June 25, 2013

This week was another good week. The time
seems to go by faster all the time, and its hard to believe I'm already
almost halfway done with my time in the CCM! We had some pretty cool
experiences this week. The biggest one was that Hermana Wursten and I
got the chance to teach in the TRC, which is basically just teaching a
pretend investigator but getting it filmed to watch later, and you
teach them just once instead of over a period of time like with our
normal progressing investigators. Only for us, it was different...
every once in a while, in the TRC they have actual investigators, and
that's what it was for us! We taught the nonmember friend of one of our
maestra's. Her name was Maria, and the whole experience was incredible.
She is a Catholic and has a lot of faith, so we decided to talk to her
about the Restoration so she would understand why a new church is
necessary, since she already believes that God loves her and
everything like that. The lesson was a little difficult because she
speaks a lot faster than our teachers, and she didn't understand things
as easily as our teachers do, but that makes a lot of sense and was a
lot more real. But the coolest part was what Hermana Elizabeth told us
after. She said that even though Maria didn't understand everything we
told her, she felt the Spirit pretty strongly and felt very confident
that what we said was true. It was incredible to hear that, and she is
going to be taking real lessons from missionaries in the field! I'm so
excited for her. That was really the biggest news of the week, but
other than that, life in the CCM is still great!

 As far as we know, all eight of us going to Santa Cruz are actually going to Santa
Cruz and not Santa Cruz north. Hermana Wursten is part of
that group. Hopefully that's actually the way it turns out!  

We have new roommates this week. There are only two of them, and they are both
English speaking instead of Latino, which is too bad because having Latino
roommates helps a lot with the Spanish, but they are both nice girls,
so its fun to have them with us. Oh, and did you guys get to watch the
Worldwide Training thing from the church? It was SO COOL! And they had
a ward from Peru represented, so that was so much fun. But really, as
they were announcing some changes to the way missionary work is going
to be run, and as they were really emphasizing the important role that
members have in missionary work, I felt like it was all just so
inspiring. The Spirit was so strong, and I know that this work is
truly the work of the Lord, and it is progressing quickly as He is
pushing a great wave of missionary work, not only with full time
missionaries, but also with members. So join in this work! Find people
for the missionaries to teach! Catch the wave, as Russell M. Nelson
likes to say.  

Elder Christofferson is coming to Lima this
weekend! He will actually be in the church building right next to us
helping with the creation of the 100th stake in Peru, but
unfortunately he wont be coming to the CCM. Apparently his schedule
is just too busy. What a shame.

Love you all!

June 18, 2013

To answer Dads questions, first off, no we don't have any culture classes. I guess being in the CCM with so many Latinos teaches us a fair amount about the culture as it is, and i got to know a few Bolivians which was nice. Although since the Latinos are only at the CCM for two weeks, the whole batch of them, along with the oldest batch of norteamericano missionaries, just left today. And get this... the next batch of missionaries is unheard of. We will have, instead of about 70 percent Latino and 30 percent white, we will have 59 new norteamericanos coming in, 44 of which are sisters, and then only 30 Latinos here total. That's nuts and its really a shame to be honest, because I would much prefer to have more Latinos. They are super friendly and way helpful with the Spanish. Yesterday was kind of a sad day losing all of them, especially our roommates. there are six of us to a room, and along with Hna Wursten and I there were three Latinas and a girl who is from America but speaks Spanish fluently, so they all left. They were SO sweet and fun and we had a great time together, so it was a shame to watch them go, but I'm going to try to attach a picture! PS, right now there is a fairly impressive, long earthquake going on. Awesome, ground has been shaking for like 40 seconds now and its still going.

In my district, the four elders and then me and three other sisters are going to Santa Cruz. the others are going to Guacil south, Ecuador. I'm glad about who is going to Bolivia with us because they're all super great, though Ill be a bit sad to lose some friends in Ecuador. Its crazy how fast our district became super tight, really even after just one week. After six weeks, it will definitely be rough to split up.

