The Miracles Keep Coming!

February 17, 2014

Well, hello everyone!  This has been a great week where, once again, we have been able to see the Lord’s hand working miracles in the lives of our investigators. This past week we have seen several miracles with one family in particular. We have been working for about a month now with a huge family, that in reality is several smaller families.  Like, it is a mom and a dad, and their five adult children who live there and are almost all married with kids. They were a referencia from the bishop.  

We started with one of the daughters, Wilma, a single mother, and her daughter. Little by little we have added family members as more and more people sit in on the lessons, to the point that we have too many people in the lessons to manage them and have had to split them up and assign different times to visit different people. Now, we are especially working with Wilma and her daughter still, and then with her sister Marisol and the family of Marisol - her husband Roger and their four children, two of whom are baptism-age.

From the beginning, we have invited them to baptism, but they said no.  However, we felt that they sincerely wanted to know the truth and that they would progress, so we stuck with them. This past Monday, however, was a huge break-through moment. The bishop invited everyone in this family to his house for a Family Night. We couldn’t go, we had another lesson, but the next day we heard from this family that the Family Night was fantastic - some family members had cried because they felt the Spirit, and Wilma finally told us that she knows that this message is true.  Now, she still hasn’t wanted to accept a baptism date, but we’re going to work on that in our lesson with her tonight. :)

Then we had the chance for the first time to have a real lesson with Roger, the husband of Marisol, for the first time this week. He understood the Restoration quickly and asked to have a Book of Mormon, a pamphlet of Joseph Smith history, and the Restoration pamphlet to study more thoroughly, and then promised to go to church the next day. We were thrilled, but saddened the next morning when he called and said their son was sick the night before and they wouldn’t be able to go. Wilma came for the second time with her daughter, and we were at least excited about that, but then we had another miracle - just at the end of sacrament meeting, Marisol, Roger, and their four children came!  They waited a little bit since their son was sick, but they came for the second and third hours, and were very attentive in church.

We have been so thrilled to see the miracles with this family, and we know we’re going to see more as we keep praying for them and keep visiting them, not just these two parts of the family, but also the other people who live here - there are tons in this family, including some less-active members, and one who almost got baptized years ago!  It is truly a miracle to see the changes, little by little, in this family as they feel the influence of the Spirit in their home – including that they automatically get on their knees to pray at the beginning and at the end of every lesson, and they want to share the gospel with other people. It is incredible to see, and I know that it is thanks to working under the influence of a bishop with keys. I know these are familias de oro for March, and I’m so excited to see them enter the
waters of baptism!
Well, what other news is there? We had cambios (transfers I think is the word? I always forget) this past week, and I obviously stayed in La Colorada with Hermana Hincapie one transfer more. :) I’m really excited and grateful for that. And my mission family is growing rapidly! Hermana Lopez, my first hija, left for Tarija, another city, to train another hermana, so I now have two hijas and two nietas in the mission. With such a big family, I’m starting to feel old - especially since there are only three  hermanas out of 51 in the entire mission that have more time than me. And I’m not even halfway done!  Ha, mission life is crazy, but I love it :)
Love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Santa Cruz de Los Milagros!!!

February 10, 2014

Well, this week Hermana Hincapie and I had a wonderful opportunity to see miracles in the lives of our investigators. I can truly say I know that this mission really is Santa Cruz de los Milagros.

We have an investigator, Micaela, with whom we have seen lots of miracles from the first time we met her, and this week was even more incredible than normal. It all started about two months ago in Braniff when I first met her with Hermana Lopez. She told us that she lived in La Colorada, so we passed the referral to the offices to pass on to La Colorada. However, when I got to La Colorada, they had never received the referral. That was the first miracle, that if the Lord hadn’t sent me to La Colorada, no one would have known about her referral. Then, we started to teach her and she started to progress rapidly. Because she’s had to travel a lot this past month, it has been hard to teach her frequently, but every time we do, she expresses her desire to get baptized, she prays, she reads her Book of Mormon, and she’s just fantastic.

Well, last Monday we found her again for the first time in a long time since she had been traveling, and wanted to visit her, so we invited her on what we thought was just a whim to a family night that we had in a members’ house that night.  We picked her up later that night to go to the house, and when we were there, her two-year-old daughter started to throw up, several times. Micaela was really worried, especially because her daughter had diahrea for two days before that. Well, the Lord always knows what He is doing - the hermana we were visiting, Maria, was a nurse, and explained to Micaela that this situation was urgent, that she needed to buy medicine right away, and told her what medicine was necessary.

We left with Micaela to go to the pharmacy when Maria ran out of her house and gave Micaela money, saying "I just felt like I had to give you this to buy the medicine." Micaela started to cry and later told us that she had no money at all to buy the medicine, which was why she hadn’t done anything about it up till now. Then we went to the pharmacy, but the pharmacist told us she was sorry, but she couldn’t give medicine for a baby without a prescription from a doctor. We felt defeated for a moment, when another woman, Flor, who "just happened" to be in the pharmacy said, "I work with a pediatrician that lives three blocks from here. She’ll help you now for free if you say you’re a friend of Flor." So Flor took us to see the doctor, who attended us even though it was late at night, and the pharmacist agreed to stay open and wait for Micaela to come back.

