August 31, 2015 - Week 13 Fleas Help

¡Hola!

Sorry for the pathetic subject line but that is honestly the worst part of every email...haha

This week was great as usual! Hermana Clawson left on Monday and we waited in the bus terminal for 4 hours Monday for Hna. Roldans new companion to arrive. Chileans have no understanding of the word schedule...and then when they are Mormon its even worse. Haha. So we waited in the bus terminal all day Monday for Hna Hokanson to get her. She is super cute. From West Jordan and she has 5 months in the mission. Almost 6. Haha we call her Hna Cookie because Hna Roldan can't pronounce her name and it sounds like cookie when she says it. So the whole ward calls her Hna. Cookie. 

We saw a lot of miracles this week!!!!

We have a few new investigators. Melanie is 17 and she is super awesome. She has such great desires to learn and her beliefs are super similar to ours but she has no religion. We can't meet with her till later in the week but I'm sure the 2nd visit will be just as good as the first. Also we have a new investigator Patricia. Hna Espinoza found her when we were in intercambios but we have had lessons with her everyday. She has a lot of problems...a lot...and will need a lot of time before she could be baptized but she has a huge desire to change her life around. Haha but...she is a cat lady. She lives with her 17 year old sons and tons of cats. They are all over us during the lessons I want to die everytime. Haha I will be sitting on the couch and there will be a cat behind my head that just starts chewing on my hair, stuff like that. And Hna. Espinoza is convinced she has fleas. Her legs are COVERED in all these tiny bites. Hahahaha. But Patricia really is amazing. Satan is working so hard with her though. She was going to come to an activity with us this Saturday but she started having really bad back pain and she has been talking about church all week but when she found out where the chapel is she started having a panic attack because there are certain places in the city she can't go because she is scared. Its complicated. But hopefully we can help her overcome some of her problems and get her to church!

We had a lesson with Gustavo this week and it was kinda our make it or break it lesson. We haven't been able to teach him for almost a month now and he hasn't been keeping his commitments but when we went he had read! And the spirit was so strong! We are kinda starting from ground 0 again and are going to keep meeting with him, so that was really great. 

Jose came to church! I don't know if I've really written about Jose but he is a inactive who has no belief in God. His uncle was a member of the ward who passed away a week ago. We have been trying to meet with Jose since I got here and have had 2 lessons but with the passing of his uncle he came to church! haha that is huge. Honestly a miracle!!!

We had a stake activity this Saturday which was really fun. All the wards got assigned a different country in Latin America (plus the US) and the relief society had to prepare a dance and food from their country. Our ward had Venezuela and it was really fun to see the ward come together and prepare their stuff. Also we got an investigator to dance which was awesome! 

And the big news for the week.....we have a baptism!!!! The same investigator, Agostina, who danced is going to be baptized!!!! Her brother is 8 and getting baptized on Sunday and the bishop called us the other day and told us that Ago wanted to be baptized too!!!! Hna E. is shocked because before this she has had no interest and when the missionaries started teaching her initially she rebelled and got a bunch of tattoos, stuff like that. But she just had a baby, and with the death of the ward member and her brothers baptism it was a perfect storm. The Lord has a specific time for everyone. The problem was that her plan was to get baptized before the 15th and then move out to live with her boyfriend..so we taught her the law of chastity and did a lot of praying and she has decided that she still wants to be baptized. We are going to pick a date with her tonight. I am so excited! Her mom and sisters are recent converts and I love their family!!!!

It was a great week filled with lots of miracles! Also the weather is changing and its getting really warm here! Everyone have the greatest week! Find someway to share the gospel!!!

Love,

Hermana Freedman

August 24th - Week 12 Dumb Blonde...

Hey Everyone!

