New Year, New Goals, New Me‏

28 Deciembre 2015

WELL, news for all: We have transfers! Ahhhhh! I am leaving this beautiful ward that I have come to know and love... and I’m off to Potosi! Wooo! Tomorrow I head off in plane to Sucre and then in a bus to this amazing traditional miner town of Potosi! I´ll have to send you pictures next week of my new area and my new compi! Today has been full of walking around the area and saying goodbye to just a few of the amazing people that I have come to love here.

As this new year is coming up, I have been thinking a lot about the goals that we make as we start a new year. How many times have we started with a goal but never finished? Something that I loved that our mission President (President Hansen) said this week is that the new year is an amazing point to look back on what we have been able to accomplish this year and what we want to accomplish for the next year. As well as what we wait for from God this coming year and how we will help him to bring it to pass.

I have been thinking and pondering about how we can make goals that we can follow through with. I feel like there are a few steps that we can take to be able to follow through with the goals that we make:

1. Find your goal!
2. Make it simple. Don’t make it so complicated that you can’t have the hopes to follow through. Or, make smaller bullet points that you can complete along the way.
3. Write down your goal.
4. Pick a goal that you WANT to follow through with and motivate yourself with this goal.
5. Keep track of your progress and see how you are doing with it every day.
6. Be FRIM in your decision that you will do it, but be flexible enough that you can pick it back up or make changes with the stresses of life.
7. MAKE TIME. Schedule it out.
8. Be positive about your goal.
9. PRAY about it! HE WILL HELP YOU!

I am going to be applying this goal for this new year and I hope that you guys can too! I can’t wait to see how far we can get in our goals for this year of 2016!

Love you all! Have a great week!

Hermana Mather

Decorating for Christmas with our landlady.

Christmas morning- we pulled the mattresses out into the kitchen where we had our little Christmas tree!

Saying goodbye today with the members and investigators today.

Feliz Navidad‏

21 Deciembre 2015

In this amazing time of Christmas, I have been thinking so much about 'Who is Christ for me?' I would love all of you to stop and think for a minute or so. Stop reading and just think, poder... why is Christ important to you?

Okay, now that you have thought about it a little bit, I think that you can agree that Christ is SO important! He is my Friend, my elder Brother, my Savior, my Comforter, my Redeemer, my Example, my Lord, my Master, my Help -- through Him I can be better. Through Him I can return to the Father. Through Him I can overcome my challenges. Through Him I can feel peace and calm in the midst of the storm. THROUGH Him I am whole.

In my mission, I feel like I have become so much closer to Christ because I have chosen to follow Him and every day I choose to preach of Him and follow Him and put my trust in Him. I have put my trust and faith in Him in all times -- not just when times are good or when times are bad. As I have been able to better my relationship with Christ I have been transformed. I have developed the desire to become more like Him and to build up my relationship with Him stronger and stronger. Through talking to Him, becoming more like Him, following in his footsteps, and using His atonement I have been healed.

'For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.' Isaiah 9:6

Feliz navidad a todos! Les amo mucho! [Merry Christmas to all! I love you very much!]

Hermana Amber Mather

Doing service for the Bishop and his wife making earrings for the Relief Society :D

Picking limes to make key lime pie :DD

Making key lime pie with a recent convert in our ward :D 

A Christmas wreath door decoration that we made out of newspaper with one of our converts.

The mini Christmas tree that our landlady gave to us! Isn't it cute?

Me and my compi with President and Sister Hansen after the Christmas Devotional!

Walking in Faith

14 Deciembre 2015

This week.... how can you sum it up? There is just one word that I can think of: FAITH. I feel like there are some people in the world that think that faith is for dreamers and that it doesn’t make a difference, but I can tell you that I KNOW without a doubt that faith makes all of the difference. Faith that Jesus Christ is our savior and redeemer.  Faith that everything will be alright. Faith that I can do it. Faith that God really is there and He listens to us. Faith that we have challenges in this life for a reason and what depends on us is how we react and grow from them. Faith is a principle of power and leads to action in our lives.

This week I have been able to see my faith in Heavenly Father and his son, Jesus Christ, so much. From my mission, I now know better how we are able to strengthen our faith. I have put all of my faith in God that everything that I do here in the mission will not be in vain. Every person that we can talk to, every smile that we give, every hardship that we go through is making a difference to those around us as well as inside of us. Through studying the scriptures, praying with real intent (which means that you are ready to follow through with anything that you receive as an answer), serving others with your whole heart, and being obedient (to the commandments and to the stirrings of the Holy Ghost), we are able to strengthen our faith and better put our will in his hands and truly say, “not my will, but thine, be done”.

