7/28/2014 Email

From: Camille Weller [mailto:camille.weller@myldsmail.net]
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 11:03 AM
To: Melissa Wheatley;

Subject: Feliz Día de Independencia PERÚ! (:

First off happy 28th of July, independence day of my beautiful country... PERU (: i love this place more than i thought was posible, i remember after i got my call i would always say that i felt like my heart was already in peru... well now its here and i dont think ill ever bring it all the way back home...

Well this week was a little on the crazy, wierd side but thats life for ya (: it seems like we spent more time out of our area than we did in it.. We got to spend p-day down in arequipa with our zone and then headed back that night, heres a random funny story for ya...we were headed to our bus and were running late but i had to pull out money.. a guy from the mission was driving us so he would pull over to the side of the road and i would jump out and go to the atm, but none of them would take my card so we did this about four times down the road to the terminal... on the last one i ran out of the little atm booth and then suddenly was yanked backwards when i turned around i saw that my skirt had caught onto a motorcycle and i watched as it fell over...... haha then i had to try to remove my skirt from the bike, which in the process ripped the side of my skirt to shreds.... (side note this is the skirt that was my grandmas and just that morning she emailed me telling me to make sure i brought it back because it has a matching top she still has...... sorry grandma..love you. ) anyways then we had to pull the bike back up but were still in such a hurry as to not miss our bus that we ran to the car and jumped back in.... missionaries or motorcycle tipping fools? hahaha  then tuesday we got a call and had to head back to A-town that morning.. on the way our bus broke down.. in the middle of nowhere..and all the driver said was to start walking and hope that someone picks us up... welcome to peru my friends... haha so we did and ended up getting on a different bus and making it there just fine. But by the time we got there and figured everything out we had already missed the last bus home to chivay.. so we stayed at the mission home and headed back the next morning... well we tried, but missed our bus and had to take the afternoon one.. what a start to a week right? im just glad i get to have all these great experiences with my best friend Hna Stone! haha nothing can get us down.. shes such a great example of come what may and love it! Then on thursday my poor companion was super sick and could barely get out of bed, she took some medicine and we were able to go out for a bit that night, which included a birthday dinner for one of the zone leaders that came up.. Then friday we had an activity with the branch, "noche de peru" we made arroz choufa and had a cute peru cake and played games, it was kind of a sad night because all the woman were telling us how much they dont want us to go.. breaks my heart because i just love them all so much... Saturday we had a sweet young womans activity, we painted our nails and made them diaries for their personal progress, they are all such cute girls, and were excited to start working on their personal progress. Sunday we hit our 16 month mark... it blows my mind how fast the weeks and months go by here! slow down already! we had a great sacrament meeting, despite the fact that there was only 11 members there (including us missionaries) but its a holiday weekend so im guessing everyone went to arequipa! but we still had such a spiritual time. the talks were all amazing... Hna stone, Elder hulet, and Elder boyd all talked about sharing the gospel and missionary work, reminded me of how important the work were doing is.. love it. We also had a RM come to church with his parents and he talked to us and shared some of his experiences and how everyday on his mission he promised him self that he would say "i´m not ready to go home yet" until he was getting on the plane ride home... i really liked that and have made that my new goal.. so if anyone was wondering.. im not ready to go home yet (:

I had a cool oportunity to talk to a young woman from our ward that was going through some of the same things i did at her age.. i felt impressed to share parts of my past and how i learned from it and how all that strengthened my testimony of the atonement.. sometimes i think we trust ourselves too much and we put ourselves in situations where we know we will be tempted... but in most situations where we make mistakes there is something that leads to that mistake.. if we take out that intermediate, whether it be a certain place or a certain group of friends or a person, it will be a lot harder to make that mistake. Wouldnt we rather be in atmospheres where the people around us build us up and help us be better?? Rather than putting temptations in our face? Thats something that i learned a while back and has helped me a ton, get good friends, put yourself in good situations and odds are you will make better decisions. on the other side of the spectrum i will share something my uncle trav once told me... "If you hang around skunks... your bound to stink" anyways it was really a cool experience to see someone at that point and get to share my testimony with her.. the atonement works, its real and its always there for us whether we acept it or not. The debt has already been paid.. dont wait to take care of things that are weighing heavy on your heart or mind. The feeling of worthinness and a clearness of conscious is just a sincere pray and a couple steps away. It is never too late to turn around and change.

This week ive been thinking a lot about how these are most likely our last couple weeks in this area(although i havent lost the hope that maybe president will keep me here for my last transfer) and how hard it is for me to say goodbye to the members and people here in chivay... i feel like everyone is family, even our breakfast lady seems like my aunt or something haha And i realized that one thing my mission has definately taught me is how to love... not in a romantic or poetic kind of way but in the way that our Heavenly Father loves each one of us.. Im sure ive only come to know a sliver of this love but that sliver has come to fill my heart with more love for the people here in peru than i could have imagined.. i feel as though i have known them forever.. and that they are my closest family and friends that i have been so lucky to share this amazing, true gospel with and in return they have taught me so much and helped me to learn and grow with them. I will forever be greatful for these months here in the mission and will never stop helping more of our brother and sisters come to know their Savior and his perfect gospel..

I love you all,. thank you for all of your kind words and for your love and prayers, i promise you that we feel them. 

Con mucho amor y respeto,

Hermana Weller (:

p.s i talked to a lady in another language here called Quechua this week... "Ima su tiki??" (: 

Also aparently public disturbance isnt a thing here... someone had a weekend long party right by our house and it litterally sounded like we were blasting the music from inside of our room.... after 3 nights of no sleep this p-day nap thats coming my way is very much needed.