Another great week in the mission and I can´t believe it but I have one transfer in the field under my belt! Also I never thought I would be able to call myself a dumb blonde but...crazy things happen in the mission. Everyone here refers to me as the blonde. The Hermana´s in our pension refer to me as ¨their blondie¨ and when anyone in the ward is trying to differentiate between my companionship and the other companionship its always, ¨the Peruvian and the Hawaiian or the Chilean and the blonde¨. And all the time in people's doorways too they will comment on my blonde hair. I think I'm color blind or something because I don't see it. 

And I had so many mistakes with the language this week...I can't count the number of times that I confidently answered someone's question later to find out that they had asked something totally different. Haha we were in a taxi back to the pension last pday and the driver asked ¨por donde van¨ I thought he had asked me where I was from so I said Ëstados Unidos¨ he looked so confused and just started laughing. I also always have trouble with the words mayor (older) and mejor (best). When I'm speaking in sentences I always get stuck when I use one of those words. I start second guessing myself, but anyway people will often ask if any of my siblings have served missions and I always tell them that I'm the oldest but usually what ends up coming out of my mouth is, ¨soy la mejor¨....haha I'm the best rather than oldest...but Thomas, Andrew, Char, and Jilly I think we all know that's true too. Isn't the oldest always the best too??? Just kidding.

Oh man this week I was in the shower and the power went out. Hahaha the bathroom was pitch dark and the water went from super hot to freezing. I just started laughing because I had shampoo in my hair and I was just feeling around the shower trying to find my conditioner and stuff. Oh man...

Also there were a bunch of temblores this week and I always think they are kinda fun but Hermana Espinoza hates them...she has reason too but this morning my bed started shaking, we have a bunk, and I thought it was Hna E just turning but it woke me up which I wasn't very happy about because I had 30 minutes left to sleep. But all of a sudden Hna E started yelling, ahhhhh temblor. Once again I just started laughing so hard. 

I had intercambios with Hna Scalise this week. She is super great and from Argentina. We had a good time and thats always a good opportunity. 

Yesterday was Hna. Roldans birthday so I cut out feliz cumpleaños and put that up on the wall and then we sang in the morning. That was really fun. 

We taught a good lesson on the Plan of Salation with Alejandra this week. She is probably our investigator that is progressing the most so I always look forward to lessons with her. She is the cutest young mom, but she needs to get married so thats always a challenge. 

We also got two new investigators Hugo and Ada. They are both super Christian but have very different beliefs. Haha we couldn't teach the lesson because everything we said was followed by question or a story. I am scared to go back....I need a professor of religion with me. I have no clue the answers to half their questions. Really gotta prepare before we teach them, but I'll just use the BOM to knock'em down. 

Other than that we didn't really have any other teaching opportunities this week. A member of the ward passed away so we worked a lot to support the ward this week. We were able to attend the funeral yesterday and that was really nice. It was pretty interesting to see a funeral of a different culture. 

Oh and cambios. I am staying here in Costanera with Hna Espinoza. AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!! Have the greatest day! 

Spiritual thought from a talk I studied this week from Elder Nash. ¨Faith in times of trial creates steadfast men and women, and gives sure and steady direction when potentially disorienting storms rage.¨ I loved that! All of our experiences in life are to help us learn and grow and in the future we will be better prepared to face other trials that come our way. We can handle anything when we have faith. 

Have the greatest week!!!!!

Hermana Freedman

August 18th - Week 11 Animo!

Hey everyone!

This week was really slow but still great. We got dropped by quite a few people which was a bummer, but they will have another chance down the road. We didn´t teach very many lessons but the ones we did teach were super powerful. 

But first! Congrats Jilly bean!!!! It sounds like your baptism was so special and you looked so pretty in your white dress. 

This week we had intercambios again so I worked in Pukarani with Hermana Cueva. That was really great and intercambios are always a great learning experience. 

We found a new investigator Marcela this week and she is so great! We actually taught her two days in a row and both times she had so many questions and just wanted to know more! But her boyfriend works 10x10s (10 days in the mine, 10 days here) and so right now he is here so she is living at his apartment so we have 1 more week till we can teach her again. But I'm looking forward to that. 

