Week 40

Some random things from the week...

1- We went to the huge waterfall again because Hermana Hyland hasn't been

2-It has been pouring rain every day and it’s so cold.  We don't have money for wood and the mission is going to change from wood to pellets, so in the meantime we wear sooo many layers in the mornings.  

3-I don't think I've told you this but there are so many Haitians here in Chile.  They make for golden investigators because they are very humble.  All the missionaries love teaching them, and we love to look for them because 100% of the time they want to listen. We found a house with like 20 Haitians in it yesterday and they all want to listen and come to church!  WHATTTT

4-We had zone conference and that was SO good!!  I had to speak yet again (I'm telling you, Heavenly Father really loves trying to develop my public speaking in a different language skills)

5-I completed 9 months in the mission!!  That was wild!

6-We have been chopping wood a lot for other people and that's always fun!

7-One of our investigators wanted to drink coffee with us and we explained that we didn't drink coffee, but we offered to just drink hot water.  She was confused but ok with it. Then I looked over and SHE WAS DOING THE SAME THING!!!!  I was so excited and commented about it and she said, "well if the Lord knows its bad for you, I'm not going to drink it!!"  That was incredible!!

This week was great!!  We have seen soo many miracles!!!  They just keep coming!!  I feel like we have been very guided by the spirit.  We have tried our best to make sure there is nothing in our lives that would impede the influence of the spirit in this work.  As we have done that, Heavenly Father has been able to transform us and this sector.  I know it’s the same with you and your personal lives, with whatever situation you might be in!!

The sector is doing great!  I love it here.  There are lots of people that want to listen to our message or at least who are willing, but the challenge always is getting them to act.   Actually, this week I was stuck on thinking about what more I need to do to get our investigators to come to church.  I was thinking about it all week and yesterday the answer came super unexpectedly.  In my personal study I was studying the Sacrament and I was reading about when Christ institutes the sacrament among the Nephites in the Book of Mormon.  I have read it like a hundred times but for some reason this time it hit me hard.  Christ says, "And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my spirit to be with you."  I know that as a missionary if I have the Spirit with me and I act on the promptings I receive, I will be doing exactly what the Savior wants me to be doing with these people.  So, I am constantly praying to have the Spirit with me in everything that I do.  But this hit me and helped me see once again the key to success.  The more we remember the Savior, the more we think about Him and what He would do, the more we will have His spirit to be with us.  So, If I want to help people come to church, I need to look to the Savior even more.  If I do that I will have His spirit to be with me and in turn, I will say the things He would want me to say and do the things that He wants me to do with His people.  So, then I thought about what type of missionary the Savior is.  He is very calm.  He is relaxed and tranquil.  He never takes away people’s agency at all.  He teaches them and testifies of himself and the Father, and when the people don't understand, He doesn't beat himself up or think "dang, how can I make this person come to church or understand?".  He is sad, but He doesn't become discouraged or self-deprecating.  He lets people fully use their agency.  He doesn't try to force or persuade anybody.  He presents the message and lets them choose if they want to take part or not.  Then He respects their decision and moves on. It doesn't matter how sad he might be, He completely respects their agency while still loving them and being there for them when they want to accept.  It’s the same with us as missionaries.  We can present the message and do our best to present it in a way that the spirit can teach to their hearts, but in the end if they choose not to act we need to move on and keep looking for those who are ready and willing to accept the gospel.  We shouldn't try to convince or make them do something.  Then we should keep praying for those people that they will one day be ready and willing to accept and act!  The work is urgent!!  There is so much to do! (:  I love being a missionary!!  I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

--Hermana West

Week 39

Well...this week was full of miracle after miracle.  

The work is starting to boom here.  

We had such an amazing experience last Wednesday.  There was an investigator that we hadn't visited for a while because the last time we went, her son was drugged and acting weird and the Spirit told us to leave there fast.  Anyway, we had had a lesson fall through and we had a small thought to visit this investigator.  We went to her house and she was there!  She let us in and we started asking her how she was doing.  She had lots of pain and had been in the hospital for the past 15 days.  Her son was also causing her lots of problems and she kicked him out of the house.  Anyway, that was a miracle because we couldn't keep passing by as long as her son was living there because it was dangerous.  Anyway, she wanted a priesthood blessing to help her feel better, so we called the Elders and they were able to come over.  The blessing was absolutely beautiful, and she is so full of faith.  Afterward, we started teaching her the Restoration along with the Elders and it was the smoothest lesson I've ever had.  Every single person listened to and acted on the Spirit and the lesson just flowed.  Right when my companion was about to explain about when Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith, people knocked on the door.  Her sister and her family all walk in and start talking.  At first we were all like "dang.  That just killed the flow of our lesson and it might not be as powerful now."  But one of the Elders did an amazing job of pulling all three of them in.  They were all very receptive and at the end, each one of them accepted the invitation to be baptized.  It was incredible to see! None of it was us.  It is God's work and He was the one who prepared these people and inspired us to know what to say.  He is leading His work. I know that the Lord is preparing people to receive the message of His restored gospel.  I know that each of you plays a critical part in that preparation as you follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost and share your testimony with others.  You never know how much good you do!

