Subject:
I got Chicken Pox in the Mission!
Hola Familia!!
I didn't really get chicken pox in the mission but everyonce and awhile I get bored with the subject line :P An elder in our ward though did get Chicken pox though and the poor guy has had to stay in the house for this whole week. I was thinking this week a lot of how grateful I am to be here doing what I'm doing and how lame it would be to lose a week in the mission. Then I think of how empty my life would be if I had never come on the mission at all. We had a week that was particularly espiritual this week with the conferencia de estaca and some really special lessons. Early in the week we found a new couple to teach but when we taught them we realized that they were not very open to our message and that perhaps they are not prepared in this moment. We were a bit bummed when we left their house but in that very moment we recieved a call from a man that we contacted saying that he and his family remembered us and were talking about us and want us to come back and teach them! When Heavenly Father shuts a door, somewhere he opens a window! Then we had the Conferencia, and in the Saturday session there was a talk that an hermano in our ward gave that was incredible! He talked about Peter walking on the water but explained it differently, he said that in the story it says that the wind was blowing and the waves were high and Peter, an experienced fisherman would have known that the safest place in those circumstances would be to stay inside the boat. Peter would have been most comfortable in the boat, but when Jesus Christ arrived and called out to them Peter had the courage to step outside of the boat, the ultimate step of faith, and onto the turbulent waters. This hermano talked about how we strengthen and exercise our faith and that when the Lord calls for us to act often he will ask us to take a step of faith, leave our comfort zone and do something that is new and tal vez frightening. Also when we take that step of faith we are still human and so we may make a mistake and we may fall like Peter did but our Savior will always be there to take our outstreched hands and help us stand up again and take more steps. It made me think of the talk by Elder Ballard about staying in the boat and how this is the opposite and another way to look at it but it was a really good talk and I feel like that is exactly what I'm doing here, taking a lot of scary, unsure steps on water but every day it gets a little bit easier and every day I grow a little bit more. In the morning on Sunday we recieved some AMAZING news, we have an investigator that I contacted last cambio and he's been progressing by reading and praying but we really wanted him to come to church but when we invited he and his mom who is also investigating the church this Sunday they weren't really sure because the Conferencia is more compicated because we hade to meet at the capilla at 9 to take a bus to Rancagua and they also had a bunch of work to do but we prayed really hard and helped motivate them and Sunday morning they showed up!! They actually beat us to the capilla and were the first ones to arrive out of all the members!! We almost had a heart attack because it seemed like everything was going wrong because normally this weekend would be Dailight Savings Time here in Chile but the government decided to cancel it and so a lot of the phones and clocks that the people use for alarms changed but it wasn't the right time so the bus arrived a half and hour late and we had to go pick up members and we left Rengo at 9:50 and the conference started at 10. We arrived in time to hear the end of the first speaker but we sat in the back and there were all these kids running around and screaming and I felt like screaming because I was worried that our investigators weren't going to feel the spirit or would be annoyed no se I was stressed out to say the least. But our Heavenly Father is a god of miracles and even the small things are important to him and so everytime there was a particularly good bit in a talk the kids mouths were shut by the spirit or something because there was perfect silence. Also we've been working a lot with the Libro de MOrmon with him and so we were really hoping for a talk about the LDM and lo and behold our miss. pres. gets up for his talk and starts by saying: I'd like to talk about the importance of the LDM today.." and my compa and I did a little happy dance. Afterwards our investigator, Nicholas, said he really liked the talks and we got to give them a tour of the capilla. Sunday we had the opportunity to work with our Mission Leader because he called us to see if we had appointments and when he said no he showed up in his car with the elders and we all left to go visit the families in the ward that we felt needed a visit. We prayed before deciding where to go and it was incredible because every house had someone that was passing through a trial and needed a visit. We went and visited an Hno. that is in the hospital and I thought it was cool because we were given special passes to enter that said "Spiritual Help" which gives us as missionaries access to the hospital. This hno. bore his testimony to us that he is grateful for his illness because it has helped him to realize and depend on the help of the Lord and that he feels now more than ever he needs to go out with the missionaries and share the testimony that he has acquired through his tribulacions. The elders got to give this Hno. a blessing and despues a woman who was in the room said her son is a member and that she would like to recieve our visits. When we left our miss. leader, Hno. Ismael said that we should go visit him because stuff like that doesn't just happen and for all we know her son could be a future bishop. OUr miss. leader is so amazing we call him Hno. Ismael Holland because