Week 25 in Chile - 07/16/2012

OCHO MESES EN LA MISIÓNPlace: Cordillera, Chillan Nuble
Companion: Hermana Steinmetz
Date: 16/07/2012Hola Mi Familia!!!


        ¿Como Estan todos? Can you believe it!! I already have 8 months in the mission! Entonces haha Happy Chili Day! Where in the world is the time going? It is so crazy!!! Wow well this week has been absolutely amazingly fun! I really love my new sector, Cordillera is a beautiful place, the thing I had to get use to though here is it is more of a city, and many cars, yeah I have had to be a bit more careful crossing the street. And hear this the coolest thing ever, we are pretty close to the mountains, and there is SNOW!!! I´m so excited to be able to go one p-day and play in the snow, I have missed it so much, because Christmas there was like no snow whatsoever, so I haven´t seen snow for a long time, and this christmas there definitly will not be snow since it will be summer, so i´m sure you can see my excitement! :)   My companion is amazingly, fantastic!! We hit it off really well, really fast, and I know that Hermana Steinmetz and I are going to have a lot of success together, I´m so excited, our personalities are casi 100% the same, which is really crazy, how often does that happen, where you are put with a random companion and you hit is off really well, the first day, it is great. Bueno a little bit of information about Hermana Steinmetz, well she is from Houston, Texas, she has the same tick day as I do, so today she has 16 months in the mission, yeah lets just say right now I will probably be the companion who kills her, because she is almost finished, it really is crazy how fast time passes, we need to cherish every moment that we have. But so something cool about Hermana Steinmetz and I is that we are 1 of the only 2 gringa companionships in the mission, all the other companionships for the hermanas are either one latina and a gringa, or two latinas. So we were both thinking about that the other day, and we decided there is a reason that we were put together at this time, as one of the only gringa companionships and we are going to find those reasons why, together!


     The house in Cordillera is amazing! It is really big, too, I promise that I will take pictures and send them to you next week, because I forgot the cord to download them. But it is a great house, and the amazing thing, there is hot water!! In Hualqui, there wasn´t hot water, you had to boil it, and the shower was electric, (where as here it is gas) so you really had to play with it to even find a little warm water, but it is so amazing to have hot water, I will never, ever, take hot water for granted again, I think I forgot what it felt like after six months, but never again will I take it for granted, because it is a blessing to have. Oh the only thing that really scares me about this house is the stairs, they are tiny, my feet are bigger then the steps, and they are steep, haha so pretty much I was crawling up them so I wouldn´t fall for the first few days, but now it is getting better with more practice, and I learned you just have to go down sideways, so ahora it is really much better, but they are still a bit scary. Haha so the other day for exercises Hna. Steinmetz and I did a P90X dvd that one of the other Hermana´s left for her, and all I can say is I was so sore the next day, it was so crazy, but it was somewhat of a good sore, haha.


     We aren´t the only two hermanas in the house, we live with two more hermanas in the house who are in the sector Anagronamia (It think that is how you spell it), they are Hermana Daglio, who is from Argentina, and Hermana Martinez, who is from El Salvador, and get this is the cousin of Hermana Sanchez, it is awesome! But they are so much fun, and are full of a lot of energy! I love both of them so, so much! I want to thank you for the package you sent me, there was a lot of cool things in there, and Hna´s Martinez y Daglio, loved the pop rocks and the silly straws. Haha so I am probably just a little bit of a joker, (I learned that from you, mom and dad.) but this morning, Hermana Daglio came in to our room after she woke up, to tell us hi, well you remember the sour cry baby gumballs you gave me, well I gave one to Hermana Daglio and told her it was gum, which wasn´t a lie, and she put it right in her mouth and started to chew it, and you should have seen her face it was one of the funniest things in the entire world, it made me laugh so hard, but then I had to run down stairs after and told her sorry, and then she told me that we have to do it to Hna. Martinez tonight, which she is excited about. haha it is just really funny because they don´t know what it is because the wrapper is in English, and I´m sure Hermana Daglio will get me back so we are even.


