Livin in La Pascana

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Hayley Imbler	Oct 7 (3 days ago)
to me, Michael, Michael

I can´t believe it, but I only have two more weeks left until transfers again! Wow the time just flies by! I am honestly praying with all my heart that I stay in Comas... Haha and so with that I will probably be transferred.. Also a quick apology because I´m not sure how good my spelling is in english..

How was General Conference??? I loved it, but there was one problem.. I had to watch it in Spanish!! But that´s ok because I still got a ton out of it! Most of the talks are translated by Spanish speakers so I couldn´t hear their voices, but something awesome is that Elder Scott always translates his own talk, so I did get to listen to his voice! So I´m not sure about you, but I don´t really want my shoes to fall apart while I´m on my mission... but how cool was that story? Something else cool... Mr. Abbott (my choir teacher from middle school) is in the Tab Choir!! That was definitely a surprise to see his face! 

Other wonderful things that I want to share with you from conference.. Trust in the Lord, He is the shepherd, He knows all His sheep, and they know His voice.. And from this we know that everyone will be able to recognize the gospel when they hear it. I also want to extend the same challenge as Elder Russell M. Ballard... Find ONE person by Christmas that you can share the gospel with. Being a missionary I know that it may seem difficult to find people to share the gospel with, but there are literally people on every corner who don´t yet know the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are family members, friends, people you work with that aren´t members and I know that they exist. Give them the chance to know the gospel, be an example and share what you know and I know is true!

This week we are going to have 2 baptisms!! Hermana´s Liz and Jeny! They are such wonderful young women who are always so excited to learn more about the gospel. I know they are going to bring many more to the church and I am so excited to see them make covenants with our Heavenly Father! 

Sorry I´m out of time as usual.. don´t know how it passes so quickly! Love you all and keep sending those emails every week!!

Hayley Imbler	10:29 AM (10 hours ago)
to Kathleen, me, Michael

I decided to change the subject line of my emails, because technically my area is La Pascana! I never know where to start my emails.. I guess I should start with Monday right? 

Well Monday was p-day and we played games as a district and had cake to celebrate my birthday a little bit. The rest of the night went normal as any other proselyting day. Tuesday we had our first lesson with Daniella a girl that Hermana Flores and I met when we were knocking on doors. She is 18 and is still studying (not sure exactly what haha, still struggling to understand everything in Spanish). Her lesson went really well and I think she is open to learning more about the gospel. 

Wednesday we were able to have another lesson with Ines. This time her 9 year old daughter was there Abigail. Abigail is super cute and she is really excited to go to church and learn more. We also found Emerson again this week! Hermana Flores and I had a lesson with him in August and then couldn´t find him after that, but we were able to talk about the Book of Mormon with him this week and he is excited to read it and get an answer! After that we had a lesson with Lizbeth, she´s a reference of the Elders in a different area, and in her prayer she said ¨and help me to stay strong in this decision that I have made¨. Which then after that she told us that she is ready to be baptized this October 12! YAY!! She is awesome and loves learning more about the gospel! Later we caught up with Perla again and taught her a little about the pre-existence.

Thursday we visited some less-active members, twins Angie and Milagros. They are super cute but are having struggles with their family right now. Their mom isn´t a member and their dad doesn´t live with them. We´re hoping we can find the root of what is going on and help them out! We had another lesson with Daniella and taught her about the Book of Mormon. She seems really excited to read it and find out more about the church. We also had a lesson with Miguel Angel (finally caught up with him again). We talked a little bit about Joseph Smith to refresh his memory and then taught him about the BOM. He said he will have it read all the way through in 3 days... but I´m thinking more like two weeks or months haha, it´s hard to read that much scripture in only a few days. 

Friday we had a lesson with Anamaria who is the Mamá of a recent convert Eric and also is our neighbor. We finally figured out why she didn´t want to be baptized, but she has been going to church every Sunday since I first got here. She told us that she is going to pray for a confirmation, but I really think that she will be baptized, the only question is when? 

