CONFERENCE…exclamation point!

October 8, 2013
Wow, I just have to start off by saying that this was a fantastic week. We had some disappointments and hard times, as always, but overall, this week was wonderful for many reasons, the biggest of which was GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! Conference was fantastic, both for me and for our investigators.  Also, we, the Americans, had the blessing of being able to watch three of the four sessions in English. That was fun, like a mini English party for three sessions in our own little private room, ha. I was super grateful for that, because although I can understand Spanish pretty well, in the one session we had to watch in Spanish, I sometimes had to focus so much on understanding the words that I missed some of the Spirit. But that’s okay, I loved it all anyway. I loved all of the talks of course, but especially the talk by Ulisses Soares, and by Edward Dube, and Richard J. Maynes, all of which focused on more complete conversion and optimism in the face of trials. I also loved the emphasis on the importance of families and the role of women as we’re trying to work with and strengthen investigator, part-member, and less-active families. And, of course, I was loving the emphasis on missionary work! exclamation point! :) Totally in love with S. Gifford Nielson’s enthusiasm, yeah? Also, loved the talk by President Uchtdorf. SO perfect for so many of our investigators and especially for SO many less-active members. "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith." So profound for everyone, no matter at what stage of conversion you’re in.

We have the blessing of having the stake center in our area, so we could easily bring investigators to conference, and we did just that, for every session of conference. This made conference an excellent opportunity for investigators to receive personal revelation, and we saw the miracles. Miracle number 1: after a week of not being able to get in contact with a very discouraged Hugo who, it appeared, did NOT want to talk to us anymore, he showed up out of nowhere at the Saturday afternoon session of conference! I still have no idea how he learned that we had conference, but we had a lesson with him immediately afterwards, and he has really made a firm decision to change and keep the commandments. However, he’s afraid to commit to another baptism date because he’s afraid of messing up again. We’re praying for him, that we can find a way to help him have the confidence to act.
Miracle number 2:We had two investigators, sisters, accept a baptism date this week for the 26th of October. But, they said that they would get baptized only if they felt like they received a strong answer from God. We invited them to conference and they agreed to come. I was sitting next to them during the Sunday morning session (the only one where I had to watch in Spanish, and boy am I glad I was in the same room with them for this miracle moment). They were listening with some interest to the talks, but didn’t seem especially fascinated. Then, it was time for President Monson to talk. I leaned over and whispered to the, "The man who’s about to talk is the living prophet of God on the earth, like how we explained with Joseph Smith. He talks to God the same way Moses and Abraham talked to God." They immediately got super focused and listened super attentively the whole time, then during the song, they started whispering to each other. At the end of the conference, I asked them how the felt. Monica and Naneth both said, "He was talking directly to us." and Naneth explained, "We could feel something different when he started talking. Something strange... it was as though God was talking straight to us." Wow, I could feel the Spirit so strong in that moment and I explained to them that this was the Holy Ghost testifying to them of the truthfulness of our message, that President Monson really is a prophet, and that this is his church. Wow, such a sweet experience. I’m so happy for them.

Okay, I feel like this email is SUPER long, but one more story, this one a little crazy. We have this investigator, Veronica, who has been an investigator for basically forever. She wants to get baptized, but has to get married first and had a huge problem getting some papers together so that she can get married. Finally, we set a marriage date for the 25th and a baptism date for the 26th. She came to three of the four sessions of conference, but after the first one, we were leaving the chapel when a man walked up to us and said to Veronica, "I know you. You’re a member of the church!" We explained that no, although she has come to church faithfully for like six months, she’s not a member. He said, "No no no, I know you. You were baptized when you were 12 years old, here in Braniff when it was a branch. I know because I was branch president." He then congratulated us on reactivating her, and walked away. The most bizarre moment ever. Turns out, Veronica was in a severe accident where she injured her head like 8 years ago and has some severe memory loss. She remembers going to church sometimes when she was young, but didn’t know that she was baptized. Pretty bizarre, yeah? So now we have to search for her baptism papers, because they should be here in Braniff somewhere. Pretty wild. Also, we have no idea who that man was, since he appeared out of nowhere and didn’t say his name, then promptly disappeared. One of the three Nephites, anyone? ;) Ha, the mission is wild.

Anyway, I love you all and I love this gospel and I love my mission and I love the Lord and the miracles he provides! This work is His work and this church is His church, and He will bless us for all of our service in it. Missionary work... exclamation point!!!! :)

Love,Hermana Chelsie Faulk

TRIO!!!

Happy Monday everyone! That’s right, you read the subject line right... I am now officially in trio! It’s kind of a crazy situation. Hermana Johns, our new companion, arrived fresh from the Colombia CCM on Tuesday. She is from Utah, but her Spanish is pretty good so they sent her from the CCM two weeks early! So now, Hermana Maldonado, who was still training me, is now training both me and Hermana Johns. But since I’m basically done with my training and getting ready to train in a week and a half, it’s kind of this weird halfway thing, where sometimes it’s like Hermana Maldonado has her two daughters, and sometimes it’s like Hermana Johns has her two moms. We’re never quite sure, ha. But we get along great, the three of us, and although it’s definitely been a challenge to figure out how to teach with three people, I’m loving this opportunity to learn a lot and to see an example of how to train from the beginning, as Hermana Maldonado trains Hermana Johns. I’m definitely taking mental notes to apply to when I have to train.

Anyway, this week we had a few disappointments, the major disappointment being that Monday night last week, Hugo told us that he broke the Word of Wisdom, and with that, he lost his baptism date. We are working with him to help him understand the true meaning of repentance and why it’s important to completely abandon your sins, but he is having a hard time. We’re hopeful, however, that he will be able to give up drinking completely and get baptized. In this way, it’s been a tough month. Four people accepted baptism dates for September, and all four fell through for different reasons. Ouch. But what I’m learning in a big way, and this is something that has never been easy for me, is that all I can do as a missionary is invite people to make changes in their lives, and help them make those changes. I can never obligate people to do so, as much as I would like to, ha. The good news, however, is that a lot of those people whose baptism dates fell through in September, I believe will be ready for baptism in October. I don’t know if I’ll be here in Braniff to see them get baptized, but I’m confident that it will happen, with Hugo and with Soledad as well.

The other good news is that we’re working with a lot of new people! One person, Fabiola, is really fantastic. I don’t remember if I wrote about her last week, but she has three children, one of whom has some kind of developmental disability, and I love her and her family. And she accepted a baptism date! Her date is the 26th of October and I’m way excited for her. Also, we’re working with two sisters, Monica and Naneth. They are both super great. We contacted Monica in the street and she and Naneth came to church last week after just a contact, without a lesson. We taught Naneth during the week about the Restoration (we wanted to teach Monica too, but she traveled) but Naneth was super interested, both of them came to church yesterday again, and said that they’ve been ready their pamphlet (which almost never happens, ha) and that they have questions for us and want to keep coming to church! I’m praying that they, too, will accept baptism dates for October. :)

Anyway, so that’s my big news for the week! And Dad, I’m definitely loving your advice to get sick in every new zone as a way to make more friends. Definitely going to take it, ha.

Love you all!

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

Viva  Los  Estudiantes!

 September 23, 2013

In Bolivia they have like a million holidays, which is fantastic. Yesterday was el dia de los estudiantes (day of the students), so I figured I would celebrate with them as my subject line. We most definitely need to make this change in the US - day of the students, day of amor (different from Valentine’s day, which they also celebrate), day of moms, day of women (yes, two different days), day of dads, day of men (again, two different days), and even day of dogs. And a ton more. Basically, the Bolivians look for any reason to celebrate, and I love it!

The work is progressing here in my little area of paradise, Braniff, Santa Cruz! I love it here. It’s incredible the love I have developed for our investigators and for the members of our ward as I have gotten to know the majority of them pretty well. Every single one of them, like every single person, has real struggles in their lives, and as missionaries, we have the privilege of learning about and helping them through many trials, but what’s incredible is that they remain firm in the gospel. These people with their firmness huge trials of all types are incredible examples to me.

But anyway, like I said, the work is progressing! We’re preparing our miracle investigator, Hugo, for his baptism this Saturday, and I’m super excited for him. He has changed so much from the first time we met him, when he called out, "Hey, I need to talk to you! You two can help me." At that time, he was super sad and hopeless, and didn’t believe that God loved him or that he had the power to change his life circumstances. Now, three or four weeks later, he has so much more confidence. He is living the commandments, praying, reading the Book of Mormon, going to church, and is so much happier. This gospel has real power to change lives.

We are also working with a family! They live in the same house as us (like I said in an earlier email, basically everyone lives in these compound -type things with one central door and then a garden or patio with several apartments or rooms so when I say they live in the same house as us, they rent a room in the same place). It’s great because it’s super easy to teach them, and the person who owns all of our rooms, la dueña, is a member of the church, so we can always teach them with her. Anyway, they are quite religious and active in their Christian church, so in past lessons, they have been interested in what we had to say but they never really understood why our message was important. But finally on Saturday we helped them understand that we literally have a prophet on the earth in these days that is the same as Moses or Abraham. They were shocked by this idea, but love it. They asked us, "How can we know what this prophet has to say?" We explained about General Conference in two weeks and David, who in the past hasn’t been too interested in going to church with us, said immediately, "We’re going to General Conference." And that was that! They aren’t married, but this week we’re going to teach them about the Plan of Salvation and the Law of Chastity, and commit them to marriage and baptism! I’m super excited for them.
 

I love the mission because I love how we get the chance to see so many people changing and growing. I love seeing the miracles that the Lord puts in our path every day. I have too many stories to be able to share in my emails, but I can tell you all that I KNOW that the Lord is preparing people, that His hand is in the details of our lives, and that the things that happen every day aren’t just coincidences. I read a talk from President Monson from Conference October 2012 where he talks about how we need to recognize and acknowledge the blessings and the miracles in our lives. I think too often we write things off as coincidence or think that things happen because we made them happen, but in reality, God is in the details. I invite everyone to take an inventory of the blessings, large and small, that they have seen in their lives. I did that this week and am starting to recognize more and more the hand of the Lord, and feel more and more grateful for all that He does for us.

Love you all!

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

La Semana Loca

September 16, 2013

Yep, that about sums up my week. It was loca. It all started Sunday night/Monday morning last week, early in the morning, when I started to feel pretty sick and spent a lot of the night throwing up. After I threw up magnificently in front of my entire zone of missionaries, the zone leaders made the executive decision that they were taking Hermana Maldonado and me to the clinic, ha. And Mom, Dad, although maybe that doesn’t sound very funny to you, believe me, it’s pretty hilarious. It was super similar to that time when I got sick on the airplane, with this uncomfortable silence with all the missionaries staring at me and no one exactly sure what to say while my companion looks frantically for a Kleenex or something and no one has anything... definitely memorable, ha. And hilarious, so don’t be worried. Anyway, so we went to the clinic, which was SUPER crowded so we were there for the rest of our Pday and more, and ended up losing some proselyting time, all for the doctor to say he thought I had a stomach infection but he wasn’t sure, so he wasn’t going to do anything and come back if I felt sick again. So that was Monday.

Tuesday, I felt a lot better, but it was still a crazy day because we had interviews with President Willard - my first interview with him since coming to the mission. He is fantastic, seriously like a dad here in the mission. It was weird, we had the interview in English and I had to pray in English but I couldn’t do it. I ended up praying in a kind of weird, mixed up Spanglish. Then that night, Hermana Wursten, my companion from the CCM, flew into Santa Cruz from Tarija and spent the night with us, because the next day was... immigration! That’s right, I am now officially a resident of Bolivia, for the next year until I have to do immigration again. It took like half the day, which was a pain, but it was fun because I was reunited with everyone from my district in the CCM, or at least everyone who is now in Santa Cruz. Those guys are like my family. Fantastic. The only downside was that, once again, I started to feel pretty sick. Once again, the zone leaders made the decision that yes, I was going to the clinic, and yes, they were coming with us. This time, the doctor decided that I did have a stomach infection after all, and gave me medicine. And not to worry, I now feel much better and am in tip top condition. This happens once to basically every North American missionary, or so I’m told.

 

Anyway, so with that crazy start to the week, Thursday we were finally able to get started with some real proselyting, but still, the entire week was full of challenges. We couldn’t find investigators, members couldn’t accompany us on visits, etc... it was one of those "if it can go wrong, it will go wrong" weeks. We ended up losing the baptism dates for two investigators, Augustin and Soledad, because Soledad didn’t want to go to church when we went to pick her up, and Augustin because his mom, who is menos activo, decided that she doesn’t want him to get baptized. But the good news is that we are continuing strong with Hugo for a baptism the 28th - he is progressing really well and has now gone to church on his own three times! Also, we are preparing Karen for a baptism on the 28th as well. After she traveled for a few weeks, we are finally going to get started teaching her again tonight, and I know that she’ll be ready for her baptism. Even in the hard weeks, I know that the Lord is with us and He is preparing people for this message. I’m learning lots here in the mission and I’m super motivated for this week. I know it will be lots better. :)

 

 

Here I am in the clinic with my IV thing.  They hydrated me with a bunch of stuff on Monday, and then decided there was nothing wrong with me and sent me home. 

 

 

My district from the CCM reunited at immigration!  A fantastic day.

 

This is day two in the clinic with another hydration thing (and yes, I know that I'm wearing the same shirt but I promise it's a different day, ha)

 

 

Hermana Maldonado and me in the clinic.

 

The bathroom in the immigration office in Santa Cruz.

I liked that the bathroom signs are in English and Chinese.

 

BE THOU HUMBLE

 September 9, 2013

Yep, that’s my theme for the week. I definitely had an interesting week, but a good one, and I definitely learned a lot about the importance of humility. For some reason at the start of my week, I got it in my head that I was a pretty good missionary. My Spanish is coming along well, I’m getting along with the members of the ward and the investigators, winning their confidence and developing friendships, we were finding lots of new people to teach, I felt good about my teaching and the questions I was asking during lessons, and all in all I started to think I was a pretty good missionary. But at the same time, I recognized that this was pride and that I needed to rely on the Lord, not on my pride, so I decided to pray for the Lord to help me be more humble. And guess what? The Lord answers prayers!

We had some tough days with very little progress with anyone, walking around looking for our investigators, but no one was home and no one wanted to talk to us. I was feeling pretty frustrated, and then it hit me: you asked to be humbled, and here you are! And so I learned my lesson. In all things we need to rely on the Lord, and especially here in the mission. He knows perfectly the needs of our investigators and who is really prepared for this message, and it’s only thanks to His help that my Spanish is coming along and that my teaching is improving. And so, I humbled myself and repented, and guess what happened? We started to have more success!

At the end of the week, we FINALLY found Karen again after going to her house a bunch of times for nothing, and she accepted a new baptism date for the 28th. We also contacted some people that I really believe are ready for this message. One person, Rosario, started to cry in the door and said that she desperately needs to hear what we have to say. Unfortunately, she was about to leave and she doesn’t live in our area right now, but she’s going to move to our area (just like Hugo) in the middle of September. We have her phone number and know where she’s going to be living, so I’m stoked for her. And I’m trying much harder to rely on the Spirit to guide my mission life, praying more throughout the day and whenever I start to notice pride in myself, I learned the trick to get rid of it: think of the Atonement. It works every time. But it’s probably a lifelong challenge to overcome pride. I feel like I’m in a mini Nephite pride cycle all the time, but one that repeats itself over the course of several days or even several hours, ha. Crazy life.
To respond to your questions, Mom and Dad, yes, Hermana Maldonado has visa issues. But her visa should come this transfer. And with Abacuc, it’s actually spring now and will shortly be summertime, but he decided to avoid our lessons when we visit Augustin. I guess that now isn’t his time to be baptized. Soledad has been tough to find and teach, but we’re still working on that, and Hugo is progressing still, although his big challenge is a lack of friends. Everyone, when new people come to the ward, PLEASE be friends with them immediately! It makes all the difference in the world for an investigator. Our ward is really small, so I’m not really sure how they found 16 people to be ward missionaries. However, our training with them was suspended for the next Sunday, so hopefully we can get going with them soon! And Dad, as far as I know there aren’t any senior couples serving here.

