8/17/2015

Hna Nicia

Sisters for ever!‏

Hola a Todas!!

Soooo it seems that both the Hna Boullys needs changes because I have changes to! The trueth is both my comp and me kinda expected it cuz after 3 changes together we kinda knew one of us would have to leave but its SUPER SUPER hard to say good bye after all this time together more then 100 days together it sounds like a lot but it feels like it has gone by soooo fast and the cool part we never had any problems together Im going to miss Hna Bonilla a monton!! but I know she will be great the cool part is that she is going to train this next change YAY!! But we will always be comps and sisters or Hnas in the Goseple just like my other amazing sisters!

The President of our mission has been asking more of us missionaries asking for us to give more to sacrifice more for the Lord to see the Blessings I have been thinking alot of Sacrifices the last week. We come out in the mission sacrificing our time, money and energy but sometimes its not enough somtimes we need to give more or we are not giving enough. Everyday we are asking people to make sacrifices to change, to give up playing soccer on sundays to come to church, to give up smoking, to get married, etc. We are asked to wake up early, study, talk to everyone, make these, goals. Also for everyone who are members and who are not in the mission like going to work everyday, waking up early to have time to study BOM or making time to be with family. We are asked to do these things by our Heavenly Father and by his Servents Prophets somtimes we dont know why we need to do them but we need to and when we do we can see the blessings. 

This week we had one day that our Hna Liders asked us to have 8 lecions, 50 contactos when  we heard this my comp and I where A la gran! Normaly we can find 5 leccions and 30 contacts but this last week we where haveing problems with Politcal groups being in the areas cuz we cant get close to the groups. But we put the goals and went out early to teach and talked with everyone and with Faith and Help from the lord we made our goals! And with this super day of all the leccions we had two days after that we where low in datos but we where able to almost make our goals for the week! 

Right now the Lord, my President is asking more of us in the mission to make more sacrifices like one is to get up at 5.30 in the morning!!! I know its going to be a little hard to get used to and to start out but I know that we need more Milagros so we need to give more to the Lord to Sacrifice more of ourselfs to see the blessings!

I know that in our daily lives we are asked to do small things and sometimes they are hard to do but I know if we all work to give more we can be better and see the blessings I know that our Prophet and our leaders and called of god and we need to follow their guidence!

Im soo grateful that we have this time to work to be better and when we feel that we arent good enough we can rember that our Savior already paid for our mistakes so we need to accept his gift and work to be better!

 I love you all so much I hope everyone is well and safe!

Hna Nicia Boully

Hna Mandy

Los Jardines en Buin!!!‏

(Google translate says "Gardens in Buin!)

HOla Familia y Friends!

Well leaving a sector is always really hard but this time it was even more difficult because I was in the same ward (La Florida) for a total of 7 and a 1/2 months and the ward is not that big so it was really easy to fall in love with all of the members there. Saying goodbye was the hardest, now especially because I'm not so sure I'll be so lucky to go back to this ward again in my mission, which only strengthens my desires to save up a lot of money to come back here to Chile. 

So after a very long bus ride going from one end of the sector to the other I arrived in Buin with my new companion Hna. Giurleo. She's a super amazing super sweet Hna. from Argentina and I'm already so happy to be with her. and I can also tell that we were meant to be together. She's brand new to the mission and having to direct her sector and feels a lot of pressure, a lot like I did at the beginning of the mission when my first companion went home so it's cool to see that I really know how to help her and relate to what she's feeling. I told her on our first day that we were going to see a lot of miracles together and after just one week that is already coming true. We found various menos activos that they haven't been able to get ahold of before and some really great new investigators. The other day I really had to use the restroom and all of our plans had fallen through and we did not know what to do and we were walking past a menos activos house when Hna. Giurleo said we should try there. A woman that was just visiting there came out and said that Isabel, the woman we were looking for, had left and wasn't sure when she would be back. Desperate we asked if we could just use the bathroom for a minute, the woman went in to ask and then told us to come in. There was a couple more women inside and I ran straight to the bathroom and while I was in there one of the women admitted that she was Isabel and that she was trying to avoid the church by saying she wasn't there! At first it was super awkward and I was surprised that someone would actually do that but after we talked with her for a minute she said "Well God is being mighty persistent with me, that must mean he wants me on his side" and said that it was not coincidence that we had passed by and had had the perfect excuse to come inside. Just as she was inviting us back two more men arrived and one of them had a lot of questions for us and the other told us his brother had been baptized and he had been to church but had never been baptized! Once again the desperation of having to beg for a bathroom results in new investigators and menos activos!!! Who knew a full bladder would be the cause of a lot of my success in the mission :P 

Another saying I've acquired in the mish is that when your lost you see miracles and we've gotten lost a couple times but one day in particular this week we were looking for a house for over an hour because all of the streets have names instead of numbers and there are all of these teeny tiny pasages and alleys that all have distinctive names and no one knows all of them so we were going around in circles looking for this place but when we finally found it they were not home. We thought all that time had been a bust but just at that moment we saw a dog, going to the bathroom while walking on his two front legs. We could not pass up such a cool contacting opportunity we thought so we contacted the house of this dog and to our surprise this whole family of menos activos comes out and asks how we found them when they had moved from Santiago and their records are still there! And to top it all off one of the daughters of the family is not baptized and she was the main one to talk to us and at first she said she was catholic and would never recieve us or change her mind but she asked us what we really do as missionaries and while we explained our purpose she lit up with the spirit that we could feel so strong and she asked us to come to her house and visit her again and that she would like to come to our church to see how it is!! This church is so dang cool!!! I love being a missionary!!

