Elder Cook!!! woo! (Aug 20)

GUESS WHAT?! Elder Cook came yesterday!!!!!!!!!! thats why im emailing today.  i sang in a choir for him! only people from the two zones closest to the office got to sing in it, so im super lucky that im here! we sang oh my father to the music of come thou fount and it was amazing! an elder directed our choir and when we had practices last week and split into parts i took the hermanas cuz i can play the piano and have a little experience in choir! haha, wow. glad i have the music talents i do. but the choir was amazing, really, the spirit was so strong that our president was crying after and i think Elder Cook got a little teary eyed as well. Two elders from the 70 came as well! When we got to shake all their hands of them and their spouses(hugged the women), i told him `hey! my family just met you!`haha it kind of caught him off gaurd and he was like `really?` but that was all the conversation we could have cuz i had to keep moving. :) anyways, super spiritual experience with them all. Its incredible the authority they have. I could feel his spirit so strong when he spoke, and for once i was glad i knew english so i could here the words from his mouth, not the translators. Wow, so pumped to do more. He said that this experience is going to prepare us for the rest of our lives like nothing else could have. He was also companions with one of the other apostles and he said that they decided that what made the difference for keeping converts active for their whole lives is the commitments we extend. Commitments are super important (and it also makes our church different) cuz every single person needs to have a spiritual experience. needs to gain their own testimony and change their lifestyles. (natural man is an enemy to God) and they can only change when they act, do something, so we always need to help them act. Wow. I know He is an apostle of Jesus Christ, and I felt such peace and confidence and trust in him. at the end of his talk it seemed like the spirit of prophecy came over him and he left a blessing on us, he said that every person that we loved would be blessed for us being on missions. ya so you`re welcome everyone back home! ;)

We have another 70 coming next week as well! super lucky! the 70 thats coming next week weve known about for  a while, Elder cook was kind of last minute this week cuz I guess he`s going to visit Machu Pichu so thought he`d stop by and visit the mission as well!! love his wife, she led us in a song haha like she did with you guys at `this is the place`.

So this world is crazy. We are so incredibly blessed to have the gospel and all the peace that we do. We have found so many poeple that are scared. Down here they believe in evil spirits and 2 20ish year old girls we`re teaching are scared because they dont know the good news of the Gospel and only know that their are evil spirits with power to harm them. As a missionary I have been into many peoples houses and listened as they told me grave stories about their lives and their family situations, taken part of their burdens on my back as a representative of Jesus Christ that I am at this time. I have such a testimony of my calling, there is NO way I would be able to keep going if God wasn't carrying me at times. Some days there is so much evil in the world and I am so tired, but God lifts me up and I have some energy that came out of no where and Im somehow happiest when Im the most tired, and when I take someones burden on my back. Its an amazing feeling to see God working through me, and to be a light in this dark dark world we live in. Its also amazing to see my valient brothers and sisters that are prepared for the truth and who are working in this part of the world to build and edify His kingdom. Satan definitely doesnt want us to be successful, but the cool thing is is that we always will be if we draw  closer to Christ! God is so much more powerful, and Im grateful for opposition so that we can recognize Him more in our lives, because He honestly does so much. 

That family with the drunk dad came to church this sunday! we had to go get them from their house and my companion was awesome cuz she straight up told him, `you will not go to that party, but you will come to church with your family for an hour, dont answer your cell phone, go get changed and come with us.` he listened! he messed up and drunk this week, but he came to church. his family is reading the book of mormon(we gave little charts to the two daughters to track their reading). little by little is how people change, and God is helping this family. 

My comps in Machu Pichu today so im with hermana Irvine(comp from the ccm) and the sister leaders that are in the zone next door today(the sister leaders that i live with are traveling to do visits today as well).

Love you all lots! the church is true! be happy!

Hermana Malorie Black

When the spirit tells you to bring tape...

HEY FAM!

I got my package last week!!!!!!!!! THANKS SO MUCH!!!!!! I told Hermana Parraga that we cant eat the stuff til my birthday! and im not letting me use anything til then as well. (ok except for I wear the temple tshirt to bed, and ive had one green drink. yum!) Thanks soooo soo much! Today Im sending a small small package(finally) so hopefully everything gets to you! everything was in my package so im feeling lucky! thanks again! i feel sooo blessed!

