Week 39-April 27, 2015

Week 39-April 27, 2015

hahahhaha i couldnt help but bust up laughing about the food situation. i can only imagine dad and the little girls trying to feed college boys and not knowing what to do..lol you guys should just tell them to go but in and out and order pizza :P haha but sounds like a party there..

sounds like mom enjoyed the wedding. id love to see pics :)

my week was good. we taught the law of chastity to beatriz and her husband and talked about them getting married and turns out he just doesnt think marriage is important but we talked and he said he was willing to do it for his family. it was an awesome lesson. we are trying to be more direct and we really pulled it off. it was also one of the first lessons when i felt like the Spirit was actually putting the words in my mouth and i said things i wouldnt have thought of myself. it was cool. then beatriz and her son came to a noche de hogar that we had with the wardfriday and then to church sunday!! it was awesome. also we challenged jorge to baptism again and he acepted for this saturday!! we agreed to fast with him tomorrow so that he can feel a confirmation of what he is doing from God. he also came to church but only for the sacrament because he was studying all night. but anyway, we are super excited for his baptism saturday!! he is a great guy and we keep promising him a temple marriage with a great LDS girl if he gets baptized :P 

also i got the easter card! thanks!!! and i think a package you guys sent arrived but i forgot to pick it up so now i have to wait another week and a half... 

oh also we had interviews with president this week so that was good. he is an amazing guy. 

and to answer what dad said about the Spirit, thats an interesting thought but honestly im not sure i would want that. the thing about the Spirit always telling you what you need to get better at is that you are more aware of your weaknesses than ever before. i think that has been one of the hardest things about the mission for me. there are constantly a million things you have to improve and so many ways you fall short every day and as a missionary you are acutely aware of it. also there is always stress about the numbers and sometimes it can be hard to feel like you are really serving the people. sometimes i feel like i am just desperately trying to convince them that the LDS church has the authority of God and they usually dont understand. But i know its also hard to see the big picture. i know its because God wants me to grow and be a stronger and better person. and ive learned so much. sooooo much. my testimony has grown and i understand the doctrine of the restoration so much better.  We dont actually understand all the blessings of the gospel i think. like really what does is mean to be an eternal family? or why is baptism with the right authority really so important? these are things i learn more about every day but i think i could study it my whole life and still not completely understand it. i just know they are important and that if God said we should want it, we should listen to Him. He made the Plan. anyway, those are my thoughts for this week. love and miss you all!! 

also about mothers day. i think we are going to try and talk at 5 our time the 9th (saturday). i think that is 2 your time but you should probably verify...if that doesnt work, just let me know. we just cant do it sunday because we have to pay for the servir and its the sabbath...

Week 38-April 20, 2015

Week 38-April 20, 2015

looks like everyone is doing well!! good to hear!

this week was good for us too. we recieved a reference of a menos activa who when we stopped by was super excited to see us and to come to church again. we invited her for sunday (the next day) and she came! even though it was freezing cold and cloudy and 9 in the morning! haha also another menos activa told me i look like scarlett johannson...haha i love the chileans. they compliment you, insult you, but at least they always tell the truth.:P also we are teaching a lady named victoria gonzalez and she told us this week she wants to get baptized but when she found out you have to go to church EVERY sunday she was a little worried. its frustrating when something so little scares people off. but anyway it was funny because she told us she had been watching TV and the He Lives video we have been sharing with everyone came up in youtube, out of nowhere, two times! haha she watched it, felt something ¨caliente en la guata¨ (the Spirit lol -how she describes it every time we come) and said ¨Que Querì!?¨ to God. lol oh chilenos. they use slang in the tu form with como estaì and que querì and such. anyway, it was super funny to laugh about how in old times God sent Moses to a mountain to talk to him and gave him stone tablets with the commandments and now he talks through youtube and watsApp...haha 

also there is a house in our sector with like 8 cats outside always and i think i mentioned it last week but if not its super funny but they put a sign outside saying ^por favor no dejar gatos , es casa no pension de animales^ haha but basically the idea of people leaving their cats in this patio of this house with a man who lives solo with his brother is super funny. i will send pics :P then you can see what we laugh about during the day while walking around for hours haha. 

