Gotta Love Bolivian Internet!

March 23

Sorry this email is so short, gotta love Bolivian internet!

But, Andrea is doing so well! She went to a baptism on Saturday and really loved it! The ward is working really hard with her and she is just so great!

Also, we are working with a new family, the Familia Cornejo, the mom and two of their daughters aren’t members but they are wonderful!

The Familia Gira is doing really well. Their mom is listening to us now too, which is such a miracle!

Sorry this is so ridiculously short! But, I love you all so much and I’m so grateful for the atonment of my Savior! I’m so grateful He died for me and that through Him I can be cleansed and strengthened!

Love,

 

Hermana Willes

The Savior Has Been There Every Step of the Way

Another really good week in Senac! 

Andrea is doing so well, she is just so sweet! I always love teaching her because the spirit is so strong! We are praying really hard that we will be able to meet with her family too, so that they will all be able to be baptized together! We are also working with her to gain a strong testimony of Joseph smith, she still has a few doubts.  But the members are being so great and helping her so much! 

We are also teaching a family, the Familia Somoa.  They are a young couple with a son who is four.  The hermana, Ivet, is so sweet! she loves loves it when we talk about eternal families and she went to church yesterday and the members were so welcoming! it helps that she has a  lot of friends who are members! 

The stake is working really hard with us to help us work with the members. we have the goal to find two new families everyday, with the help of the members.  It has been really awesome to see how the stake has caught the vision of the prophet and I know Heavenly Father will help us reach all of our goals!

I’m so grateful to be here in Bolivia, epecially in barrio Senac.  The members are so wonderful and I just love them so much! I’m so grateful for this opportunity I have to be a representative of my Savior.  He has been so incredibly kind to me, I can’t even believe it.  He really has been there every step of the way and has given me the very best mission. I know He lives and loves us so much! Love you all! 

Have the very best week!

Hermana Willes

I Love Senac!

Another really good week here in Senac! We worked so well with the members this week!

Andrea is progressing so well! She is so wonderful! Everytime we teach her it just blows my mind because she gets it all so well! We had to postpone her fecha porque it turns out we won’t have church the 29 for her confirmation because it’s elections and then the next week is conference so today she is going to tell us between the 21 and the 11! But, she told us that everytime she reads or prays or goes to church she feels a burning in her heart, a good feeling.  I just love her so much!

We also have another investigator, Hilda that we are working with.  All of the members know her.  It was really funny because we went to visit her with her friend, Hermana Margarita, and at the end of the lesson we were talking about all the members she knows and Margarita said "and who ended up sharing the gospel with you?" and she pointed at us and said "they did". She told us she wish she had heard about the gospel sooner! 

Anyways, things are going really good here! I love Senac, it is such a good ward! The members are so awesome and we have been seeing so many miracles with menos activos! it has been incredible to see! We are still working with the Familia Gira to stay the three hours, but this week we are going to work super hard so that they stay!

Thank you all so much for the support and love you all send me! it means so much to me! I hope you all have the very best week! I know the church is true and most of all I know that Christ lives! 

Love you!

Hermana Willes

The People Here Have Taught Me So Much

This week has probably been one of the craziest of my whole mission, but it was also one of the best! Transfers were this week and Hermana Duckardt left.  It was really sad to say goodbye, as always.  But,now I’m in a trio! haha my new companions are Hermana Mamani from La Paz and Hermana Viera from Honduras.  They are both really great--we have a lot of fun together. Everyone always asks me when my new companion is going to come and then makes a billion jokes about the three musketeers or something when they find out we are in a trio! They combined our two areas and so now we have a lot a lot of work! But I’m so grateful for it! 

We have one investigator, Andrea, that is de oro! she is the friend of the son of the stake president, who got home about five seconds ago from his mission and got right to work! She’s already gone to church two times and has accepted a date for the 28th to be baptized.  Everytime we teach her she is so accepting and so willing to pray and read and go to church! I just love her so much! We are working on meeting her family and teaching them too!

We are also working with a lot of Menos Activos and have seen so many miracles with them! One family, the Familia Gira, has come to church three times for sacrament meeting.  We’re working with the members to help them stay for the 3 hours the next week! 

This is totally random, but next time you are in a sacrament meeting be grateful random dogs don’t just wander in! Yesterday in sacrament meeting a members' dog had followed them to church and would not leave the chapel.  And then it started barking during the sacrament prayers before they could finally get it to leave! But, that is not the first or last time that will happen in my mission! 

