Milagros!!!

 Hello everyone!

This week was a GREAT week, for lots of reasons!  First off, it was a great week because of all the progress we had. It started off a little rough, since Tuesday started with a surprise: a sick day due to something bad that I apparently ate! But the good news is that despite that loss of time, we still had a great week!

We are finally starting to see some really solid results with our investigators, which I know is a blessing after a long string of disappointments and people deciding last minute to quit investigating the church. But now, the investigators are progressing and just pouring in.

A family that went to church last week came again yesterday and although they haven't accepted a baptism date yet, they are sincerely interested and excited about the change that the church can bring them.

Another hermana, Elsa, came to church for the fourth time and this time brought her son for the first time! We're excited that, although she won't accept a baptism date yet either, she is also progressing well, reading the Book of Mormon daily and going to church, and now her son is willing to do the same.

Also, we were blessed with a golden referral of an hermano, Gustavo, who read the pamphlet of the Restauracion and said, "I read the pamphlet and I know this is true. I want to be part of this church." He came to church for the first time yesterday and liked it a lot, and is excited to keep coming.

And then an hermano, Luis, moved into our ward after having listened to the missionaries and gone to church for a long time without getting baptized. He just came to church and said, "I want to get baptized now" and so this Saturday he is going to get baptized!

And apart from all of them, we had another hermano, Daniel, come to church for the first time, and a menos activa, Veronica, come for the third time, and a lot of really productive lessons with some really good people. AND we found Mariana! That's the hermana that last week announced that she didn't want to get baptized the day before her baptism. We talked to her and she just cried because she wants to get baptized, but is scared since her parent's don't approve. We are going to start teaching her again so we can build her faith and help her continue to come unto Christ, despite the obstacles. We are excited about all of them, and as I said, I know the Lord is just blessing us like crazy right now. :)

Apart from that, it's been a great week because I have been doing a lot of reflecting as I start coming toward the end of my mission. I can feel that I have fundamentally changed, and I'm SO grateful for the change. I put some goals to really forget about myself in these last few months I have as a missionary, and I can testify that as we forget about ourselves and try to look outward more, we truly find happiness. I know that the Lord's promise, that if we lose our souls for His sake we will find it, is true. I know that this gospel is true and I love it!

Love you all! Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk

 

Buff Boys and Dead Men Can Be Interested In Baptism, Too

 

August 18, 2014

Hello everyone!

It’s been yet another great week here in Paraiso, and definitely another week of learning. It’s interesting how, like I’ve mentioned before, I feel like as I’m trying harder the work is getting harder, but I guess that’s just the Lord’s way of trying me. We had an investigator, Mariana, who was supposed to get baptized this past Saturday. We were very excited for her, but she sent us a text Friday saying that she no longer wanted to do it for family problems. We were shocked and very saddened, especially since this is the fourth time this has happened to us in our time in Paraiso - someone progressing, with a baptism date and lots of chuch attendences, has suddenly out of the blue called us, texted us, or in person told us that they no longer want to receive us and that they’re going back to a different church. I’ve never had this happen so much in my whole mission, and we honestly don’t know why it keeps happening here. But I have faith that the Lord is simply testing our patience and our faith - how are we going to react when bad things happen and we can’t control it? I continue to learn a lot about that and I’m trying to keep applying the lessons I learn to become what the Lord hopes I will become. And we have faith that although Mariana is scared right now, she will come back soon because she had a strong testimony and was very excited. We pray that it is her time.

However, despite that, Hermana Lopez and I are always trying to see the positive, and we know we have been richly blessed this week as we have found many new investigators, and in particular two families that are interested and excited to progress! One of these families came to church yesterday for the first time and loved it, and the other family is going to come to a family night with a member friend tonight, and we’re excited.

The family that came to the church yesterday, la familia Terceros, is excellent. We first met the son when we were looking for a referral and knocked on the wrong door accidentally. This 20 year old kid came out, EXTREMELY buff, and started chatting with us. Well, we invited him to church and he accepted the invitation, but we weren’t too sure if he accepted because he was interested or because we were girls, ha. But just in case, we came back another day looking for him and his mom came out - and she was DEFINITELY interested. We taught her and her daughter, and the two of them are super excited about the church. They came to church yesterday and even invited a friend (or boyfriend?) of the mom, who came and accepted the invitation to listen to us as well! They are a very prepared family, loved church, and I know that they will soon be progressing to the temple, and we’re happy for that. :) The other family, la familia Arnez, is also great.

