The love that changes us all

June 2, 2014

HELLO EVERYONE!

It has been another FANTASTIC week here in my personal paradise, barrio Paraiso, Tarija. :) First off, the ward is doing well. We brought up attendance by about 20 people this week (to 124 peope), which is definitely a step in the right direction. The news about the possible union with barrio Central has been a huge motivator for the work of salvation, and I love it. Our consejo de barrio is all focused on how we’re going to bring people back to the fold of God, planning activities (something that rarely happened in this ward before), making assignments to visit specific investigators and menos activos, and looking for ways to serve and lift the people around us. The missioneros del barrio are getting organized and are excited to work as well, as is our ward mission leader: he is 100% determined to change the situation in the ward and will do what it takes to get us there. We have a specific goal set: to have attendance of at least 200 for the conferencia de barrio the last weekend of July, and I know we can do it, with the misioneros del barrio, the consejo de barrio, the six missionaries in the ward, and most important, the Lord. We are more excited than ever to be working here.

The people we are working with are doing well! Belen, an investigator who is studying in the university here and living with her member aunt, is getting ready to be baptized, probably on the 14th of this month. She is so firm and excited about the gospel that she shares it with her friends and her dad and sister who aren’t members. Her dad isn’t thrilled about her decision to get baptized, but she is super excited about it and knows that this is the right decision for her life. We continue to work with Esteban as well - his baptism date on the 24th of June is getting closer and he is SO excited about it. He is truly converted to the gospel and an incredible example to me, as he has made huge changes in his life, abandoning alcohol and coca and going to church despite the major objections of his wife. We taught him about fasting and fasted with him for his wife this Sunday, and on Tuesday we are finally going to go visit her for the first time. We’re praying that the Lord can soften her heart at least to let him get baptized, hopefully to learn more about the gospel herself too. We are also working with a great less active family, la familia Avila, who are a couple with their new baby. We are just working to get this less active family married and on track to the temple! I love finding not just prepared investigators, but also prepared less actives who want to return to the gospel once again.

Finally, this has been a week where I’ve had the chance to learn a lot about God’s love for each of us, which is manifested through the Atonement. I had an interview with Presidente Willard this past week and I had the chance to talk to him about a few things that had been troubling me. He taught me a lot about just how deeply God loves us - something I am only just starting to understand here in the mission. And He manifests that love to us through the Atonement of His Son Jesus Christ. I love how Alma the Younger expresses it in Alma 36 when he finally understood and felt the atonement in his life:

 21 Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.

 24 Yea, and from that time even until now, I have labored without ceasing, that I might bring souls unto repentance; that I might bring them to taste of the exceeding joy of which I did taste; that they might also be born of God, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.

I know that once we not only understand the Atonement, but also strive to apply and feel it in our lives, we will come to feel the joy that comes only from feeling God’s love. I invite you all to apply the Atonement in your lives, not just for big sins, but also for small errors and for mistakes that we all make on a daily basis. As we come to understand and feel the Atonement in our lives, we will come to feel the power of God’s love fundamentally changing us, AND feel a deeper desire to share this gospel with everyone around us. I love the gospel and I’m so grateful to be here as a missionary sharing it with the people of Bolivia!

Well, have a great week everyone! In just a few hours I’ll be flying off to Santa Cruz for the monthly consejo de lideres, so I’ll let you all know how that goes next week! Love you all!

Love, Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Accepted of the Lord

May 26, 2014

Hello everyone!

Well, we’re still working hard here in Paraiso! We had a kind of tough week with church attendance; a lot of the people we have been working with committed to go to church, but in the end, only one came. Hermana Lopez and I are praying to understand better what more we need to do to help these people come to church. We are also praying for our ward.  This ward, and Central, the ward I was in before here in Tarija, have pretty low attendance and the area has said that if we can’t pull attendance up to at least 200, and do so pretty soon, they will combine the two wards. Well, talk about motivation. All the members of the ward council, and us (the six missionaries in the ward) are really motivated to work a lot harder and get people to church! We are excited to bring more people unto Christ through His church.

