November 30, 2015

HOLA FAMILY :)

wow HEY! This week was just SO fast. Well kinda.. the days just fly.. but there is just so much that happens every day and week it seems like things have happened two weeks ago when in reality it was only like 2 days before if that makes sense. 

But this transfer is just flying by. Its so fun.. and so great.

So we did divisions with the hermanas in Obera last week. It was a blast. It is a big city.. so it was a good and different change to be working in a bigger city again.. compared to the two teeny tiny towns that I work in. It was just so fun. 

Then we were back in our area working our butts off. 

Hermana Olvera and I have nicknamed this transfer.. "The Kick Butt Transfer".. we just want to go out every day and kick butt. haha its fun. 

So wednesday.. I hit 9 months. CRAZY RIGHT?! 

We went and bought ice cream. During my time in paraguay I really didnt know what I was missing until I ate argentine ice cream.. and let me tell you.. it is divine. YUM. so that was a fun celebration. 

Then thursday was thanksgiving. And even though no one here knows what that is.. and I wasnt with my family.. i dont think that I have ever had such a marvelous thanksgiving. I was just filled with the spirit that day. Like I said last week.. gratitude is a characteristic that I am trying to develop.. and it just completely changes my days and my perspective and how I work. I am trying to just LIVE gratitude.. instead of just having it. Does that make sense? 

We also had chicken empenadas that day for lunch with a member family.. and if you didnt think too hard.. it kind of tasted like turkey.. so basically we ate thanksgiving in an empenada. It was good enough :)

Friday nothing párticularly special happened.. except we contacted a guy named Claudio. We ended up talking to him for about 20 minutes. Its kind of amazing. As a missionary.. people just start telling you problems they have.. its kind of weird.. but happens very often. For some reason they just trust us and start opening up... it definitely doesnt happen with EVERY person.. but with lots. anyways.. we talked to him.. and invited him to church..I really didnt think too much about it. But we planned to go back. and then we got to church on Sunday.. AND HE CAME. We told him that church starts at 9.. but he told us that he had been there since 8 just because he didnt want to be late. He is great. and is the only person at this point that we have that has the option of being a convert before christmas. So we will be praying and working with him really hard. His name is Claudio. 

We had some other amazing miracles this week.. but I just dont have time to explain all of them. shoot. 

Something I am working on every day.. as cheesy as it sounds.. just loving and living in the moment every day. Something I heard recently is that humans have a disease.. we are constantly obsessed with what has happened on what will happen.. and we just cant take time to love and enjoy the moment.. I am working on that. Just loving and living the moment. And not letting my thoughts leave that moment. Does that make sense? I think if we as humans can master that.. we would be a lot happier. But it definitely requires work and faith. 

I have also been studying faith. It is the most fascinating topic I think. You can never stop learning more. 

Anyways.. I hope this made sense. This transfer is flying. I cant believe it. 

I AM SO EXCITED AS WE ENTER INTO THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON. Today I bought a green poster board thing and cut out a tree. I plan to decorate it somehow too. But we will see. :)

I love you all so much. I am so so grateful for you all! 

xoxox 

Hermana Ehlert

November 23, 2015

ELLO! 

Fastest week ever!!! Time is flying. 

So wednesday was our first day of work.. and we were doing divisions in a city close to posadas called Garupa. We were with two hermanas there all day on wednesday, and then travelled back to our area Wednesday night. Divisions were a blast! It's so fun to work with other hermanas and help them in their area. I always learn different ways to explain and help people. Its awesome. And we also made french toast that morning with my maple syrup that I brought.. and it was just my fave. YUM. 

So thursday we were back in our area. This week was hard because we only had 3 days working in our area.. so that's really hard. But I feel and know that the Lord is watching over and protecting our area. Even though we aren't able to be there a lot, we truly are seeing miracles. This work would be impossible if we were just doing it ourselves.. thank goodness we aren't. I am learning more and more to see and recognize divine help and guidance in my life. It is there.. and it always has been.. I think I've just failed to recognize it. 

So thursday.. or maybe in was Friday.. we had a lesson with a man named Antonio. He was a contact that we had last week.. and we were finally able to go back and have a lesson with him this week. He refers to himself as a christian and his church solely believes and uses the bible. So going back we knew it would be hard to teach him the restoration and the book of mormon.. but we went in with faith. I have never met anyone like him. He understands doctrine almost EXACTLY the same as we view and see doctrine and the teachings of christ. It's amazing. Incredible. I've never met a none member that has such a sound understanding of christs teachings.. and he truly tries to live them. There are just a few holes in his testimony and beliefs though because he doesn't have the book of mormon. He read the entire pamphlet that we left him though.. and had many questions. It was my favorite first lesson that I have had up until this point on my mission. Hermana Olvera and I were completely guided by the spirit. The spirit is normally always present in our lessons.. but this lesson.. it was just on fire. And sometimes we have those special ones.. and when we do.. its amazing. We testified and taught of joseph smith and the book of mormon. We used a few versus from his bible and read a few from the book of mormon. and at the beginning of the lesson he was completely shut off to the idea, but by the end.. he said that he would read it. 

At the beginning we were using scriptures and facts, but toward the end of the lesson, the spirit reminded me that it didn't matter how many facts and scriptures I knew if he couldn't feel the spirit. Hermana Olvera and I just stopped for a minute, and then bore testimony. Just personal, simple testimony about the divinity of the book.. and how it has helped us personally. Although the scriptures and facts are good.. there is nothing like just bearing simple testimony that we know it is true because we have prayed and felt it from God. And that it has helped us.. as it promises us.. to know our Savior Jesus Christ and his teachings better.  It was a powerful lesson. I am SO excited to see what will happen with him. 

We are working SO hard to work by faith. President has set a goal for every companionship to have a baptism by christmas.. and that gives us about 3 and a half weeks.. and as of now.. we don't really have anyone progressing or heading that way.. so we are just working our hardest and with faith to find someone who can be prepared and ready for before christmas. We don't just want a baptism though.. we want a convert. Who will be strong.  Never in my mission have a said so many prayers.. both silently and audible with Hermana Olvera. I love it. We are seeing little miracles every day. Especially in finding new people.  I have said it before.. but I feel SO lucky to be in an area where missionaries have never been. It is so exciting to search and find people who I KNOW are waiting and ready for this message. 

haha.. something funny though.  We had a contact this week.. and we got into the house and we sat down. She was a young mom.. maybe in her 20s and we were talking.. and she was like "God is great. I always let everyone in" She was referring to missionaries in general. LOTS of missionaries from other religions have been here.. but never us. So she was explaining to us that she receives everyone and its just great to hear to word of god. And she was like "I let everyone come and share with me.. but the mormons. If mormons ever came to my door.. I wouldn't let them in". hahahha I almost fell out of my seat. It was so funny. We were dying inside. We president ourselves as missionaries from the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. so she didn't know. We shared a brief message with her about the restoration.. and she really seemed to be interested and like us. and then at the end.. hermana olvera.. bless her heart.. had the courage to tell her that we have the nickname as mormons. hahaha. The lady you could tell.. was clearly embarrassed. but took it well. We set a time to go back this week.. so we will see what happens. hahha so funny. People just have the worst reputation about us here.. so it's nice to be able to go about and show people that we really aren't that crazy and weird. haha. 

What else. 

presidential elections for all of argentina was yesterday.. so we went to church and ate lunch with some members.. but we weren't allowed to go out and work that night. So we journaled and watched 17 miracles on our little DVD player. It was a fun night. 

I am actually in another area right now. We travelled again and are doing divisions with other hermanas tomorrow. We are in a city named Obera. It is BEAUTIFUL. 

