Bringing the Gospel to All the World

                                                                                                                              July 29, 2013
Hola mi familia!!! Thank you so much for you emails and your fotos! I am so grateful to hear about all of your amazing experiences!

 

What I am most grateful for this week is a very special miracle that we received this past week. Thank you for all of your prayers for Sis. C. and her mom, and I thank my Heavenly Father for answering them. On Friday we went to visit Sis. C. after not speaking to her since Sunday. We were praying hard the whole way and I was so scared that she was not going to let us in and tell us to leave. When we arrived, with faith I took a breath and called "Alo" at her door. She came to the window to see who it was and i was so afraid she would just look and then never open the door. But just the opposite happened. She opened the door happily and said pasen! We entered and just talked to her as a friend, without mentioning the church. We talked about how we just wanted to see how she is doing, and talked about school and everything. Her mom was there too, and was nice but went to bed early while we were there. Sis. C. told us that she loved church and that she wanted to come on Sunday. She said she would come on her own. I have no idea what happened but it was as if she had never even called us to tell us not to come back. We left so grateful that the Lord had touched their hearts. She did not come on Sunday because she ended up going to her grandmas, but she said we could visit her this week. We hope to start sharing the gospel with her again. Please continue to pray for her and her mom so that they can continue to progress. Thank you so much for your prayers, I know that our Heavenly Father heard them and gave us this miracle. 

Thank you so much for your prayers for Sis. V. and her son also. They continue to progress and attended church with us on Sunday. We need to pray that her son (that struggles with autism) can continue to feel calm and peaceful in church so that he doesn´t get spooked, and so he can relax. We taught them the word of wisdom as well and Sis. V. told us that she struggles with smoking. please pray for her as well, because we are going to work with her this week to help her stop. She wants to receive a blessing on Thursday for this. I am so grateful for miracles and the power of God to change hearts and help us in every way!  Thank you for all of your prayers and support, we are so grateful to be here doing the Lord´s work!

 

I want to share what I learned today in personal study. I was studying the characteristic of faith, and I read in Hebrews 11:40. It talks about how through us others can also be perfected. We are the means of bringing the gospel to all the world and to certain people that are prepared right now to receive it. We must do everything we can to share the gospel with them because they might not have the chance to hear it again. We are to help certain people at very specific times so we must be ready to follow the spirit and share the gospel with everyone so that everyone can have the opportunity to hear it! This is our call as members of the church. We must have faith in our Savior, our Heavenly Father, and faith in ourselves to do it.  I challenge each of you to talk to someone about the gospel this week. Pray and search for the opportunities that the Lord will put before you. We love missionary work because through it, we can feel the Spirit manifest of the love that our Heavenly Father and Savior have for others, and the love that they have for us. This is the most glorious feeling to our souls!!  I don´t know if you all read my letter to Abby last week, but there is a promise that as we share the gospel, we will have the Spirit with us more abundantly, all the time! It is the most glorious feeling!! I love you all and am so proud of you! I hope you have a great week!  Love you all!!

I want to share some of the beautiful sights
in the city of Cauqenes.

I

I love how they use bright colors to decorate homes and neighborhoods. 

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The Atonement and Missionary Work

                                                                                                                          July 23, 2013
Hola mi Familia Amorosa! Thank you so much for your emails! 

 This week has been amazing! We had a goal as a zone that each companionship would have 3 people attend church this week, because this is something we have been struggling with. It is hard to get investigators to go to church. But we made this our goal and we did everything we possibly could to get them there. Sunday morning I was just praying that they would come because they are unable to progress in the gospel if they don´t come to church, and we want them to have the joyous blessings of the gospel because we love them so much! I prayed that Heavenly Father would help everything to work out because we had done all that we could do. I feel like I have never worked so hard in the mission, and I am so grateful to learn early, how hard I need to work to help these people. The Lord answered our prayers, we had three people in church. Sis. V. and her son came, and we are hoping that they are going to be baptized the 10th of August. But we still have a lot to teach them in these next 3 weeks. Please continue to pray for them so that they are protected from the adversary, and continue in the lessons. They are our miracles, and we wont be able to meet with them until Thursday. 

