lots of good happened this week! always does. Really, the Lord is Kind and always looking out for us making sure that we are ok and finding those that need to be found right now!

Lets see here. just some of the people that we are teaching... 

Angelica and Siliva- Angelica is a little bit more receptive, but if she accepts her daughter listens so its good. they are older like 65 and 40 and live together and are passing through a time SUPER difícil in their lives, but they are getting through it. Angelica loves what she hears from us and in church and activities, ect, but she has this hard catholic tradition mind set that is holding her back. She also smokes so we are working with her on that and she is progressing slowly but surely. these Palabra de Sabiduría problemas are the hardest for these people. I´m just SO grateful it´s not a problem for me, honestly, least tempting thing= smoking. gross. but we asked her the baptismal questions and she is super close. not 100% converted, but she will be. just need to help her see those blessings that have come into her life since she started listening to the missionaries. 

Luis- shirtless Luis. ha! Hna Valencia... so funny. now we just joke about it, but i still think she feels awkward around him! Obviously he doesn´t know, but i can tell. ha! love these latin comps. make me happy. but he is progressing well hacia bautismo. yay! Yesterday he came to church for the first time and had to leave after Sacrament meeting because of committment he has had for a year. and i asked him what it was and it was his BIRTHDAY! turned 35. but he said that he was happy to have started this year living a commandment of Sabbath day. and that he liked church lots and wants to come back. He also is in 2 nefi 11 in the LDM. crazy. he is just ready for this change in his life. can´t wait to see him in white! 

Jessica- its this lady that stopped us in the street and wants to know more about Historia Familiar. shes solid. she has this great grandfather that she feels like she needs to find and figure out why he came to chile, ect ect. She was telling us what she knows about him and its like a movie. I want her to find this great grandfather. we testified that she has this feeling because he is trying to help her find something to help him and that its the Gospel of Jesucristo. The member that was with us is all about Fam History and they have plans to go together Friday to the center to look for him. Love when members are helpful with Investigadores. I want to be like that after the mish. 

I had another intercambio this week and guess where i went... back to Limache! ha! it was so strange to be back there for a day. walking my old turf. but it was great to work with the Hna there. got to meet her investogdores and all and shes new. it´s her 2nd change in the mission and she just was full of questions, but it´s fun to be able to help these Hnas. but the best thing is that I saw Juaquin and he is doing great. Also Silvana came with us on citas. she is also great. shes the 1st counselor in YW. But this just shows how kind the Lord is....

we´re sitting on the metro going back to Viña after the cambio and pull up to a station and guess who gets on... HILDING CARLSON (from my first area- he was baptized, my chilean father, ect) I WAS SOOOO happy to see him. he wanted to give me a hug, but i told him i was still a missionary, but we just sat there and talked to him for about 40 minutes to go back to vina and he is doing awesome. He is the 1st couselor in the Elders  Quorom Pres in the ward and always jokes about being Bishop (one day) His wife who was baptized with him is the secretary of R.S. and had her first talk yesterday in the church. It serioulsy made me so happy to see him. 

I really don´t know if there is greater joy that seeing the converts and seeing that they are progressing and are doing well. And that you have the feeling that you helped these people change and now there goal is the temple! the mission is challenging at times, but when you see people that have changed it just gives you a bigger desire to find more. just makes me so grateful to my Heavenly Father that He is taking care of them and that He wants them just like I do to be successful and understand this gospel. 

Hna Valencia is good. She has a really tough family life so if you could pray for her and that they´ll write here and stuff. she´s the only member so its hard for her. they hardly have anything and her parents have tons of health problems so she´s worried about them lots. this week was hard in particularmente.  but just if you could say a pray for that. But her english is awesome. can basicallly understand everything and is practicing lots so it´s good! also if the spanish speakers in the fam want to write her a dearelder or something in spanish that´d be great. its the same address as mine just with her name... Yamilet Valencia. I´m sure she´s appreciate it. nothing long, just a short note with your testimony, no sé, lo que quiera! 

Well, life is happy. it´s just great here. still loving the ward. i feel like this ward is the most like the states that i´ve been in here in Chile. not sure why.. maybe a longer time it´s been a ward. who knows. but they are just great people. 

The Church is true. Read the Book of Mormon. DO MISSIONARY WORK. pray for missionary work in your lives. i want to hear about the experiences that you are having as missionaries. the lord will bless you. just open your mouth, its the best thing that you could say to someone. If they regect, its their loss, not ours because WE HAVE IT and it´s out duty to share it. Love you all.

Keep Smiling, 

Hna Sargent

 

los elderes en mi distrito 

just a view from my area. no big deal

HILDING! (first area baptism with Riggs) yes. i saw him. will explain more in my papa. SOOOOO hAPPPPYYY!!! 

 

Hola Familia! Como están? Espero que todos estén bien y están disfrutando el primavera en AZ (o mom y dad en CA)! 

This week has been good! I´ve just loved being close to the ocean. I think i say like 100 times everyday. Its SO beautiful here. really, almost every spot in my area you can see the ocean. gives me more motivation to get out and work! 

I want to share with you 2 experiences that happened this week,

Monday night, we passed for a menos activo, but he wasn´t there. But his son was. We asked if we could share with his 14 year old son, Ronald, and he was glad to talk with us. We taught him the restauración and he was just soaking it up. We invite him to be baptized, to read, to pray, accepts all of it. he is just a little sponge, but 14 so sometimes inmature, but so funny! So when we were walking out the door I turned to him and said, I´m going to close the door and you should go pray RIGHT NOW so you don´t forget. he said yes, but i was like... ya, he´ll probsies forget. (ye of little faith) So we walk out the door, i close it, and i look in the window to see what he does, and i see this 14 year old boy with his head bowed, his arms crossed, and he is praying. It was one of the sweetest moments i think i´ve had on the mission. I´m not sure why it hit me like it did. but i really just felt like in the year 1820 a boy with the same age, did the same thing, and thanks to that prayer MY life is changed as well as many others. Now ronalds is in the process to change. 

Another experiencia, we have to travel about an hour in micro (bus) to our meetings. So after the meeting we get back on the bus and i sit next to this man. I share with him about the gospel, but he isnt really havin it. So we sit there for a while and i´m thinking, I REALLY want to go talk to that lady sitting there solo, but i felt weird getting up and moving after i´d already talked to this man, but i just kept feeling it. So i say goodbye to this man and change seats. I sit next to this lady and start small talking with her. Then we start talking about the church. She tells me that years ago she told the elders to go to her house, and when they got there her husband got really mad and told them to NEVER come back. Well, turns out a few years ago her husband died and now she´s remarried. She told me that maybe i had to talk to her now on the bus and that now is her time to hear about the gospel becuase her husband wouldn´t get mad. We were talking about baptism and she accepted to be baptized if she felt it and then asked me.. ¨what happens to those who don´t have missionaries like you where they live?¨ I explain to here that there are missionaries in ALL parts of the world and that the number is increasing just so we can share our message! I took her address and all, and passed it along to the leaders. I just hope that she accepts. she´s ready, just needs to hear all of this! 

This week had intercambios for this new position i have. it was good! I like being able to help other people understand the importance of obedience and helping them feel more comfortable. still new at this, but it´s also a good way to get to know other Hnas better. 

Also interviews with Pres Kahnlein. Really he is just awesome. one day he WILL be in the 70 or something. just waiting for the day to hear his name announced in Conferencia. I just feel like he is getting to know me a lot better. Who i am, how i work, ect ect and can really help me and really understand now. I asked if i could stay until Jan but he shot that down quickly. but told me to work twice as hard everyday and it´d be like i´m here until Jan! liked that advice. He also asked me in enlgish.. ¨are you happy?¨ totally reminded me of dad! 

Luis read 11 chapters of the LDM. he is awesome. so funny... the other night we passed by his house and he opened the door without a shirt, he is a personal trainer so it´s not like he is fat or anything, but we put a cita for him and left. we just laughed because we haven´t seen anyone like that in a while now. but i totally forgot about it. we went back to teach him and while we were teaching Hna Valencia was being all weird, just not herself. After the lesson i asked her.. ¨esta bien?¨and she just starts laughing of embarassment. She then goes on to tell me that she just couldn´t take him serioulsy after seeing with wtihout a shirt. Now it´s just a joke, but serioulsy, Luis is good. he is progressing well and wants to know. just hasn´t recienved his respuesta yet! 

Yesterday we taught a jewish man, interesting to teach him when he doesn´t believe Christ has come, but he accepted a BOM and is gonna read when Christ came to the americas! i was wishing that dad would be there because he took that jewish class and all. i´m sure it could have been helpful. but hopefully he progresses and likes what he reads. 

ahhh.... tiempo, well, anywho, we are doing work here in Agua Santa. Love being back here. really, so great! I know that this is the MOST important work there is here.... open your mouths, invite, it won´t hurt ANYONE. God will only bless you with people who need it if you keep doing it! 

its the best thing that you can tell them. saw a quote this week that says... ¨We have the greatest message in the world! We should be SO excited to jump out of bed and set the world on fire!¨ -L. Tom Perry so lets do it. set this world on FIRE!! 

Love you and pray for you all,

Keep Smiling, 

Hna Sargent

 

 

Hna Valencia and I :)

 

 

view of Valparaiso

 i just can´t get over how beautiful it is here... missed the sunset at the beach!

 tourist stuff this morning... literally one street from my area! 

just love being close to the beach... we´re looking at the same ocean mom! :) 

 

foto de mi zona! last week! thought you´d want to see it. 

Well, Cambios came. I am now back in Agua Santa where i was serving before. Mismo ward and everything, but honestly Im SUPER happy about it. This was the ward where i was with a harder comp, so now i can work with my new comp. Hna Valencia de Peru. I am finishing her training, she has been here for 6 weeks and honestly is just full of love. Shes great. has every desire to be obedient and work, so i know that well see milagros.

I was sad to leave Salamanca because i felt like id JUST gotten there. I really think its been the fastest transfer of my whole mission. but the last day i had there i really just wanted to go say bye to Urbano and Henry. But urbano wasn home and we hadn´t had time to go to where Henry works. So i was just kinda sad, but oh well i thought, i´ll write them a letter. but we were walking to a cita on the main street in Salamanca and i look up and up walks Urbano! I was SO happy to see him. I told him i was leaving and he was super sad, like almost started crying, abut told me that he was gonna keep going to church for us. I told him if he was going for us right now, that was ok, but that he needed to look for God and change that desire to go to Church for Him. He promised me that he would. Then we walked a little more and bam, there´s henry! It was a blessing from God. to be able to see both of them. amazing. but anywho, we talked to henry for a while. he said that he met us right when he needed to most, so I guess that some work was done in Salamanca. Just hope them and the other wonderful people i met there will progress to baptism!

My first 2 days back here in Agua Santa we put 3 fechas. they are all awesome! I really like being here again. I went to the ward yesterday and it felt like i was at home again, super strange. everyone remembered me and seemed happy that i was back! NOW i will work with this ward and help it grow. ITs awesome though this area. Every 20 seconds you can see the  ocean and itś just beautiful. love it. itś colder because the ocean, but worth it! also, lots of hills. :)

Thursday, i got a call from PResident. They now have Leaders in the mission that are Hnas and pres called me to be one. the term is Sister Traning Leaders. Basically what it is is that they want that ALL the Hnas are trained well and know how to work. so we will be doing lots of intercambios with the hnas in the whole mission. There are 4 others. Me, Hna Smith (mi hija) and 2 others. Iḿ really excited to be part of it. Every month we have to go to a council with the Zone Leaders and we had a meeting Friday with all of them Pres and Hna Kahnlein. It was GREAT to be part of this council. Its just pure power, all these liders of the mission and to be able to work with them is a priveledge! plus i get all the insights of whats happening in the mish. It´s cool too because now i will work closer with President Kahnlein. So if there is a problem with the Hnas or the Zone leaders want them to work different or something, they call and we set up an intercambio! should be good. Still new with it, but weĺl see how it goes. Everyone calls me... the Hna Zone leader, but thats not what it is. I'm new to it as well, so iĺl keep updating you once i get the hang of it and know more. we had lunch with all of this council Viernes and i was sitting by Pres and Hna Kahnlein and since he served his mission in AZ i was talking to them about going back and told them that our house is open if they ever decide to go visit... hope thats ok :)
They also told me that at one of the conferences the other week Silvana spoke, and she said that the reason she accepted us to go to her house because she´d never felt such love from someone that she´d just met! made me feel so happy. oh Silvana, i miss her and love her!