We had lots of exchanges this week with hermanas in the zone with the intention to help them get more referrals from ward members and work more effectively with their wards, and when we visited one family and asked for referrals, she actually gave us one for la familia Arnez in our ward! Not exactly what we planned to help the hermanas, but we are very grateful and know it is a blessing from the ward. They are the ones that are going to have a family night in our ward tonight, a great family of five with desires to change. I’m so excited for them!

Another blessing this week was that we officially rescued a menos activo we were working with, Jose. He was sustained for a calling yesterday and we’re so proud of him. :)

We have also been really working on putting baptism dates in the first lesson a lot more, even if they don’t always accept them, and we have been working more with our members - we received more referrals than usual, had more lessons with members than usual, and we have a lot of good things happening in the ward.

I know that even when tough things happen in the mission, Heavenly Father still blesses us abundantly and continues to work with us. We just have to put our faith in Him and not get discouraged.

I know this is the work of God and I love being a part of it! I invite you all to participate. Invite your friends to church! Be bold; you’d be surprised how many people are willing to listen if you just invite with courage! Love you all, have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

 And some other random stuff:

Just something fun to show you all... last week we ate lunch with a fantastic family in our ward, la familia Montaño. They are a wonderful family and while we were getting ready to eat, Hermano Montaño pulled out something to show us... his dead father in law that they keep in their house well-preserved. Ha, can you believe it? We were all shocked but loved it! It totally brought me back to my old anatomy-studying days haha. (And pay close attention to the picture they put there with his skull. He wasn't a member of the church when he died, but it sure seems like thanks to the invitation and the temple, now he is!)

 

Father forgive them, for they know not what they do

August 11, 2014

It was another great week, as always. I feel like I always start my emails like that, but it’s true, every week is great in the mission even when they’re tough. This week started out great - we had lots of people accept baptism dates AND we found some new menos activos to work with in our area, who seem really prepared. The menos activa I mentioned last week (Ofelia) is doing well. She’s the one who we didn’t know was a meons activo, but we were given her name as a referral twice and to our surprise turned out she was menos activa! Anyway, we taught her for the first time and it turned out she had been praying to God for some way to have a change in her life - and we showed up. :) Such a testimony to me that Heavenly Father knows His children. So we were excited about her, about another couple of menos activos who were progressing well.

We were also excited about several great, interested investigators who made some breakthroughs - Elsa is reading their Book of Mormon regularly and prayed about Jose Smith for the first time, this fantastic investigator Luis got really excited about the idea of baptism, Victoria prayed for the first time in her life - all great progress. And we had seven people with baptism dates on Saturday going into Sunday. But, to our disappointment, almost none of these people, menos activos or investigators, came to church. In the end, we had two investigators and two menos activos come to church despite our best efforts - calling, picking up, etc. That was really disappointing to me, because we REALLY tried our best to get everyone to church. I sat in sacrament meeting feeling upset and almost angry that we had been trying so hard and very few people came to church, but the Spirit prompted me to pay more attention to the talk our bishop was giving. I started to listen and he was talking about charity and Jesus’s example by saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I started to think about that with respect to our investigators/MAs, and I realized that they don’t really understand what they’re doing when they decide not to go to church - they don’t understand the importance of this to their salvation like we do. It’s not that I should be upset because they fell through on a commitment. I should love them enough to first, pray, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" and then love them enough to teach them the importance of these commitments to their salvation. I feel like that was an important lesson that I keep learning little by little in the mission. I hope that these people progress soon and we can see the fruits of all our efforts, but whatever happens, I’m grateful for the lessons I’m learning here.

I do have some good news though! First off, one of our menos activos, Jose, got an interview with the bishop and is about to get a calling! He’ll be rescued next week and no longer be considered menos activo. :) And also, Mariana is progressing great and excited for her baptism next week. So it’ll be a great week! I know that the Lord is working here in Paraiso and that we are seeing lots of miracles here! Happy to be a missionary! :)

Love, Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Cambios…or not?