 

Our other investigator at church was Sis. C. she is 16 and we found her this week. She was really interested the first lesson and we went back and everything was great! Her mom didn´t want to go to church but said her daughter could learn and be baptized if this is what she wanted. She knows a ton of members, and she absolutely loved church and we have a youth camp, like youth conference, this next weekend and she was planning to go. We visited her yesterday after church to talk about everything and she was shining, loving the gospel. She only needed her mom's permission to go to the conference. We said we would visit on monday and that we would be praying for her mom that she would allow her to go. Last night while we were out working, we received a call from her, and she said that she has received some sort of sign that she took to mean that the church wasn´t true and that she didn´t want us to visit anymore and that her mom doesn't want us to visit the house anymore. Hna. Garcia and I were with Loreto trying to contact someone when we received this call, and we were both heartbroken and started to cry. We love Sis. C. so much, and want her to have these blessings, and she was so perfect in the lessons. We felt so sad, but we have faith that she will return.  The adversary always tries people right after a good experience, but Heavenly Father and our Savior are so much more powerful! We are going to start slow by just asking how she is. It was so hard to work last night, we just wanted to rest after this, but then we went over to a members house for 15 minutes before we had to be home, and he showed us a video that I believe is on Youtube. It is called

"The Atonement and Missionary Work." It is amazing, and I invite you to watch it.

 

What I have learned this week is that missions aren't easy, because salvation is not easily obtainable. The Savior suffered everything for our salvation! In order to receive the blessings of Salvation, we must do our part and share the gospel. When we are sharing the gospel, we are part of the work of salvation as well. If we are in this work as well, How can we question why this suffering is necessary. He suffered so much, we can´t even imagine! But how are we to understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ if we never suffer. In our life on earth, we will never suffer even the minimum of what He suffered, but we will suffer, and this suffering will bring us greater understanding of our Savior´s sacrifice, and greater love for Him. And so last night, when I wanted to rest, I thought of the Savior who after Gethsemane had every right to rest, but He continued in His work of Salvation, and even when He died, He was doing this work in the Spirit World. How can we rest, when He had every right to, and didn´t. Salvation is the most important work to the Lord. If we are to be His true disciples, and bear His name, this must be the most important work to us as well. And we must do all we can do, night and day, even with trials, to do the work of the Lord and to bring every child of God to Him. And the greatest part is that we are not alone. When we can't keep going, He will carry us. He suffered alone for us, but He will always be with us when we suffer, and He will carry us. I hope this makes sense. The video is way better, but this is what I learned this past week. I am grateful to have learned this, and I know that Heavenly Father helped me to learn it right after this trial. I love the tender mercies and miracles that I see everyday. Please pray for Sis. C. that she will know that her sign wasn´t from our Heavenly Father. It might have something to do with her mom as well, so please pray for her mom, that her heart may be softened. I know that all will be okay, and thank you for the prayers you offer for our investigators. It makes such a difference. I love you all!!!

 

On a happier note, p-day was awesome, we played soccer and volleyball as a zone! I hope you have a great week, and please be safe! Love you!!!!!

"I Know it, I Live it, I Love it!"

                                                                                                                           July 15, 2013
Hola mi familia!! Thank you so, so so much for your emails! They are my strength as I start every week!! I am so proud of each of you and so grateful for your righteousness! I am glad you are all having an incredible summer! Thank you for sharing your adventures, both fun and spiritual! I love hearing about them, and I promise that they don´t distract me, so please keep them coming.

 

This week has been great! Last week our numbers were really low, so we had a goal as a zone to make sure we had 140 contacts with people during the week. We had 146!! We were finishing up the contacts last night and trying to enter houses and share the gospel through lessons with the people we contacted, but it is sometimes really difficult to do so. But last night we met our goal and were continuing to contact with the determination to teach and share the joy of the gospel. And guess what? We found a miracle! Her name is Sis. V. She lives with her son who is autistic and this family is so so special to us! We love them so much already, an only met them last night!! She had shared with missionaries before but never recieved an answer, but we taught her a lot and helped her understand how she can know the truth. In the past she had been in another church, that didn´t accept her son. I was able to bear testimony about the scripture that says by their fruits you shall know them, and how i know that this is the true church because all of the fruits are good and are of God and everyone is invite to come and partake. But it was in simpler words because I had to speak spanish :) But it was such an amazing lesson, and renewed our ánimo(excitement) for the work! We had kind of been going through the motions a little, just teaching the lessons instead of teaching according to their needs, and the Lord taught us what we need to do to help these people understand the gospel and all of the doctrine as it relates to them. I am so grateful to be taught daily! Sis. V. is so ready and as we describe the Spirit as it can speak through peace and tranquility, she told us that she felt peace and tranquility when we walked in. Please pray for her as we will not be able to visit until thursday. She needs to recieve an answer, and continue strong until we can teach her again. Thank you for your prayers. 

 

We had another activity this week. Noche de talentos! It was a great strength to the members, we didn´t have any investigators come, but we invited a ton. But next time they will come! We got permission from our district leader to do a dance with the relief society sisters in which we put glow sticks on our clothes in the form of a stick figure and then danced in the dark, it was awesome! 

 

 This week I learned a lot about goals and what I want to accomplish in my mission. I want to help as many people as I can to come closer to Christ. I am setting goals to be able to do this. In life, we need to set goals, and then have other steps on how we can accomplish these goals. That is the order that the Lord has set, a big goal such as baptism, and then smaller steps to get there. We can do this in everything we do in life! It can always apply! My goal for this week is to love the people more, and I am going to do this by looking for service in every moment, not just saying words when teaching but saying specifically what they need to hear and always speaking kindly and with interest in them, and studying for them every morning. What will be your goals for the week? And how will you accomplish them. I love you all so much! I hope you have an amazing week. Please travel safely, I know the Lord will protect you as He blessed me in my setting apart not to worry about my family at home. I love you! Rejoice everyday and know how proud I am of each of you! Have a great week!!! Hugs and Kisses!

With all the love in the world! 

Hermana Harris

I LOVE MY MISSION!!!!!

                                                                                                                             July 8, 2013
Hola mi familia!!!  I love you all so much!

This week has been really great! How was the fourth of July for everyone? I completely forgot it was July 4th on Thursday because we celebrated it here on Friday with a branch activity! Una Noche NorteAmericana! It was so fun! And a lot of members came. 

It is so amazing to be able to watch the branch become more of a family because they have struggled with this in the past. But the activities are helping. For this activity we started with a hymn and a prayer and then they asked me to sing the star spangled banner, and then we played a giant game of twister with all the members. We had papers that we taped to the floor and it was about 12 by 4 circles so the game was huge. When they were done all the papers were shredded but it was way fun for them. Next we did a pie( or pay, pronounced the same) eating contest. It wasn't really pie, it was more like crushed up cookies, some cherries, and whipped cream, but they all participated and had to eat without hands. I will try to send a video! Next we gave them each a cookie and they had to place the cookie on their foreheads and use facial movements to get the cookies in their mouths. I will send a video of this too! And after that they played musical chairs, and then missionary tag. We finished up with some papas fritas or french fries, and some peach cobbler, but for lack of plates they were both on the same little plate so many assumed that we eat french fries with peach cobbler as a dessert, ha ha it was way funny. The best part was being able to share some of the fun things we do in the states, and see how much fun they were having.

 

One miracle was that an investigator came! He came by himself, but we are hoping to teach him, his wife, and his daughter. He had a ton of fun at the activity. We also had the son of a less active member come, and then his dad came later. They saw how the branch is more of a family and this was a blessing too. I am so proud of this branch and I love all of the members, they are some of my best friends. 

This week we are also going to focus on helping the youth, they struggle with having mutual here, so we are going to try to work with the branch to organize mutual activities that the youth enjoy and that will strengthen their testimonies. Especially the young men who are preparing for missions here.

 I absolutely love my mission! I love the people of Chile, I love the food, this might be a problem when I return, but I found out there is a Chilean restaurant in Provo!!! But most importantly I love being able to share the gospel with this people and see the changes. I love being able to learn from their examples, but also learn from serving a mission. I rarely shared the gospel with my friends before my mission and what I am most grateful for is that I am learning how to so that I can continue to do so when I get back. The Chilean people are my brothers and sisters, and I want them to have the blessings of the gospel! But when my mission is over I will have all the knowledge I need to be able to share the gospel with my friends, my family, and everyone!!! I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn while helping others and seeing their testimonies grow. Missions are incredible!!! I am so grateful for all the leaders who helped prepare me for a mission! It is the greatest blessing in my life and because of them, their testimonies, and their love, I am here!!! I thank my Heavenly Father for His plan, for His blessings, for the Gospel, and for His Son, and for my testimony that I have the amazing opportunity to share now and for the rest of my life. I am rejoicing in my mission! I get to see miracles everyday, and I am so grateful!

I love you all! I hope you have an amazing week!!!!!!!! 

We Must Pray to Know for Ourselves!!

                                                                                                                         July 1, 2013
Hola mi familia!!!!!!!! Thank you for all of your emails! I love reading about your adventures and spiritual experiences! 

Everything is great, and even in times when it is hard, it is still great! I strive everyday to make the most of it and work my hardest for the Lord, but there is so much I still need to do. This week has been pretty busy. We found many miracles!! This week we prayed specifically for families, and we found them! We have two new families to work with. 

My favorite part of being a missionary is being able to share my testimony all day everyday, and to be able to feel the Spirit testify to the people we are teaching that what we are saying is true. But there is something so important that they must do. They must pray to know for themselves. We can bear testimony all day of our experiences, but if they don´t pray for themselves with faith, nothing wavering, they are never going to receive an answer for themselves and be able to proclaim that they know without a doubt, because they have prayed. Prayer is so important for our investigators and for anyone who has a desire to know the truth. If we have a question, all we need to do is ask our Heavenly Father to help us find an answer. He is there, He is always there listening, and He wants to give us the answers. Prayer is the most amazing thing because we can communicate with our Father in Heaven. We can talk to Him anytime we need to, or just when we want to. And He hears us! My invitation to all of you this week is to evaluate your prayers and think about what you can do better to make your prayers more meaningful, or to pray with more thankfulness, or to pray more. And when you pray, really speak to Heavenly Father. Pray is a conversation that we have with Him, it is no different than speaking with our earthly parents. A line from one of the songs in Savior of the World, that I love is, "Ask God all your questions, tell Him all your fears, thank Him for His blessings, then wait with open ears. Listen as He answers, Hear His voice so still...Then go and do His will." I love this! I testify that we can pray to our Heavenly Father for anything. He wants to hear us, and He does. He will answer in His own time, but He will answer, and if you ever have a question or a doubt just ask Him. It is through prayer that we can feel the love that He has for us, and can receive the answers He wants us to know. i love you all! This is my spiritual thought for the week, sorry it is short. But I am so proud of each of you and your testimonies, and I am so grateful for the prayers you offer for me! I know Heavenly Father hears them, and He is answering them and helping me. Please have a great week! Be safe and know i love you ! 

The Love of God

                                                                                                                            June 24, 2013
Hola mi familia!!! Les amo mucho!!!!!!!!!!! Con todo mi corazon! Thank you for your letters! This is getting to you so late because we had a wonderful conference in Concepción today to say goodbye to our wonderful mission President, President Humphrey and Hermana Humphrey! My heart is so full today. I have been crying the whole time I have read your letters. What a marvelous week full of the blessings of our Savior and our Heavenly Father, and their love for us.  