Hermana Hyland is doing well!  We get along really well, and we laugh a lot.  The extent of our "rude” comments is when we are in someone's house and we have just eaten a ton and she tells me that she hopes they give me another piece of cake. Hahaha, we love each other a lot and she is so awesome.  She is throwing herself out of her comfort zone and in lessons, if I set her up for it and tell her what she is going to teach, she will take it and run with it.  I'm honestly so impressed by her.  I never wanted to do that when I didn't understand what was going on.  She works hard, she's obedient, has a great attitude, and follows the spirit.  The mission is lucky to have her!

I also feel like I am finally becoming more focused on my missionary purpose and I am loving it.  I have really learned a lot about the importance of inviting people to be baptized and making that the focus.  I finally realized this week that we can do lots of things as member missionaries that we do here as full-time missionaries.  There are lots of really good things that are part of missionary work such as finding, re-activating, sharing scriptures with people, praying for and with people, etc.  But there is one difference between us as member missionaries and full-time missionaries, and that is the authority to invite to baptism.  I can keep staying involved in all the wonderful other parts of missionary work after my mission, but I can't go around inviting my brothers and sisters to be baptized. That is something that I can only do for this year and a half.  That is our PRIMARY purpose. That realization has changed my focus completely and it has helped me become a more effective instrument of the Spirit this week.  By being worthy of and listening to the spirit this week, my companion and I were able to invite 5 people to baptism and every single one accepted.  Of those five we were able to meet with 2 of them again and put them with a baptismal date. That was a pure miracle that we recognize had nothing to do with us and everything to do with Heavenly Father.  We were also able to realize the huge need to work with the members and help them do the other parts of missionary work that they can be doing because WE NEED THEM! WE NEED ALL OF YOU.  Keep trying to find ways to help the work progress!  You can do so much(: Basically I feel like Heavenly Father just helped me see a lot clearer where my focus should be.

Anyway, sorry this email is all over the place, but I'm learning a lot and enjoying the mission!  I love you all!  Have an amazing week!

-Hermana West

Week 38

Weeeellll this week was nuts!!!  We had to move houses so basically 2 full days were spent cleaning, packing, moving, cleaning, and unpacking again.  It was wild.  Then there was a series of super random/ unexpected events that occurred.  I wish I had time to write you and tell you about everything that happened.  But, I want to share just a few experiences with you.  We saw TONS of miracles this week.  Some were more noticeable than others and I'll have to tell you about the rest of them when I have more time after my mission.  But...here are a couple..

1-The Elders and some hermanas from a sector that was 2 hours away came to help us move even though we thought we didn't need them.  We ran into lots of problems and ended up needing each one of them and things all worked out on time.

2-There were almost lots of problems with legal things like the contract and papers and stuff, but Heavenly Father provided a back up plan for each one.  He is really taking care of His missionaries.

3-I could go on and on and share lots of details, but one of the coolest ones was this:

After we had just spent all day changing houses and cleaning, we were in our new house and we had soo much to do.  The gas tank from our old house had just ran out, and the gas tank from this new house had just ran out that morning as well.  We were starving but we didn't have time to leave and buy food and all we had were eggs and pasta, both of which require gas to cook them.  We didn't have time to buy new gas either because we only had 30 minutes to try to eat something.  Anyway, we were tired and hungry and had no gas to cook so we were kinda sad, but we were going to be ok.  I decided to just start cleaning again and I went over to the sink to start washing the dishes.  All of a sudden, hot water started running instead of cold--The gas was working!  At the time, we thought "sweet, maybe the owner was confused and just thought it ran out but it actually had some left". I told my comp to hurry and start cooking the noodles and I would hurry and cook the eggs.  We were using gas for a good 15 minutes without fail.  Then we had time to eat our food and we had to leave.  When we got back to the house that night, I went to start washing the dishes.  The water was cold again and the stove wouldn't light.  Suddenly I realized that we had had a pure miracle.  There was absolutely no gas left, and there hadn't been any gas that morning either.  But, Heavenly Father was merciful to His missionaries and provided us with the gas that we needed to cook some food.  Even though it wasn't something super important, He still wanted us to be happy.  Then as we started looking back on the day we realized about a million other things like that that had happened and we were in awe.