    There are so many funny things that have happened this week, it is like a comedy movie in our house. When I first got here, it was funny I started putting my stuff away (Which was so crazy to pack by the way, it is crazy what you obtain in 6 months) but I was upacking and I saw a little bug or something on my bed, and I said, "Hermana Steinmetz what is this" she came over looked at it really close, jumped back quickly, and yelled, "THAT´S A PULGA (flea), THATS IT WE ARE CALLING ELDER CLAWSON RIGHT NOW FOR PULGA SPRAY" haha oops looks like I brought a few fleas with me, Hermana Steinmetz has never been bit and she wants to keep it that way, it was just funny the look on her face, when she say that it was pulga.


     The people here in Cordillera are amazing! I love the barrio, they are tiny, about 70 active memebers, but each and every one of them are great and I´m excited to work with them! And the investigators are great too, there is Solange, who is really funny, and I love her, she has a fecha for her baptism this saturday, so we are very excited for her and finishing teaching all she needs to know. There is Juan, and he is great too, he has a lot of faith in Christ, There is Elva who is a new convert and she is awesome I´ve grown very close to her already. There are very many people here, and I know that I´m going to have are really great time here. One of the things that was really cool this week, was we were teaching this lady named Anna, she has a store that she works in, and that is where we were teaching her, Hermana Steinmetz was teaching and I was thinking "what in the world am I going to say, what does she need". So I said a little pray in my heart and that was when a scripture came to my mind that I had studyed that morning, which talks about gifts from god, so I began talking about that, and I can´t tell you everything that I told her, because I don´t remember all I said, but I knew in that moment I wasn´t the one teaching, the spirit was using me as an intrument to teach her what she needed to hear, and I invited to her to be baptized, which I hardly ever do in the first visit, because I´m just getting to know them, but something told me i had to invite her, it was the coolest feeling ever to be in an instrument in the hands of the Spirit.


      Well I can´t think of too much more, but before I finish I will leave you with a scripture that I came across this week that I love. So this cambio I have started reading that Doctrine and Covenents and all I can say is it is absolutely, fantastically amazing, there are so many treasures to be found in these revelations, but the scripture I found this week is in D&C 6:14,18-19, 36 which says: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee,blessed art thou for what thou hast done; for thou hast inquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instruction of my Spirit. If it had not been so, thou wouldst not have come to the place where thou art at this time. Therefore be diligent; stand by my servant Joseph, faithfully in whatsoever difficult circumstances... for the word´s sake... Be patient; be sober; be temperate; have patience, faith, hope, and charity. Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not." I really loved this scripture, because it just shows us that we are each where we are in the point of our lives because God has plans for us to be where we are, we just need to be diligent, faithfully, not doubting that through Him we can absolutely do all things, because He was the one who has permitted us to be here at this time specificly, to touch the lives of people that are around us. Well I hope that all of you are continuing to do amazingly well, and I hope all of you always remember how much that I love you all, and that I pray for you all always each day and night and always. Please take care and this next week will be more wonderful news from Cordillera. Until then take care!


  Con Amor Siempre, y Para Toda La Eternidad,
   Hermana Aubrey Jo England

Week 24 in Chile - 07/09/2012

CAMBIO 4 SEMANA 6

 

Place: Hualqui

Companion: Hermana Keil

Mini Cambio: Hermana López

Date: 9/07/2012

 

Hola Mi Familia!!!

 

      ¿Como estan todos? Well this week as actually been a little crazy but has been really fun! Like life this week had its ups and downs, like a roller coaster, but hey it makes it fun! I love roller coasters! :) No I think the only thing that wasn´t too much fun this week is we had many doors closed in our face this week, so it was really hard, because we know how important this message it, and when people don´t want to give even five minutes for a simple prayer or a message about Christ it´s hard, but all you have to remember is that people have agency and if they choose not to listen it is ok and maybe one day they will :) 

 

      OK time for the big question that I think all of you want answered this week, what happened with cambios this week! Ok ready for this, drum roll please......... I AM GOING TO CORDILLERA, CHILLAN!!!! Yep that is right I´m changing sectors after 6 months of being in Hualqui! AAAH is the only this that I can say, but I knew that it was coming, I knew that I was going to be changed, because it is very rare to have 5 cambios in a sector like I told you before, and the fact that I couldn´t sleep last night very well, probably was another sign. But I´m very excited to go to my new sector, and I will be companions with Hermana Steinmetz, she is a wonderful missionary, I have met her a few times and I´m excited to be with her! So next week there will be some more updates about how my new sector is!!! 