So this week has been good. Yesterday we felt prompted to go to this house that we havent visited for a long time, and they werent there, but then i remembered that with Hermana Martinez we had seen a couple that was in a fight that lives in a house super close to the area and had wanted to talk to them, but hadn´t had the opportunity to come back, so i felt prompted to knock the door last night. so we knocked it, and ive learned something with martinez for the approach to knocking doors is to pretend like your not contacting them...aka like say something like: we´re looking for such and such persona or this street, were not from here, can you help us? then theyre usually always willing to talk to you and then ask oh, where are you from? and then we talk about why we're here etc.. chev. anyways so we asked about the people we were originally looking for and they thought that i had said a different name of someone that live there!(yay for american accent! :)) anyways they let us enter their house and we found a family of a mom and 3 girls and the dad that was wasted..like super drunk. but we invited him to come sit around the table with us which he did(the mom said that never before had he accepted to do something like that with people like us), and he told us as he was crying that he wanted to change his life, he didnt want to drink, he wanted to feel peace, he wanted to come closer to God, and that he didnt know how, he said that he had prayed for help and the mom said that God had sent us to help him. wow. so  my companion told him that he had to change his friends and not drink anymore. (hed get drunk every day). i felt prompted to pull out a piece of paper and write the word `metas` accross the top or `goals` in english. and i asked him what he was willing to do to change? he then came up with 3 goals, we wrote them on the paper and i taped a picture of Jesus with it and we hung it up in his room with the whole family(ya..i had happen to bring tape with me yesterday. the spirits awesome). We prayed together as a family and he was so happy, saying stuff like my soul feels liberated please please come back tomorrow, and then when we made an appointment he was just repeating and repeating the time. Incredible experience. It`s awesome to be an instrument in the Lords hands and know that we can actually help these people! I also hate Satan and how he uses alcohol a lot here to ruin families.  We have an appointment tonight to have the elders give him and his wife a blessing.

we need to have patience and trust not only in the Lord`s will but His timing as well. I guess thats with everything in life. we need to remember that He knows better. always. He knows us better than we know ourself, He knows how we can become what we want to become(even if we sometimes forget waht we want) and He knows everything else, so it would be wise of us to trust Him every once in a while ya know?

So the new sister leader that lives with me is named Hermana Lang(should be in the picture with the pie)) whats cool is to talk with her about planting seeds because she was in this area around Christmas time and is back now and has seen so many of the progress of her investigators progress and get baptized! or how like before if they didnt seem like they were going to prgress now is their time and they are more ready to hear! Sometimes it might seem like our little acts of goodness arent paying off or its not worth it to work hard, but we need to always remember that the Lord can see the end from the beginning and that every good act will ALWAYS be worth it.  :)

So i dominated the elders in futbol again this week! haha I love the respect I have from them now:) soo fun.

I think thats all for this week! Love you all lots!

Hermana Malorie Black

alcohol, sickness, and dominating satan

Wow. miracles miracles miracles.

My companions name is Hermana Ignacio! she is 19 years old(birthday in march) and has only two weeks longer than me on the mission.(she left the mtc right when I got there, but has a transfer more than me cuz i was in the ccm for longer). I’ve learned a LOT about following the spirit and communication with your companion.

This week was interesting because my companion has been sick (dizzy cuz not enough blood has been getting to her head so we lost about 4 days of work. I took the opportunity with excitement because I had actually been praying for an opportunity to study more and strengthen my testimony more. I’ve been learning that the spirit can only reach and touch the hearts of your investigators as far as the depth of your own testimony. I’ve been working harder and harder to study more in depth the basic principles of the gospel so that I can testify with more power and confidence.

