March 5, 2012- Last Email!!

Hello!

Well this, I'm assuming, will be the last e-mail I send to you as a missionary!  This last week I feel like I learned a TON. I'm glad I got some more learning under my belt just before I left. I figured out how this companionship helped me learn important lessons. I did a study one day about the difference between botteling things up in an unhealthy way, and "turning the other cheek" as Christ would. I didn't really understand the difference, so I didn't understand why I was getting so weighed down by not responding negatively to things. Basically I figured out that a forgiving mouth is botteling things up, and a forgiving heart is turning the other cheek. I think that's what I lacked. I would very easily and imediately say to others, and even to myself, that I forgive them, but the feeling didn't pass through my heart first. That's what I need to learn to do. Also, I never realized how prideful I was. It was always dormant and waaaay deep down in my heart that it didn't necesarily show on the surface (or maybe it did and I just didn't realize it). These last 2 cambios brought it to the surface, which I guess is good because I can recognize it and do something about it. So, I'm pretty content with all of these last minute lessons. I also realized that all of the faults and insecurities I have about things I've done fall under the category of pride, just that one thing, which made me feel better because I feel like as a missionary I'm allowed to have 1 or 2 flaws (but no more than 2 haha!) Things have been really good with us yesterday and today, I feel like maybe there's a big lift of stress or something.

  

I'm glad to know that the Lord is so powerful. It is a relief to know that He will bring about His work (whether through me or in spite of me haha). Cristian said that he would ABSOLUTELY come to church this Sunday because we gave him a cookbook that we made for him with the members, and when he saw how they all knew him and cared about him, he said he would have to come. We passed by 5 times on Saturday to verify and remind him and finally found him right before 9:30. His electricity got cut, but he said his neighbor would charge his phone so we could call him in the morning to wake him up before we passed by. I was fasting that he would come and feel the Spirit. We were so hopeful. When we passed by, the scary dog that lives in the apartment right under him that bit me last time was trapped in his pen and couldn't get to us, everything seemed to be going SO perfectly... and then we got to his door and knocked and his cousin came to the door and told us that he had left right after and never came home Saturday night. I was really bummed, but I KNOW that the Lord will continue giving him chances. Maybe I won't see the fruits of our labor now, but someday, someone's efforts will bring these people to live the truth. I'll be just as happy when I see them in paradise as if it had been for my efforts. I plan on continuing to be a missionary in my own way for the rest of forever. I'm sad to leave Chile. I've grown to love the people here so much, but I'm excited for the future and the good things I will try to do with it.

  

Thanks for everything! I'm excited to see you soon!

Love,

Hermana Gebara

February 27, 2012, Radimadi

Hello!

I hope all is going well for you. We're just pushing along here as usual. We have a lot of investigators, but we're having a hard time getting them to progress. I was a little worried that we were on the line of basically obligating them this week for how much we tried to animate them and verify them in keeping their compromisos, but it doesn't seem like anyone is resentful, they're just not doing it... Manuel came to church this week! That was a really cool suprise. We invited him earlier in the week, but we've only taught him once in his doorway so we didn't think much of it, but he came, on his own, in the rain! It was awesome. He stayed all 3 hours and made friends with German. We're going to teach him tomorrow. I'm grateful that I am continuing to learn and that it seems that all I'm going through and reading in the scriptures has to do with what's going on with our investigators. I've been reading in Alma 18-22 ish lately and I just keep hoping that some sort of similar miracle will happen with Cristian and if he'll just take the first step and pray he'll just be so overcome with faith in the Savior that he'll be willing to make the big changes. We're not giving up! It seems as if my own struggles and what I learn from them are things that I'm able to use in knowing how to help him. That has happened so many times in the mission, I love how the Lord helps me FEEL what my investigators feel so that I can really have empathy for them. I really continue to learn so much and remember all of the things that I have learned and the ways that I've grown in this last year and a half.

