Grateful In Any Moment

July 28, 2014

Hello Everyone!

It's been yet another good week with lots of lessons learned. We had our ward conference this week and learned very directly from our stake president about the ways we need to improve as a ward, which was important. The good news is that it seems like a lot of our ward leaders are more excited to really push it - excellent because we, too, are motivated.

It was another week with some challenges, but also with lots of miracles. At the end of yesterday, after some pretty disappointing experiences, Hermana Lopez and I were feeling a little sad about what happened, but I learned a lot today in my personal study from the talk from President Uchtdorf from the last general conference. In Spanish it's called "Agradecidos en Cualquier Circunstancia", in English I'm guessing it's something like "Grateful in any circumstances" or something like that. And it talks about how we shouldn't just be grateful FOR things, being grateful should be a way of life, regardless of our circumstances. He also pointed out with a story about a waiter serving bread (read it to understand) that sometimes we only see the negative in the situation instead of recognizing the huge miracles and blessings Heavenly Father has given us in our lives. After reading that talk, I prayed and just thanked Heavenly Father for all the blessings He has given me in my whole life and also this past week, because there were many, just in the difficult moments maybe it's easy to forget. So... read that talk, and be grateful no matter what happens to you in life! :)

As for the miracles... we had the chance to start teaching several new investigators, including Luis and Lidia, both of whom accepted baptism dates and went to church this past week! They are great and sincere, and we believe that they will progress well. :) We also continue preparing Mariana for baptism this or next week... she is great and just very prepared. Hermana Elsa is also progressing well... she came to church for the second time yesterday and we can see that her faith is growing. She is much more open with us about her concerns and doubts, and she is reading the Book of Mormon! She is so great, and I love her and her family SO much. She told us the other day that we have such a strong spirit about us that if she could be around us all the time, she would probably be a Mormon by now. :) Such a sweet, loving woman! And her less active daughter is progressing too, has now gone to two church activities and agreed to meet the bishop, which is HUGE progress for her. :) Other miracles... a guy named Luis called us yesterday out of the blue (a different Luis from the one I just mentioned) and said he is interested in our doctrine and his friend Juan gave him our number. He asked if we could teach him about the church! We're excited - not too often that people call US asking to learn more!

Another sweet experience this week - Dad, you wrote me about true Christian service and it's true, I really think that makes a big difference. A woman stopped us in the street a few days ago and asked us for help. She's not a member of the church and was obviously very emotionally unstable, poor, had no place to go. She recognized us as missionaries, though, and asked us for help. Our bishop is truly an example of a Christian man, I respect him so much. He took the time to talk to her, paid for her to get some food, and found her a free mental institution where she can stay since there is no one to help her. I really admired our bishop, who has a LOT going on right now in his family and in the ward, that he was willing to take the time for one of God's children who really needed it. His example of Christian service was an example to me, and I'm grateful to him.

Well, those are the happy highlights of the week. One of my new goals is to maintain this gratitude as a way of life because I know we always have so much to be grateful for! I love you all! Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Giving It Everything I Have

July 21, 2014

Well, this has been a fantastic learning week! We had interviews this past week with President Willard, which is always a fantastic motivator, course corrector, and fantastic for receiving revelation. We talked a lot about the fact that in mission life, I’m getting old - only have four and a half months to go. As we talked about that, President really pushed me to work harder than ever, keep my mind 100% focused on the mission, and as hermana capacitadora, influence the hermanas in our zone to "lift themselves up to a higher plane." I left that interview feeling even more motivated and excited to push it to the end!!

The interesting thing is that right now, right as Hermana Lopez and I are working harder than ever to improve, things have gotten harder than ever. We are having more challenges than ever in our ward right now. A week ago, I mentioned that a progressing investigator and her son decided to go to a different Christian church and it broke our hearts. This week, the miracle investigator (Marley) from last week who was attending a different ward and showed up out of nowhere with 7 attendances and a baptism date for the 26th, also called us to tell us the same shocking news: she has decided to go to a different Christian church. And then another investigator with a baptism date for the 26th didn’t go to church, and lost her date, and lessons have fallen through right and left, we’ve been losing interested people all over the place... it’s literally been so wild that this happens right as we’re trying to push ourselves more.

We felt a little bit down, but have thought about it a lot and know that this is a test - I thought about how the Lord is actually answering my prayers because He’s giving me a problem so big that I don’t have time to think about anything that’s not the mission - I HAVE to give it everything I have! And Hermana Lopez taught me that every time anything important is about to happen, Satan comes in and tries to stop it - and this is just another example. He is trying to discourage us, but we are just ready to work harder and trust in the Lord more! We know that we need to do something different, especially because we are literally hitting a brick wall as a ward: our ward attendance has been exactly 132 for the past three weeks. I feel strongly that this is not a coincidence: the Lord is trying to tell us that we need to do something DIFFERENT. I think that’s something that happens a lot in life, we want to improve in something, but we keep doing the same things the same way over and over again, expecting different results. That, as President taught us, is the definition of insanity. The prophet has given us instructions to change the way we do missionary work these days, and it’s time to do it! So we’re making some plans to change the way we do things, and we’re working on upping our faith to see more miracles. We prayed yesterday that someone would come to church who wouldn’t normally come since, frankly, we didn’t have anyone who was coming. Well, no investigators came, but three menos activos came to church from our area, two of whom we hadn’t taught and didn’t expect at all. So we know that the Lord is giving us miracles, just not in the way we expect.

I literally feel so excited about missionary work right now, I can’t even explain it. Hermana Lopez and I are totally focused, we were talking about the tough situation our ward is in and the whole mission is in, because the whole mission is still struggling, and Hermana Lopez received some revelation that we then expanded on together, a different way of teaching and a whole different way to look at investigators, which we feel could change the mission. We called President and told him about it because we were so excited, and he totally agreed! He loved the idea and said he’s going to go over it with the assistants and see how we can implement it in the mission. I’m grateful that as Hermana Lopez and I are striving to be better and have more faith, the answers are coming, piece by piece.

I know that the Lord lives and loves us! He guides us, even when it seems like He doesn’t, even when it seems like everything is going wrong, He gives us the experiences we need to grow. I love being a missionary! Sorry this letter is so long, I’m just so excited about missionary work and facing all these challenges we’ve got in the ward, the stake, with our hermanas, in the whole mission... it’s exciting. :)

Love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Fall down and worship Him

July 14, 2014

Well, as always we’re working hard here in Paraiso and the Lord continues to bless us with miracles. It was a rough week in some ways - we lost a few fantastic investigators that we were excited about, and that was sad for us. It was especially hard when we went to visit one investigator, Adriana, who had gone to church with her son three times and had a baptism date for the 26th. We had been working with her a lot and could see her faith growing. I don’t exactly know why, but I felt a special love for her, even more than for most investigators. But we went by with a member a few days ago and she explained to us that she had decided to go back to her old church and asked us not to come by anymore. It was heartbreaking; Hermana Lopez and I both cried because we loved her so much. We talked about it that night and both felt that the Lord wanted us to understand better how He feels when we choose to walk away from Him. I feel that that’s part of why I really felt something special for Adriana - the Lord wanted to teach me a powerful lesson. Hermana Lopez and I talked about how hard it must be when our Heavenly Father sends one of His children down to earth knowing full well, with His infinite knowledge, that that child will not make it back to the Celestial Kingdom, will not live with Him again. It must be an absolutely heartbreaking feeling, and He knows it from the first moment that He sends that child down to Earth. I never want to break my Heavenly Father’s heart like that. I want to live worthy to be with Him again after this life.

