Serve with all your Heart

Something that I have been thinking a lot about is what it means to serve with all your heart. To me the mind is so weak. It can be controlled and distracted with the change of one thought. All the mind needs to change is a simple desire. But where does the desire come from? Oh yes, it comes from the little organ that keeps that body moving, called the heart. In the Scripture Study Guide under the word heart it says (loosely translated) "Symbol of the disposition and the willingness of man and in the ideas the fuente de todo emocion y todo sentimiento." I am sorry but I really don't remember anything about English.

 

This is a big thing. the heart, serving with all of my heart is something that I can definitely improve on. The heart has a lot of room for love. A lot of room for all kinds of love. But as a symbol of the scriptures it shows our willingness and also our attitude with the things that we are given.

 

Sometimes I feel like we sustain the challenges, we accept them, but we don't enjoy them. I regress to one of my earlier sayings. REVEL IN THE TRENCHES. That is when you see if your heart is really connected with the will of God, when you get a challenge in whatever form it comes and you love it.

 

Step by step we will one day be truly converted. 

 

Love always,

Hermana Farner

You will become the mansion I have designed you to be

And so we see that time really does fly in the mission. Have been doing all sorts of introspection this past week as on Wednesday I will be hitting the halfway mark of the mission. I can't believe that so much time has passed. I can clearly remember flying to Mexico and flying to Chile and my first day, and my first day in El Monte. Man it is crazy to see how God just picks you up and drops you into the best experieces ever and we get the chance to enjoy them or not.

 

I seriously do love Chile. I have finally let go and just love the food, the people, the culture, the clothes, and especially the Gospel. As I have gotten closer and closer to God I have become to realize that I am really not all that I thought I was. Which those at home I am sure are cheering their heads off for. "Finally Seattle realizes she is not all that!" haha :) But I have learned so much about my talents, my strengths, my weaknesses and not a new category, my new strengths that God has helped me create. It is great to see a progressing investigator, I can explain how it feels. So just imagine what God feels like to see us progress. We are His most important investigators.

 

I have been thinking a lot about a quote I heard in a movie about Joseph Smith when he was talking to Brigham Young as he was helping build the temple in Kirtland, Ohio. He had recently called Brigham as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and Brigham was having a hard time with that. And as he is working, Joseph comes up to him and says, "Brigham, don't you worry. God is not building a temple through you. Through building a temple, he is building you." And that is what I feel like my Savior is saying and has been saying throughout my entire mission. "Hermana Farner, you are not that great of a missionary. You are a just a shack of a person right now. You don't have it all. You are not perfect. So go do your best, and I can promise you that at the end of this time if you work hard, you still won't be perfect but you will become the mansion that I have designed you to be."

 

I have a strong testimony that my Savior loves me. That controlling our minds brings us success and having patience with ourselves and with others is the only way that we can make it in this life and have something waiting thereafter.

 

Love you all so much and hope that all is well :)

 

Love, 

Hermana Farner

WHAT?!

Can you believe it? I am 11 days from being halfway done! WHAT!

This week was an interesting one as we are going to Santiago twice a week. It is what we call a 2 hour travel there and back. We take a rickety old bus all the way to central station 1.5 hours and then we take another 30 minutes in the metro. I can honestly say I know Santiago and the whole western half of Chile like the back of my hand, Santiago reminds me a lot of the lovely city of Seattle and the weather is very, very similar and the people dress the same. I could live in Santiago; but it is really, really expensive, sadly.

 

I love the way the Lord gives us things that we have never experience to broaden our perspective of what life is really about. This week we were able to find 3 more people who have accepted to get baptized. I really believe the Lord is blessing us in a way that we hadn't ever thought of before. I will be honest when I say that there is nothing I would rather do than walk all day and enter a house and tell them that they can have eternal life.

 

I have never been so happy in circumstance that are so dark.  I thank you Mom and Dad for raising me well. It has blessed me more than you know.

 

Love you all so much!

Hermana Farner

Patience and long-suffering

Luckily I learned with my first companion in the mission that the audience always changes. I am learning and have learned a lot in the first week about my weaknesses and how important it is to be calm. haha :) I cant tell if I am going insane or if I am finally losing my insanity and craziness that I have had my entire life and becoming more calm. We will see what the time brings. :)

 

Presidente Barreiros told me that he got a really strong impression that I should be with Hermana K because I would be the one that would help her have a successful mission. I really pray that I will be able to show her the right way to do the mission. We will see what happens.

