I'm sure that I am learning more than "mi hija"

Feb 26, 2011

Hello there family,

These have been some of the best few days of the mission. I can feel a change happening me. It´s pretty neat. I thought I loved the mission, but the last few weeks, I can just feel even deeper every day the blessing of this service. I wake up so happy every day, to get up and get out there and share this message.

The last few days of training have been such a great experience. I know that I am learning more from her than she is learning from me, but at the same time, she is learning so MUCH! (I´m just learning more...is that unfair to say?...I don´t know, but I´m sure it´s true). It has been such a testimony to me that the Lord calls those that have the desire to serve, and then He qualifies them for the work. She has grown leaps and bounds in just 3 days. I tell her, and she humbly denies it. Maybe she can´t tell, but I have the front row seat and I am just amazed at how great the learning curve is on the mission. I can already tell her Spanish is improving, her teaching skills, her sensitivity to the Spirit, her testimony, her understanding...she is growing so much! It is really cool to stop and think about. I think of the past year, and the progress that I have made in only one year. Not just as a missionary, but as a person, as a daughter of God. Now I know why we serve missions. If I had chosen not to serve a mission, I think that it would have taken me many, many, many....MANY years to make this progress. I have been changed...and it really has nothing to do with me. It has to do with the Atonement. Thanks to Jesus Christ, we can change. We can be better. We can get up every morning and try our best, and go to bed every night and promise to try even harder the next day. What a blessing! Tell the world about it!

We have a new bishop in the ward. Obispo Pablo Muñoz. Last night we had a really great reunion with him, the Soc Soc presidency, and our Ward mission leader. He is very passionate about getting the members to be missionaries. He is having every organization think of ways that they can help those that we teach, and even more give references of those that we can teach. I am SO impressed with the fire that Obispo Muñoz has for the work. He served in this mission many years ago, and so he knows what it takes to have success. I am very excited to really get the ward excited for the work. Hermana Baum and I saw some great progress the last cambio, and with this new push for the work from the Obispo, I know we´ll continue to see it grow. I KNOW that if every member of the Church obeyed the commandment given to be a missionary, there would so much less problems. Just think if the whole ward acted, served, prayed, studied, testified like missionaries do....how much better off would we be? How much happier would we be? A lot. Think about it. It´s a commandment. When we obey, we receive great blessings. BE MEMBER MISSIONARIES! IT¨S SO WORTH IT!

I am just so happy. We are seeing a lot of great progress here in this sector. I feel blessed to be a witness of it. I am grateful for the miracles that we see every day. I love this. And yes, it is all that I hope for, and so very much more. Thank you for the support and love and letters of encouragement for the last year. Thank you for making this possible for me, and thank you for preparing me for this for the last 22 years. I love you all. Have a great week, and please keep praying for us. (We found 2 more families this week...de oro...milagros) Prayers are answered.


--LOVE--

Hermana Bertagnole

Finishing up another cambio

Hello Familia bonita,

Well, I have lots of news for you all. I have decided to stay in Chile as long as possible. Asi que, I am going to stay through the September cambio, so that means that I will have to start school in January...I hope that you won´t mind too much my company for a few more months before school starts! I just feel like I can´t give away even a few weeks of the mission just to go to school. I have been and will be going to school for a long time, and the mission is just WAY to short as it is, so I just can´t do it. I love it too much and I am just too happy. There´s too much work to do here anyway. Tell all the Latin sisters in the ward that they are going to have to help me adjust back to Church meetings in English....ewww que trunky.

The other pretty big news, is I found out that I will be training this next cambio...?!?!?!?!?!?! We dropped by the mission home this morning and the President put his arm around my shoulders and asked me, "How do you feel about training?" I am so excited and really nervous at the same time. I know that so much of the type of missionary you are depends on your first few months in the mission...and so much of that depends on your trainer. I feel so blessed to have a great trainer, Hermana Aponte, and I know that thanks to her and the lessons that she taught me, I got off on the right foot. I hope and pray that I will be able to help this little nuevita, Hermanita Hunt really start her mission running. I am excited to get to train her and become her mama in the mission. PRAY FOR ME AND HER. Please. This will be such an important next few months for her and me. I am nervous...but excited. I have lots of good ideas that I hope will help her.