The last cool thing that I'll write about is that, I don't know if you all heard about the missionary in Argentina that passed away awhile back but her family went to Argentina to visit the mission where she was at and then afterwards they came over here because the dad had served his mission here in Chile Rancagua. First off it was weird to be talking in english with a bunch of gringos from Kaysville here in chile, but secondly it was so amazing and so good to talk to them. They told us what a spiritual experience it had been to go to Argentina and meet all the people that had known their daughter and then the dad talked about how he saw the fruits of one little baptizm he had like 28 years ago and not only is the famliy active but they have brought several other families into the gospel so he told us that no matter what we should keep going, keep working hard because sometimes we don't know what an impact our work has.

This week has been amazing, I'm sad when I leave companions and sectors but I know why I'm here and I'm excited to work here in Buin. I'm sure the Lord has a lot of things to do here just need to find 'em.

Love you all have a good week!

Chao°!!!

HermanaBoully

8/10/15

Hna Nicia

Suprises!‏

There are suprises that are good and some that arent so great but you always love the good suprises! This last Monday we were washing our cloths cleaning our house a little cuz somtimes in the week you just dont have time and we recieved a call guess what we get to go to the temple tuesday of course we where super excited and we aslo found out that the hnas in a area near us was going to come stay the night so that we could go to the temple early its always fun with other hnas like a big sleep over and also we split up and teach double personas in our área! So we did two NH family home evenlings one with a family we have been working with and another with a family of RC who one of there family members isnt a member when we all left our house and went to buy treats for the activitys we got the suprise of rain but we decided to run for it! We had to great NHs but this family that we have been working with us told us that they didnt want to be baptised cuz they where going to another church we where both pretty sad but we still have faith that one day they will change there minds!

The trip to the temple was amazing we got to see the really really old video which was kinda funny we thought we would see the new ones but saw the oldest! It was great going to the temple again Its amazing feeling of peace being in the house of the lord!

Here in right now is the time of corn!! We have been watching the corn stocks grow waiting to eat corn and we got to eat what they call here elote loco like crazy corn its where they put mayo, mustard, chile cheese on the corn and eat it its super good and my cute comp was so happy she loves them we found a lady selling them and my comp bought two it was funny to see her with a corn in both hands then we bought 7up so her hands where full but she managed it and after our tummys where full and happy! And later other members gave us more crazy corn and tamales but these tamales are different not of meat but they are sweet but very good! 

This week we where working to have all our recent conversos in church most of our RC come but we always falta two so we where looking for this hna that live at the top of our area but we could never find her in her house when saturday came we where visting in a different part of a area but right when we where about to leave it started to rain buckets we waited for about a half an hour to leave but it started getting late and we still had to find this hna so we left under the rain and it started raining harder and harder it was kinda funny seeing us walking in the rain soaked water droping in our eyes. This week all of our area didnt have water cuz a big pipe burst so we thought this was God saying yep here is your water cuz it rained for a good hour and half and hard but we left to look and we didnt find the hna but found her sister and a cousin and where able to teach them when we where both soaked! But its always fun its part of the mission!!!! Cuz when we get wet in the rain there are blessings but we plan to buy unbrellas today cuz we lent out our unbrellas and we havent gotten  them back!

There are suprises in the work we somtimes when we are feeling down we find the suprises or milagros this yesterday we where looking for leccions cuz almost all the citas we had where not there but we where able to find this mom and her kids and had a good leccion with them we hope to keep seeing the suprises in the area and we are working hard to recive the blessings cuz we cant do it alone and its ok if we need to get wet in the rain for others to get wet geting baptised its worth it in the end!!

Love you all

Hna Boully 

Hna Mandy

Gotta love Cambios

Hola Fam Damily,

So seeing as I'm training this change, and training lasts for two changes, and normally people only have one trainer, I was pretty sure I was going to be staying here in La Florida with Hna. Flores at least one more change. In fact I was so sure of it, I forgot completely about changes up until this last week and went home saturday night and for the first time ever was completely calm, completely tranquila and already imagining my first change in which NOBODY changes right? WRONG!!!! 

I remember in an interview with Pres. Warne I told him that I've only ever had companions for one change and he said "Well we're just spreading you all over the mission aren't we?" Well it seems that the pattern continues, and even though I had hope that Hna. Flores was going to be the first companion I was going to have for more than one change, I'm sad to say that after 7 and a half months in total I'm leaving La Florida and going to the other extreme of the mission. Talca is the part most south and Buin, where I'm going is the parte most north of the mission. The interesting part is that I'm going to be with Hna. Giurleo, an Hna. from Argentina that actually arrived with Hna. Flores and was her companion in the CCM! I'm going to be finishing her training. I wish I could be finishing the training of Hna. Flores but I guess the Lord has other plans for me. I had a selfish moment where I started thinking, Why can't I have a companion for more than one change? Why do I always have to change companions? But then I started thinking that even though it is easier to have the same companion after you've figured out eachothers quirks and learned to have unity, I really do love getting to know other Hnas. and other parts of the mission, so I shouldn't complain it's just that saying goodbye is my least favorite part of the mission and I've had to say goodbye an awful lot. I know my companion is going to do great here and for some reason the Lord needs me up there in Buin with Hna. Giurleo so I'm going to be spending this week looking for the good, and finding my purpose, the purpose for this change that is. I know that the changes are inspired by Heavenly Father and sometimes it seems really fome to have to say good bye and have to start from scratch with someone new but I have a huge testimony of the fact that because of these changes I've grown spiritually, emotionally and in so many other ways that I can't even count. So I guess in the next few weeks we'll see what the Lord has in store for me! 

