Week 34: in behalf of those who knew not God

Hello to all! 

This week was SO much fun. For those of you who don´t know, September 18th was the Independence day for Chile. It is a HUGE deal here, and they celebrate it for a whole week! We had the opportunity to spend a few hours at the ward activity where we ate a lot of Chilean food, and we did some awesome games that I can only remember doing at girls camp!!! A lot of tug-of-war, and 3 legged racing. Not the easiest thing to do in a skirt, but we managed! We also got to try on some of the traditional dresses that they wear, because apparently dancing is a big thing here. They have these fancy dresses and everything. It was a blast to expierience a little more of their culture. I may or may not have participated in the potato sack race. I will neither confirm nor deny. 

We have a really good family that is progressing so much right now. It is a mom, a dad, and their daugther. Their names are Gustavo, Janet, and Tanya. They are seriously a family of gold, and they have been waiting for the truth, and ever since they have found it, they have been working so hard towards baptism! We hope and pray for their baptism on the 11th of October! Crossing our fingers! 

Ovalle has been FULL of blessings, and I have realized that really the Lord works in the most mysterious ways, and that these people really are people, not numbers. Each person matters SO much to Heavenly Father, and to be a mediator through the process is the greatest gift in the whole world.

I have a strong testimony of the power of fasting, and how such a small and simple sacrifice can bring about the greatest of blessings, more than we could ever imagine. 

I love the Lord, and I am full of joy that I have this opportunity to serve Him. Oh how I have reaped blessings unimagineable, and Oh how greatly He has blessed my family. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow closer to Him everyday, because without Him, it is impossible to find true, and pure joy. 

I LOVE YOU ALL! 

Hermana Watt

Alma 6:6

6 Nevertheless the children of God were commanded that they should gather themselves together oft, and join in fasting and mighty prayer in behalf of the welfare of the souls of those who knew not God.

This ward party for Chile's independence day humbles me.  I complain when they run out of food at ward parties, lol. Tug of war, three legged races, potato sack races in real potato sacks.  It is so little house on the prairie!  Kam loved it though and participated skirt and all!  

Sister Evans and Sister Watt

Tug of war

Man down!

Three legged race

Kamryn in the sack race

Other Hermanas in the Ward

The jump for joy!

The View

More of the view, pony rides at the ward party.  ( I feel like I've stepped back in time with this ward party, lol)

Original Chilean Dress

In Chilean dress

Kamryn's Halloween decorations

Week 33: Cheerfully, and with patience

Hello!

This week was FULL of miracles, and really, it is times like these where I am just constantly praying and thanking Heavenly Father for all of the blessings he gives us. 

We found 2 famlies that have so much potential to progress, and I am so excited to teach them more about the loving plan that God has for us! They are amazing.

We have this less active family that we are visiting a lot because the mom is a drug addict. We stopped by this week to see how they were doing, and one of the little boys (Matias..5 yrs) said..."Hermana, I found a scripture that I love that I want you to read." He then flipped through the book of mormon to Mosiah 24:14-16.(below) I cannot even begin to tell you how much I learned in that moment from that 5 year old. He taught me that the Lord is ALWAYS there. He also proceeded to tell me that he KNOWS these words are true because the holy ghost tells him that it is true. What an example, and honestly, in that moment I couldn`t hold back my tears. 

I bear a firm testimony that the Lord DOES visit his people in their afflictions, and is always there to help us. It is one of the biggest lessons I have learned here on my mission. 

I am now a pro at washing clothes by hand, and I am proud to say that I have had to conquer my fear of spiders, because there are more of them here than there are people. Also I may or may not have a love for dogs... HOW did that happen? And, I am forgetting all my english. 

LOVE YOU ALL! 

Hermana Watt

PIC: Me and my ivestigators, Rosa and Patricio

14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

 15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord didstrengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease,and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will ofthe Lord.

16 And it came to pass that so great was their faith and theirpatience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying:Be of good comfort, for on the morrow I will deliver you out ofbondage.