 

Learning a lot about the different types of patience that are found in our lives. Some people are patient with themselves but not with God nor with other people. Some people are patient with God and His blessings and not with others or themselves. I believe I am patient with myself (yes mother I have made it my strength ;) Thanks to the Atonement it is one of my greatest attributes) And patient with God and his timing, now I just have to learn how to be patient with others. I have improved a ton but it is now up to the deeper meaning of patience and why the word patience and long suffering are together. We can be patience by guarding how we are feeling and living through it, but in order to be long suffering we have to like it. That is my next challenge. I have been studying Alma 7:23-24 to help me get there. Pray for me!

 

Love you lots!

Hermana Farner 

 

PS  Thanks for the package Mom and Dad

The Lord knows each one of us so well

Things that are happening here. WE HAD CHANGES! And just like all of the lovely hermanas that I have been with, little Hermana M. was called as an Hermana Leader :) And I got called to TRAIN! I am so excited! I have been praying and working for this opportunity my entire mission. After working hard to retrain the ones that were trained wrong, I have learned the importance of training the right way. A little greenie is a sponge that sucks up whatever the trainer does, so I have to do it right.

It is a great parallel to life, if we have children and don't teach by example, why on earth would our children grow up to be great people? They wouldn't. There are very few people that forge their own path and I sure hope I get a good little gringa to help forge her own path because I want my hija to be better than I am.

I feel very humbled to know that God has answered my prayers and is giving me a chance to do something that I have always wanted to do. I pray that He gives me the patience, the love, and the understanding that is needed to help this new little hermana wherever she is. I know I can't do it alone.

Love how the Lord knows each one of us so well.

 

Love,

Hermana Farner

We have a Church of Order

Hey I am almost halfway done with the mission! No need to miss me! I am almost home!

Time in El Monte is going fast. It is amazing all the things that I thought I knew and I really didn't. I am beginning to understand there exists a grand chasm between knowing something and understanding something. I think that I am beginning to actually understand the Gospel now. Crazy right? After 19 years of being the church I am beginning to get what is going on. So depressing that I wasted so much time.

 

Something I learned about the creation today. It is actually only organized. We have a church of order, we are beings of science and well, order. We need to be organized in everything. If we are, we find purpose, peace, and understand who we are. Also we already are in the image of God, now we just have to make our spirits like the Spirit of God. That is the grand challenge of life.

 

Love you all! Sorry I am a lame emailer!

 

Love,

Hermana Farner

No Greater Work to Do

B. took the Sacrament!!!!! And to make it just as amazing, her oldest son M (who has a very similar story to Nairne) blessed that very sacrament so that she could take it. It was the first time that he blessed the sacrament (he is 26 a recently got pulled off the street by my dear friend Elder B. 6 months ago) M. has always come to church in some kind of sporty Puma sweat suit and this week he came in a perfectly trimmed suit with a beautiful tie all shaved up and handsome. I was so amazed. We have gotten really close to their family along with others here in the great town of El Monte. I feel like I have lived here all my life.

 

My little milagro el Mar. got baptized yesterday. It was a beautiful service that was filled with all sorts of emotions. He is 16 so we needed a signature from his mom who was late to the baptism so we were a little stressed but it all turned out good in the end. But he was  miracle. He came to church on his own and we met him there; went to his house, taught him all 5 lessons in 3 weeks and got baptized:  never seen someone so prepared in my life.

 

We have had some great times the Hermana M. and I this cambio. It is coming to an end super fast..... Can't even explain how crazy it is how fast the mission goes. I have learned a lot about love and patience in this cambio. Would I say I am loving and patient? No. Not at all. But I am definitely on the way. I am getting there step by step and really feeling a difference. My only fear is coming home and just going back to how I was. I really do not want to do that at all. I have never felt so tired, in pain, and yet completely content with my life. I think that is something that you can only feel while out here in the mission field...and it is not easy. But I know without a shadow of a doubt that there is no greater work to do in this life or the life to share the Gospel so that we can help everyone to receive that gift of eternal life with God one day.

 

Love you so much!

 

Love,

Hermana Farner