Feliz Lunes!

January 13, 2014

Hello everyone, and happy Monday!

Well Mom and Dad, looks like your found the house pretty well on Google Maps, good job, ha. To answer your question Mom, no we’re not in either of the barrios (neighborhoods) you listed (Barrio Los Olivos and Barrio Guaracal), but those are close by, they’re other areas with other missionaries. But those barrios also go to our same church building, so they’re close by. And we’re close to an elementary school, but I don’t know what it’s called. If you can find the Mercado Primavera on Google Maps, Barrio Primavera is close to the 5 anillo, you’re looking at the other edge of our area. In case you want to keep looking, ha. :)

Well, as always, this was a great week! It started off a little crazy, since I had the mission leadership counsel with all the zone leaders and hermana capacitadoras of the mission, which is Monday night and Tuesday from the early morning until early afternoon. We were richly instructed in faith, and what is "faith sufficient" to see miracles in our lives. In 3 Nephi when Jesus comes to the Americas, He says that He sees that they have "faith sufficient to be healed" and He performs many grand miracles there. Do we, in our lives, have faith sufficient to be healed spiritually, to come unto Christ, and to see miracles in our personal lives and in the mission? It left me with a lot to think about and a firm resolve to deepen my faith through more dedicated scripture study, more fervent prayers, and with a desire to work even harder as a missionary.

Then Tuesdsay, Hermana Hincapie, like every missionary here at some point, got sick with a stomach infection, and Wednesday in the morning we were off to the clinic. She’s a trooper though, and kept working as hard as she could despite the stomach pains. She rocks! I seriously love Hermana Hincapie. She has a fantastic attitude, works hard, and we’re very similar in a lot of ways. I love that we can work hard together and she truly has a desire to work hard, and that we can also laugh together LOTS. :)

Well, things here in La Colorada keep going great! We’re getting four people ready for baptisms these next few weeks, and I’m pretty excited about that! It’s wonderful to see that these people have seen real changes in their lives thanks to the things they’re learning, and I love love love having just a small part in helping them find hope and find their way back to the Lord.

We’re also working with TONS of menos activos, and we have definitely seen miracles from the Lord this week with them, which are a testimony to me that the Lord is in this work. For example, we went to visit la familia Laura, where all the familyare members but only one is active. As we visited with them, the Spirit was strong in the lesson and the mom expressed her desire to return to church. Then we started to talk to the girlfriend of one of the sons in the family, who happened to be visiting. Turns out, she is also a member, but hasn’t gone to church in about ten years. All this time she has wanted to go back to church but has been afraid because she has made a lot of mistakes. She started to cry as we talked, and said simply, "This Sunday I’m going to church and I’m going to talk to the bishop." We were thrilled to hear that, and the Spirit testified powerfully that it wasn’t a coincidence that Maggie, the girlfriend was visiting from another part of Santa Cruz in the exact moment that we came by. The Lord is SO aware of His lost sheep and I’m so grateful to have a small part in finding them and bringing them back into the fold. This was just one of several miracles we’ve seen here in La Colorada, and I love it.

As for a little bit of fun news, I got my assignments for what areas I’m "in charge of" as an Hermana Capacitadora, and one of them is Braniff! So in just a few weeks I’ll be headed back there and I’ll be companion with Hermana Lopez for a day. Fun! Also, I don’t know if I told you that last week Naireth from Braniff got baptized. I wasn’t there, obviously, but I’m thrilled for her and Hermana Lopez sent me photos. I’ll try to forward them. Finally, I attached a few photos.

Love you all! Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

  This is me with my family in the mission - my two daughters,

Hermanas Lopez and Hincapie.

 

 

 

Here I am with Hermana Hincapie the first day we met.

 

 

 

And then one of me with a bird that I really liked at an investigator’s house. :)

Greetings from La Colorada!

January 7, 2014

Hello everyone, and officially, Happy New Year! Here I am in my new area... La Colorada, Santa Cruz. I didn’t go too far; Mom and Dad, I know you want to know the specifics of where I am, so I’m between the 5th and 6th anillos, a little further from the center of the city, and our house is in the street Pilcomayo, like three blocks from a major street called Radial 13. The house doesn’t have a number to look it up on Google Maps, sorry haha.

But this new area is WAY different from Braniff. For starters, I’m opening an area. That means that we’re the first missionaries in a new area - originally in this ward, there was one companionship of elders. Now, they split the area of the ward in half and gave half to us and half to the elders, and the four of us are in the ward. We’re the first hermanas in this ward for about 10 years, and we’re the only hermanas in the zone. I feel like I’m infiltrating in the zone a little bit, ha, seeing as how all the elders here are very used to being in a zone of only elders, but they’re great and seem to be very accepting of having hermanas in the zone.

It’s also very different because it’s an area that’s a lot more humble. Braniff was close to the center of the city, so it was all asphalt streets and a lot bigger houses, but here the majority of the streets are dirt and the houses are smaller and more humble. There are other differences too - the streets here don’t really have names a lot of the time, while in Braniff they always did (which is tough because you all know how I am with directions), and they don’t really eat certain foods that I got used to eating in Braniff. Things like cuñape, for example, are apparently food for "rich people."

Another change is that here, NO ONE is married, which is a huge roadblock. There are lots of people here that want to get married and baptized but can’t because although it’s cheap to get married, it’s SUPER expensive and complicated to get a divorce here, and the majority of them are already married to someone but living with someone else. It’s different, but I love it! Our new ward is great. It’s bigger than Braniff, with attendance up around 130 people, and our ward leadership is fantastic. Everyone wants to participate in missionary work, and they’re especially excited to have hermanas here for the first time in so long. The sisters in the ward are way motivated to go out and teach with us, and it’s fantastic.

Also, I have a new companion! Hermana Lopez stayed in Braniff and is going to TRAIN there, so I’m already a grandma in the mission - my first daughter has her own daughter, I can’t believe it! And I’m training again, an hermana named Hermana Hincapie, which is sort of fun because it’s a Spanish word for "emphasis." She is so great. She’s from Colombia, 21 years old, very smart and very happy. She’s always positive about everything, even though I know that the change to mission life has been a little tough in some ways. I’m very excited to work with her because even though she’s new, she already teaches really well and she’s motivated to work.

I love it, and I know we’ll be seeing lots of miracles together. We’ve already seen some - our first day here, we met a woman named Salome that told us she’s been looking for a church and praying to find the right one. She’s not married, but she’s going to introduce us to her husband tomorrow and we’re excited to help them understand the necessity for marriage and baptism together. Another cool miracle - in Braniff, we talked to a girl who wanted to listen to the missionaries but lived in La Colorada, so we passed her name onto La Colorada. And guess who I’m now teaching - the same person! Her name is Mikaela and although she’s a little hesitant about accepting a baptism date, she loves our message and wants to change, and I’m sure she’ll accept baptism soon. We also have two people who are preparing for baptism, who were investigators from the elders before on the brink of accepting baptism dates. We showed up, invited them to baptism, and are now working with them, finishing up the work that the elders did a great job starting. So all in all, I’m loving La Colorada.

Well, I wanted to send pictures, but looks like the computer doesn’t want to be very obedient. So I’ll try again next week. Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Happy New Year! (almost!)

December 30, 2013

Hello everyone, and happy almost new year!

Well, this was a very fun Christmas, especially getting to talk to my family via Skype! It was great to see all of you, and especially fun to see Heather and Clay and the neices and nephew from Bolivia, skyping to California, skyping to Arizona. Loved it! :)

We passed our Christmas well, visiting lots of menos activos with a Christmas message and note - lots of fun. These past few days have been pretty crazy, between Christmas and New Year's, and now we have cambios tomorrow, so we'll see what happens. The leaders are going to call us tonight to let us know where we're going. Presidente Willard told me a few days ago that I was almost 100% sure to be leaving Braniff, so we'll see what happens! I'm going to miss this ward a LOT, and I'm also going to miss Hermana Lopez a lot. It has been such an incredible journey to get to see her grow and change and find her way to loving the mission despite a lot of trials, and it has been wonderful to spend this time in Braniff. I LOVE these people and this ward in a way I can't exactly explain. We got to visit Naireth yesterday again and she is excitedly preparing for her baptism. We keep having to put it off week after week for various reasons, but we FINALLY settled on January 11, when her uncle, who is active in the church, will be here from Spain and will be able to baptize her. She has been a miracle, as we've watched her go from shy and very troubled by past mistakes, and seen her open up to us and feel hope through the message of Christ's Atonement. I'm sad that I probably won't be in Braniff for her baptism, but I'm grateful to have been an instrument in the Lord's hand to help her change.

Well, I really don't have much time today. The mission leaders just called and told us we have to find a new house because they are going to open a second area for hermanas here in Braniff, TOMORROW. So we've got to frantically look for a house today. Haha what stress... but that's okay! With the Lord, we'll figure everything out.

Love you all! Have a great New Year and make lots of goals for the year to keep progressing ever closer to Christ!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Feliz Navidad!

December 23, 2013

Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Wow, this was an interesting week. It was kind of a tough week in some ways, but as always, the Lord gives us trials and He gives us miracles, and we saw some of each.

At the beginning of this week, we had four people with baptism dates scheduled: one, Leonela, for the 21^st, another, Naireth, for the 28^th, (this Saturday), and two for January. Well, we went to talk to Leonela after her long trip away from home to see how she was doing with her preparation for her baptism, and she told us that she’s going to be traveling again the 21^st, and besides that, she fell again in her alcohol habit and she’s not too sure she wants to get baptized. That was a huge disappointment for us, and we left that lesson pretty sad. Then, Naireth’s aunt Cinthia, who is one of my favorite ward members, had an operation and Naireth had to take care of her a lot, so we had to push back her baptism date because she doesn’t have all the lessons. She’ll be getting baptized in January when I won’t be in Braniff anymore. Then, we learned that Scarlet, who had a baptism date for January, isn’t actually married but lives with her boyfriend, who has been traveling for months.  So she has to get married before she gets baptized but we won’t be able to get her married for a long time because her boyfriend is never home. Then finally, our other investigator with a baptism date, Carola, went with us to a baptism in another ward and commented that she didn’t feel the Spirit at all because the ward members were unfriendly. Ouch. Another huge disappointment. So, for those reasons, it was a tough week.

But as always, God gives us trials to help us learn, and something I’ve really seen this week is that even though He gives us trials, He also always gives us little miracles to help us know that He loves us and He is still involved in the work. We just have to be able to recognize the "small" miracles instead of being disappointed about the trials.

Something I was reminded about this week in our Christmas devotional with Presidente Willard is that we are missionaries all the time, and should talk with everyone, even when we aren’t in our area. Hermana Lopez and I talked and made the decision that we’re going to work hard to talk with EVERYONE, especially when we’re traveling on the bus to go different places. And you know what? God helped us see miracles for our efforts!

One of these miracles was with a menos activo that we got to know this past week, Daniel Cordova. He was baptized more than 25 years ago and hasn’t gone to church in about 23 years, but other missionaries found him contacting in the street and passed us the referencia. (A miracle of other missionaries talking with everyone, including outside their area.) Turns out that he has had a really hard time since leaving the church, and really wants to change, especially because he has an alcohol habit. Then, he presented us to his daughter and the mother of his daughter, and it turns out that the mother of his daughter, Kati, is also a menos activa, and wants to come back to church! So the three of them came to church yesterday, and we’ll be working to activate them and baptize their daughter. That was one miracle of other missionaries talking with everyone.

Another miracle happened this Saturday. Hermana Lopez was sick so we had to go to the clinic, but we didn’t want to be there too long because we had a lesson an hour and a half later. On the bus, we decided to talk to a family sitting next to us and we ended up taking down their name to pass on their referencia to the missionaries in their area. When we got to the clinic, the receptionist told us the wait was more than an hour to see a doctor. We were pretty disappointed that we wouldn’t be able to make it to our lesson, which was important. But, to our surprise, 15 minutes later they called Hermana Lopez in way before all the other people waiting. We were able to make it to our cita in time, and we were super grateful. Hermana Lopez and I both feel like that was a miracle that we received thanks to our efforts to be better missionaries and talk with everyone, even if they are people who don’t live in our area.