 

    So this week I had a mini cambio like you can see, I was with Hermana López like you can see, and it was so much fun, I love Hna. López with all my heart, she is an hermana from Argentina and is the best ever, we had a lot of fun working together, and because it was the fourth of July, she decided that we had to celebrate it, so when we got home that night, she painted our faces with the American flag and then we made no bake cookies, haha it was a lot of fun! Too bad it is against the rules to have fireworks! :) But we had a lot of fun! Oh so I forgot to tell you last week it turns out I became the "chosen one" in our house, because my legs started getting bitten by fleas so much last week, and usually there is only one person they choose in the house and this cambio is turned out to be me! I really don´t like being the "Chosen One" in that manera, but hey they haven´t been biting this week so that is a whole lot better. 

 

   What else could I tell you about this week, so we are continuing to work with the wonderful people here in Hualqui, Carol is progressing really well, and will be baptized in a couple weeks, which is awesome, it will be sad that I can´t be here, but Hna. Keil promised she would take pictures. Catalina is progressing little by little, and hopefully Hna. Keil and Hna. Rojas will be able to help her take that next step. I know that there are going to be great people waiting for me in Cordillera, and it will be great to go there and find them. 

 

     So we have been teaching a lady here in Hualqui, named Claudia, I can´t remember if I told you about her, or not, she is a wonderful lady, she is 24 years old, but the hard thing we are trying to help her with is she is a drug addict, and smokes and drinks, but she wants to change so we are trying to help her change, but the other day we stoped by her house to take her some mandrine oranges because they are her favorite, and when we stoped by she, was completely drunk and on something, and we stopped by to drop the oranges off, and when we did she just started crying and crying, because she just needed someone to support her, and she was very sad that she couldn´t have her 4 year old daughter with her that weekend, but we were in there trying to comfort her, we sang for her, and we just sat there with her, trying to help her, and in the end of our visit we got her to a point of laughing. I can´t describe all that happend that night, but I will tell you this experience had a great effect on me, and has changed me more than anyone will expect. I have learned more this week, the importance of each person in the eyes of God, and the worth of souls. As we were helping her, I could feel within me the love that our Heavenly Father has for Claudia, it was the coolest feeling ever, and I know that no importa the situation that anyone is in our Heavenly Father is there for each and everyone of his children, and never leaves them, they just need to seek and ask for his help.   

 

    Haha so this week we had a service project to help a member in our ward. So we went to their house because they had just finished cutting all the branches off their tree and had two huge piles so we helped them short it out into fire wood and sticks to go out back, and my job was to chop all the wood, because I was the only Hermana who has every really used an axe before (Yes that is right mom! I hope that makes you proud! :)  ) , haha it was so much fun, but I am so sore right now, because the "axe" that they had was more like a hatchet with and axe head, haha so I had to use a lot more force to cut the wood, but hey it was so much fun! I actually had someone who let me cut wood, I have been offering people for weeks and finally someone accepted! Whats up with people not wanting to accept, just because I´m a missionary who happens to be an hermana and I´m wearing a dress, doesn´t mean that I can´t cut wood! ;) haha just kidding around :) Oh so I bought a recorder this week, because I needed something to play music, because I don´t have much time any more to play piano, and playing music is one of my destressers, so I bought a recorder and I have been learning how to play the hymns on it, I´m doing pretty good with it, you will have to hear, oh and dad so that you know, I have a goal now to learn how to play the bagpipes, so get you chanter ready I will learn that when i get home because I know that is after recorder! then next step bagpipes!!! :)

 

     Well I need to get going so that I can go and pack all my stuff and I can get a little bit of sleep tonight, haha! but before I end I´m going to leave you with a spiritual thought, so this week I finished the Book of Mormon!! Woohoo!!! It was such an amazing experience to read it together as a mission and this week I´m going to start with D&C! I´m really excited. But one of the things that stood out to me as I finished and the experiences that I had this week, is that we can´t judge people! We need to always remember that the Worth of Souls is Great in the Sight of God!! We need to remember that all people that are around us are our brothers and sister, and remember to love them, remember that everyone needs to be loved. I´m definitly not the most perfect one with this, but each and every day if there is someone who makes me mad I do my best to remember that they are my brothers and sisters and well, and I forgive them. So my message to you all this week, so your best to serve others this week, and remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God, remember that each and every person on this earth is our brother and sister and we are here to help them! Find someone to serve this week. 

 

   I hope that all of you are continuing to do amazing and this next week I will have another wonderful letter for you all from Cordillera!! Please take care and remember that I am always praying for you all! and I love you all so much! Until next week!

 

   Con Amor Siempre, y Para Toda La Eternidad,

    Hermana Aubrey Jo England

Week 23 in Chile 0 07/02/2012

CAMBIO 4 SEMANA 5

 

Place: Hualqui

Companion: Hermana Keil

Date: 2/07/2012

 

Hola Mi Familia!!!

 

             ¿Como estan todos? I really hope that things continue to do really well. Things here are going really well, we had a really good week this week, and found many new people to start teaching which is amazing! And before I continue, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT IS JULY!! It is so crazy where in the world did June go?? Time is going really fast, it is really crazy that I am going to have 8 months in the mission in like two weeks. Well like I said things are going really good here, and we continue to teach really amazing people, we haven´t had to big of a chance to go and see Catalina and the family this week, because she has been working and we can´t enter the house unless she is there, and it is to cold to teach the kids outside, so hopefully she will have a little bit more time this week and we can find them. We have been teaching this one girl that I have told you about before, her name is Carol Valenzuela, she is so awesome, there is actually a picture of her that I sent you all last week, there is the one picture where I´m playing the piano with someone, the picture after that one I believe I am with two girls, she isn´t the girl I was playing the piano with but the other girl. But Carol is doing wonderful and has a fecha for the 21 of July, and we are really excited for her, she is progressing really well, so I will have to let you know how things go with her. The only sad thing is is there are cambios next week, so this is the first time where I have had the feeling that I will be leaving and changing sectors, because I have been here for six months and it is rare to have 5 cambios in one place, but we will see what happens it is possible that I will have one more cambio here, so that I can help Hna. Keil learn a bit more about the sector in Hualqui, but if I do leave I won´t be here for her baptism, which will be sad, but we will have to see what happens, you will know next Monday whether I am leaving or staying.

 

        So like I told you I can´t believe it is July already, haha because it sure doesn´t feel like July, literally it feels like December, talk about Christmas in July! haha every once and a while Hna. Keil starts singing Christmas songs because it feels like Christmas, it is funny, so it will be fun to see what Christmas is like in the blazing heat of summer :) Oh so talk about adventures in the mission, this week I don´t know what was different but Hna. Keil and I got stopped and contacted, I think by a total number of 6 drunk men this week, and one of them we saw about 3 times during the week, but no worries nothing happened, most of them just wanted to talk to us, a couple told us to fly back to the states nothing more, and then the one who we saw three times this week, threatened that his lion was going to come and attack us, yeah it was interesting, but again no worries we are protected really well, and prayers really do work, because Sunday we were walking to church and as we were walking we saw the one who threatened us with the lion, well Hna. Keil was praying that we would be invisible to him and that he wouldn´t come and try to talk to us, and that we could walk right by him, and the cool thing is we walked right past him, and it was like he didn´t see us at all, so that is why I said prayers really work, as long as you have the faith that they work.

 

     Lets see her what else happened this week, I should really start making a list so I know what to write, because it is all a little jumbled up in my head, there is a reason the missionaries say that each week of your mission is like a year, because that is what it feels like. Oh so this week, we have a dart board in our house and Hna. Bahr and I have been having a lot of fun competing against each other, all though it really isn´t too much of a competition cause she always wins, even just by a little, but I´m getting better and I´m determined to win this week. haha but she doesn´t like how I always manage to get the bulls eye and she doesn´t it is funny. Haha and lets just say the ceilings the in the houses here in Chile are a little bit shorter, so lets just say the ceiling has a couple marks in it, and Hna. Bahr hit the light twice, luckily it didn´t break, but no worries we are being a lot more careful.

 

    Well I really can´t think of too much more, but I´ll start making a list so that next week should be a bit better, but before I leave I want to just leave you with a few verses that I read in the Book of Mormon this week, so I was reading in Mormon this week and a few things that he says about prayer in chapter nine I really liked and want to share it with you. He says: "21. Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever, he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth. 25. And whosoever shall believe in my name, doubting nothing, unto him will I confirm all my words, even unto the ends of the earth. 37. And may the Lord Jesus Christ grant that their prayers may be answered according to their faith; and may God the Father remember the covenant which he hath made with the house of Israel; and may he bless them forever, through faith on the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."  I really liked those few verses, there were many that I came across this week that I love, but these were the few that I felt like I should share, and a quote as well that says, “I was regretting the past and fearing the future. Suddenly my Lord was speaking: ‘My name is I AM’ He paused. I waited. He continued, ‘When you live in the past with it’s mistakes and regrets, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not I WAS. When you live in the future, with it’s problems and fears, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not I WILL BE. When you live in this moment it is not hard. I am here my name is I AM.” ~Helen Mallicoat~ My message to all of you this week would be to remember that all prayers are answered if we have faith and that miracles will also be produced with that faith and patience, that has been proven to me many times while I have been out in the mission and I know because our Heavenly Father loves each of His children, that He will answer each of our prayers, as long as we have faith and the patience to wait for the answer, because "some blessings come soon, some don´t come till later on, and some don´t come until heaven, but for those who [have faith] they come."

 

     I hope you all remember that I love each and everyone of you so much and more that any of you can ever imagine, and remember I pray for you all, all the time, I hope all goes well this week, please enjoy all the wonderful fireworks for me, and the warm weather! :) I will write more adventures about Hualqui next week, so until then.

 

  Con Amor, Siempre, y Para Toda La Eternidad,

   Hermana Aubrey Jo England

Week 22 in Chile - 06/25/2012

CAMBIO 4 SEMANA 4

 

Place: Hualqui

Companion: Hermana Keil

Mini Cambio: Hermana Ocampo

Date: 25/06/2012

 

Hola Mi Familia,

 

      ¿Como Estan Todos? I really hope that you are doing amazing!! This week was good, but had its ups and downs how life likes to throw at you at times, I still have a cough from being sick, and Hermana Keil got sick this week, but we haven´t been letting it get us down and we worked as well as we were able, yes I numbers could have been better but this week is going to be a whole lot better just watch :) Before I move on too far, I should tell you, there are pictures that I uploaded, yes I know, shocking isn´t it, I´m so sorry that it has taken me awhile to upload them, I´ve just been a little floja, pero I try to be better at uploading them more often :)

 

      So as for this week we are continuing to teach the same families, Catalina and her family, we had to change her fecha though because she just isn´t ready yet and doesn´t fully want it yet, but we are still working with her, but hopefully Carlitos y Ignacio will be ready in a couple weeks! We watched the Joseph Smith movie with them the other day and also had popcorn, it was really fun haha Carlitos and Ignacio have never seen the popcorn bags that you put in the microwave, so it was funny to see their reaction. We are also teaching Belen, the mom of Barbara, things are going well with her, she is reading the Book of Mormon little by little, with a calender with gave her or different passages to read each day. I love this family so much as well, we had a noche de hogar with them a little while ago and watched the testaments with them, I don´t know if I told you that or not but it was so much fun, we made magic bars and watched the movie, it was great! We are really going to be focusing a lot on finding new people this week as well so wish us luck with that :) It is really crazy how close you grow to the people here, and I am going to die a little bit inside when I have to leave for another sector, I have been here in Hualqui for almost 6 months, that is a long time, so you can see why it will be hard.

 

      Well this week I had a mini cambio like you can see, and I was in Hualqui with Hermana Ocampo, can I just tell you I love love love this hermana we get along really well, and we had a great day together, through the rain and all, haha it down poured Wednesday morning, but it was a good thing we were doing service in a members house so we didn´t have to walk in it, which I was grateful for, and it kind of calmed down in the afternoon, it is officially winter here, so little by little it is getting colder and colder, but I really haven´t felt too cold, every once and a while, but I´m pretty bundled up so that is a good thing :) The other Hermanas had a baptism this week and it went really well. This week for zone class I had the opportunity to teach, every once and a while we have a desayuno celestial, and we go to the church and each breakfast as a zone and then after we go and learn from three teachers that are picked out of the zone, and this week I got picked to teach! I will tell you it scared me a bit to teach but it went well, I taught about how as missionaries we need to have good, freak I´m having a hard time thinking of the work in English, It was about animo, which I think is along the lines of a good attitude and excitement, well along those lines, but I taught about how we need to have a good attitude and be positive as we are out teaching because there are always people watching and we need to be good examples, and we can´t have the spirit very strong with us if we aren´t positive, and then we can´t teach if we don´t have the spirit, so that is what I taught about, and it went pretty good. I´m trying to think of some other things, well one more thing, I bought some pomegranates the other day and last night I cut them up and started picking out the seeds to put in a bag so that I could eat them this week, and as we all know pomegranates are a mess and your hands get really red, by the end it looked like I had just gotten down doing surgery or something, and I had a knife in my hand too from cutting them, let´s just say I nearly made Hna. Keil bust out laughing while she was on the phone with our district leader, haha it was fun!

 

    Well I really can´t think of much else to write, this week was long and fast at the same time, so it is crazy. But so I will leave a short message with you, so I am reading again in 3 Nephi, and the message that Christ told us about "let your light sign before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven." I have been thinking about that a lot this week and how we need to continually be helping people and letting our light (testimony/example) shine forth to help others, whether you are a full time missionary or not, because we are all missionaries and we need to remember that, so this week I would just invite you all to look for that person that could be in need of your help, even if it is just a simple "hello" it can change their day, "Be and example of the believers" and "let your light shine forth". I hope that you are all doing great, there is not a day goes by that I don´t think and pray from each and everyone of you. Please take care and I will write more about the adventures here in Hualqui this next coming week. Love you all more than you can ever imagine.

 

   Con Amor Siempre, y Para Toda La Eternidad,

    Hermana Aubrey Jo England

Week 21 in Chile - 06/18/2012

CAMBIO 4 SEMANA 3

 

Place: Hualqui

Companion: Hermana Keil

Date: 18/06/2012

 

Hola Mi Familia!

 

        ¿Como Estan todos? I hope that everyone is doing really well. This week has been a good week, but has had its ups and downs, mostly the down is that I have been sick this week, but you don´t need to worry I have the medicine from home and haha practically all the members have been telling me ways that I can get better, I actually had one hermana in the ward, Hna. Margarita, who saw that I was sick, we had gone about 20 minutes early to her house for lunch because i was sick and just sore and couldn´t really walk around and I just sat on her couch and I fell asleep for about 20 minutes, which helped, but she saw that I wasn´t feeling good, and she made me this big thing of herbal tea with honey in it to take home and drink, and it was good can helped a bit, which of nice; I´m still left with the cough but hopefully that will go away in a few days.

 

       Bueno onto the good things that have happened this week, we really have had a good week and have met a lot of really good people this week. Catalina had an interview for her baptism on thursday, and she still has a few more things that she needs, but we are working with her, and she and her family are doing really well. I love this family with all my heart, we have a noche de hogar with them tonight and we are really excited to be able to go and have so fun with them tonight.  

 

       I love the Hermanas that I live with, Hermana Keil is amazing like always, and it is so fun with we get home at night and we are planning, we are both a little tired and we are a little crazy to I will admit, but the fun part is we found marshmallows and we have been roasting them over a candle, it is awsome, haha when you told me that you were going camping we just had to do it! :) oh and yesterday was a lot of fun as well, Hermana Bahr and I made soft pretzals last night! can I just tell you how much I love them! they turned out pretty good except the bottoms got burnt a bit, but just because our oven is a little weird, but oh well, esta bien! ;) I´m trying to think of a few other things that happened this week but it is a little bit hard because this week just flew past really quick, well we had a mini conference with President this week which went really well, and we also had stake conference, which turned out really great, they changed the stake president here, so things are probably going to get switched up a bit here in the next little bit, we´ll have to see.

 

     Well, sorry that this letter is so short, I promise that next week will be a bit longer, I just really can´t think of everything thing, and I´m kind of running out of time which is not helping either. but I promis the next one will be better. Well I hope that all of you continue to do wonderful this week and have many amazing adventures, and remember to always look for blessings every day of you life, I promise that you can find them if you look for them. Love you so much and I pray for you all each day and night and always. So until next week with more adventures from Hualqui.

 

Con Amor Siempre, y Para Toda La Eternidad,

Hermana Aubrey Jo England

 

Week 20 in Chile - 06/11/2012

CAMBIO 4 SEMANA 2
Place: Hualqui
Companion: Hermana Keil
Mini Cambio: Hermana Joglar, Hermana Child
Date: 11/06/2012
Hola Mi Familia! 

