Mi corazón está en Cusco: Baby, it's cold outside!

... not really. But the people here seem to think so. It hits 80 and they bring out the soup and hot chocolate for dinner.

This week was FANTASTIC. We taught twice as many lessons as we usually get to. We have an investigator with a baptism date and she is super excited! We have a less active member that is excited to receive the priesthood. He brought two friends to church last week and is always excited and happy to talk to us. And we have a new investigator that is simply incredible. Most people here forget about our appointments or aren´t super excited, but with her it´s completely different. Our first cita (appointment) she was outside waiting for us and wondered why we were five minutes late. The next appointment she pulled out the folleto (pamphlet) that we gave her and it was all marked up and she had tons of questions. Refreshing. I love all of our investigators, but I´ll admit, it´s nice to have just one person who shows genuine interest and remembers all the things we teach and ask her to do.

On top of progressing investigators and menos activos, my new zone is fantastic! The new hermana is latina but she speaks perfect English. It´s nice because I don´t feel weird speaking in Spanish with her (I don´t know why, but it´s harder for me to speak Spanish with North Americans) but she can still help me when I´m desperate. The new elders are super cool too. We all played volleyball and soccer last week (and by we I mean the elders and I, while the other hermanas looked thru their cameras...) It was fun :)

Something that has really hit me this week is just how much I love (and miss) the temple. We have such a beautiful promise that we can all be together forever because of the temple covenants. The whole purpose of me being here is to help families receive the gospel and be sealed in the temple for eternity. The hardest part of the mission isn´t not knowing the language or being apart from you and my life at home for 18 months. It´s when people choose to not do the things that will help them enter the temple someday. I couldn´t be more thankful for the temple and for our family and it literally hurts when we´re trying to get others to the same goal and the only thing stopping them is themselves.

I don´t want to end on a sort of negative note... I love this gospel and I´m so thankful for it in my life. The mission isn´t perfect, but I´m so happy that I´m here. Even if progression is slow sometimes, I love these people. I just love everything! Thanks for everything you do for me, even tho I´m in a different hemisphere right now.

Love you all with all my heart!