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

Week 33

Hi everyone,

This week was good.  It has been absolutely wild but we have been able to see lots of miracles.  Seriously, this sector is golden.  We have a golden investigator but it’s going to be hard to meet with her because we were in her house the other day and her son entered drugged, so we had to leave.  I think with a lot of fasting and prayer we will see miracles with her.  We have found lots of kids that want to be baptized but their parents are menos activos (less active) and don't want to come to church right now.  Again, there is a lot of work to do here and I'm loving it!  Also, one of our investigators came to us and said she wants to be baptized, but she doesn't want to put a date because she wants her family to be baptized with her and they haven't had hardly any of the lessons yet.  Once again, super happy and excited for that!

Basically, this sector is superrrrr prepared.  These people are incredible and so many people want to listen.  It’s amazing to see!

This week was a little bit harder for a few reasons but in those moments, I have learned to try to do all I can to center myself on Jesus Christ.  When I can do that, I always receive the help I need and I know its the same for you!!!

I keep thinking of these lines from President Nelson when he said, 

"We are to learn our duty from the Lord, and then we are to act in all diligence, never being lazy or slothful. The pattern is simple but not easy to follow. We are so easily distracted. Studying the daily news can appear more interesting than the priesthood lesson manual.  Sitting down to rest can be more attractive than making appointments to visit those who need our priesthood service.

When I find myself drawn away from my priesthood duties by other interests and when my body begs for rest, I give to myself this rallying cry: “Remember Him.” The Lord is our perfect example of diligence in priesthood service. He is our captain. He called us. He goes before us. He chose us to follow Him and to bring others with us".

I've applied it to myself and my missionary service and I invite you all to apply it to your life in whatever role you might be playing!

I love you all!!  Have a great week!!

--Hermana West

Week 32

Hi everyone!

I love you all so much.  This week was good but we weren't able to work a ton because Hermana Canales got sick.  But apart from that, we have had a lot of really good experiences.

1-I almost got attacked by a huge dog that looks like a bear but in the end someone saved me hahah

2-we went on a little trip today to a really beautiful lookout of the ocean

3-we found some pretty humble and kind people who would like to listen to the message of the restored gospel

4-I have been able to grow in patience and charity.  Heavenly Father is helping me become a better version of myself

5-We found someone from the Dominican Republic (where mom served) and they want to take the discussions so that was a special connection to mom!

6-The muscles on my legs are getting so solid because it’s pure hills here hahahahah

7-  We were able to act on the spirit and see lots of miracles!

Sorry I don't have much more time to write this week, but I love you all!  I want to testify of the Savior.  He lives.  He came to earth for YOU personally.  He knows you perfectly.  He and our Heavenly Father want you to be happy.  They are aware of you and they love you.  They want you to return to them and they are there to help you with everything.  Through Jesus Christ you can be happy again, and, you can change and repent everyday.  It is such a happy thing!!!  I love my brother and Savior Jesus Christ and that's why I'm on a mission.  I know that if you let him, Christ will take your grief and pain away and you can have peace and joy.  I love you!  I want you to be happy too, so come unto Christ!  Have an amazing week!

--Hermana West

Week 31

Hola Family!!!!

After saying goodbye to my favorite sector, and after a long plane, bus, and boat ride....I made it safely to Chiloé!!!  (P.S I saw Torres de Paine..idk how to spell it...from the plane!  So beautiful!)

I LOVE it here!!!  All the plants are so beautiful and it really does feel like an island.  It's hot, we can see the ocean from our house and everywhere we are because our sector is pure hills, and there is so much fruit because its summer!!  The people here are also incredible and kind.  It hasn't even been a week and we have seen lots of miracles here!

My companion is Hermana Canales from Ecuador.  She’s great.  She has 11 months in the mission and has been in the sector for about 2 months.

An experience from this week...

We were in the house of the branch President eating with his family and at the end we shared a message.  I opened up the scriptures and it fell open to 3rd nefi 18 when Christ is talking to the Nephites.  I saw one of the scriptures where Christ is talking and it basically says pray as a family that your wives and your children may be blessed.  We talked about the importance of that.  Christ was with them for only a few short chapters and He talked about baptism, the Sacrament, and among other super important things, family prayer.  (That shows how important family prayer is.  I know that as families kneel in prayer together they will feel a greater peace in their home and more united as a family over time).  Anyway, as we shared the scripture President was really moved.  He expressed that he felt like Christ was speaking directly through us to him and that he was really thankful for our visit.  Then we knelt with them as a family and prayed and it was a really sweet experience.  But the point of the story is that I learned once again that the spirit works by small and simple means.  I didn't feel a huge overwhelming prompting to share this scripture.  I just saw it, and thought "that would be a good thing to share".  Most of the time that's how the spirit works with us---through good, kind thoughts.  If you have a thought that invites you to do something good, follow it!  Almost 100% of the time it’s the Spirit(:  I promise that as you do that you will be able to recognize the voice of the Holy Ghost even more and work miracles in your life and in the lives of others!!

A lot has happened this week but right now nothing else is coming to my mind to share so I will just leave it at that hahah.  Have an amazing week I love you all!(:

--Hermana West