Skipping to Sunday because I´m about out of time, but we had a lesson with a cute mom Jeny. She has three kids. Her husbad went on a vacation, but she doesn´t know when he´s going to come back.. poor girl. She´s only 28 and we are thinking that by her face when she told us about her husband (uhh boyfriend) we think that he probably isn´t going to come back. She is super excited about bringing her kids to church and learning more for herself. 

I think that´s about it for my week! Hope you all are doing well. Also shout out to my bestest friend Tania, can´t wait to hear where you get called!! 

Les amo mucho!!

Hermana Imbler

Hayley Imbler	10:09 AM (1 hour ago)
to Kathleen, me

Another week gone by and looks like I´ve lived two decades now.. haha never thought that day would come! Thanks so much everyone for the birthday wishes!! Our pensionista made the cutest cake for me and we had french fries and hamburgers haha good old American food eh? Later we went to visit a family of recent converts and they had bought a cake for me too.. Looks like I might be chubby by the end of the week because today we´re having a party with our zone to celebrate!

The most wonderful birthday present I got was definitely Saturday. Perla was baptized!! Ahh I wish you all could have seen her beautiful face when she walked into the church Saturday night. She was just beaming! You know just by looking at her that she is one very special daughter of our Heavenly Father. The water was cold, but she looked so happy when she came out of the font. My companions and I sang ¨I like to look for rainbows¨ in spanish for part of the program. Sunday she was confirmed in sacrament meeting. A couple minutes before the meeting started the ward secretery came and told me that the Bishop wanted me to speak for a few minutes. I was totally not prepared to speak in Spanish to our whole ward... but what could I do? I talked about faith and shared some scriptures.. I think it went ok!

This week was a little interesting, we´re still trying to get the hang of things as a trio and with new investigators and everything. Thursday we took Hermana Huerta to the Hospital because she has been sick for a while. She had an endoscopy.. (extremely grateful I don´t have to do that... can you imagine having that done in a hospital in Peru?) They told her that her stomach and liver are inflamed (I think.. inflamado in spanish is inflamed right? I´m starting to forget some words in english.) But we´ll find out Thursday for sure what is going on with my little companion!

Sorry I don´t have any time left to write, but I will do my best to send some pictures of the week. I feel like I´m slacking again this week.. sorry everyone! Hope you all are doing well!!

Hermana Imbler

Sept. 16th  2013

Hayley Imbler	9:11 AM (5 hours ago)
to Kathleen, me, Michael ...etc.

First off before I say anything else.. THANKS SO MUCH Nadine for my package! I don´t think you could´ve seen a happier Hermana to have goldfish, sour patch kids, and pretzel M&Ms! I also got a surprise birthday package from my favorite Elder, but for some reason he said I need to practice patience and wait until my birthday to open it.. I don´t understand I thought I was always patient? Ha ha !

Well.. yet another week gone by and thank heavens, I´m still in COMAS!!! Yay! When I found out I didn´t have to change areas I was so happy! Saying goodbye to Hermana Flores and sending her off to Bolivia was a little difficult, but it was time for a change for the both of us and she is going to do great things there!

Ready... I have TWO companions! We´re a trio now! I´m finishing up being trained by Hermana Huerta and we have a newby gringa Hermana Whitaker. Hermana Huerta is from Chile and is the cutest thing ever! Our apartment and companionship is full of hugs and girls who really want to work hard to further the work! I am so grateful to have the opportunity to work with these Hermanas here in Comas!

This week was interesting to say the least. I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. I´m the only one in our companionship who had been in Comas so I have to teach my companions the streets, the investigators, the members, and where we should and shouldn´t go at night ha ha. Hermana Whitaker is bettering her Spanish every day like I was at the beginning, I don´t speak English with her so I think that is going to help a lot. This week it has been made known to me that the gift of tongues is beyond real. I don´t know how it happened, but it seemed my Spanish bettered so much in just one night. I think the Lord new that I would need more words to be able to help my new companion to know the area and our investigators.

