through thorny ways leads to a joyful end

                                                                                                                 February 23, 2015

¡Hola hola!

 

So this week was a crazy one, but what else is new?  Each and every week on the mission has been crazy, but I am thankful for each crazy day.

 

Hermana Brown and I are almost completely done with her training program!  WOOOO!!  She is incredible.  I can´t even believe how much she has grown.  She is so strong and she teaches with such love!  I am so proud of her.  She is getting a companion from Chile, so her Spanish is gonna shoot through the roof.  :)  

 

This week we taught a couple of good lessons about the Restoration.  It is honestly so special to teach that lesson!  Hermana Brown and I felt so happy to be able to resolve some of our investigators´ doubts and that JXXX and GXXX brought their family to church yesterday!  We are also on fire with family history.  It is so fun to contact people in that way, because they want to know about their ancestors and where they came from.  

I keep forgetting to tell you about our cool field trip last week!  Last P-day our zone went hiking and we saw a really pretty waterfall.  It reminded me somewhat of Helen, but the vegetation was a lot more tropical.  I will have to show you the pictures when I get home!  It was really fun.

 

It´s been a roller coaster week.  We FINALLY got an apartment approved, so we packed up our entire house and moved this week.  It was good for me to have something so entirely consuming to do so that I didn´t spend so much time thinking about Grandma.  That phone call broke my heart.  I can´t express how sad I feel.  I still feel like it´s not real...like we are gonna plan another visit to Auburn and I´ll give Grandma a hug again.  But even thought I have felt sad, I also have never felt such peace in a place that wasn´t the temple.  I felt a soul-strengthening peace that everything was going to be okay and that our family is eternal.  I could feel that Grandma is at peace and feels joy in the presence of her dear husband.  It was so against the missionary rules for me to talk to you guys that way...but I´m so glad that Hermana Beecroft let me borrow her phone to talk to you guys.  You are right.  What Abby and Benjamin said really struck a chord in my heart.  Really, it was what Benjamin said.  I knew that it was what Grandma would want me to do to finish my mission, even the last 6 days.  I prayed and I felt an overwhelming confirmation that I was to finish the commitment that I had made with the Lord to serve His blessed children in Chile until the very end of my mission.  So I know that I made the right choice.

 

In sacrament meeting on Sunday I was thinking about the hymn "Be Still My Soul."  One of the verses has the phrase, "through thorny ways leads to a joyful end."  These last couple of transfers have been hard.  We have had various unexpected things happen that made the work harder.  Grandma passing away was the hardest thing, and it happened at the very last of the mission.  But even though there have been thorny ways, I know there will be a joyful end when I see you all in the airport.  When I was in the beginning of my mission, in my hardest area and with my hardest companions, I prayed so hard because I missed you guys and I felt alone.  But Heavenly Father promised me that my joy would be full when I finished my mission and returned to see you all.  I know that He keeps His promises.  After all, that is how life is.  We must pass through thorny ways.  But in the end, Heavenly Father only wants all of us to be joyful.

 

It is really hard for me to say "chao" to Chile!  This experience has taught me so many things, and I feel so connected to the people here, and to this great calling.  I will miss being a full-time missionary.  I will miss Chile.  But I know that the Lord has other things in store for me, and I am SO excited to start living them.  I am so happy to see you all.  I love you with all of my heart and I have missed you for so long...and now I will see you in real life and give you hugs, and hear your laughs!!  I will see you at the joyful end on Friday morning!!

 

With much, much, much love, your sister missionary,

Hermana Latham

el amor de Jesucristo

                                                                                                                                            February 16, 2015

¡Hola hola!

