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 :)

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!