Brrrrrrr!!!

Buenos Días!

What a wonderful week here at the CCM! It seems like I was just in this computer lab writing an email home; the time flies by so quickly here!

This week was really awesome. Hermana Nazer and I started teaching a new investigator who has a LOT of questions. It´s been a different experience from our last investigator, and it was really hard at first, but I´ve learned a great lesson about the Lord answering prayers. He can help us to love and He can help us have patience. He loves all of His children and each one is very special to Him. He has a plan for each of us, and if we pray to Him and follow His direction that He gives us through the Holy Ghost, we will be happy.

Oh and we committed our first investigator to baptism on Wednesday!! We still have a lot to teach her and a lot more to do before then, but Hermana Nazer and I are very happy :)

So if you´ve emailed me over the past couple weeks and I haven´t responded, I´m really sorry. I don´t have a lot of time here on the computer, so I´m going to try hard to make time to respond to all of you. But I can´t promise it´ll be long :)

We were able to all watch the worldwide fireside this week about missionary work! It was so awesome! If you didn´t get a chance to watch it, find some way to do that. It was a really cool broadcast and they used a lot of different types of media during it. I´m excited for some of the changes (even though not all will apply to me, especially the technology ones), but I know that the Lord has His hand in this work.

By the way, for anyone wondering, mail takes forever to get here, so probably don´t send any more letters here to the CCM or else I won´t get them. Start sending them to the mission home. I haven´t even received one letter yet... they come in kind of sporadically, so I´m sure I´ll get them soon. Hopefully I´ll get the ones you´ve already sent before I leave!

I´m really loving it here! It´s been really cold (like 50´s) because it´s winter here in Peru. Apparently Ecuador is never cold. I´ve looking forward to that this week.

I don´t know which pictures are going to send through, cause the internet is really slow here. But whatever they are, I hope you like them!

The last thing that I want to say is, if you are struggling with anything in your life, please look to Heavenly Father. He loves you. He knows what you need to be happy. Listen to the promptings you receive from the Holy Ghost, and follow them. If you ask God for help, I know He will send you comfort and love. Form a strong relationship with your Savior, and you will always find strength in Him.

Love,

Hermana Busath

(Because she didn't know which pictures came through, she did not explain any of them, therefore, no idea where these were taken or what some of them are of.)

One more picture from today.....

This is Angela's mom writing. I received a phone call from Peru this evening, which made me a little concerned as you can imagine. But it was a sweet senior missionary who is serving in the Lima temple with his wife, they have 8 days left on their mission. He said he enjoys seeing the groups of missionaries who come over from the MTC to attend a temple session and he takes their group picture and posts it on his blog. I went to the blog and snagged the picture he took today of Angela and her group. I thought I would add it to her pictures from today's email.

Week of Language Miracles!

HOLA!

I hope everyone had a great week!

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY THOMAS!!!!!

Second of all, HAPPY FATHER´S DAY DAD!!!!!!

I hope you both had rockin days. I sent a postcard to each of you. I love you both!

So this week could pretty much be called The Angela Show. I kept getting either random or special or unique assignments. Every Wednesday, our district has a meeting where one of us teaches about a story from the Book of Mormon (in Spanish, of course). This last week was our first time doing it, and the teacher knew that I wasn´t feeling very good that day. But, of course, he asked me to teach. It´s okay though, I didn´t feel sick at all while I was teaching. I taught about King Benjamin´s Sermon and how we can be more like Christ and turn not only our actions, but our way of thinking into His ways. I even shared that idea that you used in Relief Society, mom, with the muffins! What a great idea.

On Friday, a sister in my district, Hermana Corollo, and I got asked before lunch if we would teach a newly married couple the gospel right after lunch. We were told that they had a "unique situation", and that we had to prepare a lesson for them. So we spent about 20 minutes preparing some scriptures and the outline of our lesson, and then we taught! Turns out, it was our first encounter with the TRC here. For those of you who don´t know, the TRC (Teaching Resource Center) is where members of the church volunteer to be investigators of the church, and we teach them as if it were a real-life situation. In Spanish, of course. It was a great experience. Hermana Corollo knows a bit more Spanish than I do, so it was nice to have her there with me. Oh and the "unique situation" was that the husband was a member and the wife was not. It was great! It was in that lesson that I realized how much Heavenly Father was blessing me with the Gift of Tongues because He needs me to do this work for Him. Without His help, there is no way I´d be even close to as far as I am in the language. He is blessing me with abilities beyond my own. I know it!

Then on Saturday, we got a break in our class, so Hermana Nazer and I went outside for a couple minutes to find a huge group of like 200 youth from a stake from nearby! We were waving at them from the door, and they were all taking pictures and videos of us from afar. A teacher of ours saw us waving and called us over to say hi to everyone! So we walked through them all saying hello and talking with them (in Spanish, of course) and everyone had pulled out their cameras to take pictures of us white girls. A group of them even wanted a picture with us! (Watch for that picture on google. Maybe it´ll go viral.) So after a few minutes we went back to class.