 

So I have a new companion - Sis. Garcia from El Salvador!! I went to Parral to pick her up on Tuesday and she is amazing! We are the best of friends and have a ton of fun together. Also, my Spanish is improving!!  Also, I have a new sister!!! In the mission, our trainers are called our moms. So Hermana Call is my mom, and she is training again so now I have a new little Sister. Her name is Hermana Skirvin, and she is from Utah. She reminds me a lot of myself when I first got here. We have so much fun together too, and it is so fun to have a little sister. The Elders left their house really dirty for us! We cleaned a lot and now the house is perfect. I love our little rama, One sister gave us a washing machine, and mentioned something about wanted to find us a dryer as well, and the branch wants to get us a stove as well. I love these people with all my heart. They are so humble, they don´t have much, but they give all that they have to help others. They are near and dear to my heart as they are examples of the Savior in all moments

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This week we found two new investigators to teach! We invited them to baptism on Thursday and Friday (Those two special days!!!!!!!!!)  One is named Sis M. and she is so sweet as we taught her the first lesson and she prayed. She wants to keep learning but her husband is not interested. She wants us to teach her somewhere else, and there is a member that lives right by her who has offered to let her be taught in his home. His wife is less active, so we are hoping they can be good friends. When we last visited Sis.M, she had her 12 year old granddaughter over. We couldn´t teach the granddaughter because her parents are Catholic and haven´t given permission, but we asked Sis. M. to read the pamphlet about the restoration and then pray to know if it is true. I told the granddaughter a little bit about our Young Women's program and about my friend who is part of the branch and is her same age.  I wanted her to feel the love of the Savior that I began to feel more when I started attending Young Womens and participating in the program. How inspired the Young Women's Program is!!  Anyway, when we returned to visit Sis. M. (the grandmother,) we ran into the granddaughter outside the door and she said, "I read the pamphlet and I know that it is true!"   I asked her how she knew and she said that she had read it, and that she had prayed about it and God had answered her.  We really want to teach her as well. So please pray for her and her parents! We want to teach the whole family!! Our other investigator is Sister G.  who lives by a member too! We love her so much and she has had a lot of hard struggles in her life, but she accepted the invitation to be baptized the first time, and has a baptismal date set as well. Sadly, she didn´t come to church this week, but we are going to do all we can to encourage her to come. Please pray for her, her daughter and granddaughter. Thank you so much for praying for our investigators! I love them each so much!      

 

So, real quick what I learned this week. Last night there was a incredible broadcast on missionary work from the Marriott center in Provo. We heard from many of the twelve apostles:  L. Tom Perry, Neil L. Anderson, Russel M. Nelson, Boyd K. Packer, and our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson. There was a large choir made up of missionaries from the MTC  and all of the new mission presidents were there, and we got to watch it all the way here in Chile! It was such and amazing and sweet experience!!! Also there were many videos along with music, and there were about three shots of our Girl´s camp! I got see Christina and Rachael!!! The broadcast was all about members being missionaries and working with the full time missionaries to bring others into the joy of the gospel. I especially loved Russel M. Nelson´s talk. He spoke about how our actions should always be motivated by love. When we feel in our heart that we should do something for someone else, we should do it and not wait to be asked. We need to share the gospel with our friends by finding opportunities to do so everyday, creative opportunities. There was a video clip and I hope that it is on lds.org now, but it was about a family in which each member of the family did something to share the gospel with those they meet, and it was incredible. They dad offered service to a elderly neighbor, and invited the missionaries to do the service. The mother received help from someone else and then served them and invited their family over for a family night with the missionaries. The elder son invited a friend to play basketball and the missionaries came. The daughter had a friend at work going through a hard time and introduced her to the missionaries. And the youngest son invited a friend and his family to his birthday party and also to his baptism. There they met the missionaries. It was such an incredible video and it renewed my testimony that we can share the gospel in so many ways and work with the missionaries. But we should do it because we love the people. All of Christ´s actions were motivated by pure love. We can pray for and strive to have this pure love for all people, and when we do this, we will be able to be better representatives of Jesus Christ. But the main message I loved is that we must learn to rely on the Spirit and trust the inspiration we receive that is motivated by our love for others. Boyd K. Packer taught us to learn to only depend on the Spirit as we share the gospel and President Monson taught that we must have the faith to act. Our faith, coupled with effort to share the gospel  will bring the blessings of Heaven, and the Lord will show us how to do His work. I wish you all could have seen this broadcast! It was incredible!