Nearly every time I open my scriptures, or even a Liahona, I am directed to some scripture or article that talks about planting seeds and seeing the harvest at a later time. I am willing to accept that perhaps the Lord trusted that I wouldn't be so caught up in pride about the numbers that He called me to be a planter. That's ok, right? I don't want to give myself excuses for lack of success if it's my own fault, but something I read in a Liahona helped me remember that there are many ways that we can get answers from the Lord, not just the physical manifestations of the Spirit, so with everything I've been reading lately, I feel like that's my answer. I also feel like maybe it hasn't come yet because I haven't actually completed my mission, I still have a week left to be guided by the Lord, maybe the feeling will come the day I'm asked to take off the tag.

Anyway, we're just working away as usual. I love this mission!

Love,

Hermana Gebara

February 20, 2012

This week has passed by in a blur. There were some great things and some really hard things, but in the end it all worked out and we're doing alright. We're still struggling with getting our investigators to really progress, but at least I finally fully understand how Alma felt when he talked about how his soul was heavy and sorrowful unto pain for how much he wanted the people to repent and have faith in Christ. I'm right there with him sometimes, but all in all I'm able to maintain positivity. I have a new little dicho that I thought of they other day: "Perhaps today isn't the day that we're going to see the miracles, but that just means it's all the more likely that it'll be tomorrow." I don't remember if I already told you that or not. 

That reminds me of another quote that I saw and just loved the other day. It's on the DVD of the life of President Monson. He said something to the effect of: "There is no sweeter feeling than following a prompting of the Holy Ghost and finding out later that you were an instrument in the Lord's hands in answering someone's prayer. I want to live my life in such a way that the Lord knowsthat if He ever needs an errand run, Tom Monson (or Jamie Gebara) will run it for Him." I love that!

This week we had a special "Hermana Training Meeting" at the mission home. That's a fancy way to say giant sleep over with the sisters. It was super fun and I really liked being able to see Hermana Moss and Hermana Nakayama again as well as a lot of other sisters who I just adore. We made pancakes in the morning, I hadn't had pancakes in so long! Hermana Moss has the pictures, so we'll have to get copies from her.

Well that's really all the news there is for now. I'm trying to think of what souvenirs you all will want, but I'm really bad at picking those kinds of things, so if you have anything you'd like, please let me know!

Well I always send these out and then think of more things I could have said, so I'm trying to delay sending it, but there's just really not that much to report for now. Hermana Bertagnole is engaged, she wrote me today and told me. Other than that just working till the end and trying to be as prepared as possible for school without stressing about the fact that I can't really do anything about it. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. I'll be sad to leave the wonderful people that I love here, but I'm excited to see you again as well as all of my missionary friends.

See you soon!

Love,

Jamie

February 13, 2012

Hello!

We're on a bit of a time crunch because I still have to send in my slide show pictures to the office, so this will probably be a very short e-mail, but we saw miracles this week as usual! It was rough because a lot of people were gone, members and investigators alike, but we found Margarita again and she isn't completely closed to meeting with us more! Also, Cristian FINALLY had some time to meet with us and once we got to talking he completely opened up and we found out about his family and about his childhood traumas and why he does all the things he does now. We're finally making some headway in how to help him! We also found out that two of the girls in our branch know him so that'll be a good support for him. We found a really awesome investigator named Franco, but when we went back for our 2nd cita he told us he didn't really want to share with us, he just thought it would be interesting to see what we had to say the first time. It was like a half miracle. We have a lot of other great people that we're working with. José, Alberto y Ester, Omar... they just aren't coming to church! We're sticking with it and trying all we can. There's not really a lot of new stuff to report, we're just working away!

Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to bring home from Chile. I've got 3 more weeks!