We were amazed to see so many miracles in one night - that the Lord guided us to plan a family night in the home of a nurse, then invite Micaela to this home, then that He guided the nurse to give Micaela money, then that Flor was in the pharmacy at that exact moment, the pediatrician lived three blocks away, AND that the pharmacist agreed to stay open. Thanks to this incredible series of miracles, the Lord saved the life of Micaela’s baby. (And we were able to contact Flor to teach her!) We went home that night incredibly grateful for the chance to see the hand of the Lord so clearly in Micaela’s life.

But that still wasn’t the end! Micaela has been looking for work for a long time, and she was excited about a job she found in Hipermaxi, the supermarket of Santa Cruz. But the problem was that she would have to work Sundays.  We went to talk to her about Dia de Reposo (Sabbath Day) on Friday, and she has a lot of faith - she said if she had to work Sundays, she would reject the job offer because she knows that the Lord will bless her for her obedience. Well, we started to pray that Micaela would be able to find work. The next day, we went to make copies and the women attending there told us that she was a member of another ward, that she was looking for someone in this area that wants to work in her Internet - and since she’s a member, they wouldn’t have to work Sundays! We were thrilled, told her about Micaela, and passed the information on to her. We’ll see what ended up happening with that, I’m not sure, but what I do know is that the Lord definitely loves Micaela.

All in all, I am so grateful to see how the Lord truly does work alongside us, like the scripture in Jacob 5:72 says. I know that the Lord is doing everything He can to help Micaela progress, just like we are. He has all the power in the end, to solve problems that seem unsolvable and to help us in every aspect of the work. But I know that this doesn’t just apply to missionary work. Heavenly Father wants to give all of us the miracles we need, big or small, to help us get through the trials in our lives.  We just need to have the faith sufficient to believe that He WILL help us, like the faith Micaela had to reject a good job offer to follow Christ. I love being a missionary!

Okay, so let me explain the pictures a little bit. We have two here.  This one is of our baptism Saturday - us with Anair, who got baptized, and her mom and her little sister. We are very excited because we have been teaching Anair for about a month now, and she’s gone to church for a good amount of time, but we’ve never been able to find and teach her parents. They are literally never home, except for ONE time late at night when we didn’t have time to teach, only to get the baptism permission slip signed. Well, we were excited when Anair told us her mom wanted to attend the baptism - it gave us the chance to contact her! We talked to her a lot, and she agreed to let us come by yesterday, Sunday. Well, yesterday we not only talked to her, but also her husband, and they were great! They both said they want to go to church this Sunday and invited us back to teach them more. Yay for the chance to teach families!!!

The second is of our house. I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that we have found all kinds of crazy animals, including ENORMOUS snails, outside in our patio. Well, we had a new crazy this week. We were studying calmly when Hermana Hincapie freaked out and pointing at our ceiling. Well... you can see what we found! An even more enormous snail, climbing up our wall! Hahaha we couldn’t even believe it. So that’s a little taste of Bolivia for ya.

Love you all! Have a wonderful, miracle-filled week!!!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

The Power of Fasting!

February 3, 2014

Hello everyone!

Well, it looks like fasting has been great for everyone this past week - thanks to a state-wide fast, California has rain, and thanks to my fast with Hermana Hincapie, Aline Ligeron got baptized. :) Aline was one of our investigators planning on getting baptized Saturday, February 1, but her family is very anti-Mormon and she was really questioning her decision. Worse still, we weren’t able to get ahold of her because she traveled for a week and wouldn’t answer her phone. So, we decided to do the only other thing we could do: fast. So last week, we fasted, and to our amazement, we were able to talk to her a few days later and she said that after talking to her uncle, who is a member, she was 100% sure of her decision, wanted to get baptized, and she’s planning to go on a mission in a year!!! We were thrilled and it was a pleasure to watch her enter the waters of baptism two days ago, and get confirmed yesterday. I love the power of this gospel!

Then, for Fast Sunday yesterday, we fasted for another investigator, Wilma, who is fantastic, but who has had a hard time going to church. I think I talked about her last week - she had a dream 15 years ago about the Cochabamba temple and feels like she needs to find the right path to Christ, she’s reading her Book of Mormon, she prayed and asked if Joseph Smith was a prophet... she’s great. But, she’s had a hard time coming to church! So, we fasted, and were excited when we called and she said she was on her way, but then we were saddened when, an hour into sacrament meeting, she hadn’t showed up. But, with about five minutes left of sacrament, she came in! And not only her - she brought her 11-year-old daughter, and her brother and his son, who we have never taught! They stayed for the rest of the church, and at the end, she said she would definitely be coming back. I love the power of fasting. :)

Well, just some fun news about what Bolivia’s like now, because I’m sure Dad’s dying to know - it’s supposedly summer here where it’s supposed to be SUPER hot, but it’s actually been pretty moderate, sometimes even cold. I even have to cover myself with a light blanket now to sleep sometimes! And it’s also the rainy season - it has sure been super rainy. It’s super crazy because it can be clear, not a cloud in the sky, and five minutes later it’s POURING and we’re soaked instantly. It pours for like 15 minutes, and then is clear again, ha. Bolivia is nuts and I love it.

Well, I’m trying to send pictures, we’ll see if it works. One is of our baptism with Aline, the other is of Hermana Hincapie and me one of the days when it absolutely poured, this time for about an hour, and we were lost searching for the house of a menos activo and got totally soaked hahaha. And you know what? We never found the house. Ah well, such is life!

Love you all! Have a fantastic week!!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk