I can feel the difference

This week was so much fun! We of course had all sorts of miracles like always. We had a big ole district activity in this place called Isla de Maipo where it is just a big ole camping ground. I got to run around and fly kites, watch the members dance the cueca which is the traditional dance here in Chile. It is really weird but you get used to it after watching it for like 3 hours. Then we ate a big ole asado (can't tell you how much meat I have eaten in the past 2 weeks) and we did tug of war.

 

The most amazing thing happened yesterday. We were in a lesson with this family of 5 and last week I told the 19 year old daughter who works and studies during the week and gets home at 12:30 at night that she needed to read her book of Mormon every single day in the week. She told me that she didn't know how she could do it. So I told her that all she needed to do was to read her Book of Mormon aunque fuera one verse every night and she would see a change.

 

We got to her house yesterday and she ran up to me yelling "Hermana! Hermana! Yo lo hice! Leí mi libro cada día! Y sabe que, puedo sentir la diferencia." Translation: Sister! Sister! I did it! I read my book every day! And you know what, I can feel the difference." In that moment I felt soooooooo good. I could see a change in her too. That family will be baptized in the near future. I am sure of it. Just some great things that are happening with the sector. I have been in El Monte for almost 6 months now, and I really don't want to leave to be honest with you. It is something that I have been thinking about a lot. I could live in EL Monte. But that is something to be thought about in another half a year.

 

Love,

Hermana Farner

We Tarry on...

 

 

Anyway, what happened this week? Nothing really to report. I have been counseled to always write uplifting things back home so here it goes,

THE POWER OF MUSIC. It is amazing how powerful a song can be. I have been singing a lot lately. I sing all sorts of music. Remix hymns, change lyrics of old songs to make them church appropriate. You know good stuff.

I had the best time in what we call the 18 of September or the day of independence of Chile. Ate so much food I got really sick. I had a black tongue for a day based on a bad reaction to food, not from anything black I ate. It was really trippy. I felt like I was in some kind of pirate movie. But we Tarry on, am I right. 

Love,

Hermana Farner

To Know

 I believe that the mission has relaxed me more than I can explain. I realize now that I am not perfect and that also I cannot control everyone nor everything. With that said I have relaxed a lot and learned to just love God and know that He is in control and as long as I stay obedient, He will bless me.

I think that is something that Hermana K. has taught me.

 

It is amazing when you come out of a test, it is like you understand everything. I love that. I have been tested and tried and still continue to be every single day of the mission, but there is nothing more satisfying than leaving a trial and UNDERSTANDING why you had to go through it. I get it now. And I just can´t even imagine what is going to happen after the mission, because in a way the mission is one big trial and challenge. So who knows what I will leave with!

 

 I am so grateful for the Atonement in my life. I feel myself slowly learning more and more and more about it. But I know that the adversary wants to make sure that I don't take the steps to really get to know my Savior. Something I love about the Spanish language is the verb "to know" has two different words: to know something, as in a fact, it is "saber" and to know personally or really well is "conocer". In President Boyd K. Packer´s talk at the end he says, Yo conozco mi Salvador. I want to be able to say that. That I know Him personally like my best friend. I still think I can say that I know He lives and that He loves me. But I want to learn more and say more than that. It is time.

Write it in your Heart

All I know is that the time really does fly.

 

I want to talk a little about the importance of the Book of Mormon and how the only way that we can change is through becoming more like Christ, and to be like Christ we need to know Him and His life and His love, and we do that through DILIGENT study of the scriptures. You would be surprised how many times the word diligent or diligence comes up in the Book of Mormon. It is probably the second law of heaven. The first OBEDIENCE. The second DILIGENCE. If we are obedient, we receive great blessings, but we have to always be obedient or rather, diligent in what we do. As we become diligent we because closer to the Savior.

 

Read the Book of Mormon and write it in your heart. That is the goal for this cambio for me. To read the Book of Mormon and write it in my heart to help people see how it changes lives. Because it has changed mine. It baffles me at times how weak I am, how imperfect, how lazy, how just plain ridiculously impatient and well WEAK. But that is why I am here. To be strong. To become what God wants  me to become. But it has to do so much with consistency, something that I see to still be lacking in this life. But I am recognizing which means that I have the opportunity to fix it and get better.

 

Love you all so much! Thank you for your letters and your support. LOVE IT

Hermana Farner

I am never leaving

Ending a change and starting a new one soon! The comp is getting a lot better. Feeling better and we are starting to work more.

The rain is still coming down... But we should be leaving it soon I hope.

 

Oh the great things of the mission. Another group of my pals went home. So weird to think that we are all here working together in our own world and then all of a sudden they leave and never come back. Crazy. But hey one day it will happen to all of us. Except me. I am never leaving. mwhahahahha :)

Everyone is doing good down here, learning that maybe the Lord is still trying to teach me the same lesson that I still can't seem to grasp.  But that is life right? Oh the patience that He has with us.

 

Love you lots,

 

Hermana Farner

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