Bolivia Bound

Tarija la chura!!

March 31, 2014

Hello everyone!

Well, we had cambios this past week... which means I’m now in la chura Tarija!!! "Churo" is the word they use here in Tarija to say "bonito" or in English, pretty, and it is definitely an accurate description for Tarija. It’s a flight of about an hour from Santa Cruz, the capital of the departamento de Tarija. It’s a small town of 20,000 people, so a big chance from huge Santa Cruz, and it’s GORGEOUS. It’s a much more moderate climate (I actually have to sleep with a blanket!) and it’s a hilly area instead of all flat like Santa Cruz, with tons more trees, mountains all around us, a river in our area... it’s gorgeous. Mom, Dad, someday I know you will want to visit Tarija. It’s like European-style Bolivia. And Dad, you asked for the direction of the house... we live on the street 15 de abril, like two houses in from the street Ramon Rojas. It’s like two blocks from our chapel.

My new ward, Central, is good. We are in the same ward as the zone leaders, which is interesting. The zone leaders have the half of the ward where we live. Then, to get to my area, you have to walk a few blocks, cross a river, and there you are. I am, once again, training and opening an area! My third "hija" (daughter) is Hermana Ence, a gringa! So that’s a new experience for me - not just training and opening an area, but training someone who doesn’t speak Spanish. She’s great, she’s from Hawaii and she just graduated from BYU-Hawaii with a degree in biochemistry, and she’s planning on going to BYU Provo after her mission to get her PhD. Sweet! She’s a hard worker, and even though she doesn’t know Spanish very well, she’s not afraid to contribute to the lessons and talk to everyone. I love it. We’re working hard, and I know we’ll see success here.

It’s been a challenging start to the new area, but I know that challenges just mean that we have the chance to see more miracles. Obviously, training someone who doesn’t speak Spanish is a new challenge for me, but apart from that, the other big challenge is that our area book was far from complete - it had very little information about the people they were teaching, and didn’t even have a map. The ward mission leader doesn’t know very much about our area either and hasn’t shown much enthusiasm for working with hermanas, so that was a little disappointing, too. And finally, we’ve seen that many of the members didn’t like the elders who were here before, and so have been just a little bit antagonistic with us. So basically, we’re starting from scratch. It’s a challenge, but I’m grateful for it. It is forcing me to really stretch myself.

Before, I’ve always had an easy time finding abundant people who were willing to listen to us, which made me pretty lazy about looking for new investigators and maybe kept me from having to rely as fully on the Lord as I should have done. But now, I’m most definitely doing everything I can to push myself more, to follow the Spirit more, to talk to way more people on the street, to offer unplanned service, to ask for more referrals, and to generally work harder. It’s tough, but like I said, I’m grateful for the opportunity. I was a little upset at first with the challenges here, but this morning I was doing my personal study and got to think a lot about why I was put here in this area. I know that the Lord wants me to learn to trust in Him more fully. He wants me to understand, once again, that this work is His work and that I have to trust in Him because I CAN’T do it myself. He also wants me to learn to be patient and know how to stay positive, no matter what happens. I know that we are already finding miracles - we have received lots of referencias for lots of people, including complete families, several of which have gone to church previously.

We also have hermanas from Sociedad de Socorro that are excited to be able to accompany us since they could never accompany the elders before. Also, another miracle is my companion, Hermana Ence. She is great - she doesn’t care about the fact that she doesn’t speak much Spanish, she just goes for it and talks to everyone without fear... including running up to a family that was walking away from us, and starting to talk to them before I had even made it to the family! She never complains, she works hard, and she wants to speak Spanish as much as possible so that she can learn the language. She is definitely a gift from God for this new area.

Anyway, that’s the news for this week! I know if we put our trust in God, He WILL give us the miracles we need to be able to find the families He is preparing to accept this gospel. I love the gospel and I love being a missionary! Thank you all for your love!

Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk