January 9, 2012

Whew! We´re already a third of the way into January. My how time flies! Yesterday was probably the most crazy Sunday of my life! Let me tell you what happened.

So we had a wedding on Saturday!!! Yay! My first Chilean wedding (I love weddings). I was running around helping with the food and everyone kept telling me to sit down. Hermana Lopez and I bought matching dresses for the occasion, they were a miracle shopping find because they are completely modest! Cute!

The girl who got married got baptized on Sunday! It was a busy weekend for her, but a really happy one! She made two of the best decisions of her life! The baptism was scheduled for directly after church since her new husband had to leave for work at 2pm (church ends at 1pm). As the missionaries, we are in charge of filling the baptismal font.

A simple task, right? Turn on the water....wait.....turn off the water.

Not with the font in this chapel. It has something against us. For one baptism the water was too low. Two others the water overflowed. We were prepared to watch the water. It usually takes about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to fill the font. We started filling it during church. Meanwhile there were more people at church than usual, which was great. But there were a lot of new people to talk to and meet and there are always the amazing members to greet. So we were running around like crazy talking to people and making sure to meet new people. We had a 10 year old boy with us who is new, it was his first Sunday, so we needed to show him where to go and make sure he felt comfortable. In the meantime we are still trying to make sure that everything is ready for the baptism...that the Bishop and Ward Mission Leader will be ready to have the baptism right after church and who is going to give the prayers, etc. when the Elders Quorom President runs up to tell us that the font is overflowing into their classroom and into the hall!!!!!!!!!

It had been ONE HOUR.

This font really doesn´t like us.

The elders quorum moved classrooms while we, and some of the members cleaned up the water. We had to get some water out of the font though since it was filled to the brim. There is a button to drain the font and one to stop the draining...so we thought.

We drained some water and pushed the ´´stop draining button´´. Whew! Crisis averted. But 15 minutes later one of the teenage boys in the ward comes to tell us the water is still draining!!!! First too much water, now too little! Ay yay yay!

We ran to the font to turn the water on and told the Ward Mission Leader that we needed to start the baptism NOW! Church was ending though and there was a lot of commotion as the whole ward is coming out of their classes and greeting one another. Meanwhile we still had lots of new people and ward members trying to talk with us! Busy busy busy! We are finally able to start the baptism, usually there are talks before a baptism, but we moved those to after the baptism and moved quickly to the font. Miraculously the water was perfect! A little cold, but not too much nor too little and the baptism went smooth! Finally we could breathe.

We waited for the girl who was baptized to change so that we could finish the baptism with the planned talks, a hymn and a prayer. But her husband had to leave for work and they didn´t know we were waiting. So they left! We saw them walk out the door and ran after them. They returned for a closing prayer and went on their way:) Looking back it was slightly hilarious how many things went askew in our perfectly planned baptism. But the most important thing is the one that went smoothly, that baptism itself! For the next baptism we´ve decided to sit and stare at the water as we fill the font. That way we can be sure to have no more embarrassing spillage during church!

We also went to Siete Tazas again! I wrote about this place 3 months ago. But there are different people in our zone now so we went again. And it was, of course very fun! This time I took a mask (those white ones surgeons and construction workers wear) for the drive to avoid that ´´my lungs are caked wth dirt´´ feeling. It worked, and the elders laughed at me:)

It was great to get to know some of the elders in my zone better and to be out in nature!!! Chile is really beautiful! The sky, the mountains, the plants! Everything!

Highlights of the trip:

1. seeing a real life tarantula! it was crawling on the ground. Ack!
2. Getting kind of lost, we pretty much just hiked around in nature because we didn´t really know where we were going...eventually we found the siete tazas and had fun talking and taking pictures along the way.
3. A man was selling popsicles at the entrance of the park, i ate my first pear popsicle! Can you say Delicious? Yum!
4. Since we have both english speakers and spanish speakers in our zone the whole time we were all speaking a mixture of spanish and english. Some of the spanish speakers also speak english and so I would get confused about if I should speak spanish or english and ended up speaking both in the same sentence most of the time. If we were talking in english it would always change to spanish at some point.

Also some fun news, I am teaching piano! We have English and Piano class every Thursday night. I have two students. A 12 year old and a 15 year old boy. Very fun...especially since I never took piano lessons like the ones I am now teaching (starting from the very basics), I´ve never taught piano lessons period, and I´ve never taught piano lessons in spanish. Music is kind of different here, they use solfege (for those of you who know what that is). So I am learning along the way. It is quite an adventure!

Teaching Family Home Evening

As far as everything else, all is going well! Hermana Lopez and I are really enjoying our time together as companions and have been helping each other improve. Both of us have seen the progress the other is making. We are learning so much! It is amazing how we learn from everything. I feel like I learn more when I teach people than they do.

One thing I am learning, that I already kind of knew, but that is reinforced everyday, is the importance of keeping the commandments. Honestly and truly, if you want to be happy (happy as God defines it, not as the world defines it - which means that you will have trials and hard times, but that you will be free from the weight of sin and sorrow, because you have an unquenchable hope and faith - which in turn helps you to have a higher quality of life) you have to keep the commandments. It´s the only way. It´s called the Law of Obedience. When we obey the commandments, God can bless us. When we don´t keep the commandments we reject the path that Jesus showed and choose the rougher road. There is a church children´s song that says ´´Keep the commandments. In this there is safety and peace!´´ I can tell you with certainty that that is true!

I hope you are all starting the new year off well and that things are going well in your lives! I love you, and thank you for your love and prayers! I feel so blessed to have such supportive family and friends.

As Hermana Lopez says when she says bye to people on the phone ´´Ciao! Un beso!´´ (Translation: Bye, a kiss) (Remember that here people greet and say bye with a kiss).
Hermana Bowns

Malacara (could be read as: bad face)

January 2, 2012

Feliz Año Nuevo!!! Happy New Year!!!

Can you believe it´s 2012?

I can´t. Weird.

This past weekend was crazy! We had a double baptism on Saturday night, a young married couple. After the baptism, Hermana Lopez and I went to their house for a new year´s dinner. it was probably one of the most delicious meals i´ve eaten here, and almost every meal here is delicious. we ate this meat that was a beef of some sort with bacon and cilantro rolled up. wow. and there was shrimp, and these potato puffs, and corn and tomatoes (you can´t eat a meal in Chile without tomatoes). And for dessert, a chocolate-y cheesecake! YUM. I was so full!

We had to head back to our house before midnight though. So at midnight the four of us hermanas celebrated in our house. we could see fireworks from our upstairs window and we ate 12 grapes at midnight (some random tradition). it was pretty simple, but it was fun. I haven´t set my new years goals yet, but i have a goal to set them :D And remember how a couple weeks ago I told you how hot it is here....well we are officially in the heat of summer and it is even HOTTER. The other day Hermana Lopez and I were talking about how we don´t really visibly sweat all that much. Then we took off our backpacks and had a good laugh when both of our backs were visibly soaked. So much for being ladylike and not sweating a whole lot!

Here is your Chilean culture minute for the week: Baby cologne is pretty common here. i had never even heard of it before (maybe those of you with babies are familiar with it). it´s everywhere. hermana lopez bought some for herself because it smelled good.

Also common here is men driving around in the streets selling food (onions, tomatoes and eggs mostly). They drive slowly through the streets with their megaphone saying a stream of words that is almost inperceptible. it took me forever to realize they were saying what they were selling ´´huevos huevos 2 kilos 2 mil pesos, 2 kilos huevos 2 mil pesos, 2 mil pesos 2 kilos huevos´´ over and over agin mooshed together ´´cebollas tomates tomates cebollas´´. I still jump everytime I hear them because for some reason in my mind, somone driving through the streets with a megaphone is associated with an emergency. The first time i heard the megaphone i thought in my head ´´what is going on? do we need to evacuate the house?´´ but no on even flinched and so i learned that no, it was just a man selling tomatos:)

As for an update on me, I´m doing great! I am slowly doing more things, talking more, teaching more, etc. I am starting to understand more! Wahoo! And I´m learning so much everyday. I am learning about life, about people, about myself, about the Savior, about the Gospel, and about how i want my future to be. One thing i learned today as I was thinking about a lot of the people we talk to everyday can be summarized in two scriptures:

Matthew 22:36-40
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

and

John 14:15
If ye love me, keep my commandments.

A lot of people that we talk to say that what is most important is to be a good person. Some people even say that that is all that we need to do. We don´t need to go to church or any of that, just live the best you can.

It is very important to be a good person and try to be like Jesus, but that is only half of what is necessary to receive and retain a remission of our sins and eventually be able to live with God again. I like to think of it as Jesus says, first it is most important to love God, and in John we can see a clarification, that to love God means to keep His commandments.

These include repenting and being baptized, keeping the ten commadments (which includes keeping the sabbath day holy) (and which were received and taught to the people by the ancient prophet Moses), and keeping commandments received by modern day prophets such as the Word of Wisdom. This is the first and great commandment, to keep the commandments of God:) and the second is to love your neighbors, or in otherwords, love others like Christ would; be Christ-like.

If we keep the commandments, but treat others badly, we won´t receive the fullness of blessing and glory that God has in store for us. But also if we are the most Christ-like person in the world, but don´t keep the commandments of God, we won´t receive the fullness of blessings and glory God has in store or us either. We need to do both! On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets. These two commandments are vital!

I think for part of my goal setting this year I will try to set a goal in each of these two comamandments on how to live these commandments more fully and with more exactness in the coming year!