I love the Valentine's Day pictures.  I wanted to send you some of mine, but my camera is not on my side.  arg.  Oh well.  You'll see the pictures soon enough!  :)

I'm so excited for Benjamin's All-Star basketball!!  You never told me if Abby is going on in GHP.  It sounds like the weather is super cold.  Ohhhhh, it's gonna be a snap into reality for me.  The summer here is not like summer at home, but it's hot and I have been enjoying lots of sun.  So, I hope it'll warm up a tad before next week.   It's funny that you would say something about a cute elder and American food.  Hermana Brown, Hermana Wadsworth, and Hermana Gollehon have been joking around with me about that kind of stuff for a long time now, but a lot more now that I am less than 10 days away!  They told me y'all would probably have a plan for what you wanted to do my first day back.  I told them it was fine as long as I could eat chicken barley chili and peanut butter cookies within my first few days at home!  haha.  Also more than anything, I am just excited about new clothes and shoes.  I actually have dreams every once in a while about going to the store and not being able to find modest, cute clothes.  haha. I am also REALLY excited for the pedicures.  My feet have problems after a mission!!  Also I'd love to go to the spa for a day if that is a possibility.  :)

Before I forget, Hermana Beecroft told us a lame joke.  It was fabulous.  This is it:

What do you call an alligator in a vest?

An in-vest-i-gator.  

Ha.  :D

This week was amazing!  I LOVED it!!  We didn't end up moving this weekend and we dedicated quite a bit of time to looking for a house again this week.  Which really stinks considering that I am winding down to the end.  But at the end of the week, we got Hermana Poulsen on our side and she has a van!  Woo!  So that made it easier for the four of us to find good options.  President wants us to find something for four now, so we are still confused about what might happen at transfers.  But now we have some good options and we are looking at moving in on Saturday so that everything is settled before transfers.  That way, when Hermana Brown's new companion comes, and if the other sisters have transfers, it'll all be ready to go.  I hope it works out!

This week we have been able to teach a lot of lessons.  I feel like Heavenly Father helped us to help and love our area even though we had to spend time house hunting.  We taught a few lessons in the street, and we visited some investigators without a member present, and we had two member present lessons!  Both member present lessons went really well.  It's amazing how much the members help the investigators to progress.  My favorite moment was when we could teach the first lesson to our new investigators, DXXX y CXXX.  We really think that they are going to progress!  I told Hermana Brown to send me pictures of the baptism.  They are willing to do the Lord's will for them, so we left them with the challenge to pray and find out if the church is true so that they can be baptized.  It was wonderful to teach that lesson again!  It helped me to feel that even though this is ending, there are still people waiting for me and I can still serve and help.

We had an unforgettable Valentine's Day.  Hermana Brown and I made little valentine cards with cute colored cardstock and the foam hearts & flowers you sent me a while back.  Hermana Brown's dad sent her a valentine box, and so she gave out the candies from the box and I gave out the cards.  We contacted so many people that way, and it was so fun to see the way their eyes lit up from such a little show of love!  We just told them that we are here to share the love of Jesus Christ, and that is why we love Valentine's Day...and that we would love to visit them to share more of that love with their families.  I did not want Valentine's Day to end!  There is no better day to be a missionary!  Our roommates were also so cute and bought us both a chocolate bar and a white rose.  We are doing a project in our zone called invasions, where all of the missionaries in our zone go to one sector for an hour, and we split up throughout that sector to do contacts.  So on Valentine's Day we did one in Hermana Wadsworth's sector, and it was so fun because the zone leaders had us be companions for the hour.  I LOVE to see how much she has progressed!  She is an even more amazing missionary that she was when we finished her training, and her Spanish is fabulous!  

So with Valentine's Day, and with ending the mission, I have been thinking a lot about love and charity.  Hermana Beecroft showed me the same throwback picture that you emailed me, and every time I look at it the thing that I see is how beautiful you are.  You are not beautiful in the ways of the world, with tons of jewelry, or glamorous hair.  You have beautiful eyes because they are filled with love.  My roommates were wondering why it is that I love Valentine's Day so much.  I told them about how when we were little, you went out of your way to make the holidays special for us.  I always knew how much you and Daddy loved us and how much you loved each other.  I just hope that one day my eyes can be so filled with love like yours are in that picture!  One of the greatest things that I have learned on this mission is charity.  I still have so far to go.  But the Chileans have taught me charity.  And more than anything, Jesus Christ has taught me charity.  His love is a healing balm.  His love is a glowing happiness.  His love is a comforting peace.  And it is available to everyone.  The root of this calling, being a missionary, is to share Jesus Christ's love with everyone.  I have strived to do that!  I know that He loves perfectly.  I am thankful for el amor de Jesucristo, the love of Jesus Christ, in my life.  His love fills me up and gives me hope.  I hope that one day I will love as He does!  I feel sad at the end of this mission because I don't have much more time to share that love here in Chile.  But I know that I will have opportunities in all of my life to love.  I have so much love to give!  And as I feel and reflect His love, it is more.  I am so thankful that He has given me the amazing opportunity of serving and loving as a full time missionary.

This is the picture mom sent to Melanie for Valentine's Day :)

I love you all SOOOOOOOO much!  I hope that you have a wonderful week and I will write soon.

Love always, Hermana Latham

la fe tiene un apellido

                                                                                                               February 9, 2015

Cool plants in Osorno :)

¡Hola hola!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!  I did get your card, just a few days ago.  It was so nice to see it; I was kind of figuring I wouldn't get mail anymore at this point!  I love Valentine's Day so much.  We still are up in the air about if we are moving this week or not, so the sisters in our house did the sweetest thing for us for Valentine's Day.  They heart-attacked our beds and our study area.  Some of them had sweet compliments on them, and others had conversation heart type phrases on them.  I took pictures.  But I left my camera at home.  :P  But Hermana Brown and I want to make some valentines to give out to people this week.  We found those cute foam stickers you sent me a while back that we are going to use.  :)

This week we prayed hard and searched hard and found a new house, but we are just waiting for the zone leaders and the elder in charge of the money (in Spanish it's financiero...financer?  treasurer?) to approve it.  They better approve it soon, though, or someone else is going to buy it!  AHHH!  I think it's just confusing for them to figure it out because our mission is going to be dropping in numbers, so they don't want to rent homes that they'll just have to leave.  Now that the age-change wave has died down, our mission will drop 50 missionaries in the coming months.  For example, when I leave, I go home with 8 other elders...and then one new hermana comes, and I think only 3 or 4 new elders.  So successively our mission will have fewer and fewer missionaries.

That's so crazy about our new ward!  But I can't say that I'm surprised.  We have really small wards here, and yesterday we had a stake training meeting at night and there were over 100 people there, and we were all like, "Whoa!  There are so many people!"  So then we were talking at night about how many people were in our wards at home, and I told the sisters in our house I thought about 200 people or more came on a weekly basis to our ward....hahaha I was so off.  Daddy told me it was about 400.  I may go into shock when I walk into a sacrament meeting so full that it goes into the gym.  hahaha.  So Daddy's calling got changed.  Are you still a Primary teacher?  Is Sister Merrell still in our ward?  It'll be really interesting for me to see what our ward is like when I get back.

It's been a good week.  On Wednesday, we had an appointment set up to visit an investigator with a member.  Then, the investigator wasn't in her house.  That same day, another of our appointments had fallen through, and we had had a somewhat disappointing visit with GXXX.  I felt frustrated because it seemed that whatever we were doing to help our sector to progress, wasn't working.  But there was a special area devotional for women that night, and we called and invited all of the sisters in our ward.  We planned to meet with an older sister and go with her to the devotional.  As we were leaving, we saw a couple less active sisters on their way to the devotional.  Then, when we got there, there were two other sisters from our ward who had come!  We were so happy!  It was not the success that we had been imagining for the day, but it was a sweet and special success and we felt so proud of the faithful women in our ward.  The devotional was fun.  It was a broadcast from Córdoba, Argentina, for all of Argentina and all of Chile.  Neill F. Marriott from the general YW presidency spoke, and Linda K. Burton, the general RS president, spoke.  They both spoke about things that really help us in our lives....especially prayer and the love of our Heavenly Father.  I felt that it was such a wonderful, applicable message for our area.  It was very nice and spiritual...but also hilarious because Sister Marriott was confused about what language people in Argentina speak...and gave about half of her talk in Portuguese.  At the beginning I thought it was just a joke, but as she kept going in her talk, and kept trying to say things in broken Portuguese, it became funnier and funnier.  I don't know how no one stopped her to tell her that people in Argentina and Chile speak Spanish!  Or how she didn't know that already...hahahaha.  There are a couple sister missionaries from Brazil here in Osorno, so they were the people enjoying the Portuguese the most.  haha.

