April 24, 2017

Hola Familia! 

Well, we had another great week here in San Jose de Carrasco!! We are continuing to find new people every week and putting baptismal dates! It is amazing to see how the Lord truly prepares the heart of the people here to receive the restored gospel!  

One fun thing that happened this week is we finally had our ward activity that we had planned!! It turned out AMAZING! We had soo many people come and everyone enjoyed it soo much! It made me so happy and I think the ward was truly impressed! I think it really helped us gain some of the confidence from the members!  

We also were able to get back in contact with Adan y Cristina!! We had a miscommunication and with broken phones we weren't able to see them for a week! But Adan came to church on Sunday and we were able to have a charla last night! We sat down and asked them how they felt about getting baptized and just kind of what had gone down this past week. Well it turns out, they were more receptive than ever about getting baptized and chose to get baptized on the last Saturday of my mission! 

It has actually been really cold this week and so we have had to bust out our warmer clothing! But of course, it warmed up just enough to be able to play soccer all day at our zone activity! It was sooo fun!!   

But I love you all and I hope you have a great week!! 

Love, 

Hermana Rich

Rebe de Leon and Hermana Rich

Hermana Labrum and Rich

Hermanas Labrum, Chadwick and Rich.  Love these girls!

Hermana Chadwick & Rich

Hermana Chadwick and Rich with some friends from Florida

Hermana Chadwick and Rich with their investigator, Agustin

The ward activity the sister's planned

April 18, 2017

Hello Fam!!

 Another great week has come and gone!! Hermana Labrum moved in and it has been a party! I am loving the girls in my house and my area more than ever! 

So this week we had something amazing happen!! Alicia went to church! Alicia is an investigator that we have that we have been working with for a while! She has gone to an evangelical church for over thirty years and on Sunday she finally came to church and she LOVED it!! It just goes to show when we keep working the Lord does bless us with success but we just have to be patient in the timing!  

This week was semana santa so EVERYONE took off for the interior but we found this awesome investigator! His name is Eduardo. He just moved from Florida (the department here) and is working for a wood shop! Well we started teaching him and he accepted a baptismal date in the first charla(lesson)!! The Lord is truly preparing the people here to receive the gospel and we just have to be bold enough to follow those promptings!  

Easter was really good!! We had a lot of people at church and the sacrament meeting was really nice. We went over the week of Easter and Christ's life. I am so grateful for my savior. I know that because he was resurrected we too will resucitar algun dia. I know that His atonement, or his suffering, is powerful enough to change any person that is willing. We can be forgiven of any mistakes that we have made and we can also find comfort in the knowledge that someone else has passed through what is happening in our day to day lives. He knows EXACTLY  how we feel. It is because of his life and example that it is possible to have our families forever and be happy forever without pain or afflictions. I know that Christ lives and loves us. I don't have a single doubt in my mind of that! I love you all and I hope that we can all focus more fully on the sacrifice that Christ went through for us and show our gratitude through our actions! Have a great week!! 

Love, 

Hermana Rich

Hermana Harpole, Rich and Labrum!  Love them!

Hermana Rich was so happy to go visit!

The family that got baptized and she got to go visit her old area!

The Hermana's and President Eddy

President Eddy did a special activity for the youth and asked the Hermana's to help!

Just love these two!!!

They apparently have snakes in Uruguay too! Yuck!

Hermana Rich with her release packet!  I'm sure she isn't as excited as we are!

More life long friends!  Love Hermana Chadwick!

April 11, 2017

Hola Fam and friends!! 

Well  we had another really great week and it is finally starting to cool down!! 

We had changes and Hermana Chadwick and I were both sure that she would be leaving, and no!!! Hermana Chadwick will be staying with me for my last change and I am SUPER  stoked!  

Something way fun that happened this week is that I got to go back to Toldeo! 

Man, that place will forever hold a piece of my heart! There were so many people there that I thought would not even recognize me!! But they recognized me and knew who I was!! I felt right at home, again!! What happened is when I was with Hermana Mesa we found the cutest little family! They were soo ready to receive the gospel from the moment the Lord guided us to them! But what happened is they had to get married and that is a really really long process! Well, they finally tied the knot and a week later were baptized!! It was AMAZING!! Once, again to see a family enter into the waters of baptism, there isn't anything better as a missionary!!  

This week Hermana Chadwick and I have been contacting a lot of our futuros se llama! Those are people that we contacted in the street and they gave us their information to get a hold of them later! We have been seeing a lot of success and are super excited to see what this upcoming weeks brings! 

We also had the opportunity to go to the temple today! I really took for granted the opportunity I had to go to the temple more often when I was at home! I have truly developed such a love for the temple over the last 16 months! I haven't been able to go as much as I would like but every time I do I learn something new and the peace and love that I feel from my Heavenly Father IS amazing!! I love the temple soo much and I am so grateful for the sacerdocio here on the earth that makes it possible to have temples and to do those saving ordenanzas! I hope that as we continue to follow the Lord's commandments that we will always strive to stay worthy and have a living temple recommend!! I love you all! Have a great week!!

Love,

Hermana Rich

Hermana Chadwick and Hermana Rich are doing great things!

More of Hermana Chadwick and Rich in town

This is what it looks like when you are doing wavy hair! 

Love these girls!

April 3, 2017

Hello fam!!

Man, what a great week!! I have to say, general conference is better than Christmas when you are on the mission!! I absolutely loved it!!! There were sooo many amazing talks and things to take away from this conference!! We watched conference in the stake center! Hardly any of the members came but we ended up having four investigators come! Two of which it was their first time and they loved it!! We just kept inviting everyone to the conference because you can always count on the prophet to bring the spirit into the room!! I just love President Monson and our leaders so much! I was talking with Hermana Chadwick and every time I hear just one of them speak, doesn't matter what it is, I just get such a strong sense of peace! I truly know that these men are called of God! 

So we have two investigators, Raquel and Alicia! Raquel has Parkinsons disease and can't walk very much and Alicia is her sister who lives with her and helps take care of her! They both had agreed to go to conference but we had to find people to take them and bring them back because Raquel can't go on a bus! It is too dangerous and difficult for her. So we had the job of hunting down members! We found a member in the grocery store one day and she agreed to take them, Heaven inspired!! But we could NOT find anyone to bring them back. We called every member that we could think of that had a car and they either weren't going or did not respond. So we really didn't know what to do. But Hermana Chadwick said we were just going to go with faith and there would be someone there that could take them back! Of course, I was really nervous but I knew that if we went Heavenly Father would help us. When we got to the church there wasn't a single member there with a car, not one. So naturally Hermana Chadwick and I started to freak out a little. So before the session started we went outside and said a prayer. In the middle of the session in walks a member from our ward who just happens to have a car!! At the end of the session we ran over and asked if he was going home and he said yes! He agreed to take Raquel and Alicia home!! It was such a huge answer to our prayers!!
This past conference I felt like they talked a lot about how we need to have faith inquebrantable. In this world where everything is changing and the adversary is working harder than ever we cannot let down our defenses. Just like in the conference, we have to act sometimes even if we don't fully understand or  even if we can't see the full picture. I couldn't see the full picture in taking our two investigators to the church but in the end it worked out great!! I know that as we do the small and simple things that we will be able to have the faith sufficient to overcome whatever trial or temptation that the world may throw at us. Will it be difficult? More than likely, but we have the Lord's promises that as we do as we are asked and act with faith that we will be venciadores de nuestros enemigos, o sea, we will triumph over our enemies. I know this promise to be true. I have seen it in my own life and in the lives of others. I know that this gospel is true and that we are the only church upon the face of the earth to have a living prophet who leads and guides us today. I know that his words are the words that our heavenly father wants us to hear and it is our job to act upon them! I love you all and I hope that you have a fantastic week! 

Love,

Hermana Rich

Kim here....  :( no pictures this week!  hopefully there are pictures this week!

March 27, 2017

Hola Familia!!