We also have a new investigator Alejandra who also is progressing. Hopeful for her as well. But I'm always hopeful for everyone haha. 

And our other new investigator is Nicole. She and her son Benjamin both listened to the first discussion. She has so much faith and is the cutest young mom. While we were teaching her I just kept imagining her as the primary or YWs president. She would be stellar. 

Hna. E had some flu virus this weekend so we spent a lot of time in the pension. On Saturday night Hna Clawson came with me because we had appointments in our sector. Funny story. Our first cita was with Carolina. In our sector we have lots of apartments and all the builidngs are the same color. Gustavo and Carolina live in builings that are next to each other, both on the 5th floor, both the same number. I explained to Hna clawson all about carolina knocked the door and it was the wrong apartment!!!! It was our other investigator Gustavo. I almost died, but I just invited him to church and I hope I played it off alright. Carolina ended up falling through and so did our other appointments. We had 2 hours left and had used everyone Hna E and I had planned for. I was freaking our because I was leading sector but I decided to try for Camila who generally can only meet in the mornings. But she was there and we got to teach her!!! We haven't been able to contact her for 2 weeks so that was super awesome. And after we went and had a lesson with Daniel. He is a menos activo and really wants to come back to church. The spirit was so strong and it was a really great end to the day. 

As usual a big testimony builder that the Lord is there for us! I was scared out of my mind to lead sector, 1. because I don't know the sector super well and 2. Spanish, but I did it!!!

Not much else happened. I definitely had to remind myself constantly this week to have ANIMO because it was a lot of walking, or sitting in the apartment when I wanted to be working but I'm amazed how easy it is to be happy here even when everything goes wrong. 

Have the greatest week! Love you all!

Hermana Freedman

August 10th - Week 10, How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

Alo!

This week was great!!! I can't believe there are only 2 weeks left in this cambio! Some highlights of the week!

-I taught Hna. E how to make french toast on Friday night. Mmmmm so yummy and I felt like I was at home! We even used that cheap great value syrup that I love. Only thing we were missing was the Great Harvest bread. 

-The weather this week has been wacky. I'm sure you have probably heard but the waves in Viña have been crazy and there is tons of flooding. Also basically every city in the mission except Arica has gotten rain this week. So unusual and it's so bad when it rains here. The ground doesn't soak up the water and there are mudslides. It was hailing in Antofagasta too. So we are praying for the mission! It was forecasted to rain here yesterday but of course there wasn't one cloud in the sky. But the weather here has been super irregular. It will be super hot and then freezing cold but I guess thats normal in the desert. Some nights it feels like its raining just from the condensation in the air from the beach but thats about all the water we got here. 

-We had intercambios this week and for the next 2 as well since Hna E is an STL. I went with Hna Clawson this week. It was so much fun! She is the greatest, but we spoke so much english which is bad. But we had some really great lessons in her sector so that was cool. 

-Ok....here's a story. This week we went and visited Maria. I dont know if you remember but Maria is the recent convert from the south and she is blind and moved up here to live with her daughter. So Maria had surgery about a month ago on her stomach and just this past week had to go in again because her stomach was infected. So on Friday we went and visited her in her house. She was in bed and we were just sitting and talking. She is so fun to talk to and her facial expressions are the best. We talked for a while and then finally got her to calm down so we could share a lesson. She asked me to pray and as I was folding my arms she got all excited and ripped her sheets off to show us her stitches but oh man we saw a little more than her stitches.....I lost it and Hna E helped her put her blankets back on....it's a good thing she is blind because I was dying...and then I had to pray and oh man it was rough. Hopefully she thought I was taking long pauses just because I don't know Spanish. Hna E and I have been laughing about it all weekend. 

-We had a lesson with Familia Pinto this week and Hermano Cido from our ward. They are neighbors and Hno. Pinto is a new investigator. His wife is too but really she is super catholic and wants nothing...she doesn't even listen. Hopefully if we can get him to accept the gospel she will follow. But anyways, Hno. Pinto is older like 65-70 and he has never had a religion. He has read like every religious text out there, except the Book of Mormon, and has been looking his whole life for the church he feels is true. Little does he know, the font is waiting for him. The lesson was super awesome and thank goodness Hno. Cido was there because the whole time they were just talking about the bible and BOM and how the bom answers all the questions he has ever had about the bible. Hno Cido knows the bible super well so it was perfect. We are going to try to teach another lesson this week with a different member. 

-We got a new investigator Norma. She is an older woman and is so sweet. She invited us in and told us that for weeks she has been watching us from the micro or out her window and everytime she sees us she says her heart feels different. We shared a scripture and hopefully we can start teaching her!

-We also got to teach Marcela and Rodrigo this week who are progressing! Rodrigo works 7x7 so one week here one week in the mines. But we taught them about baptism but the lesson fell because their daughter has been really sick and right as we were going to commit them to a date something went wrong. Rodrigo really loves the idea of the priesthood which is awesome. We committed them to church on sunday so that sofia could get a blessing but they didnt show....we were really hopeful so that was a bummer. But I love them. They are the greatest. They both speak English and its fun because I speak Spanish to them and they speak English back. In time. 

-We also found a new investigator Rodrigo who was a referral. We have been trying to contact him since my first week and he has never been home! He wasn't in our plans yesterday but his light was on so we decided to go visit. It was so cool because we knocked the door and he invited us in but he was alone so we couldn't go in but then 2 women walked up to the door! It was the woman who had given us the referral!!! So we got to teach the restoration with a member! One thing I have learned is that lessons are 10x more powerful with a member there. We are really working hard to have more lessons with memebrs. But anways he was super receptive and asked us if we could set up a time for the 5 of us to meet again. 

-We sang a suprise musical number in church on sunday. Haha I was sitting in sacrament meeting and honestly i dont really understand much because it's hard to hear through the speakers so I just kinda relax...but then Hna E started freaking out and apparently they had announced that we were going to sing so hopefully it sounded alright... It was the 4 of us Hnas. Latinos don't know how to read music so we were all singing on different beats and stuff but whatever...you could still feel the spirit

-Last story. Preface: there are 2 streets I refuse to go on in our sector because both have really scary dogs....anyways, we were asked to verify an address of a menos activo and so we went to find his house. We walked around our sector for 1 hour looking for the street (the streets here are so confusing) and we had no luck. We finally decided to head to a different house because we had spent so much time looking. We were standing next to the scary dog street and a woman went to walk down it. We decided to ask her if they knew where the street was and she told us that it she didn't know the street but that is was nowhere in the area. We walked the long way around to avoid the scary street and when we got to the other side, found a street sign and it was the street we were looking for but it was the dog street. (sorry this is probably making no sense) anyways both dogs were sitting in the middle of the road and I was terrified and didn't want to go down. I said a prayer because i was so scared and we started walking down the street. It was a miracle because as soon as we stepped into the street a door opened and someone called the dogs inside. It is amazing how HF is so aware of us. Hope that story isn't too hard to figure out....sorry...

Anyway, I hope everyone has the greatest week! Shoutout to T-Blake (last time I can call you that) and good luck to you and Garret this week!!!! Also Jilly bean!!!! I am so excited for you!

I was reading in Mosiah 18 today about Alma at the Waters of Mormon and I thought about you! In that story all the people were so excited to be baptized and I hope you are just as excited as they were! Enjoy your last full week of summer! 

Love,

Hermana Freedman

August 3 - Two Months and Two Rookies Alone in Chile

Hey!

Can you believe it's been 2 months, because I can't! This week was good. I learned a lot as usual. Tuesday Hermana E was sick all day so we had to saying in the pension. We had an appointement and 7:30 so we left and started working but that appt. fell through. So we went and visited Maria Jesus who I think I told you about. She literally was golden but she told us that she can't meet with us anymore because her boyfriend doesn't like religion and it was causing problems in their relationship. they have 2 cute little kids. She said she really feels like she needs to keep learning but that she needs to protect her family first so good for her. I know the time will come when she will be in the right circumstances to receive the gospel. Shes ready!!!

Wednesday my intercambio with Hermana Carabine started. I was really excited going into it. We went and worked in her sector, Pukarahni. It was an incredible experience because we both are in training, and neither of us speak great spanish but I know my Heavenly Father is watching out for me because the second our intercambio started I understood 95% of everything people said. I think usually I would say Im at 50%...I was absolutely shocked. And for all of that day and a half I understood everything! Im back to understanding almost nothing haha but it was definitely a miracle this week! Huge testimony builder and we taught some super great lessons. 

There was one lessons in particular on Thursday that really stood out to me. We went and visited a woman Maria Nadia who is less active. We started talking and after a few minutes Hermana Carabine started inviting her to start reading again and going to church. She got a little upset and said that other people need to do that but not her. I thought I was being smart and just told her that we didn't want her to do those things just because we tell her to but that keeping the commandments is a way to show our love for God. She really didn't like that and for about 5 minutes yelled at us. I felt awful because she isn't even in my sector and I made her really mad. We asked to sing a song and pray and she finally agreed. We started singing and the spirit entered the room. I felt impressed to compliment her on her voice and after I did she told us how as a young woman she was in choirs and loved to sing but she ended up losing her voice and can't sing high like she used to and this a challenge for her. We shared a short lessons and invited her to attend ward choir and she was so excited!!! And she wants to go to church now!!! Miracles every day here in the mission!

There was also one house we went to and we started singing but I didn't know the song and neither did Hna C and one thing about Latinos is they don't really know how to follow music or hold a pitch...it's really bad...so we sounded absolutely terrible and I lost it. I couldn't stop laughing. I was just trying to hide behind my hymn book. Oh man. I really gotta get that under control. 

It was good to be back with Hermana E on Friday. I missed her and my sector. Nothing really happened Friday or Saturday and we taught 0 lessons which was discouraging but you just gotta keep working when it gets tough! Friday night there was a baby shower hosted by the relief society and that was fun. There is a recent convert in our sector that we have been trying to meet with and she came so that was good! 

I still love Sundays. Always the greatest day. And I really appreciate the 3 hours of church I have to somewhat relax...haha. Sunday night we had an experience that was really great. So like I said we taught I think 2 lessons this week prior to Sunday which is nothing. None of our investigators were able to meet this week and it was a little discouraging. Sunday we set a goal to get 2 new investigators which at the rate things had been going was probably not likely but we decided we really wanted to work for 2. At 7:30 we had visited every single house, in our sector that we have and nobody had let us in all day. We were walking around our condominium and there was an apartment with lights on that Hna E recognized as a old investigators so we decided to knock the door. A woman Carolina answered the door and let us in. She is SO ready for the gospel!!! So we taught her and her daughter!!!! I felt the spirit so strong and am excited to keep working with her! She lived in Park City for 6 months which was cool and we were able to talk about Temple Square and stuff. she kept bringing the temple up so we have a goal to work towards!! Sometimes you gotta work the whole day or week and have every door shut in your face but when you keep working The Lord always leads you to someone! I love that about the mission. Sometimes its good to have our faith stretched and its ok to feel feelings of discouragement but we just gotta keep going!

Last thing. I read a talk this week called The 4th missionary by Elder Corbridge. If you can find it I want you to read it because I think it applies to just life in general. It really made me want to be a better missionary and change my life to be more like my Savior! A thought from his message...

"You have a choice. You can choose what kind of person you will become...Ëverything is stacked in your favor to become like him." We choose everyday who we are going to follow but we ought to become like christ because,  I loved that. We always need to strive to become more like our Savior. 

SO homework for all of you. find that talk and read it!

Love you all so much and hope you have the greatest week. 

Hermana Freedman

Also Ed Sheeran just came on on the radio and im not gonna lie im pretty excited....everyone go enjoy some good (not efy) music for me.