I studied Gratitude this week. I don't have anymore time.. but I hope you all have an amazing thanksgiving. and truly take time to think and reflect about all that we have. 

I am SO grateful to be a missionary. I am SO grateful to represent my Savior for this period of time. I am SO grateful to get to know people and teach them about the Savior and his healing grace. 

I am SO grateful for all of you. I love you all so much. 

I hope you all have an amazing week. 

xoxoox 

Hermana Ehlert

Consejo and saying goodbye to members in Hernandarias

November 17, 2015

Hi all!

WHAT A FAST WEEK.

I am just SO busy this transfer the weeks are FLYING by to me.


A while ago I was noting down things throughout the week that I wanted to share in my email.. but I have gotten lazier. I am sorry! I will try and do better this week.


So I am emailing today because yesterday we had a zone conference with President. So we have Pday today. Man I love president.. so much. He is seriously an incredible man. He is amazing. He bore one of the
strongest testimonies of the book of mormon that I have ever heard last week. but the most simple at the same time. 

This week. Hermana Olvera and I had meetings for the mission in Posadas tuesday and wednesday.. so we were only working in our area from thursday to sunday. Its also hard because we have two towns that we are trying to work in.. so we have to work quickly and effectively and take advantage on every second that we have when we are in our area. 

Corpus.. it is a little town and missionaries have been there forever.. so EVERYONE has been talked to atleast once by missionaries. It seriously has 24 roads and thats it. It is so small.. so finding new people and peaking interests is very hard. But this week we were trying to find new people.. and we found not only 1 person that had
never talked to missionaries before BUT 4. Hermana Olvera has been here in this area for 5 months now.. and she has never found someone that hasnt talked to missionaries until this week. It was a miracle. So I am really excited to see where things can go with them this week coming up. We also have some solid investigators in Corpus.. Romina and Rumilda. I wont go into details.. but they are DARLING. And they accepted the invitation to be baptized. I love seeing how the Lord is preparing people to recieve this message. Roca... As I explained before.. missionaries havent been here until recently.. so almost everyone we talk to has never even heard of the
church. It is exciting work.. and we are trying our absolute best to give a really good first impression. We are teaching the COOLEST couple. They are so poor actually. They live in a tiny TEENY house with a dirt floor.. but they truly have desires to change. I absolutely LOVE that I can be a tool in the hands of the Lord to bring his children the restored gospel. I am so lucky to be with Hermana Olvera again. We have both really grown as missionaries since our last time together... and we are both bringing out the best in eachother I think.
Never in my mission have I felt the spirit so strongly and peacefully and calmly. I have felt the spirit MANY times in my mission.. but never like this. Its just a solid and background thing.. but always there. pushing me further and helping me along. I dont really know how to describe it. I am loving argentina more and more. It is distinctly different than paraguay. We are trying to work more by faith. we are setting higher goals and trying to stretch and grow our faith. I have been studying a lot about the brother of jared recently.. and his amazing faith.
Um.. what else. Have I mentioned that I am serving in the most BEAUTIFUL AREA IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Every day I have to remind myself to appreciate the beauty around me. Its amazing. I truly cant believe it. I wish you all could see it. this week it rained a TON.. and one afternoon we were walking.. and it stopped raining and all of the sudden a HUGE FULL complete double rainbow appeared.. it was amazing. We just stopped for 2 minutes and just stood and appreciated it. incredible. Downsides of living in a rainforest though.. there are bugs bugs bugs. of EVERY shape and size. But speaking of bugs.. fireflies. THEY ARE AMAZING. And everywhere at night. I wish you could all see it. Tonight we are going to do divisions with two hermanas in a city about an hour away. It should be really fun.. but again.. another week that we wont have tons of time in our area.


I love you all. Im sorry if my email is boring. Ill try and do better next week.

I LOVE being a missionary and representing my savior.

xoxo from argentina.
Hermana Ehlert

Argentina!

