Monday, July 27, 2015

Chile - Punta Arenas - Week 34 - Half way there...

 Well folks, Wednesday, July 22, I officially hit the half way point! I really can't believe how fast the time has gone. It's all downhill from here!
    These past few weeks have been really good! We are super busy all the time, lots of walking, lots of people to visit. Our sector is pretty big so we have to walk  (run) a lot to get to our appointments on time. 
     Our two investigators, Christian and Vanessa are doing well. They both came to church last Sunday, but they weren´t there this Sunday, which means their baptism date fell. We were really hoping they would be able to get baptized this transfer, but it looks like we are gonna have to push it back another few weeks. Christian is really prepared and ready, but Vanessa not so much. She is progressing well, but says she wants to do everything in her time and in her way. She doesn´t want to feel pressured.....We are trying to help her understand that there isn´t a lot of time to wait, hopefully in the next few weeks she will be ready!
    Other than that we don´t have a lot of people that are super close to baptism. We are teaching people, but not many are prepared right now. We have been working really hard on trying to get 10 contacts daily (not as easy as it sounds) and at least 1 baptism invitation everyday (also not easy) in hopes of finding someone that is really prepared. As a zone, we talk alot about how we only have a short amout of time with the authority to invite people to be baptized, so we should do it as much as possible. That is our purpose here. Invite others to come unto Christ, and if we aren´t inviting them, we are denying them the opportunity to repent and come unto Christ. That´s pretty heavy. Hopefully this week we will be able to be better at that!
    I can´t believe how fast the time is going, but I am so grateful that have 9 more months to continue learning, progressing, and helping others to progress! These past 9 months have been the hardest, most exhausting, and wonderful, most fulfilling months I've ever had. There is nothing more amazing than watching the gospel change people. I know that this next half of the mission is going to go by even faster, so I pray I will be able to keep up and put all of my strength and efforts into every single day. I know that this gospel is true, I know this is the work of the Lord, and I am proud to be His representative for a short time here in Chile! I am so grateful for all of the things the Lord as blessed me with and for the opportunity I have to share these blessings with everyone!  
 
Here´s to 9 more months! ¡VAMOS! 
Hermana Segura
Not sure what is up with my left foot....but its always swollen and my toe is black. I feel like that's a problem...
but we are just gonna go with it. My body is starting to fall apart......

Happy 9 months to us! This is Hermana Mota from Brazil!
We are from the same group of missionaries that came in December and now we are in the same zone!
We will end the mission together too! She is hilarious! 


Ice skating with the Chileans! Super fun!

LOOK WHAT I FOUND AT THE STORE!!!

this wall in my sector, it is made out of plastic bottle caps! Super cool!

this is one of our investigators, Solange. She will be moving to Buenos Aires this week so
we won't be able to keep teaching her.
We are super sad, but she said she is going find the missionaries in Argentina!

Monday, July 20, 2015

Chile - Punta Arenas - Week 33 - No letter this week.. just some pics..

It gets a little windy here in Punta Arenas! All of the trees are like this!


See that messed up spot in the snow? yeah I biffed it hard core!
there is so much ice everywhere,
so I'm surprised it was only my first time! I about peed myself laughing....

We went and ate at a members house and their neighbors have this massive dog!!
I about died when I saw him! 

and then it tried to eat my face.....

Monday, July 13, 2015

Chile - Punta Arenas - Week 32 - Barrio Ovejero

  
Hola, from the bottom of the world ! (literally)
I love my new sector here in Punta Arenas! The ward here (barrio Ovejero) is super awesome! All the members are great, I already love them so much! 
We have a few investigators, We have a family, Cristian y Vanessa, that my comp was teaching before I got here. They have a baptism date for August! We are really excited, they are awesome! The first time I went over there, Cristian told us that he had a dream where a person in white told him that what we were teaching was true! Crazy. He is so excited to be baptized! He came to church with us yesterday and loved it!
We also found a less active member this week that we didn´t even know lived in our sector! We knocked on a door and a women answered and let us in! We told her we were missionaries and that we shared a message about Jesus Christ, and then asked her if she had any religious believes. She said "I'm Mormon!" what?! She was baptized many years ago with her family and they were really strong members. Something happened with the Bishop of the ward at the time and they went inactive. Later her and her husband separated and her life kinda went downhill afterwards. We talked for awhile and shared a scripture with her (Mosiah 24: 13-16) about how the lord will lift our burdens. She said it was exactly what she needed to hear. We invited her to church but she said she didn´t know if she was ready, but that we could come back and visit her anytime!  We went back a few days later and the first thing she said to us was "I'm going to go to church with you on Sunday!"......again, what? and she did! Everyone in the ward was so happy to see her at church again and she looked so happy too! It was awesome! Love working with less active members!
 
One more cool experience of the week, While we were walking to our lunch appointment one day, a man walked passed us. We said "hola!" he said "Do you have a pamphlet that I could read?".....What? (a lot of "what" this week) "Uh yeah do you want one?" We stopped and talked to him for awhile. He said that he was going through a hard time and that he just wanted to feel something. He said that he had been praying for God to show him, or help him feel something "true". He had been looking for that feeling in other churches, but hadn´t found what he was looking for. We told him that we had what he was looking for and that God had heard his prayer. We gave him a pamphlet about the plan of salvation and told him to read and pray about it, and that God would answer him! He was so excited! The weird thing is, we were about 20 minutes late leaving the house to go to lunch that day. We crossed paths at the precise moment......There are people in our path prepared to hear the gospel. What would have happened had we not said anything? or had we been on time? God answers prayers!
I am sure these are just the first of many miracles that I will experience here in Punta Arenas! I am so excited!
Hermana Segura
We had a snowball fight with the neighbors, they are members!

Woke up to like 4 inches of snow on tuesday! Awesome!

Lots of snow and super frio!!!

We went and cooked our sunday lunch with a member yesterday!
She asked me if i could cut the onions and then handed me these goggles and
they are in fact called "onion goggles".....the things people come up with....

The tradition is you gotta kiss the foot,
which means you will come back to Punta Arenas!
so, of course I had to kiss it... 

The foot was cold.... Everyone that passed by said
I was super lucky to get a picture with this statue with snow on it! EXITO!


This statue is super famous! Not sure why, but it is....

Centro (down town) in Punta Arenas!

Monday, July 6, 2015

Chile - Punta Arenas - Week 31 - Do you wanna build a snowman?!

Punta Arenas !!!

Well I had to say goodbye to Pucón this week. It was tough, but I really was excited to leave and have some new experiences. Saying goodbye to everyone was the worst, but thanks to facebook, I know I´ll be able to keep in touch with them! That made it easier. I loved every second in Pucón! 
       
My journey to Punta Arenas was great! I left Tuesday morning to Villarica, had District meeting, ate lunch, and then headed off on a bus to Puerto Montt, about 4 hours south.
I stayed the night with the Hermanas there! Hermana Marinho, my "companion" that I had for 3 weeks when we were in Villarica, was there! It was fun to see her and talk to her again! Her companion was heading down to Punta Arenas too so we headed to the airport the next morning together!
We flew out around 10:30am and got to Punta Arenas around 12:30pm. The flight was beautiful! Southern Chile is seriously one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever seen! 
        
We got here just in time for winter! We got off the airplane and the ground was covered in snow! Crazy! We are super close to Antartica so it's kinda of cold here......super cold.
The wind is frigid!
So far I love it! It reminds me of Utah at Christmas, except for the fact that its July.....but whatever! Today I woke up to snow and its still snowing! I am totally rockin the snowboots today! 
       
The people here are super nice and so are the members! I am in a pretty good sized ward which is a really nice change! Im excited to work with them! 
       
Excited for my new adventures here and the bottom of the planet! (literally the bottom. The stake Punta Arenas is the farthest south stake in the world!)  
       
Here´s to a snowy few months!
Hermana Segura.

This is our house, it's smaller than the one in Pucon! My head almost hits the ceiling.....
  
Hermana Snyder y yo. Ella es de California.

CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE VIVA CHILE!!!!
Celebrating Chile's championship - Copa America 2015 

lots of snow!!
woke up to snow today! super cold!!
​Will I ever be in a place where my life is not in danger?...
now I'm too close to the ocean....

To the Ends of the Earth !!

Antarctica !!