Well, as always, I just love being a missionary. I love you all and wish you all a Merry Christmas! I invite you all to think hard and remember why we’re really celebrating Christmas, and as you give gifts to everyone around you, think as well about the gift you’re going to give to your Savior, Jesus Christ. I’ve been thinking about that a lot, and I know that the best gift we can give Him this Christmas is our obedience and our love.

Love you all!

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

It’s beginning to look a lot like... oh, wait

December 16, 2013

Nope, it’s NOT beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  We’re currently enjoying a Bolivian summer here in Santa Cruz, and it is HOT. But that’s okay, because despite the killer heat and the killer mosquitoes, here in Braniff we’re feeling the Christmas spirit as we give the Lord the best Christmas gift we can: the offering of our hearts. :) 

This week was a week of miracles. I love being able to see the hand of the Lord in His work. First off, we have our investigator, Leonela, with a baptism date for this Saturday. As I’ve mentioned before, she is 15 years old and really wants to change because she’s fallen in with some bad friends and has made some pretty poor choices.  For the past few months, we’ve been seeing her change a lot, and I know that every change in her is a miracle. However, she traveled with her family to Cotoka for several weeks and we couldn’t get ahold of her. No one ever answered at the two phone numbers we had for her.  We were concerned with her baptism date getting closer and closer that we couldn’t see how she was doing, especially since she had a problem before with the Word of Wisdom. Well, Hermana Lopez and I decided to fast on Friday for her, and we were praying for a miracle. That day, we called one of the phone numbers again, and her aunt finally answered and gave us another number to call Leonela. We got to talk to Leonela finally, which was a miracle in and of itself, and the other miracle was that she has stayed strong with the Word of Wisdom despite the fact that we haven’t talked to her for almost two weeks. Thanks to this experience, I can testify that I know that fasting works, and that the Lord WANTS to bless us with miracles if we have faith that He will.

The miracles with Leonela continued on Sunday.  She told us Saturday that she there was a chance she could come from Cotoka in the morning Sunday for church, but probably not. Well, we prayed hard that she would be able to come, and she called us that morning and said she would come! Then, we were going to pick up someone for church and we passed by Leonela in the street. She was in a spot of trouble with some of her old bad friends, who were drunk, but when they saw us, she was able to get them to leave pretty quickly. I know that the Lord guided us in that moment to help her, because I think it’s likely that if we hadn’t been there, she could have gotten into some serious trouble, or maybe even fallen in the Word of Wisdom again.

We kept seeing miracles Sunday. After several weeks without ward council, we had a ward council meeting, and for the first time our ward mission leader attended.  He gave a powerful presentation about our conversos recientes who have now gone inactive. When he did that, everyone in the ward council really got serious and reflective, and our leaders made the decision that we are going to completely change ward council and follow the guidance of the prophet to talk about people rather than activities and work together to bring about the salvation of many people. It was a complete change, something Hermana Lopez and I had been praying for a lot, and I’m really excited for the progress our ward is going to make in the year to come with this new focus.

Finally, we had another miracle with our investigator Naireth. She, as I have mentioned before, is a granddaughter in a less-active family and almost the only one who goes to church. We have been praying hard for her because she wants to get baptized but her family has been resistant to signing the permission. Well, this week we went by the house a lot, trying to gain the confidence of the grandparents (her legal guardians) and help them remember their testimonies. Then yesterday, we stopped by and talked for a while with her grandpa, and he FINALLY signed the permission slip! We’re now planning Naireth’s baptism for the 27th. I know that the Lord can soften and change hearts, and that this is just another step in reactivating the entire family.

Well, along with all these fantastic experiences, we’re also enjoying ourselves a ton!  

Hermana Lopez and I are getting into the Christmas spirit, and we’ve set up a little mini tree in our apartment, complete with ornaments and the presents Mom and Dad sent us.