Anyhoo to report on this week, we ate a whole lot of yummy food this week because we had cualquier noche de hoger with families in the ward. On monday we made cupcakes with manjar which is Condensed Milk that has been boiled til it turns into a kind of carmel type thing that can only be described as Mana from Heaven in your mouth. Then last night we ate sopaipillas pasados which are like scones cooked in molasses, then we made calzones rotos which translates literally to Ripped Underwear but it also like a scone but twisted with powdered sugar, then in the same NdH we made No Bake Cookies with them and kettle corn and on top of all of that we had our reunion de nuevos with our Pres. his wife and all the newbies and Hna. Warne was showing us her love through food like everyone does here and gave us waffles for breakfast, enchiladas for lunch, and a huge brownie for each of us that had whole Reeses Peanut Butter Cups baked into it!!! I almost cried I was so happy because I haven't seen Reeses in over a year! Long story short it's no wonder everyone gains weight here.

Speaking of food I got to try something different this week, oysters and clams for lunch. It was surprisingly good.

So we're constantly looking for ways so have fun along with the work in the mission and the theme of this week has been scaring one another. ONe day I hid behind the door in the room of the Hnas., another day they hid in our bunk beds and scared my companion when she turned on the light and came in the room, one day I hid in the shower and scared them, and in our apartment there's this teeny tiny little cubby in the wall that goes from floor to cieling but is super skinny and it's supposed to be for brooms and whatnot but I've hid there like three times to scare people walking past. Oh and all of this is done while recording on our cameras so it'll be fun to show you guys in six months. 

This week we've also had a lot of storms, first rainstorms and then windstorms. My companion doesn't have an umbrella so we've been sharing mine until she can buy one but this week there was a torrential down pour one day and no one was opening the door for us so we had to run to the Fam. Dominguez to dry off and heat up a little bit and give my poor compi a rest because she hurt her ankle the other week. It's a good thing that we have people like the Fam. Dominguez who love us and are always looking out for us. The next day we were more prepared with umbrellas for the both of us, rainboots and hymns that we sang in the street to help lift our spirits in spite of the crappy weather. It was cool though because now whenever it rains the Fam. Dominguez calls us to see if we need to come to their house to wait it out a bit. During the night these past few days there has been huge windstorms with wind strong enough to topple a few trees in the area and our room being the corner of the building we hear it from both sides and it's super loud and that combined with a couple of earthquakes we've had have meant that we have not slept much this week. But we keep pushing on! No matter what the weather throws at us Misioneras are stronger!! 

Saturday we got to have a Noche de Hogar with the Fam. Dominguez and we talked about The Family a Proclamation to the World. It's cool to see that the Proclamation was published in 1995 but there is a lot of stuff that it talks about in the Proclamation that are happening today. We've seen that the Family really is being attacked on all sides because Satan knows that that family is fundamental al plan de Dios and he knows that if he destroys the famliy it will be a whole lot easier to destroy the rest of the plan de Dios. So we're trying to help the Fam. Dominguez and all of the other families that we teach to strengthen themselves now so that they will be able to survive when the trials come. It has been amazing to see the progress of the Fam. Dominguez while I've been here. When I got here some of them were practically inactive but now for the last three weeks every member of the Fam. have been in church and I can see the difference in their home and in their faces now compared to when I got here. I really do know that I came back here to help them and now that they are all attending regularly it makes sense that I'm leaving. It's like Heavenly Father saying Yep your work is good here I need you somewhere else now. It doesn't make it any less painful to say goodbye though. I wish you all could just meet this family that has become part of me and who I am. I've already cried a lot on Sunday just sitting with them and knowing that it would be the last time in a really long time. I'm going to cry more when I go say goodbye to them tonight but at least I have the comfort of knowing that they are strong in the church, they'll be allright and my number one goal is to return to Chile if nothing else just to see them again. I knew the mission would be incredible but I had no idea I would come to love the people here so much that it actually physically hurts just thinking of saying goodbye to them. One day you all will have to meet them.

Today real quick I want to share my testimony that the Lord really does protect his missionaries while we're here. We were playing futbol (soccer) in a gym and an elder kicked the ball up into the ceiling and it hit a huge hanging light that was up there and it started to swing and then it fell and I had no idea but I was standing right under it and I didn't know it was falling or anything but everyone watching says they saw it fall and I was right under it and a second later I wasn't. I just took a small step to the left just at the right time and then I heard the crash and realized what had happened!! I can just imagine like three angels and the holy ghost giving me a nudge to the left so that nothing happened to me. It was funny because everyone was freaking out and all the elders were worried that I'd been hurt and couldn't believe how close it had been. I was busy having my life flash before my eyes which was crazy!! Anyhoo there's my memory for today :P

Love you all so much, the mission and life is just full of changes, some good some a little bit more difficult to deal with but all of them are for our benefit!

