4/6/15

Hna Mandy

Hola familia y amigos!! 

First off I was planning on putting in the subject line something like we had a huge earthquake or a forest fire or volcano errupting or something just to mess with you all for a late April Fools Prank but I thought against it. ;P There was a lot that happened this week so I'll jump right in. Easter here in Chile or at least where I'm at means a lot of chocolate and that pretty much covers it, I don't know how it was for Brad but here it was really tranquilo. The big party was the week before when they had a huge festival in the plaza that was all about wine to celebrate the surrounding vineyards and everyone goes to eat a bunch of food and taste a ton of different wines and at the end of it all there's a bunch of drunk people in the streets. The good news is that the plaza isn't in our sector so we avoided the majority of it and the worst we saw were a couple of tipsy people walking down the street and one guy taking a good ol nap in the middle of the sidewalk, it was interesting. Starting at the beginning of the week we had a chance to talk with an Hno. that we found hace algunas semanas and even though we coulnd't teach him because he was home alone he said that us stopping by to talk to him outside his gate really made his day and he said he could really feel the spirit and the difference in his house in just the five minute conversacion we had, there are few people i've met that are more sensitive to the spirit than him. It's so cool to hear and see. Tuesday we went to visit an investigator of ours hace mucho tiempo and the last time we were there we joked about how we wanted to learn how to make her special cake and she said she would teach us and she wasn't kidding because when we got there she had all of the ingredients and everything ready and told us to roll up our sleeves and get to work because she was hungry :P It turned out to be a great experience and at the end we talked about what the scriptures mean when they talk about true intention and how if she's read up to Alma in the Book of Mormon but still doesn't feel like she's received an answer, something's lacking. On Wednesday we had a really cool experience to see the difference between teaching people open to the gospel and people not so open. We were teaching a new family that were once members but are now Catholic and have forgotten pretty much everything about the gospel and say that there open to hear us out but when we taught about prophets in preparation for General Conference they said that they didn't believe in prophets and took my picture of the First Pres. and 12 Apostales that we were using to help teach and started criticizing their pictures, asking why they were all gringos and saying that they look like leaders of a cult and cualquier cosa. I'm not going to lie I was frustrated and a little bit hurt, I didn't like hearing such things about the liders that I respect and admire and I just wanted to get out of there as soon as I could. We invited them to pray and ask our Heavenly Father if what we were saying was true and left and I was super down and frustrated and hurt and then immediately after we found an awesome couple that contacted us in the street and were super nice and without us asking gave us their address, and number saying that they wanted us to come and visit them! Just shows sometimes Heavenly Father lets you pass through trials so that he can bless you even more after. Later that night we had the exact same lesson with our two investigators of gold and the difference was amazing! In turn Nicolas took the foto with such reverance and asked me to name all of them so that he could go look them up and learn more on the church website, then took a foto of the image with his camera and said he's super impressed with how organized the church is and that we all teach the same things in different places and he and his mom said it makes sense that God would send us profets and asked where they can read the scriptures of the prophet today and that lead perfectly into our lesson about General Conference! If you all could have felt the spirit in that room especially after just having a really difficult lesson, I fel like crying. Just shows how Heavenly Father requires broken hearts and contrite spirits, it really does make the difference. We had an awesome noche de hogar with the Elder that is finishing his mission and a bunch of people from the ward came and I was looking around the room and realized that we had people from the U.S., Colombia, Panama, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile in the same room and was filled with this awesome spirit of unity and everyone bore their testimonies and I cried some more. Then we had the Conferencia General which was so awesome!!! And a little funny for the Elder that is leaving because they talked a lot about familiy and marriage and what not. I LOVED LOVED LOVED the talk by Pres. Uchtdorf about Grace, and Jefferey R. Holland's talk moved me to tears as usual and the speaker from Chile was really cool because he came and spoke to us here first so we were all really excited to hear from him again. I watched all of the Conference in Spanish this time partly because I didn't know that they had set a room for the gringos in English and partly because after four latina compañeras I felt pretty good about listening to it in Spanish, like I would understand everything. I understood the Chileno better than everyone but the really cool thing is that I had prayed that if I couldn't understand all of the words the Lord would at least help me, through the spirit, to understand the message and various times I got a bit lost in the conversacion and started writing what I felt from the spirit no mas and every single time I started to write the speaker began to speak the exact words I was writing! It was so crazy! The first time I thought, oh what a coincidence, the second time I was a bit more shocked and amazed, and by the third or fourth time I was really impressed with the feeling that Heavenly Father was really answering my prayers. I thought of you guys when Elder Anderson talked about how everyone was singing together in different languages but united in purpose. It was also really cool because our investigators Nicholas y Rosa came to the conference! Rosa only came Saturday but Nicholas came Sat. and Sun. and when we visited him Sun. that night he said he was really moved by the messages and bore what he said was his first testimony that he really feels a difference in his life now, a peace that he didn't have before and now he knows that this is the path that he needs to take. The spirit was so strong but the timing must not have been the Lord's will because just as we were about to extend and invitation to be baptized his brother arrived and everything was crazy after that. The sad news is that when they called us Saturday night I found out that I have cambios and I'll be leaving Rengo. Just as Nicholas, the investigator that I found and helped accept the gospel is ready to take the next step and be baptized, I have to leave!! It's super fome! (lame) Not to mention Hna. Ribeiro and I have become more than companions but best friends and true sisters and this cambio has been amazing with her and we were both really excited to keep working together because she's really amazing and we still have so much to do and so many more miracles to see and accomplish! I didn't believe the elders when they told me and it kind of killed my happy Easter, conference, spirit but it's the Lord's will and justo Domingo there was a talk about accepting the Lord's will so I can't be upset with the changes when Heavenly Father knows better than I and there's a purpose to everything. I'll be going to a place called Graneros and the good news is that my new companion se llama Hna. Mendez and is from GUATEMALA!! I met her once and she seems really cool, she looks like a gringa with blonde hair and blue eyes. I know changes are a part of the mission but it's my least favorite part, especially when there isn't enough time to say good bye to everyone that I've met and come to love. I got to say goodbye to Nicholas and Rosa last night but I still have a mountain of people to see today, I only hope I can visit all of them. It's amazing to think of how quickly you come to love complete strangers here in the mission but at least I know that I've had the success of bringing Nicholas to the gospel, even if I don't get to be there for his baptism. Love you all so much and I send a big FELIZ CUMPLEAÑO a both Nicia and Conner, it's so weird to think that you guys are in your twenties....