  I know God loves me and He loves you.  He wants us to be happy.  He is involved in the details of our lives and wants to bless us.  We need to be obedient so that He can bless us.  I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

--Hermana West

Week 37

This week was absolutely wild and soo good!!!

ALSO....HAPYY BIRTHDAY TO REBECCA TOMORROW!!!  I love you so much Rebecca!!

I said goodbye to Hermana Canales this week and then had to stay in the bus terminal with the Elders for the rest of the evening.  Hermana Hyland got here super late so we got home and went to bed.  But the last few days have been so fun and we have worked so hard! Hermana Hyland is great!  She is from Sandy Utah and she was studying at BYU for a year and a half before the mission.  She graduated high school the same year as me and actually knows a lot of my friends. She is such a good person.  Kind, full of faith, and willing to work and learn.  The mission is really lucky to have her!  She has a great attitude, but like with all missionaries is a little frustrated with the language.   But she doesn’t let it stop her and we are working hard!  She is enjoying it here and isn’t too stressed.  But when there is stress we take care of it and keep going.  She is awesome!!

This week we put goals for our sector.  We felt like if we work really hard and have a lot of faith that in these next two transfers we can see several people accept baptism. So that’s what we are working for.  We want to help our investigators come to church every week.  We also put a goal for finding a lot of new people, but then after a few hours the Spirit helped me see you have to actually retain people.  Hahah that was kinda funny because we were just so pumped and then realized that was actually a bad goal.  This sector is so easy to find people.  If you contact 7 people, most of the time 6 of the 7 will tell you to come by.  Then out of those six, like 5 of them will keep sharing.  So the need right now isn’t really to find, because we have soo many people to work with we can’t really find time to teach them all.  So we are going to be focusing on retaining and helping them stay and progress.

But, even though we put goals, we realize that these represent people.  They represent our brothers and sisters who have real lives and real struggles and real problems, and they need the peace that comes from Jesus Christ.  That’s why we have put those goals, that’s why we are on missions, and that’s why we get up and work hard everyday!!  To help our brothers and sisters "find peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come".  I LOVE being a missionary.  There is absolutely nothing better!!!!!

Have a great week!  Keep reading the Book of Mormon everyday! I love you all!

--Hermana West

Week 36

Hey family.  Soooo I should probably get my life together and give you all a huge update hahah.  Sorry for the craziness.
We just got transfer calls last night and.... I'm going to train.....hahaha.  I’m pretty humbled.  I feel like I have lots of weaknesses but maybe that's why I get to have this opportunity--to force myself to improve hahah.  I know that she is going to be able to teach me more than I can probably help her.  But it is interesting to see how Heavenly Father prepares us.  This whole cambio I have felt like I might train and Heavenly Father has put people in my life to prepare me and given me experiences to prepare me.  We are just going to follow the Spirit, look to Christ, be obedient, and work hard!    Anyway...that's about it hahah.    Oh, she’s from Utah and her name is Hermana Highland!

Elder Christofferson came to speak to us along with Elder Bragg this week!  So we traveled to Puerto Montt for 5 hours on Friday and stayed with the Hermana Leaders, then the next morning got up super early and traveled to Puerto Varas for another 2 hours. And then after the conference we had to do it all again.  The mission has taught me to not love traveling hahahaha. 
But the conference was soooo good!!!  The whole mission traveled to be there. So it was really powerful.  But Elder Bragg talked about the importance of bringing people to church! Taking the Sacrament every week is SO important!  SO important.  That's probably one of the biggest things I've learned in the mission.  Elder Christofferson echoed the words of Elder Bragg and then gave us some other training on being missionaries, but among other things, he talked about love and faith.  We each need to have love.  Something he said that I loved was that "If your love for the people is sincere and the pure love of Christ, they are going to feel it, and they can’t deny it."  So really the only way to help people change, the only way to see any progression in anybody, is through love.  Then he spoke about how if we are working hard and doing our part we can leave it in the hands of God.  We have to recognize that He is God.  We are His children and we are in His hands.  Just do your part and put your trust in God.  That applies to all aspects of our lives. 

 The people here in Juan Soler are great!  We found a family of Colombianos through a miracle.  Elder Becerra and Elder Oliver were calling a menos activo and accidentally dialed the wrong number but ended up setting up an appointment with this family and then passing the reference to us.  They are goldennnnn!  I'm so excited to see what happens there!
We have one investigator with a baptismal date right now, named Fernanda.  She will be baptized on March 10th.  She is 11 years old and her mom is a menos activa.  Fernanda is so full of faith and she has lots of desires to learn about Christ.  We are trying to make sure she is really converted to the gospel before she gets baptized, so we might postpone her baptismal date depending on how we feel this week!  But she is so incredible!!  We are also visiting 4 other 11-year olds and we are going to start bringing them with us to the citas.  It will be great because they will have friends and they can be involved in helping others learn the gospel too!!  This group of 11-year olds are soooo golden!!!

Also, we have been working on changing houses for the past transfer because of a lot of reasons, but everything finally went through and we are going to change March first!  The weather here is getting cooler, but we still have days where we die of heat. 

Anyway, there’s my update!!!  I love you so much!!  Have a great week!
--Hermana West

Week 35

Hey fam!! This week was pretty great!!  We went to see penguins today so I don't have a ton of time to write (sorry).  But I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!  

Some exciting news that I think I forgot to mention...Elder Christofferson is coming to speak to all the mission on Saturday!! I'm so excited!!!

Hermana Canales was sick with the flu a few times this week so I had a lot of time to study!!!  I want to testify that the apostles and prophets are really called by Jesus Christ himself.  This is His church and he is still guiding it today!!  I'm really so sorry I don't have more time to write (there were a few complications but we saw lots of miracles this week).  Anyway, I love you all!!!!  I'm doing well and still praying for each of you everyday! Thanks for all you are doing!! Keep studying Christ and trying to become more like Him!!  He is the only way to lasting peace and joy.  Love you all!!  Talk to you next week!!

--Hermana West

Week 34

Helllooooo Family!!!

What a great week!!  We have had lots of good experiences.  We went and visited a really pretty waterfall this morning and I felt like I was in the jungle.  (plus its super hot and humid right now so that helped with the jungle feel) It was super fun!!  hahah buttt apart from it being superrrrrrrrr hot, we have had lots of great experiences like I just said.

This week we had interviews with president!  Afterward, he came to visit a house that we want to change to (there are some problems with our house situation right now).  Anyway, the lady who owns the house hasn't been to church for a looong time but she is a member.  While we were there we got an appointment with her for the next day....and....HER DAUGHTER WANTS TO BE BAPTIZED WHOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Im so happy!!!!  And on top of that, her mom, the menos activa, hasn't been to church for YEARS.  I asked her to pray at the end of the lesson.  She paused and stared at me and her daughter.  In my head I was thinking..."I know that look...shes going to say no and then we are going to make her promise to say it the next time".  But NO!!  To my surprise, she said bueno...but I don't know if I will remember how.  Then she said one of the most sincere prayers.  There is nothing like hearing someone speak with God after a lot of time.  At the end of the prayer, she was super emotional and smiling.  She told us that she hadn't said a single prayer for YEARS.  I leaped up and gave her the biggest hug!  I was sooo happy for her!!!!!!  Basically we have been seeing miracle after miracle!!  

Another cool experience we had was we were trackting and knocking doors when I randomly had the thought to visit a member from the ward.  We went and visited with her for a bit.  On top of it being a really spiritual experience, she was telling us about her son who isn't a member.  He is married to a lady who is less active and their daughter isn't a member.  I felt really strongly that we needed to get to know them, and turns out, they live in our sector!  She said they don't want to share with missionaries, but we are going to be sneaky and I'm just going to introduce me and my companion and we will just have a good interaction with them.  From there we will slowly start seeing them more and hopefully be able to share.  Anyway, the point is that we felt like we should visit them.  The next day, Sunday, we were eating lunch with a member from the ward.  I felt to share with her a scripture in Mosiah 27 about how  the prayers of Alma and others were heard and an angel visited Alma the younger and the other guys because of the prayers of his dad and others.  She then proceeded to tell us about her daughter that is less active and lives pretty close.  I felt really strongly that we needed to visit her.  After talking for awhile, we realized its the SAME lady that is married to the son of the member that we visited the other day.  The same family and I had no idea!  the spirit is incredible.  Apparently this family needs to be contacted right now and we are really excited to see what happens!!!  

Anyway, that's basically been my week!!!  i love you all so much and pray for you everyday!!!  Have an incredible week!!  I love you!

--Hermana West