Bolivia Bound

August 12, 2013

 VIVA BOLIVIA!!

Hello everyone! This past week we celebrated Bolivia’s Independence Day, so I figured I could celebrate just a little bit with a subject line.

So... this week! It was a bit of a slow week unfortunately. We’ve been running into some trouble because Hermana Castañeta has back problems, so we’ve been in and out of the mission office and the doctor, which eats up a lot of time. Also, with a new mission president there are a lot of changes, so we’ve been losing some time with meetings and things. But, although we’re losing some time right now with these meetings and things, they will definitely help the work progress in the long run. This week, for instance, we had to travel a decent distance to pick up one of the sister leaders. We were in a trio with her for part of the day to get more contacts because they will be dividing our area, Braniff 1 and Braniff 2, at the end of August. We`ll be getting 40 new missionaries in the mission, and only 3 are leaving so they`re opening up a bunch of new missions. So we`ll have four hermanas in our ward! But, Presidente Willard said there’s a really good chance I’m going to have to train. AAAHHH!!!! Training after six weeks in the mission, when I`m pretty much always lost and live in a constant state of only halfway understanding what people are saying??? But the good news is, if the Lord needs it done, then he will provide a way. That's what I'm learning in a big way here.

But, the work continues to progress! We had a really good turnout for church yesterday. Sunday is seriously the most stressful day of the week because we’re trying so desperately to get all our investigators to church. Yesterday we ran around to pick a bunch of people up. One didn’t want to, one was drunk, and two, Omar and Noelia, weren’t in their house. I was totally disheartened, but especially for Omar and Noelia because in every lesson with them they are sincerely interested and want to progress, but we don’t get to teach them very often because it’s hard to find a time when they are both home, so they’re progressing, but slowly. Anyway, we were walking to church and I was praying, Heavenly Father, please let Omar and Noelia come to church, even if it’s on their own! Please let them remember and come to church! And then we walked into the church building, and who was sitting outside? Noelia!! She thought church was an hour earlier, and when we didn`t pick her up, she walked on her own! Fantastic!! And then Omar showed up a little while later. Turned out he had had to run an errand for the owner of the house where they live. I was so happy to see them there. Miracles do happen!

Just another little highlight of the week... remember Elizabet with the story of the Book of Mormon her dad had when she was little? And how when we went to visit her again, she was out of town but another person who rents a room in the same house, Litsy, met with us? Well, Friday, we went to visit Litsy again, but ANOTHER person who rents a room in the house, Milton, answered the door. He said that Listy wasn’t home. Elizabet? No, not home either, no one else is here except me, he said. Well, we were with a member so we decided to capitalize on this opportunity to teach a man since we normally can’t. We asked if he wanted to hear our message. No, I’m really busy right now, he said. Hna Castañeta said, "We won’t take much of your time, just the time you have for the Lord." He kind of laughed at that and said we could come back later, but he was busy right then. So we started writing down his information, when all the sudden a HUGE gust of wind came and, SLAM! The door shut, and he was locked outside, without a phone, and with no one in the house to open it for him. I guess the Lord decided that if Milton wasn’t going to make time for Him on his own, the Lord was going to take control and MAKE him make time haha. Anyway, so he ended up listening to our message on the Restoration and he was super interested and invited us back this week! So we’ll see what happens there! Who knows, maybe we can baptize all three of the families in that house haha.

And Dad, people treat me pretty normal. Everyone here is super friendly, and the only thing that is different about the way people treat me is that they tend to ignore me and talk only to Hermana Castañeta because they realize that there’s a language barrier. Occasionally I run into people who think the fact that I’m from California is really cool and they have lots of questions, but in general, no. And no, there aren’t a bunch of armed guards like there were in Honduras for Bryan. Our area, at least, is pretty safe. 

Love you all! And guess what? I don’t know why, but we now have an hour and a half for internet time! Is that a change in all the missions, or just ours? If anyone knows I’d love to find out. But anyway, the mission is great, I’m learning a ton and my testimony is growing like crazy. The church is SO true!!!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

And some pictures...hope you like them!

This is an activity of Relief Society. We brought one of our less active members, Lidia, whose son is Marcelo who is one of our investigators with a baptism date. He is the boy in the front.

This is a picture of most of our zone together in the main plaza of Santa Cruz where we tried to go to the museum last Pday. Turns out the museum was closed haha. But instead, we bought ice cream, where I accidentally ordered way more ice cream than I meant to because I didn’t understand the Spanish haha.
 

And finally a picture of my sweet scripture covers.