We have had a great week this week. We had divisions on Monday. It was great. We had everything set up again for Wednesday, but one of the sisters bailed on us; but we have another set of divisions set up for this Sunday...tomorrow. I am excited. I love divisions with the sisters in the Relief Society...I feel like we just get so much more done. I know that with training, we won´t be able to do them much, but it was fun while it lasted this cambio. It gets so much more work done. Time is so precious here. Always too fast. I know that it is really helping to have the missionary spirit just come alive in the ward. I can tell a difference in the ward the last couple of weeks. We have gotten a couple of really good references from the members, and one of them will be coming to the conference tomorrow! He´s a blind man. We taught him for the first time yesterday, but he is just great. The best part is that he wanted his son to read him a chapter in the Book of Mormon for him...that´s like hitting two birds with one stone! I can´t help but think of the deaf women that we taught in Punta Arenas, and I know that while being blind or deaf would be such a challenge, when it comes to learning the Gospel and feeling the Spirit, they have such an advantage over us. They just pay more attention to their feelings, instead of the distractions of the world. It is just amazing to me. I am really excited to keep visiting this man and his kids.

We have had a really great cambio. I am sad for Hermana Baum to leave. We have had such a great time together. It has just flown by though. Every cambio goes faster, and I already know the next one will feel like it´s only a few hours long!

I got the Valentine package you sent! Thank you so much. It made my day. I am trying to hide the candy from myself so I don´t eat it all at once. One of my Zone leaders knew and loved Fruit Medley...so I had to hide it from them too. Thank you! As far as the Christmas package goes, we´ll have to just wait and see... But thanks.

Other news...I am getting ready for winter so I am buying a nice umbrella ($20) that will hold up and I am finally getting around to buying that rain jacket ($70) that I told you about back in Chiloe...once I got to P. Arenas, I didn’t need it, but I think now that I am back in Osorno...I will need it pretty bad.

I am so happy. I just can´t believe that I have been given such a great blessing of being in the mission. Every day I wake up and I just kinda smile to myself. It all feels like a dream. I feel so blessed. I love it. I can´t even tell you how much...it´s impossible.

Thank you for your letters and your love. I miss you guys, but I pray for you all every day.

-Abrazos grandes

Hermana Bertagnole

Today we walked through the jungle

Feb 12, 2011

Thank you all for all your letters this week. I love you guys tons. I hope that everything continues to go well this next week. It sounds like you all had a pretty good week. Tell Mikey and Val and the boys "hi" for me while you´re out there. Tell Scott that I’m praying for him lots. I love that kid. I love you all lots and lots and lots.


As for the earthquake, I didn´t even know about it until I read your letters. Don´t worry, we have emergency packs ready, just in case of earthquakes. I know that we are protected, and if we do get one down here, it´ll just be another adventure to write home about. We´re safe.

This week was another really good week. I feel so blessed to be a missionary. I just can´t believe the great privilege that it is in my life. I am changed. I am addicted. I am the happiest I have ever been. We are really working hard helping those that we are teaching to progress. Life just really gets in the way...I hope that you all are remembering why it is, really, that we live in this earth. Always make sure that you have your priorities straight. I realized that before the mission I wasn´t even close to having my priorities straight. I always say that the mission is a miracle in my life...and that is one of the reasons...I feel that it has opened my eyes to the reality of life. It´s beautiful and so inspiring. I can´t imagine my life without the mission....I don´t want to.

This week we had Elder Amado and Pte Lovell in our Zone Conference....It was intense. Elder Amado is the area 70. He is very well known for telling things like it is. He pretty much called us all to repentance. As a mission we had 28 baptisms last month...we should have around 80. I think more than anything as a mission we lack a lot of faith. There is beauty in blind faith. I think a lot of times we say "I will go and do....but...the sector is a tough one...but...the people aren´t receptive...but...I can´t take away their agency...." We are happy to "go" but we don´t really believe that we can make a difference. I know I have certainly felt like that before on the mission and it is so wrong. Obviously, with our own efforts we can do very little, but we have to have faith in what we can accomplish with the Lord. We are on His team, and we can be part of the miracles. I am really trying to learn that pure and impeccable faith in the Lord. After the trial of faith, we see miracles.

