1/18/16

HOla family and friends!

Sometimes I get to the end of a week and I just look back and say, man that was a good week! Then I realize that that can be said of all the weeks in the mission! But seriously though this week was amazing! We got to see some great progress with a family that we are teaching, the family Arredondo that are from the Dominican Republic. It's so interesting teaching a family that's from a different country because they talk with a different accent and eat different types of food etc. The hna. Candelaria likes to invent a lot with the food and sometimes it turns out really good and other times no but igual we have to eat it! The other week she made sweet black beans, she blended up a bunch of cooked black beans and then made juice out of it with milk and sugar and cinnamon. It wasn't that bad the first day when she was making it but then she gave us some more a week later and we think that it had gone bad because it tasted kinda rancid but we still had to drink it or she would get really offended so I tried not to think about it too much and chugged it, then I saw my poor compi who was making a face and had gone pale, so when the hna. wasn't looking I traded her cups and downed hers too. My compi was so greatful that she made me brownies (that I had taught her how to make :P) that night to take the bad taste out of my mouth. My compi is so cute, there are a lot of foods she doesn't like very much and she's little tambien so that means that a lot of times she can't finish eating all of the food even if she does like it and here they don't like it when you don't eat all the food so we've become experts at switching plates or cups or bowls or whatever so that I can ever so subtley finish her food for her. I don't know if I've sent home pictures of my compi Hna. Alvarez, I tell her she looks like Pocahontas because she totally does! She's amazing :) I'm so happy to be with her :) Where was I going with this? Oh yeah our investigators from the dominican republic are really progressing! We went to teach them and they all had read the folletos or books of mormon that we had left and every one of them had questions for us, and good ones too! The hna. this week told us that she wants us to teach her son who hasn't participated in the lessons yet and so we managed to find him in house and we shared a little bit with the whole family and even though the Hna. isn't a member yet she was telling her son to pay attention to the name of our church because she understands that the church of jesus christ needs to have jesus christ's name on it! it was so cool to see her already trying to share the gospel with her family even when she's not completely converted yet! that shows us that she's going to be an amazing member one day.

We also got to meet a lot of new people, I think that's one of my specialties, finding new great people to teach, even if I'm not there for all of their baptisms I can say I've opened the door for a lot of investigators to find the truth! We found a man named Emmanuel who believes in God but because of some really horrible things that have happened in his life he has lost faith in churches etc. But he wants to come closer to God and we have a lot of hope for him! Also we found a couple that were visiting an investigator of ours who had seen the missionaries before but never really listened to them and we were able to teach them and our investigator the restoration and they understood it so well and accepted the first vision so easily it was such a great lesson! Then we were knocking on the door of the same investigator another day and he wasn't home but his neighbor was just arriving to her house when she saw us and called us over. When we got to her door she said that she had seen us teaching her neighbor and also wanted to learn more and that it wasn't a coincidence that we had been there just when she was arriving home so that she could invite us over. It's not every day that the people open there doors and yell for us to come to them! Oh, and I have to tell you all about an amazing lesson we had with a woman named Patricia. She was a reference that the other missionaries had left for us but they hadn't really taught her before so we decided to pass by with a member and get to know her a little bit. When we first got there Patricia was kind of rude to us, asking why we were there bugging her on such a hot day etc. but she still let us in "to be polite" and when we first came in and sat down she was really defensive and told us that we were wasting our time basically because she was never going to change and has no faith in any of the religions and all that jazz and I felt a bit down, like jeez lady we only want to bring you peace and happiness is all! But the spirit told us that we should still try and share something with her so we asked if we could sing her a hymn and say a prayer, she told us to do whatever we wanted if it would make us happy and we decided to sing All is Well. While we were singing we were all so focused on the words, and singing on tune that we didn't realize until the end that she had started to cry. We were so surprised to see this woman who had treated us  super rudely crying that no one said anything for a couple of minutes and then she began to talk. She told us everything, some problems and trials that she was going through and how she felt like there wasn't hope our escape from her problems. And then we were given the opportunity to share the hope that only the gospel can bring. It was one of the most powerful, and heartfelt lessons I have ever given as a missionary and at the end of the lesson she was a changed person, she committed to read te book of mormon, to pray and she opened up to us showing us her wedding album and showing us the rest of her house and yard, it was so amazing! ONly the spirit can touch the hardened hearts and only the gospel can really change people, that's something that I've learned and seeen in my mission. It's interesting how being a missionary and sharing the gospel of jesus christ really does break down walls between people, and sometimes I look around and I can't believe what I'm doing and where I'm doing it. Last night we shared all of the restoration sitting in an abandoned lot, surrounded by broken down cars, trash and about a hundred stray cats by the side of the railroad tracks, passing folletos to the people we were teaching that were sitting at a table that we had made by putting a door on top of two metal step ladders. In any other moment in my life that would be a very strange almost uncomfortable experience but it's what we're sharing that brings the spirit and the people we are teaching are the ones who really need it, I love this gospel so much and my mission has taught me how to really appreciate all of the blessings that we have, to be living in this day and time where the restored gospel is in every part of the earth and keeps spreading! To have the blessings of the temple. I love the scripture in DyC shall we not go on in such great a cause! 

