Bolivia Bound

Come Unto Christ

November 17, 2014

Wow, I feel so grateful to my Heavenly Father this week for the challenges - and the miracles - that He gives me. It has been yet another challenging week for me here in Las Misiones. I feel like I’ve never worked so hard in my whole mission, and yet I’ve never seen so few results - something that has been stressful and frustrating for me. And yet, as I mentioned last week, over and over again I feel the impression that I need this experience to finish my path to become the person the Lord wants me to be.

I mentioned last week that in this time I have been learning to give something extra in my prayers and trust more in God. Well, that feeling just has kept growing. I am coming to love prayers, to treasure my time in communication with my Heavenly Father, and to feel like it really is a conversation - I receive answers, thoughts and ideas, feelings, right there during the prayer. I literally feel like I am learning to talk with Him as I pray. And I am learning to LOVE reading the scriptures so much more than before, I feel like my mind and heart are more and more focused on my Savior and His teachings. And over and over again when I pray, the Spirit guides me in ways that I can improve, but also confirms to me that I need to be calm, that my area is in the Lord’s hands.

We have been finding lots of investigators, but with very few progressing up until now. However, I know that they will progress and that the Lord is in control, because I feel closer to Him than ever before in my life and I trust in Him so much more. It is impossible for me to explain how much I feel like I have changed in these weeks here in Las Misiones, but I am very grateful to the Lord for not giving me the experiences I wanted, but the experiences I needed to become a person that will stay faithful to Him for all of my life.

Now, I don’t want it to sound like we have had no results at all in our area! The good news is that we have seen lots of results in the less actives, and this week had some very special experiences. We have a less active family that will be rescued next week once we finish the lessons and another less active hermana who has now come to church three weeks in a row and, once we finish the lessons, will also be rescued.

Also, I mentioned a few weeks ago an excommunicated hermana that the bishop asked us to work with and how we felt prompted to take her to an interview with the bishop. Well, she told us this week that in her interview, she and the bishop investigated a little bit and learned that she was never actually excommunicated! No one knows exactly why, since she was supposedly excommunicated three years ago, but now the bishop says that instead of having to wait another two years to get rebaptized, she can receive her rights of membership again before the end of the year. We love this hermana deeply and I was so thrilled to hear the news. She is SO excited, she immediately started to change bad habits, repent of sins, is coming to church every week and participating in activities, and giving us referrals right and left (none for our area, but still a good thing haha). I am SO grateful to have been able to participate in this miracle, which probably never would have happened if there had only been elders in the ward.

We also had the sweet experience of visiting a recently rescued hermana in the elders’ area. The bishop asked us to go, and when we went, she told us about a lot of challenges that are making her want to go inactive in the church again. Well, we were able to teach her and start helping her to strengthen her testimony again, and she told us, "I opened up to you two and told you these things because I could feel your spirit. I have only told one other companionship of missionaries about these things in my whole life." I was grateful, once again, for having that sweet privilege to be an instrument in God’s hands to touch someone’s life.

I know that we can all have that same kind of experience and the same kind of influence in the lives of the people around us. I invite you all to look for opportunities to be a blessing in the lives of others, because there truly is nothing sweeter.

I love you all! Have a fantastic week!

Love, Hermana Chelsie Faulk