      Como Estan todos? Well this week has gone amazing is all that I can tell you for sure, I love it here! We are continuing to have great sucess here, so for firsts off, drum roll, KAHTALINA SE BAUTISO!!! It was really great, Kahtalina is the 9 year old girl that we have been teaching, whos mom is a menos activa, but her baptism was on Saturday and her family was there and the service was very nice and really great. So that would be the big news, so one to other things. This week we had mini cambios all week with the travel assistants, who are Herman Child and Hermana Young, they extended their mission for 30 days so they are going around to all the sectors and training, but it was really fun to have them in the house, and we all learned a lot from them to help us become better missionarys, most of the cambios though I was with Hermana Joglar and we had a really great time together for three days and taught some really great people.

     Bueno I´m trying to think of a few more things to write, I´m having a really hard time remembering things, this week was really fast but on the other hand feels like two weeks in one, which is so crazy how that happens here, good thing most of it is in my journal. So yesterday we went and saw Adrianna and after we were done teaching her, she brought out some sopaipillas for us to take and eat along the way, and being good people we only took a few, and she kept insisting for us to take them all, and we where telling her we didn´t want to take all of them so that her and Louis would have some and after a second she just looked at us and was like, "SACALO NO MAS" haha pretty much just take them all I made them for you, then she also gave us an apple and a banana, I love her so much she is really good to make she was are good with having things to eat at night, because she don´t have dinner. Wonderful adventures happen when you are in the mission, like the other day we went to pick up our clothes from the member who washes them for us, and when we went them, Hna. Lidia just looks at me and was like "Hna. I´m really sorry" and I was trying to find out why she was sorry, but turns out one my garmet tops got a little too close the stove where they were drying them and it got a bit burnt, well more like a yellowish color, haha like I told you things that happen in the mission, it is crazy.

    Oh so this week, I want to tell you a cool story before I end, my hand are really cold and it is getting hard to type so I´m going to end with this. But so there is this lady, her name is Rosa, and she has a copy shop that we go to every week to make copies for the meetings that we have and we went by a day early because I had a few copies I had to make that day, and so I asked her how she was doing and she told me she felt a little bit depressed, and really couldn´t tell me why and this is a lady that we really can´t teach because she is alwasy working in the store, and when she isn´t working she goes to San Pedro to be with her son; well so I went home and I made some brownies and the next day when I went back to make the copies for the meeting, after I looked at her, and told her that we were making brownies and I brought her some because I was thinking of her, you should have seen her face when I gave them too her, if you can say getting a great reward would be the look of happiness that I saw one her face, but she was very grateful, and I just hope that I was able to make her day. But it just goes to show what a little act of kindness can bring into the life of someone else, and that would be something that I invite all who reads this letter this week, I invite you all to find someone who is feeling a little bit down and show them and act of kindness in one way or another. I promise that you will feel great in the process of doing it. Well I´m going to end this letter for now, sorry that it is a little bit short, but my hands are freezing and I have a few more things to go and type, before I end, but I hope you all remember how much I love you all and I hope that everything is going well, remember I pray for you all daily, and I thank you all for your prayers and love, please take care and I will have more adventures next week.

   Con Amor Siempre, y Para Toda La Eternidad,
    Hermana Aubrey Jo England

Week 19 in Chile - 06/04/2012

CAMBIO 4 SEMANA 1

 

Place: Hualqui

Companion: Hermana Keil

Mini Cambio: Hermana Bahr y Hermana Joglar

Date: 4/06/2012

 

Hola Mi Familia!!

 

     ¿Como Estan Todos? I really hope that you all have been doing great and that you have been able to do all that you wanted to accomplish this week. Things here are going really great! So as I told you last week there were cambios, so I have a new companion; her name is Hermana Keil, she is from New Mexico, but she use to live in Kearns, Utah. She is a really great person, and we have a lot of fun together, we are both kindof in the stage of getting use to eachother but all in all, we are doing amazing! Haha we were both talking, that is the thing about the mission, it is like an arranged marriage, so they tell you, "Ok this is your new companion, and you need to be best friends like right now, learn everything you can about each other, you are always with eachother, never alone, and you have to go out and teach the gospel unified." Yeah haha lets just say we were laughing about that for a while. She is a really great missionary, in some aspects we are a lot alike, and I know that we are going to have a lot of success together, just need to rely on the Spirit and do all that you can, and the Lord will provide the rest. Haha this week was funny so I was with Hna. Keil and lets just say I fell, I hardly every fall, like never, haha scraped my hand pretty good, and Hermana Keil told me that there is a saying here when you fall, entonces "Yo compre un pedazo de Chile" basically meaning I bought a piece of chile, haha it was just funny :)