We’ve been teaching more by the spirit this week, which makes all the difference. I also realized that we need to have fun (thanks to hma martinez´ teachings) and have a strong relationship or the people aren’t going to want to listen to us. Like why would someone want to listen to a message that brings happiness if we’re not happy?? So we had a tire race down the street. hahahah. I found some tires lying around and handed her one and said something like ´I’m going to win´ .. ´distance´ in my broken spanish and we raced! Rolled those things down the street! Laughed, joked. It was awesome! So the goal of the mission is to have 14 new investigators every week (meaning having a sit down lesson with new people that you’ve never taught before) which hardly anyone reaches in a week...and guess what?? We had 16 nuevos with only 3 days of working this week! When we're happy the spirit comes! Crazy how I never really realized that before. Don’t be stressed about anything in life! The church is true! We can have peace if we pray and read the scriptures! We know the purpose of life! This is a gospel of happiness! If we get discouraged, it means we don’t have faith that God is going to win. Christ has already won, conquered all!!! We’ve beaten satan! so next time you see something awful in the world or news, just tell satan nice try bud, but Christ has already won and just smile as you strengthen your testimony and spirit force field and share the gospel to help your struggling brothers and sisters.

Friday i was on a split with one of the sister leaders, hma ayalla and I felt prompted to go visit joses house(a recent convert). As we were about to knock on the door jose came up to the door DRUNK. I’m talking blood red eyed drunk with a bag of alcoholic drinks. he told us he felt guilty and so we came in and kinda talked with him and he agreed to get rid of the drinks, so we were about to poor them down the drain aka I had a drink in my hand when his parents came in!!! Bad news. They took him inside and jose went upstairs and his parents were just crying, miserable. PERFECT timing for us though. Why? cuz before they never EVER would listen to us. They would let us come into the house and teach their son, but never would listen cuz they’re ´catholics´. So perfect timing? ya, we cuz we comforted them and they agreed to have us over saturday to get rid of the drinks with them. So saturday we had a lesson with the WHOLE family and they agreed have the elders over on monday(today) morning to give jose a blessing and to be there. Yup, so we present all this to the ward council and the bishop volunteered his family to go over and give jose a blessing. So this morning with the bishop, his wife and son (who is the exact same age as jose) came and talked with the family for 2 hours with us! SO incredible how the Lord uses these challenges to bring about miracles (aka humble this family.) sooo cool. I’m excited to keep working with this family. What was also amazing was looking back and forth at this broken family without the gospel and the parents crying, desiring so badly to be better parents and to heal their family, pleading for help, and seeing the result of a family centered in the teachings of the church, of Jesus Christ. Amazing what we have to offer the world. To heal families.

church is true, i love cusco!

Hermana Malorie Black

Rejoice and Fiesta!

Hola familia!!

 So we only have a half hour to write our families and friends now…so ya! I’m going to print off your emails and not be able to respond until a week later.

 So..I’ve been learning a mountain with this new companion. I’ve been learning that getting the spirit in lessons is the most important thing. Period. I’m super glad that I’ve had such a contrast between my two companions because now I can see the difference the spirit and love makes. I don’t think that she realizes it because that’s how it’s been with all her companions. I’ve been learning to have patience and teach by example. No one likes being told that they’re wrong, so I’ve been trying super hard to make a super extra effort to have love for the people in the lessons, ask questions, and do all I can to bring the spirit. Obedience is also sooo important. This is what we came to earth to learn, learn faith and how can we learn faith? Through obedience to the commandments and to the spirit. Always.

It’s amazing to see the way the spirit guides us to the people that are ready. I made a bet with the zone leaders to have 6 baptisms this transfer and they have to have to have ten, and if we do then we’ll buy a huge cake for the other companionships. It’s cool to see how if we put our effort in, the Lord will help us meet our goals. We found a security guy next to one of our investigators, and he said he wants to get baptized and serve a mission. Wow. Idk if I wrote this, but there was a lady that’s super catholic that the members have been trying to visit etc, but wasn’t receptive. Anyways I had no idea about any of this, but we knocked the door next to her house looking for someone I had contacted on the street and she opened the door and surprisingly let us in. she ended up crying to us and telling us that her daughter was super sick, we cried with her, and told her about blessings of health that the elders could give her daughter—she let them! The spirit was there, and now we are teaching her the lessons. The members that are her neighbors were like—what?? No way! Super cool how the Lord’s timing works, and how He trusts us enough to lead us to the people that are ready.