Hi FAMILY :)

Wow I love you all SO much.

So I will just start right off. First of all. I am in the most ghetto computer place EVER. It is terrible. I swear the computer that I am typing on is CERTAINLY from the 70s or something. Yeah. So yay for that.

So this week was just crazy and a blur! I left Hernandarias. I was actually VERY sad to leave that place. I felt like there was still things that I could have done there. And I was also VERY sad to be leaving Hermana Lopez.. but that is the mission. At the same time I was very excited to be going to Argentina finally.. and being with
Hermana Olvera again.

We are Hermana Leaders together.. and we have 7 hermanas in our zone that we will do divisions with together. so that will be super great..to be able to learn from them and work with them. So I got to my new area on Thursday night. We travelled all night wednesday and then crossed the boarder and we were on our way. I´m
about an hour from Posadas. SO.. Corpus Christi is my area. It is the smallest area in the mission. kind of. I´ll explain that in a second. But its very VERY tiny. and literally in the middle of the RAINFOREST.

So bugs. Bugs are a very real thing here. Mosquitos like CRAZY. and all sorts of fun cochroaches and other things that are GIANT. Yeah. Lots of bug spray. I have been here not even a week.. and my legs are destroyed. shoot. I´m flying through bugspray like crazy. so corpus. there is one road that leads to corpus. That is the one way in and out. Its crazy tiny. BUT.. something that is totally incredible that I have the chance to do is that Hermana Olvera and I are opening another area called Roca..that is a little city about 15 minutes by bus. We have a pension in Corpus where the branch and everything is.. and then we have a pension in Corpus. Hermana Olvera started opening up Corpus last transfer.. but they didnt have a house there. So it was really difficult. But we now have a house there.. so we travel back and forth every other day.. and we are working in both areas. Its crazy.. and complicated.. but I feel SO lucky to be one of the first missionaries opening up a new area.

Umm.. ARGENTINA. I´m so so excited to be here.. but its very different from Paraguay. I miss Paraguay. There is a bit of an adjustment. Especially because last area I was in a big city with lots of things and people and stuff going on.. and here there is literally nothing. It is so tiny and different. I´m so grateful to be with Hermana Olvera though. She seriously is an incredible missionary.. and we are working better than ever together. I have grown as a missionary since our time together.. and so has she.. and we are literally just ready to set Roca on fire. President wants us working hard and smart there.. and we have already seen miracles in contacting and finding prepared people this week. I´m so excited to see where is can go. The hardest part is.. is getting people to church.. because MANY people dont have cars.. and buses dont run on Sundays. There is one family of members in Roca..and they have a car.. but they dont have extra seats because they have kids. So that is going to be a hard thing for us.. but we are working on finding and contacting people that will be prepared. (and contacting the houses that have cars... :) hahhaha

Anyways.. that is all for now I think.

I will hopefully have more fun updates next week.

I love you all. so so much.
xoxoxo from ARGENTINA

Hermana Ehlert

Transfers!

Hello all! 

Well it's been the CRAZIEST week. 

I will just jump right in. 

So... this week we had interviews with President. I don't know if I have told you before but we have interviews every 3 months. Man... he is seriously amazing. I love that I am getting to know him more and more. He is incredible. My interview with him was my favorite yet. Seriously. I don't really know how to describe it but he is one of the most spiritual men that I know. This interview was more personal for me as well. I love him. yeah.. I don't know what else more to say.. just that it was great. I LOVE his wife too. They rock. I have the great mission presidents. 

Umm.. what else. This week was the last week of transfers.. and the office called us and told us that we had to find a new apartment and move before the end of the month and move because the apartment that we are in right now.. the rent is REALLY expensive. So yeah.. this week we went apartment shopping. It was fun and crazy. So we found one close.. about two blocks away.. and the rent is HALF of what we were paying before. So we had to pack and clean our old apartment, clean the new apartment because it was a disaster.. and then move everything (with the help of our zone leaders) to the new apartment. Crazy. So that took about 2 full days. Also.. the old apartment came completely furnished.. and the new one doesn't have anything.. so we also got to go shopping to buy a fridge.. beds and dressers... haha. we are basically a married couple. It was so funny trying to decide and comparing prices and stuff. So yeah.. that was crazy. 