he's always saying these really profound spiritual things. he's a convert of 3 years and is always saying stuff like that such as when we were finishing our visits he asked us to think of all the people we visit and all the people to tell us of their challenges and problems and the burden we feel to help them and then after that think of Jesus christ and what he must have suffered in the Garden of Getsamane. The mission is helping me to understand more the Atonement of Jesus Christ. OUr pres. de mission said something in his talk Sat. night that really stood out to me, he talked about the story that Pres. Uchtdorf shared about living below our privileges and the man that went on a cruise but didn't enjoy any of the services. Pres. said that the mission is one of those privileges and that we as missionaries see miracles every week and that is the pure truth. The other day we were contacting and a woman opened her door and started off with "What do you want?" we talked about her garden and other things trying to get her to open up to us a little bit and she was still a bit cold towards us but when she smiled for the first time we got a little bit of hope and kept going with the contact. Then she realized that we were missionaries and told us that she and her family don't really go to church and she isn't really interested and we could have accepted that and left but my companion changed the topic and asked her what she likes to do, trying to show that we're interested in knowing her not only sharing our message. At length she decided to let us in and we talked and shared more things and transitioned the conversacion to religion and after gaining her trust she finally shared that she feels unsatisfied with her church and actually started thinking about looking for another and that's when we arrived. We got to share more of our message and at the end of the lesson she was really excited to offer a prayer, on our knees. Things like that don't just happen every day!! Who would have known that this woman could have recieved her answer like that! What would have happened if we had given up and kept walking!!! The mission is so incredible there aren't even words to explain it!! I'm growing so much here I don't even feel like the same person. All in all I'm so glad I''m here.
Love you all
Hermana Boully
P.S. YOu know the movie Chicken Little where the chicken gets hit in the head with an acorn? Yeah that totally happened to me today when we were walking, my head still hurts.
Hna Nicia
Subject
I went to El Salvador!
Hola,
So here is my crazy subject line but un like mandy I went to El Salvador..... kinda! Today Pday we went has a district to the Frontera of El Salvador where you can cross into El Salvador we cant go to salvador but we got to take pictures and we where told is where there is shoes for cheap and great Pupuses which is famous food of El Salvador and they are really good. They are corn tortillas with cheese or beans in the middle and eaten with red sauce and letice on top! It was lots of fun but we didnt find any shoes.
I loved Mandys last email talking about Peter and about going out side of your comfort zone when I was running cross country we had a saying (get confortable with being uncomfortable) I agree its part of the mission you have to be able to get out of your confort zone and to strech and do more everyday and when you are comfortable you gotta change! I see those chances of haveting to strech like giving talks in church every month and teaching a class in church but its part of the mission and the procses of the changing of a good missionairy and preparing for our lives after the mission.
It was a great week kinda short we had a conference of 3 zonas out side of the capital it was great to hear from President and his assitants its amazing always after meetings or conferences you want to start working hard! We also got to watch do you know the mormons or somthing like that but its a really cool movie about members all over the world and thier stories. I also gotta to see a little bit of Utah in the movie!!! But it was a good spirtual movie!
I got to do divisiones with the Sister leaders so I went to their area in Jalapa I had a cool experice with the Invest. of these hnas they have been working with this one lady and have a fetch with her but they had been wanting to work with the husband to they are a young family with a little baby they had visited with the husband one time before but he never stayed for the whole visit when I was in their area he came in late to the leccion but he stayed for it all. We talked about Word of Wisdom and how it blesses peoples lifes. The cool part is they had a member vist with us and she could share her experiences with them about WofW. The Hno agreed to cut down on his smoking and he also accepted a fetch for baptism and when we ended I asked him to say the pray and he did. The Hna told me before he didnt feel worthy to pray but this time he did and you could feel the spirt and how he wants to change. It was really cool!
We are also have sucess in our area we still are working to find new people who want to hear us and will progres. This week we have visiting more of the members its really amazing hearing their experiences and how they have been converted.
Has missionaires we have to count how many of those people baptised in the last year comes to church including our last baptism Im happy to say that almost all came to church this last week! I know its important to have invest. with fetchas but its also very very important for those who have been baptised keep coming to church that they keep building their testimonies. We dont just get baptised and ya we are done and saved its a process and its a life time to do it.
I love you all and hope you all have a good week!
Hna Boully
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