I know that through our faith in Jesus Christ, little by little we are able to draw closer to Him and become more like Him. I am so grateful for this opportunidad that I have to serve a mission, strengthen my faith so much, draw closer to my Savior, and be able to see myself and others through His eyes.

Scriptures that I love that apply to this: Mosiah 28:3, Romanos 5:3-5, Helaman 5:12, Alma 32:12, Ether 12:6.

Quick update on this week: We have been teaching an amazing old man in our area. His wife was a faithful member of the church, he has a testimony that the gospel is true, and he goes to church every week. However, he is scared of getting baptized before he has surgery because he wants to be completely clean of sin before he goes into surgery. We will be teaching him more about faith and the real purpose of baptism this week. He is great and has such a big heart. He now calls us his daughters :D hehe Cute old man :D

To close, I want to say that I KNOW without a doubt that faith makes the difference in our lives and has true power – sometimes not to change things externally but to change things internally. Faith brings about miracles and when we truly walk by faith we can see the hand of the Lord in our lives.

Love you all!

Hermana Mather

Making chocolate cake with one of our investigators :)

After the zone meeting with our zone leaders.
We are going to miss Elder Aguilar so much!
He is finishing his mission this week

This is Hermano Mario, the cute old man that we are teaching.
We helped him this week to decorate his house for Christmas!

Christ-mas‏

7 Deciembre 2015

This week has been a week full of realizing my faults and making an effort to become better. As a part of living in this world, we are not perfect, but we try. We try and try and become better and progress and sometimes we fall, but we get back up and keep walking and getting stronger. I realized this week that it really doesn’t matter where we have been, but it matters where we are and where we are going to go. Through our Heavenly Father, we can overcome our challenges and struggles. WE CAN progress better than we ever thought we could and we CAN fulfill the potential that Heavenly Father gives us as his children.

With the season of Christmas drawing near, I´ve been thinking about the TRUE meaning of Christmas. I think that we have all seen the movies and cartoons about Christmas that talk so much about how presents and gifts are great but aren’t the thing that makes Christmas so special. What really makes Christmas special is:

1. Spending this amazing time with family and friends soaking up their presence and the memories.
2. That we are able to take this time to remember our savior and redeemer -- his birth, life, and death -- and specifically what this means for us.

To be honest, I can’t remember half of the gifts that I have received from past Christmas´... (sorry mom and dad. I remember that they were useful and special). The things that I remember with fondness are the time that I had with my family and the things that we were able to do together: making gingerbread cookies, decorating the tree together, and listening to Christmas music. These are all amazing memories that I have! soooooo, I invite you all to enjoy your families this Christmas and make the most of your time together!

I would love to invite you to have a Christ-mas (mas = more, in Spanish).  More of Christ in this time of the year. More of Christ in your thoughts, words, and actions! Truly think of why Christ is important to you and share this with others through your words and actions!

I would like to share a new Christmas video message.

Well, that is all for this week! I love you all! Enjoy all the Christmas music and Christmas lights!

Love,

Hermana Mather

Noche de hogar [Family Home Evening] with the Familia Sandoval and the Familia Maldonado!

Service painting window trim (they mix the paint with gasoline to make it go further here...)

Service washing clothes with one of our less active members Rosa

My new glasses ... woo!

Me with our pensionista (who makes us lunch and dinner)
with our area in the background It's beautiful!

Christmas decorations in Bolivia! woo! (there are very little here)

Me and my compi starting out the P-day!

Oraciones de Poder‏ [Prayers of Power]

30 Noviembre 2015

I don’t have much time to write this week, but quick rundown: we had a baptism!!! Woo! Our investigator Nelson got baptized and we are so happy for him! We know that it will be an amazing step for him in his life! He has been searching and searching for a way to make himself happy in this life -- in parties, alcohol, friends -- lots of things, but nothing really filled him, except for when he found the gospel. It took him a lot of time to accept it in his life. There have been MANY elders that have visited him for about a year now. It is amazing that this is his time to accept this change and this Gospel in his life! He was able to find the only thing that could fill that part that was empty inside of him: The Gospel of Jesus Christ!

