Week 5 in Chile - 02/27/2012

SEMANA 5 en Hualqui

Place: Hualqui

Companion: Hermana Sanchez
Date: 27/02/12

Hola Mi Familia!

    Buenas Tardes! ¿Como Estan? I hope things have been going really well for all of you this week! Things have going amazingly well here this past week! We had another baptism this week! ANTONNELLA SE BAUTIZO! She is the cutest little girl ever, and is so accepting! Haha it is so cute whenever we are walking in Santa Josefina and her sister and her see us, they come running, yelling hermanas! It is so cute, I LOVE IT! Their whole family is super amazing! We are working on bringing the parents back to church, they are menos activos, and things are going well, they have been attending! But her baptism went really well, for a musical number all of the Hermanas sang Soy un Hijo de Dios (I Am a Child of God), because that is her favorite song, y we sung the first verse in Español and the second verse in Ingles, then the third verse, Hnas. Sanchez y Carmona sang it in Español and Hna. Kraemer y yo sang it in Ingles. The spirit was very strong during the entire thing. Then after the family invited us over to their house and we had "once" with them, and I don´t know if I explained this before, but "once" is like our dinner time but littler and you snack on little things, their lunches here are like our dinners, they are huge! The other day we had a lunch, and oh man, their was so much food, I´m surprized I was able to eat it all! Pero the baptism was amazing! Oh by the way I put more pictures up! :)

    If you want to be really technical we had another baptism this week as well! and the name is the cellular of Hna. Carmona y Hna. Kramer! haha Hna. Sanchez and I were in the hall waiting for Antonnella to get changed, when all of a sudden Hna. Carmona comes running down the hall, saying something really fast in Spanish, and starts heading for the custodial closet, But I realized after a few seconds that she said she had dropped the cellphone in the font, haha Hnas. Kraemer y Carmona we draining the font a little bit because the water was a little too high for Antonnella, and by accident they dropped the phone in to the font. Hermano Nelson, went into the font and grabbed it, and the miracle of it all is it still works! they were able to shake all the water out and put the card and everything back in and it turned on! But that was something that happened this week that I thought you all would like to hear!

    Hmm what else? Basically the baptism was the biggest thing this week. Oh just so you all know I have a new nickname gracia de Hna. Carmona! Ready for this one! Gringland! She combined the words Gringa with England, and now and forever to her I will be Hna. Gringland! haha she loves, it and I´m trying to figure out one for her back, and I´m not coming up with anything! just give it time I´m sure I´ll think of something! The Spanish is coming along, it is mejor, poco a poco cada dia! I have really had to exercise my patience though with it, and I´m trying to do that! I know it will come I just need to do my best!

    Sorry this letter is going to be short but we have to get going pretty soon, Hna. Sanchez need to go to the office, because one converts wants to meet with her! and applying for my visa and carnet took a long time today! but I need to be legal! :) Before I end this email though I would like to share one of the scriptures that I read this week during my personal study. This scripture is in Mosiah 1:5-7, and it says: "I say unto you...these things...have been kept and preserved by the hand of God, that we might read and understand of his mysteries, and have his commandments always before our eyes...I would that ye should remember that these sayings are true, and also that these records are true...and we can know of their surety because we have them before our eyes. And now... I would that ye should remember to search them diligently, that ye may profit thereby; and I would that ye should keep the commandments of God, that ye may prosper in the land according to the promises which the Lord made unto our fathers." I really enjoyed this scripture when I read it, it is so true we can know for asurety that these words are true, all we have to do it read them and pray about them, to know. I know with all my heart that each and every one of us can recieve personal revelation from the scriptures, when we read them, and we can learn and recieve answers for the things that we need in this life. So this week I encourage you all to continue reading your scriptures, please always read them daily, because I know and I promise all of you, that you will find the answers that you need! :) Please know that you all will continue to be in my prayers and I love you all, thank you for all you letters, and special thanks to the Mia maids in the Highland 1st Ward, your card was awesome, I just recieved it today! I promise to tell the youth here to "Levántate y sube al monte" "Arise and get thee to the mountain" I love all of you! Until next week!

Love Always and Forever!

Hermana Aubrey Jo England

Week 4 in Chile - 02/20/2012

SEMANA 4 en Hualqui

 Place: Hualqui

Companion: Hermana Sanchez
Date: 2/20/2012

Hola Mi Familia!

Buenas Tardes! I hope that things have been going alright this week! Even though I´m not with you please remember that my prayers and thoughts are with you! Well ok now on to things that have happened this week!

Here is the one biggest and most amazing, wonderful things that happened this week, drum roll please.... JEREMY SE BAUTIZO!!! That is right! It was such a wonderful day! Oh and I put some more pictures up for you, including pictures from the baptism! But from this whole experience with Jeremy, I know that Satan is out there more then ever trying to stop the work that we are doing, and I say this because he did not want Jeremy to be baptized, we came across all kinds of opposition. Thrusday he had his entravista and things were great and Elder Hafen said he was ready and Jeremy was super excited! Then on Friday we went to visit him again to see how things were, and when he came outside, I knew something was up because the attitude in his face was different, but he looked at us and said, "no quiero bautizmo, no quiero!" Hna. Sanchez and I just looked at eachother and then we asked him is we could come in and talk to him, and he let us. We asked him what was wrong, and he was telling us how he didn´t want to be baptized that he didn´t believe in Jospeh Smith, and other things. We found out the story of why he was saying these things. So after we had left a neighbor had come over to their house, and saw how happy they were and asked Elizabeth what was the happy occasion? Elizabeth told her that Jeremy was getting baptized on Saturday and they were all excited for him. This lady, who is of a different religion, then told Jeremy, she had a revelation for him, that he would have a dream and in this dream some girls would be talking to him in a soft voice, asking him to be baptized, and then she told him that in the dream that if he got baptized he would be marked with the beast. That night Jeremy had a dream that he was marked with the beast and it scared him half to death, so he told us that he didn´t want baptism. Pero we talked with him, and we prayed with him, and after talking with him and Elizabeth, we were able to help him see that none of that was going to happen, and that he knew these things were true; it all started to change when we talked about the temple! I told him in the best spanish I could that this is what I wanted for him, I told him baptism sure, but the temple was the ultimate goal I wanted for him, I bore testimony of the temple and showed him a picture of the SLC temple, and Hna. Sanchez bore her testimony and showed him a picture of the EL Salvador Temple, and from there things changed, and I saw the Jeremy I knew. What was really cool to her, that Elizabeth told her neighber that she was wrong and that our church was right, and she isn´t even a member yet, Elizabeth is accepting it little by little and I know that she will be baptized!

Pero that wasn´t the only obstacle we had to face, on Saturday we had problems with the ward and trying to get keys and other things I really don´t want to talk about, and then we called Jeremy about and hour before his baptism and he told us that he was really sick, and had been sick all morning. Right after that we got down on our knees and prayed that things would be ok, then we went over to jeremys and picked him up, he still felt a bit sick but was a little bit better, but the amazing miracle was when his baptism started he wasn´t sick anymore, and hasn´t been since. It just goes to show that in the end Heavenly Father always wins! No matter how much opposition we face, when we put our trust and faith in the Lord, He will always help us through these obstacles, Always!

So funny story that happen with us this week, so we were at Elizabeths on Wed. and after we got done teaching her, she went into the kitchen and grabbed us some berries that she had picked over the weekend, which these berries were and are so good, we have been eating them in our yogurt which is even better! Pero the funny part is the container she gave it to us in was a coffee jar, which is nothing wrong with that, but we left their house and were walking and about minute of walking, we realized what we were carrying and that there were many people around us, and realized that wasn´t a good picture, because we have been teaching these people the word of wisdom and they didn´t know what was in the bottle was berries, so needless to say we stuffed it in my backpack really fast, because we didn´t want others getting the wrong impression, because people really do watch you here. Pero it was funny at the moment, we laughed about it all night!

Now on to some other things, we are preparing another little girl named Antonnella to be baptised this Saturday and she is very cute and really accepting and I´m so excited for her. Oh and something else, guess what, Maria accepted a baptism date for the 3rd of March! The Elders have been teaching her and they say she is doing great and I´m so excited for her! She is such an amazing lady! We have been teaching many wonderful people this week and I´m really excited to see what with happen this coming week!

Many great things have happened this week, but I really don´t have too much time to write about it, all, cause I need to get going here, because we still have to stop off at the store! But again I hope all is well! Know that my prayers are with you always, and that the Lord is always on our side and has his hand streched out to help us! Have a wonderful week! Sending lot and lots of love!

Love Always and Forever,

Hermana Aubrey Jo England

Week 3 in Chile - 02/13/2012

SEMA 3 en Chiguayante

Place: Hualqui y Tierra Bella

Companions: Hermana Sanchez y Hermana Brennan
Date: 02-13-12

Hola Mi Familia!

¿Como Estan? Hope everything is still going really well things here in Chile are going amazing! I uploaded a  few more pictures for you guys! So I´m just going to say I really think I jinxed myself, because last week I told you I haven´t been bit by any fleas, well the next day I started getting bit, and they itch is all I can say, I haven´t gotten them as bad as Hermana Sanchez, probably cause I´m on the top bunk, but they have started biting. They are mostly on my legs at this point, but I´m doing good at not itching them there are only a few times where they get really itchy, kinda a lot like a mosquito bite, but esta bien, life goes on! It is one of the things I´ll be dealing with for the rest of my mission! :)

    So the reason there are two different places and two different companions this week is because there was a mini cambio and I went to Tierra Bella for a day and Hna. Lopez came to Hualqui. We do mini cambios each week but not always do you leave your sector, this week though I did, and it was fun. I really enjoyed being with Herman Brennan. She is from Utah/Californina, (she says that because her family lives in California and she came to Utah for School) but Tierra Bella is really beautiful, but so, so hot! It has been a killer the past couple days with the heat and the humidity! haha I have started getting the "missionary tan line" on my feet, awsome!! But yeah Tierra Bella was a great place, we taught some really great people and we watched the Restoration movie with them, which was cool cause it was the first time I´ve seen it in Spanish! But it was really great! Oh so you are not going to believe what happened when I was in Tierra Bella! Hna. Brennan and I had just gotten ready for bed and we were just laying down and talking to eachother, and my bed started shaking! Yeah that´s right I experienced my first earthquake! I didn´t understand what it was at first but Hna. Brennan told me. It lasted for about 5 to 10 seconds really not that long, and wasn´t bad, Hna. Sanchez said it was about a 5. but it was kind of weird to experience it, it felt somewhat like a ship swaying back and forth, then there was another little one that happened during the middle of the night that woke me up a little bit, but that one wasn´t bad at all. But really there are no worries, everything is fine and we are all safe! It was just a little shaking! :)

    Our investigators are doing wonderful this week, we have continued to teach Jeremy and guess what he has his baptismal date for this Saturday!! We are continuing to prepare him for his interview, but Hna. Sanchez and I are really excited for him and for his decision! Elizabeth is doing well, she actually hurt her back picking up one of her kids so we really haven´t seen her too much this week because she is resting, but we went to her house the other day and helped her clean. We are also teaching another family Carlos, Catalina, and their sons Carlos Jr. and Ignacio! They are a great family and we are continuing to teach them! All of the people we have been teaching are great, we actually have started teaching Jeremy´s sister Caroline, tambien, and she is really sweet, their whole family is. 

    Ok so I need to share this experience that happened the other day, you are not going to believe, I mean I didn´t believe it happened! So we decided to go visit a lady we taught a while ago, but when we got there she wasn´t home, so we continued walking and we ran into a lady named Maria that we contacted and told her we were missionaries for La Iglesia de Jesucristo, and she then told us that she hadn´t heard of that church before. She then continued and asked us where we were from, Hna. Sanchez said El Salvador, and then I told her, Estados Unidos; now here is the surprize! After I told her where I was from, she looked at me and said, in english, "So I can speak english to you then" That totally caught me off guard because I never thought would happen, haha it kindof reminded me of the best two years! Pero on with the story, I told her sure she could speak English to me, and so I sat there and bore testimony about our church and how it has been restored, turns out she has heard about the mormons and didn´t know it was the same church :) She then continued to tell me how she had been in Chile in ´79 but went to Canada for a while, and then came back just recently and she has had really bad experiences with some chileans and doesn´t trust them, but she told us that she really enjoyed how service oriented that we were and how we cared about people, she said that the catholic church isn´t like that at all and she feels like they don´t care about her, and she wanted to learn more about our church, and she really appriciated that I sat there and listened to what she had to say. We then invited her to church the next day and she told us that she would come. And we saw her the next day, and she sat through sacrament with us, and afterwards she told us that she really enjoyed it, and said that she would be back next week! I tell you this was a milagro! She actually lives in a different sector then us, so we really won´t have the opportunity to teach her everything, we have to call the elders where she lives, but she is such a wonderful lady, and is so accepting, and I can´t wait to see her next week! If the elders where she lives baptize her, I´m definitly going to her baptism! This is one of the first times where I have felt the Lord has put someone in my way that needed to hear from me personally, and It is so cool! It is definitly a milagro!

    Things are going amazing in the house, we continue to have so much fun together! haha this morning I was sitting on the couch and Hna. Kramer was sweeping, I was just about to write in my journal when all of a sudden she screamed, and jumped on a chair, and you can imagine how fast I got up and jumped on the chair in front of me, because she scared me so bad and I didn´t know what was on the floor, but it turns out there was a dead mouse under the couch, and she thought it was alive because she moved it with broom, but I started laughing so hard, and she did too, but she really, really hates mice. After we saw that this morning we deep cleaned our apartment, cause it grossed us both out cause we don´t know how long it has been there, that and there were ants, which wasn´t fun to take care of. Pero, we have some really great times together, there is one picuture I took of Hna. Carmona, it looks like she is holding a lightsaber, haha it is fun what you learn from elders! The elders I was with in the CCM taught me how to take pictures like this, and only they would think us this but they used the lead from the sciptures marking pencils that we have and use that to make it look like a lightsaber. It was fun and she loved the picture. All of the Hermanas are amazing!! and things are going wonderful here.

   Well I think I´m going to end for this week, but remember to always pray and search for miracles because you will find them when you look for them, it happened to me this week! Remember how much I love you all and you are always in my prayers. Take care!

Love Always and Forever!

Hermana Aubrey Jo England

Photo's in Hualqui - 02/06/2012

Hermana Sanchez (from El Salvador)
and Hermana England

Jamie & Maria Isabel and Cat Chester
with Hermana Sanchez and England
(New Converts to the church)

Hermana England
in Hualqui, Chile

Hermana Kramer & Carmone
and Hermana Sanchez & England

Hermana England
in Hualqui, Chile

Week 2 in Chile - 02/06/2012

SEMA 2 en Hualqui

Place: Hualqui

Companion: Hermana Sanchez
Date: 2/6/2012

Hola Mi Familia!

¿Como Estan? I hope you are all are continuing to do very well. Before I begin this letter I have some really good news for you all, Friday I asked President Humphrey if I could be allowed to use the Costco account to send pictures home to you and he gave me permission! So all the pictures I took in the CCM y a few pictures that I have taken already here in Hualqui should be uploaded and you can go and look at them! :) There aren´t a ton of pictures from the CCM, but I promise I´ll be taking more pictures while I´m here and I´ll upload them each week I´m in here. I hope you enjoy the photos that are there so far though.

So as for this week, I´ll be honest this week has definitly been a rollercoaster ride, it has had it´s ups and downs, but I´m still here and doing well! :) Something sad that happened this week is we lost Fernanda as an investigator. We went and visited her this past week and I didn´t understand much of what happened, but I guess she had some weird dream I think, all I could pick out of what she said was devil, satan, red eyes, and some other words, but it freaked me out a bit cause I couldn´t understand her completely. It was really sad to loose her though, after we left, we were walking and Hermana Sanchez said "Freaking Satanas". I don´t know but I talked to Hermana Kramer about it later and she told me there are some people here and there who have dreams and it affects the work. But I think it just really hit me bad because Fernanda was the first one I really connected to and wanted to help, and it really broke my heart when she told us that she didn´t want to meet with us any more. But hopefully she will remember the feeling that she had when we were there and that another pair of missionaries down the line will be able to help her; sometimes that is how it is, there are just some people you place a seed in and hopefully one day they will accept the message of the gospel.