CON MUCHO AMOR!! De Chile

Hermana Boully

Hna Nicia

HOY!! 

Here in Guate there or just here in my district people like to greet others with Hoy meaning today I dont know why but its funny in my district we are always answering hoy!

What a fun week I love love love conference, easter, and...... my birthday!! It was a great week! 

Here for Easter they have a the whole week its called Semana Santa or Holy Week where most everyone leaves and goes to the beach cuz there is hardly and school and all the shops tiendas are closed there was hardly any people saturday in the street it was kinda wierd to see everything closed there is almost every block a tienda or a packa a shop of cloths. There are a bunch of different churches here and they are celebrate a little different but there were alot of singing in the street and Prosesions with lots of people praying and singing and fire works its kinda crazy but cool to see how all the different people celebrate easter! 

My comp is so amazing she is so sweet she planned with the members a suprise birthday party for me she sent messages called members planned everything. Friday we planned to work really hard to make up for the time we would spend in the Sessions of conference we were running from apointment to apointment after in the night my comp told me this Family in the Rama had a friend they wanted us to teach when we got to the house she had me go first and I walked in to the house to find all most all the members of the rama in the house of this family my first thought was why there where so many people for our lession! But it was lots of fun I was so thankful for Hna Zelaya and these members for celebrating my birthday true it was a day early but it was great they got a Pinajata for me with blonde hair and a placa it was fun to hit and get the candy with the kids but we where all kids!! Here the cakes are so good they have milk after they are baked so the cake is more moist its soo good but there is a tradition like in chile that the birthday girl takes a bite of the cake but when I did these they pushed my head into the cake yep it tasted really good but no one wanted my cakey kisses a menos mi compa hna Zelaya! It shows me and hna Zelaya work hard and party hard...has missionaries! 

The conference was so amazing I got to listen to it in spanish to there was a room where we could watch it in english but there where only elders but it turned out to be good i loved the talk by Elder Packer. Almost all of saturday was about families getting married, enterno families! Very baggy but very powerful! I think of one return Elder Brad Heywood who doesnt mess around and is engaged!! 

To go to conference we had to take a bus to get to the stake center its always a little hard to get Invest to come to church but harder to have them  come to a different church farther a way but Im happy to say that Fancisco came and also a Husband and Wife who we didnt expet to come. There are family of the Hno Reyes that was baptised this last month we have kinda been visiting them but kept inviting them to come to church both of them go to different churches and are active members but they agreed to come to church and to the stake center! We where so happy but it shows how its always important to invite others to do things like come to church we need to invite them to change cuz if we never invite them we never know if they will agree! We hope to visit with this couple tomorrow and see how they liked conference but from what they said after they where really impressed and amazed! Its kinda funny for me sitting through the session sunday hoping that the messages would tough there hearts that they would understand. But how great was the Talks I loved hearing from Elder Anderson also he also visited my mission I was hoping he would say somthing about Guate but Mandy won for being talked about in the conference! But it was cool to hear him talk about all the different launguages and also to hear other talks in SPANISH it shows that this church is not just in the States but its a world wild church its a church for everyone! 

I love you all thanks for all the suport and love I am so happy to be here. Im grateful for our leaders for our Prophet and his apostels for thier guidence and i hope to put in to practice what i learned!

I hope you all have a good week! 

Hna Boully!