 

This week marks 4 months in the mission. Time is flying and I have so much left to do, I want to use every minute to share the gospel and help them feel the pure love of God!!! Scripture for the week!!! 1 Nephi 11:22,23  We have all felt the love of God this week as we have rejoiced in the blessings of His gospel and how He loves us and made a way for us to return as eternal families. It is my prayer that we can share this perfect, joyous love of God with everyone. I love you !!! Chou for this week!!

"A Perfect Brightness of Hope"

                                                                                                                              June 17, 2013
Hola mi familia maravillosa!!! Como esta? Gracias por sus cartas. Estoy muy agradecida por vosotros y por todos los bendiciones de nuestro Padre Celestial y nuestro Salvador! i am glad to hear that everyone is doing so well! 

Well this week we did not have much success in numbers, but I learned a ton! We are so happy that Sis. L. was baptized. She is doing well and received a calling yesterday as a Relief Society teacher. She is going to be so wonderful!!! We are working with many new investigators and are trying to find those that are prepared to hear the gospel. We are going to try to do 30 minutes of service each day. Just small stuff, and work with the members to help them share the gospel with their friends. This next week looks very bright and promising! Especially because I have learned so much that i want to implement from last week.  Now a quick review: 

This last week was hard as we felt very discouraged and could not figure out why. We were praying to learn what we were doing wrong, and our prayer was answered. We haven´t been using all of our time and every opportunity to share the gospel. In lessons sometimes we talk too long about other things, or dont fulfill our plans with exactness. But i also learned that I have been relying on Hna. Call too much to do all of the talking, and then only add in my  thoughts sometimes. I am in training, but i should have been progressing and getting better so we could teach in unity. But I would get scared sometimes and not talk, and she was having to carry the lessons. But NO MORE!!!!!!!!!!! I have been taught what I need to do, and I will do it! I know as I open my mouth more with courage and faith and perfect hope, the Lord will help me know what to say, I can be the kind of missionary that the Lord needs, the kind of missionary that the people need, the kind of missionary that my companion needs, and the person and missionary that I want to be. i have been focused on myself and my fears and my feeling inadequate for far too long! i have been called to do this work by our Heavenly Father. I have been set apart as a representative of Jesus Christ. This means talking to everyone, serving everyone, standing confidently in the knowledge of who I am and what I am capable of just like the Savior did. He never doubted who He was, not even when the adversary did everthing he could to tempt Him to doubt. Well i am done doubting, and I am done fearing! The Lord is with me and I can do anything with His help. As I focus more on the people and what they need, my doubts and my fears will go away and I will become waht the Lord wants me to be. Today we sang i will go where you want me to go, and the last sentence says I will be what you want me to be! This is what we are here on this earth to learn. We are here to become like the Savior and submit to the Father´s will and trust in Him in everything, so that we can become what He wants us to be. I am so grateful for everything that I have learned, but i am even more grateful for the opportunity to help others come unto the Savior and our Heavenly Father, recognize their divine nature, and become what our Heavenly Father and Savior want them to become. I know that they live, that their plan for us is real and amazing, and that we can learn and grow and progress in this life so that we can return, but we can only do this with their help! We must be humble enough to be what they want us to be. I love you all and I hope you have an amazing week! Thank you for being who the Savior wants you to be!