OK, so this whole past week has been awesome. I feel like Ive learned so much more about how to be an effective missionary. hna wursten and I were teaching lessons and felt like we were doing a pretty good job at explaining things, but we weren't having a whole ton of success with our progressing investigator, Alberto. He was still meeting with us, but we just didn't seem to be getting through to him. Then we taught his girlfriend that he lives with for a day, and she told us that she didn't want to meet with us again because it just didn't interest her. Well, that was rough to hear, especially since shes actually a teacher and so its not like you can get turned down just because the investigator isn't ready, its because the teacher felt like you didn't do a good enough job. So we really took a hard look at what wasn't quite working with our teaching approach, and we realized we weren't doing a very good job of really connecting with the investigator, really asking them questions about their lives and making our lessons personal to them. So that was something I really tried to work on this week, and it was awesome how much of a difference it made when we next taught Alberto! We taught him again yesterday, and we FINALLY made a real breakthrough by asking some questions that were definitely inspired by the Spirit. He said he has a few questions about baptism before he agrees to get baptized, but we will answer those next time and then try again to commit him to baptism. I'm definitely learning more about humility here at the CCM. It was frustrating for me at first to be the only companionship out of the three teaching Alberto that hadn't committed him to baptism yet, but I'm coming to realize that this is all about doing the best we can, relying on the Lord, and being the best teachers that we can be.

Also, something that was really cool was proselyting on Saturday. Hna Wursten and I went out with a teacher from the CCM. They always either do that or do splits so a white person is with a Latino. Anyway, we went like an hour from the CCM in a bus to a pretty poor area of Peru, and then we we walked around for like three hours and knocked on doors and talked to people! It was fantastic, such a cool experience. Unfortunately we didn't speak much Spanish, and the teacher kind of took over for us instead of letting us do much of the teaching, but next time we will be better about being more bold. The people here are SUPER friendly, I just love it. They all let us talk to them, and we ended up getting nine referrals for the missionaries in the area. At one house, they actually let us in and we taught the first lesson, and I actually did just a tiny bit of the teaching. I explained prayer and how it is communication with God, and I explained a little bit about the restoration. Also there was another really cool experience, when we were just walking along knocking on doors, we walked past these stairs up to a second story house and I had this sudden thought, we need to knock on that door. So I said something, and up we went, and knocked on the door. Turns out the man who answered is a theologian and knows a lot about all religions, including ours, but he doesn't have a specific religion. Well, he was super interested in what we had to say and really seemed like he wanted to learn more about the spiritual side of the gospel, not just the factual side that he already knew. I really felt like that was the Spirit guiding us to that house, because he really seemed enthusiastic about the gospel. I wish I could find out about how these people that we talked to turn out! And over and over while we were talking to people, I could just feel so strongly the love of God for them. I know that He knows all of his children all over the world, including in random poor towns in Peru.

Well, Ill try sending some pictures now. Hopefully it works! One is of me and Hna Wursten at the CCM, one is of all my roommates, one is of my whole district at the Lima temple, and one is of me and two other sisters in the district, all coordinating our outfits. the church is true and I love it!!!

June 11, 2013

I LOVE the CCM. The schedule is demanding and we are way too busy to have time to get everything done that they expect of us. They have every minute of every day scheduled, and yet they also somehow expect us to do things in our free time... haha what free time? Not too sure, since even Pday is super scheduled. -But that's okay, because everything is totally fantastic. So, a bit about how things are going here. I have a companion, Hma. Wursten, and she is so great. she came a day late since she was actually on the flight that I was originally scheduled to be on... looks like they made the same mistake with her that they made with me, only they didn't catch it with her. She is super kind and easy to get along with, and we work really well together. She is fun and helps me to get along really well with my district, because knowing me, with a different kind of companion I could turn into a boring, just follow the rules and study the scriptures in the little free time we have, type of person. She keeps me focused on the fact that building relationships is important too, along with following the rules and studying the scriptures. Our daily schedule is pretty hectic, like I said. We're up at 6:30 and then we have breakfast at 7, exercise from 7:30 to 8:30, classes and studying starting at 9 and going til 12:30 for lunch which goes til 1:15, then classes and studying from 1:15 to 6:30, dinner til 7:15, classes, meeting,studying til 9, companion planning til 9:20, then time to get ready for bed and have quiet dignity from 10:15 to 10:30. We have started getting into teaching our first investigator, Alberto. Its really cool, because even though its just practice, the Spirit really is there guiding our lessons. Hma. Wursten and I had an original lesson plan, then we both prayed and did individual study for a bit thinking about what we should teach him, and I had this thought that we should change our approach. I was worried about having to tell her that I wanted to change her plan, but then when we started talking, she had had the exact same idea. totally inspiration, because when we actually taught him yesterday, he told us afterward that we were the best companionship teaching experience of the group since we really made the lesson personal to him. That was all the spirit. Awesome. The Spirit here is so strong! We are just always happy and things are always so cool. On Sunday, which they try to keep a day of mostly English so we can just focus on the spirit instead of focusing on understanding the language, we watched the Joseph Smith prophet of the restoration video as a district, and even though Ive seen that movie a bunch, it was SO powerful. Most of the girls in our district were crying. It just reminded us so strongly that Joseph Smith truly was a prophet and he did SO much to change the world with his courage, conviction, and dedication to the Gospel.