We also had a sweet Relief Society activity, and tons of people came, including investigators and less-actives like Jhossely Carvahal, who we have been able to rescue so that she is no longer less active!

And here’s a photo of us with Naneth, who is traveling for Christmas, so this was the last time I think I’ll see her. That was a bitter-sweet moment. I am so grateful to have been an instrument in the hands of the Lord to bring her the gospel. She and her sister Monica are SO special.

Well, that’s my life right now! I can’t even begin to explain how wonderful it is to be a missionary. The time is passing way too fast, and I love every second! Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

And here are some pictures of a zone activity. We ate enormous sandwiches and played futbol and it was fantastic!!

Hola de Bolivia!

Monday, December 9, 2013

Well, hello everyone!! Welcome to another great week in Braniff. :)

This week was, as always, a lot of fun. I love being a missionary!!! We continue working with Leonela, preparing her for her baptism on the 21st when we have a "noche blanca" (or white night) where everyone in the zone baptizes. So far, it looks like for our noche blanca we’ll have somewhere around 10 or 11 baptisms for the zone, so it should be a really incredible experience. I’m pretty stoked. :) Unfortunately, Leonela is traveling for a few weeks, and doesn’t have a phone so it’s pretty tough to contact her, only through her aunt’s phone, which appears to always be turned off. We’re praying hard for her because she has a hard time with the Word of Wisdom, so we’re just praying that she will have the strength, through praying and reading the Book of Mormon, to resist alcohol, especially during this time when we aren’t there to help her. But she’s strong and determined, so I know she’ll be able to do it.

We also had a really sweet experience with a young woman named Naireth. As I’ve mentioned, we’re working a lot more with less actives, trying to activate them, and baptize their non-member friends, family, and, in a lot of cases, boyfriends and girlfriends. Well, I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that all of Naireth’s family is inactive, and she and her sister are the only nonmembers. Naireth wants to go to church and wants to get baptized, but it’s hard because her family doesn’t support her. They say that they know the church is true and they know that Naireth needs the gospel in her life because she historically has been a little rebellious, but then they make it almost impossible for her to go to church. It makes me so sad for her, and so sad for all of them - they have a lot of problems, and they know the solution, but aren’t willing to follow it. I am DEFINITELY learning a ton about patience from this family. This must be how Jesus Christ feels every time we don’t want to repent when we know we should. It’s tough sometimes, but the good news is that Naireth was able to come to church this Sunday, thanks to our late-night visit Saturday with her active aunt. She was super happy to be there and announced eagerly to the other young women, "My baptism is the 28th of December!" What a pleasure to see her so excited. :)

We also started working this week with several other menos activas and their non-member boyfriends, or in one case, a menos activo and his non-member girlfriend. I love being able to teach nonmembers with less actives. The less actives remember why they joined the church in the first place, the nonmembers get to understand why this gospel is so incredible, and together they push and motivate each other to go to church. I feel quite confident that all of the nonmembers in this group, Denver, David, Carola, and Yimmy, will get baptized, and their respective boyfriends or girlfriends will come back to church. They’re all really motivated, which is great. I think we’ll also be seeing some weddings in Braniff in the near future! :)

And finally, I had another great exchange with another one of my hermanas. She is almost brand new to the mission, only has one transfer under her belt and is already training, so she’s been pretty stressed about that. It was good to be able to proselyte with her for a day, especially since we had an experience together she still hadn’t had up till now - that of an investigator with a baptism date suddenly trying to back out of her baptism. My companion got really nervous and didn’t know what to do, and so I was grateful to be there and be able to teach her a little bit about the importance of using inspired questions to understand the concern of the investigator, and help them come to their own solution. By the end of the lesson, her investigator was back on track for her baptism, which should be this weekend. Yay!! I LOVE getting the chance to not only help investigators, but also other missionaries. It is so fantastic to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord!!!

Love you all!

Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Monday, December 2, 2013

Hello everyone!!!!