Con mucho cariño!

Hna. Boully

8/3/2015

Hna Mandy

Flipping Tiempo!‏  (Time)

   

Hola Familia y Amigos!

I've said it before, I'll say it again I can't believe how fast the time flies by!! I feel like we just started this cambio and now we're already in the last week and this Saturday we're going to know if we have changes or no. I wouldn't be worried but I have this bad habit of losing my companions after only one change. I hope it will be different because I'm training this time, which is a process that lasts two changes but I don't know. I have just come to love Hna. Flores so much!! I can't imagine losing her after this change!! We've come up with a lot of nick names for our companionships, none of which are very flattering to me but hey what can you do. We say we are Timon and Pumba and she's Timon so that would make me the warthog :P We also say together we are Flubber because one day a leader wrote the "abbreviation" of our names on the board and he wrote U's instead of O's so it read Flu.Bu. like Flubuh and then that turned to Flubber. Then today I gave her a hug and I'm like a foot taller than her so her head only comes up to my shoulder at most in a hug and she was like aww this is why I need to marry a guy who is as tall as you so my head fits just right here and I asked her if that meant I'm the guy in our companionship so today we've been throwing around the joke that now were are Timona and Pumbo. THIS IS THE CRAZY STUFF THAT HAPPENS ON THE MISH!! You get so close to someone that you make all these inside jokes that take forever to explain and even then don't make complete sense to other people. 

Anyhoo on to the events of this semana, we had an earthquake this tuesday which was, as always SO COOL! This time the window was open and I was looking out so I could see the ground actually move with the earthquake and the hill outside our window looked like a big mountain of jello for a minute! My poor compi though, apparently earthquakes freak her out so she was screaming and hiding behind me while us gringas were like Que Bakan Wahooo!! And later she told us that that was evidence sufficient that we are legitimately crazy :P It's always fun when we teach people with a hol' lotta pride that they don't want to let go of. We realized that it doesn't matter how good the lesson is, how many good points you make, how strong the spirit is, if the person does not let go of pride and just accept what we are trying to share with them, they do not learn anything! It's like beating your head against a brick wall, the wall doesn't move and you end up with a headache. That's why the scriptures talk so much about humility and beware of pride and what not. You can see miracles and still not be converted because of pride! I imagine how frustrated Jesus Christ must have been, he's like I'm raising people from the dead here! Open your eyes! Better yet open your hearts and just believe it! Anyhoo, sorry for the rant, it's just really annoying when someone lets us iinto their house and we poor out our hearts and souls and at the end of the lesson we are still at square one. THAT'S why we focus on commitments, to see if they are open to our message and prepared to make changes and if not, we move on to the next door, or next person in the street.

So my cumpleaño in the mission was pretty eventful, we had a torrential rainstorm, justo when we had forgotten our umbrellas. Luckily I had my rainboots but we all ended up soaking wet by the time we got to lunch, then after going home, drying off, getting our umbrellas, and heading out prepared for whatever cantidad of water that could pour down from above, the freaking adversary through us water from the side. We were walking along on the street and just as we were passing a big ol' puddle, a car comes wizzing by and a wall of water hits both my companion and I in the face and into our open mouths just as we were laughing about something. After spitting and spluttering for about an hour we couldn't do anything but laugh and laugh and laugh, especially when we realized we were soaking wet again, despite our umbrellas. These are the moments that you just have to scream IT'S AN ADVENTURE! I'M MAKING MEMORIES! 

So I got to work with hna. Sanhueza my old companion again because we had divisions and we made the most of our time together to have a few more adventures. There are olive trees all around our house so we decided to try and olive or two. Hna. Sanhueza told me that normally these olives are really bitter but she said that the ones we had picked were pretty ripe so she imagined that they wouldn't be too bad. WRONG!! I don't know why I listened to her and put that thing in my mouth but if there's anything I would use to describe the food that the must eat in Hell it would be these Devil Olives!! It was so bitter that once again I found myself spitting and spluttering on the side of the road with my companion. We tried to contact afterwards but scared a woman half to death and we didn't understand why she was so freaked out until we looked at one another and realized our teeth and lips had been stained black from the olives!! Ha ha the good news is that we actually got some work done too, we found some new people to teach and a woman who  (like the woman nicia wrote about one time) opened the door and said, before we had said anything, Come on in! I love it when they do that. 

So I mentioned that I feel like I'm back in Talca to help the family Dominguez, this week I believe that more than ever because they had a few trials this week and were not themselves because of it and we were visiting with them but still not seeing a lot of progress but the other day we ran into the Hno. in the street and talked to him, and he opened up to us and it was just the perfect moment to be able to talk to him one on one and help him and then on Sunday he was one of the first people to arrive at church! It really was a mini miracale and what I want more than anything is to be able to help this family go to the temple and be sealed together.

Anyhoo, I love the mision more than ever, every day is better, with more and more miracles. A year flew by and so I know six months is going to fly by too and my goal is to make the absolute most of it!!

Con cariño! Cuidense mucho! Chao!