I love you all, I hope you all have an amazing week and make it a week of miracles!!

Que estén bien!

Hna Boully

1/11/16

Hola familia y amigos!

So this week was absolutely incredible!! So unlike Nicia, here in my mission we only get to go to the temple once and it's at the end of our missions so this week I got to go to the temple! We planned the whole temple trip a bit early so that Hna. Warne could come before she goes to the states for a couple weeks for her daughters wedding but then the poor thing she got sick and was not able to come anyways! But the good thing is that the warnes live in Utah so we'll be able to go and see them and go to the temple with them after the mission too. It was such an amazing experience! Monday night we had a class about autosuficiencia and then all of us hermanas stayed the night and had a little slumber party in the mission house and then tuesday bright and early we left for santiago and the temple. The santiago temple is a cute small little temple but so pretty and the session was so amazing. As I was sitting there in the temple waiting the session the thought occurred to me that here in the mission I feel the spirit so strongly already just being out in the street, how am I going to feel inside of the temple. It was overwhelming! Best experience I've had in the temple so far and such a testimony building experience, it was really amazing. I even got to see an Hna. from an old sector who said she just felt like she should go to the temple that day! Just goes to show that we need to follow those kinds of promptings. 

After the temple trip we ate lunch and then Pres. told us that we were free to do what we like in Santiago, just needed to be back in our sectors before dark. Wow he has a lot of confidence in us! To turn us loose in a big city like that! But we decided to all stay together (the hnas, the elders ran off who knows where) and so we went shopping! We jumped on the metro(subway) which was ridiculous because when we got on we just barely squeezed in with enough room for the doors to shut and were so jam packed that I'm pretty sure about ten people were touching me at once and then at every stop more and more people would get on! It truely was impressive to see just how many people were able to fit into that train, but what was really impressive is that we were able to squeeze our way past all those people and get out! We found a huge street market that sells a little bit of everything and went a little crazy looking for treasures! It was funny though because we were speaking more english than spanish because A. I was paired up with Hna. vorwaller again, my companion from the CCM!!! it was so cool to be with her again after so much time and changes. And B. we found a whole lot of gringo tourists that were also shopping there and wanted to talk to us and ask us why we were here etc. It was a good missionary opportunity! I found a lot of cool stuff, I hope you guys like the little things I found for you all! And then we headed back through the stinky crowded subway and caught a bus back to Rancagua, we arrived just in time for lights out. Then Wednesday I went and did divisions in Machali, with Hna. Williams a good friend of mine so that's another day that I spent outside of my sector, and thursday I recieved a huge surprise!! I was coming back to my sector from divisions and I heard someone yelling my name in the street and I thought, maybe it's an hna from the ward or something and I turned around and saw Hno and Hna Dominguez!!!!! They had driven all the way up from Talca to see me before I leave. I just cried and cried when I saw them I couldn't believe it, they're so great :) We were able to catch up a little with them before they had to go but it was such a blessing to be able to see them one last time as a misionary before I go. 

We are seeing so many miracles I lose track of them all! Despite all of the time I spent out of my sector this week we have been finding and teaching I lot of amazing people! We recieved a reference from the elders and when we got there we realized the adress is a bit special, here in rancagua there are doors that we knock on that are really just doors to an alley way that open up to little complexs with doors lining the sides, a main bathroom and main living area/yard. It these types of places live a lot of families that rent a room to sleep in and all share the same washers, bathrooms etc. It's kind of crazy and hard to explain exactly. But the point is that everytime we go to this house someone else has answered the door and we have contacted everyone who has opened the door and already had spiritual experiences with some of them. WE still hadn't gotten into the house until yesterday where we found out that at least 26 families live there and we have met, contacted, and taken out appointments with 9 of them, already! We are going to turn that place into mini Utah!(in the words of my companion). 

