Sunday, July 26, 2015

Week 51-July 20, 2015

Week 51-July 20, 2015

so didnt hear from mom or receive taylors email :( bummer
but glad to hear the reunion was awesome and see the pictures! also thanks for the package!!!!!!!!!! you guys are the best :)))))) it was super fun to get it and completely a surprise. also it had lots of stuff i needed and we laughed about how mom seems a little conflicted between sending me my favorite foods and helping me lose weight ;)  but seriously thanks a ton.
this week was awesome for a few reasons. first and most important, 
Fernanda is getting married to our ward mission leader!!! he took her to the temple grounds for her first time and proposed. she was so so so happy and him too. also they are going to get married in september so that we can come :))))))) 
we were so excited about that. one of my dreams is that i can help investigators get married and help with their wedding and be there and this is pretty dang close :) and it will be in the temple :) 
also this same day we got into a house of menos activos that we have never been able to visit in all my 6 months here. that was cool.
also i ate octopus :)) its super yummy. haha
also cool story, our investigators connie and meri told us that meri had had dreams about going to a big church that is just like our capilla and that the both felt like God was pushing them to listen to us..interesting. 
we go to the temple as a stake this week (friday) and jorge got his recommend yesterday!! yay!! and came in a while dress shirt for the first time!! and sat with members and arranged with his comp to do his home teaching. :) we were like proud parents. :P
anyway  it was a good week :) 
scripture of the week:
mosiah 5:15. and extra challenge, have dad read it in spanish :P its better that way ;)
love and miss you all! have a fantastic week!

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Week 50-July 13, 2015

Week 50-July 13, 2015
hey sounds like the familyreunion is going awesome!! :) say hi to everyone for me!! 
i am doing great :) this week we saw lots of miracles with finding people and really realizing that we as missionaries dont do anything. nothing at all. we walk into houses, sing and say a prayer, bring the Spirit, and the people learn. haha its actually pretty funny to watch it happen. sometimes the people just feel the Spirit and it tells them something that has nothing to do with what we are talking about. ive learned to just go with it :P its actually super comforting, because its scary as a missionary to think that you dont always have to right words or the launguage or the perfect scripture, but if the Spirit is there and the people WANT to feel it, they will learn all kinds of stuff by themselves. we have one lesson where we were looking for inactive members in our list of directions and knocked on a door and the woman let us in. we sat down, said a prayer and we started telling us literally her whole life story and that of all of her family, including super personal stuff that had happened to her and her daughter and such. she talked nonstop for about an hour and we literally just sat and listened. she also cried a lot. then we opened our books of mormon to share a scripture and she got excited and read the scripture. we asked her what she thought of it and she applied it and understood it in a way we never would of thought of and that almost didnt make sense but it was obvious that the Spirit was working. then she cried some more, talked some more, commited herself to come to church sunday, and thanked us for coming and we left. lol it was super funny for us because we literally hadnt dont anything"! we didnt even extend the committment!!! but anyway, it was a reminder that God puts us where He needs us and we are really just instruments in His hands, or at least that is the goal :)
also sunday we went with one of the stake presidents counselors to visit Jorge and we ended up teaching both his parents too (we hadnt even talked to his dad really before!!). they are super catholic and never were super interested but his dad ended up telling us all about his experiences with God and that he feels like he is far from God and needs to get closer. it was an awesome lesson. walking around all day in the rain was totally worth it for that lesson. it rained supppper hard this weekend, so much that half the people didnt come to church becasue all the streets were flooded and such. turns out when it rains, everyone feels sorry for us and invites us into their houses to feed us sweets and fried stuff. we ended up having to eat so much food that we were up vomiting last night again. haha too much love for the missionaries:P  
but we are doing awesome and it was a great week :)
love and miss you all!!

happy birthday BJ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Week 49-July 6, 2015