Pictures

Kam and her investigators, Patricio and Rosa (look someone taller than Kamryn finally!

Kam in front of "Why So Serious?" Street art

Kam's District

A menu

Kam and her dogs!

More wall art and Kam

Sister Evans and Kam in their Halloween headbands.  Amber says, "All this mom could find in August!"  Amber does a fantastic job finding things to send to Kam for all the holidays, birthday and Christmas.  Kudos to Amber!!  She is such a good mom.

More Halloween goodies sent by Amber

Another of Kam's doggie friends!

Penny gave Kam one of their family calendar's before she left and apparently Kennedy Taylor is Mr. July.

Sister Evans and Kam

The sink they do their laundry in!  Are we spoiled or what?

Even more wall art

Kam and the town in the background

Picture of her area.  Looks like a pretty poor area.

Another stray!  They sure love her!

Kam smelling the roses

Locking up their heat supply before they head out

Week 32: Trial Is Part of the Journey

HOLA de Ovalle!  (Hello from Ovalle)

¿Como están? Estoy tan agradecida estar aquí con mi compañera en Ovalle. Es muy bonita aquí, y yo tengo la oportunidad aprender mucho cada dia! Me encanta la misión!  (How are you?  I am so grateful to be here with my companion in Ovalle. It is very beautiful here and I have the opportunity to learn a lot every day! I love the mission!)

This week was a great week! Hermana Jones and I are learning more and more about the area and the ward everyday. We meet a lot of interesting people, (most of them strong catholics) but it is all so worth it. Some people are super great, and they recieve us (: 

Ovalle is a little different than Viña and Valparaiso. It is small town, and is super peaceful. I love being here, and we are working super hard to find, find, find. 

I have learned this week that the Lord will never forsake us, or leave us to do anything on our own. He is ALWAYS there, and sometimes I think our own selves are the ones who get in the way of letting Him help us, letting Him heal our wounds, and mend our broken hearts. I would be lying if I said that the mission was all easy. That everyone wants to hear the gospel. It isn´t easy, and in fact, most people want nothing to do with it. But one thing I have learned is that God has a plan for each one of us. I KNOW right now I am supposed to be here at this time to hlep someone, even if I don´t see the fruits of it right away... or ever. I know that the Lord has a work and a purpose for every single one of us. 

I love you all and I testify that this IS the true church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and that through Him, we can recieve all the blessings that He has. He LOVES us. 

Les quiero muchisimo!!!  (I love them a lot!)

Con todo el amor en mi corazon, (With all the love in my heart)

Hermana Watt

This is a part from a talk by Dieter F Uchtdorf:

The scriptures tell us there must be opposition in all things, for without it we could not discern the sweet from the bitter. ² Would the marathon runner feel the triumph of finishing the race had she not felt the pain of the hours of pushing against her limits? Would the pianist feel the joy of mastering an intricate sonata without the painstaking hours of practice?

In stories, as in life, adversity teaches us things we cannot learn otherwise. Adversity helps to develop a depth of character that comes in no other way. Our loving Heavenly Father has set us in a world filled with challenges and trials so that we, through opposition, can learn wisdom, become stronger, and experience joy.

Pictures of Ovalle

Week 31: We know of a surety that the work is true

Hello!

What a crazy week it has been! This week we had changes, and to my surprise the President called me to be a trainer! I won´t lie, when he called me I said, SERIOUSLY???, and he said, Yes Hermana Watt, SERIOUSLY!!! Needless to say I was just a little bit excited to train! 

My new companion is Hermana Jones. She is from Kennewick, Washington, and she knows no spanish, which is perfect because that was me 7 months ago. I feel blessed to have someone who I could relate to, and hopefully help her in a way that no other person could have helped her. 

One thing I have learned this week, is that sometimes the Lord calls us to positions not so we can teach others, but so we can learn while we are teaching. I have learned a TON from my new companion, and honestly, she is training me! She is amazing. 