But like I said, even with the challenges, the Lord is definitely blessing us. We have had several miracles with investigators and less actives this week: we were able to rescue an hermana, Ana, and bring her back to activity in the church. Apart from that, we received several golden referrals of investigators that were learning about the church and attending in other wards, but now live here. Both of these hermanas have baptism dates for the 26th and are progressing well! We also saw a miracle with our ward mission leader. He was less than excited about his calling, but now has suddenly changed - he accompanied us to a cita for the first time, he gave us referencias for the first time, agreed to pick up a less active member, was punctual to correlacion for the first time... he has totally changed, and it’s a miracle! I know this is key to helping us work better with the ward, which is a goal Hermana Lopez and I have. We’re visiting the members more and trying to strengthen them, and working on a great activity of the obra misional to strengthen the ward.

A long time ago on my mission, I put the goal to read all of Doctrine and Covenants and the New Testament in Spanish, together with my continual reading of the Book of Mormon. I just finished Doctrine and Covenants the other day and today had the opportunity to start the New Testament, and I LOVE it. I love reading about Jesus Christ’s life; there are so many lessons to learn from His teachings and also from the way people act around him. I really like Matthew 2:10-11: When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshipped him; and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh." I love the story of the three kings in these scriptures. We remember that they had traveled an enormous distance once they saw the star in the sky, for months or possibly even years (remembering that Herod killed everyone under two years old; Jesus was not a newborn), and then they proceeded to rejoice, fall down at the Christ child’s feet, and worship Him. They presented unto Him the best gifts they had. Do we treat Christ that way? Are we willing to sacrifice time, energy, money, to make the long journey unto Him and really know Him? And once we have come to know Him through our own personal journey, are we willing to fall down and worship Him unconditionally, giving Him the best gift we have, which is our heart? I invite you all to reflect on this scripture in your own life. Where are each of us in this journey? Do we really love Christ?

I love you all! Have a fantastic week!!!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

 

Be all that the Lord knows you can be

July 7, 2014

Well once again, it’s been a great week! This week really has been fantastic and we have definitely seen miracles. We were in Santa Cruz all of Monday and Tuesday for consejo de lideres and then a meeting with Elder Oceda of the Seventy to talk about the work of salvation, which was incredible. And the really incredible thing is that despite the fact that we lost two days of proselyting time in Santa Cruz, we saw more progress in five days than in any other week in my time here in Paraiso. People are making progress to come unto Christ and I just love it. :)

We are working with several fantastic less actives, one of whom will be officially rescued next week, which means she is officially going to be active in the church! Another, Mauricio, is a returned missionary who quit going to church several years ago. When we taught him on Saturday I was really touched because he got emotional and thanked us profusely for helping him come unto Christ again; he said that before us, he never even wanted to talk with the missionaries but we have helped him rearrange his priorities and understand that he is missing some huge things in his life. He also said that he wanted us to teach one of his friends because he could feel the Spirit with us and knew that we would be able to teach his friend well. :) It is an honor to know that because we are trying our best, the Lord is with us and people can feel it, and that they trust us with their friends. I’m really excited to see the progress with Mauricio. We also had another menos activa, Pilar, come to church in the first time for a long time. I can’t even explain how much I love it, and I just LOVE teaching menos activos. Seeing them remember and come back to the things they knew before is such a touching experience!

We also have seen so miracles with investigators. Adriana and her son Angel are still progressing and have now gone to church on their own twice, and have a baptism date for the 26th. Cristina and Grover, a family, have traveled this week so they couldn’t go to church, but also both have baptism dates and we can see their faith growing. We are working with a great part-member family; the mom, Elsa, went to church and accepted a baptism date yesterday. The daughter who is a member, Daniela, is getting excited to go back to church, and the other kids, while they are less interested, are changing and we can see that their interest is growing as their mom’s interest grows. And we had another miracle with a golden referral from a fantastic missionary member who brought a friend to church, Mariana. We taught Mariana after church and she also accepted a baptism date for the 26th! She has been surrounded by the church most of her life and already knows that it’s true, but has never been baptized. She is fantastic!

