Hooooooolaaaaa!!!
It was so fun to talk to everyone on Christmas!! I can't believe it's the last time I'll call my family in the mission, that's just too weird to me. The time is going way too fast and it's freaking me out.
Enough about that. On to more interesting and important things. Jeffrey was baptized this Saturday on Christmas and it was really just the most hilarious baptism I've ever had. So many things went wrong but you would all be proud of me because I kept my cool (although it appears that to some people it came off as indifference, but whatever.) First of all, we told everyone involved to be there at 6:30 so that we could start the baptism on time. We got there at 6:30 and guess who was there??? NO ONE. Okay. So we unlocked the chapel and went inside to see what was going on with the font and guess what we found?? A font full of green water. We were like . . . . . . . WHAT IS THIS??? HNA Bravo started freaking out and saying, what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do???? And I was just laughing because there was nothing we could do, so why worry about it?? He was just gonna have to get baptized in green water and that was that. So we went back to the house to call everyone but on the way we saw everyone come and turned around. Fortunately no one said anything about the green font, so Jeffrey went to change his clothes and we waited on the elders from another branch who were also going to have a baptism. We waited and waited and Jeffrey and his family started to get really anxious because I guess they had to go somewhere afterwards, but finally the elders and their investigators showed up, everyone got changed, and we took pictures. Then we realized that we had another problem-none of the members that we had invited showed up and we were going to be short a witness. Uh ohhhhhhh. We ended up starting the baptism still waiting on the guy that we frantically called and as I sat there listening to our ward mission leader, the ridiculousness of it all hit me and I started to laugh. I was just thinking-bueno, the font is green, we don't have two witnesses, we started late and we have no idea what we're going to sing for our special number. I could react to this in one of two ways-cry, or laugh. I think I'm going to laugh. And I continued to laugh throughout the baptism, even when the zone leaders showed up and I probably should have behaved myself better but I just couldn't help it (and they ended up saving us because hey, 3 worthy priesthood holders walked in the door and could be witnesses). Then we got up to sing and it sounded so bad and I started laughing even in the middle of the song. Okay it was kind of immature but really I was just dying. But despite everything, Jeffrey was baptized and confirmed the next day and we were very happy and so was he!!! And that's the most important thing of all, and the reason that I think I was so calm thoughout the whole thing. I knew, deep down, that everything was going to be just fine, that even though it wasn't the most orthodox baptism ever, that everything would work out okay. And it did!!!
So that was our baptism. The rest of the week was kind of lame-everyone left for Christmas and no one wanted to talk to us. But I'm excited for this week. The blessings always come after the trial of faith. :)
Spanish word of the week: Malcreado. It means, literally translated, badly created. But generally it's used to describe bratty children, rebellious teenagers and disobedient missionaries, also misbehaving pets. Basically it means someone who doesn't behave themself very well. I LOVE this word and I use it a lot, haha.
We're still working with Monica and Kevin. All this weekend we were trying to find her and couldn't but it turns out that she was in the hospital and they're gonna have to operate. We brought the elders to give her a blessing and then stayed with her and talked to her about the Atonement. This turned into a session of answering her questions of the soul, and it just so happened that we were able to answer them all with the Book of Mormon. We then asked her to pray right then and ask Heavenly Father if it was true. She did, and after the word Amen we all stayed there with our heads bowed and our eyes closed for a minute. HNA Bravo and I finally looked up, but Monica was still there with her eyes closed and head bowed, listening. Finally she looked up and smiled at us. We asked her how she felt and she said, tranquila. We asked her if she had received an answer and she said yes. We asked her if she believed that the Book of Mormon was true and she said yes, because it answered her questions. When we left I really felt that we had been instruments in the hands of the Lord. It was an incredible feeling!!!
I know that God lives, that He is my Father and He loves me. I know that Jesus Christ is His Only Begotten Son and the Savior of the world. I know that there is no other way that we can return to the Father except through His Atonement. I know that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ and that he was called to be the prophet that restored the true gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth. I know that the priesthood of God is here upon the earth and is found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know that The Book of Mormon is true, that it is another volume of sacred scriptures and if we read it every day and apply its principles, we will get closer to God and to His Son Jesus Christ and we will have happiness and joy in our lives. I know that families are forever and that the work and the glory of Heavenly Father is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of His children, in other words, all of us.
He wants us to live with Him forever, but it depends largely on us.
I love you all. I love this work.
Hermana Chamberlain
Monday, December 27, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
A White Christmas in Loja!
Hoooolaaaaaa!!!!
First off, Feliz Cumpleaños a Kristen y a mi querida tia Laurie!!!!! Your birthdays were last week but I hope they were awesome all the same. Anyway, first off, the big news: we are going to have a White Christmas!!! In other words, we're having a baptism the 25th of December!!! His name is Jeffrey and he's a cute little 9 year old boy, the younger brother of one of the members in Jipiro. One day while we were practicing, Alexis called us over and said, hey sisters, do you want a baptism??? Ummmm . . . . . DUH. What kind of missionary doesn't want a baptism?? He then said that his little brother hadn't been baptized yet but had been to church a bunch of times and wanted to get baptized. Okay, we can help you with that. The permission slip is signed and all we have to do is finish teaching him and find him some white clothes. Awesome.
More good news: I received FOUR packages this week!!! The whole zone looked at me like I was a spoiled brat, but I just smiled and waved. It's gonna be a Merry Christmas after all!!!!
