First week of my fifth cambio in the mission... que rapido el tiempo!

Hey beautiful family of mine,


We are off to kind of a slow start for the cambio. But that is to be expected as we didn´t really get to start a full day of work until Thursday, but still it was a little frustrating. But it´s all good. As all the Chileans say "es lo que hay". I am excited to start the week fresh and new. I am trying to learn a lot these next two cambios. I think it is going to be a huge learning experience. Learning a lot of Spanish, humility, and patience. The Lord blesses us when we try our best. I know that already, I just have to have a prayer in my heart that He will help me remember that always. I am learning a lot, as I try and keep my attitude right. I keep reminding myself what mom always taught us that your life turns out just like your attitude. I am trying to just love every second of it. Even the tough ones. :)


It´s a blessing to work with Hermana Campos. I am learning a lot. Sometimes, it can be hard to change companions, and adjust to a new one, but I am learning a lot. She has a lot of animo, and she´ll be good for the ward here. I am realizing how little Spanish I actually know. I am trying to keep my confidence up and be patient with myself. I know that I am growing closer to my Heavenly Father as I try my best to complete the work that He has prepared for me.

We are still trying to focus on working with the members here to strengthen the ward. We were in Ward Council yesterday, and it seems everyone is kind of down on the animo, as assistance is gradually going down and down. We are really trying to work hard to help everyone have more animo. The leaders need a lot of support.


We are teaching a woman named Alejandra and her little boy Pablo. They are miracles for me. Pablo is 9 years old and he told us the other day that he wants to be a missionary. He wants to be an angel to other people and teach them about Jesus. They both really want to get baptized. He told us that since we have been teaching him, he is doing better in school and behaving better too. He told his teacher that he has two tias (aunts literally, but that is what they all call us here...well they call everyone that they are semi close with aunt and uncle) that come to his house and teach him about Jesus. He is so sweet. His mom came to Church this week and really liked it. I really hope everything works out well so that they can enter the waters of baptism. I know that the Lord is and has prepared them both. It is so cool to see them grasp on to the Gospel. Their lives are changing. It´s neat to see it first-hand.


Gosh I just love being a missionary. I love learning these lessons and I love seeing these miracles.


Yesterday we contacted a girl from Canada named Michelle. She was SO great. She´s teaching English as a volunteer down here. I was talking to her in English...and I ended up just apologizing to her about how bad my English is! Hahahahah, she just laughed. I can´t speak well in English anymore. I have to think about it so much. It was the weirdest feeling ever. She was great though, so cool.


Welp, that´s all I have time for. I love you all more than you´ll ever know. Tell everyone thanks for their emails. It´s always so great to hear from you all. LOVE YOU ALL TONS.


ABRAZOS

--Hermana Bertagnole

Not running faster than I have strength...but enough that my lungs are burning

Hey Ya´ll

Well, we had a pretty good week this week, under the circumstances. Hermana McMaster was way sick this week. I felt really bad for her, being that sick, much less being that sick during her last week in the mission. She was a trooper, though. We worked every day. We did go home early two nights, but I was just amazed that she was working at all. She was sick, sick. But she´s feeling better now. Mom, I already know you are going to ask if I took Echinacea….yes…and many other vitamins : ) I feel fine. I think I got lucky, usually when one is sick we´re both sick.

Well, we had a really good week, but unfortunately it was raining Sunday morning so hardly anyone came to church. I thought a lot about you guys while we were walking to church. It reminded me of taking summer morning walks with Momma back at home. So peaceful. It was a beautiful experience. Trunky as it may be. Jajaja.

I found out this morning that my new companion will be Hermana Campos. She is from Santiago. I think I´ll probably be with her for two cambios, so my Spanish should be amazing by the end of this companionship. I don´t think that she speaks near as much English as Hermana Aponte, so I can´t even cheat : ) It´s going to be solid Spanish for 3 months. That´s good stuff. Just this morning I was praying and asking that Heavenly Father will help me learn the language better, and to help me have the discipline to only speak Spanish to my companions…well, prayers are answered. He must have known I don´t have the discipline strong enough so he just took away the other option : ) Hahaha. I am excited to work with her. I think I am going to learn a lot. I think that she is still pretty new in the mission too, so it will be good to learn from each other.

The Spanish is really coming along well. I mean, I think I am to the point right now where I know how to speak pretty decently, but I get hard on myself when my mind doesn´t think fast enough. I need to count my blessings though, everyone says my Spanish is really good, but I think maybe they’re just being nice. I am excited to learn a lot the next few months. I am starting to pick up the subjunctive a little bit more. That one is always the hardest, but I like it. It´s fun to learn and listen to.