As we learn to have the spirit more, the Lord has been trusting us with more of His children. 6 new people we taught yesterday. I’m learning how to follow the spirit, and it makes missionary work so much more fun! Cuz the people can feel it and were actually helping them. I’ve also never been as tired as I was yesterday, and I had to consciously make the choice to keep walking for hours when we didn’t have success, I decided to rejoice and thank the Lord for the opportunity to be refined and demonstrate my commitment. Having hard times?? REJOICE AND FIESTA!!!!! Sooo grateful that we have the opportunity to be beat up and our rough edges smoothed—to do what we came here to do.

 Love you all lots! The church is sooo true!!!!! I LOVE THE WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SMILE SIEMPRE!!!!!!

 Love, Hermana Malorie  Blacck

Ps, received 17 letters yesterday! Apparently I didn’t get a bunch in the ccm! THANKS SO much for all the support and updates on elisa and Michaela, sounds like they’re doing awesome! Black power!!! Haha people love that my last name is Black I get a lot of comments like, ‘ Hermana Negro, but you`re white!` or `Hermana White!`and then they laugh and laugh. LOVE IT! J

OOOPS!!!

Sorry for not emailing last week!!! my companion was doing her last interview with president on monday our normal email day, and I thought I would be able to email you all on tuesday because that was our pday this last week with transfers and all, but then I found out we can only email on mondays! Oops. Sorry. IM TOTALLY fine with the dog bite!!!! hahahahahaha now I see why they tell us not to tell our moms anything like that hahahaha. The dog didn’t even draw blood. He bit my hand while it was in my pocket, I didn’t even bruise from it. It was more startling than anything and i shared it cuz I thought it was funny/ I deserved it from having a bad attitude at the time and God works in mysterious ways to tell get us back on track. :)

Ok a few more things i would like to request if thats ok?? GREEN DRINKS!!! I get no nutrients here. haha I think i have had more french fries in the last month and a half than I’ve had my WHOLE life. But really. They eat them like we eat salad back home. Like with everything. With that and all the bread i eat-cuz it’s cheap, and all the potatoes and rice....I’m not getting what i need. It has happened before that a whole day would have passed and I’ve gotten NO fresh stuff..let alone green fresh stuff. ya green drinks would be super fabulous. More Triguard por favor. i lost two of them, so ive only been using the one. This stuff has been a life savor I’m pretty sure. I’m super healthy and i owe it to that stuff.

If you could send like marriage tips as well?? Talks or something, or activities that couples can do to better their marriage, we’ve been working with couples lately that have been going through hard times. Cool. AH! One of the new girls in my house got a birthday package and there was brownie mix in there!!! sooo goood! wow, real food. haha. If you wanted to send me something like that I wouldnt mind...:) we have a kitchen in my house so i can cook anything. ooh, I would love recipes of any kind as well. :D

Hermana Martinez promised that she would go to our house in October(maybe with Hermana Swartz and Elder Lyon if that’s ok as well??). She was incredible to me mom, please take good care of her when she comes. Like really, she really took care of me, loved me and helped me sooo much. Love her for me k? :)

Pienso que esto es todo..

Gracias gracias.

Wowo so fun! california last week! crazy that maddies driving! I still can’t get my mind around that one....Ah super lucky! I’ve always wanted to go to knottsberry! haha mom, wow I’ve never wanted american food as bad as when you emailed me EVERYTHING that you guys ate hahah. sounded amazing. :) I’m super glad. And dad, you’re an awesome example to me, thanks for your work in the ward, sounds like you are catching the vision of missionary work--work of salvation. I love it.

