I really struggled with that one! When the baptism finished I was sad because I knew I had to say goodbye for good.. then I remembered that I didn´t know how to get back to my area again.. haha silly Hermana Imbler... well I looked for my cellphone to call the zone leaders and realized that I had left it in the apartment in my other bag... oops! So a couple from my ward (where we skyped for Christmas) helped us get back to our area in a taxi. Hermana Callejas wrote me today and said that on Sunday my bishop in the old area talked about how he said goodbye to me on Saturday and there were a few tears shed from the members. Wow never have I felt more loved.. wish I could have seen it in person! I am so grateful for the 5 months I got to spend in Libertad!!

Sunday we finally got to know more of the members of our ward! Our chapel is a house! I´ve included a picture of the chapel with my companion and the elders in our ward! Our ward mission leader helped us on Sunday also to get to know more people in the ward and in the area. Looks like we´ll have quite a bit of help from the members here! Then later in the last lesson a lady came out with a giant duck.. I almost died... phobia still hasn´t left me I guess! Well looks like I´m outta time! Take care everyone!!

Hermana Imbler

OOOHHH WE´RE HALFWAY THERE!!

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Hayley Imbler	Mar 17 (7 days ago)
to Kathleen, me, Michael, Andrew

WOAH I seriously am living on prayers though! I can´t even believe it but I reached the halfway mark! I feel like I´ve been here forever and at the same time for hardly any time at all. I really never thought that 9 months could go by so fast!! They honestly have been the best 9 months of my life so far! I have learned so much from being here and have changed a lot as a person! I only hope that these next months I can learn and grow even more!

This week has been pretty slow for us. My companion and I both got sick this week which was not very fun, but we pushed through and were able to see fruits of our efforts. Like always I will start out with Monday.. P day! We went to San Juan de Lurigancho to play soccer, at the end one of the elders ran into me and I ended up falling pretty hard... but all is good in the land of purple corn.. because I didn´t get injured. Later we had a short lesson with Sergio and then we had a family home evening with the 2nd counselor of the bishopric and his parents. 

Tuesday we taught Emiliano about the Book of Mormon, for the vein that ruptured in his brain he has a lot of trouble remembering things, but we did our best to help him and in the end all went well I think. We talked to Vladimir about receiving the priesthood and he seemed pretty excited! Later we had a great lesson with Bryan and he was so excited for his baptism that he thought it was this Saturday, but we reminded him that is was the 22nd. Later we talked to Jonathan.. haha this little teenager is hard to find.. he really is a great kid, but he is still having quite a few problems with his parents and his supposedly ex girlfriend.. so we´ll just have to keep working on that. 

Wednesday was the day I was the most sick all week and didn´t feel like doing a whole bunch of stuff, but I bucked up and we got to work! We helped Vladimir´s grandma paint in her house a little bit. Later we taught Emiliano about the word of wisdom and he caught on so much faster than he had with any of our other lessons and he told us that he would stop drinking coffee and tea that same day! Later we talked with the Jabo family and they are still not wanting to accept a baptismal date or even come to church.. it´s sad because they really are a great family and we want to help them, but we´ll just have to see if their desires change. We had another lesson with Bryan and explained baptism and the Holy Ghost. He captures everything really quickly and is always super excited to learn more! 

Thursday we were able to meet with Elibet again, finally!! She is awesome! She told us that after she prayed about Joseph Smith she had a dream. In the dream she was in her bed and there was a giant tree at the foot of it. A man came around selling leaves and she asked if she could buy some. He then told her ¨Why do you want to buy leaves when you have a whole tree?¨ I didn´t tell her what I thought of the dream, but I´ll let you all know my interpretation.. So the tree is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she now has it in her life. The man selling leaves is from another religion.. he has parts of the tree (the truth) and they are beautiful, but why would we want them if we have everything in the tree itself? We have the whole tree.. the whole gospel of Jesus Christ.. all of his teachings.. why settle for only parts of it? Well after our lesson Elibet accepted a baptismal date for the 29th, so if it comes through good we will have 4 baptisms this month!! I am really feeling blessed.

-Fun fact: Every single one of the people I have helped to come unto Christ and be baptized has been a reference from a member.. not one contact or door knocked.. That just goes to show how important it is to share the gospel with friends, neighbors and family!

Friday we had the opportunity to have a great training from Elder Waddell a member of the Seventy and President of the North East Latin area. I was able to play the piano which was super wonderful and at the end he came up and asked me where I was from and other stuff. He served in Spain just a couple years after dad did. He had some great advice for all of us and he knows how to teach with humor, but so that we want to put in practice literally everything he tells us. Later we also had a meeting with him and all the members of our ward councils in the mission offices that was super great. We talked a lot about the work of salvation and how we need to work together members and missionaries.. seriously they can´t tell us enough because it is so important! 