THEN like 10 minutes later, our teacher came in and pulled Hermana Nazer and I out of class and told us to bring our scriptures. As we walked out to the football field, he told us that we´d be bearing our testimony and giving advice to the group of youth. Ahh! 200 people! But it was awesome. Once again, Gift of Tongues. Like all up inside me. I bore my testimony with so much strength (in Spanish, of course) and gave them advice to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know that it is true to for themselves before they go on their missions and ask other people to do that. It was a really awesome experience where I really saw the Lord helping both me and Hermana Nazer to speak the language to fulfill His purposes.

So the CCM in Peru has a really unique experience that I don´t think the Provo MTC has: We go tracting/proselyting every otherSaturday! So a few days ago was our first time! Usually each North American sister gets paired with a Latina sister, but because there were more white girls than Latinas, Hermana Nazer and I stayed companions. We all rode a bus down to to a place called Ñaña in Choclacaya. When we got there, the teachers gave us pamphlets and copies of the Book of Mormon, then started telling us what to do if we got lost or didn´t make it back to the stake center by 5:30: Catch a taxi back to the CCM. That would have been an adventure for sure, especially since most of the taxis here aren´t "valid", meaning they don´t follow procedure. They are just people in their cars with "TAXI" written on the window. But don´t worry, I didn´t get lost ;) So the area was probably about a middle-class area for Peru. It was really difficult because neither of us speak fluent Spanish, so we don´t always know what the people are saying. But we were lucky to have a teacher with us the whole time and he helped. He didn´t start talking unless we really needed it though. I´m glad he did that because it gave me experience to actually try to understand the people and respond to them however I could, rather than just having a cop-out the first time I couldn´t understand. And, we taught more lessons than anyone in our district, even though most of them were with Latinos/Latinas! 3 families let us come into their homes to teach them. It was amazing. I placed my first Book of Mormon with a sweet old lady who was really interested in our message. She said she would read it and come to church! She was so patient and kind. Overall, it was an awesome experience, and I learned a lot for next time.

The next thing that happened was that I gave the closing prayer in Sacrmament Meeting on Sunday and Hermana Nazer and I taughtSunday School. However, that was the one thing that wasn´t in Spanish ;) We taught about God´s Plan of Salvation, but mostly about our earth life. We based it off of Elder Uchtdorf´s talk from the General Young Women session of the last Conference. Read it; it´s awesome. Our lesson went so well. We had a couple people from our district say to us after things like, "That was exactly what I needed to hear," and, "I wrote down all those scriptures you used. That was a really inspired lesson." That always makes me feel great to know that we are preparing our lessons with the Spirit of God to know what we need to teach in order to fit the needs of the people we´re teaching.

Today was P-day and I´m including some pictures! Also, the one picture with the little cards on it is what Hna Nazer and I made for our Latina roommates who left this morning for their missions. I´ve realized my talent for that graphic design kinda stuff, kinda like what Laurel does. I´ll send more pictures next week of stuff I have done here at the CCM. I don´t have much time to do it, but if I ever get a free moment I like to doodle on there. Anyway, I´ll send you pics next week. And the temple today was amazing, as always. I got the peace that I really needed and felt God´s love for me. I really got down yesterday when we started with a new "investigator" because the lesson went REALLY bad. It was frustrating, but I´m glad we had that experience because I know it will happen in the field. But it really depressed and frazzled me, until I talked with Hna Nazer about it, got some help from my teacher, and went to the temple today.

On a side note, the showers here are just great. And by great, I mean they are terrible. I´ll be rinsing my face off, and the water is pulsing back and forth between burning hot and freezing cold. Gotta love it.

I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ so much. I know that He is my Savior and that if I grow closer to Him, I can be happy. If you don´t already know your Savior on a personal level, I would invite you to do so. It will change everything about your life, for better.

Love,

Hermana Busath

The signs we made for the sisters leaving the MTC.

  Hermana Nazer and me in front of the MTC.

 Our district in front of the temple.

 Me :)

Hermana Nazer and me at the temple.

HALLO!

I LOVE SOUTH AMERICA!!!!!

Hello everyone! Perù has been so good to me! It`s summer here, so it hasn`t really been very hot. There have been a couple "rainy" days, which pretty much means that the air is full of water. So as you walk around, there`s constantly mist all over you. It`s pretty freaky. It`s pretty humid here, and paper always feels damp. It`s really weird.