Monday night I stayed in Carabayllo with a trio of Hermanas. We went on splits and had some lessons. Tuesday morning I woke up at 5 o´clock to at least 30 roosters crowing for hours.. Needless to say I am so grateful that in my area we don´t have them nearby our apartment. Tuesday we went to transfers and I found out that Hermana Huerta was going to be my companion and that we were going to have a brand new missionary! Later that day Hermana Whitaker joined us and we went off to Comas! Like I said it´s a little difficult because they don´t know the area, but we have so much work we can do here and I am really excited for the coming weeks and all that is going to happen!

This week we had two lessons with Valerio (86 year old) and we decided that we are going to have to stop having lessons. He is having problems understanding the importance of keeping every single commandment (the Sabbath day and he drinks coffee and a little alcohol). But everything is good because we are going to find lots of new people to teach!

Thursday we had a lesson with Walter and he introduced us to his ¨wife¨ yeah.. another one of those that needs to be married! Shoot... I was a little disappointed, but hey what can you do. We had another lesson with him yesterday and he told us that he is preparing all the papers to be married in one of our Matrimonio Massivos this October 8th! He hasn´t accepted a date for baptism yet because he wants to be 100% sure that this is what he is supposed to do, but I am almost 99% sure that he will get there ha ha!

Perla´s baptism is this Saturday, the day before my birthday! Ahh she is literally so wonderful, and every time that we have a lesson I can just feel her testimony growing and growing. She is going to have such a great future family in the gospel. I can´t wait until I can tell you about how wonderful her baptism was!

One last story before I go (you´re welcome mom, I spent all my time on the computer writing this email.. haha). We had lunch in a restaurant the other day.. one of the wives of a member has a restaurant. Well she didn´t know that we were coming and was a little bit frustrated, we told her it was ok and that we could just go eat somewhere else no big deal. But she told us to stay. Oh by the way, she isn´t a member and isn´t too fond of the missionaries... haha. Well anyways, we had soup first. In the first few moments of eating I found a big hair... well next I found about 4 little bugs.. so I just passed the soup. I received my second plate and to my great surprise (not..haha) yet another huge hair.. And to make things even better in the second plate there was choncho, or pork, that still had hairs on it.. like pretty much all the hairs of the pig. Whelp we were all sitting there practically gagging (don´t worry we didn´t eat any of it) and then we left. Probably the most interesting thing that has happened so far that isn´t gospel related so I thought I would share.

Hope that you all are doing well! Thanks for all the continued love and letters coming my way, I am one very blessed Hermana!

Hermana Imbler

Hayley Imbler	10:04 AM (1 hour ago)
to Kathleen, me, Michael

Hola familia y amigos!!

 

Another week gone by and believe it or not this week is transfers. I´ve been in the field for 6 weeks already, can you believe it? I´m getting a new companion tomorrow because mine is headed off to Bolivia, what a surprise that was! President Erickson called us last night to give us the news. Looks like I might be training after only 6 weeks, but I will find out tomorrow. (Haha to be honest I´m praying that I don´t have a new missionary because really I´m still new and don´t know nearly as much as I want to know by the time I train!

 

Sorry this email is going to have to be really short because I´m trying to send pictures as well!

 

Perla is THE BEST! She is so ready and excited for her baptism. Happy birthday to me, her confirmation is the 22nd of this month. Walter and Valerio didn´t come to church this Sunday so we´re going to have to move their dates for baptism. It literally is the worst feeling sitting in sacrament meeting waiting for your investigators to walk in and no one shows up. Not a whole lot happened this week that is new, and I promise I will try to be better with my email next week.

 

Before I go, I just want you all to know the importance of missionary work. You don´t need to have a nametag to share the gospel. The members are key! Don´t be afraid to open your mouth and share the gospel with your friends. They may not realize it now, but down the road they could accept the gospel because of your example.

 

Love you all! Again my sincerest apologies for the ridiculously short letter!

 

Hermana Imbler

 

The picture is Rafaela, her son Mateo