We had a really great Noche de Hogar with the ward this week. I think it inspired the members to take more part in the work. We had some very powerful testimonies shared, including the testimony of a friend of Claudia (our recent convert who is deaf), Christina (who is also deaf). She shared that because of Claudia, she has began sharing with us, and she told everyone that she would really like to be baptized as well! It was neat to hear her testimony, as it was the first time that we had heard her share it. I think it was good for the members to see that people are prepared, we just have to invite them. Please, I am begging you all. Be member missionaries. Give the missionaries in the ward one referral a month. Just think of the people that you know that could be prepared and then pray about it. I know that we know so many people that are or have been prepared to hear the good word. Share it!!!! Don´t be selfish. Help the missionaries. The work would be so much more effective if the members took the counsel of the Prophet and became missionaries too. That is where the work is successful. That is where the members are retained. Please do it. If you don´t I´m going to chew you all out a lot when I get home : ) …but seriously. Also, please pamper the Elders in the ward. Just spoil them. Do anything for them. Their lives can be hard sometimes. DO IT! They will love you more than you think for it.

I love you guys more than I can say. You all are the best. Thank you for the emails.

That´s about all the news I have for this week. I resent the pictures from last week. Pretty cool experiences right there. Oh, the adventures of the mission. I remember that when I started to think about going on a mission, Mom said, “Well, I can´t imagine that she´ll turn back now…she can´t live without adventure.” Let´s just say I am so very glad that the Lord gave me the opportunity to have this adventure. I know that I will never ever regret this. It’s such a tender mercy in my life. How undeserving I am of such a great thing! Gosh. Love this.

I love you all tons.

-Hermana Bertagnole

Learning to see the miracles

Hey familia mia,

I just want to say that I am sorry that I wrote kind of a downer letter last week. I was just having a little bit of a lapse of faith. But I want you all to know that I really appreciate your letters and your pump up. It helps a ton. I really can´t thank you all enough for your support and faith in me.

I am glad to hear that things are really going alright back at home. I am pumped to hear about all the missionaries going out from our stake. That is AWESOME! I need all the company I can get up on that bulletin board .

Well, this week was such a great blessing in my life. I think that I really learned some great lessons this week. Remember how last week was just hard? This week was too....we didn´t really see much difference until Saturday. I decided to just buck up and buckle down. We worked really hard this week. We tried to plan really well, and make sure that we had people planned out to back up our goals. Every night I was just wiped out. It felt so good. The week was really not looking that great, but Saturday it took an incredible turn. We went out with the Zone Leaders to a cita. And one of them fell through so we were knocking doors. We split up. We found a mom, daughter, and granddaughter that are AWESOME. The mom´s grandmother used to read from "this book" about Jesus. I asked her what book it was, and she didn´t know (I don´t think her Grandma was Mormon...but just had a Book of Mormon). I pulled out the Book of Mormon to show her and she lit up...she said "eso es!!!" That was the book! It was neat. We are really excited to go back and teach. They are named Bernarda and Daniela. Pray for them. They are prepared. The zone leaders found some people, too, that may or may not be promising...we went to teach some of them and they weren´t hugely receptive, but maybe it was just bad timing. We´re going back to try and teach again this week.

Then yesterday, everything in the afternoon fell through again. But it led us to someone that was a miracle. A young mother named Alejandra and her 9 year old son Pablo. We started the lesson, and I just told her...you know, we are going to ask you to be baptized, but really we want you to understand why. I don´t know why I started the lesson like that. I never have before, and initially we were just going to teach about the Book of Mormon. She began to talk about her life and how it´s been very difficult. The father of Pablo was abusive to her and so she left him when Pablo was 3 and began working in a job that, as she explained, "no woman should ever work...if you understand what I´m saying." She said that she soon quit, and just felt so ashamed. She said that every day since then she has pleaded with the Lord to forgive her. She told us that she just doesn´t know what she can do to be forgiven. My heart broke for her and the pain that she has felt for that sin. She said that all she really wants is to be an example for her son and raise him well. Needless to say, we taught baptism and the remission of sin. We invited her and her son to be baptized together. She seemed so excited. I can´t wait to go back and teach. She seems very happy to learn more. She thanked us so much for being missionaries and teaching her. It was neat.