Man, this week was a great one!! It was super busy but that is definitely how the mission should be!! It was filled with getting off the bus at the wrong place therefore getting lost. Filled with capllas abiertas, and lots of new investigators and baptismal dates!! The Lord truly does prepare people to receive his restored gospel!!

This week Hermana Chadwick and I had to go up to Salinas and pick up some stuff from the hermanas there...well it was definitely an adventure because we didn't know how to get there and as a result got off the bus about forty minutes early. We were then stranded on the side of the road until another bus came, which was about 20 minutes.  Well that bus then broke down! Third time is a charm right?  But in the end we got there just a lot later than we had expected!! 

We also had a capilla abierta in el bosque, which is a part of our zone! It was amazing we had one guy come in off the street and we gave him the tour and in the room with the baptismal font he asked if all of this was just tradition. When we talk about baptism in a capilla abierta the elders teach that part and it was really cool to work with the elders along side with the members and testify to him that it isn't just a tradition that we follow from our parents, but rather something that we all had to come to know was true for ourselves! The spirit was so strong in that room and he promised to come to church the next day!!

Hermana Chadwick and I have been working our tails off!! We have been putting goals to find new people to teach and as a result in the last two weeks we have found 11 new investigators, five of which have a baptismal date! Our agenda is filled every hour with a set charla and we just don't have time for anything!! But it is so amazing! The Lord is truly preparing people to receive his gospel and for the second coming of our Savior! I have truly felt the presence of my Heavenly Father guiding us to those that are ready to receive the restored gospel! 

But the best part is that we have evidence of all that we do and say which is the Book of Mormon that truly testifies that we have a living profeta on the earth today!! I know that if we will truly ponder and think of a question that this weekend we will receive the answer to that question through our prophet and his apostles! I know that this is the true church of Christ here on the Earth and that Thomas S. Monson is his living prophet on the Earth today. He is receiving revelation fro our Heavenly Father specifically for us and if we will listen to him and apply it we will draw unto our savior and feel of his presence eve more in our lives! I love you all and I hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Hermana Rich

March 20, 2017

Hello family!!

Another great week! Man, I just cannot get enough of the miracles that are going on in our area all because of the fast that we did!! This week we found a bunch of new investigators and all have been soo prepared to receive the gospel! It is truly amazing how the Lord hears and answers our prayers!
This week we had a miracle happen that I wanted to share with you! So, the ward that I am currently serving in has been struggling for a little while and us as Hermanas have been trying to think of what we could do to help them! The idea that we had was to do an activity with all the youth in our ward. We have a lot of jovenes that have the edad to go on the mission but don't have a desire to go. Then as we were planning and brainstorming we received a strong impression that we needed to make it an activity for the entire ward. But we had some doubts about it on such short notice with Easter and general conference and another capilla abierta that we wouldn't get the time to do it. The other doubt was that it is impossible to get an activity going. We have a hermana that has been asking to have a ward activity here since she got here and it hasn't happened. (she has been here for six months!) So we decided to say a prayer and confirm the feeling that we had felt and that if it was really what Heavenly Father wanted, that he would help us know how we could get it to work.  After we prayed we knew that we needed to make it a ward activity. Hermana Chadwick and I decided that we needed to do something different and not just talk so we went and typed up papers with all of the activity imformation, what we would need, the purpose, everything!  At consejo that night we decided to plant the idea and at first they wanted to wait and see when we could do the activity but we were determined to leave with a date and all of a sudden  when we passed around these papers the attitude totally changed. We now have a date for the 7 of Abril to do this activity!

I know this sounds like no big deal but this was a HUGE success for us! When we walked out of consejo we were sooo surprised. I know that everything worked out because we turned to the Lord for help and we followed the promptings we received, even though we didn't understand them fully at the time. I promise you that as you do the small and simple things that the Lord asks of each and everyone of you that you too will be able to see the fruits of your efforts! Heavenly Father wants to help us and if we turn to him he will give us the way to be able to do all things. I love you all and I hope you will all search more frequently for the guide of the Holy Ghost in your lives!

Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana Rich