Dearest Family,

As you can see in one of the photos, I am learning all sorts of skills in the mission.  For example, I learned how to gut fish and prepare them to be deep fried.  With the relief society sisters of our branch, we traveled to a fish hatchery on Saturday for a relief sociey get-away.  It was a lot of fun.  One of our investigators came and enjoyed herself, but the heartbreaker is that she decided yesterday that she does not want to get baptized.  I feel really bad for the senior couple in our area, the Schellenbergs, because they worked super hard to help this couple marry.  They dedicated tons of time with this couple. 

The good news is that a different couple is going to get married the eighth of April.  I feel wonderful about this couple.  We had a lovely lesson with this couple that will marry last Wednesday.  The husband arrived home just as Hna. Villegas and I were preparing to leave.  The husband immediately shared his concerns with us.  It was beautiful to see how much he opened up.  The man, named Augustin, was sincere and humble.  He explained that it bothered him how Elder Schellenberg had been so persistent that they marry and baptize quickly.  It was at this time that I understand why I had felt impressed to read Mosiah 11 in my personal study in the morning.  I had seen that reading Mosiah 11 was a personal study recommendation as part of chapter 5 of Preach My Gospel.  Even though I didn`t understand how this recommendation related to anything, I felt I should follow this specific recommendation.  There are two verses in Mosiah 11 that talk about how God is slow to hear our prayers when we are slow to repent.  Thankfully, Augustin did not take this scripture the wrong way.  As soon as we shared the verses, he said, -I understand.- 

Augustin also shared his concern with us that he desired to believe in the Book of Mormon, but it was a real struggle for him because it is so different than the Bible.  Hermana Villegas and I shared with Augustin about the sticks of Judah and Ephraim and the corresponding scripture in the Bible.  We cannot share this scripture with many people because they do not understand.  Augustin, however, immediately understood the significane of the scripture.  It was so wonderful to have a lesson where we could answer questions with scriptures and our investigator understood the answers.  It is so much better to answer questions with scriptures than with our own words.  There is a great sense of legitimacy with scriptures than with our words.

I really love my zone.  Hermana Villegas and I are the only sisters in the zone, but all of the elders are super great to us.  I laugh more than I laugh the whole week on our preparation days.  Elders are so goofy sometimes.  I`ve attached a photo of our amazing preparation day last Monday.  We traveled to Ollantaytambo together and hiked up to some Inca ruins.  There are other ruins in Ollantaytambo, which are much bigger, but it costs a lot to enter. 

  

Thank you for sharing your missionary experiences with me.    I know that the greater effort we put into being missionaries, the easier Heavenly Father makes it for us to do.

Love,

Hermana Blunck II