On to more important things: we found a new family this week, Monica and her son Kevin. She answered the door when we were looking for our mamita and when I saw her I thought she was already a member. Turns out she's not yet, but she was looking for a way to get her family closer to God and we were like, how about sealed together and living with God forever?? She loved our message and although she didn't come to church this week I know she will next week. The funny thing is that she's really receptive but her son Kevin is the one that doesn't want to listen. Know how old he is??? EIGHT. It kind of makes me laugh, but we're getting in good with him little by little. They're both gonna be baptized, I just know it. One doesn't have a member face for nothing . . . . . .
So here we are in Guayaquil again, renewing my censo. I have a few commentaries to make on the trip last night: the absolute WORST road trip I have ever taken in my life, seriously. It started when we got on the bus and I was looking for our seats. I saw a couple who had their seats tilted all the way back and the wife was bothering her husband. This made me laugh until I noticed that our seats were right behind this couple and despite the fact that they both saw us struggling to get into them, they refused to raise their seats up to help us out. Finally we both managed to sit down, after much tribulation, and I figured out that even with my seat tilted back there wasn't enough room for my legs, which meant that I was incredibly uncomfortable all night. Then there was the window. HNA Bravo and I wanted it open, so I opened it. After about 15 minutes the guy behind us said, hey can you close the window?? So we closed it, waited until he was asleep and opened it again, haha. Then I fell asleep and when I woke up I realized that the guy behind us had closed the window AGAIN. Fortunately, he was asleep again, so I opened it. I realize that it was a little passive-aggressive, but we didn`t want to be throwing up the whole night. Then I fell asleep again, woke up right as we were coming into Guayaquil at 5:30 in the morning, and realized that my ears were so stopped up that I could barely hear out of the left one (remember that to get to Guayaquil from Loja you have to make a lot of altitude changes) and that no amount of yawning, swallowing or sucking on cough drops could make them pop. Just now they're starting to pop again. Fortunately this is the last time that I have to go to Guayaquil for legal stuff (I think) so we'll only be making this trip one more time-this afternoon, on the way back to Loja. You can not even imagine how happy we are about this!!!!
We're really excited about Christmas. HNA Bravo and I are going to go caroling to all the members and investigators (Spanish word of the day: Carols-villancicos.) Plus one family has already invited us to eat and I'm sure that more are on the way, if Loja is anything like Guayaquil on Christmas. Plus I get to talk to YOU GUYS!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAYY!!! The sad thing is, Loja is a lot more expensive than Guayaquil when it comes to calling the United States, so I might have you guys call me at home. But we get to make a practice call to arrange everything so I'll let you guys know. If a weird number shows up on the caller ID, it is NOT a telemarketer, it's your daughter!!!
MUCHO AMOR
Hermana Chamberlain
First off, Feliz Cumpleaños a Kristen y a mi querida tia Laurie!!!!! Your birthdays were last week but I hope they were awesome all the same. Anyway, first off, the big news: we are going to have a White Christmas!!! In other words, we're having a baptism the 25th of December!!! His name is Jeffrey and he's a cute little 9 year old boy, the younger brother of one of the members in Jipiro. One day while we were practicing, Alexis called us over and said, hey sisters, do you want a baptism??? Ummmm . . . . . DUH. What kind of missionary doesn't want a baptism?? He then said that his little brother hadn't been baptized yet but had been to church a bunch of times and wanted to get baptized. Okay, we can help you with that. The permission slip is signed and all we have to do is finish teaching him and find him some white clothes. Awesome.
More good news: I received FOUR packages this week!!! The whole zone looked at me like I was a spoiled brat, but I just smiled and waved. It's gonna be a Merry Christmas after all!!!!
On to more important things: we found a new family this week, Monica and her son Kevin. She answered the door when we were looking for our mamita and when I saw her I thought she was already a member. Turns out she's not yet, but she was looking for a way to get her family closer to God and we were like, how about sealed together and living with God forever?? She loved our message and although she didn't come to church this week I know she will next week. The funny thing is that she's really receptive but her son Kevin is the one that doesn't want to listen. Know how old he is??? EIGHT. It kind of makes me laugh, but we're getting in good with him little by little. They're both gonna be baptized, I just know it. One doesn't have a member face for nothing . . . . . .
So here we are in Guayaquil again, renewing my censo. I have a few commentaries to make on the trip last night: the absolute WORST road trip I have ever taken in my life, seriously. It started when we got on the bus and I was looking for our seats. I saw a couple who had their seats tilted all the way back and the wife was bothering her husband. This made me laugh until I noticed that our seats were right behind this couple and despite the fact that they both saw us struggling to get into them, they refused to raise their seats up to help us out. Finally we both managed to sit down, after much tribulation, and I figured out that even with my seat tilted back there wasn't enough room for my legs, which meant that I was incredibly uncomfortable all night. Then there was the window. HNA Bravo and I wanted it open, so I opened it. After about 15 minutes the guy behind us said, hey can you close the window?? So we closed it, waited until he was asleep and opened it again, haha. Then I fell asleep and when I woke up I realized that the guy behind us had closed the window AGAIN. Fortunately, he was asleep again, so I opened it. I realize that it was a little passive-aggressive, but we didn`t want to be throwing up the whole night. Then I fell asleep again, woke up right as we were coming into Guayaquil at 5:30 in the morning, and realized that my ears were so stopped up that I could barely hear out of the left one (remember that to get to Guayaquil from Loja you have to make a lot of altitude changes) and that no amount of yawning, swallowing or sucking on cough drops could make them pop. Just now they're starting to pop again. Fortunately this is the last time that I have to go to Guayaquil for legal stuff (I think) so we'll only be making this trip one more time-this afternoon, on the way back to Loja. You can not even imagine how happy we are about this!!!!
We're really excited about Christmas. HNA Bravo and I are going to go caroling to all the members and investigators (Spanish word of the day: Carols-villancicos.) Plus one family has already invited us to eat and I'm sure that more are on the way, if Loja is anything like Guayaquil on Christmas. Plus I get to talk to YOU GUYS!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAYY!!! The sad thing is, Loja is a lot more expensive than Guayaquil when it comes to calling the United States, so I might have you guys call me at home. But we get to make a practice call to arrange everything so I'll let you guys know. If a weird number shows up on the caller ID, it is NOT a telemarketer, it's your daughter!!!
MUCHO AMOR
Hermana Chamberlain
Monday, December 13, 2010
Nearly Arrested!
Holaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
Changes were yesterday and I'm still in Loja and HNA Bravo is still my companion, but she goes home in 3 weeks so we'll see what happens when we get to that point. Enough about that. On to more interesting news. LUIS ENRIQUE WAS BAPTIZED!!!!!!! We were sooooooo happy and I was gonna upload photos but I forgot to bring my cable and we're kind of running on a tight schedule because we snuck out of the zone barbeque to go write to our families and if we don't go back soon there won't be any food left. But, he was baptized and confirmed and he was sooooooo excited. His testimony was amazing, he was like, at first I didn't want anything to do with this church but now I know that it's true and I'm going to go forward. He's totally gonna be a missionary some day. Believe dat. So now he and his mom are members of the true church of Jesus Christ and his grandma has NO IDEA. I love secret baptisms. The fear of being discovered is a huge adrenaline rush. lol.
This Saturday all the missionaries sang in the Christmas devotional for the district and it was lovely. HNA Bravo and I discovered that straightening hair with a clothes iron is more effective that doing it with a straigtening iron. Basically, my hair hasn't looked that good in all my life, and no, I did not burn myself, just in case anyone was wondering (although I did burn HNA Bravo and after that she decided that it would be better if she ironed her own hair instead of letting me do it. Ha.) Perhaps this is a shameless show of vanity on my part, but hey, there is nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty-and seeing that our cute missionary clothes limit us a lot, we do what we gotta do right??
Random side note: This internet cafe is playing old school gangster rap and it is really difficult to not listen to it. I hate it when the cybers play trunky music. It's just unfair.
Anyway, this Sunday was awesome too, Lida came to church and loved it. She told us that when we called she was getting ready to go to her own church but decided to come to ours instead. She'll be baptized on Christmas day and we're totally excited. She needs a little bit of help with her testimony, but that will come as she puts in her part. Keep praying for her-if there's one thing I've figured out in the mission, it's that Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers.
Now they're playing reggaeton. Hableme en serio.
Funny story time!!! This week we went to Cuenca and I had to come back Thursday night while my companion stayed for a capacitation. We were having a killer time, telling jokes, laughing, when all of a sudden the bus stopped in the middle of the road and a policewoman got on. She said, good evening everyone, I`m here to make sure that you're all legal. At this point I remembered that my censo had expired the week before. Great. I got it out anyway and prayed that she wouldn't check the date on the back, but my prayers were in vain. She took my censo, flipped it over, frowned at me and said, you're only legal until November 23, 2010. I was like, yeah I know but the thing is that we have to go to Guayaquil to renew it and we can't go until they call us. She was like, sorry, but you're gonna have to get off the bus with me. I was like . . . . . they're gonna take me to jail, this cannot be happening. Fortunately Elder Arevalo and Elder Chicaiza were sitting right behind me and they're both from Ecuador. Elder Arevalo was like, is it really necessary for you to take her off the bus, she's gonna go renew it really soon, look we're missionaries (missionary seems to be a magic word here, lol). The policewoman was like okay, I`ll let her pass this time but you need to go get it taken care of as soon as possible, yeah?? We all breathed a huge sigh of relief and I asked, hey, if she had taken me to jail you guys would have come with me right??? They all said OF COURSE!!! True friendship right there-in fact I'm remembering a facebook bumper sticker right now that says, a friend will come bail you out of jail. A best friend will be sitting in the cell with you saying dang we messed up!!!! Haha. But I didn't go to jail, fortunately. And just so everyone knows, I'm going to Guayaquil next week to get my censo renewed.
Annnndddd . . . . . that's about it. The elders are all probably dying to eat, so chao until next week!!!!
Hermana Chamberlain
Changes were yesterday and I'm still in Loja and HNA Bravo is still my companion, but she goes home in 3 weeks so we'll see what happens when we get to that point. Enough about that. On to more interesting news. LUIS ENRIQUE WAS BAPTIZED!!!!!!! We were sooooooo happy and I was gonna upload photos but I forgot to bring my cable and we're kind of running on a tight schedule because we snuck out of the zone barbeque to go write to our families and if we don't go back soon there won't be any food left. But, he was baptized and confirmed and he was sooooooo excited. His testimony was amazing, he was like, at first I didn't want anything to do with this church but now I know that it's true and I'm going to go forward. He's totally gonna be a missionary some day. Believe dat. So now he and his mom are members of the true church of Jesus Christ and his grandma has NO IDEA. I love secret baptisms. The fear of being discovered is a huge adrenaline rush. lol.
This Saturday all the missionaries sang in the Christmas devotional for the district and it was lovely. HNA Bravo and I discovered that straightening hair with a clothes iron is more effective that doing it with a straigtening iron. Basically, my hair hasn't looked that good in all my life, and no, I did not burn myself, just in case anyone was wondering (although I did burn HNA Bravo and after that she decided that it would be better if she ironed her own hair instead of letting me do it. Ha.) Perhaps this is a shameless show of vanity on my part, but hey, there is nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty-and seeing that our cute missionary clothes limit us a lot, we do what we gotta do right??
Random side note: This internet cafe is playing old school gangster rap and it is really difficult to not listen to it. I hate it when the cybers play trunky music. It's just unfair.
Anyway, this Sunday was awesome too, Lida came to church and loved it. She told us that when we called she was getting ready to go to her own church but decided to come to ours instead. She'll be baptized on Christmas day and we're totally excited. She needs a little bit of help with her testimony, but that will come as she puts in her part. Keep praying for her-if there's one thing I've figured out in the mission, it's that Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers.
Now they're playing reggaeton. Hableme en serio.
Funny story time!!! This week we went to Cuenca and I had to come back Thursday night while my companion stayed for a capacitation. We were having a killer time, telling jokes, laughing, when all of a sudden the bus stopped in the middle of the road and a policewoman got on. She said, good evening everyone, I`m here to make sure that you're all legal. At this point I remembered that my censo had expired the week before. Great. I got it out anyway and prayed that she wouldn't check the date on the back, but my prayers were in vain. She took my censo, flipped it over, frowned at me and said, you're only legal until November 23, 2010. I was like, yeah I know but the thing is that we have to go to Guayaquil to renew it and we can't go until they call us. She was like, sorry, but you're gonna have to get off the bus with me. I was like . . . . . they're gonna take me to jail, this cannot be happening. Fortunately Elder Arevalo and Elder Chicaiza were sitting right behind me and they're both from Ecuador. Elder Arevalo was like, is it really necessary for you to take her off the bus, she's gonna go renew it really soon, look we're missionaries (missionary seems to be a magic word here, lol). The policewoman was like okay, I`ll let her pass this time but you need to go get it taken care of as soon as possible, yeah?? We all breathed a huge sigh of relief and I asked, hey, if she had taken me to jail you guys would have come with me right??? They all said OF COURSE!!! True friendship right there-in fact I'm remembering a facebook bumper sticker right now that says, a friend will come bail you out of jail. A best friend will be sitting in the cell with you saying dang we messed up!!!! Haha. But I didn't go to jail, fortunately. And just so everyone knows, I'm going to Guayaquil next week to get my censo renewed.
Annnndddd . . . . . that's about it. The elders are all probably dying to eat, so chao until next week!!!!
Hermana Chamberlain
Monday, December 6, 2010
Let the Holy Spirit Guide
This week was really interesting . . . . . I have learned that not only is the Spirit with us, it really does guide us to Heavenly Father's prepared children. On Tuesday we were calling all the people we had planned to visit and none of them could receive us. I was looking at my planner and saw the name Lida, a lady that we had contacted the week before. I thought, we need to call her. So I said hey HNA Bravo, let's call Lida. She was like, I already am!!! Lida picked up the phone, asked who it was and when we said we were the missionaries she said, come right now!!!! We got a little lost trying to find her house but finally we found it. She let us in and started telling us that she was struggling a lot, her husband and son were in Spain and she was alone with her daughter and that she was facing a lot of temptations and every time she thought she was strong enough to overcome them she fell again. I thought, we should teach her lesson 3 (the Gospel of Jesus Christ) just as HNA Bravo pulled out a pamphlet of lesson 3. The lesson was incredible-I have never felt the Spirit so strong in my whole life, I'm pretty sure. Lida accepted a baptismal date and when we went back and taught about the Restoration and asked if she thought Joseph Smith was a prophet she said yes, and that the Book of Mormon was true too. We want her to be baptized in December but she says that she wants to wait until her husband comes in February. I'm praying hard that her husband comes in December for Christmas so that he can be in her baptism, because that way we'll all be happy!!! You guys should pray for that too!!!!
Luis Enrique is getting baptized this Saturday and we're sooooooo excited!!!! We've been having to teach him at 6:30 in the morning because his schedule is really weird, so we've been a little tired these days (don't worry, we had permission to do it!!!) but I'm willing to do pretty much anything for the investigators, as long as it doesn't break laws or mission rules or commandments. He also had his baptismal interview today at 6:30 in the morning, and will be baptized at 4:30 on Saturday. Pray for him pleeeaaaaasssseeee!!!!!!
Plus the Flia Ushca came to church yesterday all 3 of them, and to the Christmas devotional. And I LOOOOOOOOOVED Henry B. Eyring's talk because he said something to the effect of, I know there are people watching this that haven't made covenants with God yet and I would advise you to do it while you still can. BOOOOM!!!!! We're hoping they'll be baptized this Saturday too . . . . . . PRAY FOR THEM PLEASE!!!!
I've been reading Doctrine and Covenants a lot lately and I looooooooove it!!!! The Lord has such a love and appreciation for His missionaries and it really shows in the Doctrine and Covenants. Plus Parley P. Pratt has his own revelation in there-yes, a member of my family has his own personal shoutout from the Lord Himself. And no, I will not be ashamed of my pride concerning this. I've also noticed a lot more that the Spirit is helping me in my teaching-my whole mission I've felt like I don't teach very well, but now I'm figuring out that when you don't know what to say, you just have to start talking and the words will come. I'm really grateful to the Lord for His help in this work-I know He's interested in it and that we really are finding His prepared children and bringing them back to His fold.
Christmas is here in Loja and I am really excited. The first Christmas in the mission field was a little difficult, but now I've been here for over a year, I can speak Spanish, and I'm in love with missionary work. That's like a recipe for a perfect Christmas in Ecuador. And you know what?? I completely forgot that I'm allowed to talk to you guys on Christmas . . . . . does that mean something??? I dunno, but at least I'm not trunky, haha!!!!
MUCHO AMOR!!!!!!
Hermana Chamberlain
Luis Enrique is getting baptized this Saturday and we're sooooooo excited!!!! We've been having to teach him at 6:30 in the morning because his schedule is really weird, so we've been a little tired these days (don't worry, we had permission to do it!!!) but I'm willing to do pretty much anything for the investigators, as long as it doesn't break laws or mission rules or commandments. He also had his baptismal interview today at 6:30 in the morning, and will be baptized at 4:30 on Saturday. Pray for him pleeeaaaaasssseeee!!!!!!
Plus the Flia Ushca came to church yesterday all 3 of them, and to the Christmas devotional. And I LOOOOOOOOOVED Henry B. Eyring's talk because he said something to the effect of, I know there are people watching this that haven't made covenants with God yet and I would advise you to do it while you still can. BOOOOM!!!!! We're hoping they'll be baptized this Saturday too . . . . . . PRAY FOR THEM PLEASE!!!!
I've been reading Doctrine and Covenants a lot lately and I looooooooove it!!!! The Lord has such a love and appreciation for His missionaries and it really shows in the Doctrine and Covenants. Plus Parley P. Pratt has his own revelation in there-yes, a member of my family has his own personal shoutout from the Lord Himself. And no, I will not be ashamed of my pride concerning this. I've also noticed a lot more that the Spirit is helping me in my teaching-my whole mission I've felt like I don't teach very well, but now I'm figuring out that when you don't know what to say, you just have to start talking and the words will come. I'm really grateful to the Lord for His help in this work-I know He's interested in it and that we really are finding His prepared children and bringing them back to His fold.
Christmas is here in Loja and I am really excited. The first Christmas in the mission field was a little difficult, but now I've been here for over a year, I can speak Spanish, and I'm in love with missionary work. That's like a recipe for a perfect Christmas in Ecuador. And you know what?? I completely forgot that I'm allowed to talk to you guys on Christmas . . . . . does that mean something??? I dunno, but at least I'm not trunky, haha!!!!
MUCHO AMOR!!!!!!
Hermana Chamberlain
Monday, November 29, 2010
Waaay Too Much Food!
Hoooolaaaaa!!!
We keep on truckin' along here in Loja. This week wasn't quite as amazing as last week but still pretty good. Luis Enrique is so excited for his baptism that it's insane. He just has to come to church one more time and he'll be set to jet for the 11th of December. Familia Ushca is doing sooooo good too-HNA Sandra and Orlandito are really excited, HNO Angel has been out of town all week (he's military) so we have no idea how he is. But I think he'll be okay too, I've got a good feeling. Monica is still waiting on her divorce and Kela and Eduardo FINALLY got his divorce to go through so they should be getting married soon. Basically we're having a blasty blast down here and working really hard. It's awesome.
So I'm guessing that everyone wants to hear about the census, right?? We couldn't leave the house allllllllll day. You know what time the high school kid came to take our information?? 7:30 in the morning. Hableme en serio. And even though she came super early, we still had to stay in the house allllllllllll day until 5. What did we do?? We made cheese empanadas, wrote to our converts, decided we were hungry again and made pancakes, and then our landlords called up and invited us to come eat tamales with them. Keep in mind that when they called up, I had just eaten like 3 pancakes and earlier that day I had eaten a ridiculous amount of empanadas. But we both really like tamales, so down we went!!! We had both eaten one cheese tamale and HNA Cecilia was like, do you want to try the chicken ones?? Before we could say anything more than uhhhhhhh, she had gotten up and was heating them up in the microwave. Uh oh. I was already feeling like I was going to explode but the first rule of being a missionary is-we eat all the food. So I muscled my way through two tamales, a piece of cake and a lot of horchata (a type of herbal tea. Sidenote: I have never drunk so much herbal tea in my entire life as I've drunk here.) By the time we left I was seriously dying. I'm not sure how I made it through choir practice and teaching Luis Enrique without throwing up, but somehow I managed. That night I was lying in bed in severe stomach pain, cursing Ecuador and its good food, and the people who think it's necessary to feed us so much in one sitting. But today I feel fine. Pretty much.
Anyway, this morning we decided that we were going to help out HNA Monica with her restaurant. She's been wanting to paint it for awhile and we thought it would be a good way to show her boyfriend that the Church really is a good thing and that he should be listening to us too because it's going to help him. Anyway, the zone leaders wanted to come too, so Elder Garcia asked me where the restaurant was. I'm 99% positive that I told him on the way to Zamora Huayco, but he apparently heard only Zamora Huayco. Today we went to the chapel to wait for them, but only the elders from Catamayo showed up, so we told them where to find us and left. After about 2 hours, the zone leaders and the other elders all showed up and Elder Garcia said, we just spent an HOUR looking for this place in Zamora Huayco!!!! This led to a small discussion about what I said the night before and what I didn't say and who's hearing was challenged, but in the end they all stayed to help and I still say that I told him on the WAY to Zamora Huayco. But whatevs.
Anyway, there's not a whole lot else to say. I'm really excited for these next two weeks because we're going to have baptisms, plus my zone is cool and apparently next week we're gonna go to Vilcabamba and ride bikes (sidenote:do I even remember how to ride a bike??) Hopefully we don't have to go to Guayaquil again, because I really want to go to Vilcabamba and I HATE the bus ride to and from Guayaquil. It's seriously the worst thing EVER. But I also want to be legal here in Ecuador, so I guess we'll see what happens. I'm hoping we go the next week . . . . .
MUCHO AMOR
Hermana Chamberlain
We keep on truckin' along here in Loja. This week wasn't quite as amazing as last week but still pretty good. Luis Enrique is so excited for his baptism that it's insane. He just has to come to church one more time and he'll be set to jet for the 11th of December. Familia Ushca is doing sooooo good too-HNA Sandra and Orlandito are really excited, HNO Angel has been out of town all week (he's military) so we have no idea how he is. But I think he'll be okay too, I've got a good feeling. Monica is still waiting on her divorce and Kela and Eduardo FINALLY got his divorce to go through so they should be getting married soon. Basically we're having a blasty blast down here and working really hard. It's awesome.
So I'm guessing that everyone wants to hear about the census, right?? We couldn't leave the house allllllllll day. You know what time the high school kid came to take our information?? 7:30 in the morning. Hableme en serio. And even though she came super early, we still had to stay in the house allllllllllll day until 5. What did we do?? We made cheese empanadas, wrote to our converts, decided we were hungry again and made pancakes, and then our landlords called up and invited us to come eat tamales with them. Keep in mind that when they called up, I had just eaten like 3 pancakes and earlier that day I had eaten a ridiculous amount of empanadas. But we both really like tamales, so down we went!!! We had both eaten one cheese tamale and HNA Cecilia was like, do you want to try the chicken ones?? Before we could say anything more than uhhhhhhh, she had gotten up and was heating them up in the microwave. Uh oh. I was already feeling like I was going to explode but the first rule of being a missionary is-we eat all the food. So I muscled my way through two tamales, a piece of cake and a lot of horchata (a type of herbal tea. Sidenote: I have never drunk so much herbal tea in my entire life as I've drunk here.) By the time we left I was seriously dying. I'm not sure how I made it through choir practice and teaching Luis Enrique without throwing up, but somehow I managed. That night I was lying in bed in severe stomach pain, cursing Ecuador and its good food, and the people who think it's necessary to feed us so much in one sitting. But today I feel fine. Pretty much.
Anyway, this morning we decided that we were going to help out HNA Monica with her restaurant. She's been wanting to paint it for awhile and we thought it would be a good way to show her boyfriend that the Church really is a good thing and that he should be listening to us too because it's going to help him. Anyway, the zone leaders wanted to come too, so Elder Garcia asked me where the restaurant was. I'm 99% positive that I told him on the way to Zamora Huayco, but he apparently heard only Zamora Huayco. Today we went to the chapel to wait for them, but only the elders from Catamayo showed up, so we told them where to find us and left. After about 2 hours, the zone leaders and the other elders all showed up and Elder Garcia said, we just spent an HOUR looking for this place in Zamora Huayco!!!! This led to a small discussion about what I said the night before and what I didn't say and who's hearing was challenged, but in the end they all stayed to help and I still say that I told him on the WAY to Zamora Huayco. But whatevs.
Anyway, there's not a whole lot else to say. I'm really excited for these next two weeks because we're going to have baptisms, plus my zone is cool and apparently next week we're gonna go to Vilcabamba and ride bikes (sidenote:do I even remember how to ride a bike??) Hopefully we don't have to go to Guayaquil again, because I really want to go to Vilcabamba and I HATE the bus ride to and from Guayaquil. It's seriously the worst thing EVER. But I also want to be legal here in Ecuador, so I guess we'll see what happens. I'm hoping we go the next week . . . . .
MUCHO AMOR
Hermana Chamberlain
Monday, November 22, 2010
Fasting Works!
Hooooolaaaa!!!!
This week was AMAZING!!!! I have gained an incredibly strong testimony of the power of fasting. It works!!! And it's amazing!!!! And I'm gonna tell you all about it. Here we gooooooo . .. . . . So last week we were having a lot of issues with well, pretty much everyone, and this week was going more or less the same way. Monica Remache's boyfriend got out of jail and came back and didn't have a huge spiritual awakening while he was in the big house like we were hoping, plus a lot of other frustrating things were happening. I was getting super frustrated and thinking about what we should do when a thought came into my mind-we need to fast. DUUUUUUHHHHH. Why didn't we think of that before??? I asked HNA Bravo how she felt about it and she agreed that we should give it a try.
So the next day after lunch we went to the chapel and knelt down and poured out our hearts to Heavenly Father. We told him that we needed a lot of blessings and that we were going to fast so that we could have them. We asked him to bless the Flia. Chisaguano, Flia. Ushca, Flia. Remache, Luis Enrique and Kela and all the people that we were teaching, that they could work out their issues and be baptized. We also asked him to bless us so that we could find people who would be baptized, that were prepared to hear the gospel. We closed the prayer, got up and went back out to work.The day of the fast was kind of lame too. We passed by the Flia. Chisaguano and HNA Silvia is having a ton of problems with her husband. She and her daughter Melany really want to be baptized, but HNO Cesar told her that if she gets baptized he'll kick her out of the house (although he did say that when he was drunk, so I doubt he'd actually do it). But she was really upset and we just told her that everything would be okay and that when we keep going on and do what we know the Lord wants us to do, He blesses us. We left her feeling much better and went off to visit some other people, then came back to the chapel to see if the zone leaders wanted to come with us to visit the Chisaguanos. Elder Garcia was dying to go but they had to do some baptismal interviews and the elders hadn't shown up with their investigators yet. So we went off to the appointment alone, but as it turned out, HNA Silvia and HNO Cesar weren't there-HNA Silvia's dad got worse and they went to Quito again. We left, went back to the chapel and told the zone leaders what had happened. They were very sympathetic, told us they were sorry and that everything would be okay. We went back out to visit someone else and on the way, we passed a little boy. I thought, we should talk to that kid, but then I was like, uhhh he's like 4 years old, what's he gonna tell us?? So we kept walking, and then I saw the same little boy run up behind us, pass us and keep going. I thought, that little boy is going to lead us to someone-which is when we saw his mom. We started talking to her, she said we could come visit her and we set an appointment for the next day. Then we went back to the chapel to teach Luis Enrique, the son of a recent convert. His problem was that he could never come to church because he worked and went to school on Sundays (they have school on Sunday here, kind of weird) but when we got there he said HNAs I need to talk you. I can work my schedule out so that I can come from 9-10 on Sundays. In other words, he can come for Sacrament Meeting. We were like . . . . . AWESOME!!!! DO IT!!!!! We left happy, knowing that we were already seeing the blessings of our fast.The next day we ended our fast and went out to work again. I don't remember exactly what happened on Friday, but Saturday was incredible. We went to visit Marcia, the lady that we found, and her husband came out and was like oh she's not here. Just as we were asking him when we could come back, she came out, opened the door and said, come in!!!! It was the funniest thing I've ever seen-some people just don't know how to lie!!!!! Her sister and niece were also there, the three of them listened to us, agreed to come to church that Sunday and accepted baptismal dates!!! We left super happy. We visited Monica Remache and her son Richard with one of the members and they hit it off really well, and she told us she would come to church the next day too. Then we went to visit the Ushcas. We thought HNO Angel wasn't going to be there but he was, so we decided to read the intro to the Book of Mormon with them. Long story short, the Spirit was really strong and all three of them accepted baptismal dates, even HNO Angel. He now knows without doubt that the church is true, he just has to keep on going. We were so excited!!!So then, the big day. Sunday. The last Sunday of the month, because next week no one can leave the house for the census. We got ready, ran out the door and grabbed a taxi. First we went to get HNA Sandra Uscha and Orlando (and Erik, of course). They weren't quite ready when we got there but they got ready really quick and we booked it to the chapel. We left them there and took off for Monica and Richard, stopping at Marcia's house on the way to get her, but she said that she'd come later bc she was waiting for her sister and brother in law to come. We ran to Monica's house, where she and Richard were ready and waiting. We hopped in the cab, ran to the chapel and tried to contact the cab driver, but he said he was Catholic (how many times have I heard that here???) We jumped out and ran in just as the opening hymn was ending and joined Sandra and Orlandito in the back. Right after the sacrament I looked over my shoulder and saw Elder Garcia peeking through the door waving at me. I thought, what's he doing here?? He should be in his own branch!! Then I remembered that the elders from the Loja branch had a baptism and he had probably come to help them, but that still didn't explain why he was peeking through the chapel door waving at me. Then I saw him and Elder Spencer showing a family through the door. At first I didn't recognize them, but then I realized that it was Marcia, her sister Tania, and Tania's husband Lauro. I wanted to jump out of my seat and do a backflip, but we all know I can't do a backflip. What I did instead was frantically nudge my companion and whisper (loudly) LOOOOOOK!!!! She turned around, got really excited, and got up and went to sit with them. As I was watching her go I noticed that Luis Enrique had somehow snuck in with his mom without us noticing. I then started counting the amount of investigators we had in church that day. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, EIGHT. The most people that I've ever managed to bring to church in one Sunday in my entire mission. In Loja, the most difficult area of the mission to baptize. And out of these eight people, 7 of them had a baptismal date. I turned around, focused my attention on the little kids in front (it was the primary presentation, my favorite!!!) and thought, I LOVE being a missionary!!!!!
Prayer works. Fasting works faster. If you want a blessing, and you're not getting it, maybe you're not sacrificing enough. That's what I learned this week. Later we went to choir practice and the zone leaders asked us how many people had come to church with us that day. When we told them, Elder Garcia's eyes about popped out of his head, it was so funny. They then asked us what we had done and we replied simply, we prayed and we fasted and we worked really hard. Because that's all we did, really. The Lord told us that we needed to fast and we followed His counsel. That's the key to success in missionary work-ask the Lord for help and do what He says!!!I love you all sooooo much. Thank you all for praying for me, for my compy and for our investigators. I hope that from this email you can see that your prayers are being answered. Keep it up. I know that what I'm doing is right. I know that the Lord answers my prayers. I know He loves me and that He loves everyone. And I know that this is His church.La vida es hermosa . . . . .
MUCHO AMOR
Hermana Chamberlain
This week was AMAZING!!!! I have gained an incredibly strong testimony of the power of fasting. It works!!! And it's amazing!!!! And I'm gonna tell you all about it. Here we gooooooo . .. . . . So last week we were having a lot of issues with well, pretty much everyone, and this week was going more or less the same way. Monica Remache's boyfriend got out of jail and came back and didn't have a huge spiritual awakening while he was in the big house like we were hoping, plus a lot of other frustrating things were happening. I was getting super frustrated and thinking about what we should do when a thought came into my mind-we need to fast. DUUUUUUHHHHH. Why didn't we think of that before??? I asked HNA Bravo how she felt about it and she agreed that we should give it a try.
So the next day after lunch we went to the chapel and knelt down and poured out our hearts to Heavenly Father. We told him that we needed a lot of blessings and that we were going to fast so that we could have them. We asked him to bless the Flia. Chisaguano, Flia. Ushca, Flia. Remache, Luis Enrique and Kela and all the people that we were teaching, that they could work out their issues and be baptized. We also asked him to bless us so that we could find people who would be baptized, that were prepared to hear the gospel. We closed the prayer, got up and went back out to work.The day of the fast was kind of lame too. We passed by the Flia. Chisaguano and HNA Silvia is having a ton of problems with her husband. She and her daughter Melany really want to be baptized, but HNO Cesar told her that if she gets baptized he'll kick her out of the house (although he did say that when he was drunk, so I doubt he'd actually do it). But she was really upset and we just told her that everything would be okay and that when we keep going on and do what we know the Lord wants us to do, He blesses us. We left her feeling much better and went off to visit some other people, then came back to the chapel to see if the zone leaders wanted to come with us to visit the Chisaguanos. Elder Garcia was dying to go but they had to do some baptismal interviews and the elders hadn't shown up with their investigators yet. So we went off to the appointment alone, but as it turned out, HNA Silvia and HNO Cesar weren't there-HNA Silvia's dad got worse and they went to Quito again. We left, went back to the chapel and told the zone leaders what had happened. They were very sympathetic, told us they were sorry and that everything would be okay. We went back out to visit someone else and on the way, we passed a little boy. I thought, we should talk to that kid, but then I was like, uhhh he's like 4 years old, what's he gonna tell us?? So we kept walking, and then I saw the same little boy run up behind us, pass us and keep going. I thought, that little boy is going to lead us to someone-which is when we saw his mom. We started talking to her, she said we could come visit her and we set an appointment for the next day. Then we went back to the chapel to teach Luis Enrique, the son of a recent convert. His problem was that he could never come to church because he worked and went to school on Sundays (they have school on Sunday here, kind of weird) but when we got there he said HNAs I need to talk you. I can work my schedule out so that I can come from 9-10 on Sundays. In other words, he can come for Sacrament Meeting. We were like . . . . . AWESOME!!!! DO IT!!!!! We left happy, knowing that we were already seeing the blessings of our fast.The next day we ended our fast and went out to work again. I don't remember exactly what happened on Friday, but Saturday was incredible. We went to visit Marcia, the lady that we found, and her husband came out and was like oh she's not here. Just as we were asking him when we could come back, she came out, opened the door and said, come in!!!! It was the funniest thing I've ever seen-some people just don't know how to lie!!!!! Her sister and niece were also there, the three of them listened to us, agreed to come to church that Sunday and accepted baptismal dates!!! We left super happy. We visited Monica Remache and her son Richard with one of the members and they hit it off really well, and she told us she would come to church the next day too. Then we went to visit the Ushcas. We thought HNO Angel wasn't going to be there but he was, so we decided to read the intro to the Book of Mormon with them. Long story short, the Spirit was really strong and all three of them accepted baptismal dates, even HNO Angel. He now knows without doubt that the church is true, he just has to keep on going. We were so excited!!!So then, the big day. Sunday. The last Sunday of the month, because next week no one can leave the house for the census. We got ready, ran out the door and grabbed a taxi. First we went to get HNA Sandra Uscha and Orlando (and Erik, of course). They weren't quite ready when we got there but they got ready really quick and we booked it to the chapel. We left them there and took off for Monica and Richard, stopping at Marcia's house on the way to get her, but she said that she'd come later bc she was waiting for her sister and brother in law to come. We ran to Monica's house, where she and Richard were ready and waiting. We hopped in the cab, ran to the chapel and tried to contact the cab driver, but he said he was Catholic (how many times have I heard that here???) We jumped out and ran in just as the opening hymn was ending and joined Sandra and Orlandito in the back. Right after the sacrament I looked over my shoulder and saw Elder Garcia peeking through the door waving at me. I thought, what's he doing here?? He should be in his own branch!! Then I remembered that the elders from the Loja branch had a baptism and he had probably come to help them, but that still didn't explain why he was peeking through the chapel door waving at me. Then I saw him and Elder Spencer showing a family through the door. At first I didn't recognize them, but then I realized that it was Marcia, her sister Tania, and Tania's husband Lauro. I wanted to jump out of my seat and do a backflip, but we all know I can't do a backflip. What I did instead was frantically nudge my companion and whisper (loudly) LOOOOOOK!!!! She turned around, got really excited, and got up and went to sit with them. As I was watching her go I noticed that Luis Enrique had somehow snuck in with his mom without us noticing. I then started counting the amount of investigators we had in church that day. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, EIGHT. The most people that I've ever managed to bring to church in one Sunday in my entire mission. In Loja, the most difficult area of the mission to baptize. And out of these eight people, 7 of them had a baptismal date. I turned around, focused my attention on the little kids in front (it was the primary presentation, my favorite!!!) and thought, I LOVE being a missionary!!!!!
Prayer works. Fasting works faster. If you want a blessing, and you're not getting it, maybe you're not sacrificing enough. That's what I learned this week. Later we went to choir practice and the zone leaders asked us how many people had come to church with us that day. When we told them, Elder Garcia's eyes about popped out of his head, it was so funny. They then asked us what we had done and we replied simply, we prayed and we fasted and we worked really hard. Because that's all we did, really. The Lord told us that we needed to fast and we followed His counsel. That's the key to success in missionary work-ask the Lord for help and do what He says!!!I love you all sooooo much. Thank you all for praying for me, for my compy and for our investigators. I hope that from this email you can see that your prayers are being answered. Keep it up. I know that what I'm doing is right. I know that the Lord answers my prayers. I know He loves me and that He loves everyone. And I know that this is His church.La vida es hermosa . . . . .
MUCHO AMOR
Hermana Chamberlain
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