All of that craziness aside it was a good week. It was EXTRA long it felt like.. maybe because I was anticipating transfers and it was just weird.. but yeah. Extra long. We were able to find some great people though. Not a TON of people.. but a few select ones that really have interest and potential. I'm excited for them to see what happens with them. 

So last Tuesday we had a lesson with Isaias. It was sad.. we invited him for the second time to be baptized.. because the first time he declined.. and this time he said no again. We are at the point with him that we don't know what more else to do. We can't keep teaching him things if he isn't going to commit to baptism or ATLEAST come to church. It's sad. We told him that we would leave him for a week to continue praying and reading the book of mormon.. and if he really wanted to know if the church is true he needed to come to church. And sunday rolled around.. and he didn't come. It was really sad. We will visit him tomorrow.. and let him know that we probably won't be able to keep visiting him as often and stuff now. It's sad. My heart literally broke for him. But the thing is.. and what it tells us in preach my gospel.. I'm not sad or disappointed in myself. I know that I put in my effort. I did everything I could. We fasted and prayed and invited and bore testimony with the spirit.. and then it is up to the people to use their agency and act on what we have given them. I still continue and praying and hoping for him. And if he doesn't accept it now.. i know that sometime he will accept it. I think personally that he has recieved an answer and that he knows... the problem is, is that he is scared to completely change. To change his entire life around. His entire family is catholic and not interested.. and it would be hard. and scary. I know that. It's not an easy thing that we are asking people to do. The path to follow our savior and redeemer isn't an easy one. It was NEVER easy for him.. as elder holland says.. so why would we expect that it wold be easy for us. 

But yeah.. that's the update on Isaias. I love that boy.. he is very special.. and I really am lucky to be one of the first missionaries to teach him. I know he will do amazing things. 

Ummm.. what else. 

OH YEAH. TRANSFERS. So yeah.. I felt like I would be leaving.. even though I sincerely didn't want to. I wasn't ready and I feel like there is still things that I can do here.. but oddly enough I had TWO dreams last week where I got transfered.  So yeah.. the AP's called me this morning.. and let me know that I'm getting transfered. I'm going to ARGENTINA. I little tiny town called Corpus. It's the smallest area in the mission. And guess who my companion is.. YOU WILL NEVER GUESS. HERMANA OLVERA. AGAIN. TWO TIMES. WHAT?! I was absolutely and completely in shock. I can't believe it.  She is finishing her mission. It's her last transfer.. so I will be with her when she finishes. CRAZY. As far as I know.. this has never happened before.. but seriously. yeah. I was shocked. I'm still shocked. Crazy. But I've heard TONS about corpus and I'm really excited to serve there. Hermana Finlinson.. my other companion has also served there and LOVED it. I'm also really excited to be going to ARgentina. Until now.. I have only been serving in Paraguay in my mission. And I LOVE paraguay.. SO SO much. I love this place. I think it's the greatest country in the world.. but I've been really curious about how argentina is.. so it will be a good change I think. 

I've heard from other missionaries that it's really different in argentina. teaching. finding. everything. So I'm really excited. 

At the same time though.. I'm also really sad to be leaving Hermana Lopez. I LOVE her SO much. But her new companion will be Hermana Jackman.. my companion from the MTC. Crazy right?! 

So yeah.. I'm going to argentina. I'm going to miss this place. 

But yeah.. that's my week. I'm so happy to be a missionary. I love bringing this amazing message to others. 

I love you all. Have the best week! 

XOXOXO 

Hermana Ehlert

Hna Lopez and I cleaning in the old apartment.