We had a special meeting as missionaries with our stake president here in Osorno, and then there was a meeting with all of the ward councils, all of the missionaries, and the stake presidency last night (the stake training meeting).  They were both really good and we learned a lot.  Our stake president can't be more than 35 years old, and he is a little young guy totally full of energy and joy for the Lord's work.  We all love him so much and are thankful for his example.  Yesterday in the meeting he was talking about faith, and he said something I really liked.  He said, "La fe tiene un apellido."  "Faith has a last name."  He continued to say, "It's not just faith.  It is faith in Jesus Christ."  This is so true and so important!  If our faith is not firmly placed in Jesus Christ, it is not an effective faith.  This is His work, and He is the one who guides it.  By small and simple things, great things are brought to pass.  I had a somewhat sad day this week thinking that I had not seen more baptisms on my mission...specifically, not been able to help GXXX to get baptized...because I didn't have enough faith.  But after talking about it with Hermana Brown, and after thinking about the idea of faith in Jesus Christ, I know that if I have sufficient faith in Him, His will will win.  If I have faith in Him, my small and simple service can make a difference.  I am so excited for these last two weeks and for the chance to serve.  I believe that I can make a difference!  

I love you all so much and wish you all the best!  Thank you for signing me up for summer classes.  I will figure out the details when I get home.  I hope that you have a lovely Valentine's Day!  And I hope that you can all continue to feel great peace about the ward split.  Change is always for the better.  

I keep forgetting to ask...did Abby keep going in GHP?  Is she going to Valdosta?

Love always, Hermana Latham

                                                                Cool plants in Osorno :)

¡la historia familiar!

                                                                                                                 February 2, 2015

¡Hola!

I have forgotten to tell you for about three or four weeks in a row now...I got the sweetest little box from Sister Bowcut and some of the Young Women.  I don't have Sister Bowcut's email.  Will you tell her thank you for me?  It was such a cute little box!  The hand towels were just what we needed for our kitchen, Halls cough drops are pretty much like gold in Chile, and the four of us in our house each ate one of the Slim Jims and really enjoyed them.  It was so sweet of them to think of me!

To answer the questions: Yes, JXXX and GXXX are married, so that is thankfully not an issue.  President Obeso does mean what you think it means.  Obeso is obese in Spanish.  But it is pronounced oh-BEH-soh.  People think we are kidding when we tell them our mission president's name.  Ha.  What I think is worse is Hermana Obeso.  lol.  We finally finished all of the laundry this week, and now all of our clothes are clean!  YAY!  And our house is totally de-bugged!  DOUBLE YAY!!!  We have some really good bug spray that the mission bought for every missionary home in our mission and it kills everything.  I haven't had to deal with flea bites this summer, which is so nice.  I think that those two classes I told you should be good.  When I come home, I want to call the Spanish department and see if there is some way that I can take a test to exempt classes up to the level I'm at after serving a mission.  But for now I just want to make sure that I have a spot in the summer term.  When I get back I will also figure out what I want to do, if I want to major in Physics teaching and minor in Spanish teaching or vice versa, or if I just pick one or the other.  We'll see.

So this week was another interesting one.  Last week we got lice.  This week we got kicked out of our house (not literally, but almost).  We got home from our district meeting, and there was this random car out in front of our house.  But we live on a somewhat crowded street, so we just walked past it and started unlocking the gate to the house.  The lady walked up to us and told us that she was the owner of the house and she wanted to sell it by the end of February.  She told us she needed to come in and take pictures.  We had a different person on file as the owner, and as missionaries we are not allowed to receive anyone inside our house, so we had her talk to Elder Poulsen because he is in charge of missionary housing.  She talked to him and set up another date to come back to take the pictures.  So, we have to be out by the 15th.  We are looking actively for a place to live.  We called all of the members in our phone to help us, we checked every apartment complex in our sector...it's pretty stressful, in all honesty.  And by the time we move, I will probably only live in the new house for 2 weeks or so.  So we are praying and searching.  

This week I also officially finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish!  WOOOOOO!  It is such a great feeling every time I finish reading the Book of Mormon, but more so after having read it in my mission language.  I love the Book of Mormon.  It is a pillar of my testimony and of my life!  I am so thankful that the Lord saw fit in His wisdom to give us this book, so that we could learn to know our Savior and to follow His example.  I just wish that everyone would give the book a chance, sincerely, and ask God is it is true...because if it is, our message is singular and it makes all the difference.  I'm not sure what my next goal will be since I only have three weeks left.  But for now I've just been jumping around and reading different parts of the Book of Mormon.