Week 49-July 6, 2015

wow so now im learning i really dont have time to read all the emails when taylor is also writing a bunch :P so now i will just write and print out your emails to read afterwards. but congrats mandy in nationals!!!! wow!!!! 
also im doing to sacrifice a lot of time on this complicated computer to send pics so sorry if i cant write a ton.-..hopefully youll enjoy the pics ..haha
anyway this week was the final of the Copa America so we had to be in the house a ton saturday because all of chile had a party all day until sunday in the morning ...haha but it was super fun. lots of bbqs and honking and such. and lots of things that make the noise of fireworks but not the fire..haha on the fourth of july. that part was a bummer, but at least it sounded like fireworks haha we have had to be in the house early every time chile played..even people who dont like football would watch it. pretty awesome haha
but even after partying all night, lots of people came to church sunday and we had an awesome meeting with all the ward councils and pres barreiros in the evening and it turned out super well. sometimes it feels like there is so much to do and we are the only ones working, but the meeting really showed how determined the leaders are too and that we are really all working together, so that was great. 
also we got confirmed again that God answers prayers. so much that we should be careful what we pray for :P we fasted with basically all of chile sunday for rain and when we left lunch of sunday after ending the fast, guess what?..it started to rain.. haha its crazy how good prayer and fasting workes sometimes. ive just learned we have to be specific and grateful in our prayers and God answers, sometimes IMMEDIATELY. haha
also this week we found two new investigators but it was super funny because we went looking for one, taught her, and then she told us her mom wanted us to come over (when her mom told her that during the lesson we have no idea..haha) so we went next door and taught her mom who turns out is a member and her sister, who is awesome and accepted a baptism date and everything! her name is connie. we are excited to see where things go with her :)
also this week i got sick again. not sure from what but spent another night vomiting all night. the nurse thinks its food poisoning again or something. i hope so. i know i said i wanted salmonella or something in the mission to loose weight but im rethinking it now..:P (another prayer God probably is answering...i gotta be more careful :P)
anyway, love you all!! have a great week!

also its crazy to be a missionary and watch how the Spirit works through us to make grown men cry. sometimes we dont even realize it but the Spirit can be there talking to the person or someone listening on the side and helping them feel what God wants them to feel...its crazy. that was another thing i learned this week....


Toddy...my addiction

the sky in the morning..
victoria and her family :) 


he familia Lisana perez. they are the best. they are the ones that make us fried sushi :P

zone activity today

AREPAS. DELICIOUS COLUMBIAN FOOD :) 
he night of the final of the copa america!!! party in the pension with our chile hats :P

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Week 48-June 29, 2015

Week 48-June 29, 2015

hey everyone!
sounds like everyone is doing well this week!! sounds like the movie was good and that everyone is enjoying technology and everyone has cell phones now :P thats fun. i learned a lot this week and lots of cool stuff happened here. changes meeting was today but president let us stay together another change and didnt take me out of el manzano :))) super happy about that! also they are putting alarms in our houses now..haha  and the mission is getting alot smaller so they are combining lots of sectors and this change not a single hermana arrived...kinda sad to have less hermanas but the mission is still big. we are super excited to go to the temple this change with victoria and fernanda and jorge, we just are trying to find names for them to baptize...
this week i learned about the chains of Satan a little and why our mission is different from lots of others, especially in south america. we visited a inactive brother who knows TONS of doctrine and i learn from him everytime we go. basically he doesnt go to church because of some stuff that happened to his wife and he chose to stay home with her when she stopped going because they are sealed in the temple and he sees it as a loyalty to her. but anyway, he told us that recently he has started feeling what the BoM describes as the chains of Satan when it talks abou t the feeling of "everythings good in Zion" and a lack of feeling among members. like when it talks about the nephites who rebeled and afterwards were even harder in their hearts than the lamanites becasue they had had so much knowledge before. anyway, he said he has started to not feel anything. things that were important to him before have started to not be important and such. conclusion, he realized that is exactly what Satan does and decided he has to come back and take the sacrament. it was a really interesting lesson becasue its true. our misison here involves a LOT of looking for people who inactivated and who now are even harder hearted than investigators towards the gospel. after making covenants and leaving them, its even harder to return and to feel the Spirit sometimes.also if you made the covenant without even knowing what you were doing.. but anyway, its was an interesting lesson. 
also we had divisions this week and i got to go back to my old sector for a day. it was awesome to see the people there :))) made me feel super lucky to have gotten to be part of the peoples lives there.
also we had a concert sunday that the mission did and lots of the missionaries sang. we had almost a thousand people there and the Spirit was so strong, both Felipe and Jorge who came with us cried :P but Jorge was so excited, he asked me as soon as we left, whens the next one?! unfortunately the next one is for christmas :P but it was awesome. i also got to see more members from my last sector there and that was super fun. we are still helping felipe quit smoking and understand and remember the things we teach, but he is super receptive to the Spirit, so anything can happen. :)
its pretty cold here now and i finally got to buy new tights today so im happy about that :)
anyway, here is my fav scripture for the week. 3 nephi 9:20. what are we willing to sacrifice for the Lord? how are we showing our love for Him and our gratitude for the sacrifice He already did for us? 