Hna. Boully

Hna Nicia

Yay its Monday!‏

Hola Family,

I think only missionarys wake up mondays happy but I could be wrong! But you gotta to love the mission but sometimes its really great Pdays! 

Its true that the mission is great but your always going to have your ups and downs but it tests your faith! This last week my comp and I had a day that started out kinda hard we had a meeting with our District but ended up waiting in the bus for two hours and after we both felt with out enegry we went out looking for our apointments but they wherent they then we found one hna that we have been working with but she ended up told us that she doesnt want to change from being Cathlic its somtimes hard to hear when people dont want to learn but everyone has there agency. We where walking around contacting and my poor comp was feeling down to she was hardly talking not like normaly I just remember praying please help us to have engery to find people who will listen. A little after we where walking by and found a Hna that we had worked with before before but she had moved and we hadnt been able to find her but we where walking by and found her outside and she let us in where we found her mom and sister they where really excepting to our messages. After that we both felt better found other new invest and where able to make our goals this day! Somtimes the mission is hard sometime you think yep everyone is going to listen and get baptised not important the problems but somtimes is not the right time or the need more time but I am here in the mission to learn and to have faith in my heavenly father because with him we can but we have to put in the work! 

Its also been really exciting in our area there is the fair that has been going on but the hard part is Cuilapa forgot that Sundays is the Day of Rest! The church is in front of a Market but sundays everyone is out on street selling. We always think of Jesus when he entered the temple and saw all the Venders selling this is what we think of every sunday and Especail this last sunday cuz there is hardly room to enter the church tons of people we always think of Jesus coming to Cuilapa with a wip with all the venders! After church we went home to eat but the cool part is our house is on the main street so we got to see the parade pass by it reminded me alot of SV cuz it was mainly Horses and Cowboys but it was fun to see the horses dancing! But dont worry we went out and worked this day but we got to watch a little while we where eating and what a little to let everyone pass by cuz the funny part is almost all of the cowboys where rideing with beers in there hands! We wanted to go out with Folletos of Word of Wisdom and start passing them out! but its been lots of fun we get to go today and eat some of the food of the fair there are some amazing Sweets tipical of Guate like of Coco and other fuirt that is mainly suger! lol Really good!

I hope you all have a good week and remember that there are good and hard times but keep walking keep going all is good!!

Hna Boully

7/27/15 Hna Nicia

SISTERS‏

Hola Family!!

I Just wanna start out by saying I love all the sister missionaries those elders are great to but its soo fun for me to hear stories of from my mom and dad about sister missionaries that they are there looking after you guys in utah and working hard to get everyone to be part of the work its so fun to hear your experinces in missionary work it makes me so happy to hear and makes me feel so close to all of you! 

This week we got to go to the temple with our Rama normaly when the missionaries go to the temple somtimes we only get to help our RC in the baptism but this day there where a ton of helpers so they didnt need our help so we got to do a session which was soo amazing where I thought I saw the newest video but found out from my comp that there is a newer newer one but its new to me and it was great to see. The cool part is there was a group of members visiting for a Humanatrian group from UTAH there was four sisters two servied missions and could talk spanish also one of their daughters that was with them is waiting for her mission call it was really fun to talk to them but it is kinda weird for me to see other Greengos and it was funny my English and Spanish was mixing I had to focus to only talk English then after when I was with my comp my English didnt turn off she was laughing lots but good thing she kinda understands English!

I love being here in the work we have been working with a few families and they are progessing slowing but progressing. In the Bom talks about by small means we can do big things This family before the parents liked to go and drink saturdays and specaily the hna has problems with drinking but this last two weeks she hasnt drunken and they have been listening to our messages they still need to come to church but we hope to help them with small steps!

We also have a member that was just rencently baptised that has also had problems coming to church but this last sunday we heard he was sobre so we went running up to his house to help him come to church and he came! Yay!! 

I am so happy to be working in the Obra Del Senor im so grateful for the oportunty to serve I hope to do better every day I hope everyone can look to help others and not be afaid to share that we are members!! 

Hope you all have a good week!

Con mucha amor

Hna Boully

7/27/15 Hna Mandy

Buena Semana!‏

(Good Week according to Google Translate) - (Am I the only one who has to go to the internet to understand half the things my daughters are saying lately.) :D

So let me start off by saying that I can't believe how fast the time goes by!! I can't believe that I am going to complete a year in the mission this week!!!! That's crazy talk! I'm totally in denial and I keep telling myself that I have a lot more time left but at the same time I know I need to take advantage of every day every moment I have here. This week was really good!! We were able to have a really special baptism!! Which I'll talk about in a minute. We started the week off good with a NdH with our recent convert at the house of a member who is also a return missionary so it was really powerful the lesson and then we ate a whole bunch of delicious food, like cake and crepes with manjar and other deliciousness. Then the next day we had another NdH with another part member family and we watched The Other Side of Heaven with them to help motivate the fifteen year old daughter of the family come back to church. On wednesday we had another Harvest like we did in our sector but this time in another sector so we got to spend a couple hours just contacting and trying to find good references to give the elders that work in that part. Before we got started they told us that their sector is kind of gangster so we laughed and had the motto "Where's our gangster?" "Where's the one who's ready to make a change. It went really well and we were actually able to enter a house and have a lesson with a woman who initially was not willing to recieve us. I love those moments when the people come out of their houses and at first say no I'm really not interested, or I already have my faith but then we talk to them for a minute, butter them up, and they end up letting us in and changing their attitude completely. We found a woman this week who said she already has her religion and was borderline rude to us but for reasons unkown to us she let us in and even inside was a little curt but after talking with her for awhile she changed her tone and said that she actually is having doubts about her church and would like to better her faith!! THAT is the spirit at it's best! There is a joven from this ward who is going on the mission so this week we had a farewell for him and it was interesting to remember when I was in his shoes and it feels like a year ago :P Seriously though it feels like a LONG time ago. It was funny because I made brownies for the farewell and they turned out just ok because I was rushed in making them, but everyone at the farewell went nuts! Like they were eating mana from heaven or something and so long story short we have plans for about 5 familiy home evenings with members to teach them how to make brownies :P 