So I got my new companion this week! crazy no? One transfer down. She’s from Argentina and JUST FINISHED her training, knows no english, and is quiet. Needless to say she is super different than martinez. But she’s cool and she works super hard, but we haven’t been working as SMART as with martinez. aka haven’t been having lessons with members etc and in our lessons I feel like she teaches more lessons and not people(aka our lessons are similar no matter who were teaching). what’s hard for me is that i can’t communicate what i feel we should do with her very effectively. Its probably super super hard to train for her first time, right after she finished training, and with a gringa that can’t speak very well. Ah. esta bien, im learning a ton, and I’m seeing what it looks like to keep a schedule super strictly. On the bright side I have seen an improvement in my spanish in the last 5 days. Cool. I’ve had some of the hardest days so far on the mish these past few days cuz I’ve had to lead this sector aka make all our appointments show my new companion where everyone lives, make sure we get on the right buses and get to the right appointments and make good relationships with the people even though I can’t talk all while I’ve been missing martinez. I know I’m gunna have harder times in the mish though, and I’m pumped to learn. :)

So martinez left us with a baptism this saturday, but it fell through. Sigh. Her name is sami and she has her own salon. So we came by friday and she had a friend there with her which isn’t normal, but it’s happened before. Before this sami had been telling us that she was super excited and felt peaceful about her baptism, so we thought all was good right? anyways come to find out that this friend of hers is super catholic and somehow convinced sami that she wasn’t ready for the baptism, and sami told us all this while glancing at her friend every once and a while. ya hard. All we could do really was bare our testimonies with conviction about the power of prayer and that we knew that God would answer their prayers if they prayed with faith, a sincere heart, and real intent aka that they would act on their answer. The spirit was there, we’ve still been visiting sami, but no baptism.

Well life is good. I love the mission and I have seen it changing me. Let the gospel change you, work to become converted. vale la pena-its worth it. forever.

Love you all SO much its ridiculous.

Hermana Mal Black

Love this work!

Wow, glad all the pictures worked! ah...last week’s email was sooooo good! I spent my whole time writing it--yup none for the friends last week. Bummer that it didn’t work! I wanted that one for the journal. :( It didn’t work in my `sent` folder either. Well, we learn right?

Ok, I have needed to ask this question for a long time to quiet my companion. Is Trevor’s mission for 3 years because he’s going to Japan?? haha EVERYONE that I tell here that my little brother’s going to japan ask, ´so is he going to be out for 3 years?´ they think he needs a year to learn the language. I don’t know how they all think this, must be like a mormon myth here, but please appease this by telling me he’s not. I would die if I had to wait an extra year to see my lil bro again. :O

This saturday we have a baptism! Hopefully two to make up for last week. Franz Rodriguez is his name, AH, super bumbed that you didn’t get my last week’s email, i explained all about him. But pretty much my companion and I try to look for the people who are going to help build the kingdom to teach, and Franz is one of them. He’s an orthodontist of about 35 years who’s married to a girl that’s menos activo, but now who have come to church 3 times! When my comp started teaching him he said he would NEVER come to church or get baptized, but that they could keep coming, he just wanted to make sure they understood. So incredible seeing the way the spirit works on someone. His mind just isn’t at peace for past sins etc, so when my companion said that a baptism isn’t for a change of religion, but for a cleansing from sin, he jumped on that and initially came to church to ´meet the requirements´ of baptism(they have to go to church 2 times before they can be baptized.). Well, this last sunday his wife told us that HE told her that they had to be to church early and was the one to get them going. He also said, `I don’t know how, but those sisters are convincing me..`haha. NUH uh buddy! It’s the spirit!!! I have like 1 percent of it all. I’m just willing to show up and open my mouth and thankfully with the Lord thats sufficiente. Amazing. Saturday night we brought a member couple with us that is Franz´ same age who bore some powerful testimonies and the spirit was so strong. As tradition, we had Franz say the last prayer and he started to cry while he was saying it! Immediately after he started to cry he said `amen`and left the room. His wife was tearing up too. Incredible. Just seeing the difference from the beginning when he was trying to prove us wrong on everything and had a pride wall up, but to see the way the Lord softens hearts and humble people is incredible. Incredible. Afterwards the member gave him a priesthood blessing and everyone in the room was crying (except me...maybe cuz I still can’t understand everything..ha, but I definitely felt the spirit so strong). What was cool was that the Lord was able to strengthen two families through that one lesson. The lesson was way better than Martinez and I could’ve done alone and easier on our part because of their testimonies, Franz and Vanessa learned from an outside perspective AND the members were able to have a spiritual experience and remember how they got testimonies. The members thanked us afterwards, they were really touched. Incredible. All it took was a little extra coordination on our part. Work smarter not harder as Hermana Martinez says.