I really can't believe it's February.  I thought that February 2015 would never come.  Elder Beecroft sent me the information for my trip home...going to the temple in Santiago, how many suitcases I can take, etc.  Wow.  Every day has become gold to me!  Today I was thinking about how it is Uncle Brackin's birthday!  Can you believe he's 50?  It's crazy.  Will you wish him a happy birthday for me?

We have been working with JXXX and GXXX this week.  He has been out working all week, so we have been teaching her alone.  She really opened up to us and we could see what she needs more.  We also brought Elder and Hermana Poulsen to a lesson we had, and she accepted a baptismal date!  They promised to come to church...but didn't come.  So the date we gave her fell through.  But we are going to do what we can to extend another date and prepare her for baptism before I go home.  She is willing to be baptized, so we just want to make sure that we do it in the Lord's time.  Even if she doesn't get baptized before I go home, I know that Heavenly Father has the perfect plan and He blesses His children when they are ready to receive the blessings.

We have also been working with two less active families this week and they both came to church!  We were SO excited!  One of the families is a grandma with her granddaughter, and their goal is to go to the temple in Santiago this year.  They are saving up their money and they want to get going on their family history.  The other family is a young man and his baby daughter, and he is so excited to reactivate himself in the church.  He wants to help our investigators to feel welcome when they come!  Our less actives are rocking it!!!  :D

Our ward is just bursting with energy on family history--la historia familiar.  We have several members who are so excited to get going on it!  Hermana Brown and I are trying to figure out how we can do a family history workshop, because we really think it would be a secret weapon.  The members could invite their friends to come, and they could prepare themselves for the temple.  We are working it in as a part of our ward mission plan!  The elders are excited about it, the members are excited about it, we are excited about it...I LOVE the spirit that comes in the room when we talk about family history.  I know that the spirit of Elijah is real.  I am so excited to be home so that I can start working on our family history!!!  I want to take a family history class at BYU.  It is incredible!

These are the masks you sent us for Christmas...lol they weren't actually mud in the packets, more like cloths with holes in them for the eyes :)

I love you all so so much!  I hope that you really enjoy your week!  Talk to you soon!

Abrazos, Hermana Latham

un esfuerzo constante y valiente

                                                                                                                                     January 26, 2015

¡Hola!

I love your last email!  That hymn has come to be my favorite sacrament hymn on the mission.  It's beautiful in Spanish, too.  (The Hymn Melanie is referring to is In Humility Our Savior.  

Link here:  www.lds.org/music/library/hymns/in-humility-our-savior.  

It's also funny to me that you noticed my missionary tan.  lol my body is a wreck.  I have a super-duper farmer's tan, a watch tan, my feet are striped from the different straps on my two different pairs of shoes, and I have like some kind of progressive tan going on on my legs...from brown at my ankle to totally white at my knees.  My feet have weird blisters and calluses (sp?) all over them, I have huge scabby calluses on my knees, and my hair is kind of the opposite of my legs...it's somewhat brownish at the roots and literally yellow at the ends.  The summer here is just so hot and sunny.  We actually got up into the 90s this week.  It's really no fun when you are either walking or inside a place without air conditioning.  We can't make it through a day without getting our hair in a ponytail, we wear tons of sunscreen, and we drink tons of water.  You guys will be happy to see me but then as the days go on you will be laughing....lol.  I'm also glad that I'm not going back to school after 3 days.  If you would have a nervous breakdown, I would be the same if not worse...probably wouldn't have eyebrows....hahaha.  I've really worked to break that habit on the mission.  I had to go on the BYU website and fill out my part, and I think that was when President Obeso did his part.

This week was crazy.  It was a lot of lasts...last zone training, last exchange with the sister training leaders, last zone conference.  But I am kind of glad to get all of those lasts out of the way so now I can just totally focus on missionary work and who I can serve and how I can help.  It was just a little bit emotional.  The sister training leader I went out with is awesome.  She is from the Dominican Republic, and she is just so friendly, so relaxed, and so loving.  I was fine until the end of zone conference when we sang our mission hymn, "Fe en cada paso," or "Faith in Every Footstep."  Link here:  www.lds.org/new-era/1997/04/faith-in-every-footstep?lang=eng It dawned on me that it was the last time I would sing that hymn in such a big group of missionaries and I started crying.  I know that all good things must come to an end...it is just hard.  I was thinking about that talk by President Uchtdorf and how we are not made for endings.  So I know that this will just be a pause and then I can be a full-time missionary again one day (maybe with my husband, or maybe in the spirit world).  

But then a couple hours after zone conference, Hermana Brown asked me to check her head for lice.  I was like, yeah right.  Found a little black bug.  We called the nurse and she came back home quickly to check it out...all four of us had lice.  AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!  The good news is that lice are not terrifying.  When I was a little girl I thought that if I got lice I would have them for the rest of my life.  We just had to buy the lice treatment shampoo, and comb any eggs out of our hair with the tiny-toothed comb they gave us, and then vacuum the whole house, cover it in bug poison, and wash all of our clothes and bedding.  Good thing that we have a washer and dryer in this area.  But we have just been dealing with this mess for the last four days and we are still not done with all the laundry.  Ugh.  Also today I put a red scarf in a colors load and it turned a bunch of other things red.  And somehow or another my Missionary Handbook got in the washer and totally died.  So it's been a really frustrating process.  I never want to have lice again!!!

I really learned a lot at the zone conference!  President Obeso based his talk on the analogy of the glass half-full or glass half-empty.  He talked about how it's all in our perspective, and the importance of gratitude for the things that we have.  Maybe our ward is struggling.  But we have X number of members who consistently attend...so let's work with them!  Let's look for their friends and invite them to go out with us to make visits!  It was a really good reminder just to think about the importance of gratitude and positivity.  I learned that gratitude honestly is the same thing as optimism.  

We also talked in the zone conference about diligence, which I thought was really applicable as I enter into the last month of these 18 months.  The definition of diligence in the scriptures in Spanish is "a constant, valiant effort," or "un esfuerzo constante y valiente."  As missionaries it is so imperative for us to be constant and valiant in our efforts to serve!

I love you all so much and I hope that you are doing so well!  I hope you are not too cold!

Lots of love, Hermana Latham

Dios nos ama

                                                                                                                    January 12, 2015

The cows of Osorno!

¡Hola!

Thank you so much for looking up all of that BYU information for me.  I am going to talk to my mission president so that I can get my ecclesiastical endorsement.  I wasn't sure if I could go back earlier than when I deferred to, but if it's possible, I'd really like to head out in June so that I can get back into college life!  I was thinking that it would be awesome to work at the MTC, and then I thought, well, maybe I can just go for summer then.  I want to get everything worked out with my ecclesiastical endorsement and stuff, but I may just wait to register for classes until I'm at home.  I know that a summer semester is 7 credits usually, and so I'm thinking of taking a math class and a Spanish class.  But I don't know if there is a way for me to sign up for a more advanced Spanish class since I'm pretty fluent....I'd like to take a test or something so that I can get going at the level I'm at and not have to take a 100 level class.  Oh, and Tricia and I have been writing each other and she told me that she would love to be roommates!  So I asked her about the housing situation because I figure it's easier for her to access that.

I am so proud of Abby and Benjamin!  They are really excelling!  I hope that Abby can go to GHP.  That would just be the coolest thing ever.  Do they still do it in Valdosta?  I'm also so excited for you to read the scriptures every day!  We tell all of our investigators that the Book of Mormon is their spirit's favorite breakfast (or lunch or dinner, whenever they read is awesome hahaha).  I totally agree with what the high councilman said about being active in the Church versus in the gospel.  I think a lot of the time we take the gospel for granted and get in the habit of just going to church every Sunday because we know that we should, but we are not focused on the reasons why.  My Book of Mormon teacher compared the difference between these two with anything that uses electricity, for example, a toaster.  The church is the toaster.  But the gospel is the electricity.  Without the electricity, the toaster is nothing.  There are lots of churches, but only our church has the fulness of the gospel!

