Hey guys! This past week was really awesome probably one of the best of my whole mission. Our investigators here are just so amazing and teach us so much everytime we are with them. On Sunday we were sitting in sacrament with one of our investigators, Angela (that speaks English) and the bishop's 4 yr old son, Facundo, walked up to her during one of the talks and handed her a pass along card and then ran away. Haha she looked at us and laughed and said it was probably a sign from God. Facundo is always helping out all the missionaries and when the bishop comes with us to lessons sometimes he brings him and it is the cutest thing. He gets so excited to be a missionary when he is older.
So yesterday was just a hilarious day overall. We get to church and right by the front chapel doors there is this dying stray cat. It was like moaning and rolling around and at the point of death. It was creeping everyone out really bad and all of the leaders had already started their classes so what do we do? Well, my companion that grew up on a farm killing animals grabs a broom from the kitchen and wacks it to death! Not exaggerating. I had to stay on watch while she did it and it was a sight to see. Hahah oh man never going to forget that. Then we had to get it into a garbage bag and get rid of it. I never imagined having to know how to kill and dispose of a cat would be important. Haha
Also this past week I got a little sick and almost completely lost my voice. I sounded like an old smoker guy. AND my companion is really into singing a hymn to start every lesson so that was pretty funny. My voice was cracking all over the place with all the singing. The Chileans don't really understand how the common cold works and think it is literally from the cold weather or like they always say, "cambio en temperatura" the change in temperature. They all told me that I got sick and lost my voice because I don't wear a scarf to cover my neck and because we are always going from really warm houses to really cold outside all day long and that is BAD.
Hahah my favorite Chilean sickness is "boca chueca" or crooked mouth. According to them it happens when you drink something really hot like mate or Ecco and then go outside in the cold air right after. What happens is that your mouth goes crooked. Haha they really believe that! So lots of times when we knock on a door the person will answer with a towel or scarf covering their mouth. Gotta be real careful over here.
We got permission again to watch Chile play Brasil. Whooooo! We watched it while we ate lunch at a member's house. It is a mom and her two sons and their grandma. It was hilarous because the little grandma kept just staring around asking "When is this going to be over?" or "How do we know when the game is done?"
Things are going really well over here and I have felt so blessed to be able to work in this sector in Angol. The people here are amazing and I am learning a lot especially about loving these people and teaching them out of love. A family we are teaching, Elvira (mom), Suyay (daughter) and David (son) are so so great and are so willing to change their lives for the gospel. Unfortunetaly their dad is against all types of religion. He works in the north of Chile during the week so we have never even seen him and they keep it a secret that they are meeting with us and going to church and such. It is really sad because the mom, Elvira, wants to get baptized so bad. She is trying her hardest to live all of the commandments and continue learning but she says that her husband won't let her get baptized. Suyay can because she is 22, but Elvira and David no. We are praying a lot for them, for a miracle! Pray for them!
I love it here and even though it is FREEZING cold the work has been really great. I have been learning and witnessing lately the importance of our thoughts and how they really determine so much of who we are. I read Alma 12 and it made me think about how we can make sure our hearts really are not being hardened and what that even means. I was thinking that it means that we stop being teachable and letting things change us for the better. I have seen that a lot out here that the moment we stop being teachable is when we fall away and things become hard. Sorry I kind of just ranted this week but hope you guys are all doing great!
I love you guys! Thanks for everything!
Love,
Hna Chalmers
Mom, this one is for you. CAT YOGA!
ANGOL 1.0 June 23, 2014
I am in Angol! I love it here. There are a lot of hills in my sector so we get a good workout everyday and even though it is colder than Arauco you don't feel it because it is a lot dryer. My companion, Hermana Lettie Rosdahl is great. She is from Nampa, Idaho, is 19 yrs old and has been in the mission for about 6 months. She also knows Kelly Redding. They lived together at BYU Idaho and she visited her house once and met all her family. Small world! I have already learned a lot from her. She is super excited to work and learn and it is really awesome. We have already seen a lot of great things happening in this sector. We did some pretty crazy things to find new investigators this past week, including teaching some lessons in a hospital and also finding a new investigator in a civilized jail. Haha, sounds pretty bad when I actually type it out. It is this jail that is really just an area that is technically a jail but really is a lot of little houses. It is for people that still have jail time but have been well behaved. It's really just a high class jail I guess. And they can get permission to leave and come back sometimes. Anyway, we taught this lady, Fabiola, about the Book of Mormon and she is really awesome and has 2 years left in jail but next week is going to be able to start leaving on the weekends!