Saturday was the best day of this week by far! Best day of my whole mission maybe! There's this investigator named Mayra who I taught on my very first day in the mission who is amazing and was ready to be baptized when I first taught her but kept having problems like her parents not approving but she finally got baptized!!! An entire year later and just when I've come back to this sector so I was able to be here! It goes to show that everything we do has an impact even if we don't get to see the fruits of our labors until years later. The baptizm was so amazing and she was so pretty, the best part is that her mom, who initially was not in favor, ended up coming and when Mayra bore her testimony she thanked her mom for being there to support her in the best decision she's ever made and that with her testimony made all of us misionaries sob. Then afterwards she told us that her mom said she felt something special and would like to start receiving the missionaries and she showed up to church this week all by herself!! Mayra doesn't waste anytime either, she wants to go on a mission and she already got started by giving a book of mormon to her friend who also was at her baptizm and came to church! The mission is so cool! This church is so cool! and I love seeing it touch the lives of the people I have come to love!

But wait there's more! That same night we went to see a family of recent converts who are also like my chilean family because I've come to love them so much. They've been struggling recently because el Hno. and the daughter Dani haven't been coming to church for awhile but Sat. night we decided to do something special and so we shared the talk from Elder Hollan "I Believe" had a testimony meeting. Everyone shared their testimony and  the spirit was soooo strong. They admitted that for some of them it is still hard for them to accept certain doctrine but they know the church is true and so that's why they keep going to eventually have a testimony strong of everything and the Hno. shared that now he knows that he's been missing out on a really good thing and he wants to return the the church and return strong so that one day he and his family can be sealed in the temple. It was a night of water works because we were all crying again. Then on Sunday for the first time in a couple of months their WHOLE family was in the church again!! I feel like that's part of the reason I came back to this sector, I have a really close bond with this family and maybe that's what it took to get them back but I also have the comfort of knowing that they're not just coming back to make me happy, that they really know what their goal is: the temple. It was such a blessing to see them all there again.

Last night we found a lot of new people wich is also exciting but in a different way. I can't help but look at the people as what they could become if they accept the gospel and so I love the opportunity to find and teach more people. 

Today was also really fun because with said family we went to these botanical gardens/petting zoo and took a lot of fun pictures and got to see a bunch of cool animals and birds there and then we drove up to the top of the hill to see all of talca which was pretty even though it was raining. 

All in all a good week. 

I love hearing about mission opportunities that you all are having and I would just encourage you all to keep going. Even if the people are stubborn, even if at first you're nervous, every missionary act we do is like planting a seed, and we never know when that seed will sprout.

Love you all!!

Hna. Boully

7/20/15 Hna Nicia

Forget your self in the work!‏

Hola!!

Its somtimes lots of fun being a missionary cuz your never going to have the same experinces in our lives! Like the other Sister Boully here we have recieved alot of rain but you never know if it is going to rain or not it can be pretty blue skys and start to rain half an hour later. So we never go out in our boots cuz they are hard to walk in but almost always have our unbrellas until we give them to others members or invest. One night we where heading for a lesson with a member and it started raining somtimes you can waith for the rain to stop cuz we only had one umbrella but it was raining super hard with a river running down the street there we where waiting in the porch of a house for the rain to stop and the lights of the street went out. This part of our area we arent normalaly in the night but we had a member... but it was super dark with out the street lights so we ran to a tienda that was selling pupusas and this family let us wait out the rain with them they even gave us pupusas which i liked but my comp says they arent the same has her pías. There we where waiting for the rain but we had a apointment with our ward leader so we gave the umbrella to the member and when the lights came back my comp and I ran to the house of this member we entered the house super wet but laughing how fun it is to be a missionairy!!

Saturday was lots of fun cuz we had a lot of actividads but it was a little stressful cuz its always a little stressful your baptisms! There was a actividad of a organisation came to help little kids have better nutition so lots of people showed up to recieve the help we got to invite some of our Invest and their families but we ended up helping taking names and numbers for the doctors of all these kids. Some times its sad to see some of these kids so little and skiny but its great that the church willing to help. The funny part is we where so busy thinking of our invest atending the actividad then to be helping the doctors we for got to eat lunch I completley forgot until my comp said around three that she was hungry! Shows for get your self in the work or forget lunch!!!