Hermana Brown and I had a great week!  I learned about relying on the Spirit.  On Monday I was having a hard day.  We had a million things to do and not enough time.  I renewed my visa, which took a million years waiting in the Registro Civil (basically DMV or DDS type thing).  So we ran out of time to plan for the two lessons we had that night.  And I didn't have the time to clean the bathroom.  And I felt frustrated with my companion.  So I just did not know how I was going to be able to do these lessons!  (Hermana Brown does not speak much Spanish, so I carry more weight than I'm used to in our lessons.)  But I just kept praying in my heart that Heavenly Father would help to calm my anxiety, that I might know what to say and how to teach.  The lessons went fantastic!  I felt really calm, and the Spirit helped me know what to say, what questions to ask, how to include Hermana Brown, etc.  The family we visited (Johnny and Guisela) are starting to progress, little by little!  We are excited!  We are also teaching Hermana Obeso English!  It is so fun.  She is so sweet and adorable, and she just REALLY wants to learn English.  

We also had another cool experience where we taught some German people this week.  We had gone by a member family's home to invite them to come to ward council and start working on their family history, and when we got there, they introduced us to their German friends who were visiting.  One of the German boys is half Chilean (his dad is German, his mom is Chilean), so he spoke Spanish.  But the other German boy didn't speak any Spanish.  The poor guy!  He had a really hard time in the lesson!  But the family had a German Book of Mormon, and so we introduced the Book of Mormon to them and invited them to seek out missionaries when they go back home to Germany.  The boy who didn't speak any Spanish actually seemed really interested, so we are hoping he will look up the missionaries!  That day we had almost forgotten a copy of the Book of Mormon, so we went back home to grab one...and I also just happened to have a Restoration pamphlet in English in my backpack.  So we could give them a Book or Mormon in Spanish and a pamphlet in English (that the other boy would understand better than the Spanish one).  It was cool and I was glad that we had listened to the Spirit.

Yesterday in church we had some great lessons!  In Gospel Principles we talked about agency, and I liked how clear the book was when it said, "Dios nos ama.  Satanás no nos ama."  God loves us.  Satan doesn't love us.  It seemed so clear to me, especially this week as I have been striving to learn about and feel more of God's love in my life.  Then, in Relief Society, the lesson manual said, "Dios nos ama.  Satanás nos odia."  God loves us.  Satan hates us.  It seemed even clearer!  It was no coincidence to me that in two classes in a row, I learned exactly the same lesson.  I know that God loves us.  Whenever we have doubts about that, we can just look around us at all of the marvelous blessings that He provides to us.  All He wants is to bless us and let us have the blessings that He has!

Hermana Brown and I are so excited for this transfer.  I want it to be my best transfer yet!  We are praying, and we are focusing, on one specific desire--to help a family get baptized.  It is something that I have wanted to see for my whole mission.  I had somewhat decided that I wasn't going to see it, didn't deserve it, etc.  But Hermana Brown reminded me...even if I really didn't deserve it...Jesus deserves it.  And this is His work.  We are here to work in His vineyard!  I am so thankful for my opportunity to have six more weeks to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I love you so much and wish you all the best!  

Gigantes abrazos, Hermana Latham

More Cows!!

¡Jesús es mi luz!

                                                        January 19, 2015

                     

While helping another hermana on the day of transfers, we took what we thought was our bus...and it didn't have a circular route, so it dropped us off on the other side of Osorno in a little town called Rahue

¡Hola!

So on the BYU thing...I would love it if you could change my enrollment status.  I just think that getting started in the summer would help me to get back used to college before totally taking on a new semester.  Also I think I will have more possibilities for work that way.  I talked to President Obeso and he can't do my ecclesiastical endorsement until you have signed me up for classes.  I'm not exactly sure what classes I want to take yet!  But if you can just sign me up for some, I think that will give me a better chance of getting a spot in the summer term.  I really don't know what level Spanish class I should take, so would you just sign me up for a 100 level Spanish class when the sign-ups come around?  Then when I come home I can call the Spanish department and figure it out.  Also, will you sign me up for a math class called Math 290?  I think that's the one I want to take if I remember right.  It should be something about mathematical proofs.