Love,

Jamie

February 6, 2012

We saw some cool miracles this week. There's a less active kid, Diego, who hasn't been coming to church for the last 7 years or so because he decided to take a trip through proverbial Babylon. We always went by to invite him to activities and stuff, and he was always very polite, but never really wanted to participate. Anyway, we were near his house the other day and heard blaring loud music, so we knew he was home. We went by to invite him to church and he let us come in and share something with him. We read Alma 36 and asked him if he wanted to make that kind of change. He said that he had been thinking about it a lot lately. He said that he had been changing a lot decided that he was at the point of deciding whether or not he was going to come back or just turn away forever. We challenged him to give it a lot of thought and prayer and to come to church on Sunday. He said he would. He talked about how in spite of everything, he knows the church is true and that Heavenly Father loves him because of so many times when he has felt the Holy Ghost warn him of danger or protect him from something even when he knew that he didn't deserve that help. I think it was the first time (if not, one of very few) that I cried in a lesson. He came to church yesterday, and we called him in the afternoon to thank him for coming and he said: "Creo que nos vamos a seguir viendo..." which basically means: "I think you'll keep seeing me there..." I am so amazed at the miracles that are happening all around us everyday.

Anyway, that's kindof the big news for this week. I just keep looking for the good. Thanks for all your support and help.

January 23, 2012

Hello!

Well first things first, I have learned so much about miracles this week. It was a tough one, things kept getting worse in the work, it seemed as if everyone hated and rejected us, and it was just a rough start. However, even in that rough time I learned a lot about the love that Christ has for us. I looked at the people who were making fun of us or rejecting us or lying withpain not because of my own pride, but because I just wish they would let me help them! I just love them so much! That's one of the hard parts for me, feeling so much love for the people of Chile and seeing the weakness of the church in a lot of places here, it just makes me want to do all that I can to strengthen it, but many times I feel like my efforts have been in vain, I just keep trying to tell myself that the Lord has a plan and that it's not important that I see the fruits right now, it's just important that I do what He called me here to do and it'll all work out.

So in the challenges we were facing I decided that it was a perfect opportunity to exercise real faith, patience and diligence. The miracle comes AFTER the trial of faith, we just have to keep pushing and believe that the miracle will come. Joseph Smith had to fight off the adversary right before the first vision. I have always thought that greater opposition means a greater miracle awaits....

AND THEN IT HAPPENED!

I had been praying for some way that the people would be humbled, some situation in which we could show people that we would be there for them no matter what to help them out, that we really do love and care about them, that we're not just trying to get in their door to try to convince them to join our church. Yesterday, despite the fact that every day this cambio has been super hot, THERE WAS A HAIL STORM! I felt like Nephi! It was so awesome! We happened to be by the apartments so we hurried over to Cristian's house. It turns out he had just run home and we were able to find out that he's not avoiding us, he's just been busy, but he wants us to come by to teach him today. I love faith!

We still haven't seen Margarita. She says we can call her at a certain time to see if she's home, but when we call she hangs up. I'm not really sure what to do with that, but we'll keep on trying. We've found a few other really cool people who we're continuing to work with, but a lot of people just do NOT want to meet with us.

I'm trying to just show as much love as possible to everyone. I'm trying to be "a light (in) the world." I remember reading from a talk in general conference that showing love is the most important thing that a missionary can do. My only worry is that I'm showing too much love and trying to gain too much confidence that people might be seeing us as just friends. 

Anyway, that's all for today, see you in 6 weeks!

Love,

Hermana Gebara

January 16, 2012

NOTE: Jamie's letter got cut off because she had to change libraries halfway through writing. This is the half that we got.

a copy of what I sent to President! -

Review: We are having so many challenges with the miracles we found last week, but I'm not giving up hope!

Ok, we found another spot, so where were we? Oh right. Margarita. So she fasted with us and I felt like an awesome instrument in the Lord's hands for being inspired to help her use a challenge to teach a principle of faith, but we've called her every day since then and her son is in the hospital and when she's not there with him she's working and she said that she's probably going to have to keep up the same schedule even when her son gets out of the hospital. We went by to see if there was anything we could do for her and her landlady came out and told us she never wanted us on her property again. We offered to have someone from the church give her son a blessing, but she didn't answer any of our calls yesterday. We are just having a lot of challenges!