We are now in a city called Limari in a providence called Ovalle. It is about 6 hours or so away from Viña del mar. So now I am not by the ocean... (crying a bit...) but, it is still so beautiful. 

This week we have been contacting everyone, and doing everything we could to find new people. We contacted a man, and he was super nice, and was thanking us SO much for giving him a book of mormon. We made an appointment to go teach him this past Sunday. We passed by yesterday, and to our surprise he came out, with a little bit of an attitude telling us he wants to hear what we have to say for the book of mormon. He said he wasn´t sure about this "Joseph Smith" and this book he "wrote". We started to teach him lesson one, and Hermana Jones in her broken but super powerful spanish told him about the experience of Joseph Smith. After that we told him the first vision, and as we shared the experience of Jospeh Smith, he started crying. He proceeded to tell us how alone he felt, and how happy he was that we found him. I learned from that experience that we NEVER know who needs us... and even if they seem rude or hostile at first... sometimes they just need to feel the love of the Lord through our simple testimonies. 

I am grateful for the chance I have to have this new adventure in my mission. Some days are hard, but the GREAT days, out weigh it all. I am SO blessed. 

I love you all!!! 

Cuidense muchisimo! 

Hay tanto poder en el Libro de Mormón. Yo tengo un testimonio muy fuerte de eso. Hay personas que están esperándonos. Necesitamos compartir el Evangelio con todas las personas! Ayudarles y ser ejemplos! Les quiero mucho!

My niece, Carolina is here and translated the above for me.  Kamryn says:
"There is such a power in the Book of Mormon.  I have a strong testimony of it.  There are people  that are waiting for us.  We need to share the gospel with all the people!  To help them and be examples!  I love you a lot!

As one of a thousand elements of my own testimony of the divinity of theBook of Mormon, I submit this as yet one more evidence of itstruthfulness. In this their greatest—and last—hour of need, I ask you:would these men blaspheme before God by continuing to fix their lives,their honor, and their own search for eternal salvation on a book (and byimplication a church and a ministry) they had fictitiously created out ofwhole cloth?

Never mind that their wives are about to be widows and their childrenfatherless. Never mind that their little band of followers will yet be“houseless, friendless and homeless” and that their children will leavefootprints of blood across frozen rivers and an untamed prairie floor. ⁹ Never mind that legions will die and other legions live declaring in thefour quarters of this earth that they know the Book of Mormon and theChurch which espouses it to be true. Disregard all of that, and tell mewhether in this hour of death these two men would enter the presence oftheir Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if notthe very word of God, would brand them as imposters and charlatans untilthe end of time? They would not do that! They were willing to die ratherthan deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book ofMormon.

For 179 years this book has been examined and attacked, denied anddeconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book inmodern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any religioushistory. And still it stands. Failed theories about its origins have beenborn and parroted and have died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spauldingto deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly patheticanswers for this book has ever withstood examination because there is noother answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator.In this I stand with my own great-grandfather, who said simply enough,“No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man wouldwrite it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.” ¹⁰ 

I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—andthereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and theLord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies. If anyone is foolish enough ormisled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teemingwith literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting toaccount for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting fortheir powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impactthat witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that isthe case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and ifhe or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under oraround the Book of Mormon to make that exit. In that sense the book iswhat Christ Himself was said to be: “a stone of stumbling, … a rock ofoffence,” ¹¹  a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in thiswork. Witnesses, even witnesses who were for a time hostile to Joseph,testified to their death that they had seen an angel and had handled theplates. “They have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not ofman,” they declared. “Wherefore we know of a surety that the work istrue.” ¹² 

^Pictures

Kamryn and her new companion Sister Jones

Kam is in Ovalle.  She is in the ghetto and does laundry by hand but couldn't be happier.   

^{Amber commented on all the bars on windows and around the house.  Kams words "they rob hard core"  lol.  She said that she is safe.}