This week I have been reflecting a lot on my spiritual progression over the course of the mission, and I read a fantastic talk from April 2013 General Conference called "Being Accepted of the Lord." I invite you all to read it - I think that many times, we focus too much on being accepted by other people. For example, I want to be accepted by my companion, by my mission president, by the bishop in my ward, by the hermanas and elders in my zone, by the investigators, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s good to want other people to like and accept us, but the problem comes when we seek for acceptance from other people that we forget about what is truly important – being accepted of the Lord. I love the scripture that Elder Kopischke uses in this talk, D&C 97:8: “Verily I say unto you, all among them who know their hearts are honest, and are broken, and their spirits contrite, and are willing to observe their covenants by sacrifice—yea, every sacrifice which I, the Lord, shall command—they are accepted of me.” I know that this is true. We must reflect upon the condition of our hearts. Are we truly willing to sacrifice for the Lord? Are we humble and teachable before Him? Do we admit our mistakes readily and strive to repent? As I prayed about and considered this talk, I learned a lot about some ways in which the Lord still wants me to improve, and also received the sweet confirmation of the Lord’s love and acceptance of the progress I have made up til now. I invite you all to do the same, because while it’s great to be accepted by the people around us, there is nothing more special or more important than feeling accepted of the Lord.

Anyway, I love you all! Have a great week! And Mom and Dad, if the whole DC/NY trip one kid at a time is now a tradition, I’ll definitely be waiting for mine... :) Haha love you!

Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk

I love Bolivia J

Happy Monday everyone,

Well, it’s been, as always, another good week here in Paraiso!  Probably the biggest news for us here this week was that we had a bishop change in the ward! That was really big, because Obispo Sullca has been bishop for more than seven years. But, our new bishop, Obispo Oliveira, is going to be great. He’s hardworking and in our first consejo de barrio with him yesterday, it was obvious that he is dedicated to doing the Lord’s work the way He wants it to be done in these days: really talking together, with everyone contributing, to see how we can help the families and people that we as missionaries and members are teaching. This ward is great and I’m excited to see how we can contribute to it in a meaningful way. We’re also excited because we learned that the stake presidency’s big goal for stake conference in November of this year is to DIVIDE THE STAKE. Right now there is one stake of ten wards here in Tarija (which is pretty impressive considering that it’s a city of about 20,000 people), but to get to another stake here, we’re going to have to work HARD with the members to make it. I’m praying that we can see this miracle here in Tarija, and I know that with the Lord’s help we can do it.

One of my favorite things about the mission is seeing the Lord work miracles in our lives and the lives of so many people. We see miracles all the time, and this week was no exception! One investigator, Belen, is nervous about getting baptized because her whole family is catholic, but we encouraged her to pray about it and get an answer for herself. She did it and felt a lot of peace. She’s now excited about following this path and even invited two friends to learn about the church as well!  Another miracle we had is with Fernanda and Pablo, a part-member family. Pablo is less active and Fernanda isn’t a member.  They’ve received the missionaries for years, but weren’t really interested until just recently. This week both of them came to church on their own, and Fernanda said she "wants to put more of herself into the church to find out if it’s really true." They’re coming to a family night at a member’s house with us tonight, and I feel confident that we will be planning a wedding (they aren’t married) and a baptism in the near future!

We are working with some other really prepared people, like Esteban, who showed up to church on his own and is completely turning his life around - he’s in the process of quitting drinking, smoking, and using a drug called coca (which you chew like chewing tobacco but is a green plant), and he is 100% determined to get baptized. The problem is that his wife is completely opposed to the church, but his testimony is so firm that he says he will do anything, even divorce her if necessary, to get baptized. We’re still praying to see a miracle there with his wife, because we don’t want Esteban to have to choose between the gospel and his family.

Anyway, as always, I love being a missionary here. I love this gospel and the way the Lord, through His Atonement, can completely change our lives if we let Him. Have a great week, I love you all!

Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Bienvenidos a Paraiso!!

Well hello everyone!

First off, shoutout to my mom: once again, Happy Mother’s Day! It was great to talk to the family a little bit yesterday for the last time in the mission. Glad to hear that everyone’s doing well and glad that I could even see my nieces and nephew through double skype: me to my house, and Ashley's iPad to Heather’s house. Pretty sweet!

Well, as those of you I skyped with yesterday have already heard, I’m now in a new area! I’m in a ward called Paraiso (Paradise), and boy is the name accurate! I’m still in Tarija, and actually in the ward right next door to my old ward, Central. Like, the limit of our area comes right up to the limit of Central. I’m opening an area once again, and my companion is Hermana Lopez. That’s right... this is the second time I have a companion named Hermana Lopez, ha. But this time, Hermana Lopez is from the states, and it’s the first time in the mission that I’m not training! The mission just made a big change: hermana capacitadoras are now in companionships like they do in other missions instead of being with companions that aren’t capacitadoras. We now have enough hermanas in the mission to do that, which is pretty exciting! I have LOVED training my whole mission, but it is also a great experience to work with someone that has experience in the mission and can teach me new things, that has fresh ideas. And we are responsible for four other companionships of hermanas, or in other words, all the hermanas in our zone. (Tarija is a pretty safe city, so it’s full of hermanas, and in this zone, there are more hermanas than elders... pretty nuts!) We’re excited to see how we can lift the hermanas in this zone to realize their full potential.

Anyway, but things in Paraiso are going great! We have been working a lot to form a good relationship with the bishop and see how we can support him, especially since he’s pretty worn out - he’s been bishop for more than 8 years already, with no end in sight that he knows of. And we’ve been seeing miracles right and left. The fun thing about opening an area is that we don’t know anything about the people, don’t know our way around, and have to contact tons, and we’ve been contacting lots of people that seem really prepared. A few days ago, for example, we were lost and went to ask someone for directions (a great excuse to start to talk to someone) and it turned out that she had wanted to receive the missionaries a long time ago but hadn’t been able to coordinate with them, so we made an appointment, went by the next day, and she immediately accepted a baptism date. Another investigator that we had hadn’t wanted to come to church up til then because she was afraid, but thanks to the help of a member that came with us and made her feel more comfortable, she came - AND brought a friend, who also really liked church and said we could visit her this week! (Accompany the missionaries, everyone! It makes a huge difference!) We have been getting referrals right and left, we have people who want to help us, the bishop is great... this is a great ward, and I’m really excited to be here.

Well, something I’ve been thinking about and studying a lot lately is the word "sanctification." Here in the mission we need to work with all our "heart, might, mind, and strength" and as I pondered my last transfer in Central, it hit me that although I was giving it all my might and strength, maybe I wasn’t working with all my heart and mind, and that brought me to study sanctification, which is basically, the process of becoming spiritually pure before the Lord. I love Helaman 3:35, which says:

"Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God."

I know if we strive to purify our hearts before the Lord, He will help us to be sanctified through His atonement. And that is my goal for this cambio: sanctify myself. I invite you all to learn more about the doctrine of sanctification and apply it in your own lives.

Love you all! Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Here’s a picture of a place called Coimata, a hike we did last Monday in my old zone! I’ll have pictures from the new zone and with my new companion hopefully next week. :)

Missionary Life!

May 5, 2014

Sorry about the less than creative subject today. I’ll have to keep working on that, ha. 

Well, this past week was action-packed! It started on Monday when we had the consejo de lideres (mission leadership council, I think it’s called in English) up in Santa Cruz, so we had to fly up to Santa Cruz on Monday, stay there until Tuesday afternoon, and then come on back to Tarija. The thing about still not being companionships of hermana capacitadoras is that my companion, Hermana Ence, always stays in Tarija while I go up to Santa Cruz. It’s sad to not be with my companion for more than 24 hours, but the blessing is that she can stay and work our area while I’m gone. :)

The consejo de lideres was fantastic, we all had to present a mission plan to achieve some high goals we have put as a mission, one of which is having 1450 baptisms in this year, the year 2014, which is the 50th anniversary of the church in Bolivia. Something I love about these consejos de lideres is that they really are a COUNCIL where we all talk together and come to conclusions together- it’s easy to see the Lord’s hand guiding us as we all come with different ideas every month and end up together reaching the same conclusion about what we need now in the mission. I know that the Lord really does guide us in all that we do, the little and the big things. Just as He guides a mission to be able to bring about the salvation of more of His children, He also will guide us individually in the questions we have and the help we need.