It's a bit interesting to walk into poor situations like that, and see people living in the conditions that they're living in, it makes you kind of sad at first, but then I feel happy because I know that I have what will make them feel better and happier and have more joy in their lives and that's our purpose of being there. It's easy to be a light when there's a lot of darkness around. 

We also met and taught a cute peruvian girl who is here working really but came here to hear about the gospel! 

It's always fun when the second counselor of the bishobric calls you at 10:40 at night to tell you you will be speaking the next day but it was fun to speak in church now that I can somewhat manage the language and I got to speak about referralls from the members so I hope it pans out and we're going to recieve even more help from our members! Wow this week I've had the opportunity to think a lot about the course of my mission and realize that the time has flown by but every single day has been full of life changing, once in a lifetime experiences that have shaped and changed me in so many ways I run out of fingers and toes counting them. I am so grateful to be in the mission, and to keep working in the mission that is left for me here and afterwards. HAY QUE SEGUIR NO MÁS!!!!

I love you all I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Les Quiero!!

Hna. Boully

1/4/16

Hola Fam and Friends,

so I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of sad to see the year 2015 end because this will always be my whole year dedicated to serving the Lord, I'll always be able to remember this year as the best year of my life!! Seriously it's been a great year and we had a great new year. We bought funny hats and masks and silly string and snow in a can and even though we had to be in bed at 11 we set an alarm and woke up with just enough time to grab everything, run out on the balcony and have a crazy count down! It was kind of funny because I told my companion I wasn't going to sleep and then I did end up falling asleep and she couldn't get me to wake up! Even though I'd only been asleep for like a half hour she said I was out cold! We took a bunch of pictures and we watched the fireworks in a bunch of different directions and then the part got so fun that the power went out on the whole block! We had made brownies with the time we had because we went back to the house early and it was fun to eat the brownies in the dark with only the phone for light :P Everyone said we weren't going to be able to sleep because we live in downtown Rancagua right next to a couple clubs but things were pretty quiet. Then new years day we were invited to this woman's house to have a barbecue for lunch because she lives alone and her kids weren't going to be able to come visit her. It was fun to watch the elders trying to light the fire, and then see my companion argue with the elder about the right way to grill up the steaks while I just sat and played with the dogs:P This woman has five huge dogs and four of them are Mastiff bulls and they're enormous but so playful and sweeet!! Afterwards we were exploring a different part of our sector and we found an amazing girl named Yesenia, who lives alone with her three year old daughter and works so hard to be able to support her, sometimes it breaks my heart and reallly impresses me at the same time how hard some of the more humble people work just to be able to provide a roof over the heads of their familys. Earlier in the week we met the Fam. Pichamba, a family from Ecuador and to get to their house we had to go through a poor house with dirt floors, and shabby furniture, pass a couple of shacks even poorer than the first and climb up a ladder to get to a little room made out of ply wood that is their house. It was a really humbling moment because this family was so nice to us and preferred to sit on overturned buckets and boxes and let us sit on their bed. Also they told us that they want to go and be sealed as a family in the temple but are waiting, and saving money to bring their other son here to Chile. Being with them really taught me a hands on lesson about the kinds of sacrifices people make for this gospel. It makes me wonder if I would be able to do the same. There are some parts of our sector that are really really poor because the houses are older and just barely survived the earthquake of 2010 but people still live in them and I'm really learning how to be grateful for what I have here.

Some of the miracles we saw this week were that we were able to get one of our investigators and her grandson to come to church!! Her name is Candelaria and she and her family are from the Dominican Republic! We called and she tried to tell us that she was still sleeping so we told her, Alright but we're still going to pass by and pick you up for church! and then when we got there she came out in her pajamas and said I'm not dressed I can't go. But we will not be swayed so easily! It's her salvation at stake! So we told her we were happy to wait while she got ready. When she saw that she kind of gave in and turned the corner and decided if she was going to go to church her grandson should come too! Just in time for fast andtestimony meeting too! She really liked it and when the meeting was over they were like, It's already over? which is better than thinking it had dragged on :P WE think the ward was really excited to see new people because everyone flocked to us like magnets after the meeting to present themselves to Candelaria and get to know her and ask when they could come and visit her, It was so awesome to see such support on behalf of the members!! It really makes our job a whole lot easier. It was also funny to realize that all of the first members to comeand say hi were return missionaries :P I ahve a feeling I'll be the same when I get home. We also had the opportunity to meet José on Sunday and while we were talking to him on the street we got to talking about the priesthood and he told us that he would like to be a part of a church one day so we thought, well why put it off, and we invited him to be baptized right there on the spot. AND HE SAID YES! That is something I've learned here in the mision, is that we are here to invite the people to come unto christ through baptism so when the spirit tells us to, why put off inviting everone to be baptized even if it is in the street and we just met the guy! You never know who might say yes!