Ok on to something happy, Elizabeth and Jeremy are doing really well, we have been continuing to teach them, and we left them a Book of Mormon to read. Oh speaking about the Book of Mormon, there was this one lady this week, can you say amazing! So we were out tracting and we stopped by Maria Louisa´s door, she let us in and we taught her about the Book of Mormon and left here a copy and asked her to read it, now here is the amazing part, we came back a day and a half later just to see how she was doing and how her reading was, and she told us that she was already in 2 Nefi 2! It is amazing! I have never read the to 2 nephi in a day and a half, and she was able to give us a summery of things she read, and what she liked, she is really amazing! We are working on finding a time to go and see her again but we keeping going when she is gone, hopefully we will catch her this week. Oh and her yard, you would love it, it is such a garden, with lots and lots of flowers and lavender, and trees it is really beautiful place. And we are also teaching a family who are really nice, Carlos, Catalina and there two boys, they came to church with us yesterday and that went well. The people here are so wonderful! Many of them are really nice and will listen to what you have to say, yes there are some who go crazy and go off about how we worship Josè Smith and other things they think we believe, mostly those are the testigos (Jehovahs Witnesses) and some Evangelicals, but overall the people here are absolutely amazing, humble and nice. One of the new converts that I have really come to love is Jamie, actually there is a picture of him that I uploaded, we are with him and his wife Maria Isabel, haha and there cat Chester! I told him, that I had a cat named chester too and he thought that was cool! I still can´t say too much to him, but I´m learning little by little and he is patient with me! He is awesome!

The Hermanas that I´m with are amazing! We continue to have fun, and they are so supporting and have helped me out so much. Oh by the way, yes I did get baptized a few times this week, although I probably partially deserved one of them, I had just barely washed by hands and went to go dry them off, but on my way to go get a towel to dry them off, I flicked the water on my hands onto Hna. Carmona, haha lets just say, I ran, she caught me and dumped half a glass of water on me! haha it is all out of fun though. Hermana Sanchez is so amazing I continue to learn so much from her cada dia! One thing that I learned from Hermana Kramer this week that I thought was really funny was she told me there are three things that stop the work, 1. Football, 2. Wrong addresses, and 3. Dogs! I haven´t really had to deal with football yet, because it is off season right now, but wrong addresses I have and Dogs! There are so many dogs here, I definitly see at lest 200 dogs a day if not more and if you add that up to a week that is about 1400 dogs! That is a lot! I´m just hoping I don´t get bit, but as long as I watch out I probably won´t. I think the one thing I have to worry about getting bit by are fleas, although to tell you the truth I haven´t been bit by a single flea, I think I got bit by a spider the other day, but no fleas yet! Which is so nice! The food is really good too, no chicken feet! :) and I don´t think I´ll eat any either, Hna. Kramer said she hasn´t and she has been in the mission for over a year, although I hope I didn´t just jinx myself by saying that! No but the food is great I´ve eaten a lot of chicken, rice, I had fish a while ago, haha and you would think I would know how to eat it, no, I probably poked my tongue about 10 times with the bones, haha but it is all good. The soups are really good and they love tomatoes! We eat tomatoes alot, good thing I like them, although they eat a lot of avacados too and those I don´t like, but I eat them anyway, because you don´t want to offend them, because they spent time cooking for you, but it really isn´t that bad, I´m counting my blessings because I could have so much worse. The food is amazing! Things are different here, they have a big lunch here instead of a big dinner, and usually we just have quick snack when we get back at night. But they feed you so much food! and the desserts are good, they are usually fruit, I think my favorite one so far is tootie fruity, it is a bunch of fruit cut up in a bowl with yogurt, it is good :)

Well I think I´m going to wrap up this letter for now and I´ll write more next week. I love you all so much! and I really hope you enjoy the pictures and the things are going amazing for you! Take care, and I sending my love always!

Love Always and Forever!

Hermana Aubrey Jo England