Later last night we taught Claudia´s friend Cristina. Awesome. Between the two of them, I am picking up a lot of signs...I signed for her during Sunday school the other day, and I surprised myself that I knew so much Gospel words in signs! (OH! Parenthesis: So yesterday during testimony meeting Claudia stood up and bore her testimony. That was a miracle. She spoke and signed at the same time. She has such a powerful testimony, and we were all (us and the members) were just in awe...crying and so impressed with her and her spirit. SO rewarding to see that.) Anyway...yeah, so last night we taught Christina. She is living with her boyfriend right now (and actually he was baptized when he was a boy, but has never really gone to church), but we invited her to get baptized on Christmas day! How cool is that!? We figured that that would give us enough time to teach them all that they need to know and also get married, or move out...whichever. But it was a neat lesson. We invited her to be baptized in sign language....who´d have thunk!? :)

It was a good week. Many lessons learned. Many miracles seen. We are so blessed to know what we know. Fight for it. Fight to keep the Spirit and the Faith. Never let it go for anything. Para nada.

Well, that pretty much sums up my week. Good stuff. I love the mission. Full of good stuff.

I love you all tons. Thank you for it all. Miss you. Keep up the good work. Don´t for get to be member missionaries!!!!! Help the missionaries. They need it. Happily serve them, because they are happily trying their best to serve you! LOVE YOU ALL.

-Hermana Bertagnole

Conference Week

Thank you so much for your letters this week. I love you all so much. You all have no idea how important you all are to me, and how grateful I was to receive your letters this week. They mean the world to me. I am so glad to hear that all is going well and that you all enjoyed conference. I just love you all so much. I think of you often, and it makes me smile. I thought of you all so much during conference. It just makes me feel so great knowing that I have the family that I do. I know that I was sent to a purpose to you all, and I just really don´t know what I did up there to deserve it. I just can´t say thank you enough for all that you have done and sacrificed for me growing up and now, so that I can serve this mission. I know this is what I am supposed to be doing right now. I know it. I love you all so much. I can´t tell you all enough.

Well, this week´s letter will have to be a short one, without pictures. We have a Zone activity that we are going to have to meet up for so I don´t have time to write a lot. But I´ll write what I can with the time that I have.

To be honest this week was kind of a rough one. We lost quite a bit of ground with numbers...I´m not really sure why. Everything just kept kind of falling through. The hardest blow came yesterday when only one of our investigators ended up coming to conference. There were four opportunities for people to come and only one did. Few of the members and recent converts came either. It was so great to hear the words of the Prophet, but it was hard to hear them knowing that people that really needed it weren´t there. I cannot pin point why this week was so difficult, but I am learning to have faith in the great principle of agency. I am learning that even though I want to with all my heart, I can´t make anyone do what they deep down don´t want to do. I could love these people to death, but if they don´t love their Savior enough to keep His commandments, and receive His blessings, I can´t make them. I think the realization of that this week is what was the hardest. I think that´s why they say the mission is so hard. Before all we really had to worry about (or thought we had to worry about) was ourselves...now we worry about the salvation of souls. It is a big charge, but I am so grateful to be trusted to do this. I am really focusing on just loving the people more, having more faith in them, and not judging people. We were a little beat up this week, but we have toughened up and we´re going back for more. I have faith that we will have a great week this week. We are happy and ready to do what the Lord has planned.

I don´t mean for this letter to be a complainy letter in anyway...I just say it like it is. It was a hard week, but I am so ready for more. I am glad to have a fresh start this next week, and I am so grateful for the Conference to boost my faith. I know that I am just where I need to be doing what I need to be doing. Even though I can´t see that I am making a difference, I have faith that I am. I know that there are many very special lessons to be learned in the trials of life. That is what I wanted to share with you in this letter. Sometimes life isn´t a fairy tale. Sometimes it just downright stinks, but really that is when we learn. That is when we get to figure out who we really are, and what we need to improve. The Lord gives us weaknesses to make us stronger. To humble ourselves and to have a clear, untainted vision of who we are and what we want to become. I am so grateful for every challenge that we have had this week, and all the challenges that we will have. There is a purpose, and with them we can see clearer than without them.

I love you all so much. No saben cuanto. I pray for you all always. Thank you for all your love and support. I hope that this wasn´t too much of a downer letter. I didn´t mean it to be. I just want you all to know that I love this work more because it´s hard. Easy come easy go. I loved the quote in conference "You get what you pay for". It´s so true. I gotta give it all, cause this is a once in a lifetime chance for me to do that. I am happy, and I am so grateful to be trusted with this work. I love my Savior Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice for me. What would we do without that knowledge. Be grateful and act grateful.

Love you all tons.

BIG HUGE HUGS COMING YOUR WAY!!!!!!!! :D

Hermana Bertagnole