After we got to see the movie Do you know the mormons! Where two families that we are teaching showed up! Then after we had the baptism It was a great service we where talking to the hno that invited this couple to come to his house for a family home evening thanking him how he helped reactivate the parents then help the son get baptised we always need to be looking out for those who arent coming to church always inviteing them. This couple for about a year wasnt coming to church and im sure recieved lots of other invitations but maybe wasnt the right time but with this last invitation they came and where able to help their son be baptised and become a member!! Shows keep inviteing even if they say no or dont show up you never know but at least we are doing our part to invite. We know the Advisary is working really hard and he doesnt take breaks or get sick cuz he knows in the end he is going to loose. We know we are going to win but the work isnt over so we need to be Activly in the work I know I need to work harder in this little time I have left I know we can change and be better every day!

I love you all so much thanks for all that you do for me!

Hna BOully 

What better way to end p-day soccer than with ICE Cream!

Baptism last Saturday with his parents.

7/20/2015 Hna Mandy

Hna Mandy

20 Years Later...‏

Hola Familia y Amigos!!

First off thanks to every one who wished me a happy birthday!! It was a super awesome day which I'll talk about after I talk about what happened during the rest of the week. So last monday we had plans to go see one of our investigators but as we were walking there I suddenly got the impression to go knock on a door of a house that we had passed many times but never been able to find anyone home. To our surprise not only were they home, a cute woman named Connie and her daughter Maite, but were also VERY interested in our mensaje and had a bunch of questions for us. We ended up teaching her a lesson, answering her questions, and in the very first cita with her we invited her to be baptized and she said yes!! It was kind of funny because in the lesson I had the thought that I should invite her to be baptized but then I thought no because we had just met her and were still getting to know her but then the still small voice took on a different, more demanding tone that I should just get over myself and do it and she surprised the both of us by saying yes right away and asking what she needed to do in order to be baptized!! The bummer is that the day after she left out of town for vacations and so we won't be able to see her for awhile, same with our other investigator that has a bautismal date, Jorge. But we were able to see him before he left and he said that he won't have any signal where he's staying so he'll have a lot of free time to read the Book of Mormon and we were pretty cool with that. 

Also this week we received a special visit from Pres. Warne to our house on my birthday, which is always a little bit nerve wracking, but the reason he came is something that I think is going to make all of my parents really happy. After what happened to the Hnas. in southern Chile we received stricter rules for safety and safety in general has been a priority lately for the Hnas. so even though here in Talca our area is already super safe, with the Police Station and PDI (FBI) station around the corner and a fence around the whole structure, they decided make sure we were good and protected by installing a fancy security system in our apartment! Now there's a motion sensor on the front door that's hooked up to a siren and when tripped sends a message to like 8 different people including Pres. Warne and the leaders closest to us, and panic buttons and everything!! It's super cool!! The sector where we live is super tranquilo and I never really feared for my safety before but now I know for sure we're good. The funny thing is that the alarm automatically arms itself from 11:30 At night to 7:00 in the morning while were sleeping so we're good as long as we don't go into the kitchen by walking past the door and trip the motion sensor but yesterday we put an alarm on our phone for 3:25 to help us get out of the house on time in the afternoon but we put AM instead of PM! So this morning it went off at 330 i the morning and we woke up, dead tired though we didn't know why, and were walking around like zombies trying to start our day and my companion headed for the kitchen to turn the hot water on to take a shower but thankfully half way there she realized that it was really dark outside and that the other Hnas. hadn't gotten up so she checked her watch and realized what we had done. The worst though is that the whole time trying to get up and start the day, praying, doing our exercises, going to the bathroom, etc. I kept falling asleep because I was so tired but when we crawled back into bed at 4 in the morning I couldn't go back to sleep!!! It's a cruel world sometimes. :P 

So it's inevitable when you have a Latina compañera that the language barrier will create some pretty interesting often funny conversations but especially with Hna. Flores because she has this tendency to say really funny things a lot. The other day I was trying to explain to her the movie Ever After because she's never seen anything except for Ice Age it seems like and so I mentioned that the movie features Leonardo DaVinci and she gets all excited and says "Oh he is so handsome!! I just love Leonardo DaVinci" etc. and I was really confused because in my mind I'm picturing this really old guy and trying to see what she could see in him and not coming up with much and seeing my confused face she asked "That guy who's in Titanic?" and we lost it laughing for awhile about the BIG difference between Leo Decaprio and Leo Davinci. Afterwards we were still talking about Titanic and she asked "Which one dies first? Was it Jack?" and I looked at her for a minute and said "She doesn't die!" I think the laughing we did that day counts for about a weeks worth of ab workouts. :P

I don't know if you all remember, I've talked about the familia Dominguez before but they're a family of recent converts super special to all of the missionaries who work in this sector and the converts of my trainer Hna. Hobbs. Well apparently right before I left something happened and the hermano, Hno. Fredy hadn't been coming for more than four months. So on thursday with the help of his wife Hna. Nelly we had an amazing lesson where we asked him the real reason he hasn't been coming and he finally opened up and told us what he has been feeling and we were able to address his concerns and remind him of the convenios he made and at the end he promised us he would come to church for two reasons 1. for his family and 2 because it was my birthday. I reminded him that his family is the most important and Hna. Nelly said something so inspired when she told him that he should go to church because being sealed to her should be more important than whatever challenge that would keep them from going.