but ya, hope everyone has a fantastic week and love and miss you all!!!

btw i dont have rabies so thats good :) and i dont know what i had last week, probably just food poisoning.  we are also having a drought here, so its not just california. also i heard about the supreme court ruling...dang it...

Week 47-June 22, 2015

Week 47-June 22, 2015

haha i feel like now  ill probably write even less because i want to read taylors emails :P 
anyway, sorry i didnt write much last week. i was dying basically. finally my companion made me call the mission nurse after a few days and she got pretty worried because basically the hermana who died in argentina died from dehydration from the same thing so that kind of freaked me out. but its all better now. lots of gatorade and imodium later :P also a dog bit me this week but it was my own fault. its super tiny so we chose not to get the 5 shots you are supposed to get and hopefully i wont get rabies :P haha no but im doing great again. this morning i said i wanted my favorite cookies again (they are literally my addiction here) and hermana arango got excited because it means im back to normal :P it was a crazy week but good. funny story: we NEVER go without food. literallyi feel like Gods pet dog or something because if we are hungry, suddenly food appears. its the funniest thing but one of the blessings of being a missionary i guess, at least in chile :) but anyway, this has happened lots of times with food just appearing and such but the other night we were walking around at night going to a appt and a man who was smoking outside his house all of a sudden said, ay niƱas!! ven! . we were pretty startled and we were in the more sketchy part so we both hesitated for a sec but then we  went over to him and he asked if we had eaten anything that night. we said no and he asked if he could give us bread. we said sure, of course and a few minutes later he cam out with sandwiches and apples for us. haha and that was it. then the other night we got to the house and while we were getting ready for bed Beatriz¨s son maxi called outside our house and had freshmade sopaipillas for us. haha they were delicious. being a missionary is the best food wise  :P 
anyway, Felipe is doing well but we are trying to help him move on from concentrating on his past so that he can quit smoking. he is kind of like a little kid in that he forgets things and such but he really wants to do the right thing and has TONS of faith, so we have lots of hope for him. Beatriz is doing well but she  is still waiting on a miracle that marcelo decides he wants to get married someday...men are the worst... we havent gone to the temple yet because we want Jorge to come too and they are still looking for names to bring. Fernanda is doing great and we are pretty sure she is now goiing to get married to our mission leader instead of go on a mission but we will see :P 
also recently our entire ward has been having a lot of problems and everyone in inactivating so now we are visiting lots of ¨flotantes¨or people who dont come to church for a couple weeks or such and we need to go remotivate them. but we have been having lots of success with that and have gotten closer to the members, so thats cool :)
favorite scripture of the week. D&C 18:10-13

HAPPY FATHERS DAY Dad!!!!! you are seriously the best and i dont know who i would be or where i would be without you. i love you TONS hope you had a fantastic day :)