Bueno, this as been an incredible year and I'm excited for the next one, I hope everyone has a great week!

Hermana Boully

12/28/15

Hola familia! So I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas week! My Christmas week was awesome! We met and taught a whole bunch of new people and we saw a lot of Christmas miracles! Something really cool that happened this week is that one of the wards in our stake put on a christmas concert in the plaza of Rancagua which is right by our house so we went and stood behind the crowd with about a hundred pass along cards and we were handing them out like mad people! And while we were doing that we had a woman come up to us and tell us that she is menos activa and she's been wanting to come back but needed some extra motivation to do it. And we had some investigators comeand they really liked it! It was really cool because they sang and also told the story of the birth of jesus christ between the songs so it was a really great way for a lot of people to hear the gospel. And on top of that I got to see a family from Graneros that I havent seen in awhile so that was cool too! I don't know how many times I've mentioned it but I love spiritual experiences!!We were in divisions and we were striking out everywhere so I got to a point where I did not know hwere to go so I was like "Well, we still have to see a miracle before this day is out so lets keep giong." Andwe kept walking without even knowing really where we were going and we both felt like we should contact the same house and so we went and after yelling Ahlo I realized that it was the house of a menos activa and she let us come it and completely opened up to us and told us about the death of her husband and her desires to go to the temple and to obra vicaria. We were able to share a really special message with her and her family and the spirit was so strong that we are sure that as we were walking along, angels of her husband or maybe the people he is teaching over there on the other side of the veil were guiding us to that house! 

Then christmas eve we got the opportunity to leave and try to share our message with those who would let us in, we got into a couple houses and then for the rest of the day we just sang carols to people on the doorstep because a lot of them said they were too busy to recieve us but we thought, at least we can share a nice christmas carol with them and it worked really well to bring the spirit even for just a few moments! Then we went to go eat dinner with a really nice family, the family Camargo, that invited us even though they don't know us very well to eat dinner with them. It was this family of three, the elders, the Sebrings (our mision nurse and her husband) and us. WE had a really neat devotional where we watched the nativity and a couple other christmas mormon messages and then we ate a huge dinner with turkey and all kinds of other foods! It was so much fun and we felt the christmas spirit really strong! We had to go to bed at 11 but we set an alarm and woke up at 12 to give "the christmas hug" which is the tradition here and in Ecuador and in the morning we opened up various little gifts that the members had given us. THe people here have been really generous to us! The christmas spirit has motivated us to share our message with even more vigor and we have been so blessed to see the results of those efforts! This christmas has been amazing, I have loved my two christmases in the mission, they have really helped me to not only enjoy christmas but really understand it as well. It's been amazing!

HOpe you all have a great new year!

Hna. Boully

12/21/15

Hola Familia! 

I want to start by saying Feliz Navidad to TODOS!!! I know this Christmas is going to be incredible and full of miracles! 

So my first week in a new sector (Cachapoal) with a new companion (Hna. Alvarez) has been amazing! I have to admit I was a tad nervous to be in a White wash for my last change, and in a sector that is right smack dab in the middle of Rancagua but now I can see the reason why I'm here with my adorable compi Hna Alvarez. It's really diferent to go from a small town to the heart of Rancagua, it's a lot noisier, we live in an apartment instead of a house, there aren't so many dogs in the street, but I like it a lot! Everyone told me that in the city no one talks to anyone and the people are jerks and that I would have a really hard time contacting people and getting them to open the door. But all of that is false!! Mi compi and I got here and the first thing that we said to one another was "Ready to work?" and we put a personal meta on our first day together to change all of the stereotypes about our sector, work our butts off, and see results, and we've already seen a lot of results! On our first day we were able to find and teach an investigator, we met with the bishop and put our goals in line with his, he bought us Papa Johns pizza which made us very happy :P Then throughout the whole week it's been miracle after miracle. We found and put a fecha with a new investigator, we found a family of like 20 people that all live in the same house and not all are members, and we have had so much success contacting it's ridiculous! I've decided I like the city because there are a lot of people in the streets so while we're walking we'll time our steps with someone else and contact them as we're walking until they have to turn, or we go to the main plaza where there's always people sitting around and we contact all of them, bus stops, stop lights, street markets, street venders, you name it we're contacting it! and it seems like every single person we talk to is really nice, open to conversation, wants to here more from us etc. It's Awesome! It's really funny though being the both of us new to the sector because it's happened a few times where we'll be walking down the street and people will open there doors and yell Hermanas! Here! Come over here! and we're like Ok! and we have to walk in and play the guessing game, looking for pictures of the temple or sunday school books to see if they're members or investigadores. Also the people here are really friendly despite the rumors, everyonce and awhile we're stopped on a corner looking at our map trying to figure out where to go and someone comes and asks us where we need to go and how they can help us. 