Anyway, enough about the weather. I`m loving it here! It wasn`t really that way for the first 2 days, though. We always have some studying to do or some class to go to, every minute of every day (except meals). It really wore me out the first few days. But now I am more used to it and the language is coming along really fast, so I don`t have a headache all day :P Speaking of the language, Heavenly Father is really blessing me with the gift of tongues to be able to understand and speak Spanish. It`s really cool, sometimes when our teachers are talking to us or I am talking with a native, I can understand everything that they`re saying and I don`t even need to translate it in my head! Also, I can already speak so well and I can pray and bear my testimony without even thinking. It`s amazing what the Lord can help you with when you trust in Him :) 

Last night we had our first practice lesson with an investigator! Okay, it was actually just our teacher pretending to be an investigator of the church. But man, she is a good actress! The point of it is to make it seem like it`s a real scenario, and it really did feel like that. The Spirit of the Holy Ghost was so strong in our lesson. Hermana Nazer started crying telling a personal story about the power of prayer, and I could really feel love for the investigator that we were teaching. It was a really powerful experience. We`re going to teach the second lesson tonight. Oh yeah, and it`s all in Spanish haha

One thing that is really different about the CCM than the Provo MTC is that here, if you`re learning Spanish, you can`t slack off and just speak English with the other missionaries and teachers and leaders. Almost all the missionaries, teachers, leaders, and cooks are from South America and don`t speak English. You have to learn it quickly so that you can communicate with anyone! It`s been fun/frustrating/confusing/exciting/awkward to try to talk with anyone. Especially our roommates. Thankfully we have one roommate who speaks both languages, so she translates whenever it`s needed. I love our roommates so much. They are tiny Latinas with so much life in them, and they are so loving. The first night we got here, we climbed into bed with barely sheets on our bed and one got up and gave me her blanket to sleep with. The Latinos are so personable. I love them!!!

Okay, so I`ve been writing down funny things as they happen, so here are some good stories:

On one of the first days, I was trying to say "Mediante el Expiaciòn de Jesucristo, podemos liberados a nuestros pecados," but instead I said the word "pascados". Meaning, instead of saying, "Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can be free from our sins," I said free from our fish. Hahaha!

We had a fireside the other night where the North Americans had to use headphones to translate. They started playing the prelude of a song, and Hermana Nazer and I started singing when we thought it was time to start. Well, either it wasn`t time to start or everyone else in the auditorium got the timing wrong. We were the only ones singing for a few seconds and we could`t even hear ourselves singing alone! It was embarrassing.

Okay there`s a lot more to say, but for some reason they`re cutting our time short. I`ll email again next Tuesday. I love you all! The church is true!

Love, Hermana Busath

(If you click on the pictures, they will open in a new page and be bigger, easier to see!)

 Meeting up with the other missionaries in the Atlanta airport.

 On our way to Lima~the clouds were beautiful.

 Arrived at the Lima airport, my luggage made it, hooray ! 

 Waiting for our shuttle to pick us up.

 My first companion, Sister Nazer, she's wonderful.

 Photo bomb~with Sister Nazer

Love this girl.

All the new sistas in front of the Lima temple. 

 I love the temple & I love the weather here

Hablas espanol?

First official email from the MTC :)

Hola!! I love the MTC!!

I made it to the Peru MTC, safe and sound (and tired)! We got in to the Lima airport at about 10:30, but, if you can believe it, didn´t arrive at the MTC until 4 AM! It took a while to get our whole group through the airport, with customs and and extra baggage check and stuff, then we ended up having to wait at the airport for like 4 hours for a few other missionaries to arrive on different flights. It was crazy! But we all got to know each other really well and now it´s fun because we are like a little family :)

Hermanas Nazer, Catmull, and Harper were all in my group coming in. And guess what?? Hermana Nazer is my companion!! She is so awesome. We have already had a lot of fun together and we get along so well. She is from Idaho and she´s such a cute girl. I´m really glad we´re companions! We compliment each other really well.

Okay so to be honest, I got off the airplane and saw all the airport workers and thought, "Why are there only 14-year-olds working here??" As I got closer, I realized they were all older than me. Some of them a lot older than me. They are just a lot smaller than what I´m used to! I felt like I was with my people! On the other hand, here at the MTC there are tons of natives, and they are all speaking Spanish a million words a minute. In that sense, I´m not really fitting in at all haha I´m trying so hard to understand and respond with something at least a little coherent, but judging by the looks they all give me, I am not doing so hot. In fact, a group of elders saw Hermana Nazer and me and said, "Hola Hermanas!" So we responded with a big, "Hola! Como estan?" and realized we had made a huge mistake. By acting like we knew what we were doing, we made the elders think we really did know what we were doing. Bad idea. We just kinda kept walking like we were in a hurry and said, "Adios!" behind us hahaha

So I guess to sum it all up, for the 12 or so hours that I´ve been in Peru, I´ve been really exhausted but also excited to be here. I don´t feel nearly as out of my element as I thought I would, but maybe that´s because I am in the MTC. I hope I get to go to the temple soon; we saw it on the way in and it is beautiful.

My P-day is on Tuesday, so I´ll write again then. We only have 30 minutes though, so it´s not a ton of time. The work of the Lord is pressing on! The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the most important thing we can learn about. Take time to study it and to become like Jesus Christ, and you will be happy! He is the Way, the Truth, and the Light.

Love,

Hermana Angela Busath

Safe Arrival to the Lima, Peru MTC

Just got an email from Hermana Busath, her first from the MTC to let us know she arrived safely last night....

Hello! I will write you another letter, but I just wanted to send you a quick one to let you know that I am alive so you can stop worrying :)
-Hermana Busath