Then Wednesday, we had yet another exciting day, with a conference with Presidente Willard, but just for the hermanas. Presidente and Hermana Willard have been pretty concerned with the hermanas and the lack of self-confidence that often gets a lot of them down, discouraged, and makes a lot of them want to give up. I know that what he said helped a lot of the hermanas I work with, even though he didn’t necessarily know all the details that I have learned about their struggles - once again, interesting to see how the Lord guides us in all that we do. It was also very special to see, once again, the love that Presidente and Hermana Willard feel for all of us, their missionaries. They always, ALWAYS refer to us as their children and get all teary-eyed when they talk about their love for us. I love them.

And then Thursday, was dia del trabajador (Labor day, I think?) here in Bolivia, and our ward went for a day trip to the country! We historically have never been able to go to these sorts of things, but Presidente Willard gave us permission to continue to help with ward unity, and bring lots of investigators and less actives. I’m sending another email with pictures - it was gorgeous!

This is a picture of everyone that came with us…

and this is of us with the bishop’s family:

It was great - we brought an investigator, a less active hermana that has been coming back to church, and a whole less active family that hasn’t gone to church in a LONG time, and the elders in our ward also brought various investigators. It was great to see as friendships formed in the ward among all of them. Also, Tarija is so pretty! Mom, Dad, I know you’ve been dying to see what it’s like, so hopefully this gives you a taste. Next week I should have more pictures from the country, from a place that we’re going to visit today with the zone.

And finally, apart from all these exciting things, we have had the privilege to see even more miracles in our area. Yesterday, for example, was a great day. We have an investigator named Gonzalo whose dad died a few weeks ago, and we really showed up in just the right time - having his dad die has made him a lot more interested in how to live with his family forever, and he has accepted a baptism date and came to church yesterday. I’m grateful that the Lord sends us to people who need us. Also, we went to visit an active family yesterday and learned that a nephew just moved in to live with him - and he is truly a golden investigator. He’s already been reading the Book of Mormon, understood the restoration when we taught him, and accepted a baptism date and the invitation to go to church right away. And, we were able to teach a less-active member who has come to the realization that his drinking habits have driven away his wife and two daughters. He showed up to church on his own last week and asked to receive the missionary lessons because he wants to finally change his life. And finally, another less-active member showed up to church out of nowhere after being inactive for 14 years - no one, not even the bishop, knew him, but he wants to change his life and wants his wife to get to know the gospel. 

Wow - after a lot of hard work in this area, we are seeing the Lord’s hand here as people, of their own accord, are deciding that it’s time to come unto Christ. I love that - the Lord teaches me all the time that even after all I can do, I am totally dependent on Him. And once I humble myself enough to learn that lesson, that’s when He blesses me with miracles and with spiritual power.

Love you all! This week we have transfers so we’ll see where I am next Monday! Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk

P.S. Shoutout to Bryan and Emily! Congratulations on getting married Saturday, and I’m excited to get to know my new sister-in-law in seven months. :)

If we are one, we are His

April 28, 2014

Well, this has been a good week here in Central 2, a week where we have truly seen miracles. Hermana Ence and I came to the conclusion, after half a transfer of working hard but not seeing many results, that even though we were working hard, maybe we weren’t working very smart. We started trying to think about the counsel from President Monson: that now is the moment when we need to unite with the ward members and work together to bring about the work of salvation. The scriptures explain that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are united perfectly in all that they do. In the same way, we as missionaries and members need to be united in our purposes and in all that we do. If we are one, we show to the Lord that we are His. We started to think about what more things we could do to strengthen the ward, things that maybe aren’t specifically missionary lessons, but that can strengthen the ward and address the ward’s needs. As I mentioned last week, the bishop really wants us to organize an activity that can increase ward unity, so we got going with those plans. We also went up to the area of the elders to visit the Primary president, Hermana Singrid, who we hadn’t visited up til that point, and asked how we can help her. She asked us to come to a meeting where they were going to organize a Primary activity they were planning, once again, with the goal to increase ward unity. We went and were able to give a few suggestions for the activity, and then she gave us a list of less-actives to visit and invite to the activity, and gave us a referral of a friend she wanted us to teach. It was exciting to see how as we spent an hour helping in something that would generally be considered "ward work" instead of "missionary work," the Lord blessed us with additional opportunities of more people to visit and helped us gain the confidence of Hermana Singrid.