They say that they people in the country tend to be more open and friendly, that's the other really cool thing about our sector, we have the center but then there's also another part of our sector that we have to take a bus to get to that's out in the country! So I've got the best of both worlds here! They also said I would get skinny because apparently people in the city don't give us as much food but our fridge is full of the stuff that investigators, members, and a missionary couple gives us! We actually live in the same building with the misionary couple/missionary nurse which is really cool because they always come down to check and see if we're ok and give us fruit and leftovers and what not!

BASICALLY what I've learned is that you shouldn't believe rumors and if one has a really good attitude you can count a whole lot of blessings! I'm so excited to be working so hard in this area, I'm excited to keep working and keep seeing the blessings and go above and beyond in my efforts to share the gospel!

If there's one thing I've learned in all of my time, it's the importance of sharing the gospel. My scripture/theme of this transfer is DyC 128... I don't remember which verse but where it says "Shall we not go on in such great a cause! Forward in instead of backwards!" Or something to that affect, I don't remember how it is in English :P I love you all and hope this week is amazing! FELIZ NAVIDAD!

Hna. Boully

TRAVEL PLANS

It is my very great pleasure to announce that we have Hna Mandy's travel plans.

She will be flying in to SLC on January 26th at 10:30 am!

She'll be speaking in church that very next Sunday!

12/14/15

Hey family and friends! 

So this week I'm going to write about a of the miracles and then I'll write about what's going to happen in my last transfer. So this week we learned about looking for ways to preach the gospel in every moment, we ate lunch with a family of members but they had a friend from work over working in their house and he ate lunch with us and we got to talking about the gospel and turns out he has a lot of interest in learning more about the church and we shared a short message about the plan of salvation with him and the best part is that when we asked for his address turns out he lives in our sector! It was way cool to find him! Then this week we were able to help a menos activa recieve a blessing of strength and she was so grateful because she says that now she's going to be able to do all that she needs to do to be able to come back to the church. She's such a special hna. for me and she's trying so hard to keep going, if any of you go to the temple can you put her name on the temple roll for me, her name is Karina SanJuan. Then we went to visit a return missionary Luis who normally is always talking about his mission and trying to one up us saying he was the best missionary ever but this week we were abe to really talk to him and he opened up and we realized that he's really been struggling since he came back from his mission and he needs a lot of help. They say that some of the biggest challenges come right before or right after the mission because the adversary knows how powerful a missionary  or return missionary can be, for this guy his biggest challenges came after the mission. It's interesting to teach this guy because I realy do feel like he's a brother to me. He's just like a brother too, always bugging us, trying to get on our nerves, cracking jokes when one is trying to be serious, so it was really cool to help him out and make him realize that he needs the gospel really strong in his life. This week too we had an christmas activity for the mission and once again for reasons that escape me they asked me to sing againj!! Just like last year. Why do they keep asking me to sing in front of like a hundred people when there are so many hnas. that like to sing and are good at it but I am not one of them!! It's another kind of trial in the mission :P. The activity was fun and spiritual and then we went and played sports in a big synthetic field. The funnest sport was soccer because they changed the rules and said that only the hermanas could run and make goals, the elders had to walk! It was so funny watching the competitive elders trying to play soccer, only walking. But the good thing is that they were forced to pass me the ball and I finally got to play! We also saw miracles with the family Ibarra, a mom and her ttwo daughters who are coming back to church after being inactive for ten years! NOw the daughter is going to EFY and working on her personal progress, which is funny considering that we met her when she was wearing VERY immodest clothes, smoking etc. THey are so amazing we're so happy to be seeing progress with them.

I did not think that it would happen but I have to think that it is the will of Heavenly Father, but I'm being sent to another sector for my last change in the mission and right before christmas. I'm going to Cachapoal a sector that is right smack dab in the middle of rancagua and I'll be doing a white wash o sea, my companion and I will both be new to the sector. I'm a bit nervous but at the same time really excited to have this opportunity to work really hard and find and teach a bunch of amazing people. I'm sad to be leaving my compañera but I know I'll get along great with my next companion Hna. Alvarez who's from Ecuador! 

I hope you are all great! I love you all so much have a good week!

Hna. Boully