I wish you all a wonderful year full of new and good changes and growth; with progression and success! I love you and thank you for your love and support and prayers!

Hermana Bowns

December 26, 2011

Feliz Navidad a Todos! Wow Christmas flew by!

The whole week we spent sharing the good news of Christ with everyone. It was great! Friday we had the ward Christmas party, a talent show which was very fun. Lots of the little kids did some songs and dances, and of course we, the missionaries, had a number. We had recorded ourselves singing a song as chin people...very silly. The sound didn´t work though so we ended up showing the video and singing along to it, which was ok, but we were off. The ward laughed anyway:)

Saturday evening we had a baptismal service which was very special (the Relief Society President´s husband got baptised). What better gift for Jesus Christ on His birthday than a promise to always follow Him and keep His commandments! After the baptism we went to the Relief Society president´s house to each dinner with her family. Here in Chile Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) is when all the fun happens. They eat dinner at like 10 or 11pm, then Viajito Pasquero (Santa Claus) comes at midnight...I don´t know how they do that if everyone is still awake...how do kids still believe in him?? I don´t know but they do. Anyway then they open gifts at midnight.

So...when in Rome do as the Romans do right? So we ate dinner late, got to our house late, did our nightly planning (which we do everyday) and then headed downstairs (the four of us hermanas) to our makeshift Christmas tree surrounded by presents. (I put my presents from home there so it looked more festive in our house) we also had gifts for each other (we did a secret santa among ourselves). We opened presents at midnight and sang songs and ate Christmas treats till 2am :o (Don´t tell my mission president).

The next day we had church at 10am so went to pick up one of the ladies we are teaching and headed to church for only the first hour, we didn´t have the other classes. The rest of the day was a little weird...no one was in the street to talk to and we felt awkward knocking doors on Christmas day. So we visited members and people we are teaching to share a short Christmas message. We ate lunch with a family in the ward (turkey, roast, and shrimp, and potatoes and mayonaise, corn, bread, salad, rice, YUM). In the evening we visited more members and ate dinner with some recently baptised members.



And now Christmas is over! I feel like I didn´t really get a full dose of Christmas though. I want to sing more Christmas songs!:) I´m already planning what I´ll do next year for Christmas!

At the baptism on Saturday night I gave a short talk on Faith and Repentance. So I´ll share a little bit of that with you. I talked about how faith is the first step of everything. If we want to progress, we have to have faith. Faith in Jesus Christ is the key to true joy. We believe that He is our Savior, that He suffered and died for us that we might be redeemed from death and sin. But to have faith doesn´t just mean that we say we believe, it is to act on this belief. If we believe that Jesus suffered so that we can be cleansed from sin, we have to do something to apply the atonement in our lives.

We do this (acting in faith) in many ways, but one of these is to repent. Repentance is an act of faith. All growing up I learned about repentance as a process including recognizing you have sinned, confessing your sin, feeling sorrow for what you did wrong and committing to not make the same mistake. But as I have gotten older and had more experiences, to me repentance is those things, but more than that, it is a change; a change of heart, a change of perspective. To repent is to put your life more in line with the will and commandments of God.

Take for example someone who has decided to be baptised. They have repented of the things they have done wrong in the past, but also they are repenting in the sense that they are changing their life to put it more in alignment with what God wants. They are committing to live the commandments more fully.

But repentance isn´t just a one time thing, we will be repenting all our lives. Repentance is part of the refining process. We were sent to the earth to learn to be like Christ. We make mistakes and then repent of them, ideally as we grow and learn we don´t make the same mistakes over and over, rather we make different mistakes, and as we grow in our understand of the Gospel of Jesus Christ we start repenting for more minute sins. I like the imagery of sanding a big rough-edged rock into a smooth stone. At first you have to knock of the big awkward edges (we have to overcome obvious sins), but with time you start sanding of small imperfections until all is smooth and beautiful. It is the same with us!

Ok that wasn´t actually what I shared in my talk....part of it was. That´s what I wanted to say in my talk, but it came out a little different in Spanish and with less time to prepare:) The point is that it is really important to have faith and to repent. They are the basic principles of the Gospel. Being a missionary I am seeing more and more what a huge role they play in our spiritual health and happiness. For myself as a missionary I need to be faithful and repentant, and I need to teach others how to have faith and repent.

I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ because it is so simple and yet so true! Living the principles of the Gospel is the only way to have true joy in your life. If you aren´t sure where you are with your faith and repentence I invite you to do an experiement. Think of a way to show your faith to God by starting to live a commandment that you struggle with more fully, or think of an area in your life where you know you need to change and be more in line with the teachings of the Savior and make goals to change. This is the reason we are here in the earth, to smooth our rough edges!

I love you all and am so grateful for your love and support! I hope you all had a very merry christmas and have a happy new year!!!

Hermana Bowns