We were challenged to ask our parents, mom and dad... what kind of missionary to you think i am? and then when we get the response BE that missionary or better. so please tell me... what kind of missionary do you think i am??

this week we met some great people. some are now in progreso de bautismo. yay! Victor, Luis, Karina, Angelica. We are working with them and one thing i LOVED that karina said one day is that shes been looking for the right religion for a while now. And we related her to Jose Smith and how he found his answer and what she needed to do to get hers. I just KNOW that there are so many people here waiting. Definitely gonna go back for those that i was teaching while i was here the other time.

I just want you all to know that i LOVE being a missionary. there are hard days, long days, tears shed for the people, lots of changes (10th comp), the spirit felt muchisimo, and more than anything, lots to be learned. But honestly, its a priviledge (sp?) to be able to help people return to God. To be able to look at these people on the streets and imagine them in white and look for their potential and maybe not really how they are now. To help people understand the NEED for baptism and how they can feel that same happiness every week to take the Santa Cena is incredible. To see these people in darkness find the light of the Gospel is the best thing that i see while i´m here on the mission. I was reading this morning in Alma 33 and loved versiculos 19-23. go read them and pay attention to if we are the ones looking or the ones who lack faith or are just to lazy to look. or how it is talking here be saved from our Savior Jesus Christ who has made the way for EVERYONE of us. pay attention to the last verse the last 5 words. we have our agency. What a gift. God loves us. read it. i know you´ll love it.

Well family, here I am. about 2 minutes from the ocean and can literally hear the seagulls chirping. love it here. i am happy! Let me know if you guys need anything from my part. I always pray for each and every one of you, but if there is more i can do, let me know! LOVE YOU!

Keep smiling,

Hna Sargent

 

Hna Smith and I :)

some views from my new area

mi comp.

urbano

henry!

 

Wasn´t conferencia just wonderful. I know I´m getting a stronger testimony of the gospel when I feel super sad when it ends! I just remember before the mish I would sometimes just take a little snoozer and zone out, but now, its the MOST important thing that we could be doing that whole weekend. I´ll get to some of my favorite speakers later on! 

 

This week was harder than usual. Not gonna lie. I just feel like all these people that we´ve been teaching aren´t progressing anymore. They just are all caught up in other things and aren´t taking this as important that they should, but I guess that’s the mission for us, right? Just happens, but honestly just feels with everyone and not just one person. But we´ve still seen miracles. There always are... just have to look for them!

 

Well, remember Fransisco, sad news... we find out that he isn´t really married to this Hna in the ward, they are living together. ya, crazy, right? But he needs to get divorced and then get married which here in Chile honestly takes at least a year. But the thing is he wants it, just can´t at this time. It’s just crazy that we found out because we asked him straight up and he said yes and then this week asked him again, and then he told us with his ¨wife¨ (women he lives with) I feel bad for him because he needs to get everything in order to receive those blessings. Talked about him moving out, but that wasn´t an option for him. Just crazy because the lady in an active member. Don´t really get it, but that’s how it is.

 

We had the first Branch council in over a year here this week, kinda crazy! But we get a good statistic. The average attendance in the branch in Jan was 33, in Feb 34, and then in March- 48! It´s a HUGE jump. Lots of menos activos, (less actives) visitors, and investigators have made it jump up, but they totally just thanked Hna Paicely and I for it. I really don´t think it was us all the way, we´ve tried to do our best here and really help, but others too have been included. But good to see that it´s improving!

 

My eye has been irritated all week, just like really red, this is nowhere near Robbies kidney stones, I need to read his email more, but the Branch President came up to me and was like ¨hna, I´ve seen lots of missionaries pass through here, I know when they are sad or something happened and I know you feel like this because your eye is all red, have you been crying?¨ I was like, NO!! I´m good presidente, just so funny. I have these drops but they aren´t really working, I´ll give it one more day and then call the mission nurse again. ha! But he was super nice to be conserned for me I suppose :)

 

For our district meeting this week we did a cool activity you could all use in one way or another. We each had to find our fav scripture about Baptism and then stand up one by one in front of the baptismal font, read the scripture, bear testimony of the blessing that baptism brings, and then invite the room to be baptized. It was just really cool to see everyone do their own invitation solo and the spirit was super strong. Then our District leader testified that baptism is why we´re here. We need to talk about it everyday, every lesson, with every person, because it´s the only way that they´ll reach full happinesss. Thought you could maybe use that idea somehow with YM or mission prep, or Rob for you mish if you are DL one day!