A little about my district... its made up of 15 people, one of the biggest districts they have ever had here. there are 11 girls and four boys and everyone is amazed at how many hermanas are serving missions! Everyone is super great and pleasant, and we range the full gamut of experiences, from 18 year old elders to one hermana who is 27 years old and called as a missionary nurse in Ecuador. We and two other districts are norteamericanos, and we make up a branch. Then there are two Spanish branches of Latinos. All the Latinos are super helpful with the Spanish, and they're so friendly! they think were hilarious of course, since we try to talk to them in our totally broken Spanish and say all kinds of strange things (I said I was pregnant, my companion said some cuss word by accident, and we just generally make a fool of ourselves every day) but its getting better. we try to sit with them and talk to them at every meal (which, by the way, is usually great. the food is really good, except breakfast which is never good) so that we can improve our Spanish and get experience talking to natives. Its fantastic.

We went to the temple today for Pday! It was so cool to get to go to another temple. The Celestial Room was absolutely beautiful and it was inspiring to be reminded that the gospel is the same in every nation and in every language. After going to the temple, we got to explore Lima for just a little bit and go to a few stores. I bought my nice Spanish scriptures and will have to get a cool case for them soon. We spent the rest of our pday not really relaxing or anything, just doing our laundry and planning a second lesson for Alberto tonight, then emailing, then we will go and spend the evening studying and teaching our lesson. And that's really it! Its so so great though.

The mission is wonderful and I'm SO glad to be here. The gospel is true and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world right now!!!

June 6, 2013

They gave us a few minutes to write our families. We got into Lima around 12:30 am and didn't get to the CCM until somewhere around 3:30 in the morning! Naturally, my mind was racing so fast that I didn't fall asleep until after 5 am, but luckily we were allowed to sleep in until 9 this morning. Yay! Then it was time for a quick breakfast and getting our pictures taken, filling out forms, and getting our nametags! I don't have a companion yet, which seems sort of odd, but she hasn't yet arrived so I'm sort of piggybacking on other companionships right now.

 

I haven't seen much of the CCM yet, but it seems really cool! My Spanish is lousy, but at least I can sort of understand some of the things the natives are saying, haha. I'm excited to get to be here!

A Friend Found Me at the Dallas Airport

As I was on the way to the CCM in Peru, I had a layover in Dallas. My roommate, Rachel, drove to the Dallas/Fort Worth airport on the off chance that she might be able to get past security to see me. Luckily, she was able to explain to the American Airlines employees that we are both missionaries (she leaves August 28th for Tokyo, Japan) and that this would be the last time we would get to see each other for 18 months. Although it's not normal protocol, they gave her a security pass to come see me! We were thrilled to see each other!

Jeanette's Baptism

The day before I left, I was lucky enough to be able to attend the baptism of my friend Jeanette. What a great way to start my mission!

My contact information!!!!

Alright everyone, this is it! In just a few hours I'll be set apart as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I won't be able to use Facebook or the phone for the next 18 months.

I would love to hear from everyone!! :) The best ways to contact me are by emailing me at chelsie.faulk@myldsmail.net, and using www.dearelder.com, a website that will send your letters for free (and definitely get them to me!). For the first six weeks, send them to the Lima Peru MTC, and then send them to the Bolivia Santa Cruz mission!

Normal mail isn't very reliable in Bolivia, but if you want to try sending a letter, here are the addresses:

For the first six weeks:
Sister Chelsie Rae Faulk
Bolivia Santa Cruz Mission
Peru Missionary Training Center
Centro de Capacitacion Missional
Av. Melgarejo 159, Urb. Campo
Verde, La Molina, Lima 12
PERU

After mid-July:
Sister Chelsie Rae Faulk
Bolivia Santa Cruz Mission
Casilla de Correo 2042
Zona Central
Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz
Bolivia

Packages:
Sister Chelsie Rae Faulk
Bolivia Santa Cruz Mission
C/ Saavedra esp. Cochabamba
Torres Cainco, Blq Empresarial, Piso 9
Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz
Bolivia

Thank you to my friends and family for all your love and support. I know the church is true, and I love you! See you in 18 months!!