Well, that´s all I got time for. I´m printing your letters and reading them this afternoon. I don´t have time to respond to much this week. Sorry. I´ll try and do better next week. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. Thank you for everything. Hugs all around.

The pictures are from a waterfall that we went to this week. So incredible. I love Chile. Come.

--All my love--

Hermana Bertagnole

Feb 5, 2011
Hello familia bonita:

I CAN´T TELL YOU HOW GREAT THIS WEEK HAS BEEN. So remember that I was telling you all about the standard this last week. It´s the standard of excellence for all the companionships in the mission...it´s a very high standard, but it is what the Lord asks of us. We have pushed ourselves and our members to the limit this week, and I am so happy to say that we have almost met it!!!!! Obviously we still have today and tomorrow...we are working very hard and praying very hard that we get the people with baptismal dates to church...everyone really, but especially them. We´ll see how it goes. PLEASE pray for our investigators. There is a couple that is preparing for baptism, but they need to get married first. I know that if they start coming to church again, they will receive direction on what they need to do and when. Also PLEASE pray hard for the mom and sister of a young man who got baptized a few years ago and then served a mission. He is now sealed in the temple and is living in Santiago with his wife. His family has been investigating the Church for over 20 years, and we have started teaching them again. Yesterday we had a very serious talk with them about why they haven´t gotten baptized. We asked the mom if she believed that everything is true. She said she believed it in her head, but she hasn´t felt it in her heart........the woman has a painting of the 1st vision in her living room......just so you know. We explained the importance of prayer. Luckily we had an RM member with us that bore a powerful testimony of prayer, and we invited her and her daughter to prepare for baptism on the 5th of March. She said that she would really pray about it. Please pray for her that she will let her heart be touched. They need to get baptized so badly...this whole family.

We have just had a week full of miracles and blessings from the Lord. We feel very blessed to say that we are getting very close to the standard! This last Sunday for the 5th Sunday, all the RS and Priesthood met together. We took the opportunity to make them aware of the change in standard, and to remind them that the standards don´t only apply to us as missionaries, but it was the Lord requires of them as a ward as well. I feel that it touched their heart. We also organized divisions this week with some really great hermanas in the ward. As of today we have 16 lessons with members. I just can´t tell you what a miracle week this has been in the mission. I feel like it all had to do with a change in attitude and a leap of faith. I know that we are seeing this success because we changed our attitude about the work. This week the work has truly ceased to become "work", even though we are working harder than ever. I am just so happy, and I really know that it doesn´t have as much to do with the success that we have seen this week, but more with my attitude. I feel so very blessed. We have seen pure miracles this week. It has just been incredible.

We, as a mission have been focusing more on families!!!!!! AMEN! We are working with a lot of whole families in our sector right now, which is such a blessing. I know that it is so much more effective. We are working with this family...I think I already talked about them... and their 3 kids, and their son´s girlfriend. They also have shared lots with the missionaries many years before. Both of them have family that is very strong in the Church, and so they already know a lot, but I don´t feel that they have ever taken the time to really pray about it. We invited them very strongly to pray about it every day, until they know. It was a great lesson. They are very special.

Gosh. This week was just pure miracles. I love being a servant of the Lord, every second of everyday. What a blessing.

Well, this is all I have time for this week. I just want to let you all know that I love you a ton. I am so grateful for all that you do for me. I love you all. Work hard. Share the Gospel. Be obedient. And love one another.

--Les amo hasta la luna...no...el sol...hasta el sol...y mas. :)

Hermana Bertagnole

Side notes: As far as the Christmas packages go....I still haven´t gotten Mom and Dad´s, but I asked in the office and they said that some mail was held up in Chile because of strikes. These people do strikes like crazy here. There was another one this week in Osorno. Anyway. They said that it will come. They have never lost mail, don´t worry, I´ll be pleasantly surprised one day. I did get a package from Steph, so thank her for me.