As we continued with these ideas, and went to visit menos activos the bishop asked us to visit, we have started to see results! We had three people accept baptism dates, and one of the three went to church, while the other two couldn’t come but have shown sincere interest in baptism. We have also had more success with the less actives in our area - we have definitely learned that with less-active members, a visit from a member does a lot more good than a visit from the missionaries, because they usually just need to know that someone in the ward cares about them. So, we worked with an active member, Andrea, to be a friend to a less active member, Masiel, and they came to church together this Sunday! We also saw miracles with several other less-actives, one that has never wanted to receive us before but that opened her heart to some inspired questions and now says she wants to meet with us, another who wants to go to church with his son and wants his son to get baptized, and another who we had never even met but that came to church this past Sunday! We also were able to teach more lessons this week than any other week in this area. I truly believe that comes from an effort to unite more fully with the ward, including in things that aren’t generally considered "missionary work," combined with diligence, prayer, and fasting.

I know that if we are patient and work hard, trusting in the Lord’s timing, AND try to do things His way, we will see miracles, big and small. I know this is the Lord’s work and I’m so grateful to be a part of it! I just always pray that I will be able to do all that He hopes of me in this time that I am serving as a missionary. I love you all and invite you all to feel the joy that comes with going to the rescue, visiting the less-active members, and extending a loving hand and invitation to them to come unto Christ once again.

Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Faulk

Trust in the Lord

April 21, 2014

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend and remembered the purpose of Easter, the atonement and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Well Hermana Ence and I started off this week with a conferencia de zona with Presidente Willard. It was fantastic, and I was grateful to learn a lot about a few themes I have been considering a lot, like the purpose of my time here in Tarija if we are struggling SO much to find people to teach who seem to really want to progress. As I have thought a lot about it, Hermana Ence and I have come to the conclusion that instead of spending hours looking for people fruitlessly and not seeing results, we need to do something different: we need to strive to unite more with the ward to respond to the ward's needs. The bishop, for example, has commented many times about his concerns about ward unity and the lack of activities, and we have also heard that even when the different organizations have activities, very few people attend. So, Hermana Ence and I felt like we should ask the bishop if we could help him by organizing an activity of the obra misional, something we could invite investigators and menos activos to and that also would help the ward with unity. He got excited about that and thanked us profusely. We felt that he started to trust in us more because after that, he commented to us that he wants us to visit a few menos activo families that live in the area of the elders, but that the elders haven't been visiting because they're just too occupied, and said he would also assign us to a few investigators in the elder's area that he wants us to visit. Our purpose is not to abandon our area, but we are excited to help in the way the bishop wants us to help in this ward, with this ward's specific needs. We have also been seeing a little more success with the menos activos this week as we encountered a new menos activo family from Santa Cruz and were able to schedule a lesson with an hermana from a less active family that never wanted to receive us before. We are trying to work with visiting teaching and working hard to help the members form friendships so that they will continue going to church even when we aren't here.

As for progress with investigators, it was a pretty disappointing day yesterday when out of the many investigators who had committed to go to church, no one made it. I was pretty disappointed, but I am working on just trusting in the Lord's timing and the Lord's plans. I know that the ideas we're having to support the ward and help the menos activos is something we wouldn't be able to do if we were really occupied with investigators, so maybe that's the Lord's purpose. I also know that He IS preparing people to hear our message - we taught a husband and wife yesterday that seem legitamitely interested in learning more, so we're excited for them. Finally, I feel strongly that the Lord is giving me these types of experiences because I have to learn patience with circumstances that are out of my control. I have to learn this patience and continual trust in God now, because these are the essential lessons I need to learn to someday be the type of wife and mother that the Lord needs me to be. I love the Lord and I love His plans, how He always has a purpose for everything He does - the trials, the miracles, everything. It's always to help us learn and grow if we choose to trust Him.

I want you all to know that I know this church is true. I know that Heavenly Father's plan for each of us is perfect and that He, as our father, loves us and will give us exactly the experiences we need to become the type of people who will be worthy to inherit the Celestial Kingdom. If you ever question, "Why me" when a trial comes, remember that: He is just refining each of us in the way we personally need to be refined so that we can be received in His kingdom. I know that if we strive to be obedient and trust in the Lord, even in the face of trials, we will be blessed.

Love you all! Have a great week!!

Love,
Hermana Chelsie Faulk