also Beatriz is awesome. last night we had a lesson with her and she started crying and told us that she was studying the Book of Mormon and wants to keep learning and follow this path but then told us all about how she has problems with depression and bipolar disordor and that one time some evangelicos blessed her or something to take out the bad spirit that was in her and she is better now but she knows it will be hard for her to keep going with this. but she really wants to. so we testified a lot of Gods love and His power to heal us and help us along the path and with our weaknesses and it was amazing how strong the Spirit was. then she asked us if it was a sin that she was living with her pareja because it had come to her mind one day. we had planned to teach the law of chastity last night and it was cool to see how when people feel the Spirit they want to be better and know what they need to change, the Spirit tells them. she told us she wants to get married but her pareja no, so we will be praying a lot and such so that he changes his mind. also she told us that when we are there, she forgets about all her problems and feels peace and that when we leave it goes back to normal. its amazing to think that if we are obedient and diligent and beg for the Spirit, it comes. God can use us to give peace to others, even for just a few minutes. 

anyway, im doing well and love you all!

​a part of our sector we just discovered might be ours!! campo!! gorgeous!

Week 37-April 13, 2015

Week 37-April 13, 2015

im goinng to write first a little before reading. this week we have really been trying to help our investigators with baptism dates so we have been visiting them tons and Jorge came to church yesterday!!! it was awesome. he is totally going to get baptized. Veronica was out of town or something this weekend so we havent seen her in a while but we will find her pronto.. we are also teaching a woman who needs to get married and this week we have been visiting her every day and even her husband participated when he was there and she started crying in the prayer because she was so happy he was there. we told her last night about the law of chastity and such and she told us she wants to change her life and repent. shes awesome :) her name is Beatriz. we have two other families with lots of promise that we visited this week and planned family home evenings with them this week with other members and menos activos so we are excited for that! Hermana Arango is awesome. i prayed for a Latina companion and got a Spanish profesor! haha she is helping me tons and is great :) 

no i didnt get the easter card yet..just the package i think...

and no if we are actually dying we dont have to go out but i took a lot of ibuprofen and we had to go to some appts and coordination.

and i have taught joseph smith and the first vision at least 2 or 3 times every day for 8 months :P haha lots ...

and ya i think you found it in google maps..haha thats the limit of our sector. 

anyway, wow sounds like you guys had quite the adventure camping!!  love and miss you all!

Our district leader and the missionary he is training (the gringo)

part of our sector

downtown Santiago getting hermana damian's visa

our house

one part of our sector

la zona

reunion de cambios hermana arango

Week 36-April 6, 2015

Week 36-April 6, 2015

im going to try writing my email before reading you guyss because otherwise i dont have time and am not even thinking about the mission anymore and as such dont write much. 

by the way i live in Raul Fuentes Abarca 1043 in padre hurtado. cerca de peñaflor. cerca de la calle El Manzano and primera transversal. thats my sector. mapquest it :)

so here goes, this week was the last week of the change. today was cambios. my new companion is hermana arango from columbia. i prayed and wanted another latina companion to help me with my spanish and turns out she is actually a spanish professor!! im excited :P haha

but i just met her like an hour ago so that is all i will say about her right now.