Saturday was Emiliano´s baptism!! Our ward mission leader baptized him and it was super great! He is a sweet old man and we really hope that he will be able to learn a lot more with the help of the Holy Ghost. We also had another really great lesson with Elibet about the plan of salvation and she was really interested in everything. The best part of the day, we finally found the husband of a less active sister we have been teaching and we had a SUPER powerful lesson. When I gave the first vision I felt like my heart was burning with the Spirit. I honestly with all of my heart knew in this moment.. and know still that this is the TRUE church! I have been able to experience these feelings so many times and I can never deny everything that I know. We invited Piero to pray and he said he really wanted to know. Tomorrow we will see how that went. Sunday was pretty normal and we had some good lessons, but nothing super exciting.

So because I always try and challenge you all to do something, this week I´ve got a good one.. If you have a testimony or don´t have one, my challenge is the same.. Find the quietest place you can.. in a moment where you have nothing else occupying your mind.. kneel down and pray to our Heavenly Father. Ask Him if Joseph Smith was a true prophet and if this is His true church.. but don´t do it just to ask.. do it with a real desire to know.. with a sincere heart and then after your prayer..wait.. don´t get up and do other things.. analyze how you are feeling.. I promise you will receive an answer if you really ask with faith. And as members it is NEVER a bad thing to ask and renew our testimony we have. When you get your answer act on it! Love you all and just because I am now remembering.. Happy St. Patrick´s day!! Take care!!

Hermana Imbler

Lovin´ the Mish in Libertad

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Hayley Imbler	9:55 AM (9 minutes ago)
to Kathleen, Michael, me, awhite72

Another week gone by and another happy Hermana here sittin´ at the computer writing the people I love the most! This week hasn´t exactly been easy, but I have learned a lot from the experiences we have had! 

Monday we didn´t do too much for Pday, we went grocery shopping and then ate at KFC, one of the very few American restaurants that they have here in Peru, the others are in the malls that are pretty far away. Later that night we had a great lesson with Vladimir and he was getting more and more excited for his baptism on Saturday. We talked about the importance of reading the scriptures and praying daily. Later we talked with Jhon´s little sister who is 14 years old. She´s cute and receptive, but we haven´t been able to catch up with her more this week.

Tuesday we went to talk to Rosalinda and like always there were yet more friends of her son there so we had a lesson with all of them. The only problem is that they all live in the boundaries of a different ward about 3 streets up the hill from where our area ends..bummer! They had a lot of questions and we are going to try and send the other sisters to their houses this next week. We had a lesson later with Oscar and the Bishop came with us. We officially decided that we aren´t going to be able to teach him anymore because we went to his house and his door was open and he was watching tv. So we asked if we could share something with him and he said he had visitors.. but there was no one but him in his small room.. We´ve never felt super great there so it looks like we´re going to have to stop visiting him.. After we had a reference of a 14 year old boy Bryan and we went to teach him. He was super receptive, caught on to everything really quickly and then accepted to be baptized on the 22nd of this month! Lastly we had to say goodbye to Mabila (the sister of Sergio) because she is going to Argentina for a couple of months.. it was pretty sad, but it´s a good thing to know I´ll be able to see her again in December, because she´s been like a cute little grandma for us here! 

Wednesday we taught some good lessons. We were able to talk to Vladimir again to help him prepare for his baptism on Saturday. We then had another lesson with a reference of our ward mission leader, a cute older man Emiliano. He takes quite a bit of time to capture concepts, but we´re trying to find ways to help him with that. He also accepted baptism and we are hoping he will be ready for this week, but if not we´ll postpone it until the coming week! We then had a lesson with the Jabo family and they are still struggling to have desires to accept baptism, but this week they invited us for a little mini dinner and lesson so we will try to work with them then. Then it began to rain, like actually rain, not just sprinkling.. it was the BEST! I have missed rain so much! It was warm and raining, so absolutely perfect! We found an older investigator of missionaries from a few years ago and he was preparing for baptism then but had problems with working on Sunday.. so we will be starting to teach him as well. 

Thursday we were able to talk with Jonathan and he still doesn´t know if he will be able to be baptized, he still has some problems to work out with his family, so we will see how that goes in these next few days. Later we talked with Emiliano again and then after we had a good lesson with Bryan. Friday we found yet another new investigator thanks to a reference. Elibet is a younger mom who is the cousin of a less active member. She was super super receptive and was really excited to be able to talk with us, so I´ll keep you updated with her. We then talked with Emiliano and Bryan yet again (different lessons) and they are both progressing well. Later we talked to Cesar and Paola.. we hadn´t been able to find them during the week and they are struggling. For some reason we are still having problems with the ID of Cesar. They committed to fast and pray, but then on Sunday we couldn´t find them and they wouldn´t answer their phone.. we went to their house later and they weren´t there so we don´t know what is going on with them... super disappointing because we love their family so much! Friday was also going to be the last interview with Vladimir for his baptism and we couldn´t find him.. again! Oops! We were super worried and couldn´t get a hold of him so we didn´t sleep much that night.. or I didn´t at least.. Can´t speak for my companion ;)

Saturday.. in the morning I called Josefa, Vladimir´s grandma and he was home and said that all was well, so we went with our District leader to have his final interview and everything turned out great!! So that day we were able to prepare for his baptism and everything went really well! He was grinning from ear to ear when we left the font and I really felt like everything was going to be ok with him in the future! Lastly we had a lesson with Jhon and he is struggling a lot with his family.. because we´ve been focused on our investigators we can´t pick him up to go to church and so he hasn´t come for weeks.. He always says he will then doesn´t come. We are hoping to find a good friend for him so that they can help him to come on Sundays. 