Oh! We have this investigator, Angela, that I just love. She is an english teacher and wants to practice so we teach her in english and gave her a BOM in english that she studies. Man, she is just so awesome. She is a witness that there really are people prepared by the Lord to find the gospel and accept it. She has the greatest desire to follow Jesus Christ and when we were in our first lesson we started talking about baptism and challenged her to be baptized. It was the most interesting, spiritual experience. It was like she had been waiting for us to ask. She just smiled at us and said she knew we were going to ask her that. She says she is really nervous but after we talked about the steps of the gospel of Jesus Christ she said, "well then baptism really must be what I am missing because I feel like I do have a lot of faith and am trying to repent. That must be why I have felt like I am missing something in my life." Oh we were so excited. She says that she has felt so much more calm and peaceful since she started reading the Book of Mormon and listening to us teach. Yeah!! It is really weird teaching her in english. Well, not weird just really different. Even when we do speak it is in awkward english but that's all right. I said the closing prayer in our lesson yesterday and it was just all over the place mixing spanish and english. Hahah. It is important to Angela though. She says that the gospel and praying and the book of mormon are more meaningful to her in English because she has to make an extra effort to express herself to us and to read as well. I can definitely relate in that aspect.
Also we got permission to watch CHILE play today in the World Cup against Holland! WAHOOO. It is insane here with all the World Cup madness. When Chile is playing everything shuts down. No one goes to school, all the stores close and you can just hear people cheering and sounding off these loud horns all over the place. When we walked out of the member's house where we watched the game today after Chile lost 2-0 it was real real quiet and solemn everywhere. CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE VIVA CHILE!!
Also another thing, in a lesson this past week this little 9 year old girl prayed something along these lines, "bless my mom and my family and please bless us with health and please bless all the people in the world that have cancer. amen." So sweet!
I am learning a lot this transfer already. Presidente Martinez's last day in the mission is this Friday and that is when Pres. Bluth gets here! We are all really excited to meet him.
I love you guys!
Love always,
Hna Megs
(me and my companion and then below, him and his wife)
Chile's fans at the World Cup.
Angol after the rain
Hey guys, June 16, 2014
Our family is just all over the world right now!
So I am being TRANSFERED. I am going to Angol! It is further south and further away from the coast. We were so thrown off because Hna Garcia and I really thought I was going to stay. I am going to miss Arauco a lot. I really love it here, but I am also excited for a new adventure in Angol! My companion is Hermana Rosdahl (I'm not sure if that's how it is spelled) from Utah. I've never met her before but she has been in the mission for 4 months or so I think. This past cambio was only 4 weeks long because Presidente Martinez is leaving so it has just flown by. It is kind of a bummer that I only get to be with Hermana Garcia for a month.
We had a conference with all the mission this past Friday in Angol and it was the best. It was wild to have over 200 missionaries in one chapel. Holy cow. President gave us some parting advice (His three things he told us to remember were to 1. Believe - believe that we are daughter and sons of God, the he loves us and that our missions can literally change our lives, that we can do and accomplish so much more. 2 Obey God and the principles that we are out here defending and 3- Endure - search for the help of the heavens and remember that sometimes the Lord doesn't take away our problems but gives us the strength to endure them.)
Something that marked me that he told us was that we have no excuse to say "we don't know how to do it" about anything put in our path because we were prepared and instructed to be missionaries at this time. Really it applies to anything we are doing at any point in our lives. Before this life we were prepared to endure our trials and learn from them so we CAN DOOO IT.
We also had a time for every missionary in the mission to bear a quick testimony. It was really spiritual and also really long, haha but I enjoyed it a lot. Presidente after talked about how the battle between good and evil before the second coming will be a battle of words, of testimonies. I thought that was pretty cool. Sometimes it still surprises me to experience the power in a simple testimony. The Spirit is able to testify so clearly and you can just feel it.
We had a lesson this past week with an investigator, Celinda, who is super evangelical but super pumped about the Book of Mormon. When we came for our second visit she had read all the way to 2nd Nephi! Hna Garcia and I were just sitting there with our mouths hanging open as she showed us how much she had read. She was sick when we had last stopped by before that so we only had time to leave her daughter with a Book of Mormon for her that we had written in for her a little note. She didn't know anything about the BOM and had just started reading and loved it. So so cool. It is has been interesting to see the diference in our investigators that are really taking the time to read the BOM and understand it and those that aren't and to see how it correlates with their progression and understanding. It is the keeey!
Also, with the World Cup it has been a little tough to set up appointments on days that Chile plays. The other day we did this contact with this cute little old lady and she even refused to let us come on Wednesday when Chile is playing after telling us she doesn't even like futbol or watch it but she has to support her country at least.
Love you guys!
Hermana Garcia and me at the conference