We also did family history this week. I have gained such a strong testimony of family history.  I know there are so many people waiting for their families to search them out and take their names to the temple so that they can be an eternal family! 

Anyways, I hope you all have the very best week! I love Bolivia, the people here have taught me so much about my Savior and His love.  Through them I have learned about His love and kindness.  I am so grateful to be a missionary and to come to know my Savior more everyday! 

Love,

Hermana Willes

Hermana Willes and Hermana Duckardt.  

The city of Tarija, Bolivia is behind them

The Trio!

I'm so grateful to be His missionary!

Well, my last carnival in Bolivia! Crazy.  We just studied in the house and cleaned! It went by a lot faster this time!

Anyways, we’ve had a lot of miracles these couple weeks! Hermana Duckardt and I are really focusing on the miracles everyday that Heavenly Father gives us! There are always so many!

We’re working with a menos activo family that have gone to church two weeks in a row! Only to sacrament meeting, but still! It’s a huge miracle, because they haven’t come to church in years!

We are also working with another huge family of menos activos and little by little they are letting us teach them.  They are great too, a huge family of basically woman and their kids! 

Sorry this is so short, these past two weeks are kind of blurred together and I don’t really remember much! I promise next week will be better! but I love you all and I’m so grateful for the gospel! If there is anything I’ve learned on my mission is how much we need the gospel.  It blesses us and protects us from so many heartaches! I love my Savior! Without Him there really is no way to be happy or make it through! I’m so grateful to be His missionary!

Love,

Hermana Willes

Tarija, Bolivia Missionaries

There Really is Nothing Better than a Chapel full of Missionaries talking about Christ

This week went by so fast! I swear time just keeps going faster and faster! We had a lot going on this week, a conference and family history! All the sisters in Tarija do family history for two hours twice a week and it is literally the best thing ever! I love family history! I’m so blessed to have such wonderful ancestors who accepted the gospel and are such examples to me!

The conference was also so wonderful! I got to see so many of my companions and it was so spiritual.  We talked a lot about humility and the doctrine of Christ.  There really is nothing better than a chapel full of missionaries talking about Christ!

We’re still working with Jeni, our duena.  She is so sweet.  It’s really hard for her to understand the scriptures and so she always prays that Heavenly Father will help her understand and remember them better.  I just love her so much!

This week is Carnival, so I won’t be writing next week! But I love you all and I’m so grateful to be a missionary here in Bolivia, representing my Savior.  I came down here thinking I would be serving Him and helping Him, but really all He has done is bless me more and help me change and grow.  I love Him so much and I know that His gospel is true! 

Love you all!

Hermana Willes

I'm so Grateful for the Members Here!

Another week here in Senac! Slowly things are improving in the area!

We started teaching our duena de casa (landlord), Jeni.  She’s really sweet. She told us how she wants to believe in God and she doesn’t really know how to do that, but she wants to try.  It was so cute when she told us about praying, she was really proud of having tried and even told her daughter she has to start praying too! She hasn’t accepted a baptismal date, but we’re praying she will soon.

On Tuesday we went to the market that’s in our area and set up a table with juice and talked to everyone.  It was so fun! We met a lot of great people and were able to get a lot of references for other areas!

The sad part of this week was that we realized we are probably going to have to drop Hermana Lourdes.  She keeps all the committments except for going to church, but she just doesn’t understand why she needs to be baptized.  We’ve explained it and even prayed with her and we both felt the spirit so strongly, but she just won’t accept it.  We both left our last lesson knowing we’ll probably have to drop her.  It was so sad, but I know Heavenly Father will lead us to more people!

I’m so grateful to be a missionary and to be preaching the gospel! I’m so grateful for the members here, who are so incredibly faithful and who have all taught me so much! 

I hope you have the very best week!

Hermana Willes

Just a funny little part of  Lundy’s email to Steve last week that we thought we’d share.  He told her about the Superbowl outcome and asked her if anyone there knows anything about the NFL.  Her response:

That's a bummer about the superbowl! You will appreciate this though, here the people buy a bunch of American used clothing without knowing what it says usually and the other day my Bishop had on a Vikings shirt! I laughed so hard and when I told him that you are a huge fan, he got so excited and he was like “ Hermana, are they a good team?" and I told him “ No Bishop, but my Dad still likes them for some reason!” That's pretty much the only time I’ve ever talked about football with a latino!