Anyway, that’s my week! I am so grateful to be on a mission. I can see myself changing and growing closer to Christ every week.  Love you all!

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

One Transfer Down,

About A Million More To Go!

September 2, 2013

Hello everyone! As I said in my subject line, I have officially completed one transfer here in Bolivia. At least I think it’s called a transfer in English. In Spanish, it’s a cambio. Anyway, the important part is that I'm no longer the newbie here in Santa Cruz! Woo! Quite an accomplishment, I must say. :)

And that means that I have a new companion! Hermana Castañeta is now in her house and my second trainer is Hermana Maldonado. She’s from Cochabamba and this is her temporary mission. She served six months in Tarija, which is part of Mission Santa Cruz but is way far away, and she will serve six weeks with me here to complete my training and then she will go to her real mission in Venezuela. She is happy all the time and focused on the work and I think we will work well together.

Well, this was a week of a lot of highs and, unfortunately, some lows. First off, the highs. We have two more people with baptism dates! One is a niño, nine years old, named Augustin. I'm not too sure why he's not baptized yet because his family are members, but he's not so we're going to give him the lessons and get him baptized! And then we're also working with his cousin Abacuc. I don't remember if I've mentioned Abacuc or not. He's 10 years old and doesn't want to get baptized because he's deathly afraid of water. However, the goal is for him to get baptized on the 21st with his cousin and we're praying hard to receive revelation to help him do that. We've started to win his confidence, but we know that it'll be a slow process because he has been pressured for more than two years now to get baptized and he doesn't trust the missionaries much since he knows what we're there for. But we're going to do everything possible to help. Our other person with a baptism date, also for the 21st, is... remember Hugo? The golden reference from last week? Well, he surprised us big time by moving to our area for work! And so now we're meeting with him a lot and helping him prepare for baptism. He really desperately wants to change his life, but he doesn't have much confidence in God or in himself. We're working on helping him feel more confidnece and also to make friends in the ward, but that's a challenge since theres almost no one his age. However, I know that with the Lords help its possible! Other highs are that the members are helping us a lot! We got some references from the members and are getting all kinds of contacts and I think we're going to have a lot of new investigators very shortly. Also, we have a training with the 16 new ward missionaries this week, which will be a lot of help, especially with retencion, so I'm pretty excited about that as well. Yay!

The lows are that, unfortunately, both Karen and Soledad who had baptism dates for the 14th, didn't go to church this week, so both of their baptism dates fell through. :( However, we're going to keep working with them. We've recently started to see a change in Soledad, who seems to have more interest and be feeling the power of this message more in her life. What's missing is that she doesn't really understand the importance of going to church, and it doesn't help that her sister that she lives with, who is a member, doesn't really think going to church is very important either as long as you're praying and trying to do the right thing. But I really think that Soledad will get baptized. It will just take a little more time. Karen we are also going to keep working with for a baptism at a later date. She didn't go to church this week because she traveled to Montero, but we're really excited because we met her husband for the first time yesterday, and today we have a lesson with the two of them! Although it will take longer to work with the two of them, this is what we want to do, because after all, this gospel is all about families.

Anyway, I’m learning a lot and I'm happy to be here! It's not easy, but it's definitely worth it. Love you all!