I know that the Spirit has guided us this week even more than usual, and it’s an incredible feeling. I seriously love how the Spirit guides us. The other day a lesson fell through and we prayed to know where to go. Hermana Lopez looked at me and said, "Gabriela Flores" - surprising name because it was someone we had contacted like two months ago and tried to teach several times and she was never home. Well, we went to her house and to our amazement, she let us in immediately! She was really interested in the message and already knew something about the church, and then gave us a referral for a family in this part of our area where we have few investigators and have been praying to find more people to teach! MIRACLES!!!

I can never say enough how much I love the mission. In consejo de lideres this week we came up with an "Estandarte de la Mision" (like, Title of the Mission, or Standard of the Mission, or something?) - basically like the Title of Liberty from the Book of Mormon, but announcing our standards as a mission, and then we were asked to make a personal one. I got the chance to reflect upon the most important things to me in the mission and what is most important in my personal conversion. For me, my personal goal is to become all that the Lord knows I can be. I don’t want to fall short of my personal potential or fail to become what the Lord needs me to be, not just for the mission, but for my whole life. I’m just loving the mission and excited to keep working here!

Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Another great week :)

June 30, 2014

Well this past week was a joyous week because we had the chance to see one of our fabulous investigators enter the waters of baptism. :) Hermano Esteban has fought for over two months now, with his wife not wanting him to get baptized at first, then losing his baptism date because of an interview for question 4, but on Thursday, he made it. :) He was SO excited and it was wonderful to see the way he has obviously been truly converted to the gospel. It was also a joy to see the way the ward friendshipped him so much and supported him in this process, especially since up till now he’s doing it without much support from his family. His wife, in the end, agreed that he could get baptized, but no one in his family attended the baptism. It was sad and hard for him, but he is firm in the gospel. He also gave us the referencia to teach two of his adult children, so we are excited to do that and, of course, to keep working with his wife and see if her heart softens with time.

In other news, we can see how the Lord continues to bless us in this area. We have been working with a less active member, Daniela, for about a month now and have recently started to see progress in her conversion, and this week we got the chance to teach the rest of her family, who aren’t members. The Lord has truly blessed us here with a prepared family - the mom is looking for something more in her life, and her children are willing to follow the mom’s lead and learn more. It’s exciting! We also continue to work with another couple of investigator families that we have found, investigators we lost when they closed the university but that we now have again because the university is open again, and lots of menos activos.

It has been inspiring to see the way the Lord is opening the hearts of many menos activos in this area and preparing them to come back to church... in the next few weeks, I know we’ll have more rescatados. An especially exciting moment was when we could do service for a huge family, la familia Solano, with lots of menos activos and some nonmembers that lives in our area. The majority have been menos activos almost their whole lives, but one invited us to help clean their house, and we are seeing changes in the family. We have been able to teach some of them, others who used to be unfriendly to us now wave and talk to us when we see them. We really feel like the Lord is preparing this family to come back to the gospel. And yet another menos activo, Mauricio, is also making great progress. He is a returned missionary and so it’s really exciting to see him come back, because he has a testimony and knows that he isn’t keeping the covenants he made. We committed him to an interview with the bishop to renew his temple recommend! I am just so grateful to be in this ward and see the Lord’s miracles here!

Well, this week’s going to be a great week too for us, partly because we are teaching lots of fantastic people and also partly because it’s yet again time for consejo de lideres! In about two hours I’ll be in a plane once again to Santa Cruz for a fantastic consejo with President Willard Monday night and Tuesday morning, and this time will be extra special because normally we go back to Tarija Tuesday afternoon, but this time we will stay in Santa Cruz until Wednesday because Elder Ojeda of the Seventy will come to talk to the mission leaders. Should be a great experience!

I love you all! Have a fantastic week! I’m going to try to send a picture of the baptism with Esteban too, and you can all finally see pictures of Hermana Lopez too haha.

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Here is a picture of me and Hermana Lopez with Esteban and the hermano who baptized Esteban, Hermano Roberth. Hermano Roberth is on the left of the picture and Hermano Esteban is next to me. Love you all!