As far as my release appointment goes...oh, man!  That is gonna be such an emotional day for me!  And for all of us!  Hermana Beecroft still hasn't given me the flight info but she told me that she emailed it to you.  She told me roughly that the flights from Santiago to Atlanta usually leave here around 10 at night Chile time and then get there to Atlanta around 5 or 5:30 in the morning.  I keep trying to figure out in my brain what I want to do on that first day at home and I just can't really fathom what that is going to be like.  I'm just really thankful that my first Sunday at home will be a fast Sunday so I won't have to speak for another week.  But it would probably be better, like you said, for me to rest some before I meet with the stake president.  I don't know how it works to still be a missionary while I'm at home, but I think as long as I'm with you it'll be okay because you can be my companion for the day.  Oh, how weird.  I truly am excited to come home, but I also just feel a deep sadness that this is ending.  I love this mission.  Oh, man.  But anyway, yeah, it will probably be better to do it later in the day if possible.  On that day I want to watch Frozen with you guys, I want to eat American food, and I want to buy new shoes.  But I'll think about it some more and give you more details later on.

This was a GLORIOUS week of missionary work!  We literally had a week full of amazing days.  We found so many new people to teach!  And when I was thinking about what would be the theme of the email this week, I just decided on "Jesús es mi luz" because Jesus is truly the light that we share and reflect!  I don't remember if that has been the theme before, but anyway.  It is the name for "The Lord is My Light" in Spanish, and there are many members here in this ward who LOVE the song and always want to sing it when we visit.  :)

On Monday we taught Hermana Obeso some more English.

Then on Tuesday we found a new investigator, PXXX.  Her mother recently died, so we talked about the Plan of Salvation, and she really understood, and felt the Spirit.  It was beautiful.

On Wednesday, we had to help out another hermana with some errands she needed to do in Osorno before she got transferred to her new area.  She stopped in Osorno between her two areas, so she needed a lot of help.  We did her whole visa process with her, and then helped her organize her suitcases and her ticket to get to her new area.  It was exhausting.  And we took the wrong bus.  So I sent pictures...  We learned a lot of patience, and also thanked Heavenly Father for putting us in her path so that we could help her.

being silly on the bus and after 

On Thursday, we taught an investigator, BXXX, about the Book of Mormon partially in English and partially in Spanish.  We're still not positive is she is interested in the message or only in the English, but it was fun.  Then we found a new investigator, our neighbor, Karen.  She lives with a less active member of the Church, so her kids know a lot about Primary and everything through their grandparents.  They seemed really interested!  We're hoping the gospel will bless them to change their lives for the better!  Then we taught another lesson.  It was an incredible day.

On Friday, we had a SUPER Family Home Evening with JXXX, GXXX, and their 5 kids!  We had been planning for it throughout the week, and everything turned out.  Hermana Brown made a little Plan of Salvation diagram that we taught the lesson with, and the bishop, the ward mission leader, and his wife helped us to answer our investigators' questions.  They felt a lot more comfortable with the Church because they could see normal Chilean Mormons.  We played a game and had snacks after...and they all got so into talking to each other that we left them talking with the members!  (I love it when they feel that comfortable!)  On that same day we also taught another neighbor who seems interested.

Then on Saturday night, we saw a family stacking their firewood into their shed and offered to help them.  They seemed skeptical at first.  But they took us up on it, so we ran home, changed clothes, and came back to help.  After we helped, we shared a little bit with them about our Church and they accepted a pamphlet and a return visit!  It was amazing!

On Sunday, JXXX, GXXX, and the kids all came to church, and another less active we visited also came.  YAY!  We also taught a lesson about family history to a less active lady, and the Spirit there was so incredible.  I have such a huge testimony and love for family history.  When I come home I want to get busy on that!

So what is the common theme between all of these stories?  The reason that we do it all is because we love our Savior and we know that His light will bless the people of Osorno, Chile.  We do it because He has taught us to love more as He loves...and we truly do.  I love this ward.  I love these people.  I love Chile!  There could not be a better summer to share the gospel.

I love you all so so so much!  I hope that you really have enjoyed your day off from school!  I hope that you all can search for the ways that the Lord is your light every single day.

Love always, Hermana Latham

P.S. if you haven't yet, read Sister Neill F. Marriott's talk.  It read it today and it is so AMAZING!  It is about sharing our light, which is just what I have been thinking about throughout the week.  Here's the link to Sis. Marriott's talk:  https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/sharing-your-light?lang=eng&cid=email-shared