Week 38: Random Facts

Can you believe it’s already almost August? How crazy is that?  Also crazy - this next week I will have completed 9 months in the mission. I’ve almost finished the 1st half of my mission! I will also turn 22 this month! Ahh! I feel old. :P Oh how the time passes.

Happy 20th Birthday Lauren!

Here are some random things that I’ve wanted to share...

-When it rains here in Chile on a Sunday. A lot of people don’t come to church. Yes, it’s a bit more uncomfortable to walk in rain - but going to church and taking the sacrament is very important and we only do it once a week. Often the same people are willing to walk in the rain to go shopping, but not to worship our Heavenly Father.

- I’m super glad to hear that you are going to focus on being better in your home teaching dad. It is really so important! Before I never really understood why we had to do our visiting teaching and such. Now I can see it’s a very important key to helping members become and remain active!

-Missionaries need the help of the members so much to have success in the Lords work. We need members to go to lessons with us, give references, visit less-actives and recent converts and be friends with them. This really is the time for members and missionaries to work together, like the prophets and apostles have said. Did you know that for every ten references you give to the missionaries, statistically one will be baptized? But if we just knock on doors it’s only about 1 out 800 contacts that will get baptized. I can’t remember the exact number, but that’s close. I have seen the truth of this in my mission. When the investigator has friends who help them feel comfortable, they progress way better and are more open to ask their questions instead of just keeping their doubts to themselves.

- Have some FHE’s with the missionaries. Invite them to come and share a lesson with you. Invite your friends and non-member or less-active family or members to the FHE. It’s a fantastic way to help in the work of the Lord! :)

Quaint

Colorful

Week 37: Three Gringos & a Brazilian

I’ve been very good! This has been probably one of the best semanas of my mission so far. I just feel happy! Hermana Davidson and I have been getting along great, and have laughed tons. We haven’t had too much success with being able to teach people. Penco is a tough area - not many people want to let us into their houses. :( The other two sister missionaries with us also haven’t had much success getting lessons. They are both sister trainer leaders and are good missionaries, so I don’t feel like its just us. Plus, all the missionaries tell me that this is normal for the area. It’s just a tough area. But don’t worry; we plan to change that together! We plan to have lots of success. We’ve done a ton of walking. My feet hurt really badly by the end of each day, but it was ok because my spirits are high. :) Plus, each day there is always some little miracle that makes it all ok! 

Awesome Views!

The views are so pretty here. I can see the beach from just about everywhere. That is because there are lots of hills. We are always hiking up some big steep hill or another. I’m going to have killer quads and calves by the time I leave Penco. Ha-ha! 

This week we have started running every morning. All four of us sisters happen to like to run, so we’ve been doing that as our exercise (which makes me happy). There are three gringos (what they call Americans) in our house this time: Hermana Davidson, Hermana Harris (who is in her last cambio before she goes home) and I. Hermana Harris is from Naperville, near Chicago. Were practically neighbors! Then there is Hermana Baturite from Brazil. She knows English pretty well and wants to learn more. When we are in the house we usually all talk in English, and its really fun & nice. :)

My new companion.

Some interesting things that have happened this week are...

We reached our goal of 140 contacts again - the 1st time in about 6 weeks! Hermana Davidson and I are both determined to reach the mission standard of 140 contacts each week.

We had a sister zone class. We made and ate cinnamon rolls. Yummy!

Hermana Davidson showed me how to make apple crisp in the microwave. Super yummy!

I gave a 10-minute talk this Sunday on honesty. It was kind of funny because all the speakers were missionaries and were all gringos. Everyone had to listen to an hour of us speaking bad Spanish. lol

Cinnamon Rolls - Yum!

What?!

Week 36: Moving On

This week was pretty good! My companion and I hardly had any problems with each other and actually had quite a few good laughs and such. So that was nice. :) And today are CAMBIOS! :O Ahhh! So I am going to be leaving Chillancito now. :( That makes me sad because even after 6 months, I’m still happy here. The members were all very nice, so it will be sad to leave. But it’s ok. It will help me progress and probably the area too. Its good to have change so that nobody gets too complacent with the work of the Lord. 

I am going to PENCO! The playa – beach area! Woo! It’s only about 20 min away from my old area. :) AND I am going to be companions with............ Hermana DAVIDSON! She was my companion from the MTC. How crazy, right? I’m pretty excited! :) I think we will be able to work together pretty well. :D 

Some interesting things that happened this week are that we found a promising investigator by doing one of our seven Maneras. We had a NDH with a member family and they invited some friends. One of them was interested enough to accept to visit with us again. When we taught her again she was receptive and accepted fecha y todo! :) Ojala she will get baptized soon! We’ve also been teaching a recent convert how to read and he’s starting to get a lot better. It makes me very happy to see his progress! We finally got a family who moved into our sector about two months ago to finally come to church again. We’ve been working with them for the past three or four weeks and we were so happy to see them at church yesterday. The family is great, so I really hope they can keep progressing and persevering now!

My spiritual thought I have for you guys today is about the less-actives and recent converts in our wards.  I feel like there is a lot of focus on finding and baptizing. Even though we talk about the importance of recent converts and less actives, I feel we don’t pay enough attention to them. We need to be their friends and help them all we can. The work we do with them is important because they have already made covenants with God. We need to help them keep their promises to God. God has given us many of his "sheep" to look after - there are a ton of MAs, and many are "lost". I feel like God will be less willing to give us more of His "sheep" if we aren’t really taking very good care of the ones that we already have. (Ezekiel 34)

 11 ¶For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.

 12 As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

 15 I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God.

 16 I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick

Week 35: Setbacks & Progress

Coma estan esta semana? Ojala bien! As for me, estoy bien for the most part. It’s been a bit of a rough week, but overall ok. My companion and I are getting along better every day. The main thing that was bummerific this week was that I’ve had a lot of migraines and my medicine seems to not be working as well. :( It was very hard to be motivated to do much and stay concentrated. BUT the good stuff was that I was able to get some doctor appointments and hopefully now they will find some way to prevent the headaches. :)

Guess what? This week I hit my 8-month mark! Wooah! ¡¿Que loco, right?! I can’t believe I’ve almost hit my half way mark of the mission. I’ve already been out the same amount of time as two semesters of college. Weird. My companion hit her 9-month, so we celebrated a little for that, which was fun. :)

Yesterday I felt super happy because a less active couple I’ve been visiting for about 6 months came to church again. They and their children are making big changes in their lives. They desire to become active in church and dedicate themselves to God. :D They are a great family, and it makes me veryhappy to feel I helped them in some small way.

Half Way Through Mission

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