So I remember thinking during Christmas and wondering where I was going to be for my birthday, if I was going to have a good birthday in the mish etc. and i remember thinking I hope I'm with people who love me, or at least have had the chance to get to know me a little bit. Who knew I would be so blessed to be able to return to this sector full of people who know me really well and who all, generously, wanted to make me feel loved on my big day. Saturday in the morning my compi and the Hnas. in our house surprised me with a big card and a little gift for my birthday and even made me french toast for breakfast! Then for lunch we went and ate completos to celebrate my birthday which were delicious then in the tarde we had a "noche de hogar" which turned out to be a surprise birthday party at a family of Menos Activos (Contreras) that I was able to find with Hna. Hughes. Then after that we got to go and see a baptism of a son of a family of Menos Activos that I also had been working with before so it was so cool to see them be able to baptize their son because they have come back to church. Then after that we booked it over to another family (Cornejo) that were also menos activo when I first got here but have also come back to church and we had another little party and another cake! Then Sunday a cute little abuela in our ward gave me a little gift that she had hand made in church and one of the biggest presents I got was to see our recent convert return to church after a lot of time not coming and to see Hno. Fredy keep his promise and come back to church too! That night we went to their house for yet another little birthday get together and they surprised me with decorations, food, a cake that even had my name on it AND the biggest surprise ever after singing me happy birthday and everything Hna. Nelly turned on the TV saying she was going to "put on some music" and I hear Dad's voice and look up to see on their big screen tv the video that Dad and Jan sent to me for my birthday. I only cried just a little bit. 

This week has been absolutely amazing in every way and every day I'm here my love for the work, and the people and the gospel grows tenfold. I don't know why I'm so blessed to have all these things in my life but I am so grateful for all of them and it's just extra motivation for me to share this gospel and these blessings with others. The mission really is the best time of your life. I love you all so much!! 

Con cariño!

Hermana Boully

7/13

Hna Nicia

Service!

Hola!!

Its so great that we have so many people looking out for us in the mission like the members when we are hungry and they give us somthing to eat or invite us for lunch or Heavenly Father when I washed my garments and they where drying outside and the great part it rainied in the area where we where working but not where our house was YAY! And of course our president and somtimes he makes changes for us. Before we where the only mission in Guatemala that could drink Coke but has of this change we cant. Before the mission I never drank coke but here in Guate everyone drinks coke and all the members love to give us coke so I became to love coke with the help of my addicted companions but we all know to much of somthing is bad and presidente saw missionaries drinking a ton of coke everyday my comp isnt to happy with this cuz she LOVES coke and now that we cant have coke is when we most want it but we are being good missionarys!

I think all through out my mission im learning to have more faith to excerice it more like this week about inviteing more people to be baptised cuz we know its really important to be baptised like really important! but with the right autoridad sometimes when we get to know people and find them with strong beliveths its hard to invite them to be baptised cuz we think they are never going to progress but when we invite we are showing our faith and seeing how we can help them change to know their problems this has been helping us alot in our area!

I also know that the Family home evenling is sooooo important not just for the family but for everyone who is inactive or who isnt members. We had one Actividad in the house of one member and he invited a couple that where a little inactive where we meet them them but after this acitivdad they started coming to church! When we meet with them we found out that their son wasnt a member and they invited us to start teaching him. It is a real MILAGRO he is super piles he is a golden invest he would read all of the Folletos that we gave him than after explain then we hardly had to teach and it was amazing to have his parents to help they where super excited to help him and to progess they are one super active family thanks to actividad with members! And he is going to be baptised this next saturday YAY!!

Hope you all have a good week!! I love you all!!

Hna Boully 

Hna Mandy

Well we Asked For It!!‏

HOla Familia!

So last week I talked about the miracle that we were able to see in the fact that we recieved rain after a bit of a dry spell but then it was funny to catch ourselves complaining a little bit when we had to go out and knock on doors and work in the pouring rain. When my companion and I realized that we had been ungrateful we decided to change our way of thinking and so instead of whining about our wet feet we started looking for rain boots which neither one of us had. It seems like everyone else had the same idea though because in every store we looked in they were out! The good news is that we finally found boots... just in time for it to stop raining and have everything be completely dry!! Ah it is just proof that Heavenly Father has a sense of humor. Hey atleast we have boots right.

So this week was really good for us! We were able to put a fecha with a new investigator named Jorge that reminds me a lot of Nicolas my other convert because we got there and he had not only read the folleto but answered the questions in the back and had more questions to ask us and was willing to offer the prayer at the end of our lesson. Whenever we taught something like the year of the restauracion or the names of peter james and john he made sure to right it down to remember it! He still wants to learn more and hasn't come to church yet but he says that when he learns more and receives an answer he'll be baptized!! THe only fome (lame thing) is that he's going to be gone for three weeks so we hope he'll keep reading the book of mormon and praying so that he'll be ready to keep learning and be baptized when he comes back! I made No Bake cookies again this week and can't remember if I told you guys or not that they're called Monkey Poop here. :P ONce you here that name it's kind of hard to put that image out of your head. This week I'm so happy to be back in the first sector where I started because I love the people here so much and they're taking care of me on my birthday. Seriously though, now that I can speak the language more and get to know the people better I'm coming to love them in a way I didn't even think was possible. I can't help but be grateful to be here, with all of these people, doing what I'm doing, I just feel so blessed. Love you all so much and hope you have a good week!!

Hermana Boully