 

John Henry- meh, he just likes to listen I decided but isn´t acting on anything, but is coming to church, so confusing! He just needs to read the BOM! I KNOW with my whole heart that his life would change. Now he isn´t scared, just is busy, so he says. He also expressed his love for Hna Paicely. Like serioulsy, not just the ¨I LOVE YOU¨ yells that we hear all the time here from men, but he openly told me that he likes her, but knows she’s a missionary and he would never act.  I had to relay this all to Hna Paicely and she was just like  ¨WHAT?¨ no, he just needs to get baptized.  But Henry, hopefully we see a change in him this week cause if not.. chau.

 

Urbano- he bought us earrings. so nice of him! He is just really confused with the gospel and we´re helping him, but his wife who is ALWAYS there talks WAY too much, so we´re gonna try to have lessons with just him or something. We need to. He is awesome, just needs to understand better so he can be a LIDER!

 

Funniest line of the whole mission maybe... ¨soy ateo, gracias a Dios¨ (i´m atheist, thanks to God) I heard it and just started laughing instantly. Couldn´t hold it in. Makes no sense! Seriously. But so funny. Still laugh about it.

 

ok, so conferenica! oh. Loved it so much.

some of my favorites...

Craig Cardon- ¨the Lord looks at our Desires and Acciones (actions) of our hearts and then forgives us¨

just liked his whole talk really, God loves us, so of course he forgives us when we mess up and then repent.

 

Elder Cook: Peace. How could I not like it right? But serioulsy, where do we find peace? In our Savior Jesus Christ. Peace is not only desirable, but a gift from God.

 

Elder Anderson- Go missionary work! He hit it RIGHT on the mark. Seriously. Loved when he said, go find your missionary badge and put it where you can see it. Also, when he said that ¨our desire to take the gospel to someone should take us to our knees¨

 

Elder Holland- how does he do it? EVERYTIME. He is a true discípulo (disciple) of Christ.

 

They were just all awesome, but those are some that I can remember of my head! The song I enjoyed so much was, ¨Where Love Is¨ haven´t heard that song in forever, but loved it.

 

Well, this week are changes, I think we´ll know tonight or tomorrow what happens. Lots of Hnas coming again so it´ll be good to see if there are lots of changes! Don´t want to leave, but I´ll do what the Lord wants me to do and do it happily :)

 

Love you all SO much. So thankful that we could hear the profeta and apostles this weekend and now we can start applying what they said in our lives TODAY!

Hope you´re all happy! Happy Birthday Jac and Skye this week! Party hard.

 

Keep smiling,

 

Hna Sargent

 

 

 

 

my district! 

conferencia en ingles! ha! ward clerk office :)

What in the world. It’s April. Seriously? I thought about playing an April jokes fool on you guys, telling you I tore my ACL or something again, but then I thought, well if the connection doesn’t go through well or something, they’d KILL me. So I decided not too. But I sure hope that Grandpa called and told you there was a spider on your back mom! 

 

Well this week was good! I mean, it can´t be bad while your on the mish, can it? There are weeks that are for sure slower, and not as successful, but even with weeks like that you really just remember the good things. Here are some of the great things that happened this week:

 

Fransisco: he is the husband of a hna in the branch here and he just started coming to church randomly with her and her daughter, so we’ve been working with him and he keeps coming, but he is like SUPER hard to find in the house with work and such so we haven´t been able to teach him as much as we´ve wanted to. But this week we could, we taught him and he had questions, one of them that I loved was... ¨how do you know that there is a profeta (prophet) today in the world, who is this Jose Smith guy? Insert Restauración! (Restoration) He totally understood too. Then we talked about the LDM (Book of Mormon) and how he NEEDED to read it to know and he says he wants to know so of course he´ll read it. Then we invited him to be baptized and at first I was like nervous to invite him, which I´m usually not. This is the best inivation anyone can offer, but I said, it´s satan that is making you nervous, just invite him! The worst he´ll say is no, so we did, and he accepted! He said, ¨me gustaría entrar las aguas¨ (id like to enter the waters) it was just cool to see him accept. Obviously, if he is coming to church it´s for a reason, not just to dink around, right? So he was great!  We’re now working with him more regularly! yay.