as for this week, it was an interesting week. i got pretty sick, with a fever of 103. that lasted a couple days. it was pretty comical though too because at one point i even couldnt walk straight while working because i was so dizzy and started seeing things that werent there and hna damian got pretty worried. but i got better fast :) now i am back to normal. also hna damian has stomach problems and had problems this week too so we were both pretty bad during thursday. but we left in the morning to work and ended up finding an investigator we hadnt found in lots of time and teaching another investigator that told us that even her athiest son said he felt something different when we visited and when he talked to us at the gate. he said he felt an internal peace. its cool to be a missionary and hear people feel the Spirit through you. also we taught Jorge the word of wisdom and he accepted!!! he committed to live it and told us he does want to get baptized someday. we set a date for the25th of april :) then he said he didnt have work for semana santa and would come with us to the conference, but ended up going out of town or something and we couldnt get ahold of him by phone or stopping byhis house all weekend...bummer. but veronica went to the conference all day saturday, so that was awesome :) also veronica recently moved here from columbia so im pretty excited to have a companion from columbia here now. hopefully we can help her get baptiized this month :) we are still teaching the two girls and the boyfriend, but they didnt come to the conference so we hope they will come to church next week. general conference was awesome and so was easter :) i love easter. seriously the memories i cherish most from my childhood and that have impacted my testimony the most in my life are all the easter and  christmas traditions. especially the easter ones for my testimony. i have been studying lots to improve my testimony of the Atonement to testify to people and for easter i read the chapter on the resurrection in jesus the Christ and ive been and still am reading the new testament. its been cool to feel and see how much ive learned. i love studying the Savior and His life. also for conference i lucked out and the trainer of the pair of other hermanas that live with us (both gringas) wanted to watch the conference in spanish and therefore i did divisions and hermana mcnevin and i had fun watching it in english. its better in english. also poor translators, the apostles always use complicated words to translate, (for example, pickle-sucker) haha so that was pretty funny. we planned to go watch the sunrise in the country for easter morning but hna damian had to pack to we didnt...bummer.

also the biggest thing i learned from conference was that we should never abandon our faith or discredit our testimony because we dont understand something or have questions we dnt have answers to. this was one of my questions and like 4 different speakers talked about it. they said to go forward in faith, and CHOOSE to believe. its a choice. i liked that. we dont need to know everything and we dont need to have a testimony of fire like the prophet to be a disciple of Chirst. if God wanted missionaries that were perfect he would find another way. also i think to God even if i just walk around Chile talking to people and feeling the Spirit and learning from the people i meet for a year and a half and i leave a better person, its worth it to Him. so ill just keep working and striving to be better and be patient :) those were my thoughts of the week. 

love and miss you all! 

my favorite scripture of the Atonement : alma 7:10-13

have a great week everyone!

Week 35- March 30, 2015

Week 35- March 30, 2015

hi everyone! it was a relief to see your email this week. good to know everyone is safe :)

sounds like everyone is doing great. thanks mom and dad for your stories about tithing. no veronica didnt get baptized because she started working all day during the week and they wouldnt give us permission to visit her during studies, so we are still trying to help her progress to baptism. but she will get there :)

jorge is the other man we found and we ended up having a lesson with him and our ward mission leader (a21 year old returned missionary) and it went pretty well. he is praying and reading and wants to come to church but had to work this sunday. ive been trying to look for miracles everyday instead of getting depressed about our flaws and so here are the miracles of this week:

friday we were walking down a street and passed a woman on the side sitting down. we greeted her like normal and turned out she was an investigator we had visited last week. we asked how she was and she said mas o menos. so we asked what was wrong. she started crying and told us she had seperated from her husband sunday because they had fought. we gave her a hug and walked her back to her house and she told us all about how he comes home drunk and hits her and breaks things sometimes and we sang for her and talked about the atonement and she said she felt better. it was  a miracle t o me that God had put us exactly in that path to find her in that moment and help her when she needed a hug and a couple friends, even if she doesnt know us that well..

2nd miracle

we have been teaching two girls, connie and valentina (14 and 8 years old) and the boyfriend of connie who just reciently got interested (other miracle).they are AWESOME but hadnt come to church yet. but sunday morning we were in the capilla when up drives their mom and dad with valentina. they dropped her off and she assisted all 3 hours! she was always too timid to even talk in the lessons but came to church alone and loved it! that was exciting for us :) 

anyway, we have been teaching alot about the Atonement recently for Easter and im so excited for conference!! love and miss you all! happy easter!