This week I have been learning more and more about my prayers. The Area Seventy for our area, Elder Godoy, visited our mission and something that really stuck to me was when he asked us if our prayers where powerful or just routine. This is a question that I want to ask all of you: Are your prayers just routine or TRULY powerful? Are you praying like Lehi, Ether, Alma, or Jesus? With all of your faith and heart put into it? When we truly make something of our prayers, it makes a difference. It doesn’t change the will of God at all, but it brings us in line with His will and brings more of His blessings into our lives. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to talk with my Heavenly Father every day in the mission. I can see that my relationship with Him has become so much more real, tangible, and powerful. Prayers make the difference in us, our lives, and for our Heavenly Father!

Love you all! Until next week!

Hermana Mather

Enjoy the Christmas trees for me!

Nelson's baptism

The Work of Salvation

23 Noviembre 2015

This week has been FULL! We were asked to give talks in church, we had one of our investigators tell us that he wants to get baptized, we had to give one of the families that we are teaching to the elders to teach :( , we were in the clinic, and it is getting hotter and hotter here! woooo!

Something amazing happened this week! One of our investigators, Nelson, that has been coming to church for maybe a year now, told us that he wants to be baptized. We were having a lesson with him about faith, repentance and baptism (which are three steps of five ;D) where we asked him if he thinks that being baptized by the proper authority is an important step in our lives. This really made him think. When we asked him if he would be baptized, he said YES! When we were setting a date for the baptism, we started to talk about December and he asked us if he could be baptized before December! So we have a baptism this week!

This week we had the scary and nerve racking opportunity to give talks in church about missionary work. It’s so amazing that in these past years missionary work has been turning into the Work of Salvacion. You are probably thinking: “What is the difference? I thought that they were the same.” The difference is that missionary work isn’t just for missionaries anymore. Salvacion is literally to be saved from physical and spiritual death (spiritual death is the separation we have in our lives from Heavenly Father and His influence). The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ made it possible so that we can be saved from physical death. We have been assigned here on earth to save others from spiritual death. Through faith in Jesus Christ and coming to know the gospel and living its principles, we can be saved from spiritual death. This means that when we bring to pass the Work of Salvation, we are literally rescuing people! Who doesn’t want to save others? There is a quote that I really love that says: “When you have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts tofeel, you can reach out and rescue others…” This is SO true! We really don’t have to do much. We just have to be looking for the opportunities to love, work, help, hear, feel, and use our talents to bless the lives of others and bring them closer to Christ.

I am so thankful for all of you! In this time of Thanksgiving (even though it doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving; in Bolivia, they don’t know what Thanksgiving is) I have been thinking a lot about all of you and how grateful I am to have you as my family and friends -- supporting me along the way.

Love you all!

Hermana Mather

My compi and me!

We had pizza for a family home evening- but they make their pizza in the microwave... ;D

One of the new families that we are teaching!

Preparing our talks for church...

The Power of Prayer‏

16 Noviembre 2015

This week has been quite full! My companion has been waking up with pain in her stomach for the past few days. We went to the clinic here and they told us that she has an intestinal infection (wow 0.0). They loaded her up with pills to take and we´ve been taking care of her ;D  Then, Hermana Vara came to stay with us for the second half of the week, because she is going home today @.@ AH! SO crazy to think that the mission ends... It doesn’t seem real that it will ever end.... I feel like it will never end in my heart ;D

¿Can I just say that Prayers work!? Throughout all the years that I have been in the church, I feel like little by little I gained a testimony about saying prayers and this week I was able to receive more of a testimony of this principle of the gospel. There are people that we teach that wonder if prayers really do work or if there really is someone out there listening to their prayers. I can say that I know without a doubt that there is a loving Heavenly Father (or in other words god) that listens to our prayers and truly wants to help us in this life. We are physically separated from our Heavenly Father in this life, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care. He is just like a loving parent, where when their child goes on a trip or leaves the home- they are still aware and care about their child. He wants to hear from us and help us. Sometimes he helps us in ways that we can never expect, but he is present in our lives. I know that we can receive the answers that we need and are searching for. I know that through our prayers- Heavenly father can also give us peace and we can grow in our confidence in him and in his purposes, he can help us to be stronger, better, happier, he can HELP us, he is waiting to help us- sometimes we just have to ask.

Well, I am going to be staying in Villa Graciela for another cambio (another month and a half) for sure! yay! I love this area and my companion! We are progressing and getting better every single day! I just LOVE it! And, dadadaDA: I will be there for Christmas! Wow! What an amazing present, to be able to stay in an area that I love where I can feel the love of the people who are here and where I love the people!

WELLL, that is all for now! I love you all- keep up your head and keep smiling! And, keep up your prayers -- they really do work!

Hermana Mather

My companion´s first experience with pique macho!! YUM!