Well, I’ll just start off by saying, as I probably do every week, that I love being a missionary. I don’t know if it’s possible to say it enough, and as I’m now three days from the six-month mark, I’ve been reflecting on this time as a missionary, which seems to be going by WAY too fast. I’ve been thinking a lot about how the mission, in only six months, has already changed me so much. Before my mission, I thought I was pretty good, pretty obedient to the commandments, pretty converted to the Lord. Now, I know that before my mission, I didn’t know what it was to be converted. Here as a missionary, I’m finally learning that lesson. I’m learning how to make the Lord truly the center of everything that I do. I have a lot of goals as a missionary, but the biggest goal I have is to be able to become, in this time, the kind of person the Lord needs me to be to be able to serve in His kingdom for the rest of my life, no matter in what capacity. I also feel like this mission is preparing me a ton for a future as a mother. I thought my family studies classes were good preparation - they’re nothing in comparison to being a missionary, ha! Every once in a while when I’m studying, I feel like I get a tiny glimpse into the vision that God has for families in the earth, and the real sacredness of the calling of being a mom. It’s something I can’t really explain well, but I feel like I’m coming to understand how truly holy that calling is, and I’m learning things that will help me direct my children in the way of the Lord, which is the most important thing I’ll ever be able to do as a mom. I can’t wait to see what the next year has in store. :)

Well, something that was really special this week was the opportunity to really get started with my responsibilities as hermana capacitadora. I organized an exchange with one of my hermanas who is training for the first time and having kind of a hard time. When I got there in the morning, we spent a long time talking about all the struggles this hermana is having. She’s been in the mission the same time as me (she was in the CCM with me), but hasn’t baptized anyone yet and feels like a failure, and now she’s training and feels like she’s not connecting well with her companion, who is also having a hard time but won’t open up about why, AND she’s worried that if she hasn’t baptized anyone, she must be a bad missionary and she’s going to teach her companion to be a bad missionary, too. So all around, she’s pretty discouraged. Well, I didn’t really know what to do or say, but I prayed a lot to be guided in how I could help her. We had a good day working, and throughout the day I was blessed to understand this hermana a lot better, to really get some insight into her that she hasn’t shared with anyone else yet, and to see some things that could help her improve. But I still wasn’t sure how to explain the things I perceived, especially the improvements I wanted to suggest, because I didn’t want to offend or discourage her more.

That night, we had a feedback session after daily planning, and the Spirit really put exactly the right words in my mouth to help her. We talked a lot about the Atonement, and why Christ loves us. He loves us perfectly, with an individual, specific love for each and every one of us. But why does He love us like that? Because He took the time, through the Atonement, to REALLY understand us. He suffered everything we suffer, He lived our hardships and difficulties and pain. And because of that, He can love us as individuals. We as missionaries are representatives of Jesus Christ, and so in like manner, we have to learn to love the way He does. But what does that mean? It means that we, like Him, have to take the time to really understand the people around us, investigators, members, and companions alike. We have to ask questions, and above all, we have to listen, so that we can in some small measure start to understand them like Jesus Christ does. Then, and only then, can we truly love them and transmit Christ’s love for them. I can’t really explain very well in a short letter all the things we talked about, but it was a lot of things I had never even thought about before, so I know that the Spirit was guiding our conversation. This hermana told me that it was something that she hadn’t thought about before either, and said she wanted to try to really change and love people the way Christ loves them, to listen and understand people before making judgments or assuming things. It was a special experience to be able to help another missionary like that. I had it confirmed to me, just like I told her, that Christ knows and loves each one of us individually, because I could feel His love for this hermana as I took the time to understand and serve her. I’m so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Well, other than that, this has been kind of a slow week as far as teaching goes because I had the monthly meeting of leaders in the mission Monday and Tuesday, then on Saturday and Sunday we were in the house most of the day because Hermana Lopez got the flu. But this week, we’re motivated to really get out there and keep working! :)

I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Oh, and to answer your question, Dad, we didn’t do anything for Thanksgiving. I forgot all about Thanksgiving until one of the other norteamericanos said Happy Thanksgiving in our district meeting, ha.