 

     So as for the other two Hermanas that are in the house, because Hualqui is in two sectors, we have Hermana Joglar still, and then there is Hermana Bahr, who is from Oregon. They are both fantastic missionarys. The past two days I was in a companionship with them because we have mini cambios for about 10 days, so yesterday and Saturday I was with them. They are amazing and we had a lot of fun as we where walking around. So to explain a little bit about the mini cambio thing, so we have Hermana Child and Hermana Young in Hualqui until Friday, and we are doing mini cambios with everyone until then. Hna´s Child and Young extended their mission for 30 days so they are here as traveling sisters, and they will be going around to the different sectors to train and help all the sister missionaries, and they have started with Hualqui, so this is going to be a lot of fun, and I will have to tell you about all of our adventures this next week.

 

     Our investigators are doing really well, we have baptism planned for this Saturday, Catalina Guiterez is going to be baptized, she is the little girl who is 9 years old and her mom is menos activo, but she is super animated for her baptism, and I´ll have to tell you how it goes next week. All of our investigators are doing really well, but the one I really want to tell you about is Catalina Alverez, she is the wife of Carlos. Oh My Goodness!! This lady I tell you is amazing! I love her so much, it is crazy how close you grow to people her, but so we have been teaching her, and we have been trying to help her want to make the step to be baptized, she has told us the she is kind of at a wall, and can´t get past it, but we are helping her, because she knows that baptism is a very serious thing and she tells us she doesn´t want to play around with God, so she is reading everything, and I mean everything we give her, like I told you, I gave her a Book of Mormon with some of my favorite passages marked, and she has read all of what I left her, and she is starting from the beginning, and really all the pamphlets that we gave Carlos, and her is the kicker and amazing thing, she has started reading the Gospel Princpels book, yeah tell me about it, amazing right!

 

     So like I told you Dad last week, I decided to buy her, her own set of scriptures because she is actually reading them, and she had asked me where she could buy a bible, so I told her "hmm I don´t know, (wink wink) let me look around and I see how much them are" So I bought her a triple and a bible, and on Saturday we went to her house, and we sat down to begin teaching her, and after the prayer, she looks at me and she ask, "Hermana England I have a question for you, What is the world is Doctrine and Covenants?" Haha I´m sure you could imagine my face when she asked me that, because I had no idea where she heard of that, because I hadn´t taught her yet, but she told me as she was reading the gospel princples book (like I told you I found out) she kept seeing references to D&C and didn´t know what it was. And so in my head I´m thinking YES! YES! YES! because I had just brought her scriptures with me that day to give them to her, and I told her that I had come that day to explain about it! It was perfect timing with the Lord it was awesome!! And she also came to church the next day with her new scriptures! It was awesome! but she has only been able to stay for Sacrament all these times she has been assisting, because Carlitos and Ignacio don´t want to stay, so this week we are going to work with them, so that Catalina can stay for the gospel principles class, and hopefully Relief Society! So wish us luck!

 

     Well that is pretty much it, but I want to leave you all with a spiritual thought, something that I learned as I was studying this week. So as you know we are studying the Book of Mormon as a mission, and one of the scriptures I read this week, really touched me, it is in Alma 37:14&16-17, it says, "And now remember, my son, that God has entrusted you with these things, which are sacred, which he has kept sacred, and also which he will keep and preserve for a wise purpose in him... But if you keep the commandments of God, and do with these things which are sacred according to that which the Lord doth command you, (for you must appeal unto the Lord for all things whatsoever ye must do with them) behold, no power of earth or hell can take them from you, for God is powerful to the fullfilling of all his words. For he will fulfil all his promises which he shall make unto you..."

 

     I really love this scriptures, which lets us know if we do the things that Lord asks us to do, and we do our part, He will always so His part and fulfill all the promises He has made with us. We just need to put our trust in Him, that all will work out in the end. I know that this will happen if we do this. Well I love you all and I hope that all is going well for each and every one of you. I pray for you all daily and always. Please take care! and if there is anything that I am able to do for any of you please let me know and I will do it right away. Well until next with with more adventures from Hualqui. Love you all so much!

 

    Con Amor Siempre, y Para Toda La Eternidad,

     Hermana Aubrey Jo England