 

John Henry: he is progressing, he just has fear to read the BOM, because of all the things that he´s heard and what the bible says, ect ect. but he is coming to ALL of our citas, (appointments) comes to church. He is awesome. I just KNOW that once he opens the LDM for himself that he won´t be able to stop. but he feels good when he is with us, he loves the church, ect ect. just want to see him in WHITE! He listens better than any other investigator that I´ve taught I think. He is really just looking, and needs to feel love from God again, but he´ll get there. We’re working on him!

 

Irene: this girl we just found randomly, we set an cita(appt) to go back and teach her. Went there and taught her the restauración. When we read Santiago 1:5, she just started bawling, and said that she’s been asking for knowledge for a long time from God and that this scripture just spoke to her. We asked how she was feeling and she explains that she just thought she´d practice English with us and that she never accepts religious things in her house, but then she got this little message from us. After she explains all of that she just goes ¨bakanpo!¨ these are very typical words from Chile, bakan, is like sweet, cool, and po, well, who knows, just a Chilean thing that I Iove! ha! But she obviously felt something, but we just have to help her get more Faith in God!

But mom, how do you do your hummingbird water. We were talking about it and she thought it was SO cool, but she wants to know. Is it just water and sugar??

 

We are trying more to talk about Fam History in contacts, and we did practices with it in studies and were so excited to talk to people about it, the spirit of Elijah is starting to trabajar (work) in me! (and by starting, i mean, centimeter por cenimeter) but we get out on the street and the first person we talk to about family history just says, ¨nope, don’t really care¨ it was just SO funny to us, we tried so hard to be all positvas about it and then just shot us down. Just hilarious for some reason, but were still doing it! More luck will come if we keep doing it!

 

Yesterday at church was great! Sacrament meeting was ALL on the Savior, I had to talk about the Expiación, (Atonement) which I remembered when I was 12 I remember I was asked to talk about the Atonement and I remember asking dad, what is the atonement? I didn’t even know! and the changed the topic for me, but now, 10 years later, I couldnt imagine my life without it! It was great to study it and  really remembers everything that the atonement entails. It’s a ton! I’m sure I don’t even understand all of it, or not even close to all of it, but I am SO grateful for it in my life. To be able to repent, to be clean, and to really feel that love and forgiveness from God! The atonement in itself just shows that love that God has for every single one of us. To send His Son for us, wow. Talk about true 100% love and for Christ to bring it to pass for us, another 100% love. Can’t wait to be able to give them a big ol´ hug and say thank you!

 

On another note, while we were in sunday school a drunk, well, plastered man walks in to the church, and sat down and just kept interrupting, but what’s a whole room full of mormoms gonna do, kick him out? No, so he just keeps getting up moving around the room, yelling out things, looks at me and Hna Paicely and just expresses his love for us, ect ect... but one thing that to me was just hilarious that he said was ¨Soy profeta¨ (im a prophet) ¨soy enviado de Dios¨ (im sent from God) I just started laughing, this poor man. I just feel bad for people like that but hope that they can be better! But soon after he was escorted out by un Hermano en la rama! (a brother in the branch) maybe we’ll meet him when he is more sober and he´ll be a miracle bautismo! There is always hope, right??

 

Well family, everything is going here in Salamanca. We´re working hard to find those who are ready now to accept the gospel, trying to get those pepole married and learning lots! I love this work, I love being here serving these people I truly love so much. Couldn´t imagine my life with these Chileans!

 

Glad to know that you´re all doing well, know I love you all and pray for you!

 

Keep smiling,

Hna Sargent

 

 

 

 

the cutest bunny i saw all week :)

hna Paicely and I, Happy EASTER!

im still huge! really, just never gets old, does it??