HELLO everyone!

Well, several of you have asked what happened with cambios this past week.... I’m still here in Paraiso, and I’m still with Hermana Lopez!!! That means I’ll be here with her for three cambios, more time than I've been with any other companion. :) And I’m so excited! Hermana Lopez and I get along great and we’re having fun and working hard together. Dad, to answer your question, I think that staying in one area for a long time is great. The ward really starts to feel like YOUR ward, you love it, you care about it, and you would do anything for that ward. I feel that way about Paraiso, and I see no down sides on that. President Willard is actually trying an experiment where he’s doing that, leaving the majority of the missionaries in their ward for a long time. In our whole zone, for example, only two missionaries got changed. So we’re applying exactly when Christine’s mission president did. :)

I feel like I’m really learning a lot here in Paraiso. I’m so grateful for the chance to stay here, especially since we've not been having the success we hoped for. Maybe that sounds backwards, but I really feel like there’s still something more I need to contribute to Paraiso before I can leave, something else the Lord needs of me here - with the ward and with the hermanas. Hermana Lopez and I both felt the same way, so we’re both grateful to stay here. We’ve had a few rough days lately, with confirmed lessons with members to accompany us falling through right and left. It’s really been impressive, frankly, how many confirmed lessons have fallen through - more than just chance, I’m sure of it. So I know that Heavenly Father is testing us to see how we respond to discouraging days and a lack of success. It’s interesting, because this is coming right at the moment that Hermana Lopez and I are working harder than ever and both feel like we’re becoming better and better missionaries. But I thought a lot about it, and realized that although I’m trying to be better and better, my perception of things was a little bit negative, thinking more of the bad things that happened in the week than of the blessings I have. After thinking about that a lot, I prayed and asked forgiveness to my Heavenly Father for having that kind of attitude and then tried to talk to Hermana Lopez so that we can both be better on that. I know that the Lord is teaching me an important lesson about staying positive and trusting in Him when despite my best efforts, things don’t go my way. I know that this lesson will bless me now because I can relate better to investigators, menos activos, and the other hermanas in the zone, and also will help me in my future. I’m coming to realize how much I really lack to be a converted servant of the Lord and I’m just really grateful for the opportunity to try again, every day.

Despite the tough moments, the Lord did bless us with miracles. We are teaching an hermana, Mariana, who has wanted to get baptized for weeks now and for various circumstances, we keep having to postpone her baptism. Well, she was supposed to get baptized this coming Saturday but we had to postpone it once again, to her (and our) disappointment. It was a miracle to see her reaction - she was sad, but has enough faith to be willing to wait another week to get baptized when a lot of other people would get discouraged after having their baptism pushed off three times like her. Another miracle was that two less actives who never come to church came to church yesterday! We’re really close to getting two less active returned missionaries rescued, which I am extremely grateful for. :) Also, our converso, Esteban, got a calling yesterday: he is first counselor in the ward Sunday School Presidency! He is a true convert and we are so proud of him :)

And finally, we had a miracle referencia, Ofelia. An investigator gave us her referencia a few weeks ago. We asked the investigator to talk to her, which she did, but Ofelia told her no, so we never went to meet her. Then a few days ago, we asked a menos activa for a referencia and she also gave us the same name, Ofelia. I told Hermana Lopez that this isn’t a coincidence, the Lord wants us to go find Ofelia. So we went yesterday and found her, and turns out she’s a less active member of the church and no one knew! She is married and has two kids and none of them are members, but she wants them to be. We are super excited to work with Ofelia and her family and get them to the temple. :) That was a testimony to me that the Lord knows His children and will do everything to bring them back to Him. I’m thankful for the chance to be a missionary and excited to keep working in Paraiso and with the hermanas in the zone!

Love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

P.S. Trying to finally send some pictures despite the virus risk; I know it’s been a while. 

This one is of us with our fantastic bishop and his wife Marcy, who makes our lunch every day. They are fantastic, like my mission parents, seriously. 

And then this one is with Hermano Mauricio, our beloved less active returned missionary who hasn’t gone to church in YEARS and who is now almost rescued! We are so happy for him :)