I’ve realized that that's really what the difference is. Working a little smarter and the small things make the difference. Today at zone meeting the zone leaders asked us to teach for about 40 minutes. We had the most baptisms in the zone for the last month (one a week), and so they wanted to us to help the rest of the missionaries learn how to have success as well. My companion has this bomb article list thing with 3 kinds of missionaries on it. `The Social Missionary`, The Honorable Missionary`, and `The Consecrated Missionary`. The social one is always looking for fun, relies on his own talents to teach people, he looks for excuses when he’s being corrected--always blames it one someone else (always a reason for why he does something wrong, or why he chose to not live the higher law), lives the commandments or rules that he wants to--cafeteria obedience, or does it so he doesn’t get in trouble, is looking for the praise of others and recognition. The consecrated missionary is the one that is incredible. He is obedient because he wants to be, he welcomes correction from his leaders to become better, his study journal is filled with spiritual impressions he's received, he’s constantly looking for ways to improve, strengthen his testimony, and learn more to help others, he sees others as they really are--his brothers and sisters, precious souls of our Heavenly Father, those with the capacity to become Gods and Goddesses. The Honorable one is somewhere in the middle. The crazy thing is that all 3 of the missionaries are doing the same things, it’s just HOW they do them. It’s just their attitude and commitment to God. We can all learn from this. Keep doing the same awesome things, but like while we study do it prayerfully, have more love when we talk to people and always remember him and our purpose in being here on the earth. How we do things makes all the difference. Just that LITTLE extra effort and thinking.

So i got bit by a dog yesterday!!! hahaha i was just walking down the street minding my own business and ignoring a barking dog like I do every day, when that dang dog ran up and bit my hand while it was in my coat pocket! Haha my companion makes fun of me for my slow reaction time, but I literally was so confused by what had just transpired that I just stood there and looked at the stupid animal. we had an eye contact exchange and then I walked away rubbing my hand because of the pain and just shaking my head thinking, ´did that just happen?´haha so at that moment I was kind of having a bad attitude because my companion decided that I would decide what we were going to do and I was feeling sorry for myself for ´not knowing as much spanish as I would like and because I couldn’t remember street names or names of members etc and I’m going to have to lead the sector next week when  my companion goes home and I’m still in my training, and I want to learn by example while she’s still here-aka have her do everything ha´. ya bad attitude. I think the Lord in his mercy gives us dog bites or wake up calls to get a move on and get going! We´re on the earth to learn so let’s get going and dive into the hard times with a good attitude! News flash, it’s not easy! Lets rejoice because we`re here! We`re living Gods great plan of happiness and have the opportunity to learn to become more like Him! We have bodies (an INCREDIBLE gift from God) when a third of the hosts of heaven didn’t! We have the gospel!!!!!!!!!! PARTY!!!!

I love the strippling warriors more and more. They had less experience than EVERYONE else and they `had never fought, yet they did not fear death`, and what happened?? They dominated! They trusted God and he was with them! They had remembered the things they were taught in fhe and remembered the little faith they had first (like Holland said in his last conference talk). So remember, when we are called to the work and think we're not good enough (at least deaths not on the line eh?) or don’t have experience, don’t know the language, TRUST God. And we will always come out victorious.

I’m realizing more and more that the mission is the ultimate learning zone. I have learned so much and I’ve only been out for almost 3 months!(whoa crazy) I am so grateful to the Lord. Well, there’s my soap box, I’ll share more experiences and miracles next week. I LOVE this work and the Lord.

Take care this week, party in cali for me!

much love,

Mal

Lots of Pictures

NOTE FROM MALORIE'S PARENTS: Hermana Black sent so many pictures this week that it moved her letter into the email's subject line and cut it off after just a few lines. So...here's the pictures without any explanation. :-)