Bolivia Bound

Hola de Bolivia!

Monday, December 9, 2013

Well, hello everyone!! Welcome to another great week in Braniff. :)

This week was, as always, a lot of fun. I love being a missionary!!! We continue working with Leonela, preparing her for her baptism on the 21st when we have a "noche blanca" (or white night) where everyone in the zone baptizes. So far, it looks like for our noche blanca we’ll have somewhere around 10 or 11 baptisms for the zone, so it should be a really incredible experience. I’m pretty stoked. :) Unfortunately, Leonela is traveling for a few weeks, and doesn’t have a phone so it’s pretty tough to contact her, only through her aunt’s phone, which appears to always be turned off. We’re praying hard for her because she has a hard time with the Word of Wisdom, so we’re just praying that she will have the strength, through praying and reading the Book of Mormon, to resist alcohol, especially during this time when we aren’t there to help her. But she’s strong and determined, so I know she’ll be able to do it.

We also had a really sweet experience with a young woman named Naireth. As I’ve mentioned, we’re working a lot more with less actives, trying to activate them, and baptize their non-member friends, family, and, in a lot of cases, boyfriends and girlfriends. Well, I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that all of Naireth’s family is inactive, and she and her sister are the only nonmembers. Naireth wants to go to church and wants to get baptized, but it’s hard because her family doesn’t support her. They say that they know the church is true and they know that Naireth needs the gospel in her life because she historically has been a little rebellious, but then they make it almost impossible for her to go to church. It makes me so sad for her, and so sad for all of them - they have a lot of problems, and they know the solution, but aren’t willing to follow it. I am DEFINITELY learning a ton about patience from this family. This must be how Jesus Christ feels every time we don’t want to repent when we know we should. It’s tough sometimes, but the good news is that Naireth was able to come to church this Sunday, thanks to our late-night visit Saturday with her active aunt. She was super happy to be there and announced eagerly to the other young women, "My baptism is the 28th of December!" What a pleasure to see her so excited. :)

We also started working this week with several other menos activas and their non-member boyfriends, or in one case, a menos activo and his non-member girlfriend. I love being able to teach nonmembers with less actives. The less actives remember why they joined the church in the first place, the nonmembers get to understand why this gospel is so incredible, and together they push and motivate each other to go to church. I feel quite confident that all of the nonmembers in this group, Denver, David, Carola, and Yimmy, will get baptized, and their respective boyfriends or girlfriends will come back to church. They’re all really motivated, which is great. I think we’ll also be seeing some weddings in Braniff in the near future! :)

And finally, I had another great exchange with another one of my hermanas. She is almost brand new to the mission, only has one transfer under her belt and is already training, so she’s been pretty stressed about that. It was good to be able to proselyte with her for a day, especially since we had an experience together she still hadn’t had up till now - that of an investigator with a baptism date suddenly trying to back out of her baptism. My companion got really nervous and didn’t know what to do, and so I was grateful to be there and be able to teach her a little bit about the importance of using inspired questions to understand the concern of the investigator, and help them come to their own solution. By the end of the lesson, her investigator was back on track for her baptism, which should be this weekend. Yay!! I LOVE getting the chance to not only help investigators, but also other missionaries. It is so fantastic to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord!!!

Love you all!

Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk