Hello Everybody!!
This week has been crazy! From highs to lows, but it´s all good! I am so excited to continue working hard this week of Christmas!! The mission is magical during December I decided!!! I love love LOVE my Savior Jesus Christ and this gospel so much! And I love sharing the hope he gives with every person! I am so lucky to be a missionary!
Wow. This week has been a rollercoaster!! But it´s been so good! So we found out definitely that E and O, their marriage papers, well turns out they actually weren´t married, but they went to get a marriage date in the Civil, and they are getting married the 15th of February! So that´s good! They participated in the Christmas program in the ward, they are practically members! But that´s okay! We are just going to try to keep them good until February!!
This week was so full of miracles! Somehow the Holy Ghost inspired me and my companion on the same day to read about faith, and he pumped us up a little bit! We set some high goals! Especially with the Book of Mormon with return appointments! And we set out! With hearts full of faith! We talked to EVERY person! And at the end of the day we had two new investigators and we had 5 return appointments with people who we gave the Book of Mormon!!! All we did was pray with faith and work! God really wants to bless us!! It´s just us that sometimes get in the way! It really amazes me how much we are capable of doing with God´s help, we really have unlimited potential! But we limit ourselves! Just imagine all the miraculous things we can accomplish according to our faith!! But I KNOW when we pray with faith, he always fulfills! So it´s like, why am I not praying with that much faith in every prayer?! I don´t know! Haha I don´t!! But I am truly astonished with how much the Lord loves us! He loves us so much!!! In every little detail of my life I see his love! In fact, the reason we are here, the reason for Christ, the reason for this earth, plan, the Atonement, and everything, is because God just loves us that much! As we grow to understand his love, it´s impossible not to love him back! I love the Lord with all my heart!!! :)
I hope you guys all have the most wonderful Christmas! Keep showing your love for the Lord, and I promise he will show even more love for you as you do so! He just loves you that much!!!
I love you all! Have the best week!
All my love,
Hermana Christensen :)
Of her Christmas zone conference, Ashley said, "OH MY HEAVENS! IT WAS THE BEST DAY EVER! So cute! So much fun! So much spirit! So much love! Oh my, I love singing, I've decided! We went to the old folks home and oh my, they were the CUTEST people ever! I LOVED talking to them! They are amazing! So sweet! And the program turned out great! I will never forget the solo my compi did to "Mando a su Hijo". Ahh! So good! And then...the MOST POWERFUL MOMENT! We sang "Savior Redeemer of my Soul" in Spanish and Hermana Harris played her violin and OH MY, I'VE NEVER FELT THE SPIRIT SO STRONG! It brought tears to my eyes! And everyone's! We were singing with our whole souls! Elder C, President, Hna. S, Elder Y., and everyone was crying because it was SO powerful! It was literally one of those moments that you never want to leave! That you could re-live a million times. In the end where it says, "And fit me for the life above" I just imagined all of us up in heaven singing for our Savior and our Heavenly Father, "Coros Celestiales", singing praises!"
And I just have to share a couple of great stories that Ashley's companion shared in her email this week! (They were also in Ashley's journal, but Hermana G.'s version of the stories are already typed up!):
Yesterday was so crazy! We gave away 5 copies of the Book of Mormon with appointments to return. It was amazing to see what God is willing to do when we ask and are willing to do what He requires. We prayed so many times throughout the day to find more and more people.
We contacted this house and a lady named Mary came out. She had the door ½ opened but 4 dogs inside were all trying to escape, so she got rid of the noise and distraction to talk to us by shutting the door. We talked for a little, gave her a BoM and said goodbye. Then she turned around and realized what she had done. The keys were inside. The thing about the front doors in Chile is that they don’t have door handles. If it is shut, you have to put the key in and use the key as a door handle. But the keys were inside. AND she hadn’t opened the gate outside so she was stuck in the tiny space between her front door and the gate where we were standing. She had just got done telling us that her daughter lives here but she doesn’t get home from work until midnight… It was 5:00 in the afternoon… so even though we already said bye – we couldn’t just leave her. As we looked around for a solution, it took 2 seconds to tell my companion that the window on the upstairs floor was open. It took less than 1 second for Hermana Christensen to climb the gate, get onto the roof, climb across a burning hot roof, jump through the window, run downstairs, open the door, and save the day. Mary was so happy and grateful that even being in a skirt, she was willing to climb to the roof to save the day. [Ashley added in her account, "Then...the moment of truth..a stranger- a foreigner- alone in the house with 4 barking dogs! AHH! I almost died, but managed to open the door and escape without a scratch! That's right, I'm practically a ninja!"] The good news is 2 girls saw and were laughing so afterwards we walked over to them and used the incident as an icebreaker and they both ended up being super interested in the church. God’s plan is perfectly detailed.
Hermana J. called us so we headed over to her house which is at the very back corner of our sector. She told us that she was cleaning out her stuff and found 2 dolls and thought that the daughters of O. and E. (J.and S.) would love them as a Christmas present. She told us that we could take the dolls to our apartment, clean them up, and give them to J. and S. We agreed and followed her to where she was keeping the dolls. Well I had imagined that the dolls were Barbie dolls, but to my surprise, no. They weren’t Polly Pocket size, not baby sized, not even those baby dolls that Lindsay used to push around in her mini stroller. They were real life toddler sized. One is 2 feet tall and the other is a solid yard stick tall! I’m 99% sure that they are taller than J. and S. Still, they will LOVE the dolls. As we thanked Hermana J. and said goodbye, we looked at our watches and realized that we had to be in the apartment in 10 minutes and we were at least 15 minutes away. So we hurried up and put on our helmets and reflector jackets and then quickly realized that these dolls were not going to fit in our baskets. So without time to think of a better plan, we each took a doll in our one arm while driving the bike with the other. We started hauling to be able to make it back in time. – And OH MY GOODNESS – the looks we got were PRICELESS! Just imagine: 2 North Americans, speed racing on beach cruisers, with skirts, wearing helmets that were never meant for public appearance, with hideous fluorescent jackets that reflect every light, in a time of year where EVERY house is lit, CARRYING 2 SMALL CHILDREN (half dressed). I can’t say that I blame them for looking twice, or honking 6 times, or the taxi driver that drove next to us yelling, “THE DOLL’S PANTS ARE FALLING DOWN” for a solid minute straight. I hope people will talk to us tomorrow… But it all paid off when we got back to the apartment (on time BTW, super impressive), and put the dolls up against the door of the other Hermana’s room. I’m pretty sure the family in Utah heard the scream of Hermana Ellingson. I would say that today was a success.
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