Hermana Chelsie Faulk

August 26, 2013

Hello everyone! This past week was a FANTASTIC week, mainly because I had the sweet experience of seeing Andres and Marcelo enter the waters of baptism!! It was incredible. A freezing cold day (as I've said before, when it gets cold here, it gets COLD, like bitterly bone-deep cold), but warmth in all our hearts. Wow, that was painfully cheesy, ha. But seriously, it was great. The baptism was planned for Saturday afternoon at 5:00 but we told everyone to be there at 4 because everyone in Bolivia is outrageously late to everything. And, as predicted, we didn't get started until 5:30 ha-ha, but it was still great. The Spirit was powerful when both of them entered the waters of baptism, and I just kept thinking, wow, this isn't just two new members of the church. Marcelo is a future missionary, a great blessing to his mom and sister, and Andres is a future dad in the church, who is going to get sealed to his girlfriend Jhosselj in the temple and raise a righteous family. I'm just praying and going to do everything I can to help them stay strong. Poor Andres and Marcelo were really tough. They were baptized on a freezing cold day in tepid, or maybe a little colder than tepid, water. At least it was tepid - that in and of itself was a mini miracle because they don't have hot water in the pipes at the church and they have to warm it by hand. But anyway, it was so great, and it was great to see them get confirmed in church the next day. I'm so happy for them and I'm excited to see Soledad and Karen get baptized next month, along with a few more children in the ward that are more than 8 years old and so fall under the responsibilities of the missionaries! One is Marcos, who is waiting for his brother to come home from the mission so his brother can baptize him. Another is Augustine, who is only waiting to get baptized because he wants to do it with his cousin Abacuc. Abacuc is the tough one. He's ten years old and knows he needs to get baptized, but is deathly afraid of being submerged in water. We're praying to receive guidance to help him overcome his fears.

As for your questions about daily life, first off, housing: There are houses, and then there are big complexes of one or two room "apartments" with a central dirt and cement area, and often with a central bathroom. But in all of the housing it’s the same, there are lots of families. In the complexes of course there are lots of families, but in the houses too. One person owns the house and the other people rent one or two rooms to live in.

The food here is FANTASTIC. I love basically everything, including chuños, which are freeze-dried potatoes and apparently are the ultimate test of if someone truly likes Bolivian food. The only thing that's an issue for me is the water, which I can't drink without getting bad stomachaches. But seriously, the food is great. A lot of meat, potatoes, yucca, salads of broccoli and beets (which are great, who knew?), and TONS of rice. Mom, get ready to put me on a serious diet when I get home, ha.

We basically always walk in our area. If we need to leave our area like for internet and for zone and district meetings, we take buses. I have only taken a taxi twice. Depending on where you are, the roads can be paved or dirt, but in our area, they are mostly paved. The weather isn't too bad now, not TERRIBLY hot because its winter. I hear that in a few months, I'll basically want to die. There are lots of dogs and cats here. Everyone owns like four of each, so I'm becoming very comfortable with animals. We have a cat and a dog in our living area too, and the cat likes to come in the house.

Not much else this week. Hermana Castañeta is going home to La Paz this week, so we'll see who my new companion is on Thursday! I'm really sad to see Hna Castañeta go. It took us a while to really get into a rhythm of working well together, but now we really have a lot more unity and are working really well. Right before she leaves, of course. I'm going to miss her! But Thursday we're going to visit her old areas as part of what the missionaries do before they leave, so that will be fun.

Dad, you were asking about service activities earlier. We had our first service activity as a zone on Saturday morning. We just were serving other missionaries in our service, helping some missionaries move houses. But hey, it’s something! And one other fun experience from yesterday. We were walking to a lesson when a man in the street said, Hey, I want to talk to you two! I was nervous that he was either a thief or a drunk, since normally men don’t stop us in the street to talk to us. But turned out, he wasn’t either of the above. His name is Hugo, and he stopped us because he really wants to change his life and had a feeling that we could help him do so. Once again, miracles of the mission! Luckily, we were really close to a member’s house so we walked over there with him and had a lesson! He has had a tough life and is really sad, and has a strong desire to change. We had a great lesson on prayer with him, really powerful. Unfortunately, turns out he doesn’t live in our area, he lives in the area of our district leaders, but I'm really glad we got to talk to him and pass on the reference. It was a super cool experience that he just felt like he should talk to us for help with his life. I know that the gospel is true and that it really does have the power to change lives for everyone that is willing to accept it. I know that the Lord loves each and every one of His children and always wants us to turn to Him and accept His love and mercy!

Love you all!

Hermana Chelsie Faulk