Even with Cristian things have taken a small turn for the worse. I know that they really need to feel the Spirit, so I fasted again to know what they needed and to have as much of the Spirit as possible for our lesson. We even coordinated to have our branch mission leader and his family come with us, and then he didn't even let us in because he said he had to leave! I fasted twice this week! Nelson and Yenifer finally said they would consider coming to church and that he was going to read the Book of Mormon, but then his dad got in a car accident and they couldn't. That's the bad news part.

The good news part is that I have a loving Heavenly Father who guided me to Doctrine and Covenants 35. The part where the Lord talks about how he prepares his servants for great things and that often they are preparing his way without knowing it has been a huge comfort for me. Perhaps I won't see any baptisms, but I'm going to keep trusting that my service in this year and a half has been preparing the way of the Lord. I also read in Alma 24 when it talks about the strength of the faith of the anti-nefi-lehi's. Perhaps it's going to be more of a challenge for these people to be converted, but the important thing is the strength of that conversion when it happens. I would way rather prepare the way of the Lord in truly converting them than see the baptism now and find out later that they went inactive.

Other than a bit of insomnia in thinking about our investigators, I've been doing alright. It's a good thing, though. This is what being a missionary is all about. I love that I'm so attached to these people that I worry about them so much, I love them! That's the most important part about being a missionary, right?

We have been finding a ton of new people, which I'm happy about.

The good thing about these challenges is that I've had the opportunity to feel a closeness and support from my Heavenly Father in a way I had never felt before. I feel so supported by Him! Again, I know I am SOOO far from perfect, and I know He knows that too, but I feel so grateful that He lets me know that He's in my corner anyway!

Anyway, thanks for all you do, I feel like I'm on a spiritual high and I really just don't want it to come crashing down so I'm trying my best to stay positive.

December 9, 2011

Hello!

This has been a long but AMAZING week, probably one of the best of my whole mission. Let me just start by talking about a few of the MIRACLES that I saw. The first is Margarita. We had set up a cita with her and her boyfriend in a contact, but when we went by they weren't there. The next day, I had the distinct impression that we should go by and visit them, so we did. She was there and as we got to talking she told us that she had always wanted to meet with missionaries, that she had talked to them in the street but that they had never offered to come by and she was too embarassed to ask them to come! She has a good friend that was recently baptized and is really grateful and excited to be learning about the Gospel. It was like the PME video about "How to Begin Teaching" with German, it was just so unbelievable. We invited her to be baptized right then and she was so excited to be able to prepare to be baptized on the 28th! We also had the great privlidge of literally seeing the moment that the Holy Ghost testified to her that the Book of Mormon was true. We were reading the last 2 paragraphs of the introduction, and when she read "We invite all men... to read the Book of Mormon..." she got choked up and said: "This is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read, I feel something in my heart just like my friend described to me, but I never thought I'd get to feel it too." Her prayers are so sincere and we are just so excited! She has a lot of challenges. She'll have to get married and her boyfriend is hesitant to change because of what his family and friends will say, but he supports her completely, it is also hard working around her work schedule, but she lives right in front of the church and says that she is excited to come this Sunday because she won't be working! I am so grateful that the Lord gave me the privlige of seeing this miracle, and equally grateful for the fact that He trusted me enough to give me the impression to go visit her because He knew I would listen!

We also found Cristian and Nicolas this week. We contacted Cristian near his apartment and shared a scripture about joy in 2 Nefi 2:25. The impression then came to me that I should give him the book, even though it was my last one, but I did and I told him: "This is a treasure, I want you to have it." He seemed taken aback but grateful. We went by on Sunday and he was there with a few friends, we got to teach them the Plan of Salvation and it was SO COOL! The Spirit testified so much. It's clear that they are living the lifestyle of typical jovenes, but they were so respectful and attentive and I could see that they really felt the Spirit. Nicolas prayed at the end that we would continue to teach them how to come closer to God. I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but I keep thinking about how excited I am for them to be future missionaries and priesthood holders! I always get my hopes up so high, but that's a good think, I think.

I've learned so much this week. At the beginning of the week I was feeling really down because this is a really tough companionship for me, and it has made me realize the gap that there is between refraining from saying the negative and choosing not to respond when someone offends you and actually loving someone the way that Christ loves them. I have gotten pretty good at the first part, but I'm still working on the second. It's good because I have needed to turn so much more to prayer this cambio, and I feel the blessings of the greater fervency of my prayers. I gained a new appreciation for the Atonement and that even when I'm afraid that I've messed up on my mission, I know I haven't done anything unforgivable and that Christ always provides a ladder for us to be ok again. It was a nice reminder.

I realized that if there's one thing I've done right on my mission, it is that I've allowed it to change me. Just like it talks about in "The 4th Missionary" there is a difference between obedience for minimums and obligation, and obedience for love and discipleship, I know that my obedience is motivated by the latter, and that's at least one of the successes that the mission has brought me.

This is getting really long, so I'll wrap it up now, but thanks for being great and doing all that you do!

Love,

Hermana Gebara

November 14, 2011

This has been a long week. We had a conference in Puerto Montt with Elder Cordbridge and Elder Snow (from the presidency of the 70). I translated for Elder and Sister Snow, it was cool. The night before we stayed in the house of the Hermanas in Puerto Montt, all 8 of us that had come up for the conference! In the morning the power went out so we were all blow drying our hair in the church. It was crazy. My zone is a lot of fun and I´m learning and growing constantly. I love you very much!

Love,

Jamie

October 31, 2011

This has been a crazy week. Last Sunday (not yesterday, but the Sunday before) Hermana Perez got sick and had to stay in bed. She continued that way until Friday when we finally dragged her to the doctor. It turns out she had apendicitis but her apendix had already burst so they had to take her in to surgery right then. It was crazy. She´s still in the hospital but will be leaving today. It was a crazy mess trying to get all of the paperwork done and talking to the office when there wasn´t any cell phone service in the hospital. I´ve been in there with her all week so I pretty much have no idea what´s been going on outside of that. Our zone baptized 10 people on Saturday, but I was in the hospital across the street so I didn´t get to be a part of the musical number. I found out today that I´m being transfered to Chiloé on Wednesday. Ít´s going to be rough to leave Punta Arenas because I just love it so much, especially because I haven´t gotten to see anyone to really say goodbye. The sector is basically stagnant. I´m going to be scrambling around today and tomorrow to try to get to everyone! It´s stressful! I´m glad the Primary Program went well! I´m going to keep this short for now because I have pictures to print and goodbye notes to write and souveneers to buy, but I´m alive and well, just so you know. Disappointed because I won´t be able to say goodbye to any of the other missionaries because they´re all getting together tomorrow and I´m not sure if I´ll be able to go. I´m stressed about leaving the sector so weak. It´s like seeing a bottle of milk tip over and get all over everything and just walking away never to return to help clean it up. I don´t want to leave. It´ll be ok though. I´ve learned that the stress of the mission is a good preparation for the stress of life, but what I´ve learned is that I do NOT know how to handle stress well whatsoever. Any tips?

I love you bunches and I´ll try to write more next week.

-Jamie

October 17, 2011

Hey!  

So this has been an awesome week. I´m really excited about some of the new investigators that we have. Ramon and Elizabeth are really excited and receptive, but I think the investigator I´m most excited about is Rodrigo. Rodrigo has a store that we pass by sometimes and he is always so generous and gives us free stuff from his store. It has always been hard to share something with him because he lives in the store and never has much time. However, when we watched the devotional from last Saturday (the 8^th) there was a video clip of people reading the Liahona in Santiago. For some reason it reminded me of why I wanted to be a missionary in the first place. I have such a desire to take people from their darkest places and help them embrace the light of this Gospel. I was inspired to find someone in a really rough time, and help them. That was my fast for that next day, to find someone I could help and fulfill the dream I had of being a missionary. That´s when the thought came to me that we hadn´t gone by for Rodrigo in a while, so we stopped by. Long story short, his wife (well, girlfriend) left him and he had basically hit a really low point. He started crying when he told us about everything that was going on. He was afraid of falling back into alcoholism for how he was feeling. In just this week, he has given up coffee, alcohol, bad movies, has gone from 3 packs a day to 1 every 2 days, and came to church with his son last Sunday. He´s already looking and acting like a new person. I´m so excited! I feel so blessed that my prayer was answered!

During the 50 years of the misión Chilena last Saturday, All of Chile put together a program and preformed in Santiago. We watched it via satellite. There was a part where they acted out being the armies of Heleman. They literally had 2000 young men out on the field (supposely literal decendents of the lamanites) and they played the song "Armies of Heleman" on flutes and drums as if it were in the Book of Mormon times. IT WAS SO COOL! Youtube it if you can. Ejercito de Heleman 50 años misión Chilena. I was really inspired and cried.

Thanks for all you do! Love you bunches!

October 10, 2011

We´re e-mailing late today because today is a holiday (I don´t know why) and everything was closed this morning. That means I´m more tired and have less energy to remember all of the things that happened to be able to write them. We´re celebrating 50 years of missionaries being in Chile, so that´s been cool. I love love love love love you. No seriously, I really love you.

Thanks a bunch!

Love,
Jamie

October 3, 2011

Wow, how amazing was conference?? I really loved President Uchtdorf´s talk about forget me nots. I loved when he mentioned that it is important not to forget the WHY of the Gospel. I would like to share with you all my “Why.”

I have always loved learning about history and reading stories and watching movies that make me wonder what it would be like to live in a different time, place or reality. It seemed so much more interesting and fun and always had some sort of appeal. I´ve gotten lost in music and books that have given me momentary feelings of being on cloud nine or that sort of thing. The trouble with all of that though, is that it isn´t real. The happiness that it brings doesn´t last. You can´t trust it to be there for you long term. There is only one source of happiness that is real and lasting – the happiness and joy of the restored Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is real. It is what we will have when all of the flashy fun things of this world are over. The pure joy of the Holy Ghost and the peace of living the Gospel are REAL. It is a happiness far beyond that which can be found in anything the human mind can invent. It is the happiness that is there for you constantly if you will live worthy of it. It is why I´m here. It is why I have the desire to serve my Savior; it is why millions of people all over the world are faithfully living this Gospel. It is pure, unadulterated, unbelievable joy.

That being said, I want to dedicate the rest of this e-mail to an awesome kid named Dylan. Dylan is 13 and was baptized in April. He has SUCH a strong testimony and these last few weeks I have been so blessed to see the power of that testimony. His mom, in an attempt to inspire him to improve his grades, told him that he would not be allowed to go to church, nor any activities, until she saw some changes. Dylan (remember now, this is a 13 year old boy) offered his laptop, offered all of his games and other privileges, offered time with his friends, offered any other punishment other than not being able to go to church. His mom agreed that if I come and tutor him that he can go to church. It was amazing to see the strength of a testimony when set against opposition. It is great to hear him talk about how excited he is to serve a mission in just 5 years (the age limit in Chile is 18). He wants to go to Egypt or Hawaii. It is such an inspiration to me to see the strength of the members here, especially the jovenes.

Love you!

September 26. 2011

October marks 50 years of the mission in Chile, so we're basically all going crazy inviting everyone to a broadcast that will be held on the 15th. Things are going well. Nothing too big to report. We see miracles everyday so there are too many to tell. I´m including a part of the e-mail I sent to President this week that reminded me of you. I love you and appreciate you for being a great mom! 

Being a trainer has given me a whole new appreciation for moms all over the world. I understand now what my mom went through in wondering if she wasn´t being strict enough and that I was going to turn out bad, then trying to be more strict and having me resent her for it and her wondering if she was doing the whole “being a mom” thing right. I understand now her worries about whether or not she´s giving me too much or not enough responsability and that she feels like all of the other moms (or trainers, in this case) are doing it so much better and that she feels like her daughter resents her and compares her to all of the other moms or expects her to be June Cleaver (or the hermanas from the Preach My Gospel DVD´s in this case). I get how she feels when she says that her daughter turned out well despite her. Those are all things that I feel.

All in all, I think the Lord is pleased with who I am and my character as a missionary, an that has given me a lot of peace and comfort, however I think that He would tell me to shape up in terms of the horario and learning to work harder. That´s a huge weakness of mine, I´ve never had to really work hard before. I´m working harder in my mission than I ever have in my life, but I know it´s still not as hard as most missionaries, at least from what I see. I´m trying to accept that it´s the weakness that has been dealt to me instead of challenges with the language or with teaching ability or family problems or whatever the more common missionary challenges are. I´m constantly hovering in the balance between accepting that I´m not perfect and feeling that I´m expected to be better.

 I'm going to use most of this time to upload some pictures from Torres del Paine because I haven't sent any in a while.

September 19, 2011

We went to Torres del Payne today and it was awesome. I have to go, but today was our p-day so it'll be until next week that you hear from me next! Love you tons!

September 12, 2011

Ok, today is a crazy day of getting errands done and taking care of my missing ID/no money situation, so I´ve completely blanked on most of what happened this week, but here are 2 scriptures that brought me a lot of comfort this past little while:

Matthew 10:38 - To follow Christ, we take His name upon us. Sometimes the path of discipleship has rough spots, but I wouldn´t trade being on the path in order to avoid them.

1 Peter 5: 6-10 - "will make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."

My mission has changed and continues to perfect me more with every challenge. I love this Gospel, I love being a disciple of Christ, no matter the cost.

We had zone conference this week and the assistants made a super hilarious video that reminded me of how grateful I am to be a part of this family of missionaries that is the mission Chile Osorno.

Love you!

-Jamie

September 5, 2011

Please tell everyone I love them and Grandpa Jim that I hope he feels better soon!

It turns out our golden investigator went to a natioinal park for the week. He came back and went to church yesterday and loved it. We are really excited!

August 29, 2011

This week has been a week full of trials and epiphanies. Our golden investigators have been cancelling appointments or just not answering the phone aka avoiding us and we have no idea what happened. We found two new people this week, but after we talked to them for a bit, we realized that they were patients in a psychiatric care facility. One of them was a singer for 30 years in Argentina before she was hospitalized, so for service we´re going to go by and sing hymns with her! I´m excited about that. Also, I lost my wallet with all my money, my ID and both my credit cards running to catch a taxi. However, I´m deciding to stay positive. Trials happen, and I have a clear conscience so I have no reason to believe that the blessings aren´t on their way and that this is all happening for a reason. The quality of our teaching is improving leaps and bounds. I love this new training program! If only we could do more of it! A shining moment this week was that a kid came to church on Sunday completely on his own because he remembered going to an activity there when he was little and wanted to find out more. Awesome! Hermana Perez is awesome. That´s all for now because I´m out of time!


Love,
Jamie

August 19, 2011

Yeah, I feel fine now.

I flew back to Osorno with Hermana Contreras and two other Elders. Elder Galovich is also training this cambio so we both had to go to the training and then come back. The new program is basically an outline of what we´re supposed to be studying every week. They changed our schedule to have 2 hours of companionship study everyday instead of 1. Basically it´s that they´ve recently come out with "8 principles to improve teaching" and the new training program has to do mostly with helping the new missionaries learn and apply those 8 principles. Hermana Perez pretty much already knows what she´s doing so it´s not that hard, I was blessed =D. The new schedule is a little hard to get used to, but we´re doing our best, it seems as if there´s so much to study and so little time to do it! However, I came to a realization this week: Don´t sweat the small stuff. None of us are living life perfectly all the time, it´s all just a part of the "Endure to the end" process.

The new blog is www.chileosornomission-rappleye.blogspot.com

Hermana Perez was sick this week, so we spent Friday at the Mamita´s house and I got to help her get ready for the primary banquet Saturday. I learned how to make a cake out of vanilla cookies, bananas and manjar. It was fun.

We´re teaching a new couple, Coni and Juan. We´re really excited about them because they are really receptive and interested. We talked to them about the Plan of Salvation and the Restoration and the Spirit was SUPER STRONG. It was awesome. We´re going to have a family home evening with them at the Mamita´s house on Wednesday.

For our one year mark, Hermana Moss wrote me a little card about the ways we both have grown in the mission this past year. It was really sweet. One of the things she said was: "Don´t forget why you wanted to come on a mission." It made me think about the times that I was just dying out of a desire to be able to do contacts and knock doors telling people about how awesome this Gospel is. I need to stop looking at stoping people in the street as a chore and start appreciating that I only have authority to do it for 6 more months. That´s my goal for now. Hah.

Yeah, that´s all for now. Kinda uneventful, I know, but I´m doing well and I´ll look forward to hearing from you next week!

Love,

Jamie

August 15, 2011

So I am loving training Hermana Perez. She is from Lima, Peru. She reminds me a lot of me when I first started my mission (in a lot of funny, ironic ways). I´ve realized that I´m actually not too bad at this training thing, better than I thought I would be, anyway. I think I´m actually better at (and enjoy more) teaching/training other people how to be missionaries than actually being a missionary. I hope that makes sense. I´m learning a ton from the new training program and I´m really glad that I have the opportunity to use it.

We´ve been sick all week. My ear drum popped again in the plane, and my zone leader told me he thinks I have strep throat because I´ve had a fever for the last 4 days, but it seems as if things are looking up in the weather down here, so hopefully we´ll be back to 100% soon!

So something that I was thinking about this week... When I was on the bus up to Osorno, I heard some of the Elders talking about something or other and they mentioned, in context to some Elder in their zone "He´s a fariseo" (I´m saying it in Spanish because I forgot how it is spelt in English haha). I thought about that though, about how the fariseos are so concerned with the details of exact obedience that they miss the big picture. I started to wonder if I´m like that. I know missionaries who aren´t as obedient as I am, but enjoy so much more success and happiness in their mission because they seem to just love everyone and have a great time. I wondered if maybe that was the key, if maybe I was missing the big picture and being too concerned with the small stuff. However, I then thought that there is no way that the Lord would want me to compromise my obedience. It´s just not something He would want. I thought about the phraze "return with honor." It doesn´t say "return having had a great time and tons of fun" or "return with visible results" it says "return with honor." I know that the way that I will be able to be an honorable missionary is through sticking to that obedience, so that´s my plan.

Yeah, sidenote, let me just tell you about the torture of today. We went ice skating again, even though I didn´t skate because I needed to rest, but they played 3 consecutive songs from the GLEE season 2 soundtrack, followed by "Here We Go Again" by Demi Lovato, then came about 4 or 5 Jonas Brothers songs, and we left just as Selena Gomez came on, I was dying not being able to sing along. Haha. Oh well. It´ll just make it better in 6 months!

Greetings from Antarctica!-- August 8, 2011

Well it´s that time again... cambios. This one will be a little different. I´M TRAINING! I´m super excited! I don´t know who she is or where she´s from yet, but I´m flying up to Osorno tomorrow to be trained in a new program that the church just came out with about training new missionaries. Wow.

Also, our Mamita finally returned! Her husband is a police officer and works on the Chile/Argentina border, so for 30 days at a time he lives in a compound there. The family went to visit him and got trapped in by the snow for a week and a half! We were orphans! Haha. Anyway, she´s back now and we´re very pleased about that.

We found an absolutly amazing investigator on Monday. He looked kindof sad so we went to go talk to him. He said his car had just broken down and he was walking to look for a mechanic. We told him we were missionaries and he said something to the effect of: "That´s amazing, I am looking for religion, what have you got?" We invited him to come with us to the Bishop´s house right then and he accepted. We had a family home evening with them, gave him some folletos and a Book of Mormon and asked him if he would prepare to be baptized by someone with the authority of Jesus Christ. He said yes right then and there. He left the next day to visit family in Santiago, but we called him the other day and he said he´s reading a ton and used the word "spectacular" to describe how it all seemed to him. We are really excited for when he comes back later this month.

Well, that´s pretty much all there is to say for now. I love you!

-Jamie