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!

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 !!

Chile - Pucòn - Week 30- From Pucòn to Punta Arenas...

This week I'm saying good bye to Pucòn.  I'm being transferred to Punta Arenas which is the most southern city on our mission... Sad but excited for the new experience..

Chile - Pucòn - Week 29 - No letter this week..

Transfers are next week.  We'll find out on Monday whether I get transferred or not.  I've been here for quite some time already. Ready for new adventures.

we had to walk about an hour to get there! It was super fun though!

Made our way to a waterfall today! on the way I found the sacred grove..
it's FINE....#youmustbeamissionary.....#quehermosalamañana

Chile - Pucòn - Week 28 - Let it snow..

Ohhhhhh... it is so cold here!! There is snow in the mountains and its rainy everyday where we are! Cold cold cold cold!

But this week was good! Especially yesterday at church! Our investigator Maria came and loved it!  Pilar, our less active member came with her new baby, which is a miracle! Her story is so sad. She has been through the temple and everything, but just made a few poor decisions that affected her life big time. Now we are just trying to help her  get back on the right road. She stayed all 3 hours of church and shared her testimony and gave the closing prayer in Relief Society! I am so excited for her! Hopefully we will be able to help her.

Other than that things are the same! Everyone is progressing really well and we are looking forward to some changes here in our branch to help things progress even further! We´ll see what this next week brings! 

 

Hermana  Segura

 

#chelfi I got my hur did! It doesn´t look like much, but it was a solid 2-3 inches!

I got attacked  by a dog and it ate my skirt... I'm sick of dogs.



We found harry potter scarfs in Villarica so our whole district bought one!
We look legit! We went to a members house yesterday and she had this robe! 

this is how we teach when we have lessons with jessica and damian...
not really but these hats are hilarious

Jesica y Damian´s son turned 1 on wednesday so we had a party!
It was fun! (notice how giant I am compared to most chileans...all chileans...)

We roast marshmallows with our heater.. =) my comp had never tried roasted mallows!

It is so cold here !!!

 

Chile - Pucòn - Week 27 - Sometimes He lets it rain..

Holy Hannah,

I have never seen so much rain in my life. It has  been raining everyday non stop for the last week. But aside from the rain, this week was pretty good!

Everyone is progressing really well! Jesica and Damian and their family are studying the scriptures every night together which is like huge for them. Jesica`s son Brandon is seriously a miracle. He is reading the Book of Mormon on his own along with all the pamphlets. The other day we taught them about family history and gave them a My Family pamphlet to fill out with info about their ancestors to help them get started. Yesterday we went to teach them again and Brandon said that he had already started filling it out and that he went to his grandmas house to talk to her and get more info about is great grandparents........WHAT? Is this even real? I have no idea, but it's incredible.

All of them are progressing so well.

Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting and our investigator (practically member) Magali got up and shared her testimony! It was so awesome. One of the coolest experiences I`ve had here. She is so amazing. 

Maria is also doing well. She understands everything and is keeping her commitments so thats good! The other day we had a lesson with her and decided to sing a hymn together. We sang "Nearer My God To Thee" and it made her cry. Love the spirit that the hymns bring! 

Friday we had an experience in the rain......We left the house at 3:00 as usual and by 3:15 I was soaking wet, boots and all. I have never seen it rain so hard in all my life, let alone been in the middle of it all. I didn´t know what else to do but laugh! My comp and I just stood there and laughed! A few minutes later it stopped a little, so we kept on walking. I was soaking wet, freezing cold, but I realized I was smiling. I thought to myself "this is awful, I am soaking wet, cold, we have to walk for hours everyday, my feet hurt, my legs hurt, my makeup is running down my face, there is no one to talk to on the street and I'm pretty sure no one would want to talk to us right now, this is hard.....why am I smiling?" It's the gospel. The gospel is the source of true happiness. Sharing the gospel has brought me more happiness than I could ever imagine, but it's a different kind of happy, it's a happy that comes from the inside, not from something outside that the world can provide. It's awesome!  
 

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to share the source of true happiness!

Hermana Segura

Chile - Pucòn - Week 26 - God has a reason for everything.

 
Oh my goodness ! This week was probably one of the coolest weeks of the mission so far!

Monday we went to the house of Jessica and Damian to see how her sister Marlen like church on Sunday! She said she really liked it! We also went with the purpose of asking her son Mayco if he still wanted to keep learnig about the church and preparing to be baptized with Jesica and Damian. He said yes! Brandon, Jesicas other son was there as well.  When I first started here, he didn`t really want anything to do with us. We would invite him to listen and he always said no, so we just kinda left him alone.

A few months ago he was there for one of our lessons and he listened and even participated a little, which was huge. Since then hes shown a little more interest here and there. After we asked Myco if he wanted to keep preparing, I asked Brandon if he would like to start taking the lessons. He said yes! While I was on a role, I asked Marlen if she would like to take the lessons along with her friend that Jesica told us about last Sunday. She said yes! We arranged a schedule where we could come and teach Marlen and her friend before work, and then come back later in the night to teach Brandon and Myco after school! We were there almost everyday this week teaching one of them! It was awesome!

Our first lesson with Marlen and her friend Juan Carlos we invited them to be baptized and they accepted! The next day we went and taught Brandon and Myco, invited them to be baptized and they also accepted!! We left them all with a Book of Mormon and invited them to read and pray.

A few days later we went back to see how things were going and Brandon told us that he had read and shared with us what he had learned! Before, I hardly ever heard a word come out of that kids mouth, and he wouldn`t even read a scripture with us.

Now he is reading the Book of Mormon on his own and sharing with us what he learned! Mayco also read on his own and shared with us what he learned! Seriously so much progress in the last week with those two boys I can hardly believe it.

Marlen and her friend are also progressing super well! I have no idea where her friend came from, but he is great! He understands everything really well and even went on the church's website to learn more for himself! 

I now know why we have had to wait so long for Jessica and Damian to get baptized. We had to wait for their family!  I am so grateful for the chance I have to help them all progress together! Damian thanked us yesterday for all that we have done for their family. He said the they are already recieving so many blessing from the gospel! This is why I am a missionary! 

Hermana Segura