Sunday was the confirmation of Vladimir and he said he felt like electricity ran through him when he received the Holy Ghost, but in a good way... super cool! We had some great experiences with our ward mission leader and then we were able to have a great lesson about the Book of Mormon with a less active member. We are hoping to help him prepare to go on a mission, but it´s going pretty slow... and that about sums up my week! 42 really great lessons and lots of new investigators to teach! 

Hope you are all doing well wherever you are and that you will be able to have some great experiences this week. Something that I have come to learn during my mission is that we speak with our Heavenly Father through prayer and He speaks to us through the scriptures. I challenge you all this week to take the time to pray, thank Heavenly Father for the scriptures, ask Him a question and then open the Book of Mormon and start reading. I know that you will find the answers you need in the pages of the most wonderful book ever written. Take care!!

Hermana Imbler

Hayley Imbler	9:57 AM (9 hours ago)
to Kathleen, me, Michael

........................I SURVIVED!! Haha..Hola everyone! Happy Monday.. and happy day to me who gets to continue here in Libertad and with my cute companion Hermana Callejas! It was a big surprise last Monday when they told us we were both going to stay here in Carabayllo! It was so fun to see how the members reacted when they heard I was going to stay, I really felt so loved! We had quite a few that said they prayed that I would stay in their area.. I honestly wanted to cry because I never thought that the members of my ward would care about me as much as I care about them! Later that day we had lessons with Cesar and Paola, and Rosalinda. Nothing really great and wonderful happened that night.. but the next day was wonderful!

Tuesday was the best day of the week! We were able to start an hour earlier because Hermana Callejas finished her training and we ended the day with a total of 11 lessons!!! The most we have ever done in one day, it was literally the best feeling! We found a total of 6 new investigators one of which was July a cute 19 year old girl who lives with her baby and her aunt. We also had some really great lessons with less active members. We talked to Vladimir about the word of wisdom and he was super ready to obey it, just like he had been with all of the other lessons we taught. He really is a great kid.. although the last week I said he is going to be a great missionary, this week we found out that a couple years ago he had a girlfriend and she had a baby, so he´s a dad.. oops lots of things seems to come out later in our lessons, but it´s ok because he still will be a great member of the church! We also made a mistake and knocked on the wrong door of a house and we were able to teach a girl named Veronica. She has a ton of faith, although she tried to preach to us a little bit the lesson ended well, and then we couldn´t get in touch with her for the whole week... 

Wednesday was probably one of our hardest days.. we were feeling pretty tired and run down, but we did our best. We found a family of less active members that we are going to help them return to church. We also had a lesson with Vladimir and he accepted baptism really easily. He was super excited and had been reading his Book of Mormon a lot. Every time we go to his house his grandma, Josefa, gives us something to eat.. She´s super great.. At first her personality was a little strong but we have come to love her so much! She is a great member of the church with a super strong testimony.. 

Thursday was a slow day as well.. We had a good lesson with Rosalinda and some friends of her son about the word of wisdom.. one of the friends Michael, was super receptive to everything, but the other Juan just laughed about everything we taught.. well that´s some 14 year olds for ya.. haha. Gotta love it. We were able to visit Vladimir again.. like we do practically every day and we talked about keeping the Sabbath day Holy. He was planning on working the night shift on Sundays, but at the end of the lesson he told us that he was going to find a solution. I really am a firm believer that keeping Sunday only to worship our Heavenly Father and be in families is SO important and it really brings miracles during the other days of the week! When we give one day to the One who gave us everything he gives us more than we had before. 

Friday wasn´t a really memorable day so I won´t get into detail for lack of time. Saturday we went to do service in a park in the area of some other sisters. I never thought I would sweep a concrete soccer field, but I did. Haha.. it really was a good service though. We talked to one guy who lived close and he asked Hermana Day and I if we were going to marry Peruvian boys while we were here. We explained to him about the church and they are going to visit him this week. Later Vladimir left during the day and didn´t come to his interview, we were worried.. so we called later and turns out he didn´t show up until 4 in the morning on Sunday.. He showed up just in time for Sacrament meeting and we went to visit him later. He said he was struggling a lot and that he felt pretty alone. We had a super powerful lesson about the atonement of Jesus Christ and I was able to explain to him that it is never too late to change. We will always have another chance. God will always love us. Satan will work on us so that we will be miserable just like he is, but in the end we know that God will win the war and we want to be on His side. We have the gift of being able to repent and be better every day.. and in the long run it´s really not important what anyone else thinks of us, but what God thinks. He will be the one to judge us in the end, and I know personally I want to be able to say I did all I could. 

Remember how much God loves you, and that it is never NEVER too late to start over, to change the things you want to change, and to be welcomed back with a fiesta by our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and those angels who have been waiting just for you!

Have a great week everyone!

Hermana Imbler